Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved testing of a military-grade "heat ray" for potential use along the U.S.-Mexico border — a weapon that uses invisible energy beams to produce an intense burning sensation on human skin.
Why it matters: The potential use of a military weapon against migrants raises significant safety and legal questions, including whether the technology could cause injuries or endanger people attempting to cross the border.
In the race to fend off AI-enabled cyber threats, security teams are confronting a new problem: The AI models they rely on to investigate attacks can suddenly refuse to help.
Why it matters: While AI giants race to build AI tools that can respond quickly to hacking or other malicious online threats, strict guardrails on their most powerful models lock out defenders mid-investigation, leaving them scrambling for alternatives at critical moments.
Orbital pharma and re-entry startup Varda Space Industries launched a new mission Tuesday to test microgravity's effects on an innovative cancer treatment.
Why it matters: Developing medicine in space, away from the pesky influence of Earth's gravity, could unlock better treatments — though commercial scale for "space meds" is still a moonshot.
Project Omega and Charter Space want to explore how radioactive isotopes can be used to keep expensive satellites in orbit longer and prevent them from being lost to the depths of space.
Why it matters: Satellites often rely on solar power, which can be unpredictable. Reliable power could increase the odds of spacecraft survival.
NASA has previously observed that about 41% of small satellites fail or partially fail.
