Flagship

AI search goes mainstream

Three of the world’s largest search engines unveiled new artificial-intelligence tools. Microsoft Bing allowed users to tell its ChatGPT-powered search engine to create images on demand using the DALL·E model. Google’s Bard, which had a rocky start in February when it spat out falsehoods during a demo, was released to a limited user base on Tuesday: It’s fast and fluid, reviews said, but limited. And China’s Baidu released Ernie Bot, but it faces what one reviewer described as “a huge gap” with its U.S. rivals. Meanwhile, Adobe released an image-generator AI trained on its own image library, and says it will compensate artists whose work it uses, although how that will work is unclear.

Reworked China-Russia ties

Chinese leader Xi Jinping concluded a three-day visit to Moscow that showcased not just his closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but also Xi’s power over him. Statements from Beijing and Moscow about the meetings hailed the two countries’ strengthening alliance, but were light on substance. Their economic partnership largely consists of China buying energy on the cheap from the Kremlin, and selling higher-value goods to sanctions-hit Russia in return. Xi, for example, made little reference to a pipeline deal trumpeted by Putin, suggesting it has not been finalized. “It’s hard to hide the fact that Russia is now a junior partner,” one expert told the Financial Times.

Taiwan’s growing (unofficial) clout

Groups of European lawmakers are visiting Taiwan, enraging China. British parliamentarians landed last week, followed by a German minister, with a Czech delegation due soon. The visits point to Taiwan’s success at fostering closer relations with Europe — Taipei’s diplomats call its central European partnership the “dumpling alliance” — even as countries shift their official diplomatic ties away. The trips also reflect growing Western concern over Chinese bellicosity towards Taiwan. Fears of an invasion, however, are overblown, the China expert Jessica Chen Weiss wrote in a widely shared Foreign Affairs piece. “If Western policymakers exaggerate the risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan,” she wrote, “they might inadvertently create a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

New hope for leukemia patients

A third of patients with untreatable leukemia saw their cancer vanish with a new experimental treatment. More than half responded, and 18 of the 60 saw total remission. In acute myeloid leukemia, mutated bone marrow cells create cancerous white blood cells. Just 25% of patients survive three years from diagnosis. The new drug, revumenib, targets the most common mutation behind AML, and “reprograms” bone marrow cells to behave normally. Not all leukemia patients have this mutation, hence the imperfect response rate, but the trial — while small — nevertheless produced extraordinary results: “I felt like death was imminent, and I was just 21 years old,” one patient told El País. She has now made a full recovery.

Uganda’s new LGBTQ ban

Uganda passed a law making it illegal to identify as LGBTQ. Same-sex activities are already illegal in several African countries, but human rights groups say this is the first to outlaw people simply saying that they are gay. Those convicted face 10 years in jail, and landlords who rent premises to gay people, or others who “promote and abet” homosexuality, could also be arrested. Uganda’s conservative Christian population is large and politically powerful: The vote passed “in record time” with wide support, and one MP said “Our creator God is happy [about] what is happening.” “Community members are living in fear,” one gay-rights campaigner told Al Jazeera.

Rooting out graft in Venezuela

Venezuela’s oil minister resigned amid a corruption crackdown at the state oil company that led to the arrest of six high-ranking officials. Arresting government officials for graft in Venezuela — which ranks 177 out of 180 in Transparency International’s corruption index — is rare, leading many to question the true motive for the crackdown. As the U.S. scales back sanctions on Venezuela, the country’s oil output has surged, creating a “feast for corrupt intermediaries,” a Venezuela oil expert told the Financial Times. This has led to a two-tier economy: While a new restaurant in Caracas charges $140 per person, a preschool teacher still makes just $10 a month.

Macron to defend pension reform

French President Emmanuel Macron will today defend his decision to force through divisive plans to raise the retirement age, after his government narrowly survived a vote of no confidence. Paris saw violent protests, street fires, 10,000 tons of uncollected garbage, and more than 100 arrests after Macron bypassed lawmakers to raise France’s pension age to 64 from 62. Worse could yet be coming: The far-right leader Marine Le Pen warned of a “social explosion” in an interview with AFP. Meanwhile, in Britain, where the retirement age is already 66, ministers quietly delayed plans to increase it to 68.

