Crooked Bough News Round-up

+ A British redcoat’s lost memoir resurfaces—Shadrack Byfield lost his left arm in the War of 1812; his life sheds light on post-war re-integration. [Category: Culture, Science, disability, Histo...

+ Scientists sequence a woolly rhino genome from a 14,400-year-old wolf’s stomach—Fortunately for paleogeneticists, wolf puppies don't chew their food thoroughly. [Category: Science, Megafauna, megafaunal extinction, paleoecology, p...

+ EPA makes it harder for states, tribes to block pipelines—A new rule aims to speed up and streamline the permitting process. [Category: Policy, Science, clean water act, EPA, section 401, syndication]

+ EPA moves to stop considering economic benefits of cleaner air—New language criticizes “uncertainties” in longstanding EPA practice. [Category: Science, air pollution, Environmental Protection Agency]

+ Switching water sources improved hygiene of Pompeii’s public baths—Scientists analyzed carbonate deposits from baths, aqueduct to learn more about city's changing water supply. [Category: Science, Archaeology, hydraul...

+ NASA launches new mission to get the most out of the James Webb Space Telescope—"It was not recognized how serious a problem that is until... about 2017 or 2018." [Category: Science, Space, astrophysics, exoplanets, goddard space ...

+ That time Will Smith helped discover new species of anaconda—Footage of the 2024 discovery appears in NatGeo's new documentary series Pole to Pole with Will Smith. [Category: Culture, Science, anacondas, Biology...

+ The oceans just keep getting hotter—For the eighth year in a row, the world’s oceans absorbed a record-breaking amount of heat in 2025. [Category: Science, global warming, ocean ecology,...

+ These 60,000-year-old poison arrows are oldest yet found—Hunter-gatherers probably derived the poison from the milky bulb extract of a Boophone disticha plant. [Category: Science, anthropology, Archeology, p...

+ NASA orders “controlled medical evacuation” from the International Space Station—"The crew is highly trained, and they came to the aid of their colleague right away." [Category: Science, Space, commercial crew, crew dragon, crew-11...

+ These dogs eavesdrop on their owners to learn new words—“Under the right conditions, some dogs present behaviors strikingly similar to those of young children.” [Category: Science, animal behavior, animal c...

+ Trump withdraws US from world’s most important climate treaty—US also pulling out of pacts promoting development, democracy, and human rights. [Category: Science, climate change, IPCC, Trump, UN Framework Convent...

+ NASA considers evacuating ailing crew member from International Space Station—"The matter involved a single crew member who is stable," NASA said in a statement. [Category: Science, Space, expedition 74, human spaceflight, inter...

+ Japanese nuclear plant operator fabricated seismic risk data—Company staff were very selective about how they modeled earthquake dangers. [Category: Science, earthquakes, falsification, fraud, Fukushima, Japan, ...

+ New battery idea gets lots of power out of unusual sulfur chemistry—Rather than being used as a storage material, the sulfur gives up electrons. [Category: Science, anode, batteries, cathode, chemistry, materials scien...

+ We have a fossil closer to our split with Neanderthals and Denisovans—A recent study suggests that North Africa may be a key place to look. [Category: Science, anthropology, Archaeology, Denisovans, hominins, homo erectu...

+ Here are the launches and landings we’re most excited about in 2026—A lot could happen in space this year, but let's get real about what actually will. [Category: Features, Science, Space, artemis, artemis II, china, l...

+ Appeals court agrees that Congress blocked cuts to research costs—The Trump admin can't arbitrarily set university reimbursements to a low flat rate. [Category: Policy, Science, Appeals court, Grant funding, indirect...

+ Ørsted seeks injunction against US government over project freeze—Trump administration had suspended Danish group’s work on major wind farm off coast of Rhode Island. [Category: Policy, Science, orsted, syndication, ...

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/14/26 6:46pm.

+ Wikipedia signs AI training deals with Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon—Wikimedia Enterprise signs Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral AI to paid deals. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, AI infrastructure, AI train...

+ Wikipedia will share content with AI firms in new licensing deals—Wikimedia Enterprise signs Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral AI to paid deals. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, AI infrastructure, AI train...

+ A single click mounted a covert, multistage attack against Copilot—Exploit exfiltrating data from chat histories worked even after users closed chat windows. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, Security, copilot, data exfilt...

+ Bandcamp bans purely AI-generated music from its platform—Indie music store says it wants fans to have confidence music was largely made by humans. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, AI music, AI policy, audio synt...

