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Five years from now, the world may start running out of copper, a critical mineral used in everything from data centers to electric cars. If nothing changes, the world could face severe shortages as early as 2040, with demand exceeding supply by as much as 25%. If copper seems expensive now, wait a few years. As demand grows, companies and investors are pouring money into the sector. For example, AI minerals startup KoBold raised $537 million last year to develop a copper deposit it discovered in Zambia. But with the help of some microbes, today’s copper producers may be able…
Spotify has increased the price of its subscription plans in the U.S. for the third time in three years, increasing monthly plans from $11.99 per month to $12.99 per month. The company sent an email to paying users informing them of the new price. This price will apply starting with your next monthly billing cycle. Image credit: Spotify “Updating market-wide pricing from time to time allows us to reflect the value Spotify provides, continue to deliver the best experience possible, and benefit our artists,” the company said in a blog post. In November 2025, the Financial Times reported that the…
Berlin-based Parloa has raised $350 million in Series D funding from existing investors, valuing the six-year-old customer service AI startup at $3 billion. The round comes just eight months after the company raised $120 million at a $1 billion valuation. The new round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from returning backers including EQT Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Durable Capital, and Mosaic Ventures. Parloa is one of many startups developing AI agents that promise to automate the kinds of customer service tasks traditionally handled by human agents or help desk staff. The company’s competitors include Sierra, which was co-founded by…
Jan 15, 2026Ravie LakshmananCybersecurity / Hacking News The internet never stays quiet. Every week, new hacks, scams, and security problems show up somewhere. This week’s stories show how fast attackers change their tricks, how small mistakes turn into big risks, and how the same old tools keep finding new ways to break in. Read on to catch up before the next wave hits. Unauthenticated RCE risk A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in Redis (CVE-2025-62507, CVSS score: 8.8) that could potentially lead to remote code execution by means of a stack buffer overflow. It was fixed in version 8.3.2.…
Tim Lynott, CEO of Four Corners Helium, discusses emerging trends in helium exploration, commodity bundling, technology advances, market risks, and innovative new applications shaping the global helium industry. Helium has quietly become one of the most strategically important elements in the global economy, powering technologies from medical devices to advanced electronics to cutting-edge renewable energy projects. As traditional helium sources are depleted and demand for high-purity helium increases, companies are rapidly innovating to explore, extract and commercialize this vital resource. In this conversation, we sit down with Tim Lynott to gain insight from a leader at the forefront of the…
Scientists have created a new tool to observe plant respiration in real time. The new technology could help identify genetic traits that make crops more resilient to global climate change, the researchers said.Human food systems rely on tiny holes in plant leaves. These microscopic pores, called stomata (Greek for mouth), control how much carbon dioxide a plant consumes and how much oxygen and water vapor it breathes.”A deeper understanding of stomata is really important for us,” study co-author Andrew Leakey, a plant biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told Live Science. “I and many others are trying to…
Four astronauts evacuated from the International Space Station (ISS) due to an unprecedented medical emergency have returned to Earth.NASA astronauts Mike Finke and Zena Cardman, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kamiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov emerge from NASA’s SpaceX Crew 11 Dragon spacecraft after splashing down in the dark off the coast of California at 3:41 a.m. ET on Thursday (January 15).NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a press conference that all crew members are “safe and well.” you may like Welcome back, Crew-11! At 3:41 a.m. ET, @SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of San…
January 15, 2026hacker newsData security/artificial intelligence Even as AI co-pilots and assistants become part of daily operations, security teams are still focused on securing the models themselves. However, recent incidents suggest that the greater risk lies elsewhere: in the workflows surrounding these models. Two Chrome extensions masquerading as AI helpers were recently caught stealing ChatGPT and DeepSeek chat data from over 900,000 users. Separately, researchers demonstrated how prompt injection hidden in a code repository could trick IBM’s AI coding assistant into running malware on a developer’s machine. Neither attack destroyed the AI algorithm itself. They exploited the context in which…
Growing evidence suggests that daily, perpetual exposure to chemicals may be secretly increasing the risk of gestational diabetes, according to a major new scientific review. Researchers have found that pregnant women with high exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are more likely to develop gestational diabetes and see changes in the way their bodies regulate insulin. This finding comes from the most comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to date examining lifetime PFAS exposure and diabetes-related outcomes. The study brings new clarity to a field that has produced mixed results and highlights that pregnancy is a particularly vulnerable…
New dark matter research casts doubt on decades-old theories and sheds light on the early beginnings of the universe. Researchers from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and Paris-Saclay University have discovered that dark matter may have been “incredibly hot” and moving at nearly the speed of light when it first formed. This research provides new clues about the origin of the universe and opens up broader possibilities for how dark matter interacts with other matter. Until now, dark matter was thought to be cold and slow-moving. For decades, researchers believed that dark matter must be cold or slow-moving when…