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  • Have McLaren made a rod for their own back with their driver swap in 2025 Italian Grand Prix?

    Have McLaren made a rod for their own back with their driver swap in 2025 Italian Grand Prix?

    McLaren made the headlines in Monza with their decision to swap their drivers late in the race after Lando Norris’ slow pit stop, so let’s take a closer look at how this played out – and what the ramifications might be moving forwards.

    The set-up of the swap is important to discuss here. McLaren were going about orchestrating their pit stops with planned sequencing, which they decided would favour the leading driver – in this case Norris. The reason for this was because of the way they ran their strategy on Sunday.

    The Italian Grand Prix was a rare occasion this year when they didn’t have the race pace of Max Verstappen. In the hope of winning the race, McLaren tried to extend their first stint as long as possible, hoping for an intervention from a Safety Car or a red flag, which would have given them a surprise shot of victory.

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  • No bespoke rules for AI, FCA confirms

    No bespoke rules for AI, FCA confirms

    The FCA’s update outlined how it sees its existing regulatory framework mapping across to each of the five cross-sector regulatory principles.

    Principles and requirements set out in the FCA’s Principles for Business, as well as in its Handbook and Senior Management Arrangements, Systems and Controls (SYSC) sourcebook, were among those cited as relevant to firms’ use of AI.

    Other rules referenced include the consumer duty regime, requirements focused on ensuring operational resilience and fair treatment of vulnerable customers, as well as the Senior Managers and Certification Regime.

    In relation to accountability and governance, the FCA said, among other things, that the senior management function of firms subject to the enhanced SMCR regime will be responsible for “any use of AI in relation to an activity, business area, or management function of a firm”.

    The regulator added that firms’ reporting requirements in line with the consumer duty could also encompass “consideration of current or future use of AI technologies where it might impact retail consumer outcomes or assist in monitoring and evaluating those outcomes”.

    “Firms deploying AI should expect heightened scrutiny around governance, explainability, and accountability – particularly where AI systems materially impact consumer outcomes or decision-making,” said Sébastien Ferrière of Pinsent Masons.

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  • Researchers find key to Antarctic ice loss blowing in the north wind

    Researchers find key to Antarctic ice loss blowing in the north wind

    Environment  |  News releases  |  Research  |  Science

    September 10, 2025

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  • Cabinet approves resumption of new gas connections; declares climate and agriculture emergencies – Pakistan

    Cabinet approves resumption of new gas connections; declares climate and agriculture emergencies – Pakistan

    Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik on Wednesday announced that the federal cabinet has approved the resumption of new gas connections across the country, ending the ban imposed in 2021.

    Briefing the media on cabinet decisions along with Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, he said the government had responded to strong public demand by lifting the restriction on new connections.

    He said the cabinet took several key decisions, including restoring new domestic gas connections, particularly in newly developed housing areas where residents had been forced to rely on LPG cylinders and alternative fuels.

    The minister assured that both Sui companies had already completed procurement processes for meters and pipelines, and would immediately begin processing pending applications once the official notification is issued.

    Existing applicants would also be given the option to convert their requests to RLNG-based connections by paying the prescribed security fee to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, he added.

    Highlighting the government’s commitment to easing the energy burden on citizens, the minister said the decision would help reduce household fuel expenses and provide much-needed relief amid inflation.

    He explained that although RLNG would remain costlier than domestic natural gas, it would be around 30–35 per cent cheaper than LPG, thereby easing household fuel costs.

    “We already have a surplus of RLNG and adequate electricity availability, but we are working to strengthen governance and sustainability in the sector,” he added.

    He said that one bidding round for domestic gas exploration had already been completed, while another would conclude soon.

    Chaudhry said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had decided to lift the ban on domestic gas connections imposed in 2021 to address a longstanding public demand.

    He expressed gratitude to the premier and the petroleum minister for resolving a major issue that households had been facing for years. “The difficulties caused by the suspension of gas connections will now be resolved,” he added.

    Malik said efforts were also being made to attract international companies, including those from Turkiye, China and the United States, for both onshore and offshore exploration.

    “By gradually boosting local production, we aim to reduce reliance on RLNG and provide cheaper, indigenous fuel to the people,” he said.