+ The RAM shortage’s silver lining: Less talk about “AI PCs”—“General interest in AI PCs has been wavering for a while..." [Category: AI, Biz & IT, Tech, apple, dell, Desktops, generative ai, IDC, laptops]

+ Never-before-seen Linux malware is “far more advanced than typical”—VoidLink includes an unusually broad and advanced array of capabilities. [Category: Biz & IT, Security, cloud, Linux, malware]

+ Hegseth wants to integrate Musk’s Grok AI into military networks this month—US defense secretary announces plans for integration despite recent controversies. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, Policy, agentic AI, AI image generator...

+ Microsoft vows to cover full power costs for energy-hungry AI data centers—Company responds to community concerns over electricity bills and water use. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, AI infrastructure, AI training, Amazon, brad...

+ Google removes some AI health summaries after investigation finds “dangerous” flaws—AI Overviews provided false liver test information experts called alarming. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, Google, AI hallucination, ai overviews, gener...

+ ChatGPT Health lets you connect medical records to an AI that makes things up—New feature will allow users to link medical and wellness records to AI chatbot. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, AI assistants, AI confabulation, AI hall...

+ ChatGPT falls to new data-pilfering attack as a vicious cycle in AI continues—Will LLMs ever be able to stamp out the root cause of these attacks? Possibly not. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, Security, chatbots, data exfiltration,...

+ The nation’s strictest privacy law just took effect, to data brokers’ chagrin—Californians can now submit demands requiring 500 brokers to delete their data. [Category: Biz & IT, Policy, Security, California, data brokers, p...

+ Supply chains, AI, and the cloud: The biggest failures (and one success) of 2025—The past year has seen plenty of hacks and outages. Here are the ones topping the list. [Category: AI, Apple, Biz & IT, Security, 2025 year end, c...

+ From prophet to product: How AI came back down to earth in 2025—In a year where lofty promises collided with inconvenient research, would-be oracles became software tools. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, Features, 202...

+ Condé Nast user database reportedly breached, Ars unaffected—A serious data breach has occurred, but Ars users have nothing to worry about. [Category: Biz & IT, Conde Nast, hacking, user accounts, user priva...

+ GPS is vulnerable to jamming—here’s how we might fix it—GPS jamming has gotten cheap and easy, but there are potential solutions. [Category: Biz & IT, GPS, interference, jamming, satellites]

+ How AI coding agents work—and what to remember if you use them—From compression tricks to multi-agent teamwork, here's what makes them tick. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, agentic AI, AI agents, AI coding, AI work, ...

+ OpenAI’s new ChatGPT image generator makes faking photos easy—New GPT Image 1.5 allows more detailed conversational image editing, for better or worse. [Category: AI, Biz & IT, AI image generator, AI image ge...

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/15/26 11:00am.

+ Cyber body ISC2 signs on as UK software security ambassador—Professional cyber association ISC2 pledges support to UK government’s Software Security Ambassador scheme, part of the recently unveiled Cyber Action...

+ Texas judge throws out second lawsuit over CrowdStrike outage—A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by CrowdStrike shareholders over the July 2024 outage that caused widespread disruption around the world.

+ Microsoft DCU uses UK courts to hunt down cyber criminals—Microsoft has taken down the RedDVS cyber crime-as-a-service network after obtaining a UK court order, marking its first civil legal action outside of...

+ UK government backtracks on plans for mandatory digital ID—The proposed national digital identity app will no longer be compulsory for conducting right-to-work checks, removing the most contentious and widely ...

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/15/26 10:28am.

+ Building a Carousel Autosampler—A common task in a laboratory setting is that of sampling, where a bit of e.g. liquid has to be sampled from a series of containers. Doing this by han...

+ The Random Laser—When we first heard the term random laser, we did a double-take. After all, most ordinary sources of light are random. One defining characteristic of ...

+ AC Motor Converted into DC eBike Powerplant—AC induction motors are everywhere, from ceiling fans to vehicles. Theyre reliable, simple, and rugged but there are some disadvantages. Its difficul...

+ ISS Medical Emergency: An Orbital Ambulance Ride—Over the course of its nearly 30 years in orbit, the International Space Station has played host to more firsts than can possibly be counted. When you...

+ Looking at a Real Fake Raspberry Pi RP2040 Board—Since the RP2040 microcontroller is available as a stand-alone component, its easy enough for third parties to churn out their own variations or outr...

