The reason why this nascent startup had VCs lining up is the founders.They are so famed in the AI world, everyone tried to hire them.

PLUS: Open Source LM Breakthrough 🔮, Behavioral Interviews 101 🫡, OpenAI Atlas Architecture 🗺️

"We're exploring a different set of tradeoffs."

"From an AI research perspective, this is nothing novel," one expert told TechCrunch.

Even Antarctica’s toughest native insect can’t escape the reach of plastic pollution. Scientists have discovered that Belgica antarctica — a tiny, rice-sized midge and the southernmost insect on Earth — is already ingesting microplastics in the wild. While lab tests showed the hardy larvae c...

Silent Hill: Townfall is set in the fictional St Amelia, based on the real village of St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife.

Researchers have built a realistic human mini spinal cord in the lab and used it to simulate traumatic injury. The model reproduced key damage seen in real spinal cord injuries, including inflammation and scar formation. After treatment with fast moving “dancing molecules,” nerve fibers began gr...

High-severity CSS flaw let malicious webpages run code inside the sandbox Google has quietly pushed out an emergency Chrome fix after attackers were caught exploiting the browser's first reported zero-day of 2026.…

For years, compulsive behaviors have been viewed as bad habits stuck on autopilot. But new research in rats found the opposite: inflammation in a key decision-making brain region actually made behavior more deliberate, not more automatic. The change was linked to astrocytes, brain support cells that...

For the first time, researchers have shown that self-assembled phosphorus chains can host genuinely one-dimensional electron behavior. Using advanced imaging and spectroscopy techniques, they separated the signals from chains aligned in different directions to reveal their true nature. The findings ...

As India's first AI company to IPO, Fractal Analytics didn't have a stellar first day on the public markets, as enthusiasm for the technology collided with jittery investors in the wake of a sell-off in Indian software stocks.

India is hosting a four-day AI Summit this week that will be attended by executives from major AI labs and Big Tech, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare, as well as heads of state.

Videos featuring Spider-Man and other characters which are Disney's intellectual property have gone viral since Seedance's update.

New data from major dark-energy observatories suggest the universe may not expand forever after all. A Cornell physicist calculates that the cosmos is heading toward a dramatic reversal: after reaching its maximum size in about 11 billion years, it could begin collapsing, ultimately ending in a “b...

Terra Industries, the African defense company, announced Monday that it had secured an additional $22 million in funding to further expand the business. 

The government's new plans will mean no online platform will get a "free pass" on children's safety on the internet, the prime minister says.

# Intro Welcome to the weekly career discussion thread, where you can talk about all career & professional topics. Topics may include: * Professional career guidance & questions; e.g. job hunting advice, job offers comparisons, how to network * Educational guidance & questions; e.g. what...

Researchers have uncovered the enzyme behind chromothripsis, a chaotic chromosome-shattering event seen in about one in four cancers. The enzyme, N4BP2, breaks apart DNA trapped in tiny cellular structures, unleashing a burst of genetic changes that can help tumors rapidly adapt and resist therapy. ...

More than a century after its discovery, Scandinavia’s oldest plank boat is finally giving up new secrets. By analyzing ancient caulking and cords from the Hjortspring boat, researchers uncovered traces of pine pitch and animal fat — materials that likely came from pine-rich regions east of Denm...

C2i has raised $15 million as it tests a grid-to-GPU approach to reducing power losses in AI data centers.

Neysa is targeting deployments of more than 20,000 GPUs over time as demand for local AI compute accelerates.

PLUS: Fake ransomware group exposed; EC blesses Google's big Wiz deal; Alleged sewage hacker cuffed; And more Infosec in Brief  The former General Manager of defense contractor L3Harris’s cyber subsidiary Trenchant sold eight zero-day exploit kits to Russia, according to a court filing last week....

OpenAI said OpenClaw will live on as an open source project.

The longtime host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” is suing Google, alleging that the male podcast voice in the company’s NotebookLM tool is based on him.

The apparent issue: whether Claude can be used for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says India has the largest number of student users of ChatGPT worldwide.

In this week's episode of the Equity podcast, Glean CEO Arvind Jain explains the company's shift from enterprise search tool to middleware layer for enterprise AI.

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

Will the Epstein revelations lead to broader fallout in Silicon Valley?