    He reiterated the government’s determination to achieve sustainability in the energy sector, reduce dependence on costly imports, and gradually shift towards indigenous fuel resources.

    On the floods, he said the prime minister was personally supervising a comprehensive damage assessment in consultation with provinces. The federal government, he assured, would fulfil its responsibility to provide maximum relief to the victims.

    Cabinet declares climate, agriculture emergencies

    Meanwhile, Chaudhry said the federal cabinet declared both a climate and agriculture emergency in the country.

    Sharing details of the cabinet meeting, he said the premier had decided, and the cabinet endorsed, the immediate enforcement of a climate emergency.

    Climate change, he said, was already one of the most debated subjects globally and was severely affecting Pakistan through shifting weather patterns.

    “Unfortunately, in past decades, we failed to protect our forests and trees, while encroachments narrowed natural waterways — rivers, streams, and channels that once allowed easy passage of rainwater. This has worsened the flooding situation we see today,” he said.

    The minister added that the climate minister was tasked with submitting a comprehensive report to PM Shehbaz within 15 days. He added that the cabinet would deliberate on the report, to figure out how Pakistan could cope with climatic challenges and prepare effective strategies to protect the nation from such devastating losses in the future.

    “Since 2022, we have witnessed the devastation caused by floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Punjab. Now, this water is flowing into Sindh from the five-river basin, and our prayers and efforts are focused on minimising the losses there as well,” he said.

    The minister said the floods had caused massive destruction, particularly to agriculture, along with human and financial losses — a matter discussed in detail during the cabinet meeting.

    An agriculture emergency, he said, would help assess the extent of damage to agriculture across the country and determine how farmers can be compensated for their losses.

    Chaudhry stressed that climate and agriculture challenges could not be addressed without the cooperation, support, and consultation of provincial governments.

    Therefore, he said the prime minister had decided to convene an immediate meeting of all provincial stakeholders under the leadership of their respective chief ministers.

    “This country belongs to all of us, and together we must overcome its challenges,” he said, adding that stakeholders from GB and Azad Kashmir would also participate in the huddle.

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  • Probing the heterogeneous nature of LiF in solid–electrolyte interphases

    Probing the heterogeneous nature of LiF in solid–electrolyte interphases

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  • Myeloid progenitor dysregulation fuels immunosuppressive macrophages in tumours

    Myeloid progenitor dysregulation fuels immunosuppressive macrophages in tumours

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  • The emergence of globular clusters and globular-cluster-like dwarfs

    The emergence of globular clusters and globular-cluster-like dwarfs

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  • Ten Years Later, LIGO is a Black-Hole Hunting Machine

    Ten Years Later, LIGO is a Black-Hole Hunting Machine

    On September 14, 2015, a signal arrived on Earth, carrying information about a pair of remote black holes that had spiraled together and merged. The signal had traveled about 1.3 billion years to reach us at the speed of light—but it was not made of light. It was a different kind of signal: a quivering of space-time called gravitational waves first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years prior. On that day 10 years ago, the twin detectors of the US National Science Foundation Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (NSF LIGO) made the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, whispers in the cosmos that had gone unheard until that moment.

    The historic discovery meant that researchers could now sense the universe through three different means. Light waves, such as X-rays, optical, radio, and other wavelengths of light, as well as high-energy particles called cosmic rays and neutrinos, had been captured before, but this was the first time anyone had witnessed a cosmic event through the gravitational warping of space-time. For this achievement, first dreamed up more than 40 years prior, three of the team’s founders won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics: MIT’s Rainer Weiss, professor of physics, emeritus (who recently passed away at age 92); Caltech’s Barry Barish, the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Physics, Emeritus; and Caltech’s Kip Thorne, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus.

    Today, LIGO, which consists of detectors in both Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, routinely observes roughly one black hole merger every three days. LIGO now operates in coordination with two international partners, the Virgo gravitational-wave detector in Italy and KAGRA in Japan. Together, the gravitational-wave-hunting network, known as the LVK (LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA), has captured a total of about 300 black hole mergers, some of which are confirmed while others await further analysis. During the network’s current science run, the fourth since the first run in 2015, the LVK has discovered more than 200 candidate black hole mergers, more than double the number caught in the first three runs.

    LIGO Hanford in Washington and LIGO Livingston in Louisiana.