+ Windows? Linux? Browser? Same Executable—Weve been aware of projects like Cosmopolitan that allow you to crank out a single executable that will run on different operating systems. [Kamila] n...

+ Philips Kid’s Kit Revisited—[Anthony Francis-Jones], like us, has a soft spot for the educational electronic kits from days gone by. In a recent video you can see below, he shows...

+ Making Code a Hundred Times Slower With False Sharing—Writing good, performant code depends strongly on an understanding of the underlying hardware. This is especially the case in scenarios like those inv...

+ Dad Makes Kid’s Balance Bike Into Electric Snow Trike Like a Boss—The balance bikes toddlers are rocking these days look like great fun, but not so great in the snow. Rather than see his kids favourite toy relegated ...

+ A New Life For An Old Amplifier—An audio amplifier was once a fairly simple analogue device, but in recent decades a typical home entertainment amplifier will have expanded to includ...

+ FLOSS Weekly Episode 860: Elixir Origin Story—This week Jonathan and Randal chat with Jose Valim about Elixir! What led Jose to create this unique programming language? What do we mean that its a ...

+ Genetic Therapy Aims To Bring Hearing To Those Born Deaf—For those born with certain types of congenital deafness, the cochlear implant has been a positive and enabling technology. It uses electronics to ste...

+ ESP32-P4 Powers Retro Handheld after a Transplant—The ESP32-P4 is the new hotness on the microcontroller market. With RISC-V architecture and two cores running 400 MHz, to ears of a certain vintage it...

+ Clone Wars: IBM Edition—If you search the Internet for Clone Wars, youll get a lot of Star Wars-related pages. But the original Clone Wars took place a long time ago in a gal...

+ Pushing China’s EAST Tokamak Past the Greenwald Density Limit—Getting a significant energy return from tokamak-based nuclear fusion reactors depends for a large part on plasma density, but increasing said density...

+ An Open Source Electromagnetic Resonance Tablet—Drawing tablets have been a favorite computer peripheral of artists since its inception in the 1980s. If you have ever used a drawing tablet of this n...

+ Atari Brings the Computer Age Home—[The 8-Bit Guy] tells us how 8-bit Atari computers work. The first Atari came out in 1977, it was originally called the Atari Video Computer System. I...

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/15/26 1:17pm.

+ DHS Expands Immigration Ban, Ensuring The Only Way An African Can Come To The US Is If We Bring Slavery Back—Ever since Trump took office and turned over immigration enforcement to someone who killed pets more often than shes experienced moments of joy, the w...

+ Daily Deal: The Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle—Microsoft Office 2021 Professional is the perfect choice for any professional who needs to handle data and documents. It comes with many new features ...

+ State Department Threatens UK Over Grok Investigation, Because Only The US Is Allowed To Ban Foreign Apps—So let me get this straight. The United States government spent years championing a ban on TikTok, rushed it through the Supreme Court with claims of ...

+ Trump, Ellison Wage War On ‘Woke Netflix’ In Effort To Scuttle Warner Brothers Deal, Dominate U.S. Media—The Trump empire is nothing if not predictable. Last year we noted repeatedly how the Trump administration and Larry Ellison (owner of CBS) would be j...

+ New Year, But The Same Measles Crises Rages On—Meet the new year, same as the old year, at least as far as Americas measles problem goes. We talked a lot about this disease last year, and for good ...

+ We Found More Than 40 Cases Of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds And Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing—This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. The original version has even more horrifying photogra...

+ ICE Is Going On A Surveillance Shopping Spree—U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a new budget under the current administration, and they are going on a surveillance tech shopping s...

+ Bari Weiss Is Sad That People Aren’t Enjoying Her Clumsy Destruction Of CBS News—If you missed it, Trump-allied billionaire Larry Ellison and his nepobaby son David hired an unqualified troll named Bari Weiss to run CBS News. And b...

+ Daily Deal: The Complete CompTIA And IT Exam Prep Bundle—The Complete CompTIA and IT Exam Prep Bundle has a variety of courses, labs, and exam simulators to help you prepare for certification courses. Youll ...

+ Prosecutors Flee DOJ After Being Told To Investigate The Murdered Woman, Not The Murderer—Last week, we wrote about how ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother, on a Minneapolis street in broad dayl...

