📉 Have China's CO2 emissions peaked? Declining for the first time thanks to clean energy
China's carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2025 despite sharply increased energy demand. China's electricity sector emissions have decreased four times previously. However, the current reduction is the first time the main cause is growth in clean energy production.
🚚 CERN researchers transport antimatter by truck for the first time
CERN has developed a portable container that can transport antimatter by truck between laboratories. The test showed that protons could be transported 4 kilometers without a single particle disappearing during transport.
⚡ An AI query uses as little energy as a microwave for one-tenth of a second
A simple text query to AI uses only 114 joules - equivalent to running a microwave for one-tenth of a second. Generating a high-quality image requires 2,282 joules, which corresponds to five and a half seconds in the microwave.
📜 They have succeeded in reading the title in the rolled 2000-year-old papyrus scroll - wins $60,000
The title "On Vices" by philosopher Philodemus has been recovered from a carbonized papyrus scroll from Herculaneum without unrolling it. Two research teams discovered the title independently using image analysis and improved ink detection methods.
🕊️ PKK ends armed struggle after 40 years of conflict
The Kurdish militant group PKK announced on May 12 that they had ended their armed struggle against the Turkish state that has been ongoing since 1984. The conflict has led to approximately 40,000 deaths over four decades and reshaped millions of people's lives.
🩺 AI diagnose better than doctors in test
The model performed better than hundreds of doctors in five different experiments testing medical reasoning. In an emergency room study, AI outperformed both experienced doctors and previous AI versions in diagnostics with limited information.
🚙 Global electric vehicle sales increases – expected to exceed 20 million vehicles in 2025
The International Energy Agency predicts that 25 percent of new cars in Europe will be electric this year. The price gap between electric cars and gasoline cars is decreasing rapidly, especially in China where two-thirds of electric cars are now cheaper than gasoline cars.
🦾 Google's new AI teaches itself to solve problems that humans get stuck on
Google DeepMind has used chatbot models to come up with solutions to major problems in mathematics and computer science. The system, called AlphaEvolve, combines the creativity of a large language model with algorithms that can scrutinize the model's suggestions to filter and improve solutions.
🍾 ESS accelerator starts with 542 meters proton beam
For the first time, protons have been accelerated all the way from the ion source to the beam dump, a distance of 542.5 meters in the 600-meter-long accelerator tunnel. ESS will be the world's most powerful neutron source and as a giant microscope for studying various materials.