Evening Brief: Hegseth Defends Caribbean Strike, New US-Bahrain Air Defense Center, Taliban Stage Public Execution Before Thousands
Top stories this Tuesday evening, December 2, 2025.
NASA Awards Lunar Freezer System Contract
NASA has selected the University of Alabama at Birmingham to provide the necessary systems required to return temperature sensitive science payloads to Earth from the
Waxing Gibbous Moon
The waxing gibbous moon rises above Earth’s blue atmosphere in this photograph taken from the International Space Station on Oct. 3, 2025, as it orbited
Universal Consciousness Before the Big Bang, the Launch of “UAlbany Project X”, and Extremophile Survival in Space
This week in news from The Debrief, a new theoretical study argues that a “universal consciousness” may have predated the Big Bang and continues to influence the structure of reality itself. Meanwhile, astronauts conducting experiments outside the International Space Station found that an ancient, extremophile Earth organism survived nine months in the harsh vacuum of space, raising fresh questions about the resilience of life. And at the University at Albany, physicists have launched “UAlbany Project X,” a long-term, data-driven investigation into unidentified anomalous phenomena, signaling a growing willingness in academia to rigorously explore aerial mysteries once left at the fringes of science.
Here’s a
NASA Awards Lunar Freezer System Contract
NASA has selected the University of Alabama at Birmingham to provide the necessary systems required to return temperature sensitive science payloads to Earth from the Moon.
The Lunar Freezer System contract is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity award with cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery orders. The contract begins Thursday, Dec. 4, with a 66-month base period along with two optional periods that could extend the award through June 3, 2033. The contract has a total estimated value of $37 million.
Under the contract, the
Waxing Gibbous Moon
The waxing gibbous moon rises above Earth’s blue atmosphere in this photograph taken from the International Space Station on Oct. 3, 2025, as it orbited 263 miles above a cloudy Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Quebec, Canada.
In our entire solar system, the only object that shines with its own light is the Sun. That light always beams onto Earth and the Moon from the direction of the Sun, illuminating half of our planet in its orbit and
NASA Tests Drones in Death Valley, Preps for Martian Sands and Skies
Next-generation drone flight software is just one of 25 technologies for the Red Planet that the space agency funded for development this year.
When NASA engineers want to test a concept for exploring the Red Planet, they have to find ways to create Mars-like conditions here on Earth. Then they test, tinker, and repeat.
That’s why a team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California took three research drones to California’s Death Valley National Park and the Mojave
New email scam uses hidden characters to slip past filters
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Cybercriminals keep finding new angles to get your attention, and email remains one of their favorite tools. Over the years, you have probably seen everything from fake courier notices to AI-generated scams that feel surprisingly polished. Filters have improved, but attackers have learned to adapt. The latest technique takes aim at something you rarely think about: the subject line itself. Researchers have found a method that hides tiny, invisible characters inside
3D model shows small clans created Easter Island statues
[embedded content]
Credit: ArcGIS
Easter Island is famous for its giant monumental statues, called moai, built some 800 years ago. The volcanic rock used for the moai came from a quarry site called Rano Raraku. Archaeologists have created a high-resolution interactive 3D model of the quarry site to learn more about the processes used to create the moai. (You can explore the full interactive model here.) According to a paper published in the journal PLoS ONE, the model shows
“Renewable” no more: Trump admin renames the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The Trump administration has renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, now calling it the National Laboratory of the Rockies, marking an identity shift for the Colorado institution that has been a global leader in wind, solar and other renewable energy research.
“The new name reflects the Trump administration’s broader vision for the lab’s applied energy research, which historically emphasized alternative and renewable sources of generation, and honors the natural splendor of the lab’s surroundings in Golden, Colorado,” said Jud
New email scam uses hidden characters to slip past filters
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Cybercriminals keep finding new angles to get your attention, and email remains one of their favorite tools. Over the years, you have probably seen everything from fake courier notices to AI-generated scams that feel surprisingly polished. Filters have improved, but attackers have learned to adapt. The latest technique takes aim at something you rarely think about: the subject line itself. Researchers have found a method that hides tiny, invisible characters inside
The Download: AI’s impact on the economy, and DeepSeek strikes again
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The State of AI: Welcome to the economic singularity —David Rotman and Richard Waters Any far-reaching new technology is always uneven in its adoption, but few have been more uneven than generative AI. That makes it hard to assess its likely impact on individual businesses, let alone on productivity across the economy as a whole.
Real Apple support emails used in new phishing scam
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A new phishing scam is getting a lot of attention because it uses real Apple Support tickets to trick people into giving up their accounts. Broadcom’s Eric Moret shared how he nearly lost his entire Apple account after trusting what looked like official communication. He described the full experience in a detailed post on Medium, where he walked through the scam step by step.This scheme stands out because the scammers relied
The State of AI: welcome to the economic singularity
Welcome back to The State of AI, a new collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Every Monday for the next two weeks, writers from both publications will debate one aspect of the generative AI revolution reshaping global power. This week, Richard Waters, FT columnist and former West Coast editor, talks with MIT Technology Review’s editor at large David Rotman about the true impact of AI on the job market. Bonus: If you’re an MIT Technology Review subscriber,
Company restores AI teddy bear sales after safety scare
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
FoloToy paused sales of its AI teddy bear Kumma after a safety group found the toy gave risky and inappropriate responses during testing. Now the company says it has restored sales after a week of intense review. It also claims that it improved safeguards to keep kids safe.The announcement arrived through a social media post that highlighted a push for stronger oversight. The company said it completed testing, reinforced safety modules
An AI model trained on prison phone calls now looks for planned crimes in those calls
A US telecom company trained an AI model on years of inmates’ phone and video calls and is now piloting that model to scan their calls, texts, and emails in the hope of predicting and preventing crimes. Securus Technologies president Kevin Elder told MIT Technology Review that the company began building its AI tools in 2023, using its massive database of recorded calls to train AI models to detect criminal activity. It created one model, for example, using seven years