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  • ICC T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier: Joe Burns tells Italy’s cricketers to ‘create a legacy’ and reach first World Cup

    ICC T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier: Joe Burns tells Italy’s cricketers to ‘create a legacy’ and reach first World Cup

    Joe Burns says Italy’s cricketers have the chance to “create a legacy” as he attempts to guide the European nation to their first ever World Cup.

    Opening batter Burns, 35, made four centuries in 23 Tests for Australia between 2014 and 2020 but made himself available to play for Italy last year, qualifying through his grandparents.

    He has since been appointed captain of Italy, who will battle it out with Guernsey, Jersey, Scotland and the Netherlands in a European regional qualifier for next year’s 2026 T20 World Cup.

    The two teams who finish top of the round-robin tournament held in the Hague between 5 to 11 July will qualify for the event in India and Sri Lanka.

    “We’re very confident that if we play to our best, we’ll be going to a World Cup,” Burns told BBC Sport.

    “It’s not lost on us the magnitude of the impact we can have on Italian cricket. We talk a lot as a team about creating a legacy for the generations to come after us.

    “To wear the Italian cap at a World Cup would make us a groundbreaking team. And we think we’ve got the team to get there.”

    The first recorded game in Italy was played in Naples in 1793 by sailors from the fleet of Lord Nelson, and today there are more than 3,500 competitive players and in excess of 100 clubs.

    They are currently 32nd in the International Cricket Council world rankings but do not have any proper turf pitches.

    Italy’s squad have prepared for the tournament with a short training camp in Rome, some friendlies on grass in Horsham before warm-up games in the Netherlands.

    Burns said there is a “huge opportunity” for cricket, and T20 in particular, to really grow in Italy and qualifying for the T20 World Cup could prove to be a major catalyst.

    “I feel like Associate cricket is very much the grassroots of international cricket,” Burns added.

    “But I really think that in 30, 40 or 50 years from now, Italy could be a massive player in world cricket.

    “Playing Tests for Australia it was about the history that you’re honouring, and you’re carrying on in the traditions of the past, but when you play for Italy, it’s a blank canvas and you shape the future.”

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  • New research reveals hidden biases in AI’s moral advice

    New research reveals hidden biases in AI’s moral advice

    As artificial intelligence tools become more integrated into everyday life, a new study suggests that people should think twice before trusting these systems to offer moral guidance. Researchers have found that large language models—tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Llama—consistently favor inaction over action in moral dilemmas and tend to answer “no” more often than “yes,” even when the situation is logically identical. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    Large language models, or LLMs, are advanced artificial intelligence systems trained to generate human-like text. They are used in a variety of applications, including chatbots, writing assistants, and research tools. These systems learn patterns in language by analyzing massive amounts of text from the internet, books, and other sources.

    Once trained, they can respond to user prompts in ways that sound natural and knowledgeable. As people increasingly rely on these tools for moral guidance—asking, for example, whether they should confront a friend or blow the whistle on wrongdoing—researchers wanted to examine how consistent and reasonable these decisions really are.

    “People increasingly rely on large language models to advise on or even make moral decisions, and some researchers have even proposed using them in psychology experiments to simulate human responses. Therefore, we wanted to understand how moral decision making and advice giving of large language models compare to that of humans,” said study author Maximilian Maier of University College London.

    The researchers conducted a series of four experiments comparing the responses of large language models to those of human participants when faced with moral dilemmas and collective action problems. The goal was to see whether the models reasoned about morality in the same ways that people do, and whether their responses were affected by the way questions were worded or structured.

    In the first study, the researchers compared responses from four widely used language models—GPT-4-turbo, GPT-4o, Claude 3.5, and Llama 3.1-Instruct—to those of 285 participants recruited from a U.S. representative sample. Each person and model was given a set of 13 moral dilemmas and 9 collective action problems.

