Using a device that vaguely functions like a shock collar, researchers say they have found a promising way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Neuroscientists at the University of Texas at Dallas and Baylor have <a href="https://news.utdallas.edu/health-medicine/study-ptsd-vagus-nerve-stimulation-2025/">developed</a> a tiny chip that, when fitted inside a soft collar and placed just over the vagus nerve — a brain stem cluster that controls bodily functions like heart rate, digestion, immunity, and mood — elicits mild electric impulses that can help ease PTSD symptoms.
The underlying concept behind vagus nerve stimulation, or VNS, is intriguing. Scientists believe that stimulating the nerve can <a href="https://txbdc.utdallas.edu/research/">help one's brain adapt and change</a> on a neurological level. For years now, VNS has been used to treat everything from <a href="https://www.epilepsy.com/treatment/devices/vagus-nerve-stimulation-therapy">epilepsy</a> and <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2990624/">depression</a> to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-02145-7">sleep deprivation</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0079612320301485">tinnitus</a>. Today, there are even <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17598-vagus-nerve-stimulation">handheld VNS devices</a> on the market that allow people to mildly zap their brains at home.
This new experimental treatment, however, diverges from prior VNS applications because it not only involves hyper-targeted nerve stimulation, but also works in tandem with a traditional talk therapy method known as "prolonged exposure therapy" or PET, in which PTSD survivors confront their traumatic memories in hopes of getting past them.
In phase 1 trials, the Texan neurological researchers had nine patients complete a total of 12 sessions involving both vagus nerve stimulation and prolonged exposure therapy. After those sessions concluded, the patients went to four check-ins over a period of six months — and remarkably, all of their PTSD symptoms were gone by the end.
In the school's press release, UT Dallas neuroscience professor and study leader Michael Kilgard said the results were "very promising" — despite a very small sample size.
"In a trial like this, some subjects usually do get better, but rarely do they lose their PTSD diagnosis," Kilgard, who also co-authored a recent paper on the trial for the <a href="https://www.brainstimjrnl.com/article/S1935-861X(25)00060-9/fulltext">journal Brain Stimulation</a>, said. "Typically, the majority will have this diagnosis for the rest of their lives. In this case, we had 100 percent loss of diagnosis."
This advance in PTSD treatment could, according to Baylor clinical psychologist and paper coauthor Mark Powers, completely change the game. A veteran VNS researcher, Powers has seen the technology "dramatically" change his work on psychological trauma — and this latest study drives home how revolutionary it can be.
"Our gold-standard treatments for PTSD have about an 85 percent response rate, with 40 percent no longer having their diagnosis, and a 20 percent dropout rate," the psychologist said. "Soon we could have the option of VNS for people who don’t get better with cognitive behavioral therapy alone."
More on brains: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/authoritarian-brain-scans">Scientists Scanned the Brains of Authoritarians and Found Something Weird</a>

Shock It To Me

Devices

The results of a recent trial were "very promising."

Scientists Say Shock Collar-Like Device Can Treat PTSD

When viewed from space, a very rude glacier in Antarctica was caught stealing ice from its neighbor as it melted.
In a new study <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/1725/2025/">published in the </a><a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/1725/2025/">journal</a><a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/1725/2025/"> The Cryosphere</a>, researchers from England's University of Leeds found that one West Antarctic glacier has been engaging in "ice piracy," essentially bulking up while its neighbors thin due to melting.
Using satellite imagery taken between 2005 and 2022, the environmental researchers were surprised to find that although three glaciers — Kohler East, Pope, and Smith — had begun to thin 51 percent faster per year, their neighbor, the Kohler West, actually slowed down by ten percent.
According to Heather Selley, a Leeds PhD researcher who served as the paper's lead author, these disparate thinning speeds seemed to have strange consequences.
"We think that the observed slowdown on Kohler West Glacier is due to the redirection of ice flow towards its neighbor — Kohler East," she <a href="https://phys.org/news/2025-05-satellites-glacier-committing-ice-piracy.html">explained in a press release</a>. "This is due to the large change in Kohler West's surface slope, likely caused by the vastly different thinning rates on its neighboring glaciers. Because Kohler East's ice stream is flowing and thinning faster as it travels, it absorbs, or 'steals' ice from Kohler West."
Like a child siphoning water from their friend's bucket into their own, this "ice piracy" involves ice being "redirected from one glacier to another, and the accelerating glacier is essentially 'thieving' ice from its slowing neighbor."
While this phenomenon is not unknown to environmental scientists, it used to take hundreds or even thousands of years to occur. Observing it happen over a period of just 18 years was "fascinating," Selley said, but also troubling.
The region of Antarctica where this ice piracy occurred is, as the <a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-1/Antarctic_glacier_caught_stealing_ice_from_neighbour">European Space Agency noted</a>, known for having "the highest recorded rates of thinning."
The faster these glaciers melt, the higher sea levels rise, which can have severe consequences around the world. While scientists are well aware of the dangers of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/bill-nye-world-warning">ever-increasing glacial retreat</a>, this rapid ice piracy effect has seemingly thrown a curveball into their knowledge.
"Our results show that there is substantial [melting] speed-up in this region of Antarctica, which has the highest recorded rates of thinning," Selley said. "Both of these are key indicators of the stability of an ice sheet and therefore have implications for predicting future sea level change."
It's unlikely this ice theft will substantially alter the rate at which the world's glaciers are melting into the ocean and raising sea levels with it. But it's still an unexpected consequence of climate change that science had not, until now, witnessed occurring so quickly.
More on glaciers: <a href="https://futurism.com/glaciers-shrinking-incredible-rate">Glaciers Are Shrinking at an Incredible Rate</a>

