<h2>Taper Expectations</h2>
Most of us are probably guilty of having unrealistic expectations for how our haircuts should look. Showing your barber a photo of David Beckham, sadly, does not mean you will strut out the shop looking like the iconic soccer champion.
That being said, bringing a photo of a real human to your hair appointment is definitely more practical than what some people are turning to now, according to stylists: AI-generated images.
Dean Allan, the owner of a beauty salon in Edmonton, Alberta <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ai-generated-images-creating-unrealistic-expectations-hairdressers-say-1.7378463">tells the CBC</a> that it's becoming more and more common for clients to instead show him an image generated by a machine learning model.
"Usually it's got a sheen," Allan told the broadcaster. "It's thicker than the average person's hair."
<h2>Cut Below</h2>
The saving grace, Allan said, is that most people are still able to tell that the photos aren't real, at least for now.
But "I think they're just gonna get better," he told the CBC.
The expectations they create, nonetheless, can be very unrealistic in every sense.
With the ultimate goal of spitting out algorithmically perfect-looking images, AI image models make little distinction between fact and fiction, so what you'd see produced by one <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/midjourney-hands">may not be representative of human anatomy</a>. Expecting anime-perfect hair to complement model-perfect facial structure, simply put, is setting yourself up for disappointment.
In the face of this trend, Allan said that barbers should be upfront with customers about their expectations.
"As a hairstylist, you have to stand your ground,"  he said, per the CBC. "And if you do not feel comfortable trying to achieve what that client wants, then you need to step back and say 'you're not going to be happy with what I produce.'"
<h2>Misleading Mirror</h2>
This may seem relatively inconsequential compared to all the horrors that AI models <a href="https://futurism.com/state-department-ai-warning-compute">could</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-datacenters-worse">already do cause</a>, but bear in mind we're just seeing the beginning of the trend.
It's not uncommon for people to use popular AI-powered apps like FaceApp and Facetune <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/i-tried-ai-to-change-my-hair-before-seeing-a-stylist-it-could-save-you-hundreds/">to try out different haircuts</a>. On the web, there are multiple AI tools that purport to do the same thing (just look up "AI hair" in a search engine to see for yourself.)
More broadly in the beauty world, companies like Google and Walmart already offer <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/walmart-app-virtual-fitting">AI features</a> that <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-ai-shopping-clothes-fit-different-bodies/">allow you to virtually try on clothes</a>. While these are undoubtedly convenient tools for some, AI models have been criticized for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2024/ai-bias-beautiful-women-ugly-images/">perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards</a>, so for others, they may be a source of self-torment.
To that, Allan has some advice.
"I would just really honestly say to anyone who is a hairstylist or is going to use any kind of hair inspo — whether it is AI generated or not — it's hair inspiration... that's all it is."
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/woman-furious-ai-tattoo">Woman Furious When Tattoo Artist Admits Her Half-Finished Tattoo Is AI-Generated</a>

Bad AI Day

"Usually it's got a sheen."

