Uncannily preserved in the sands of New Mexico, archaeologists have discovered the oldest evidence yet of a vehicle used by humans: drag marks, along with footprints, left in the ground that have been dated to 22,000 years ago.
As detailed in a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666033425000103#bib3">study published in the journal </a><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666033425000103#bib3">Quaternary Science Advances</a>, these marks were left behind by a type of sledge known as a travois. Think of it as a wheelbarrow without the wheels.
Typically comprising two wooden poles held in each hand at the front, and intersecting at the back in a V or X-shape, a travois would have been pulled across the ground, carrying meat, game or other supplies. Their usage is well-known to scientists — but this is by far the oldest example, predating the invention of the wheeled vehicle in Mesopotamia by some 17,000 years, according to researchers.
"There's nothing this old," study author Matthew Bennett at the University of Bournemouth <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2469648-22000-year-old-tracks-are-earliest-evidence-of-transport-vehicles/">told New Scientist</a>.
The ancient runnels, as the authors describe them, were discovered in the dried mud of a bygone lake in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, hidden by sediment for untold ages, and finally exhumed by a chance mix of natural erosion and careful excavation by researchers.
"The drag-marks extend for dozens of meters before disappearing beneath overlying sediment," explained Bennet in a <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/these-22000-year-old-drag-marks-could-be-oldest-evidence-of-a-handcart">writeup for </a><a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/these-22000-year-old-drag-marks-could-be-oldest-evidence-of-a-handcart">The Conversation</a>. "They clip barefoot human tracks along their length, suggesting the user dragged the travois over their own footprints as they went along."
Rarely were they found in isolation, with the researchers discovering other tracks of footprints nearby all heading in the same direction. In many cases, based on their size, the prints were left behind by children.
"We believe the footprints and drag-marks tell a story of the movement of resources at the edge of this former wetland," Bennett wrote in The Conversation. "Adults pulled the simple, probably improvised travois, while a group of children tagged along to the side and behind."
To New Scientist, Bennet added that while travois were often pulled by animals like horses in other cultures, the White Sands discovery only indicated human usage. It's possible some of the marks were left by dragging firewood, "but this does not fit all the cases we found," Bennett wrote in his Conversation essay.
But perhaps the discovery's most staggering implication is that humans may have crossed into the Americas much earlier than commonly believed, with dominant theories — which are being increasingly challenged — holding that nobody made the trek until around 15,000 years ago.
"The peopling of the Americas debate is a very controversial one, but we're fairly confident about the dates," Bennett told New Scientist. "The traditional story is that the ice sheets parted and they came, but you can come through before the door closes, too."
More on ancient humans: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ancient-humans-big-heads-brains">Scientists Say Skeletons Show Ancient Humans With Huge Heads</a>

In a Rut

"There's nothing this old."