Cold Hearted

You wouldn't download a glacier.

Antarctic Glacier Accused of "Ice Piracy"

Some of us look old for our age, while others look younger.
These differences, though, may not just be superficial. Our appearances, youthful or seasoned, could actually be an accurate reflection of what scientists call our "<a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/index-biological-age-test">biological age</a>," a form of measuring someone's age by the health of their body's cells, as opposed to counting their years since birth.
Exploring this, a team of scientists at Mass General Brigham (MGB) have now developed an AI model that they claim can estimate the biological age of cancer patients simply by analyzing photos of their faces, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/well/biological-age-faceage.html">New York Times reports</a>, in what could be a game-changing tool in <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/cancer-vaccines-mrna-future">cancer treatment</a>. 
Huge questions remain, however, about the technology's reliability and its fraught ethical implications.
All the same, the AI, dubbed FaceAge, has led to some intriguing findings. As detailed in a <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(25)00042-1/fulltext">new study</a> published in the journal Lancet Digital Health, the researchers found that participants whose faces were judged to be younger by the AI model tended to do better after cancer treatment than those who were judged to be older.
Overall, the participants who were suffering from cancer appeared to be five years older than their chronological age, while non-sufferers exhibited a biological age closer to their chronological age. With cancer patients, the AI accurately predicted that those with an older biological age were more likely to die.
Doctors could use the tool, the researchers hypothesize, to help determine the best-suited treatment. A spry 75-year-old with a biological age of 65, in an example <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/a-revolutionary-new-algorithm-picks-your-biological-age-from-a-photo">given by Agence France-Presse</a>, could benefit from aggressive radiation therapy. But that course might be too risky for another man with as many years but a higher biological age.
The AI model was trained on nearly 59,000 portraits of adults over 60 taken from public data sets, including sources like IMDB and Wikipedia. Then, to cut its teeth, the researchers had the model estimate the age of the study's roughly 6,200 cancer patients.
One of the most surprising finds was that the AI didn't rely as much on what we typically consider signs of aging, like baldness or wrinkles. It placed more stock in subtler clues like facial muscle tone, per the AFP.
There's still a long way to go before FaceAge is ready to be used by doctors, with plenty of thorny questions that need addressing. The AI was trained on mostly white faces, which could <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/arts/design/black-artists-bias-ai.html">lead to racial biases in its analyses</a>. It also remains to be seen how makeup, plastic surgery, or even just a change in lighting could foil the AI's predictions.
"I'd be very worried about whether this tool works equally well for all populations, for example women, older adults, racial and ethnic minorities, those with various disabilities, pregnant women and the like," Jennifer Miller, co-director of the program for biomedical ethics at Yale University, told the NYT.
And in our age of invasive surveillance and dwindling privacy, having a tool that purportedly unearths some secret facet of your biology by scanning your face can feel like another intrusion on our autonomy. What if insurers use a model like FaceAge to justify denying health coverage?
"It is for sure something that needs attention, to assure that these technologies are used only in the benefit for the patient," study co-lead author Hugo Aerts, director of MGB's AI in Medicine program, told the AFP.
More on medical AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/apple-ai-powered-doctor">Apple Quietly Working on AI Agent to "Replica" a Human Doctor</a>

Face Value

Cancer

An AI could help decide what cancer treatment a patient gets.