Barbers Alarmed When Customers Start Asking for AI-Generated Haircuts

Upon learning she had a breast cancer tumor, a Croatian virologist decided to grow her own viruses to fight the disease — a radical departure from medical norms that appears to have worked.
As the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03647-0">journal Nature reports</a>, the risky self-treatment gambit undertaken by the University of Zagreb's Beata Halassy has sparked a mix of controversy and admiration among her peers.
After learning in 2020 that she'd had a third recurrence of breast cancer following a mastectomy, Halassy researched oncolytic virotherapy (OVT), which as the name suggests uses viruses to fight disease by provoking immune responses. While it's far from unprecedented and has been approved for early-stage metastatic melanoma, there are no government-approved OVT treatments anywhere in the world for breast cancer — which made the entire experiment dubious for Halassy, her doctors and colleagues, and the academic journal that ultimately let her tell her story.
The virologist had a colleague administer a mix of measles typically used in childhood vaccines and a vesicular stomatitis virus, both of which had been known to infect the cell type she was seeking to destroy and provoke the kind of immune response she needed. As the two-month trial progressed, the tumor shrank and detached from her muscles and skin, which made it easier to remove with surgery. When it was biopsied after removal, Halassy and her colleagues discovered that their gamble had paid off.
"An immune response was, for sure, elicited," the virologist said.
This all took place back in 2020, meaning Halassy has now been cancer-free for four years now — but when it came to sharing her results with the world, she had difficulty.
After penning paper proposals about her experience and submitting them to journals, the researcher was met again and again with rejection. Most editors wouldn't touch it, she notes, because they were concerned about the ethics of self-experimentation — and in particular, were worried others less knowledgeable may try to do something similar with catastrophic results.
Indeed, law and medicine researcher Jacob Sherkow of the University of Illinois-Champaign — who was not involved in Halassy's paper — told Nature that journals have to toe the line between highlighting the knowledge gained from controversial self-experiments without promoting them as first-case course of action.
As a specialist who <a href="https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/1684177334">studied self-experimentation methods</a> during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sherkow said that he thinks Halassy's study "does fall within the line of being ethical, but it isn't a slam-dunk case."
Ultimately, Halassy's paper did <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/12/9/958">find a home in the journal Vaccines</a>, which published her "unconventional case study," as its title notes, this past August.
Despite her publication difficulties, the virologist is proud of her experiment and people who brought it to publication.
"It took a brave editor to publish the report," Halassy told Nature.
More on next-gen cancer treatments: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/first-ovarian-cancer-vaccine">Groundbreaking Ovarian Cancer Vaccine at an "Exciting" Moment, Lead Scientist Says</a>

Cancer Craze

Cancer

"An immune response was, for sure, elicited."

Scientist Injects Her Own Cancerous Tumor With Viruses She Grew in Lab

In the year since its <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/23andme-hackers-genetic-data">devastating hack</a>, 23andMe has <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/23andme-almost-worthless">lost virtually all its stock value</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/23andme-board-resigns">most of its governing board</a> — and somehow, things just keep getting worse for the one-time DNA kit wunderkind.
As CEO <a href="https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-details/23andme-announces-business-restructuring-streamline-operations">Anne Wojcicki announced in a press release</a>, 23andMe is not only laying off 40 percent of its remaining workforce — about 200 employees total — but also completely kiboshing its therapeutics program that was seeking to use AI and the company's hoard of genetic information to develop new drugs.
"We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe," the CEO said, "and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships."
As is <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/23andme-founder-optimistic-devaluing">her nature</a>, Wojciki put an optimistic spin on the news that her company is crumbling even worse than before.
"We continue to believe in the promise shown by our clinical and preclinical stage pipeline and will continue to pursue strategic opportunities to continue their development," she said. These "strategic opportunities" may include, per the announcement, licensing or selling the drugs its therapeutics arm has discovered or is developing.
Just a day after the restructuring news dropped, 23andMe also announced in its latest quarterly earnings report that its revenue was down to $44 million in the second quarter of 2024, from $50 million over the same period last year. During its latest <a href="https://investors.23andme.com/static-files/8a61e41f-e2b2-4b2e-82d7-bc74ac2b6c58">filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission</a>, the company noted that without significant capital, there is "substantial doubt" it can stay afloat.
Despite her tendency towards spin, Wojcicki seemed sober when recounting the company's financial difficulties in an investor call this week that referenced the <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/23andme-board-resigns">board's abrupt resignation</a> earlier this year, which led to the company's <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/board-members-resign-en-masse-23andme-nasdaq-me">near-delisting by the NASDAQ</a>, and the subsequent <a href="https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-details/23andme-announces-completion-1-20-reverse-stock-split#:~:text=23andMe%20Announces%20Completion%20of%201%2Dfor%2D20%20Reverse%20Stock%20Split,-October%2016%2C%202024&amp;text=The%20Company%20effected%20the%20reverse,of%20the%20State%20of%20Delaware.">stock-split scheme last month</a> that saved it from going under entirely.
"We have fulfilled our obligations as a public company and regained compliance with the NASDAQ listing standards by reconstituting our board and executing a reverse stock split," the CEO said, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/12/23andme-me-q2-2025-earnings-report.html">per CNBC</a>.
It's a sorry state of affairs for the company that was <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/04/dna-testing-firm-23andme-to-go-public-through-branson-backed-spac.html">valued at $3.5 billion</a> when it went public in 2021 — and unless someone with a lot of money wants to throw some of it into the fire, it's hard to imagine a happy ending now.
More on DNA kits: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/cheek-swab-mortality-epigenetics">Fun New Mouth Swab Will Tell You When You’ll Die</a>