Scientists Find Evidence of Vehicles From Tens of Thousands of Years Ago

New research suggests that most Americans don't typically use artificial intelligence at work — yet many of our country's highly educated people do.
According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/02/25/u-s-workers-are-more-worried-than-hopeful-about-future-ai-use-in-the-workplace/">new survey by the Pew Research Center</a>, involving a demographically representative sample of more than 5,200 US workers, 63 percent of American workers said they don't use AI much or at all in their jobs. Only one-in-six workers reported using the tech for at least some of their work. The rest hadn't even heard of AI being used in the workplace.
Those who used AI tended to be overall more educated than those who didn't, with a higher percentage having at least a bachelor's degree. Just over half of respondents who said they used AI had a bachelor's degree, while 22 percent had a postgraduate degree. That's compared to 39 percent of those who said they don't use AI having at least a bachelor's degree.
The survey also highlights that AI users tended to be significantly younger and more likely to work in jobs that involved data processing.
While it seems a bit counterintuitive for highly educated people to use AI despite its well-known <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/researchers-ai-chatgpt-hallucinations-terminology">propensity for making stuff up</a>, and failing at <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-researchers-coding-fail">solving coding problems</a>, the breakdown of reasons why those workers use chatbots for work is pretty telling.
Of the survey respondents who said they use AI tools for work, 57 percent told Pew they employ AI to research or find more information about specific topics, 52 percent said they utilize it to edit written content, and 47 percent use it to help them with writing drafts.
Forty percent of regular users said they employ chatbots to summarize information or meetings while 35 percent said they use it for brainstorming. 21 percent said they use AI image and video generators.
Just over a quarter (27 percent) of respondents also said they use chatbots to help them analyze data or write code — another use case that's <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/chatgpt-reliability">becoming increasingly fraught</a>. Recently, OpenAI admitted that even the most advanced AI models were "<a href="https://futurism.com/openai-researchers-coding-fail">unable to solve the majority</a>" of software engineering issues they were tasked with, suggesting plenty of glaring shortcomings with the tech remain.
It's an especially worrying development, considering young coders are starting to rely heavily on the tools, which could greatly <a href="https://futurism.com/young-coders-ai-cant-program">undermine their understanding</a> of how programs actually work.
While we don't have a breakdown of what careers those respondents have or what chatbots they use, the widespread use of AI for writing and coding seems troubling.
And workers have some seriously mixed feelings about using AI for their jobs themselves. Over half of the employed workers detailed in the Pew survey said they were more worried than hopeful about future AI use in the workplace, highlighting significant disillusionment with the tech. Less than a third said they were "excited" about using the tech for their work.
Besides, tech leaders have long warned that AI could soon be coming after their jobs — so who could blame them for being concerned?
More on AI at work: <a href="https://futurism.com/young-coders-ai-cant-program">Young Coders Are Using AI for Everything, Giving "Blank Stares" When Asked How Programs Actually Work</a>

Shifting Norms

This seems pretty counterintuitive.

People With This Level of Education Use AI the Most at Work

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — which has been known to fund the development of sci-fi-sounding ideas like <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/darpa-gigantic-flying-aircraft-carrier">flying aircraft carriers</a> or <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/huge-streetlight-moon">massive streetlights on the Moon</a> — is now seeking public input on its plans to construct massive "bio-mechanical space structures."
As <a href="https://gizmodo.com/darpa-wants-your-ideas-for-large-bio-mechanical-space-structures-2000569496">spotted by Gizmodo</a>, the agency <a href="https://sam.gov/opp/426e5868fcf74dd4ada3768b00b09234/view">filed a Request for Information</a> this week for the eyebrow-raising concept. And while we're still not 100 percent sure exactly what they're going after, it sounds rad as hell.
According to a description of the request, DARPA is looking into the "feasibility" of creating "useful space structures" over 1,600 feet in length that could "disrupt the current state-of-the-art and position biology as a complimentary component of the in-space assembly infrastructure."
Possibilities, according to the document, include "tethers for a space elevator, grid-nets for orbital debris remediation, kilometer-scale interferometers for radio science, new self-assembled wings of a commercial space station for hosting additional payloads, or on-demand production of patch materials to adhere and repair micrometeorite damage."
What DARPA wants to specifically look into are new methods and "technical insights" to create these "large, self-assembled, mechanically stable biological growths in space."
There are plenty of advantages to having larger structures be constructed in space. For one, it's a whole lot cheaper than launching large components and other building materials from the Earth's surface. And beyond welding pieces of metal together, DARPA is peering much further into the future by wanting to harness biological engineering to exploit its "rapid growth properties" — which could one day be done with minimal human intervention.
The agency used a tent as an analogy.
"Given the structural material of the tent poles, biological growth mechanisms are envisioned to be the 'cover' of the tent," the document reads.
In short, it's hard not to see DARPA's vision as a terrifying blob of space gloop — or "filler" — encompassing the necessary "electronics or structural materials." Is the agency trying to leapfrog a near future filled with conventionally built space stations by jumping straight to a hard sci-fi paradigm where space structures are grown through biological means, not built?
It's certainly a pretty out-there concept, as we haven't even reached such a stage on Earth, where we've only started exploring concepts like using <a href="https://exec.mit.edu/s/blog-post/spores-for-sustainability-mycohab-opens-the-world-s-first-structural-mycelium-bu-MCAVKUT77KV5GM7LWYEB6EISZWZU">mycelium as living building materials</a>.
And how long scientists have to work on the idea remains unclear at best. Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is set to <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5161175-pentagon-reform-doge/">plow through the Department of Defense</a>, which could bring about mass layoffs amid other budget cuts.
How lifesaving research into HIV/AIDS vaccines and Ebola, which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/26/elon-musk-ebola-prevention-usaid-doge/">recently landed on DOGE's chopping block</a>, stack up to the importance of DARPA's grand visions of growing structures in space remains to be seen.
In the meantime, DARPA is planning to hold a "sponsored workshop" in April to discuss relevant "future research."
More on DARPA: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/huge-streetlight-moon">DARPA Funding Plan to Build Huge Streetlight on the Moon</a>