    The dramatic rise in the number of LVK discoveries over the past decade is owed to several improvements to their detectors—some of which involve cutting-edge quantum precision engineering. The LVK detectors remain by far the most precise rulers for making measurements ever created by humans. The space-time distortions induced by gravitational waves are incredibly miniscule. For instance, LIGO detects changes in space-time smaller than 1/10,000 the width of a proton. That’s 700 trillion times smaller than the width of a human hair.

    “Rai Weiss proposed the concept of LIGO in 1972, and I thought, ‘This doesn’t have much chance at all of working,’” recalls Thorne, an expert on the theory of black holes. “It took me three years of thinking about it on and off and discussing ideas with Rai and Vladimir Braginsky [a Russian physicist], to be convinced this had a significant possibility of success. The technical difficulty of reducing the unwanted noise that interferes with the desired signal was enormous. We had to invent a whole new technology. NSF was just superb at shepherding this project through technical reviews and hurdles.”

    MIT’s Nergis Mavalvala, the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics and dean of the School of Science, says that the challenges the team overcame to make the first discovery are still very much at play. “From the exquisite precision of the LIGO detectors to the astrophysical theories of gravitational-wave sources, to the complex data analyses, all these hurdles had to be overcome, and we continue to improve in all of these areas,” Mavalvala says. As the detectors get better, we hunger for farther, fainter sources. LIGO continues to be a technological marvel.”

    This chart plots discoveries made by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) network since LIGO’s first detection, in 2015, of gravitational waves emanating from a pair of colliding black holes. The detections consist mainly of black hole mergers, but a handful involve neutron stars (either black hole-neutron star collisions or neutron star-neutron star collisions).

    Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/R. Hurt (IPAC)

    The Clearest Signal Yet

    LIGO’s improved sensitivity is exemplified in a recent discovery of a black hole merger referred to as GW250114 (the numbers denote the date the gravitational-wave signal arrived at Earth: January 14, 2025). The event was not that different from LIGO’s first-ever detection (called GW150914)—both involve colliding black holes about 1.3 billion light-years away with masses between 30 to 40 times that of our Sun. But thanks to 10 years of technological advances reducing instrumental noise, the GW250114 signal is dramatically clearer.

    “We can hear it loud and clear, and that lets us test the fundamental laws of physics,” says LIGO team member Katerina Chatziioannou, Caltech assistant professor of physics and William H. Hurt Scholar, and one of the authors of a new study on GW250114 published in the Physical Review Letters.

    By analyzing the frequencies of gravitational waves emitted by the merger, the LVK team provided the best observational evidence captured to date for what is known as the black hole area theorem, an idea put forth by Stephen Hawking in 1971 that says the total surface areas of black holes cannot decrease. When black holes merge, their masses combine, increasing the surface area. But they also lose energy in the form of gravitational waves. Additionally, the merger can cause the combined black hole to increase its spin, which leads to it having a smaller area. The black hole area theorem states that despite these competing factors, the total surface area must grow in size.

    Later, Hawking and physicist Jacob Bekenstein concluded that a black hole’s area is proportional to its entropy, or degree of disorder. The findings paved the way for later groundbreaking work in the field of quantum gravity, which attempts to unite two pillars of modern physics: general relativity and quantum physics.

    In essence, the LIGO detection allowed the team to “hear” two black holes growing as they merged into one, verifying Hawking’s theorem. (Virgo and KAGRA were offline during this particular observation.) The initial black holes had a total surface area of 240,000 square kilometers (roughly the size of Oregon), while the final area was about 400,000 square kilometers (roughly the size of California)—a clear increase. This is the second test of the black hole area theorem; an initial test was performed in 2021 using data from the first GW150914 signal, but because that data was not as clean, the results had a confidence level of 95 percent compared to 99.999 percent for the new data.

    Thorne recalls Hawking phoning him to ask whether LIGO might be able to test his theorem immediately after he learned of the 2015 gravitational-wave detection. Hawking died in 2018 and sadly did not live to see his theory observationally verified. “If Hawking were alive, he would have reveled in seeing the area of the merged black holes increase,” Thorne says.

