Regulators from the European Union imposed a hefty fine of 2.95 billion euros ($3.5 billion) on Google for breaching competition laws by prioritizing its own digital advertising service.
As the administrative body for the 27-nation bloc and the leading antitrust authority, the European Commission mandated U.S. companies to cease their “self-preferences” and implement measures to eliminate “conflicts of interest” in the advertising technology supply chain.
The findings of the committee’s investigation indicated that Google “exploits” its dominant role within the ad technology sector.
In response, Google labeled the decision “incorrect” and announced plans to appeal.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s global regulatory director, commented, “This demands changes that could negatively impact countless European businesses by imposing unjust fines and inhibiting their profitability.”
This decision follows more than two years after the European Commission first raised antitrust accusations against Google. At that time, the Commission asserted that selling off parts of Google’s profitable digital advertising enterprise was the only viable way to address antitrust issues. However, this decision signifies a departure from their earlier stance and arises amid renewed tensions over trade, tariffs, and technology regulations between Brussels and the Trump administration.
Top officials in the EU have previously indicated that forced divestitures are being considered since past penalties against Google have proven ineffective in curbing anti-competitive practices, allowing the company to continue its behavior in other forms.
The committee’s penalty stems from a formal investigation initiated in June 2021, assessing whether Google compromised rival publishers, advertisers, and ad tech services in order to favor its own online display ad technology. Online display ads typically include banners and text that are customized based on user browsing patterns.
Mulholland asserted: “We are not anti-competitive in offering our services to advertisers and publishers. The alternatives to our services have never been more abundant.”
Analysis shows that since 2016, Elon Musk’s electric car company has received approximately £200m in subsidies from the UK government.
Tesla, led by a tech billionaire who is actively engaging with the UK government, has been granted £191m in funds from Westminster, as reported by Tassel, a public contract data analysis company.
The majority of this funding, £188m, came from the Department for Transport (DfT) over the specified period.
These subsidies were primarily related to the Plug-in car subsidy aimed at encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Initially introduced in 2011, this subsidy provided a discount on the purchase price of new plug-in cars, starting at £5,000, until its conclusion in June 2022.
Recent figures from DfT reveal that transportation subsidies peaked at £61.6m in 2020 and have since decreased, with Tesla receiving £49,000 in the first half of the previous year.
Additional grants for Tesla in the UK were provided by entities such as Stirling Council, South Central NHS Trust, and the Scottish Government.
The fact that Tesla has benefited from British government subsidies contrasts with Elon Musk’s statements about reducing government intervention and expenditure.
Musk was appointed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead the Office of Government Efficiency, with plans to streamline federal operations. He also mentioned plans to streamline X’s workforce after acquiring the company in 2022 and reducing the number of federal agencies in the U.S.
Tesla recently reported a decline in annual deliveries for the first time, as incentives failed to drive demand for its older models, missing quarterly targets several times in 2024.
As the world’s wealthiest individual, Musk has utilized X to criticize politicians such as Keir Starmer regarding recent scandals.
a New Researchpublished in the journal Geoscience Reviewhelps resolve one of the longest-running debates in paleoanthropology: when did early humans arrive in Europe?
Ancient humans. Image courtesy of Ninara / CC BY 2.0.
“chronology Homo “Migration out of Africa has expanded substantially over the past 40 years,” said paleoanthropologist Luis Hibbert of the University of Barcelona and his colleagues.
“In 1982, Homo The Asian volcano has been paleomagnetically dated to 900,000 years ago in Java and 700,000 years ago in Italy, Europe.
“Forty years later, the early Homo Outside of Africa, the South Caucasus dates back 1.8 million years, China 1.7-2.1 million years ago, and Java 1.5-1.3 million years ago.
“In Europe, several sites are found to have layers of paleomagnetic polarity reversal several metres deep, indicating that they are more than 770,000 years old.”
In the study, the authors used magnetostratigraphic dating, a method that uses the state of the Earth's magnetic field at the time the sediments were deposited, to date five paleontological localities in the Orce region of Spain.
“The technique is a relative dating method based on the study of the planet's magnetic pole reversals due to the dynamics of the Earth's interior,” they explained.
