X, formerly known as Twitter, has reinstated Kanye West's account on the social media platform. West will not be able to monetize his account, and no ads will appear next to his posts, the company told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

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Putting solar panels on water to generate power sounded like a dangerous gimmick to Benedikt Ortmann when he

Instagram Threads could become a billion-person app, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has said. The chief executive hit out against predictions that the app was losing steam, saying that it continued to keep its momentum. “Threads also remains a compelling long-term opportunity, and we’re excited to build on the strong product momentum we have going into next year,” the company’s chief financial officer Susan Li said. Meta launched Threads three months ago, as part of an attempt to take over from Twitter. It became the fastest growing app in the world, seemingly helped by dissatisfaction with Twitter, but has lost some of its attention amid criticism of the app’s design and features. But Meta said as it revealed its latest results that it was still focusing on Threads and expected it to grow. Eventually, it could have a billion people, Mr Zuckerberg suggested. “I’ve thought for a long time there should be a billion-person public conversations app that is a bit more positive,” Mr Zuckerberg said in the earnings call. “I think that if we keep at this for a few more years, then I think we have a good chance of achieving our vision there.” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said on Threads that the company will be focusing on support for Europe – where it remains unavailable owing to privacy concerns – as well as better compatibility with other apps and Instagram. Mr Zuckerberg also reiterated his focus on the metaverse and augmented reality, another key focus for the company that has led to some criticism from those who claim it has failed to live up to its potential. That technology, alongside artificial intelligence, remains the company’s long-term focus, he said. Generative artificial intelligence will get more important in the future, Mr Zuckerberg said. But he pointed to existing AI features that power the feeds inside Meta’s apps, for instance. Read More Mark Zuckerberg uses Meta’s new AI Ray-Bans to braid daughter’s hair Instagram Threads adds yet more features as it tries to take over from Twitter What to expect Apple’s surprise, spooky upcoming launch

Alcohol addiction ruins millions of lives every year, but scientists may have found a cure for this terrible affliction. A new treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been trialled in monkeys with impressive results and, if these translate to human trials, the impact could be monumental. A team of neuroscientists and physiologists from across the US tested a new type of gene therapy to see if they could directly target the underlying brain circuitry associated with sustained heavy drinking. As they noted, in the journal Nature Medicine, people suffering from AUD commonly return to alcohol use even if they attempt to quit. This is largely to do with what’s known as mesolimbic dopamine (DA) signalling – meaning how the central nervous system circuit communicates the feelgood neurotransmitter dopamine. A protein called glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is key to keeping these neurons in this reward circuitry functioning. However, experts have found that levels of GDNF are reduced in people with AUD during periods of alcohol abstinence, most notably in a region of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), as IFLScience notes. Therefore, the researchers decided to test whether using gene therapy to deliver more GDNF to the VTA could help reinforce this crucial dopaminergic signalling and prevent patients from suffering an alcoholic relapse. The team of scientists explained how alcohol consumption in non-addicts prompts the release of dopamine, creating a pleasurable buzz feeling, but chronic alcohol use causes the brain to adapt and stop releasing so much dopamine. “So when people are addicted to alcohol, they don’t really feel more pleasure in drinking,” Dr Kathleen Grant, a senior co-author of the study, said in a statement. “It seems that they’re drinking more because they feel a need to maintain an intoxicated state.” For their research, Dr Grant and her colleagues used eight rhesus macaque monkeys, who were exposed to increasing concentrations of alcohol over four 30-day “induction” periods. The monkeys then had free access to alcohol and water for 21 hours a day for six months, during which they developed heavy drinking behaviours. This was then followed by a 12-week abstinence phase, with the GDNF treatment performed four weeks in for half of the subjects. The gene therapy was delivered using a a viral vector containing a copy of the human GDNF gene injected directly into the primate’s VTA, according to IFLScience. And the results were truly jaw-dropping. “Drinking went down to almost zero,” Dr Grant said. “For months on end, these animals would choose to drink water and just avoid drinking alcohol altogether. They decreased their drinking to the point that it was so low we didn’t record a blood-alcohol level.” The most exciting aspect of their findings is the suggestion that gene therapy could offer a permanent solution for people with the most severe cases of AUD. This will be a welcome glimmer of hope to many, given that some 29.5 million people were diagnosed with AUD in the US alone in 2021, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Of these 29.5 million sufferers, almost a million (894,000) were aged between 12 and 17. It’ll likely be some time before we know for sure whether the gene therapy can be rolled out in humans, but it’s an important first step in tackling this devastating disorder. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter 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.

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The Biden administration has formally rebuffed a bid by environmental activists to phase down oil and gas production

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Apple on Wednesday announced a series of new accessibility tools for the iPhone and iPad, including a feature that promises to replicate a user's voice for phone calls after only 15 minutes of training.