    The trickiest part of this type of analysis had to do with determining the final surface area of the merged black hole. The surface areas of pre-merger black holes can be more readily gleaned as the pair spiral together, roiling space-time and producing gravitational waves. But after the black holes coalesce, the signal is not as clear-cut. During this so-called ringdown phase, the final black hole vibrates like a struck bell.

    In the new study, the researchers precisely measured the details of the ringdown phase, which allowed them to calculate the mass and spin of the black hole and, subsequently, determine its surface area. More specifically, they were able, for the first time, to confidently pick out two distinct gravitational-wave modes in the ringdown phase. The modes are like characteristic sounds a bell would make when struck; they have somewhat similar frequencies but die out at different rates, which makes them hard to identify. The improved data for GW250114 meant that the team could extract the modes, demonstrating that the black hole’s ringdown occurred exactly as predicted by math models based on the Teukolsky formalism—devised in 1972 by Saul Teukolsky, now a professor at Caltech and Cornell.

    Another study from the LVK, submitted to Physical Review Letters today, places limits on a predicted third, higher-pitched tone in the GW250114 signal, and performs some of the most stringent tests yet of general relativity’s accuracy in describing merging black holes.


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  • Mixed export performance seen across goods producers in Asia – S&P Global

    1. Mixed export performance seen across goods producers in Asia  S&P Global
    2. Niche Asian exports wilt because of Trump’s tariffs  Financial Times
    3. Asia must prioritize regional cooperation for economic resilience amid tariff uncertainty  Brookings
    4. Singapore exporters absorbing more than 20% of US tariff costs: Nomura  The Straits Times
    5. Asia Export Hubs Show Robust Activity Despite Trump Tariffs  Bloomberg.com

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  • NASA Fuel Storage Research Launches Aboard Resupply Mission

    NASA Fuel Storage Research Launches Aboard Resupply Mission

    Space missions rely on cryogenic fluids — extremely cold liquids like liquid hydrogen and oxygen — for both propulsion and life support systems. These fuels must be kept at ultra-low cryogenic temperatures to remain in liquid form; however, solar heating and other sources of heat increase the rate of evaporation of the liquid and cause the pressure in the storage tank to increase. Current storage methods require venting the cryogenic propellant to space to control the pressure in fuel tanks.

    NASA’s Zero Boil-Off Tank Noncondensables (ZBOT-NC) experiment is the continuation of Zero Boil-Off studies gathering crucial data to optimize fuel storage systems for space missions. The experiment will launch aboard Northrop Grumman’s 23rd resupply mission to the International Space Station.

    Even with multilayer insulation, heat unavoidably seeps into cryogenic fuel tanks from surrounding structures and the space environment, causing an increase in the liquid temperature and an associated increase in the evaporation rate. In turn, the pressure inside the tank increases. This process is called “boil-off” and the increase in tank pressure is referred to as “self-pressurization.”

    Venting excess gas to the environment or space when this process occurs is highly undesirable and becomes mission-critical on extended journeys. If crew members used current fuel storage methods for a years-long Mars expedition, all propellant might be lost to boil-off before the trip ends.

    NASA’s ZBOT experiments are investigating active pressure control methods to eliminate wasteful fuel venting. Specifically, active control through the use of jet mixing and other techniques are being evaluated and tested in the ZBOT series of experiments.

    ZBOT-NC further studies how noncondensable gases (NCGs) affect fuel tank behavior when present in spacecraft systems. NCGs don’t turn into liquid under the tank’s operating conditions and can affect tank pressure.

    The investigation, which is led out of Glenn Research Center, will operate inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox aboard the space station to gather data on how NCGs affect volatile liquid behavior in microgravity. It’s part of an effort to advance cryogenic fluid management technologies and help NASA better understand low-gravity fluid behavior.

    Researchers will measure pressure and temperature as they study how these gases change evaporation and condensation rates. Previous studies indicate the gases create barriers that could reduce a tank’s ability to maintain proper pressure control — a potentially serious issue for extended space missions.

    The research directly supports Mars missions and other long-duration space travel by helping engineers design more efficient fuel storage systems and future space depots. The findings may also benefit scientific instruments on space telescopes and probes that rely on cryogenic fluids to maintain the extremely low temperatures needed for operation.

    The investigation could improve tank design models for medical, industrial, and energy production applications that depend on long-term cryogenic storage on Earth.

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