Bong Rip Science

"Large, self-assembled, mechanically stable biological growths in space."

DARPA Requests Plans for "Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures"

The cataclysmic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD has fascinated researchers and historians for centuries. Since the early 1700s, engineers have been excavating the remnants of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, flash frozen in mounds of volcanic ash.
And of all the narratives pulled from the rubble, one about a 20 year old man whose brain seemingly melted into glass might be the most mystifying.
A hunk of glass in the Herculaneum man's preserved skull was <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1909867">first uncovered</a> in 2020, coming off the back of research that estimated temperatures in the two doomed cities exceeded 900 degrees Fahrenheit at some points during the cataclysm.
Researchers <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/02/study-hot-vesuvian-ash-cloud-really-did-turn-a-brain-to-glass/">were puzzled</a>, because at that temperature brain matter ought to melt into goo, not solidify into glass. Of the roughly 2,000 bodies exhumed from the Vesuvian ruins, only this one's brain had been preserved this way.
Courtesy of a <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1909867">paper</a> published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, we can even see what this glassified brain looks like.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-344548" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/02/glass_brain-1200x646.jpg" alt="A brain that appears to have transformed into glass during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius." width="1200" height="646" />
This made the question of how this unfortunate soul's head came to hold a hunk of glass something of a flashpoint for archaeologists and scientists studying the volcanic event. A number of hypotheses have come forward, like one that posited the man's brain was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/world/mount-vesuvius-herculaneum-skeletons-scn/index.html">slowly braised</a> like <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/osso-buco-recipe-2013380">osso buco</a>.
Now, a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-88894-5">fresh analysis</a> by a team of researchers at Roma Tre University has found "compelling evidence that these are human brain remains, composed of organic glass formed at high temperatures, a process of preservation never previously documented for human or animal tissue, neither brain or any other kind."
The study is shedding new light on the process which preserved the man's brain for thousands of years, which <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/02/study-hot-vesuvian-ash-cloud-really-did-turn-a-brain-to-glass/">Ars Technica notes</a> is highly unusual.
Researchers posit that the man was indeed flash-fried by a rush of superhot ash as he laid in his bed, which heated his brain to the temperature required to produce molten glass, fragmenting it into chunks. Though most of the brain fragments were badly damaged, some survived total devastation thanks to the unique position of the man's skull and spine at the time of his death — which also explains why he was the only Herculaneumian to win the glass lottery.
As the air returned to an ambient temperature, it cooled rapidly by hundreds of degrees, which is when one of the young man's remaining brain chunks became a solid mass.
From there, what remained of his body was buried by layers of molten ash, rock, and gas that flowed across Herculaneum at lower temps than in Pompei, preserving the poor guy's glass brain for researchers to ogle thousands of years in the future.
It's a fascinating find with huge implications for a variety of fields, from forensic biology to volcanology to Roman history — and, let's face it, a ghoulish curiosity even by the standards of the horrors of Mt. Vesuvius.
More on ancient geology: <a href="https://futurism.com/rover-mars-ancient-beaches-waves-ocean">Rover Discovers Evidence of Giant Ocean on Mars</a>

Grey Magma

Don't worry, he probably didn't feel it.

