NASA's Perseverance rover has detected complex organic carbon in ancient Martian mudstones. The measurements were taken by the rover's Sherloc instrument and the organic carbon that was identified was from the Bright Angel outcrop, "a dried-up river that carried water into the planet's Jezero crater billions of years ago," notes The Guardian. From the report: The form of carbon detected, known as macromolecular carbon or MMC, can originate from living organisms. Geological processes can also produce the material, meaning its detection does not amount to proof of past Martian life. Dr Ashley Murphy at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona said MMC can be found in different settings and types of rocks. "It may originate from biological sources such as fossilized organic matter found in microbial mats and coal," she said, but could also form in reactions between rocks and water or arrive on impacting meteorites. The mudstone rocks from the Bright Angel outcrop caused a stir in 2024 when the Perseverance rover discovered intriguing surface spots and nodules that resemble features produced by fossilized microbes on Earth. When the scientific details were published last year, Sean Duffy, the former acting head of Nasa, said: "This very well could be the clearest sign of life that we've ever found on Mars." [...] The discovery means Nasa rovers have now found organic-bearing mudstones more than 2,000 miles apart on Mars. The others were reported by the Curiosity rover which is exploring the planet's Gale crater. It "indicates that the habitability of Mars, and the availability of organics, may have been widespread across the planet billions of years ago," the authors write in Science Advances.

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The key is understanding how our labor market and our social net differs from the rest of the world.

Officers found the body of a man believed to be Oscar Sanchez-Munoz, the suspect in a series of roadway shootings last week, inside a home they had already searched.

The congressman, who has been absent from Washington since March, answered the door of his home on Wednesday evening. He was wearing a suit and tie.

Hours before visiting the Capitol, the president scrapped plans to sign a major housing bill, condemning “bad Republicans” for resisting his demands to ram through new voting restrictions.

Crowds are filling the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris, as temperatures soar above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Forty people drowned while swimming in other waterways.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: [T]he payment company Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, says it will fund a new $500 million nonprofit whose goal is preventing both the common cold and the flu. Its eventual aim is to get rid of respiratory viruses altogether. The new organization, called Intercept, will use grants and investments to back prevention approaches, including vaccines, as well as large-scale air-cleaning systems for schools, offices, and other public spaces. In addition to Stripe, other funders include Anthropic, Flu Lab, and the OpenAI Foundation, as well as Bill Gates and several traders at the quantitative investing fund Jane Street Capital, according to an Intercept spokesperson. "I think we treat respiratory infections as a minor nuisance, but have really underweighted the burden that they impose on society," says Nan Ransohoff, the Stripe executive leading the initiative along with Charlie Petty, a venture capitalist who joined Stripe this year. On average, people spend 5% of their lifetime fighting a cold or the flu, according to Ransohoff. Despite that, drug companies put relatively little effort into preventing colds. Part of the problem is that the sniffles are caused by more than 200 different viruses, according to the American Lung Association, with rhinoviruses being the most common culprits. There are so many that it typically doesn't pay to try to stop any one of them with a vaccine. "When pharma companies look at it, it's not as attractive as other things they could work on," says Ransohoff. "So it hasn't attracted the resources." [...] The project takes inspiration from efforts to fight the covid-19 virus, where Veesler's group was among those involved in the speedy development of vaccines, antiviral drugs, and antibodies. According to Ransohoff, Intercept's advisors will include Peter Marks, a former top FDA official, as well as Moncef Slaoui, the pharmaceutical executive who led the US coronavirus vaccine effort, Operation Warp Speed. A key challenge for Intercept will be coming up with ways to counter many viruses at one time. That accounts for the interest in air-cleaning technology, such as using strong ultraviolet light to inactivate viruses. The idea, the group says, is to remove them from the air in the same way municipalities remove impurities from the water supply before it's piped to people's homes.

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The primary victories of leftist Democratic congressional candidates in New York came as some leaders were urging the party to move to the center to broaden its appeal.

Democratic leaders found that their traditional tools, from rallies to phone banks to big-name campaign events, were no match for the left’s ground game and messaging.