    The dilemmas included realistic scenarios adapted from past research and history, such as whether to allow medically assisted suicide or to blow the whistle on unethical practices. The collective action problems involved conflicts between self-interest and group benefit, like deciding whether to conserve water during a drought or donate to those in greater need.

    The results showed that in moral dilemmas, the language models strongly preferred inaction. They were more likely than humans to endorse doing nothing—even when taking action might help more people. This was true regardless of whether the action involved breaking a moral rule or not. For example, when the models were asked whether to legalize a practice that would benefit public health but involve a controversial decision, they were more likely to recommend maintaining the status quo.

    The models also showed a bias toward answering “no,” even when the situation was logically equivalent to one where “yes” was the better answer. This “yes–no” bias meant that simply rephrasing a question could flip the model’s recommendation. Human participants did not show this same pattern. While people’s responses were somewhat influenced by how questions were worded, the models’ decisions were far more sensitive to minor differences in phrasing.

    The models were also more altruistic than humans when it came to the collective action problems. When asked about situations involving cooperation or sacrifice for the greater good, the language models more frequently endorsed altruistic responses, like donating money or helping a competitor. While this might seem like a positive trait, the researchers caution that this behavior may not reflect deep moral reasoning. Instead, it could be the result of fine-tuning these models to avoid harm and promote helpfulness—values embedded during training by their developers.

    To further investigate the omission and yes–no biases, the researchers conducted a second study with 474 new participants. In this experiment, the team rewrote the dilemmas in subtle ways to test whether the models would give consistent answers across logically equivalent versions. They found that the language models continued to show both biases, while human responses remained relatively stable.

    The third study extended these findings to everyday moral situations by using real-life dilemmas adapted from the Reddit forum “Am I the Asshole?” These stories involved more relatable scenarios, such as helping a roommate or choosing between spending time with a partner or friends. Even in these more naturalistic contexts, the language models still showed strong omission and yes–no biases. Again, human participants did not.

    These findings raise important questions about the role of language models in moral decision-making. While they may give advice that sounds thoughtful or empathetic, their responses can be inconsistent and shaped by irrelevant features of a question. In moral philosophy, consistency and logical coherence are essential for sound reasoning. The models’ sensitivity to surface-level details, like whether a question is framed as “yes” or “no,” suggests that they may lack this kind of reliable reasoning.

    The researchers note that omission bias is common in humans too. People often prefer inaction over action, especially in morally complex or uncertain situations. But in the models, this bias was amplified. Unlike people, the models also exhibited a systematic yes–no bias that does not appear in human responses. These patterns were observed across different models, prompting methods, and types of moral dilemmas.

    “Do not uncritically rely on advice from large language models,” Maier told PsyPost. “Even though models are good at giving answers that superficially appear compelling (for instance, another study shows that people rate the advice of large language models as slightly more moral, trustworthy, thoughtful, and correct than that of an expert ethicist), this does not mean that their advice is actually more sound. Our study shows that their advice is subject to several potentially problematic biases and inconsistencies.”

    In the final study, the researchers explored where these biases might come from. They compared different versions of the Llama 3.1 model: one that was pretrained but not fine-tuned, one that was fine-tuned for general chatbot use, and another version called Centaur that was fine-tuned using data from psychology experiments. The fine-tuned chatbot version showed strong omission and yes–no biases, while the pretrained version and Centaur did not. This suggests that the process of aligning language models with expected chatbot behavior may actually introduce or amplify these biases.

    “Paradoxically, we find that efforts to align the model for chatbot applications based on what the company and its users considered good behavior for a chatbot induced the biases documented in our paper,” Maier explained. “Overall, we conclude that simply using people’s judgments of how positive or negative they evaluate the responses of LLMs (a common method for aligning language models with human preferences) is insufficient to detect and avoid problematic biases. Instead, we need to use methods from cognitive psychology and other disciplines to systematically test for inconsistent responses.”

    As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The studies focused on how models respond to dilemmas. But it remains unclear how much influence these biased responses actually have on human decision-making.