“These changes have no particular periodicity, but they are recorded in minerals and it is possible to establish periods from various magnetic events.”
“What's unique about these sites is that they are layered and sit within a very long sedimentary layer, over 80 metres long,” Dr Zibert said.
“Typically these sites are found in caves or within very short geological sequences, so it's not possible to develop long paleomagnetic sequences where you can find the different magnetic reversals.”
Global distribution of humans before 1 million years ago (orange) with major dated sites showing potential dispersal routes. The diagram shows Oldowan sites over 2 million years ago in Africa and over 1 million years ago in Eurasia (black dots). White dots indicate the earliest Acheulean sites in Africa (over 1.5 million years ago) and Eurasia (1 million to 800,000 years ago). The oldest Oldowan and Acheulean tools have been found in East Africa, over 2.5 million years ago and over 1.7 million years ago, respectively. In Asia, the oldest Oldowan and Acheulean tools have been found in the Caucasus (7) at 1.8 million years ago and in the Levantine Corridor (9) at 1.2 million years ago, respectively. In Europe, the oldest Oldowan and associated humans have been found in Spain (1, 2) and are debated to be between 1.6 and 900,000 years ago. Images/Photos Courtesy of: Gibert others., doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104855.
The oldest remains at the Orce site, which have no evidence of human activity, date to 1.6 million and 1.35 million years ago, according to the study.
The top three sites containing evidence of early humans are dated 1.32 million years ago (Venta Misena), 1.28 million years ago (Barranco Leon 5), and 1.23 million years ago (Fuente Nueva 3).
These chronologies suggest that the Strait of Gibraltar acted as a filter bridge for African species such as hominins. Theropithecus Oswaldand the early Pleistocene hippopotamus.
“This new dating adds to other evidence and supports European colonization through the Strait of Gibraltar rather than the alternative route back to the Mediterranean via Asia,” the scientists said.
“We also support the hypothesis that they arrived from Gibraltar, as no older evidence has been found elsewhere along the alternative route.”
“Our results show a dating gap between the earliest occupation of Asia, 1.8 million years ago, and the earliest occupation of Europe, 1.3 million years ago. This means that African humans arrived in southwestern Europe more than 500,000 years after they first left Africa around 2 million years ago.”
“These differences in human expansion can be explained by the fact that Europe is isolated from Asia and Africa by difficult-to-surmount biogeographical barriers both to the east (the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara) and to the west (the Strait of Gibraltar),” Dr. Zibert said.
“When humans arrived in Europe, they had the technology necessary to cross the maritime barrier, just as happened a million years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.”
“In this sense, the Gibraltar route currently requires crossing a sea channel of up to 14 kilometres, although in the past this distance could have been shorter at certain times due to the tectonically active nature of the region and sea-level changes favourable for migration.”
“We found that African animals were migrating through Gibraltar both 6.2 million years ago and 5.5 million years ago, when the Strait of Gibraltar was very narrow.”
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Lewis Guibert othersMagnetic strata dating of Europe's oldest human remains. Geoscience ReviewPublished online July 2, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104855
A cold, dense cloud in the Milky Way’s interstellar medium is about four to five orders of magnitude denser than its diffuse counterparts, and a team of astronomers from Boston University, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University has found evidence that two to three million years ago, our solar system encountered one of these dense clouds, which may have been so dense that it disrupted the solar wind.
Offers othersThe interstellar material through which the Sun has traveled over the past few million years indicates the presence of cold, dense clouds that could have had dramatic effects on the heliosphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Most stars generate winds that move through the surrounding interstellar medium.
This motion creates a cocoon that protects the planet from interstellar material. The Sun’s cocoon is the heliosphere.
It’s made up of a constant stream of charged particles called the solar wind, which extends far beyond Pluto, enveloping the planet in what astronomers call a “local bubble.”
It protects us from radiation and galactic rays that can alter DNA, and scientists think it’s part of the reason why life on Earth evolved.
A cold interstellar cloud compressed the heliosphere, temporarily placing Earth and other planets in the solar system outside of its influence, according to a new study.