Scientists Intrigued by Man Whose Brain Turned Into Glass

Microsoft just modified a lawsuit to name four multinational developers who allegedly bypassed safety guardrails and abused Microsoft's AI tools to generate <a href="https://futurism.com/google-nonconsensual-deepfake-porn">deepfaked celebrity porn</a> and other harmful content.
The tech giant announced the update in a <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/02/27/disrupting-cybercrime-abusing-gen-ai/">blog post yesterday</a>, saying that all four developers are members of Storm-2139, a cybercrime network. Being alleged cybercriminals, the named defendants go by nicknames that sound straight out of an early-2000s hacker flick: there's Arian Yadegarnia aka "Fiz" of Iran; Alan Krysiak aka "Drago" of the United Kingdom; Ricky Yuen aka "cg-dot" of Hong Kong; and Phát Phùng Tấn aka "Asakuri" of Vietnam.
In the post, Microsoft breaks the individuals making up Storm-2139 into three tiers: "creators, providers, and users," who together comprise a dark marketplace hinging on the jailbreaking and modification of Microsoft's AI tools to create <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/aoc-bill-deepfake-porn">unlawful</a> or destructive material.
"Creators developed the illicit tools that enabled the abuse of AI-generated services," reads the post, adding that the "providers then modified and supplied these tools to end users often with varying tiers of service and payment."
"Finally," it continues, "users then used these tools to generate violating synthetic content, often centered around celebrities and sexual imagery."
The civil suit was initially filed in December, albeit with all specific defendants listed simply as "John Doe." Now, though, in light of new evidence revealed in Microsoft's investigation into Storm-2139, it's choosing to unmask some of the alleged bad actors embroiled in litigation — others are still unnamed per ongoing investigations, according to the tech giant, though it says that at least two are American — citing future deterrence as motivation for doing so.
"We are pursuing this legal action now against identified defendants," Microsoft declared in the post, "to stop their conduct, to continue to dismantle their illicit operation, and to deter others intent on weaponizing our AI technology."
It's a fascinating show of force by the behemoth that is Microsoft, which understandably doesn't want bad actors abusing its generative AI tools to create obviously terrible content, like nonconsensual fake porn of real people. After all, as far as deterrents go, finding yourself in the legal crosshairs of one of the world's wealthiest and most powerful organizations is pretty high up there.
To that end, according to Microsoft, the legal pressure has already worked to divide Storm-2139. According to Microsoft, the "seizure" of the group's website and "subsequent unsealing of the legal filings in January generated an immediate reaction from actors, in some cases causing group members to turn on and point fingers at one another."
That said, <a href="https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-names-developers-it-sued-for-abusing-its-ai-tools-2000569513">as Gizmodo notes</a>, the decision by Microsoft to throw its heavy legal weight against alleged abusers of its tech also lands in a bit of a gray area in the ongoing debate over AI safety and how companies should seek to limit AI misuse.
Some companies, like Meta, have <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2024/07/open-source-ai-is-the-path-forward/">chosen</a> to make their frontier AI models open-source — a more decentralized approach to AI development, though one that some experts argue could allow bad actors to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/chinese-military-weaponizing-facebook-meta-open-source-ai">quietly harness advanced AI technology</a> out of view or oversight from the public (the AI industry currently pretty much regulates itself, so the concept of "oversight" in the AI industry should generally be taken with a grain of salt, though companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Google do still have to answer to the court of public opinion.)
Microsoft, for its part, has <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/02/26/microsoft-ai-access-principles-responsible-mobile-world-congress/">embraced more of a mixed approach</a>, building some models in public and keeping other models closed off from public view. Regardless of the tech giant's vast resources and <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/responsible-ai">stated commitments</a> to safe and responsible AI, though, criminals have still allegedly found ways to crack through its guardrails and profit from ill use. And as Microsoft, like others, continues down its all-in-on-AI road, it can't exactly count on litigation alone to quell harmful exploitation of its AI tools — especially in such a deregulated environment, where the <a href="https://futurism.com/google-character-ai-children-lawsuit">law itself</a> is still catching up to the complexities of AI harm and abuse.
"While Microsoft and others have established systems designed to prevent misuse of generative AI," <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/02/27/microsoft-identifies-developers-it-says-evaded-ai-guardrails">writes Axios' Ina Fried</a>, "those protections only work when the technological and legal systems can effectively enforce them."
More on AI and harm: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/life-destroyed-ai">Man's Entire Life Destroyed After Downloading AI Software</a>

Et tu, cg-dot?