    “This research only showed biases in the advice LLMs give, but did not examine how human users react to the advice,” Maier said. “It is still an open question to what extent the biases in LLMs’ advice giving documented here actually sway people’s judgements in practice. This is something we are interested in studying in future work.”

    The study, “Large language models show amplified cognitive biases in moral decision-making,” was authored by Vanessa Cheung, Maximilian Maier, and Falk Lieder.

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  • Risk of dementia in older patients with different anesthesia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies | BMC Geriatrics

    Risk of dementia in older patients with different anesthesia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies | BMC Geriatrics

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  • England v India: second men’s cricket Test, day four – live | England v India 2025

    England v India: second men’s cricket Test, day four – live | England v India 2025

    Key events

    48th over: India 237-4 (Gill 58, Jadeja 1) A lesser spotted maiden from Josh Tongue. Some respite after the dismissal of Pant.

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  • Exposure to pesticides and increased risk of AMD

    Exposure to pesticides and increased risk of AMD

    (Image Credit: AdobeStock/New Africa)

    The risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was found to increase as a result of exposure to the urinary dialkyl phosphate (DAP) metabolites in organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs), according to a new Chinese study.1 The authors, led by first author Yu-Xin Jiang, MD, are from the Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine; the National Clinical Research Center for Eye Diseases; the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Fundus Diseases; and the Engineering Center for Visual Science and Photomedicine, all in Shanghai, China.

    The investigators pointed out that AMD is a multifactorial disease resulting from aging, genetic susceptibility, lifestyle habits, and environmental exposures, which make the pathogenesis of AMD highly intractable to prediction and interpretation. Considering that patient responses to current intravitreal treatments vary and complications are associated with treatment,2 early prevention of AMD from exposure to numerous risk factors is the most effective and feasible measure.

    “Among all factors, the adverse effects from environmental chemical exposures on AMD have been heatedly discussed in population-based epidemiologic studies. For example, several researchers have emphasized the impacts of heavy metals,3 air pollutants,4 and radiation5 exposure on the development of AMD. OPPs, a group of organophosphate or phosphate sulfide esters, are prevalent insecticides commonly applied worldwide in agricultural, residential, and commercial settings with the advantages of cost-effectiveness and high efficacy in controlling pests and preventing insect-borne diseases.6 Nevertheless, the persistent non-biodegradable nature and propensity of residue accumulation in soil and water bodies, in conjunction with multiple routes of human exposure to OPPs, for instance, ingestion, inhalation, and skin contact, have raised public attention to concern about their toxic effects on human health and ecosystems,7” they said.

    The OPPs can be swiftly absorbed, metabolized, and eliminated as urinary DAP metabolites from the body, commonly used as biomarkers in cohort studies.8

    Previous research has identified that OPPs are relevant to diverse diseases, including cancer,9 central nervous system disorders (Parkinson’s disease 10and depression),11 sleep problems,12 diabetes,13 hypertension,14 sex hormone function,15 and atopic diseases.16

    The investigators identified patients from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey17 between 2005 and 2008. Urinary DAP metabolites were used to construct a machine learning (ML) model for AMD prediction, they explained.

    They used interpretability pipelines, ie, permutation feature importance (PFI), partial dependence plot (PDP), and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), to analyze the effects of exposure features to prediction outcomes.

    Exposure effects

    The authors reported that of the 1,845 patients in the study, 137 had been diagnosed with AMD. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis evaluated Random Forests as the best ML model with its optimal predictive performance among 11 models. PFI and SHAP analyses indicated that DAP metabolites were of significant contribution weights in AMD risk prediction, higher than most of the sociodemographic covariates. Shapley values and waterfall plots of randomly selected AMD individuals emphasized the predictive capacity of ML with high accuracy and sensitivity in each case. The relationships and interactions visualized by graphical plots and supported by statistical measures showed the indispensable effects of six DAP metabolites to the prediction of AMD risk, the investigators reported.

    The authors believe this study yields a novel insight into the link between environmental factors and health outcomes.