Bad to Worse

Genetics

"We continue to believe in the promise shown by our clinical and preclinical stage pipeline."

As 23andMe Crumbles, It Ceases All Efforts to Develop Drugs Using DNA Data

<h2>Gun Bots</h2>
US Defense Department contractor Allen Control Systems (ACS) has developed an artificial intelligence-powered autonomous robotic gun system called the "Bullfrog," which can target small drones using proprietary computer vision software.
As <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-has-a-cloned-sheep-contraband-problem-montana-mountain-king/">Wired reports</a>, the Defense Department tested out the system during the Technology Readiness Experimentation event earlier this year, which allows contractors like ACS to showcase their prototype technologies to the Pentagon.
Recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W18JC1-Okj4">footage</a> shows the vehicle-mounted gun shooting small drones out of the sky with ease.
And that kind of capability is more relevant than ever as small, uncrewed aircraft are becoming increasingly common on the battlefield.
"During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we saw the proliferation of drones on both sides of the conflict, and we read in various news outlets the Ukrainians were firing AK-47s in the air at them," ACS cofounder and CEO Steve Simoni told Wired. "We thought, ‘That’s a good robotics problem.’ It's hard to hit something flying so fast, but a robot can do that with modern-day computer vision and AI control algorithms."
<h2>Computer Kill</h2>
According to Simoni, the goal was to remove humans from the equation entirely, particularly considering how fast these uncrewed drones can fly.
"We are electrical engineers, and we decided that in order to solve this problem of hitting a fast drone that's accelerating at five Gs at a couple hundred yards, you would need an incredibly high-end current that goes through a motor and encoders that know the position of your gun at all times," he told Wired. "To put that form factor in the hands of someone with an M4 seemed like a very tough problem."
ACS' Bullfrog system is part of a much larger trend. The US military is dabbling in a whole range of remotely controlled and semi-autonomous weapons systems to shoot adversary drones out of the sky. Earlier this year, for instance, the US Army <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/10/01/army-has-sent-armed-robot-dog-middle-east-testing.html">started experimenting</a> with <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/army-robot-dogs-guns-middle-east">rifle-equipped robot dogs</a> at a testing facility in the Middle East.
The contractor claims the Bullfrog is incredibly cheap to use, especially compared to far more complicated and expensive laser or microwave weapons systems.
So far, humans are still required to give the Bullfrog the green light before it can open fire. That's because there are strict policies when it comes to the use of lethal autonomous weapons.
However, ACS is keen to reassure the military that it's technically capable of fully autonomous operation.
"Our system is fully autonomous-capable, we’re just waiting for the government to determine its needs," ACS’s chief strategy officer Brice Cooper told Wired.
But when or if those needs will change remains to be seen. Plenty of thorny ethical questions remain surrounding the use of such autonomous weapons.
"Anything with robotics requires software to make the determination of friend or foe, and that's a concern with anything that's automated," former congressional defense appropriator Mike Clementi told Wired. "The use of fully automated systems would be “uncharted territory. There's always been a person in the loop before."
More on AI and guns: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/army-robot-dogs-guns-middle-east">The US Army Is Testing Killer Robot Dogs With AI</a>

Computer Vision Murder

What could go wrong?