Microsoft says it wants to "deter others intent on weaponizing our AI technology."

Microsoft Is Suing People Who Did Bad Things With Its AI

Scientists have discovered a wild treatment that they say could protect astronauts from the copious amounts of space radiation they'd be exposed to during trips into deep space.
In an effort to find new ways to protect cancer patients from the many side effects of radiation therapy, a group of researchers found that a protein from tardigrades — tiny, practically indestructible "water bears" that have been <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/water-bears-survive-earth-orbit">known to survive</a> the hostile vacuum of space — may be the answer.
The protein was previously identified as helping tardigrades survive some of the most <a href="https://www.livescience.com/57985-tardigrade-facts.html">extreme conditions on Earth</a> — and yes, even <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/water-bears-in-space/">space</a>.
Now, a team led by Harvard Medical School instructor and MIT visiting scientist Ameya Kirtane used messenger RNA encoding to inject the protein into mice. As detailed in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01360-5">paper</a> published this week in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, the team found that their technique generated sufficient protein to protect the mice's DNA from radiation-induced damage.
The same method, they hope, could eventually be used in human cancer patients.
"Radiation can be very helpful for many tumors, but we also recognize that the side effects can be limiting," MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering Giovanni Traverso in a <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/tiny-tardigrades-protein-may-help-cancer-patients-tolerate-radiation-therapy-0226">statement</a>. "There’s an unmet need with respect to helping patients mitigate the risk of damaging adjacent tissue."
The side effects of radiation treatment can be brutal, from mouth sores to rectal bleeding. Scientists have come up with drugs that reduce this damage, but only to a degree.
In search for a better option, the researchers drew inspiration from tardigrades and their incredible survival ability. A suppressor protein, dubbed Dsup, helps to protect the tardigrades' DNA from radiation-induced damage by binding to it.
According to MIT, this protein allows the tiny creatures to survive doses 2,000 to 3,000 times higher than what humans can tolerate.
By delivering this protein through messenger RNA encoding, the team found that the Dsup protein was expressed successfully in the colon and mouth tissues in mice, two areas that are susceptible to radiation-induced damage in human cancer patients.
"One of the strengths of our approach is that we are using a messenger RNA, which just temporarily expresses the protein, so it’s considered far safer than something like DNA, which may be incorporated into the cells’ genome," Kirtane explained.
Apart from helping cancer patients during radiation therapy, the researchers suggest it could also help patients receiving chemotherapy.
It could even help astronauts from suffering radiation damage, since long voyages through space, such as a trip to Mars, would <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/mars-astronauts-radiation-study">expose future space travelers to dangerous levels</a> of cosmic radiation.
"Another possible application would be to help prevent radiation damage in astronauts in space," MIT enthused in the statement.
More on tardigrades: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-tardigrades-star-systems">Scientists Propose Sending Small Creatures to Neighboring Star Systems</a>

Tardigrade DNA Hacking

Cancer

This is genius.

Scientists Propose Injecting Astronauts With Tardigrade RNA After Finding It Prevents Radiation Damage