    The study concluded, “Urinary DAP metabolites of OPPs exposure are associated with AMD risk, and ML algorithms show excellent generalizability and differentiability in the course of AMD risk prediction.”

    References
    1. Jiang Y-X, Gui S-y, Sun X-D. Associations between organophosphorus pesticides exposure and age-related macular degeneration risk in U.S. adults: analysis from interpretable machine learning approaches. Int J Ophthalmol. 2025;18:1214-1230. DOI:10.18240/ijo.2025.07.04
    2. Rakoczy EP. The promise of long-term treatment for neovascular age related macular degeneration. Lancet. 2024;403(10436):1517-1519.
    3. Park SJ, Lee JH, Woo SJ, et al. Five heavy metallic elements and age related macular degeneration: Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2008-2011. Ophthalmology. 2015;122:129-137.
    4. Liu L, Li C, Yu HH, et al. A critical review on air pollutant exposure and age-related macular degeneration. Sci Total Environ. 2022;840:156717.
    5. Brodzka S, Baszyński J, Rektor K, et al. Immunogenetic and environmental factors in age-related macular disease. Int J Mol Sci. 2024;25:6567.
    6. Costa LG. Organophosphorus compounds at 80: some old and new issues. Toxicol Sci. 2018;162:24-35.
    7. Nandi NK, Vyas A, Akhtar MJ, et al. The growing concern of chlorpyrifos exposures on human and environmental health. Pestic Biochem Physiol. 2022;185:105138.
    8. Li AJ, Kannan K. Profiles of urinary neonicotinoids and dialkylphosphates in populations in nine countries. Environ Int. 2020;145:106120.
    9. Sun HB, Sun ML, Barr DB. Exposure to organophosphorus insecticides and increased risks of health and cancer in US women. Environ Toxicol Pharmacol. 2020;80:103474.
    10. Narayan S, Liew Z, Bronstein JM, et al. Occupational pesticide use and Parkinson’s disease in the Parkinson Environment Gene (PEG) study. Environ Int. 2017;107:266-273.
    11. Wu YD, Song J, Zhang Q, et al. Association between organophosphorus pesticide exposure and depression risk in adults: a cross-sectional study with NHANES data. Environ Pollut. 2023;316(Pt 1):120445.
    12. Han L, Wang Q. Association between organophosphorus insecticides exposure and the prevalence of sleep problems in the US adults: an analysis based on the NHANES 2007-2018. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2023;255:114803. 14
    13. Guo XW, Wang H, Song QX, et al. Association between exposure to organophosphorus pesticides and the risk of diabetes among US Adults: Cross-sectional findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Chemosphere. 2022;301:134471.
    14. Dong YQ, Xu W, Liu SP, et al. Serum albumin and liver dysfunction mediate the mediate the associations between organophosphorus pesticide exposure and hypertension among US adults. Sci Total Environ. 2024;948:174748.
    15. Zhang YQ, Wu WK, Zhu XD, et al. Organophosphorus insecticides exposure and sex hormones in general U.S. population: a crosssectional study. Environ Res 2022;215(Pt 2):114384.
    16. Dantzer J, Wood R, Buckley JP. Organophosphate pesticide exposure and atopic disease in NHANES 2005-2006. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract. 2021;9:1719-1722.e3.
    17. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/ index.htm.

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  • Earth’s rotation speeds up: Days getting shorter, global clocks face historic leap second reversal by 2029 – Organiser

    1. Earth’s rotation speeds up: Days getting shorter, global clocks face historic leap second reversal by 2029  Organiser
    2. Earth set to have three shorter than average days in coming weeks  Dunya News
    3. Summer 2025 will have three of the shortest days on record as Earth’s rotation unexpectedly accelerates  New York Post
    4. Scientist issues warning the shortest day in history will happen in weeks as Earth’s rotation is speeding up  UNILAD
    5. The shortest day in history on Earth may occur within just a few weeks.  Vocal

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  • Sellout or washout: will the boom in huge outdoor concerts be sustained after Oasis? | Music industry

    Sellout or washout: will the boom in huge outdoor concerts be sustained after Oasis? | Music industry

    From Lana Del Rey to Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, the UK has already hosted a series of gigantic outdoor gigs this year. Having already played six Wembley Stadium shows on their Music of the Spheres tour in 2022, Coldplay are bringing it back for 10 more later this summer, plus two more in Hull. And now, here come Oasis, playing a total of 17 stadium concerts in Cardiff, Manchester, London and Edinburgh.