Scientists Claim AI Can Tell Cancer Patients Their Odds of Living by Looking At Their Selfies

It's no secret that artifiical intelligence eats kilowatts for breakfast.
Just one <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/01/1084189/making-an-image-with-generative-ai-uses-as-much-energy-as-charging-your-phone/">AI-generated image</a> consumes as much energy as it takes to charge a smartphone. At scale, that energy demand is seriously adding up. With the mass-adoption of the energy-hungry tech, data center power usage in North America surged from 2,688 megawatts in 2022 to 5,341 by 2023, <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117">according to MIT News</a>.
That helped catapult data centers up to the 11th largest electrical consumer on the planet — just behind the energy demands of France. At the current rate of energy consumption, the data centers powering AI are projected to become the fifth largest energy consumer by 2026.
With this in mind, it's probably no surprise that Google is looking to build not just one, but three new nuclear power plants to fuel its AI data centers.
The nuclear developer Elementl Power <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elementl-power-and-google-sign-strategic-agreement-to-develop-locations-for-advanced-nuclear-projects-302447957.html">just announced</a> a signed agreement with Google to erect three project sites for "advanced nuclear energy."
"Our collaboration with Elementl Power enhances our ability to move at the speed required to meet this moment of AI and American innovation," said Amanda Peterson Corio, Google's head of data center energy.
The announcement doesn't say where the nuclear sites will be located, only that Google has committed "early-stage development capital to advance the development of three projects." The tech corporation's funding will be used to secure permits, energy transmission rights, and hire contractors, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/07/google-agrees-to-fund-the-development-of-three-new-nuclear-sites.html">according to CNBC</a>.
Once all the particulars are in place, each project will open for a final round of fundraising to get the things built — something Elementl has yet to actually do.
It's not the only nuclear project Google has its sights on. Last year, the corporation <a href="https://kairospower.com/external_updates/google-and-kairos-power-partner-to-deploy-500-mw-of-clean-electricity-generation/">inked a deal</a> with nuclear energy provider Kairos Power to "deploy a US fleet of advanced nuclear power projects totaling 500 [megawatts] by 2035."
At the time, Kairos said those sites will be located "in relevant service territories to supply clean energy to Google data centers, with the first deployment by 2030."
Google could certainly use the boost. By July 2024, Google's greenhouse gas emissions had risen by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/g-s1-9545/ai-brings-soaring-emissions-for-google-and-microsoft-a-major-contributor-to-climate-change">48 percent</a> over five years, fueled by its frenzied adoption of AI. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, Google's water usage grew by <a href="https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-emissions-jump-48-in-five-years-due-to-ai-data-center-boom/">17 percent</a> thanks to the "expansion of AI products and services [which] is leading to an increase in data center workloads and the associated water footprint required to cool them efficiently."
Whether the corporation needs to be using all that energy is a different question. Though Google would have us believe this is necessary to advance to the AI age, we've seen <a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/reality-check/">little concrete evidence</a> that burning all this power — not to mention money — is worth the trouble.
So far, Google's AI has strangled the internet as we know it with <a href="https://futurism.com/google-image-corn-ai-slop">garbled slop images</a>, threatened users <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ai-chatbot-threatening-message-human-please-die/">with death</a>, and inundated its search engine with a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-ai-overviews-meaning/">hilariously flawed</a> AI assistant. Worse yet, none of this AI adoption is organic.
Google justifies its energy spend by <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2025/01/google-gemini-ai-workspace-default-opt-in.html">silently forcing</a> users of its products to use its proprietary AI, Gemini, while deliberately making its <a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/">search engine worse</a> — a cycle which reinforces the idea that the masses are on board with AI, while simultaneously destroying any alternative to it.
Whether Google will follow through with its nuclear-powered AI data centers remains to be seen.
It's probably not a good sign that Google's tech rival, Microsoft, is tearing up <a href="https://futurism.com/microsoft-huge-data-center-investments-tariffs">data center contracts</a> en masse after striking a deal to restart the nuclear reactor at <a href="https://www.fanaticalfuturist.com/2025/01/microsoft-will-restart-dormant-three-mile-island-nuclear-reactor-to-power-ai-datacenters/">Three Mile Island</a> — but hey, someone's gotta <a href="https://futurism.com/internet-polluted-ai-slop">stir the slop</a>.
More on AI data centers: <a href="https://futurism.com/microsoft-ceo-hesitation-ai-expensive-data-centers">Microsoft Backing Out of Expensive New Data Centers After Its CEO Expressed Doubt About AI Value</a>

Nuke It

Google needs its juice.