US Military Tests AI-Powered Machine Gun

<h2>Vroom Vroom</h2>
The scientists who <a href="https://urnow.richmond.edu/features/article/-/21734/driving-rats-redux-new-cars-new-capabilities-and-a-netflix-appearance.html?utm_source=news&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=features-story">taught rats to drive itty bitty cars</a> are back at it again — and this time, they have even more insights about how much these rodents enjoy their unusual pastime.
In an <a href="https://theconversation.com/im-a-neuroscientist-who-taught-rats-to-drive-their-joy-suggests-how-anticipating-fun-can-enrich-human-life-239029">essay for The Conversation</a>, University of Richmond neuroscientist Kelly Lambert said that over the course of her experiments <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-rats-drive-tiny-cars">teaching rats how to drive</a>, she and her colleagues learned a lot about rewards and anticipation.
Lambert and her team have for years now been teaching lab rats how to drive as a way of studying the relationship between animal environments, stress, and the development of cognition and new skills. The adorable experiments went so viral, they <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81318943">ended up in a 2022 Netflix documentary</a> — but according to Lambert, that's not the whole story.
During the bleak and lonely period marked by COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, the neuroscientist said that even her driving lab rats seemed to be experiencing emotional isolation. That summer, she recalled, she walked into her lab and "noticed something unusual."
"The three driving-trained rats eagerly ran to the side of the cage," Lambert explained, "jumping up like my dog does when asked if he wants to take a walk."
"Had the rats always done this and I just hadn’t noticed? Were they just eager for a Froot Loop, or anticipating the drive itself?" she queried. "Whatever the case, they appeared to be feeling something positive — perhaps excitement and anticipation."
<h2>White Mercedes</h2>
While rats would never encounter such "rodent-operated vehicles" in the wild, the ones in Lambert's lab didn't just take to the training itself — they actually seemed to be really into it.
"Unexpectedly, we found that the rats had an intense motivation for their driving training, often jumping into the car and revving the 'lever engine' before their vehicle hit the road," she wrote. "Why was that?"
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Rats revving the engine" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1by4qHbTZ74?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Beyond simply enjoying their fruity cereal rewards, Lambert and her team hypothesized that anticipation could be as positive an experience as the prize itself.
The rats trained to wait for positive experiences seemed to have better cognition than their instantly-gratified counterparts in the control group, and when offered the choice between a shorter path to a Fruit Loop via walking or a longer path involving driving the vehicles, two of three of the lab rodents chose to drive — suggesting, Lambert wrote, that they "enjoy both the journey and the rewarding destination."
There's a lesson in these experiments for humans, the neuroscientist concluded: that waiting for positive and pleasurable experiences may end up being as gratifying as the experience itself.
"Rather than pushing buttons for instant rewards," she described, "they remind us that planning, anticipating and enjoying the ride may be key to a healthy brain. "
More on rats: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/rodents-jedi-smell-trick">Rodents May Have a "Jedi" Trick to Supercharge Their Sense of Smell</a>

Rat Race

Bless them.

Scientists Teach Rats to Drive Tiny Cars, Discover That They Love Revving the Engine