    These are the kind of figures that get the music industry very excited. Last year, according to UK Music, 23.5m concertgoers spent a total of £10bn in the UK, supporting 72,000 jobs. “Artists are delivering spectacular performances, and there’s nothing like the feeling of being at a live show,” says Denis Desmond, UK and Ireland chair of the massive promoter Live Nation. “We’re seeing a real and sustained boom in outdoor shows, festivals and stadium concerts”.

    Certainly, it looks that way. The Guardian has calculated that in London alone this summer, there are at least 100 single-day outdoor shows with a capacity of 15,000 or more, ranging from events in local parks to stadium shows. Festivals and arena shows have always been popular in the UK, but there have never been so many big outdoor gigs.

    Industry insiders put the shift down to customer demand. That’s undoubtedly part of it – there are many people who enjoy standing in the sun with thousands of others listening to a selection of acts, but have no desire for it to involve camping in the middle of nowhere. One senior figure in the live industry says the changing nature of the music industry has driven the shift, too – social media and streaming mean many artists are popular enough to play to bigger audiences earlier in their careers, and outdoor shows provide the perfect opportunity.

    Immense … Lana Del Rey performs at Hampden Park, Glasgow, June 2025. Photograph: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images

    It’s not just consumer-led, though. Local councils have been actively courting promoters to put on shows in parks, to raise money for local services; stadium operators have been trying to attract more shows (the Rugby Football Union wants to put on more shows each year at Twickenham, up from the three it is currently allowed, to nine next year, 12 in 2027 and 15 in 2028).

    Either way, this current glut of shows is so immense that there are those wondering if it can be sustained. All summer, there have been stories of cheap last-minute tickets available on secondary ticketing sites, and Facebook-disseminated offers to shift unsold seats. And while the demand for Oasis tickets might have been enormous, not everyone can be Oasis. At the time of writing, there are seated tickets available in all areas for Catfish and the Bottlemen’s show at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at the start of August (and plenty for their Cardiff Principality Stadium concert, too). Nor will you have any trouble getting into Post Malone’s two shows at Tottenham. Even at shows billed as sold out, venues don’t appear full – there were many pockets of empty seats when Dua Lipa played the first of two shows at Wembley Stadium.

    That’s not necessarily bad news for the artists, who are paid a guaranteed fee, but it is very bad news for promoters, because shows at this scale tend only to break even when 90% of tickets have been sold. And that is where some industry figures sound a note of caution. “I think we’re all surprised at the amount of large-scale events London can sustain,” one says. “Will it continue at this same growth and to the same scale? Only time will tell.” Another says brusquely: “There are certainly a lot this year, and they’re not all doing well.”

    Artists, too, are uncertain: the Guardian knows of acts who turned down slots high on stadium show bills this summer, because they were concerned about the reputational damage of playing to a crowd sparse enough to be mocked on social media.

    It’s perhaps a measure of industry uncertainty that so few people within live music were willing to talk on the record about this year’s boom, and certainly not to confront the issue of whether sellouts or sparsely attended washouts are likely to shape next summer’s bookings. Desmond, though, remains optimistic. To him, these shows are a chance to build memories: “We’re seeing generations come together – fans who saw the Beatles or the Rolling Stones in the 60s are now attending shows with their children and grandchildren. A connection that only live music can create.”