We may now be nearing the point where humanoid robots are no longer just clumsy curiosities, but genuine candidates — if not outright replacements — for human jobs.
As the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/humanoid-robot-workers-ai-brain-08027439">Wall Street Journal reports</a>, two bipedal helpers, built by Agility Robotics, are currently moving bins around in a busy warehouse in Georgia. Dropped right into an environment designed for humans, the robots bend over to pick up the containers, then amble over to a nearby conveyor belt to drop them off. Rinse and repeat.
Of course, there's still considerable work to be done; only two of these "Digit" robots are being used at the warehouse, operated by GXO Logistics, and are trusted only with simple tasks. But the industry argues that the robots are spearheading an imminent paradigm shift in automation: because of their human shape and function, such machines have the potential to be far more versatile than the purpose-built bots that have already automated some human jobs, able to slot into existing workplaces.
"Humanoid robots are the first category of robots that can be doing completely different tasks based on the needs of the business or the time of the shift," Adrian Stoch, chief automation officer of GXO, told WSJ. "In the future, we could have Digit unloading a trailer in the morning, picking goods in the afternoon, and loading trucks in the evening."
Companies like Amazon have been <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-warehouse-robots-struggle">experimenting with</a> roaming robotic arms and automated inventory management systems at its numerous warehouses. But these are <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/boston-dynamics-new-robot-stretch">purpose-built bots</a>, performing only a single type of task, often requiring a more tailor-made environment to work in.
In theory, a versatile humanoid wouldn't be deterred by having to navigate stairs, or to grab stuff from a low or high shelf, or to sort through a box. And once they finish their job, the bots could be put to work elsewhere, ensuring that not a single second is wasted. That productivity boost could help offset the daunting costs of adopting the experimental technology — costs that the over a dozen humanoid robotics companies around the world are keeping under wraps, according to the WSJ.
"The challenge for robotics has always been the economics," Jeff Cardenas, CEO of the humanoid robotics startup Apptronik, told the newspaper.
Accelerating the timeline towards laboring humanoids, the robotics push has dovetailed serendipitously with the AI boom, bringing advances in the "brains" that power the machines. This, to AI leaders like Nvidia, is a ripe opportunity to double dip. 
"We believe the enabling technology for autonomous robots is the same technology that's behind all the things we're doing with AI and with large language models," Rev Lebaredian, head of Nvidia Omniverse, the chipmaker's real-world simulation platform, told the WSJ.
More on robotics: <a href="https://futurism.com/1x-humanoid-robot-neo-gamma">You Are Completely Unprepared for What This Humanoid Servant Robot Looks Like</a>

Warehouse Captcha

It begins.

Humanoid Robots Are Starting to Work Human Warehouse Jobs

A woman who had been struggling with homelessness and drug abuse gave birth to a baby daughter in November 2022, and with the help of a friend, arranged for the newborn to be taken to a hospital.
As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/us/unakite-thirteen-hotel-baby-name-nebraska.html">New York Times reports</a>, due to a hazy bureaucratic screwup, the girl was given a truly bizarre name: "Unakite Thirteen Hotel."
According to the girl's father, Jason Kilburn, the name appeared to have had a bizarre origin story.
"I was told it was a computer-generated name," he <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nebraska-father-limbo-change-daughters-name-unakite-thirteen-hotel-rcna193485">told NBC News</a> after contacting the hospital where his daughter was born.
Worse yet, Kilburn — who has since been confirmed be the girl's biological father and was given custody — has tried for years to change his daughter's unusual legal name, which has persisted to this day.
And it's not just her name — Kilburn has struggled to get his daughter a Social Security number since her birth certificate was labeled "for government use only." As a result, Caroline — Unakite Thirteen Hotel's given name — can't get health insurance and child care, among other services, the NYT reports.
Kilburn's lawyer Joshua Livingston blamed a "circuitous, bureaucratic loop" in an interview with NBC.
It's a precarious situation.
"Three or four weeks ago, she was sick," Kilburn told NBC. "She had a fever and she was throwing up, and I had to weigh my options about what I was going to do."
"It really sucks to sit here and watch her suffer when there’s health care out there that I can’t get because of this," he added.
Surprisingly, nonsensical placeholder names are commonplace in the US healthcare system, as the NYT found. The names are usually abandoned quickly once custody is confirmed by a parent or guardian.
Kilburn's lawyer has since voiced optimism that Caroline could finally get her name changed and receive a Social Security number. Media coverage could also help put pressure on the government to jump into action.
The good news is that two-year-old Caroline has been completely oblivious to the bureaucratic nightmare unfolding.
"She’s a joy to be around," Kilburn told NBC News. "She doesn’t show signs of any trauma from any of this."
More on names: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/facial-features-go-with-names">Your Facial Features Gradually Change to Go With Your Name, Researchers Find</a>

What's In a Name?

Developments

Her dad is stuck in a "circuitous, bureaucratic loop."

