The heat on Wednesday alone, when the temperature soared as high as 112.3 degrees Fahrenheit (44.3 degrees Celsius), exceeded the 2050 projections in 19 out of 34 locations across mainland France — far sooner than some may have expected.Some places surpassed those hypothetical future temperatures by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.It’s part of a dramatic shift in heat wave frequency across the country. Half of the heat waves observed since 1947 have occurred since 2010.

The latest heatwave sweeping across Europe is a stark reminder that it is the world's fastest-warming continent, stretching into an Arctic that is heating at an even greater pace.Britain, France, Italy and Spain have issued red alerts and health warnings for much of their territory this week as the region endures its second heat episode since May.

Shares of SpaceX slid 4% in overnight trading late Sunday after global financial services firm MSCI Inc. assigned the company its lowest ESG rating, placing it among the weakest-rated firms in its coverage universe and prompting a familiar rebuttal from CEO Elon Musk.SPCX stock fell for a second consecutive session on Thursday after surging to more than 65% above its IPO price during its first week of trading. Investors are also weighing reports that SpaceX is considering a $20 billion bond sale to help fund its rapidly expanding AI and space businesses.

Across the US, children with autism as young as 18 months old are being given unapproved stem cell treatments at clinics in Florida, Texas and elsewhere, part of a growing market operating beyond the bounds of FDA approval.The procedure often involves the child being sedated before receiving intravenous doses of millions of stem cells commonly derived from human umbilical cords harvested at birth.In some cases, the doctors selling the treatments have no scientific expertise in autism or child development. Instead, physicians from unrelated specialties, including plastic surgery and orthopaedics, have entered the booming stem cell sector, billing the procedures as “regenerative medicine” for children, some of whom have severe disabilities

This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added bemotrizinol (BEMT) to its list of permitted active sunscreen ingredients, updating the list for the first time since 1999, according to National Geographic. BEMT, per the FDA, "provides protection against both ultraviolet A and B rays and has low levels of absorption through the skin into the body," and it is safe and effective "for use in sunscreens by adults and children 6 months of age and older." Beginning August 9, BEMT will be sold in the U.S. exclusively by the manufacturer DSM, under the name Parsol Shield, The Hill reports. After 18 months, other manufacturers will be allowed to sell BEMT.

Tests reveal that when people are ambling about, they have a natural tendency to turn to the left and walk in an anticlockwise direction.“If you simply ask someone to start walking, whether they are wandering around a museum, a supermarket, or even an empty room, it is surprisingly likely that they will drift counterclockwise,” said Dr Iñaki Echeverría Huarte at University of Navarra in Spain.

Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it.

Gene-editing human embryos—the sci-fi scenario that many have feared and many others have cheered—may now be a reality. Columbia University scientists say they have found an "efficient and precise" way to edit human embryos. Unlike earlier methods using CRISPR alone, this method works without introducing chromosomal abnormalities into the embryo or deleting large sequences of DNA.

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) were ordered to shelter in an attached spacecraft after the structure suddenly started leaking more air.Five of the seven crew were directed to go into the docked SpaceX shuttle Dragon "Freedom" on Friday afternoon and were braced for a potential evacuation.Meanwhile, two remaining personnel — a pair of Russian cosmonauts — attempted to repair a part of the Russian segment of the ISS, where the leaks had started increasing on Monday.The repairs were paused and the crew ordered back onto the ISS by Nasa on Friday afternoon.

A small but growing number of European officials and analysts are saying what four years ago was unthinkable: Ukraine isn’t just surviving its grueling war with Russia, it is in some ways thriving and may even be on a path to victory.This isn’t yet captured in headlines—for example, about last weekend’s barrage of Russian drones and missiles around Ukraine—but in the details, like how some 90 percent were intercepted.Several long-term trends have shifted in Ukraine’s favor, and the core reason is its fierce focus on AI and robotics.

Ever felt like mosquitoes bite you while ignoring everyone else? Scientists are now making progress in deciphering the complex chemical cocktail that makes particular people more enticing to these disease-spreading bloodsuckers."It's not a misconception—mosquitoes are attracted to some people more than others," Frederic Simard of France's Institute of Research for Development told AFP."But we are not all magnets all the time," the medical entomologist added.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the plight of Americans finding it harder and harder to make ends meet and rising gas and consumer prices simply aren’t on his mind as the months-long Iran war and impasse over the Strait of Hormuz continue to fuel surging inflation in the United States.Trump made the stunning brush-off statement as he departed the White House for Beijing, where he will be feted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a state visit, including a lavish Thursday night banquet at the Great Hall of the People.

It’s the stuff of science fiction cinema, or particularly breathless AI company blogposts: new research finds recent AI systems can independently copy themselves on to other computers.In the doom scenario, this means that when the superintelligent AI goes rogue, it will escape shutdown by seeding itself across the world wide web, lurking outside the reach of frantic IT professionals and continuing to plot world domination or paving over the world with solar panels.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised to crack down on ultra-processed foods, a key policy priority of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda. The biggest obstacle standing in his way? Figuring out what an ultra-processed food is."By April, we will have a federal definition of ultra-processed foods," RFK Jr. promised on The Joe Rogan Experience in February. "Every food in your grocery store will have a label on it—it'll have maybe a green light, red light, or yellow light, telling you whether or not it's going to be good for you."The agency is now weeks behind this deadline, and appears to be no closer to landing on a definition. As The New York Times recently reported, "behind the scenesthe process of defining ultraprocessed foods is still very much in the air. Agencies are struggling to agree, and it is unclear when a definition will be released."

An AI model developed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, detected abnormalities on patients’ CT scans up to three years before they were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to research published this week in the journal Gut.The scientists behind the model, which is now being evaluated in a clinical trial, trained it by feeding it CT scans from patients who had been screened for other medical conditions then were later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The team then had radiologists review the scans and compared their ability to find early signs of cancer to that of the AI model. The model was found to be three times better at identifying the early signs.

The invisible culprit behind this damaging phenomenon? Carbon dioxide pollution.Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow — from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth’s food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even people who consume enough calories won’t get the nutrients they need to thrive.

This week, several House Republicans reignited a yearslong debate over a law that federally mandates cars to have impaired driving technology, raising concerns about the expanding surveillance state.The controversy over "kill switch" technology began in 2021, when Congress passed the HALT Drunk Driving Act as part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. The provision requires that "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology"—which the bill defined as a system that can "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired" and "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected"—be installed in new cars. Such systems could involve driver eye tracking, a feature already built into some cars.

The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, along with the wider group of partners known as OPEC+, effective May 1, in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long led in practice by Saudi Arabia.The move “reflects the UAE’s long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile” read an official statement carried by a UAE state news agency, as disruptions “in the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect supply dynamics.”

More than two-thirds of babies under two use screens, a report has found, and some are exposed for up to eight hours a day.Nearly a third of newborns were found to be watching screens for more than three hours a day, while almost 20 per cent of infants of four to 11 months used screens for more than an hour a day.The report comes after the government issued guidance that children under two do not use screens at all, apart from communal activities such as video-calling relatives.