+ DHS Wants To Harvest Biometric Data From Anyone Helping A Foreigner Stay In This Country Legally—Weve always known the ultimate goal was to subject everyone to biometric collections, whether its at border crossings or international airports. At so...

+ Trump Tries To Disappear Impeachment References At Smithsonian—Donald Trump is the only president in American history to have been impeached twice. That is a simple fact of history. I can imagine its a fact that ...

+ Online Gaming’s Final Boss: The Copyright Bully—Since earliest days of computer games, people have tinkered with the software to customize their own experiences or share their vision with others. Fr...

+ Elon Musk Plays Disinfo Telephone: How Oregon’s Mundane Voter Roll Cleanup Is Turned Into False Claim Of ‘Fake Voters’—I made the mistake of opening up X yesterday to look something up, and the very first post that appeared in my feed was a perfect, almost pedagogical ...

+ Trump’s Loyalist Prosecutors Continue To Get Kicked Off Cases Because They’re Not Legally Appointed—Trumps binge-and-purge approach to handling the DOJ definitely isnt working out for him. The administration has been steadily pushing prosecutors out ...

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/15/26 1:54pm.

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/3/26 5:01am.

+ U.S. billionaire backs first binational park between Uruguay, Argentina—U.S. philanthropist Gilbert Butler has financed purchase and donation of six islands to create a park on the Uruguay River in Uruguay and Argentina

+ U.S. seizes 6th sanctioned oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil—U.S. Southern Command forces seized a sixth sanctioned oil tanker early Thursday morning as part of Operation Southern Spear.

+ Argentina lists Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist entities—Argentina's president said the government has designated branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan as terrorist organizations.

+ Appeals court ruling opens path to rearrest of Mahmoud Khalil—A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a lower court didn't have the authority to order the release of Syrian immigrant Mahmoud Khalil.

+ Iran says it won't execute protester Efran Soltani—Iran's judiciary has denied reports that it planned to execute protester Efran Soltani, whose planned execution drew an international outcry.

+ Chile stock market posts region’s best performance in 2025—Chile's stock market delivered its strongest performance in 32 years in 2025, emerging as the best-performing exchange in Latin America.

+ Venezuela claims drug trafficking logistics routes dismantled—The Venezuelan government said it dismantled the country's main drug trafficking logistics routes during 2025, particularly in the state of Zulia.

+ Education Department investigating 15 K-12 schools over trans athletes—The Department of Education has opened investigations into 15 K-12 schools over transgender athlete participation in girls' and women's sports.

+ European countries begin sending troops to Greenland—Several European countries have sent troops to Greenland after Wednesday's meeting between Greenland and Denmark envoys and Vice President JD Vance.

+ President Donald Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act amid Minnesota protests—President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop protests in Minnesota Thursday after an ICE agent shot another civilian.

+ Two people killed in Thailand in second crane collapse in as many days—A crane collapsed on an expressway in Bangkok, Thailand Thursday killing at least two people, the second fatal construction incident in two days.

+ Russia ejects diplomat it says was spying for British intelligence—Russia's Foreign Ministry expelled a British diplomat from the country Thursday, accusing him of being an undercover agent for British intelligence.

+ U.K. Palestine Action protesters end hunger strike over government contract—An MOD decision not to use a Israeli defense contractor was cited as one reason for Palestine Action supporters calling off a hunger strike.

+ Elon Musk's xAI to stop allowing Grok to undress images of real people—Elon Musk's xAI announced it will stop allowing Grok to undress real people in its image editing feature after backlash from victims and governments.

+ ISS crew safely home after unprecedented medical evacuation—The four members of NASA's Crew-11 safely splashed down off southern California on Thursday after the first ever medical evacuation from the ISS.

+ Asia’s foreign press clubs recalibrate amid regional political changes—Media correspondent clubs in Asia, storied institutions once synonymous with a freewheeling press culture, are confronting a slow sunset.

+ BOK again holds key rate steady amid weak won, hints at prolonged pause—South Korea's central bank again left its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday as a weakened won and rising inflation concerns limited room for ...

+ Trump: Executions, killings 'stopped' in Iran—President Donald Trump on Wednesday night said Iran has called off scheduled executions of detained protesters and that the killing of protesters in t...

+ 75% of registered S. Koreans separated from family in North have died, gov't says—More than three-quarters of South Koreans registered as members of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War have died without being reunited with ...