Google is Building Three New Nuclear Plants for Its Extremely Power-Hungry AI

Talk to a teacher lately, and you'll probably get an earful about AI's effects on student attention spans, reading comprehension, and cheating.
As AI becomes ubiquitous in everyday life — thanks to tech companies <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/11/12/nx-s1-5171322/googles-ai-overview-has-no-opt-out-thats-making-some-people-unhappy">forcing it down our throats</a> — it's probably no shocker that students are using software like ChatGPT at a nearly unprecedented scale. One study by the <a href="https://campustechnology.com/articles/2024/08/28/survey-86-of-students-already-use-ai-in-their-studies.aspx">Digital Education Council</a> found that nearly 86 percent of university students use some type of AI in their work.
That's causing some fed-up teachers to fight fire with fire, using AI chatbots to score their students' work. As one teacher mused <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/1g65j0s/comment/lskclyd/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">on Reddit</a>: "You are welcome to use AI. Just let me know. If you do, the AI will also grade you. You don't write it, I don't read it."
Others are embracing AI with a smile, using it to "tailor math problems to each student," in one example <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/teachers-are-using-ai-to-grade-papers-while-banning-students-from-it/">listed by Vice</a>. Some go so far as requiring students to use AI. One professor in Ithaca, NY, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/06/tech/teachers-grading-ai/index.html">shares both</a> ChatGPT's comments on student essays as well as her own, and asks her students to run their essays through AI on their own.
While AI might save educators some time and precious brainpower — which arguably make up the bulk of the gig — the tech isn't even close to cut out for the job, according to researchers at the University of Georgia. While we should probably all know it's a bad idea to grade papers with AI, a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10758-025-09836-8">new study</a> by the School of Computing at UG gathered data on just how bad it is.
The research tasked the Large Language Model (LLM) Mixtral with grading written responses to middle school homework. Rather than feeding the LLM a human-created rubric, as is <a href="https://news.uga.edu/ai-may-help-speed-up-grading/">usually done</a> in these studies, the UG team tasked Mixtral with creating its own grading system. The results were abysmal.
Compared to a human grader, the LLM accurately graded student work just 33.5 percent of the time. Even when supplied with a human rubric, the model had an accuracy rate of just over 50 percent.
Though the LLM "graded" quickly, its scores were frequently based on flawed logic inherent to LLMs.
"While LLMs can adapt quickly to scoring tasks, they often resort to shortcuts, bypassing deeper logical reasoning expected in human grading," wrote the researchers.
"Students could mention a temperature increase, and the large language model interprets that all students understand the particles are moving faster when temperatures rise," said Xiaoming Zhai, one of the UG researchers. "But based upon the student writing, as a human, we’re not able to infer whether the students know whether the particles will move faster or not."
Though the UG researchers wrote that "incorporating high-quality analytical rubrics designed to reflect human grading logic can mitigate [the] gap and enhance LLMs’ scoring accuracy," a boost from 33.5 to 50 percent accuracy is laughable. Remember, this is the technology that's supposed to bring about a "<a href="https://medium.com/the-modern-scientist/aicene-a-new-epoch-in-human-history-9793f443d2d9">new epoch</a>" — a technology we've poured <a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/reality-check/">more seed money into</a> than any in human history.
If there were a 50 percent chance your car would fail catastrophically on the highway, none of us would be driving. So why is it okay for teachers to take the same gamble with students?
It's just further confirmation that AI is no substitute for a living, breathing teacher, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon. In fact, there's mounting evidence that AI's comprehension abilities are getting worse as time goes on and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/technology/ai-data-restrictions.html">original data</a> becomes scarce. Recent reporting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/technology/ai-hallucinations-chatgpt-google.html">by the New York Times</a> found that the latest generation of AI models hallucinate as much as 79 percent of the time — way up from past numbers.
When teachers choose to embrace AI, this is the technology they're shoving off onto their kids: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-industry-problem-smarter-hallucinating">notoriously inaccurate</a>, <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/timeless-in-texas/2025/02/16/ai-not-ready-for-prime-time-legal-questions-yield-questionable-answers/">overly eager to please</a>, and prone to <a href="https://futurism.com/sophisticated-ai-likely-lie">spewing outright lies</a>. That's before we even get into the <a href="https://futurism.com/cognitive-decay-ai">cognitive decline</a> that comes with regular AI use. If this is the answer to the AI cheating crisis, then maybe it'd make more sense to cut out the middle man: close the schools and let the kids go one-on-one with their artificial buddies.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-work-education-level">People With This Level of Education Use AI the Most at Work</a>

School's Out

The results are dismal.