TechCrunch spoke to a16z partner Joshua Lu for some tips on standing out for the Speedrun program.

A new Stanford study suggests math struggles may be about more than numbers. Children who had difficulty with math were less likely to adjust their thinking after making mistakes during number comparison tasks. Brain imaging showed weaker activity in regions that help monitor errors and guide behavi...

Hollywood organizations are pushing back against a new AI video model called Seedance 2.0, which they say has quickly become a tool for “blatant” copyright infringement.

Scientists have created the most detailed maps yet of how genes control one another inside the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. Using a powerful new AI-based system called SIGNET, the team uncovered cause-and-effect relationships between genes across six major brain cell types, revealing...

Scientists have uncovered a hidden partnership between pancreatic cancer and the nervous system. Support cells in the pancreas lure nerve fibers, which then release signals that accelerate early cancer growth. This creates a self-sustaining loop that helps tumors take hold. Blocking the nerve activi...

Scientists have developed a powerful new way to trace the journey of water across the planet by reading tiny atomic clues hidden inside it. Slightly heavier versions of hydrogen and oxygen, called isotopes, shift in predictable ways as water evaporates and moves through the atmosphere. By combining ...

Students are losing some interest in computer science broadly but gaining interest in AI-specific majors and courses.

Sleeping on a problem might be more powerful than we ever imagined. Neuroscientists at Northwestern University have shown that dreams can actually be nudged in specific directions — and those dream tweaks may boost creativity. By playing subtle sound cues during REM sleep, researchers prompted peo...

Psychedelics can quiet the brain’s visual input system, pushing it to replace missing details with vivid fragments from memory. Scientists found that slow, rhythmic brain waves help shift perception away from the outside world and toward internal recall — almost like dreaming while awake. By ima...

A massive review of 23 randomized trials found that statins do not cause the vast majority of side effects listed on their labels. Memory problems, depression, sleep issues, weight gain, and many other symptoms appeared just as often in people taking a placebo. Only a few side effects showed any lin...

The Department of Homeland Security has been increasing pressure on tech companies to identify the owners of accounts that criticize ICE.

Elon Musk is “actively” working to make xAI’s Grok chatbot “more unhinged, according to a former employee.

Scientists at Michigan State University have uncovered the molecular “switch” that powers sperm for their final, high-speed dash toward an egg. By tracking how sperm use glucose as fuel, the team discovered how dormant cells suddenly flip into overdrive, burning energy in a carefully controlled,...

A new study shows that dogs and cats may be helping an invasive flatworm spread. Researchers analyzing over a decade of reports discovered the worm attached to pet fur. Its sticky mucus and ability to reproduce alone make it highly adaptable. Pets could be giving this slow-moving invader a major boo...

Couples who intentionally slow down and soak in their happy moments together may be building a powerful shield for their relationship. Researchers at the University of Illinois found that partners who regularly savor shared experiences—whether reminiscing about a favorite memory, enjoying a dinner...

Scientists are launching an ambitious global effort to map the “human exposome” — the lifelong mix of environmental and chemical exposures that drive most diseases. Backed by new partnerships with governments, UNESCO, and international science advisory bodies, the initiative is rapidly expandi...

A global study has uncovered a mysterious group of gut bacteria that shows up again and again in healthy people. Known as CAG-170, these microbes were found at lower levels in people with a range of chronic diseases. Genetic clues suggest they help digest food and support the broader gut ecosystem. ...

Astronomers have uncovered a distant planetary system that flips a long-standing rule of planet formation on its head. Around the small red dwarf star LHS 1903, scientists expected to find rocky planets close in and gas giants farther out — the same pattern seen in our own Solar System and hundred...

A massive star 2.5 million light-years away simply vanished — and astronomers now know why. Instead of exploding in a supernova, it quietly collapsed into a black hole, shedding its outer layers in a slow-motion cosmic fade-out. The leftover debris continues to glow in infrared light, offering a l...

Participants in the NHS 'Triceps' trial wear a device in their ear which emits electrical pulses while they do rehab.

A new study suggests that generosity may be more than a moral lesson—it could be shaped by how different parts of the brain work together. By gently stimulating two brain regions and syncing their activity, researchers found that people became more willing to share money with others, even when it ...