    Nevertheless, whether those younger generations will need the older ones to pay for the incredible cost of a ticket, and whether the live music sector can continue to operate at the scale that it is, remain points of debate in the industry.

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  • Today’s Wordle Hints for July 6, 2025 – The New York Times

    1. Today’s Wordle Hints for July 6, 2025  The New York Times
    2. Today’s Wordle Hints for July 5, 2025  The New York Times
    3. Today’s Wordle Hint, Answer for #1477 on Saturday, July 5, 2025  parade.com
    4. Wordle today: Answer and hints for ‘confusing’ brainteaser on July 5  The Mirror US
    5. Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, July 5  PC Gamer

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  • Positive Grid Launches Spark NEO Wireless Guitar Rig Built Into A Pair Of Headphones

    Positive Grid Launches Spark NEO Wireless Guitar Rig Built Into A Pair Of Headphones

    Positive Grid has announced the launch of Spark NEO, a wireless guitar rig that’s built directly into a pair of over-ear headphones. Designed to deliver a personal audio experience, Spark NEO includes Positive Grid’s award-winning guitar amp technology with a pair of true wireless Bluetooth headphones so you can practise in private.

    Spark NEO headphones have all the usual audio capabilities as well as AI-powered guitar tone customization. The headphones provide a private and convenient way to stream audio over Bluetooth while playing guitar.

    Using custom-designed 40mm drivers and an ultra-lightweight bio-fiber diaphragm, the Spark NEO delivers a balanced sound to suit most styles of music. For guitarists, it offers advanced tone-shaping tools, giving the freedom to play anywhere without disturbing others.

    The included wireless transmitter instantly pairs any guitar with the Spark NEO headphones, while a built-in 1/4″ input can also support traditional guitar cables for those who don’t want to go wireless.

    There are four onboard and customizable guitar presets. Spark NEO makes it possible to play anywhere and be free from space limitations or noise constraints. When connecting to the free Spark app, users can unlock additional presets, amplifiers, effects, as well as advanced tone controls.

    To ensure the headphones are easy to wear, ultra-soft and durable ear cups, along with advanced damping materials, tuned venting and precise port adjustments, provide a high level of passive noise isolation. This makes it easier to hear the music without being disturbed by unwanted sounds. Users can jam along to backing tracks or a favorite song without disturbing others.

    Spark NEO creates a bridge between a traditional guitar and modern wireless technology. Unlike using generic headphones with a guitar amp, Spark NEO has extras available via the Spark App. This app extends the capabilities of Spark NEO by providing access to 33 amplifiers and 43 effects. Users can also access more than 100,000 tones on Positive Grid’s online ToneCloud.

    Auto Chords helps players learn and jam to any song by displaying the chords in real time as the song plays. Customizable presets provide more creative possibilities when playing along with backing tracks or favorite songs.

    Pricing and Availability:

    Positive Grid’s Spark NEO will be available soon from Positive Grid’s website, Amazon and select retailers. The price will be $199 / £189 / €239 and includes headphones, wireless transmitter and full access to the Spark app.

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  • Chinese study uncovers cancer-fighting potential of impotence drugs like Viagra

    Chinese study uncovers cancer-fighting potential of impotence drugs like Viagra

    Men around the world dealing with sexual impotence have been treated for years with the drug sildenafil, sold under brand names including the well-known Viagra.

    A new Chinese study now suggests that the drug may perhaps also help to save lives.

    Sildenafil could combat cancer by strengthening a group of key anti-tumour immune cells, according to the study by researchers from China’s Westlake University, Zhejiang University, Peking Union Medical College and Shanghai Institute of Immunology.

    Dendritic cells, which act as the “intelligence agents” of the immune system, can become severely depleted or functionally impaired as the tumour progresses. According to the researchers, sildenafil could reverse the process and help to restore the cells.

    The researchers, led by Westlake cancer immunology specialist Zhou Ting, published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on June 25.

    In an article posted on its social media account the same day, the university hailed the discovery as a possible new “form of tumour immunotherapy strategy”.

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