Teachers Using AI to Grade Their Students' Work Sends a Clear Message: They Don't Matter, and Will Soon Be Obsolete

China is outpacing the world in <a href="https://futurism.com/china-robot-army-tariffs">robotics production</a>, building <a href="https://futurism.com/china-thorium-nuclear-power">safer alternatives</a> to uranium reactors, and flooding the globe with <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-byd-electric-vehicle-charge-five-minutes">high-tech electric vehicles</a> — to name just a few of the rising superpower's achievements.
But the country is also innovating on the military front — a domain usually thought to be <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2023/02/back-from-the-future-stop-saying-the-military-has-an-innovation-problem/">dominated</a> by the United States.
Researchers at the 38th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation recently announced the successful development of a handheld device they say can detect cloaked stealth fighters.
The new bit of kit blends civilian telecoms tech with military-grade radar sensitivities according to the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3308941/chinese-civilian-handheld-device-can-compromise-us-stealth-radar-study-says?module=top_story&amp;pgtype=subsection">South China Morning Post</a>, a Hong Kong-based newspaper. The researchers claim that it can detect stealth signals at a rate of "100 percent."
Here's how it works: US stealth vehicles use a system called low-probability-of-intercept radar (LPIR) to operate virtually undetected. LPIR makes military hardware nearly untraceable by employing several methods, including spamming a bevvy of super-weak radio signals across a wide range of frequencies, modulating rapidly.
This device, the researchers claim, can crack these quickly-changing signals with "ultra sensitivity, extremely fast speed," and across a wide range of frequencies from "5kHz to 44 GHz," per the SCMP. Even through <a href="https://jemengineering.com/blog-an-introduction-to-jammers/">electronic jamming</a> — when a detection device is bombarded with noisy, high-power signals — the tablet can locate LPIR devices with an error margin of 0.4 to 0.5 inches, according to the researchers.
If it's as effective in real life as it was in testing, it could signal a pivotal point in the US-China arms race. The US uses LPIR on a huge range of equipment, from stealth bombers and unmanned drones to nuclear submarines.
As essentially a repurposed tablet you could buy from a wholesaler, the gadget is blisteringly cheap compared to highly specialized military hardware.
The handheld device used to build the stealth-detector rings in at less than $68,600 online, meaning the Chinese military could very easily roll these out to its troops en masse, potentially lowering the threat of a first strike. Meanwhile, the hardware it's meant to detect — like the <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-air-forces-b-2-bomber-costs-2000000000-210161">B-2 stealth bomber</a> — can cost as much as $2 billion to produce.
However, that's presupposing that it actually works and lives up to the researchers' claims. There's also the chance that the US military, or one of its many <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/outsourcing-the-pentagon/">tech contractors</a>, could find a new solution to avoid being detected.
Though the device seemingly has no offensive application, it could be a major defensive tool as the US military under Trump maintains a <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3303465/dont-expect-us-scale-back-its-asia-pacific-military-presence-analysts-say">large presence</a> around China.
More on military tech: <a href="https://futurism.com/pentagon-signs-deal-deploy-ai-agents-military-use">Pentagon Signs Deal to "Deploy AI Agents for Military Use"</a>

I Spy With My Little Eye

Here's how it works.

