Flesh-eating screwworms spread to third state and are attacking pets

Flesh-eating screwworms spread to third state and are attacking pets

fivenewscrypto    novembre 01, 2026   

For a genuine fright this Halloween, you can turn your gaze to the southern border, where ravenous, flesh-eating maggots are festering and have taken to eating people's pets.

This week, the country's New World Screwworm (NWS) infestation spread to a third state, Arizona, which joins New Mexico and Texas in being plagued by the horrifying parasites. To date, 74 animal cases have been identified in the US since the flies re-invaded the country in June.

The flies lay hundreds of eggs in wounds and moist orifices of animals, and the resulting voracious maggots feast on their victims. The maggots resemble screws and tortuously bore and twist into living flesh, causing severe, sometimes fatal wounds, before dropping to the ground to develop into adults.

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Oh captain, our captain: Ars staff remembers Patrick Stewart

Oh captain, our captain: Ars staff remembers Patrick Stewart

fivenewscrypto    novembre 01, 2026   

Along with the rest of the world, we at Ars are mourning Sir Patrick Stewart—the beloved award-winning actor best known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men franchise—who died Wednesday at the age of 86.

A statement released by Stewart's representatives said:

We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia. He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter, and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all. We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.

Through the actor's X account, the family has requested that, in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be made to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Caregiver Resources.

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Supersonic airliner in doubt as company shifts to powering AI data centers

Supersonic airliner in doubt as company shifts to powering AI data centers

fivenewscrypto    novembre 01, 2026   

Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl recently declared “it’s time for a renaissance in energy and in supersonic flight” as the supersonic airliner company unveiled a Colorado factory dedicated to making gas turbines for AI data centers. But Boom may be facing turbulence after early backers for both ventures have questioned the company’s delivery timeline or backed out entirely.

One of the company’s first customers, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, has expressed doubts about Boom’s original plan to deliver the first Overture supersonic airliner in 2029. Kirby’s latest frank assessment came during an interview with the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast that appeared on October 28, 2026.

“‘29 is their official timeline,” Kirby told podcast host Monica Langley. “It’s not going to happen in ‘29—it’s going to take longer.”

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Anthropic VS code extension on Cursor backdoored for nearly 12 hours

Anthropic VS code extension on Cursor backdoored for nearly 12 hours

fivenewscrypto    novembre 01, 2026   

An official extension for Anthropic’s Claude model was backdoored and threatened as many as 5,000 developers' machines, multiple sources reported Friday. Anthropic so far has yet to warn customers of the incident.

The compromised package was a VS Code extension available in the marketplace of Cursor, a maker of AI-assisted developer tools, the company said Friday. The malicious version, 2.1.313, subsequently affected “at most 5,000 users,” presumably when they either downloaded it or their systems automatically fetched and installed it. Anthropic pushed version 2.1.314 several hours after the previous version became available on Cursor, according to independent researcher Kevin Beaumont. Both Beaumont and the CTO and co-founder of security firm Phorio

n said that version 2.1.313 was distributed through Anthropic’s official account on Cursor. So far, neither Cursor nor Anthropic has explained how the attackers gained control of the account.

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Dartmouth's provost warned us about AI cheating—but his own AI use cost him his job

Dartmouth's provost warned us about AI cheating—but his own AI use cost him his job

fivenewscrypto    novembre 01, 2026   

On August 9, 2026, Dartmouth College provost Santiago Schnell wrote a Washington Post op-ed called "Universities are fighting AI cheating. But there’s a deeper problem." This week, Schnell discovered the depths of the problem himself as he resigned from the university after an advisory committee found that he failed to disclose significant AI use in an academic paper and in the Washington Post op-ed, even though publishers required such disclosure.

Schnell didn't make it especially easy for the committee to investigate his AI use; the report uses the term "insufficient cooperation." He did turn over his Dartmouth laptop, but he did not turn over logs from his personal LLM accounts related to the writings in question. Nor did he agree to meet with the committee.

The committee did get access to the Claude enterprise account Schnell had used through Dartmouth, though. This shows him using the LLM as a tool for revising his papers, finding and fixing bugs in code, and editing or generating figures. For instance, Schnell would run his papers through Claude and ask things like:

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Over 25% of people lie to get antibiotics—and their lies aren't even good

Over 25% of people lie to get antibiotics—and their lies aren't even good

fivenewscrypto    novembre 01, 2026   

A significant number of patients in the US lie to their doctors to get antibiotics they likely don't need, according to two new studies. While that may not be a startling revelation, the studies drills down on the phenomenon, finding that the lies patients tell are generally bad ones—and yet, they work almost all the time.

In the two linked studies published Friday in JAMA Network Open, a team of researchers led by Alistair Thorpe at the University of Utah analyzed online survey data from over 1,000 adults. They found that over a quarter of people reported having lied to a clinician at least once to get an antibiotic prescription for themselves or a child in their care. Patients lied by either exaggerating symptoms, making up symptoms, or—most often—both.

But interestingly, the lies people told to get antibiotics involved making up or exaggerating symptoms of infections that wouldn't be treated with antibiotics. For example, the most common falsehoods were symptoms associated with colds, such as fever, cough, and sore throat. That's despite the fact that colds are caused by viruses, not bacteria—which antibiotics treat.

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Basically no one is using AI agents for their DoorDash orders

Basically no one is using AI agents for their DoorDash orders

fivenewscrypto    novembre 01, 2026   

As AI tools and agents have continued their march across all aspects of digital life, many companies are trying to use LLMs to improve the experience of purchasing goods and services on the Internet. Thus far, though, a vanishingly small number of people seem to be taking advantage of those capabilities, at least when it comes to using the popular food delivery app DoorDash with an outside AI agent.

In a third-quarter earnings call Thursday, DoorDash co-founder and CEO Tony Xu responded to an analyst question by noting that "AI agents are generating several hundred orders [on DoorDash] across the time that they've been up and running." In a marked understatement, Xu called this a "very low use case" for a company that handled just shy of 1 billion orders total in the third quarter of 2026 alone.

Speaking generally, Xu said he sees the potential for AI agents to be genuinely helpful for "long consideration purchases" and major decisions where agents would be "doing work on your behalf proactively in the background." However, Xu added, "when it comes to a task that's as simple as ordering food, we tend to see that come directly to DoorDash."

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