Volkswagen shows its first electric GTI; there's no chance of US sales

Volkswagen shows its first electric GTI; there's no chance of US sales

fivenewscrypto    mai 16, 2026   

When Volkswagen introduced the first Golf GTI in Europe in 1976, it might not have been the first hot hatchback, but it quickly became the gold standard version. Unlike in America, where big cars were cheap and fuel even cheaper, small European streets and even smaller car-buying budgets necessitated vehicles a little more economical in both size and fuel consumption. Small, front-wheel-drive hatchbacks were the answer, but they weren't particularly exciting. The GTI changed that perception with a more powerful engine, sharper handling, and subtle styling tweaks, creating a recipe for the next 50 years. And today, VW showed off its first electric GTI.

While the new EV might be inspired by the original Golf GTI, it's one segment smaller than the current Golf—meet the VW ID. Polo GTI. VW has given some of its ID EVs GTX branding until now, but this is the first to get the GTI badge.

Like the 1976 original, the new car has front-wheel drive, but the ID. Polo GTI's electric motor generates 222 hp (166 kW)—just over twice the output of the 1.6 L engine in the old car. There's a 52 kWh battery pack that provides a WLTP range estimate of 236 miles (424 km), with DC fast charging up to 105 kW with a 10–80 percent charge time of 24 minutes.

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Making cement from a different type of rock could clean up emissions

Making cement from a different type of rock could clean up emissions

fivenewscrypto    mai 16, 2026   

Cement production alone currently accounts for about 8 percent of global CO₂ emissions, so considerable effort is going into lowering that number. Efficiency can be increased, and energy sources can be swapped for cleaner ones, but a stubborn reality remains: The byproduct of turning limestone into lime during cement production releases CO₂ gas. These “direct process emissions” are actually slightly larger than the emissions from burning fuel to heat the kilns and drive this process.

A new paper in Communications Sustainability suggests a route to eliminating direct process emissions by removing a bedrock assumption. What if we don’t have to use limestone cement?

Get out of Portland

The material we call “Portland cement” was developed in the 1800s. It simply requires heating limestone (calcium carbonate) and adding something like clay or coal ash. This gives you the calcium oxide (lime) you’re after but also releases the CO₂ that results when you pull an oxygen atom from carbonate.

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Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

fivenewscrypto    mai 16, 2026   

A bill focused on maintaining long-term playable access to online games has passed out of the California Assembly's appropriations committee, setting up a floor vote by the full legislative body. The advancement is a major win for Stop Killing Games' grassroots game preservation movement and comes over the objections of industry lobbyists at the Entertainment Software Association.

California's Protect Our Games Act, as currently written, would require digital game publishers who cut off support for an online game to either provide a full refund to players or offer an updated version of the game "that enables its continued use independent of services controlled by the operator." The act would also require publishers to notify players 60 days before the cessation of "services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game."

As currently amended, the act would not apply to completely free games and games offered "solely for the duration of [a] subscription. Any other game offered for sale in California on or after January 1, 2027, would be subject to the law if it passes.

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Honda shows off new hybrids for America as it absorbs $9 billion EV loss

Honda shows off new hybrids for America as it absorbs $9 billion EV loss

fivenewscrypto    mai 16, 2026   

After US government policies wrecked the country's electric vehicle market, automakers have been scrambling to adapt. The loss of federal clean vehicle tax incentives and funding for charging infrastructure, combined with capricious tariffs, has resulted in a 28 percent drop in EV sales for the first three months of the year.

That's a far cry from just a few years ago, when optimism abounded and a strong commitment to an EV-heavy portfolio translated into a higher share price. As those commitments are abandoned, there's a financial price to pay, including more than $9 billion of write-downs for Honda, which made its first operating loss in the company's history.

Honda's first move was to cancel a trio of EVs it planned to build in Ohio, along with another pair of EVs planned as part of a joint venture with Sony. Yesterday, in Tokyo, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe held a press conference to announce the automaker's plan to rebuild its business in the wake of these changes.

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Casimir force co-opted to generate free energy, midichlorians not included

Casimir force co-opted to generate free energy, midichlorians not included

fivenewscrypto    mai 16, 2026   

This week, a company called Casimir Inc. emerged from “stealth mode” to announce that it had raised significant funding from venture capitalists willing to roll the dice on free energy. That’s right: a startup has gotten serious backing to develop sources of perpetual free energy. The people behind this fantastic new energy generator also brought us the wildly successful WTF thruster EM-drive that could supposedly directly convert electricity into a propulsive force.

(Its one practical application was in the show Salvation, where it was treated with the same detailed attention to physical laws as Galaxy Quest’s Omega-13.)

With that success, who are we to be skeptical?

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Rocket Report: Cowboy up for data centers in LEO; Russia's new ICBM actually works

Rocket Report: Cowboy up for data centers in LEO; Russia's new ICBM actually works

fivenewscrypto    mai 16, 2026   

Welcome to Edition 8.41 of the Rocket Report! The stories of the world's two most powerful rockets are now intertwined. Hardware for NASA's third Space Launch System rocket is coming together at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, while SpaceX is readying its first upgraded Starship Version 3 rocket for liftoff from Starbase, Texas. The readiness of each vehicle, along with Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket and Blue Moon lander, will go a long way toward determining the schedule and content of NASA's Artemis III mission in low-Earth orbit. We discuss those plans in this week's Rocket Report.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

An Indian startup nears its first launch. After the Indian government opened a pathway in 2020 for private industry to build and launch its own rockets, one Indian startup is nearing the pad with its first orbital rocket, Ars reports. The most promising Indian launch company, Skyroot Aerospace, says its Vikram-1 launch vehicle could take flight within the next couple of months. And with a recent $60 million fundraising round valuing the firm at $1.1 billion, the company is poised to accelerate its commercial launch efforts.

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Routine vaccines may cut dementia risk—experts have startling hypothesis on how

Routine vaccines may cut dementia risk—experts have startling hypothesis on how

fivenewscrypto    mai 16, 2026   

More and more routine vaccines are being linked to lower risks of dementia. Shots against seasonal flu, RSV, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap), pneumococcal infections, hepatitis A and B, and typhoid have all been linked to lower risks. And one of the strongest connections is from vaccination against shingles, with more data supporting the link still coming in. But as the evidence mounts, scientists continue to puzzle over the pleasant surprise—how are vaccines that target specific pathogens inadvertently shielding our minds from deterioration?

A burgeoning hypothesis offers a brow-raising possibility: The shots may be protecting our noggins by training the part of our immune system that had long been considered untrainable. If the idea holds up, it could generate a deeper understanding of fundamental aspects of our immune systems while opening new avenues to treating or preventing dementia. It could also add another dimension to the benefits of vaccines, which already save millions of lives worldwide.

Trained immunity

It's well understood how vaccines work generally; they're designed to prime our immune systems against specific pathogens. Vaccines present either defanged pathogens or distinctive fragments of them to specialized immune cells—namely, T cells and antibody-producing B cells—that can then learn to identify those microbial enemies.

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