China Unveils Strange Device to Find Invisible Objects

Though armed conflict is becoming <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1900/RR1904/RAND_RR1904.pdf">increasingly rare</a> as the decades go by, global military spending is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/30/world/world-military-spending-report-sipri-intl-hnk-ml/index.html">rising sharply</a> with each passing year, reaching <a href="https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2025/unprecedented-rise-global-military-expenditure-european-and-middle-east-spending-surges">unprecedented numbers</a> in the history of warfare.
Much of that spending is fueled by the rise of the military tech industry. Between 2021 and 2023, venture capital firms pumped $100 billion into <a href="https://home.watson.brown.edu/research/research-briefs/transforming-military-industrial-complex">military tech startups</a> in the US alone, hoping to snag lucrative contracts for everything from high-powered <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/29/move-fast-kill-things-the-tech-startups-trying-to-reinvent-defence-with-silicon-valley-values">counter-UAV systems</a> to deadly <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/anduril-is-building-out-the-pentagons-dream-of-deadly-drone-swarms/">drone swarms</a>.
With so many startups and defense conglomerates pitching all kinds of buzzy hardware, it's getting pretty difficult to predict what the future of warfare is going to look like.
That isn't stopping countries like France from taking a guess, however. General Bruno Baratz, commander of future combat programs for the French Army, <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/french-army-hopes-for-combat-ready-robots-by-2040">recently announced</a> the country's intent to deploy robot warriors to the front lines as soon as 2028.
"We hope to have something fairly evolved within three years, with the first ground robot capabilities ready to equip our forces," Baratz said at a military robotics exercise near Paris.
Baratz added that the French government anticipates "deploying evolved systems with practical utility to our combat elements well ahead of 2040," referencing a target date for robot deployment set back in 2021. That decision was part of a call by French military leaders to prepare for "<a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2021/12/france-wants-to-transform-its-beautiful-army-for-high-intensity-warfare/">high-intensity warfare</a>" by upgrading equipment, increasing army reserves, outsourcing to private contractors, and investing in high-tech drone and robotics programs.
At the military robotics trials, <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/french-army-hopes-for-combat-ready-robots-by-2040-5b970224">Barrons reports</a> that unmanned units sporting legs, treads, and wheels navigated obstacles and dodged traps meant to emulate battlefield conditions. The French army anticipates <a href="https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/dga-launches-droide-program-to-accelerate-deployment-of-ground-robots-in-french-army">deploying the robo-units</a> for a range of tasks, from surveillance to remote repair work to mine clearing.
"Now we need to prove [the robots] can be more effective when they come into contact with an adversary," said French general Tony Maffeis, head of the army's technical branch. "The robot must facilitate combat, not hold it back."
Though France points to the Russian-Ukraine war as a reason to embrace high-tech hardware, president Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250220-macron-says-france-wont-send-troops-ukraine-tomorrow-security-guarantees-trump-putin">recently affirmed</a> that France would not be sending troops to the conflict — raising the important question of what, exactly, its robot army will be used for.
The European superpower is currently withdrawing troops from deployments in formerly colonized African countries like <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250130-france-hands-over-last-base-in-chad-amid-withdrawal">Chad</a>, <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2018/05/french-quick-reaction-force-key-to-syrian-missile-strikes/">Niger</a>, and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/burkina-faso-marks-official-end-french-military-operations-its-soil-2023-02-19/">Burkina Faso</a>, which some critics warn is a smokescreen for France to return to the kinds of <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/11/a-new-military-strategy-of-french-neo-colonialism-in-africa-reorganizing-under-the-cover-retreat/">covert schemes</a> its military has come to be known for across the continent.
France has previously employed tactics like <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/1/31/with-frances-military-influence-in-africa-gone-can-it-rely-on-soft-power">economic warfare</a> in Guinea, <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2017/05/27/french-soldiers-operating-drones-in-central-african-republic-from-paris/">drone espionage</a> in the Central African Republic, and <a href="https://www.stabroeknews.com/2024/12/03/news/guyana/france-offers-military-technology-other-resources-to-gdf/">high-tech arms transfers</a> to the oil-rich nation of Guyana, to name a few.
It's anyone's guess how France will deploy its cutting-edge military tech going forward, but it's hard to imagine it'll be sitting in a warehouse gathering dust.
More on military robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/pentagon-plan-killer-robots">Senior Pentagon Official: New Plan Is to Invest in "Autonomous Killer Robots"</a>

Je, Robot

Paging Dr. Asimov.

