Romance scams are unfortunately common. Swindlers gain people's trust by pretending to date them online,

By Sheila Dang Social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, delayed access to links to content on

(Reuters) -A tropical storm off the mid-Atlantic coast began dumping rain on parts of North Carolina on Friday and will

Shane Dawson's 2018 video 'The Secret World of Jeffree Star' has received 1.7 million likes and 51 million views so far

Apple has issued an urgent update for most of its devices. Users of iPhones, Macs and iPads have been urged to install the new update – or to risk their devices being attacked by hackers. The update patches an security bug that could let cyber attackers break into Apple devices through their web browser. Exploiting it would allow for “arbitrary code execution”, the technical term for when attackers have full access to run any code they like on a device. The new updates are numbered iOS and iPadOS 17.1.2, and MacOS 14.1.2. There is also an update for the Safari browser that fixes the issue. All of Apple’s platforms that allow for web browsing appear to have been affected by the issue. As such, devices such as the Apple TV and Watch do not have the emergency update. Apple said that it was “aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited” with devices running early versions of iOS. It usually gives little detail about security issues to ensure they cannot be used by other hackers. The company does not “disclose, discuss, or confirm” issues at all until they are fixed. The latest problem was found by Clément Lecigne, from Google’s Threat Analysis Group, or TAG. TAG works to identify threats against Google and its users, and has in the past identified security issues that have been exploited by government hacking groups and other large-scale cyber attackers. Apple has been forced to push out a significant number of security updates this year. The two new bugs are the 19th and 20th such issues to be found this year, according to security website Bleeping Computer. Many of those issues fixed small security bugs that could nonetheless be exploited by spyware such as Pegasus and Predator, which have been known to be used by governments against journalists and activists. The company recently revealed some of the security work that goes into securing its devices against such hackers, and warned that the danger was becoming ever more present. Apple has also introduced new tools, such as “Lockdown Mode”, aimed specifically at users who are most at risk from such attacks. Read More Apple names its App Store apps of the year Police spread panic with warning over new iPhone feature Why Apple is working hard to break into its own iPhones

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Earth was once hit by an extreme solar storm that would devastate human civilisation if it happened today, tree rings show. Scientists were able to piece together the solar storm from ancient tree rings that were found in the French alps, and showed evidence of a dramatic spike in radiocarbon levels some 14,300 years ago. That spike was the result of a massive solar storm, the biggest ever found by scientists. If a similar event happened today, it could knock the power grid offline for months and destroy the infrastructure we rely on for communications, scientists have warned. The researchers behind the new study have urged that the extreme nature of the newly discovered event should be a warning for the future. “Extreme solar storms could have huge impacts on Earth. Such super storms could permanently damage the transformers in our electricity grids, resulting in huge and widespread blackouts lasting months,” said Tim Heaton, professor of applied statistics in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds. “They could also result in permanent damage to the satellites that we all rely on for navigation and telecommunication, leaving them unusable. They would also create severe radiation risks to astronauts.” Further work is needed to ensure that the world is protected from similar events happening again, scientists said. And more research is required to actually understand how and why they might happen. Scientists have found nine extreme solar storms, or Miayake Events, that happened in the last 15,000 years. The most recent of them happened in the years 993 AD and 774 AD, but the newly found one was twice as powerful as those. Researchers do not know exactly what happened during those Miyake Events, and studying them is difficult because they can only be understood indirectly. That makes it difficult for scientists to know how and when they might happen again, or if it is even possible to predict them. “Direct instrumental measurements of solar activity only began in the 17th century with the counting of sunspots,” said Edouard Bard, professor of climate and ocean evolution at the Collège de France and CEREGE. “Nowadays, we also obtain detailed records using ground-based observatories, space probes, and satellites. “However, all these short-term instrumental records are insufficient for a complete understanding of the Sun. Radiocarbon measured in tree-rings, used alongside beryllium in polar ice cores, provide the best way to understand the Sun’s behaviour further back into the past.”  The largest solar storm that scientists were able to actually observe and study happened in 1859, and is known as the Carrington Event. It caused vast disruption to society, destroying telegraph machines and creating a bright aurora so bright that birds behaved as if the Sun was rising. The Miayake Events like the newly found storm would have been vastly more powerful, however. They were discovered by slicing ancient trees that are becoming fossils into tiny rings, and then analysing the radiocarbon that was present in them. Their work is published in a new article, ‘A radiocarbon spike at 14,300 cal yr BP in subfossil trees provides the impulse response function of the global carbon cycle during the Late Glacial’, in the journal The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

As artificial intelligence has become a bigger part of the cultural conversation many have used its power to create art, a subject that’s been highly controversial amongst artists who accuse AI of stealing and profiting of their work. The most recent AI art to go viral is a depiction of what Da Vinci’s iconic Mona Lisa would look like today, and the result is… interesting. The AI version showed a lot of changes. Clearer sing, wide eyes, a bit of makeup and a lot of cleavage. Many men seemed suddenly attracted this version of Mona Lisa leaving comments such as “now I’m interested in art” and “would” about a non-existent version of the famous woman. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter But many were critical of the picture. “Y’all notice how ai art is very much catered to target the male gaze…” commented one user. One user said the image was “a very funny illustration of AI bias,” and that this other Mona Lisa “makes a starker point about AI and art.” He goes on to say that, “real art challenges or re contextualises - it is an act of original thought. “Most AI tools can only please. They cannot subvert or invent unless so programmed.” Many seemed to agree with one tweet amassing over 80,000 likes for critiquing the image saying: "not this what she would like like according to porn addicts." Another user joked about what the actual Mona Lisa looks like today: The creator of the image Gianpaolo Rosa has addressed the controversy surrounding the image claiming that it was made to "honour Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece" but regonised that the sexualisation of women is "sad" and "problematic" but hopes that the image can open a dialogue about how we "perceive art and women." AI art has long faced criticism and many argue that it often shows AI's limitations, rather than its capabilities. Many say it lacks originality and creativity, often producing work after being 'fed' the real work of artists. Harry Woodgate, author and illustrator of Grandad's Camper, said to The Guardian in January: "These programs rely entirely on the pirated intellectual property of countless working artists, photographers, illustrators and other rights holders." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.