<h2>Car-Plane-Go</h2>
China has shown off a reusable shuttle that it intends to use to ferry cargo to and from its Tiangong space station.
As <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-reveals-reusable-cargo-shuttle-160022604.html">Space.com reports</a>, the project — dubbed Haolong — recently won the state-owned Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute a government contract to develop a low-cost space station cargo spacecraft.
The country's human spaceflight agency <a href="https://spacenews.com/china-chooses-2-teams-to-develop-low-cost-space-station-cargo-spacecraft/">selected two proposals</a> last month as part of its efforts to regularly resupply its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/astronauts-tour-china-space-station">three-year-old space station</a>.
And because China is looking to greatly expand its space station in the coming years, the Haolong shuttle could provide the country's space program with an important and financially feasible way to keep it in orbit.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The Haolong Cargo Space Shuttle" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EtMMjdVH2Es?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Haolong Will It Take?</h2>
Not unlike NASA's retired Space Shuttle, the winged spacecraft would launch atop of a rocket and land much like an airplane on a runway. It measures 32 feet long and 26 feet wide.
"With a blunt-nosed fuselage and large, swept-back delta wings, it combines the characteristics of both spacecraft and aircraft, allowing it to be launched into orbit by a carrier rocket and land on an airport runway like a plane," Haolong chief designer Fang Yuangpen explained in a <a href="https://youtu.be/EtMMjdVH2Es">video</a> by state-owned broadcaster CCTV.
According to Space.com, it weighs less than half of China's Tianzhou cargo spacecraft, which it's currently using to resupply its Tiangong space station.
Despite some renders, though, Haolong is still far from taking to the skies as the project's design is still under view.
Meanwhile, US contractor Sierra Space is working on a similar spacecraft called the Dream Chaser. However, the project has seen years of delays and has yet to be launched, despite being publicly announced <a href="https://www.avweb.com/briefs/spacedev-announces-space-program/">over two decades ago</a>. In July, its maiden voyage was <a href="https://earthsky.org/spaceflight/dream-chaser-spaceplane-sierra-space/">delayed</a> from <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/star-wars-spacecraft-dream-chaser-preparing-launch">September of this year</a> to sometime next year.
China is hoping to use the Haolong spacecraft to keep its orbital outpost supplied as it's being expanded from <a href="https://spacenews.com/china-to-send-new-modules-and-co-orbiting-spacecraft-to-tiangong-space-station/">three to six modules</a> in the coming years.
Whether its cargo space plane will be able to leapfrog Sierra Space's Dream Chaser and beat it into orbit, though, remains to be seen.
More on space planes: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/star-wars-spacecraft-dream-chaser-preparing-launch">A Real-Life "Star Wars"-Style Spacecraft Is Preparing for Launch</a>

Jetting Off

Where have we seen this before?