Europe heat pump sales double

Heat pump sales in Europe hit three million in 2022, up 38% from the previous year and double the sales in 2019, Carbon Brief reported. The increase was driven by the increased cost of energy caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and aided by subsidies. In Poland, sales more than doubled in 12 months, while Belgium and the Czech Republic saw almost as impressive growth. Heat pumps can hugely reduce energy demand: A recent report from CleanTechnica suggested that if used more widely, they could reduce U.S. energy requirements by 50%, while all new Teslas now come with heat pumps to maintain battery performance in cold weather.

Journal’s Biden backing backfired

The journal Nature’s endorsement of Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election did not change readers’ political views, but did cause many to lose confidence in science, research published in Nature suggests. The study showed 2,000 people the endorsement and compared their reaction to 2,000 controls. Neither Donald Trump supporters nor Biden supporters changed their view of the candidates upon reading it, but Trump voters’ trust in both Nature and scientists fell. Those voters also became less likely to seek information about COVID-19 from Nature. Still, in an editorial, Nature said that it would continue endorsing political candidates “when the occasion demands it.”

Space gets cheaper

Students at a U.S. university built a satellite using AA batteries and a $20 microprocessor. The entire satellite, the size of a loaf of bread, cost just $10,000 to make, and will test a 3D-printed, parachute-like “drag sail,” which slows the satellite so it burns up in the atmosphere more quickly, reducing “space junk” problems. Price reductions and miniaturization have made space far more affordable: A 3D-printed rocket is scheduled to launch from Florida today, and in Colorado, another company is building 3D-printed rocket engines. The barrier to getting something useful — or dangerous — into space is getting ever lower.

Japan wins WBC

Japan beat the U.S. in the World Baseball Classic final in Miami for its first title since 2009. Despite criticism that the WBC was little more than a series of exhibition games that unnecessarily exposed players to injury, the tournament was a huge success. More than a million fans attended the first round of games, double the attendance of the last WBC. Japan’s game against Korea had more than 50% of Japanese households tuned in, while 240,000 Czechs watched their team — made up in part by firefighters, electricians, and psychologists — make its debut. This year’s tournament “will undoubtedly grow the game throughout the world,” Alden Gonzalez wrote on ESPN.

• The U.S. Federal Reserve concludes its two-day rate-setting meeting.
• Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is questioned by a parliamentary committee over the ‘partygate’ scandal that forced him from office.
• Nominations announced for the U.K.’s ​​BAFTA Television Awards.

A polio outbreak in Burundi is linked to an old form of the polio vaccine. So were outbreaks in the U.S. and U.K. last year. One of the two original polio vaccines, developed in the mid-20th century, was more effective than the other at stopping the spread of the disease, and thus became the global standard — but it was made from a weakened form of the live virus, and very occasionally, it mutates back into the dangerous wild form, which can cause paralysis.

Humanity has almost eradicated polio thanks to the success of the vaccines. And a new form of the vaccine which does not revert is now used, WIRED reported last year. But in the U.S. in the 1990s, even after wild polio was eradicated, reversion from this old vaccine caused about 10 cases of polio paralysis a year, and as the last few months have shown, it is still extant.

A 40-feet tall artwork depicting a high jumper was installed in front of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. The sculpture, titled GIANTS: Rising Up, is made of black-and-white photographs assembled over bamboo scaffolding and was unveiled last week to celebrate the city’s annual art month. It’s the creation of French artist JR, known for using monumental buildings and urban spaces as his canvas including previous installations at Paris’s Louvre Museum and a ‘Women are Heroes’ series in a Rio de Janeiro favela. JR’s website says the work invites viewers “to take off and achieve more.” But some Hong Kong feng shui consultants have said it looks like someone has fallen off a building, Artnet reported.

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