+ On This Day, Jan. 15: Disabled US Airways flight lands in Hudson River—On Jan. 15, 2009, all 155 people aboard US Airways Flight 1549 escaped serious injury when pilot Chesley Sullenberger gently landed his disabled aircr...

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/15/26 1:17pm.

+ Elon Musk's Grok ‘Undressing’ Problem Isn't Fixed—X has placed more restrictions on Grok's ability to generate explicit AI images, but tests show the updates have created a patchwork of limitations th...

+ Save $50 on the OnePlus Watch 3, Which Has Revolutionary Battery Tech—Save some cash on this Wear OS smartwatch with a revolutionary battery that can go for five days on a charge (16 days on low-power mode). [Category: G...

+ Why ICE Can Kill With Impunity—Over the past decade, US immigration agents have shot and killed more than two dozen people. Not a single agent appears to have faced criminal charges...

+ OpenAI Invests in Sam Altman’s New Brain-Tech Startup Merge Labs—Merge Labs has emerged from stealth with $252 million in funding from OpenAI and others. It aims to use ultrasound to read from and write to the brain...

+ Minnesota Is Just the Beginning. California and New York Are ‘Next’—The Trump administration appears to be planning to leverage the same playbook used in Minnesota to go after other blue states. [Category: Politics, Po...

+ Hands On With Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, an AI Agent That Actually Works—Cowork is a user-friendly version of Anthropic’s Claude Code AI-powered tool that’s built for file management and basic computing tasks. Here’s what i...

+ Best Packing Cubes for Every Kind of Trip (2026), Tested and Reviewed—Whether you’re a no-frills backpacker or a bag-checking fashionista, there’s a perfect packing cube out there for you. [Category: Gear, Gear / Buying ...

+ 11 Best Smartwatches (2026): Apple, Wear OS, Hybrid & Kids’ Watches—These WIRED-tested wearables reduce your reliance on a phone while keeping you connected. [Category: Gear, Gear / Products / Accessories, Gear / Buyin...

+ 9 Best Blind Boxes—Bag Charms, Plush Pendants, and More (2026)—In the market for a mystery treat? There’s more out there than Labubu. We bought a bunch of blind boxes online, and these are our favorites. [Category...

+ Former CISA Director Jen Easterly Will Lead RSAC Conference—The longtime cybersecurity professional says she’s taking the helm of the legacy security organization at “an inflection point” for tech and the world...

+ Former CISA Director Jen Easterly Will Lead RSA Conference—The longtime cybersecurity professional says she’s taking the helm of the legacy security organization at “an inflection point” for tech and the world...

+ What Is VO2 Max? Here’s What You Need to Know About the Longevity Metric (2026)—VO2 max can predict cardiorespiratory health and longevity, but only if you understand what the number can and can’t tell you. [Category: Gear, Gear /...

+ Livestream: Welcome to the Chinese Century—Join our livestream — and pose a question to WIRED’s panel of experts — on China’s dominance, influence, and how it is rewriting the future. [Category...

+ Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking—Flaws in how 17 models of headphones and speakers use Google’s one-tap Fast Pair Bluetooth protocol have left devices open to eavesdroppers and stalke...

+ The Tea App Is Back With a New Website—Months after major data leaks, the app where women leave Yelp-style reviews about men is relaunching with a new website. It’s not back on iOS, but the...

+ The Real AI Talent War Is for Plumbers and Electricians—The AI boom is driving an unprecedented wave of data center construction, but there aren’t enough skilled tradespeople in the US to keep up. [Category...

+ Asus ROG Falcata Review: A Split Gaming Keyboard—With the looks and speed of a gaming keyboard and the comfort of an ergonomic keyboard, the Falcata is a unique and expensive hybrid for a niche audie...

+ Wikipedia’s Existential Threats Feel Greater Than Ever—As the free online encyclopedia turns 25, it’s facing political opposition, AI scraping, dwindling volunteers, and a public that may no longer believe...

+ Lizn Hearpieces Review: Affordable but Uncomfortable Hearing Aids—These odd-looking hearing aids double as solid earbuds, but comfort is a major issue. [Category: Gear, Gear / Reviews, Gear / Products / Headphones]

+ Our Favorite Coway Air Purifiers Are on Sale (2026)—Breathe easier with these discounts on one of WIRED’s favorite air purifier brands, including an option for large rooms. [Category: Gear, Gear / Deals...

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As of 1/15/26 1:54pm. Last new 1/15/26 1:17pm.