China Shows Off Reusable Space Shuttle

<h2>Hand Me Downs</h2>
NASA's spacesuits, which its astronauts use to venture outside the International Space Station, are really starting to show their age.
In June, NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson was <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/astronaut-water-squirting-suit">alarmed to discover</a> water squirting from her spacesuit and covering her visor with ice, forcing the agency to call off the planned spacewalk. In the same month, NASA <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-cancels-spacewalk-spacesuit-discomfort">called off yet another spacewalk</a> due to a "spacesuit discomfort" issue plaguing NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick.
The space agency's extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), essentially a self-sufficient spacecraft in the shape of a bulky spacesuit, dates back to the early 1980s and hasn't seen any major updates since the late 1990s. The latest design, which was first flown in 1998, <a href="https://www.adastraspace.com/p/nasa-spacesuit-problem">was meant to last 15 years</a>, meaning that the suits currently being used are far beyond their intended shelf life.
"None of our spacesuits are spring chickens, as we would say, and so we will expect to see some hardware issues with repeated use," Dominick, who returned to Earth last month after spending more than half a year on board the ISS, told reporters last week, as <a href="https://www.space.com/space-exploration/international-space-station/nasa-dealing-with-aging-iss-and-spacewalk-hardware-none-of-our-spacesuits-are-spring-chickens">quoted by Space.com</a>.
<h2>Following Suit</h2>
After what Dyson called getting "an arctic blast all over my visor," NASA officials said the issue had been corrected.
Dominick, who was meant to accompany Dyson during the fateful spacewalk, reiterated that during any spacewalk, the stakes are incredibly high.
"It's one of those things that we are always at every second — or every point in a process — ready to stop, or ready to turn in another direction, or work a contingency procedure," Dominick told reporters last week. "And that is exactly what we did."
Meanwhile, the pressure on NASA to introduce a new and updated spacesuit is growing. The space agency <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-partners-with-industry-for-new-spacewalking-moonwalking-services/">chose two private space companies</a> to develop new spacesuits in 2022, which would not only allow astronauts to perform spacewalks outside of the ISS but also walk on the Moon.
One of those companies, Collins Aerospace, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/nasas-commercial-spacesuit-program-just-hit-a-major-snag/">backed out of the deal</a> this past summer. But the other one, Axiom Space, appears to be making steady progress. Last month, the firm <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-new-spacesuit-moon-axiom-space-prada">showed off a suit</a> designed to protect astronauts during NASA's <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-hyped-spacex-starship-test">Artemis 3 mission</a>, the first planned lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972, which is tentatively scheduled for 2026.
But even Axiom Space is facing <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/axiom-space-nasa-private-space-station-trouble">some serious financial trouble</a>. As <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/axiom-space-nasa-private-space-station-trouble">Forbes reported in September</a>, the startup has been struggling to pay the bills and laid off at least a hundred employees.
Even the space station itself is looking worse for wear. Cracks and leaks affecting the Russian segment of the aging International Space Station were deemed a "top safety risk" by NASA's inspector general earlier this year. Officials <a href="https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-roscosmos-disagree-on-cause-and-severity-of-iss-air-leak/">have warned</a> of the "possibility of a catastrophic failure" — a worrying sign that the station's days could soon be numbered years, even before it's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-dragon-practice-destroying-space-station">scheduled to be deorbited</a>.
More on space suits: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/axiom-space-nasa-private-space-station-trouble">The Company NASA's Hired to Build the Next Space Station Seems to Be in Big Trouble, Firing 100 Employees and Unable to Pay Bills</a>

Old Threads

"None of our spacesuits are spring chickens."

NASA Complains That Its Spacesuits Are a Decrepit Mess

<h2>Natural Selection</h2>
The head of the world's <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/satallite-image-neom-saudi-arabia-line-megacity-1899292">largest and most ambitious construction project</a> has stepped down amid jaw-dropping claims about its death toll.
As the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/ceo-of-saudi-arabias-futuristic-city-project-leaves-abruptly-43489eb4">Wall Street Journal reports</a>, Nadhmi al-Nasr, the CEO of Saudi Arabia's futuristic city project Neom — which includes The Line, a planned pair of skycrapers that would be 100 miles in length — has abruptly departed the role he's held since 2018. This exit comes after a <a href="https://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1weekweek-44-2024-sat-26-oct-fri-01-nov/kingdom-uncovered-inside-saudi-arabia?irclickid=RzGygE2QjxyNWwJRv4VrgRZUUkCTZjXlz10-xY0&amp;utm_medium=affiliate&amp;utm_source=planit&amp;utm_id=RzGygE2QjxyNWwJRv4VrgRZUUkCTZjXlz10-xY0&amp;utm_campaign=svodacquisition_planit&amp;utm_marketing_tactic=10078&amp;irgwc=1">new Channel 3 documentary</a> alleged that <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/workers-died-saudi-arabia-neom">more than 21,000 foreign workers had died</a> during its construction, a figure that doesn't even seem to include the number of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/whistleblower-saudi-arabia-kill-villagers-build-105-mile-skyscraper">indigenous people displaced and disappeared</a> during Neom's construction.
Sources familiar with the executive shakeup confirmed to the newspaper that he had left the position in recent days, though it remains unclear why exactly the Neom CEO left and whether it had to do with the recent allegations.
In an email viewed by the WSJ, Neom's board named Aiman al-Mudaifer, a real estate executive with the Saudi kingdom's Public Investment Fund, as al-Nasr's successor. In that email, Neom's governing body said the move was a "strategic decision of the Board and a natural evolution."
<h2>Behind Budget</h2>
While the specter of all those deaths hangs over the project, insiders who spoke to the WSJ said that the Public Investment Fund is now stepping in to take over after <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyrr3mm8evyo">repeated delays</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-neom-dreams-reality-check-budget-cuts-the-line-2024-7">ballooning budgets</a> on the project that seems very difficult to execute.
An experienced builder, al-Nasr oversaw the construction of both a giant oil field for the kingdom's Aramco oil company and a university complex jutting up against the Red Sea.
But the mind-boggling planned scope of Neom — which beyond the 100-mile skyscrapers are also slated to include a <a href="https://www.popsci.com/technology/saudi-arabia-soccer-stadium/">soccer stadium</a> for the kingdom's 2026 World Cup bid, a <a href="https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/11/15/saudi-arabia-is-building-a-futuristic-ski-resort-in-the-middle-of-the-desert">ski resort in the desert</a>, and a <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2022/12/21/oxagon-floating-port-city-neom-saudi-arabia/">floating business district</a> — is far beyond anything on the ex-CEO's résumé.
As the newspaper's sources note, two of Neom's other top executives, a pair of Westerners who were the subjects of a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/the-worlds-biggest-construction-project-is-a-magnet-for-executives-behaving-badly-9accd37b?mod=article_inline">WSJ corruption exposé</a> earlier this year, have also left their positions in recent months. Viewed together, these departures suggest the Saudis are cleaning house — and that the people who died to get there may matter less than the kingdom's bottom line.
More on Saudi Arabia: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/muslim-pilgrims-extreme-heat-hajj">More Than 1,300 Muslim Pilgrims Die From Extreme Heat</a>