“Our paper is the first to quantitatively show that there was an encounter between the Sun and something outside our solar system that affected Earth’s climate,” said Professor Merab Auffar of Boston University.
“Stars move, and this paper shows that not only do they move, but they undergo dramatic changes.”
To study this phenomenon, Professor Orpher and his colleagues essentially went back in time and used advanced computer models to visualize where the Sun was located two million years ago, along with the heliosphere and the rest of the solar system.
They also mapped the path of a “localized cold cloud ribbon” system, a series of large, dense and very cold clouds made mainly of hydrogen atoms.
Their simulations showed that one of the clouds near the edge of the ribbon, a “local cold cloud,” may have collided with the heliosphere.
If this had happened, Earth would have been fully exposed to interstellar matter, where gases and dust would have mixed with atomic elements left over from the exploded star, such as iron and plutonium.
Normally, the heliosphere filters out most of these radioactive particles, but without protection they could easily reach Earth.
This is consistent with geological evidence showing increased levels of the isotopes iron-60 and plutonium-244 in the oceans, the moon, Antarctic snow and ice cores from the same period, according to the paper.
This timing also coincides with temperature records indicating a cold period.
“It is rare for our cosmic neighbors outside our solar system to have an impact on life on Earth,” said Harvard University professor Avi Loeb.
“It’s exciting to discover that our passage through dense clouds millions of years ago may have exposed the Earth to much greater amounts of cosmic rays and atomic hydrogen.”
“Our findings open a new window into the evolution of life on Earth and its relationship with our cosmic neighbours.”
“External pressure from localized lynxes of cold clouds could have continuously blocked the heliosphere for hundreds to millions of years, depending on the size of the cloud.”
“But as soon as Earth left the cold cloud, the heliosphere engulfed all the planets, including Earth.”
“It’s impossible to know exactly what effect the cold clouds had on the Earth, such as whether they caused ice ages.”
“But there are other cool clouds in the interstellar medium that the Sun likely encountered in its first few billion years.”
“And we’ll probably encounter many more over the next million years or so.”
The authors are currently working to determine where the Sun was 7 million years ago, and beyond.
Pinpointing the position of the Sun and cold cloud systems millions of years ago is made possible by data collected by ESA’s Gaia mission, which has produced the largest 3D map of the galaxy ever, showing in unprecedented detail how fast stars move.
“This cloud is certainly from our past, and if we passed through something this massive, we would have been exposed to interstellar material,” Prof Auffar said.
“This is just the beginning. We hope this paper opens the door to further exploration of how the solar system was influenced by outside forces in the ancient past, and how these forces may have shaped life on Earth.”
of paper Published in today’s journal Natural Astronomy.
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M. Offer othersIt is possible that Earth was directly exposed to cold, dense interstellar material 2 to 3 million years ago. Nat AstronPublished online June 10, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02279-8
Geologists have analysed 4-billion-year-old zircon crystals from Jack Hills in Western Australia’s mid-west region to date the emergence of fresh water back just a few hundred million years after the Earth formed.
Artistic conception of early Earth. Image by Simone Marchi/NASA.
On the early Earth, extensive interactions between flowing (fresh) water and the emerging continental crust may have been key to the emergence of life, but when the water cycle first began is unclear.
In the new study, Curtin University scientist Hamed Gamaleldien and his colleagues used the oxygen isotope composition of zircon crystals from Jack Hills in Western Australia to determine when the water cycle began.
Their findings suggest that meteoric water appeared on Earth about 4 billion years ago, 500 million years earlier than previously thought.
“We were able to date the origins of the hydrological cycle, the ongoing process by which water moves around Earth and is essential for maintaining ecosystems and supporting life on Earth,” Dr Gamalerdien said.
“By examining the age and oxygen isotopes of microscopic crystals of the mineral zircon, we discovered an anomalously light isotopic signature that dates back 4 billion years.”
“These light oxygen isotopes typically result from hot freshwater altering rocks several kilometers below the Earth’s surface.”
“The evidence for the presence of fresh water this deep in the Earth casts doubt on existing theories that the Earth was completely covered by oceans 4 billion years ago.”
