What are the Pip and universal credit changes and who is affected?
The government says changes to the welfare system will save £5bn and get people into work.
The benefits all students gain from an LGBT-inclusive sex education curriculum
For students who identify as LGBTQ+, learning in school about sexual health-related issues that concern them can be nearly impossible to find. GLSEN Education Manager Becca Mui spoke to CBSN Originals about how an inclusive-sex education curriculum benefits all students.
At-a-glance: Key changes to benefits in welfare shake-up
How Personal Independence Payments (Pip) and other health-related benefits could change under government plans.
Precautions could have stopped baby deaths – inquiry
Leo Lamont, Ellie McCormick and Mira-Belle Bosch died within hours of their births in two Lanarkshire hospitals.
Google inks $32 billion deal to buy security firm Wiz even as DOJ seeks breakup
Google today announced a $32 billion deal to buy Wiz, an Israeli cloud security company that would become part of Google’s cloud division if the merger is completed. The all-cash deal requires regulatory approval at a time when the Department of Justice is trying to break up Google by forcing it to sell the Chrome browser after a judge ruled that Google illegally maintained a monopoly. Google is also awaiting a verdict in a separate ad-tech monopoly case brought by the US government. Google’s announcement this morning said that “Wiz’s products will continue to work and be available across all major clouds, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud platforms.” Read full article Comments
SpiderBot experiments hint at “echolocation” to locate prey
It’s well understood that spiders have poor eyesight and thus sense the vibrations in their webs whenever prey (like a fly) gets caught; the web serves as an extension of their sensory system. But spiders also exhibit less-understood behaviors to locate struggling prey. Most notably, they take on a crouching position, sometimes moving up and down to shake the web or plucking at the web by pulling in with one leg. The crouching seems to be triggered when prey is stationary and stops when the prey starts moving. But it can be difficult to study the underlying mechanisms of this behavior because there are so many variables at play when observing live spiders. To simplify matters, researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Terradynamics Laboratory are building crouching spider robots and testing them on synthetic webs. The results provide evidence for the hypothesis that spiders crouch to sense differences in web frequencies to locate prey that isn’t moving—something analogous to echolocation. The researchers presented their initial findings today at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California. “Our lab investigates biological problems using robot physical models,” team member Eugene Lin told Ars. “Animal experiments are really hard to reproduce because it’s hard to get the animal to do what you want to do.” Experiments with robot physical models, by contrast, “are completely repeatable. And while you’re building them, you get a better idea of the actual [biological] system and how certain behaviors happen.” The lab has also built robots inspired by cockroaches and fish. Read full article Comments
Tanker owners praise ‘exceptionally brave crew’
Oil tanker Stena Immaculate and cargo ship Solong collided in the North Sea on 10 March.
Germany votes for historic boost to defence spending
The move alters the German constitution, allowing the country to increase its military spending.
‘Once again, fear has gripped the people’
Gaza residents were woken by airstrikes hitting buildings as Israel shattered a two-month ceasefire.
Why has Israel bombed Gaza and what next for ceasefire deal?
The truce was already in trouble – now Israeli air strikes have dealt it a huge blow.
US births rose last year, but experts don’t see it as a trend
U.S. births rose slightly last year, but experts don’t see it as evidence of reversing a long-term decline. A little over 3.6 million births were reported for 2024, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention preliminary data. That’s 22,250 more than the final tally of 2023 U.S. births, which was released Tuesday. The 2024 total is likely to grow at least a little when the numbers are finalized, but another set of preliminary data shows overall birth rates rose only for one group of people: Hispanic women. The rise — less than 1% — may just be a small fluctuation in the middle of a broader trend, said Hans-Peter Kohler, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist who studies family demographics. “I’d be hesitant to read much into the 2023-24 increase, and certainly not as an indication of a reversal of the trend towards lower or declining U.S. fertility,” Kohler said, adding that more analysis is needed to understand any changes that happened in birth patterns last year. U.S. births and birth rates have been falling for years. They dropped most years after the 2008-09 recession, aside from a 2014 uptick. They also dropped in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, then rose for two straight years after that, an increase experts partly attributed to pregnancies put off amid the pandemic. A 2% drop in 2023 put U.S. births at fewer than 3.6 million, the lowest one-year tally since 1979. Vermont had the lowest birth rate that year, and Utah had the highest, according to Tuesday’s 86-page report on 2023 birth data. The report, based on a review of all the birth certificates filed that year, shows the average age of mothers at first birth has continued to rise, hitting 27 1/2 years. It was 21 1/2 in the early 1970s, before beginning a steady climb. Birth rates have long been falling for teenagers and younger women, but were rising for women in their
Harvard is offering free tuition for families that make less than $200K
Dreaming of going to Harvard University? Well, the university has made things a little easier with an announcement Monday that students whose families make less than $200,000 won’t pay tuition. The university said the plan goes into effect for the 2025-2026 academic year and is aimed at making Harvard more affordable, especially for middle income students. Those students could also get additional financial aid to cover other expenses. “Putting Harvard within financial reach for more individuals widens the array of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives that all of our students encounter, fostering their intellectual and personal growth,” Harvard University President Alan Garber said in a statement. “By bringing people of outstanding promise together to learn with and from one another, we truly realize the tremendous potential of the University.” Garber said the plan also means students whose families make less than $100,000 will pay nothing, meaning their tuition as well as other expenses like food and housing will be covered. As a result, the university estimates that going forward nearly 90% of families in the United States whose children are accepted will qualify for some form of financial aid. “Harvard has long sought to open our doors to the most talented students, no matter their financial circumstances,” Hopi Hoekstra, the Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said. “This investment in financial aid aims to make a Harvard College education possible for every admitted student, so they can pursue their academic passions and positively impact our future.” The announcement is the latest from an elite higher education institution offering tuition breaks and comes as the rising cost of higher education has some questioning whether college is worth the price. Surveys find that Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value of a degree, and the percentage of high school graduates heading to college has fallen to levels not seen in decades, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet research still
UVA scientists develop AI tool to accelerate the development of new disease treatments
University of Virginia School of Medicine scientists have created a computational tool to accelerate the development of new disease treatments.
Adding curcumin boosts the efficacy of bedaquiline in combating M. abscessus infections
Mycobacterium abscessus is a fast-growing, pathogenic mycobacteria that can cause lung infections, and people who have respiratory conditions or are immunocompromised face a higher risk. It can also cause skin infections.