Man Down

This career casualty is nothing compared to Neom's death toll. 

CEO in Charge of Saudi Arabia’s 100-Mile Skyscraper Out After Allegations of Mass Employee Death

Doctor out of town? No problem — they can be beamed in as a 3D image.
Crescent Regional Hospital outside Dallas, Texas, has become the first in the country to offer doctor appointments <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/hologram-doctors-help-ease-the-healthcare-worker-shortage-224035909799">with a holographic machine</a>, allowing overworked medical specialists, who often have to visit multiple medical centers in a week and sometimes even a day, to see more patients.
It also comes with the added bonus of turning your typically dreary telehealth visit into something a bit more lifelike and personable — though of course, there's no beating the real thing.
"I can see the three dimensions of the anesthesiologist's head, legs, and torso in lifelike detail," wrote journalist Mark Dent of his holographic doctor experience in an <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/can-holographic-doctors-save-rural-hospitals/">article for Texas Monthly magazine</a>. "Only the background — a white void — reveals she's not with us."
The holographic device is called a Holobox, designed by the Netherlands startup Holoconnect. With the stature of an oversized vending machine, the Holobox more or less functions as an enormous booth that can display a life-sized image of a physician or anyone else calling in.
The holographs are created using a transparent LCD screen, which is practically invisible, housed behind a layer of anti-glare glass. As such, the images aren't being projected into 3D space, but instead create the illusion of three-dimensionality.
It's not quite "Star Wars," but the effect is apparently compelling. Dr. Olayinka Adepitan, the anesthesiologist interviewed by Texas Monthly, called the tech a "game changer." She found that patients were more attentive during her Holobox call-ins than during typical telehealth visits (like over Zoom).
"The longer we talk, the more I forget that in reality Adepitan is at a clinic in Farmers Branch, about thirty miles north," Dent wrote.
As the first hospital to deploy the technology this way, Crescent is currently using the Holobox for pre-surgery and post-surgery consultations. Adepitan told Texas Monthly that it allows her to discharge patients sooner than if she had to wait to drive to the county, a trip she's only scheduled to make twice a week.
Thanks to the tech, Adepitan simply reports to the nearby medical center she normally works at, and sits in front of a camera and white screen to beam herself in remotely. She views patients through a TV monitor, while a local nurse does the work of physically examining the patient.
As Texas Monthly notes, rural areas across the country are chronically short-staffed of medical professionals. Rural Texas has <a href="https://www.torchnet.org/advocacy--rural-hospital-closure.html">suffered dozens of hospital closures</a> in the past decade. Among doctors, there is enthusiasm for telehealth, tech-inflected or otherwise, as one way of relieving the shortage — but some stress that it's not the be-all and end-all.
"We see telehealth as a very important innovation for rural communities," John Henderson, CEO of Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals, told Texas Monthly. "We do not see it as a silver bullet."
It's also not cheap. The Holobox costs Crescent hospital $65,000 upfront, on top of $1,200 a month in maintenance. But the hospital's CEO Raji Kumar, who pushed for the tech, argues that offering holographic appointments may be a way for struggling rural hospitals to retain patients — and therefore make money — who may forego a local medical center since it can't attract top specialists.
More on medical tech: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/neuralink-competitor-blind-vision">Neuralink Competitor Restores Vision in Blind Patients With Eye Implant</a>