Using charts, Secretary General Mark Rutte appeared to defuse the president’s anger by showing that European countries were “equalizing” defense spending with the U.S.

If the shift in public opinion continues, it could reshape one of the United States’ closest alliances.

Slate Auto says its stripped-down electric pickup will start at $24,950 before fees, with the base model's estimated range increased from 150 to about 205 miles. The company has started taking preorders on Wednesday. "The aggressive pricing -- half the average cost of a new car in the United States -- puts Slate in position to capture a share of the lowest end of the new car market, which has few gas and fewer electric options these days," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The price reveal comes more than a year after Slate Auto emerged from stealth. Since then, the company has been steadily detailing the extremely basic, transforming EV, which starts as a two-seater pickup truck, but can be modified into a five-seater SUV. The SUV version will start at $29,950, Slate said Wednesday. Slate has said the conversion can be done by professionals or by owners themselves. On Wednesday, it finally showed off some of the first of its "Slate University" how-to videos, which guide people through the steps for doing everything from the SUV conversion to adding headlight covers. Everything else about the truck is bare, though it's customizable. It has hand-crank windows, lacks an infotainment system, and all orders start with the same gray composite material, with no paint options, as Slate plans to let buyers order customizable wraps for the vehicle. That likely helps cut out a major cost center, as factory paint shops can run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The company did not offer more details about the buying process. Slate has said it "won't have traditional dealerships," and plans to sell directly to customers, similar to other EV companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid Motors.

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The New York Times has confirmed that Taylor Swift has rented the sports arena for the July 4 weekend, suggesting plans for a days-long celebration.

The president has sought to recast the Iranian government as he pursues a peace deal. But there are signs that a softening on Iran in the Republican Party goes well beyond him.

The ruling of a three-judge appeals panel in Michigan was the most significant rebuke yet to the Department of Justice’s effort to find ineligible voters in state voter rolls.

Sentiment is shifting amid frustration in the antiabortion movement that more abortions are happening now than when Roe v. Wade fell.

A look at the backlash to same-sex marriage — its strength, seriousness and the reasons behind it.

Tuesday’s primary demonstrated the astonishing political power of Mamdani and of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Meta has paused its Model Compatibility Initiative that tracked employee mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screen content to train AI agents, after some of its collected data became accessible to more employees than intended. Meta says it has no evidence the information was improperly accessed and will not restart the program until it is confident in its safeguards. Wired reports: Meta rolled out the Model Compatibility Initiative (MCI) tool in April to US employees. The tool "collects computer inputs such as mouse movements, click locations and keystrokes, as well as screen content," according to workers who have been petitioning against it over privacy, security, and personal liberty concerns. When MCI launched, employees couldn't opt out, but that changed to a limited degree after workers protested. Meta executives have repeatedly defended the data-gathering project, saying it was necessary to train AI systems to operate computer software the way humans do and that employees were the best examples for the artificial intelligence to learn from. On Monday, a Meta engineer issued an internal security notice stating that databases filled with information gathered by MCI had been exposed to anyone inside the company. A former employee actively involved in pushing back against MCI describes the lapse as "a mess" -- and one that employees had expected would occur. "When workers raised concerns, leadership doubled down and failed to acknowledge the risks workers raised about the safety and privacy of worker and customer data," the person says. "Leadership has clearly created an authoritarian environment where workers are no longer respected or heard." But after critical comments poured into internal forums on Monday expressing frustration about the security issue, Meta shocked some of its staff by pausing MCI altogether, telling WIRED about the development several hours before announcing it to employees. A few workers told WIRED they were confused in the meantime because the tool was continuing to run on their laptops. Late on Monday, Stephane Kasriel, a Meta vice president overseeing AI research, announced the pause and told staff that the security issue had been discovered on June 18 and addressed within four hours. But the initial fix didn't stick and access to the data had to be further locked down. The issue made "some MCI-derived data" accessible to more people than intended, he wrote, without elaborating.

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The president had a lengthy and angry exchange with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and lit into other Republicans who voted to check his war powers.