“This discovery was crucial for our understanding of how Earth formed and how life began,” said Curtin University scientist Hugo Orioluk.
“This discovery not only sheds light on the early history of Earth, but also suggests that land and freshwater systems provided the foundation for life to thrive within a relatively short time frame – less than 600 million years after Earth’s formation.”
“This discovery represents a major advance in our understanding of Earth’s early history and opens the door to further exploration of the origin of life.”
H. Gamaleldine othersThe Earth’s water cycle began 4 billion years ago or sooner. National GeographyPublished online June 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01450-0
A new study led by scientists at the University of Göttingen has provided evidence that the first multicellular streptococci probably existed about a billion years ago.
bierenbrodspot other. We sequenced 24 new transcriptomes of Klebsormidiophyceae and combined them with 14 previously published genome and transcriptome datasets. Image credit: Bierenbroodspot other., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.070.
streptococcus is best known as a clade of plants that contains a rich diversity of embryophytes (land plants).
However, next to the embryophytes there is a series of freshwater and terrestrial algae that are responsible for important information on the emergence of key traits in land plants.
this house, Klebsolmidioalgae stand out. Klebsolmydiophytes thrive in diverse environments, from the mundane (ubiquitous on tree bark and rocks) to extreme environments (from the Atacama Desert to Antarctica), display filamentous body surfaces, and can be found on land. They can show remarkable resilience as habitat colonizers.
Currently, the lack of a strong phylogenetic framework for Klebsolmydiophyceae hinders our understanding of the evolutionary history of these important traits.
Dr Tatyana Dariyenko, co-lead author of the study, said: “These small, hardy little creatures have a very high diversity in their morphology and are very good at living in sometimes very harsh environments. “It's really interesting that we're adapting.”
“Our comprehensive sampling aimed to map the global distribution of Klebsolmydiophyceae and highlight its adaptability, ecological importance and hidden diversity.”
“We analyzed the molecular clock based on genetic data calibrated using fossils.”
When delving into the complex evolutionary history of Klebsolmydiophyceae, Dr. Darienko and colleagues faced the challenge of disentangling phylogenetic relationships using traditional markers.
To overcome this, they utilized hundreds of genes obtained from the transcriptomes of 24 isolates from different continents and habitats.
“Our approach, known as phylogenomics, was to reconstruct the evolutionary history by considering whole genomes or large parts of genomes,” said Iker Irisarri, Ph.D., co-senior author of the study. Ta.
“This very powerful method allows us to reconstruct evolutionary relationships with very high precision.”
Researchers have uncovered a new phylogenetic tree for the family Klebsormydiophyceae, revealing that it can be divided into three orders.
“A deep dive into phylogenetic frameworks and our molecular clocks has revealed the ancient ancestor of Klebsormydiophyceae, a multicellular entity that flourished millions of years ago. Its descendants began to diverge into three distinct branches more than 800 million years ago,” said co-lead author Maaike Bierenbroodspot.
Scientists are investigating the evolutionary history of multicellularity within streptococci.
They discovered that the ancient common ancestor of land plants, other chain algae, and Klebsormydiophyceae was already multicellular.
“This discovery reveals the genetic potential of multicellularity among streptococci and shows that the origins of this important trait date back almost a billion years,” said co-author Jan de Vries. the professor said.
of study It was published in the magazine current biology.
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Maike J. Bielenbrodspot other. Phylogenomic insights into the first multicellular streptococci. current biology, published online on January 19, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.070
The average bottle of water contains nearly 250,000 tiny, invisible particles of nanoplastic that were detected and classified for the first time using a dual-laser microscope.
Scientists have long suspected that there are a lot of these tiny pieces of plastic, but until researchers at Columbia University and Rutgers University made calculations, they had no idea how many or what types they were. Researchers examined five samples of each of three common bottled water brands and found particle levels ranging from 110,000 to 400,000 per liter, with an average of about 240,000, according to Monday’s findings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Previous research looked at slightly larger microplastics, ranging from visible 5 millimeters (less than a quarter of an inch) to 1 micron. The study found that about 10 to 100 times more nanoplastics than microplastics were found in bottled water.