France Wants to Roll Out Robot Army by 2040

We know from <a href="https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3294273/chinas-solar-farms-spread-new-regions-amid-green-energy-push">international reporting</a> and <a href="https://jpia.princeton.edu/news/trade-supply-chain-investments-china%E2%80%99s-three-roles-solar-surge-gulf-region#:~:text=Since%202011%2C%20China%20has%20invested,China%20during%20the%20past%20decade">economic analysis</a> that China has become a world leader in solar power. The country has pivoted hard to <a href="https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/a-race-to-the-top-china-2023-chinas-quest-for-energy-security-drives-wind-and-solar-development/">renewable energy</a> in recent years and now has a near-monopoly on global solar energy and panel production.
A video circulating recently on social media highlights the sheer scale of the operation, showing an entire mountain range in the Guizhou province of China blanketed in solar panels. The drone footage reveals a virtual sea of solar panels and access roads stretching as far as the eye can see.
<blockquote class="reddit-embed-bq" style="height:500px" ><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1kidn4f/china_carpeted_an_extensive_mountain_range_with/">China carpeted an extensive mountain range with solar panels in the hinterland of Guizhou (video ended only when the drone is low on battery</a> by<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/uniyk/">u/uniyk</a> in<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/">Damnthatsinteresting</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://embed.reddit.com/widgets.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>
Thanks to its high altitude and moody climate, the mountainous province makes a poor location for <a href="https://www.atlantis-press.com/journals/jracr/125932623/view">industrial agricultural</a>. But those disadvantages also make the province a <a href="https://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0102/c98649-20117313.html">prime location</a> for solar installations — something the region has embraced in recent decades.
<a href="http://guizhou.chinadaily.com.cn/2021-09/06/c_659882.htm">Per China Daily</a>, the provinces' first solar installation went online in 2015, but it was slow going as the nation set about achieving its ambitious renewable energy goals. By 2018, Guizhou was generating about 1.75 million kilowatts in solar energy per year, enough for around 1300 households (for context, the <a href="https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(24)06161-9">average Chinese household</a> used 1332 kilowatt hours per year in 2024).
By 2020, Guizhou reportedly reached over 10 million kilowatts in solar capacity, fueled by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/business/china-sets-2019-subsidies-for-large-scale-solar-power-projects-at-248-million-idUSKCN1U617F/">government subsidies</a>, cheap bank loans for renewable energy companies, and cheap real estate in the province. By 2023, that number reached <a href="https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202307/11/WS64ad08bca31035260b815c7d.html">15 million kilowatts</a> — and it doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
The Chinese government had <a href="https://www.wri.org/news/statement-china-commits-stronger-climate-targets-climate-ambition-summit">previously promised</a> in 2020 to triple its renewable energy output by 2030. It was an ambitious goal, especially as China was the <a href="https://globalenergymonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/China-Dominates-2020-Coal-Development.pdf">world-leader</a> in coal energy production, a major source of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/business/energy-environment/china-coal-natural-gas.html">tension</a> for China hawks in the West.
As of 2024, China was responsible for 64 percent of the world's utility-scale solar and wind construction, with <a href="https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-lead-the-world-in-wind-and-solar-with-twice-as-much-capacity-under-construction-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/">339 gigawatt hours</a> of renewable energy infrastructure under construction. The next four producers, by comparison — the US, Brazil, the UK, and Spain — had a combined total of 72 gigawatt hours of renewable capacity under construction.
If solar infrastructure continues to grow at its current pace, Beijing could hit its renewable energy target as early as <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-renewable-energy">this year</a>.
Still, China has a long way to go in its long marathon toward <a href="https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/index.html">carbon neutrality</a>, something President Xi hopes to hit before 2060. Though national <a href="https://thecoalhub.com/coal-in-chinas-energy-mix-drops-to-57-in-2020.html">coal consumption</a> continues to decline ahead of schedule, coal power currently makes up nearly 57 percent of China's electrical output.
That said, the country still smokes <a href="https://www.irena.org/Data/View-data-by-topic/Capacity-and-Generation/Country-Rankings">every other nation</a> in solar energy capacity — proof that projects like the one in Guizhou are more than just clickbait for excited Redditors.
More on China: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-change-name-full-self-driving-china">Tesla Forced to Change Name of "Full Self-Driving" in China, Since Its Cars Can't Fully Drive Themselves</a>

Sunny Side Up

This is nuts.