Hospital Named Abandoned Baby "Unakite Thirteen Hotel"

Perhaps more than anyone else, Elon Musk has a propensity for <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=posting+through+it">posting through it</a> — and it seems that includes his apparent insomnia.
As <a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/elon-musk-and-spiky-intelligence">flagged by</a> politics and sports analyst Nate Silver, a graph <a href="https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/11/21/elon-musks-transformation-in-his-own-words">compiled by The Economist</a> that tracked Musk's tweets from 2014 until November 2024 illustrated in stark detail how frequently the billionaire posts — and, since it's not (yet) possible to tweet while sleeping, how incredibly little sleep he gets.
With tiny red dots, the graph not only charted the Tesla and SpaceX owner's prolific posting output by date, but also by time of day. As his tweeting has become more and more frequent in recent years, so too has his short window of "off" hours when he's presumably slumbering.
Unsurprisingly, those gaps in tweet times also grew shorter and more erratic after he purchased Twitter in the fall of 2022, as the graph makes clear. That was also, <a href="https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/11/21/elon-musks-transformation-in-his-own-words">as The Economist noted</a>, when he began to delve seriously into politics, posting regularly — and at time incoherently — about free speech, immigration, and what he calls the "woke mind virus."
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-344402 size-full" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/02/musk-twitter-usage-economist-e1740621545310.png" alt="" width="450" height="534" />
While the average person tends to sleep approximately when the Sun is down, Musk's hours don't follow conventional patterns. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-spacex-vomit-stress-biography-2023-9">alleged insomniac</a> appears, per the shrinking blank spaces in that Economist tweet chart, to mostly sleep between 3 and 10 am — on that days that he actually stops tweeting and gets to sleep at all.
Those chart gaps seem to jibe with previous remarks the billionaire has made about his sleep habits in years prior, when he was still something of a curiosity in the public imagination and not the trigger-happy government hatchet man he's become today.
Speaking to the "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXS_gkWAIs0">Full Send</a>" podcast back in 2022, for instance, Musk said he's generally asleep by 3 am and usually gets up around 9 or 9:30 in the morning. The next year, he <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/18/elon-musk-sacrificing-sleep-for-productivity-gave-me-brain-pain.html">admitted to CNBC</a> that getting fewer than six hours took a toll on his mental state.
"I’ve tried [to sleep] less, but... even though I’m awake more hours, I get less done," the billionaire said in May 2023. "And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours."
In the years since that admission, it appears that Musk has retreated further and further into that lack of sleep that he admits is bad for him, which according to accounts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-spacex-vomit-stress-biography-2023-9">given to biographer Walter Isaacson</a> were caused by stress and would often lead to intense nausea and vomiting.
Sleep depriviation is no joke. It's been <a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/sleep-human-right-and-its-deprivation-torture/2024-10">employed as torture</a> against prisoners and can lead to severe health problems <a href="https://brain.harvard.edu/hbi_news/why-severe-sleep-deprivation-can-be-lethal/">including death</a>; getting insufficient rest, like Musk, is <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/how-sleep-affects-mental-health-4783067">known to cause</a> a grim combination of brain fog, mood swings, unpredictable behavior, paranoia and even psychotic symptoms — and that's without getting into <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-use-government-security-clearance">Musk's drug allegations</a>.
What's worse, Musk seems to be forcing that unhealthy "<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/tired-tech-workers-lose-27-hours-of-sleep-per-month/">all work and no rest</a>" mentality onto his underling at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He even reportedly <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-musk-aides-lock-government-200344003.html?guccounter=1">moved sofa beds</a> for his DOGE boys into the Office of Personnel Management — the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63897608">same thing he did</a> when he took over Twitter back in 2022.
"DOGE is working 120 hours a week," the <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885966827227861179">unelected official posted</a> at the beginning of February. "Our bureaucratic opponents optimistically work 40 hours a week. That is why they are losing so fast."
Unfortunately, we don't have an updated dot matrix graph like the one from The Economist for Musk's tweets since Trump took office again — but it's clear that he entered this chaotic post-election period in a state of rage-fueled sleep deprivation, and now we're all suffering the consequences.
More on Musk's mindset: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-guiding-principle-cruelty">Elon Musk's Guiding Principle Seems to Be Trying to Inflict as Much Cruelty as Possible</a>

No Sleep Til Washington

Brain fog, mood swings, paranoia... sound familiar?

