Microsoft’s Thursday today didn’t give us any bold new hardware ideas. Instead, the company settled

As leaders convene in Nairobi for Africa’s first climate summit, Kenya’s president William Ruto is making it clear

The Earth is home to truly stunning natural features, but sometimes you need a new perspective to appreciate it all over again. Thankfully, the experts at NASA are on hand to remind us just how incredible our planet is with the release of new photos showing the “blood of Earth”. The incredible images seem to show it bleeding, with dramatic red liquid appearing to cascade over the surface. However, it’s nothing at all to do with blood – which is probably just as well. Instead, the first picture shows the Laguna Colorada in the Bolivian Andes in South America from space. Remarkably, the image was taken by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) using just a Nikon digital camera. The fact that it was taken more than 400 kilometres away from Earth on a handheld device is pretty staggering, and it offers a look at a natural phenomenon which we’d never otherwise get to see. The first picture shows the impact of red algae flourishing in the shallow water of the laguna, while the second shows the Betsiboka River Delta in Madagascar. This time, the red colour comes as a result of the iron-rich sediment. It’s pretty awe-inspiring stuff, and it’s not the first time that red “blood” has been seen running from our planet, either. Antarctica’s Blood Falls is a bizarre geographical feature in the McMurdo Dry Valleys region of the continent, and it’s one of the strangest natural phenomena you're likely to see. It features a flow of water the colour of blood that can be seen seeping out from a glacier into the ocean. The mystery behind it has fascinated members of the scientific community for decades, but a solution has now been found. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel 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

Artificial intelligence has been the buzzword of 2023 ever since ChatGPT made its public debut earlier this year, with businesses, schools, universities and even non-profits looking for ways to integrate AI in their operations

Check out the average K/D for the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 beta before the game's full release drops on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023.

Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, has become an unlikely beneficiary of funds earmarked for sustainable investments

An overview of the media in Cuba, including links to broadcasters and newspapers.

Google is moving ahead with its plan to delete accounts that have been inactive for at least two years.

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, plans to launch video and audio calls as owner Elon Musk races

Elon Musk’s brain chip company Neuralink said on Thursday that it now has regulatory approval in the US to test its implants in human subjects. Neuralink has been building chips to be implanted into the skull for a brain-computer interface, claiming their development has the potential to help restore vision in the blind, and even help paralysed people walk again. While Mr Musk has said on several occasions since 2019 that the company is ready to go for experiments in humans to treat paralysis and blindness, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had however rejected proposals by the company to begin human clinical trials. For instance, in early 2022, when Neuralink applied for human testing, the FDA rejected the proposal saying there were “dozens of issues the company must address”. These issues flagged by the FDA included the use of lithium batteries in Neuralink’s device and the likelihood of the implant’s wires interfering with the brain. The federal agency also expressed concerns about whether the firm’s implants can be removed without causing brain damage. Neuralink has also come under the scanner of at least one US government probe after animal rights watchdogs accused the firm of “inadequate care” of its research monkeys. Reuters previously reported that the brain chip company killed about 1,500 animals, including over 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys since 2018. The US Department of Agriculture also began investigating Neuralink’s potential violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Responding to the animal abuse complaints, the company said in a blogpost that it was “absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible”. “The use of every animal was extensively planned and considered to balance scientific discovery with the ethical use of animals,” it said. In a tweet in November last year, Mr Musk said he was confident that Neuralink’s device was “ready for humans”, adding that the timing for beginning human trials was a “function of working through the FDA approval process”. “We want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device into a human but we’ve submitted I think most of our paperwork to the FDA and probably in about six months we should be able to upload Neuralink in a human,” the Tesla and SpaceX chief said. On Thursday, the company said it has finally received approval from the federal agency to begin trials in humans. “We are excited to share that we have received the FDA’s approval to launch our first-in-human clinical study!” the brain chip company said. The FDA approval “represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people”, Neuralink said, adding that it would soon announce more information on the recruitment of people for clinical trials. FDA hasn’t immediately responded to The Independent‘s queries on the Neuralink approval claim. Read More What is superintelligence? How AI could replace humans as the dominant lifeform on Earth Elon Musk’s Neuralink probed over shipment of ‘contaminated’ devices from ‘infected’ monkey brains When sci-fi becomes reality: could brain-machine interfaces be right around the corner?

After Paula Gonu had knee surgery, the doctor asked if she would like to keep some of her extracted cartilage, which she took home in a jar

Europe’s executive arm is proposing a two-year delay in implementing a key element of its sustainable finance framework,