Wild Video Shows Entire Mountain Range in China Covered With Solar Panels

"Make America Healthy Again" diehards are fuming about president Donald Trump's pick for surgeon general, Casey Means — and it's for a brain-meltingly stupid reason.
It's not because Means, a self-styled "<a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/194997/trump-surgeon-general-wellness-influencer-casey-means">wellness influencer</a>," doesn't have an active medical license, never finished her surgical residency, or is an advocate of unproven "alternative" medicines and other pseudoscientific claims. Nor is it because she has previously <a href="https://x.com/lizchar/status/1920234954882986235">suggested</a> there's a link between vaccines and autism, or talked to trees and engaged in moon rituals <a href="https://x.com/patdennis/status/1920226926930588023">to find love</a>.
It's because Means — who <a href="https://x.com/CaseyMeansMD/status/1852407731983884309">once said</a> that vaccine mandates are "criminal" — isn't going far enough as an anti-vaxxer, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/casey-means-surgeon-general-trump-rfk-controlled-opposition-vaccine/">Wired reports</a>.
After Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114468502752133916">announced</a> Wednesday on Truth Social his new pick for the job as the country's leading doctor, prominent voices in the health-conspiracy-addled cohort of the MAGA movement let the world know that they weren't happy with Means, citing disqualifying skeletons in her closet, such as allegedly getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
"The new Trump nominee for US Surgeon General took the COVID JAB, so how can she be a representative for MAHA?" <a href="https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1920584646292877482">tweeted</a> Laura Loomer, a relentless culture warrior and conspiracy theorist, on Thursday. "How can you be MAHA when the original MAHA movement was created by parents of vaccine injured children, and then reignited by people who were anti-COVID vaccine?"
"She's not a health freedom advocate," echoed notorious anti-vaxxer Mike Adams <a href="https://x.com/HealthRanger/status/1920263718736163076">in a tweet</a> on Wednesday. "She's not a vaccine truther. She'll never recommend natural cancer cures or remedies. She's basically cosplaying as a MAHA champion. In reality, she is an establishment pick, and she'll push the establishment narrative. 100 percent guaranteed. Count on it."
The backlash illustrates how highly strung the MAHA movement is right now. Many of its professed followers are still reeling from the betrayal by their hero and current secretary of health and human services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. To them, he turned coat by doing the bare minimum of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5354900/hhs-rfk-endorses-mmr-measles-vaccine-stoking-supporters-fury">recommending the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine</a> to curb <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/07/health/measles-cases-one-thousand-us">one of the worst measles outbreaks</a> in the country in a quarter century.
It's also a perfect encapsulation of just how extreme the movement's views can get. As mentioned above, Means has expressed plenty of classic anti-vaccine beliefs, and has support within the MAHA movement, including from the big man himself.
"Casey has impeccable 'MAHA' credentials, and will work closely with our wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to ensure a successful implementation of our Agenda in order to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans," Trump wrote in his post.
But that's the thing about predicating a movement on extreme beliefs and conspiratorial thinking: it'll never be extreme enough.
For saner voices, there's a pretty clear-cut reason why Means shouldn't get the job, even discounting her wacky beliefs, and that's her lapsed medical license.
"A medical license requires that the individual maintains her medical knowledge through mandatory continuing medical education," Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5392389/casey-means-trumps-surgeon-general">told NPR</a>. "She is not licensed and therefore should be ineligible to become surgeon general of the United States."
More on the Trump administration: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-children-toxic-chemicals">Trump Admin Cancels Programs to Protect Children From Toxic Chemicals</a>

Dumb and Dumber

Developments

Really sums it all up, huh?

MAHA Are Losing Their Mind At Trump's Pick for Surgeon General for the Stupidest Reason Possible

In 2021, Facebook said it was scrapping efforts to build powerful facial recognition software into its then-nascent smart glasses, citing the tech's glaring privacy and ethics concerns.
Four years later, <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meta-renews-work-facial-recognition-tech-privacy-worries-fade?rc=st1fhw">as The Information</a> reports, the Silicon Valley behemoth has officially dusted off the effort and is once again working on transforming its wearable smart glasses into a facial recognition-infused privacy nightmare.
Meta is working on a feature internally referred to as "super sensing." In super sensing mode, the glasses' built-in cameras and sensors will remain on and recording throughout the wearer's day. It's still probably a way's off due to battery life limitations, but in Meta's imagining, it'll one day be able to do things like remind someone to drop by the store and get dinner ingredients or nudge them to grab their keys. (Because, of course, every Silicon Valley CEO really just wants to build <a href="https://ironman.fandom.com/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S.">J.A.R.V.I.S.</a> from the "Iron Man" franchise.)
However, the super sensing feature would also combine AI with facial recognition, according to the Information — a design choice that could have far-reaching and deeply alarming implications.
Infusing facial recognition and AI into smart glasses could help you look up the LinkedIn heads you ran into at a networking event, or keep track of your roommates or family. Which — while annoying and creepy — are arguably a bit more mundane in the grand scheme of facial recognition applications.
But the nightmare scenarios are endless. A wearer could dox strangers on the street; a creep in a bar could look up the name and personal information of a woman who may or may not have wanted to talk to him; undercover law enforcement officials could go to a peaceful protest and keep a careful record of attendees.
It's not exactly hard to come up with ways this could go wrong, fast — and yet Meta, it seems, has decided to push forward.
According to the report, Meta's renewed facial recognition efforts are due in part to a more <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-private-data-deportation">surveillance-friendly political climate</a> where privacy concerns are increasingly taking a backseat in corporate and federal government decision-making.
"The pendulum swings from one side to the other," Rob Leathern, a privacy expert and former product manager at Facebook and Google, told The Information. "We're kind of on that swing where some of the things that companies like Google talked about two, three, four years ago aren’t necessarily being seen as quite as important."
More on Meta's smart glasses and facial recognition: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/smart-glasses-hack-personal-data">Terrifying Smart Glasses Hack Can Pull Up Personal Info of Nearby Strangers in Seconds</a>