Nisin Kian, the study’s lead author and a physical chemist from Colombia, said much of the plastic appears to come from the bottles themselves and the reverse osmosis filters used to keep out other contaminants. She did not reveal her three brands because the researchers need more samples and would like to study more brands before singling out one. Still, she said they were common and she bought them at Walmart.
Researchers still can’t answer the big question: Are these nanoplastic pieces harmful to health?
“That’s under consideration right now. We don’t know if it’s dangerous or how dangerous it is,” said study co-author Phoebe Stapleton, a toxicologist at Rutgers University. “We know they invade tissues (of mammals, including humans)…and current research is investigating what they do inside cells.”
The International Bottled Water Association said in a statement: “Currently, there is a lack of standardized (measurement) methods and no scientific consensus on the potential health effects of nano- and microplastic particles. Reports will only unnecessarily scare consumers.”
The American Chemistry Council, which represents plastics manufacturers, had no immediate comment.
The world is “driving under the weight of plastic pollution, with more than 430 million tonnes of plastic produced annually” and microplastics are being found all over the planet. world ocean, food and drinking water
Some of it comes from clothing and cigarette filters, according to United Nations Environment Programme. Initiatives towards global plastic treaty It will continue even after negotiations stalled in November.
All four co-authors interviewed said they had reduced their use of bottled water after conducting the study.
Wei Ming, a Colombian physical chemist who pioneered dual-laser microscopy technology, said he has cut his use of bottled water in half. Stapleton said he is now using more filtered water at his home in New Jersey.
But Bayzan Yan, a co-author of the study and a Colombian environmental chemist who has increased tap water usage, said the introduction of plastic could cause problems with the filters themselves.
“There’s no chance of winning,” Stapleton said.
Naixin Qian, a physical chemist at Columbia University, zooms in on an image of microscopic pieces of plastic that appeared as bright red dots in New York on Monday. Mary Conlon/Associated Press
Outside experts who praised the study agreed there were general concerns about the dangers of plastic particles, but it was too early to say for sure.
“The dangers of plastic itself are an unanswered question. To me, the additives are the most concerning,” said Jason Somarelli, professor and director of the Comparative Oncology Group at Duke University School of Medicine. . He did not participate in this study. “We and other researchers have shown that these nanoplastics can be taken up into cells, and that nanoplastics have the potential to cause cellular stress and DNA damage, altering metabolism and cell function. We know that it contains all kinds of chemical additives that are harmful.”
Somarelli said his unpublished research found more than 100 “known carcinogenic chemicals in these plastics.”
Zoe Diana, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Toronto, said: “The concern is that small particles are showing up in various organs and can cross membranes that they’re not supposed to cross, such as the blood-brain barrier.'' ” he said.
Diana, who was not involved in the study, said this was an exciting development in the study of plastics in the environment and in the body, thanks to the new tools researchers used.
About 15 years ago, Min invented a dual-laser microscopy technique that identifies specific compounds by their chemical properties and how they resonate when exposed to a laser. Yang and Qian approached him about using the technology to find and identify plastics that are too small for researchers using established methods.
“This study could be an important advance in the detection of nanoplastics,” said Kara Lavender-Law, an oceanographer at the Marine Education Association, adding that other analytical chemists will not be able to replicate the technique and results. He said he would like to see it done.
Dennis Hardesty, an Australian government oceanographer who studies plastic waste, said context was needed. The total weight of the nanoplastics found is “approximately the weight of one penny, which is the volume of two Olympic-sized swimming pools.”
Mr. Hardesty is less concerned about nanoplastics in bottled water than others, saying, “I am privileged to live in an area with access to ‘clean’ tap water, and I don’t have access to drinking water in single-use containers. There’s no need to buy one.”
Yang said other municipalities, including Boston, St. Louis and Los Angeles, are starting to look at how much plastic is in their tap water. Previous research We’re looking for microplastics, and some early tests show tap water may have less nanoplastics than bottled water.
Despite the unknowns about human health, Yang said he has one recommendation for those concerned. It’s about using reusable bottles instead of single-use plastics.
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