You Can See When Elon Musk Actually Sleeps by Analyzing His Tweets, and It's Terrifying

As household debt <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/americans-credit-card-debt-problem-2035830">goes through the roof</a> and living paycheck to paycheck <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2025/02/23/americans-loans-emergencies-huge-cost-price/79343017007/">becomes the norm</a>, the crypto evangelist Michael Saylor has some <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/1895325810942411234">financial advice</a> for the poor: "sell a kidney if you must, but keep the Bitcoin."
The blockchain billionaire's free advice comes during a slump in crypto prices, especially Bitcoin, which lost <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/bitcoin-slides-more-than-5-lowest-level-since-november-11-2025-02-28/#:~:text=The%20world's%20largest%20cryptocurrency%20by,crypto%20exchange%20in%20November%202022.">16 percent</a> of its value over the past week. But that hasn't stopped Saylor from hawking the digital currency as a sound strategy to tackle the <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/1894844347058921762">US national debt</a>.
The statement drew plenty of derisive commentary on X-formerly-Twitter, where Saylor posted the advice.
"How about u sell ur yacht, beachfront house and ur MSTR stock to buy more Bitcoin," <a href="https://x.com/SaniExp/status/1895496013806526687">goaded one poster</a>, referring to Saylor's business venture Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy.
It's not the first time the mogul used his platform to boost crypto during a pricing slump.
"Once you know how it all ends," he proclaimed in a <a href="https://travis.vc/michael-saylor-mortgage-your-house-to-buy-bitcoin/">November 2022 interview</a> as Bitcoin plummeted due to the <a href="https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2023/479">FTX crash</a>, "the only use of time is, how do I buy more bitcoin?"
"Take all your money, buy Bitcoin," Saylor advised. "Take all your time, figure out what you can sell to buy Bitcoin. And if you absolutely love the thing, that you don't want to sell, go mortgage your house and buy bitcoin with it."
When the price of Bitcoin dropped about <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/30/bitcoin-drops-to-92-000-as-long-term-holders-keep-taking-profit">14 percent</a> over the month of December 2024, Saylor held the faith, <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/michael-saylor-responds-to-critics-who-call-microstrategy-a-ponzi-scheme-every-time-manhattan-real-estate-goes-up">urging the public</a> to "think of Bitcoin as Manhattan in cyberspace."
"Every time Manhattan real estate goes up in value, they issue more debt to develop more real estate,” <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/1868704730098372625">Saylor said</a> at the time. “That’s why your buildings are so tall in New York City. It’s been going on for 350 years. I would call it an economy."
The crypto whale's confidence isn't too surprising when you consider his company, Strategy, has been hoarding Bitcoin for years.
Strategy currently holds nearly 500,000 Bitcoin, valued at roughly $47 billion, including a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-24/strategy-buys-more-bitcoin-with-proceeds-from-convertible-bonds?sref=YfHlo0rL">$2 billion purchase</a> placed days ago. Saylor himself personally owned over <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/11/19/billionaire-michael-saylors-company-bought-crypto/#:~:text=He%20directly%20owns%2017%2C732%20Bitcoins,than%20its%20enterprise%20software%20business.">$1.5 billion</a> in Bitcoin in late 2024, roughly a fifth of his total net worth.
In other words, Saylor is hardly a disinterested party when it comes to digital currency. But his influence will affect us all; he's also advising the <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/1895134008675311626">House Financial Services Committee</a> on the formation of a "<a href="https://assets.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltdef7a3f3c28ddd84/bltbd460db477d23baf/67659dbf8f5c6e6a7aaf224d/Digital_Assets_Framework.pdf">$16-81 trillion Strategic Bitcoin Reserve</a>," a radical pipe dream for crypto bros, Republican lawmakers, and the White House.
One would hope his <a href="https://saylortracker.com/">personal holdings</a> don't cloud his judgment as he guides aging legislators on digitizing the economy, a move economists warn could be a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/trump-federal-crypto-reserve/">financial disaster</a> for US families. But hey — they can always sell their other kidney.
More on Crypto: <a href="https://futurism.com/crypto-crash-trump-meme-coin">As Crypto Prices Collapse, Trump's Meme Coin Falls to Lowest Value Since Its Launch</a>