Holo There

Developments

"I can see the three dimensions of the anesthesiologist's head, legs, and torso in lifelike detail."

Rural Hospital Installs Holograph Machine So Doctors Can Appear From Elsewhere

<h2>Shadow and Bone</h2>
A team of scientists has found that the narrow beam of a laser, under specific conditions, can cast a shadow — a counterintuitive finding that could open the doors for new applications of optical lasers.
Conventional knowledge presupposes that if two light beams cross, nothing of note happens. But in an experiment, as detailed in a <a href="https://opg.optica.org/optica/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-11-11-1549&amp;id=563468">new paper</a> published in the journal Optica, Brookhaven National Laboratory researcher Raphael Abrahao and his team found something strange: a narrow green laser beam, when shot through a larger blue laser beam inside of a ruby crystal, created a shadow.
"Laser light casting a shadow was previously thought impossible since light usually passes through other light without interacting," said Abrahao in a <a href="https://www.optica.org/about/newsroom/news_releases/2024/november/scientists_discover_laser_light_can_cast_a_shadow/">statement</a>. "Our demonstration of a very counter-intuitive optical effect invites us to reconsider our notion of shadow."
<h2>Throwing Shade</h2>
The concept for the experiment started because of a joke the researchers shared over a meal together.
"What started as a funny discussion over lunch led to a conversation on the physics of lasers and the nonlinear optical response of materials," Abrahao explained. "From there, we decided to conduct an experiment to demonstrate the shadow of a laser beam."
First, the team shot a high-power green laser through a cube-shaped ruby crystal. They then shot a different blue laser through the same material at a perpendicular angle.
Lo and behold, readings from a sensor pointed at the surface the blue laser was illuminating revealed a shadow in the shape of the green laser beam.
In simple terms, the green laser acted more like an object, not a beam of light, creating what by all accounts could be described as a shadow.
The researchers suggest this is because of "optical nonlinear absorption" occurring inside of the ruby cube. The green light increases the absorption of the blue beam, creating a darker region that casts the shadow.
The researchers measured a maximum contrast of around 22 percent, roughly the equivalent of a shadow a tree casts on a sunny day.
"This discovery expands our understanding of light-matter interactions and opens up new possibilities for utilizing light in ways we hadn’t considered before," Abrahao explained.
"This new finding could prove useful in various applications such as optical switching, devices in which light controls the presence of another light, or technologies that require precise control of light transmission, like high-power lasers," he added.
The team is now hoping to demonstrate how a laser beam's intensity can be controlled with the use of another laser, and to explore whether the same effect can be reproduced using other wavelengths and materials.
More on lasers: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-spacecraft-shoots-japanese-moon-lander-laser">NASA Spacecraft Shoots Japanese Moon Lander With Laser</a>