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Melbourne CBD protest: Extinction Rebellion climate activists block Collins St, causing massive traffic delays

Albert Elence — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 22:03:10 +0000

By Kylie Stevens for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 5:21 PM EDT, March 11, 2024 | Updated: 5:41 PM EDT, March 11, 2024

Climate protesters have brought traffic to a standstill on one of Melbourne’s busiest streets, causing massive chaos for thousands of frustrated commuters trying to get to work.

Dozens of Extinction Rebellion members blocked and walked slowly along Collins Street in the CBD during the morning rush hour on Tuesday.

Tram and bus services are also embroiled in the chaos.

Police have arrived and cordoned off a busy intersection on Queen Street, adding to the chaos.

Motorists caught in the chaos were furious.

“It’s just wrong,” one motorist told Sunrise.

“Something would take me five minutes to get to the road, but it took me about 25 minutes.”

The latest protest comes a week after a truck blockade on the West Gate Bridge caused major traffic delays and forced a young mother on her way to hospital to give birth along the highway.

Despite being arrested and charged last week, activist Joseph Zammit was back on the streets Tuesday morning

“What I was told was not unlawful protesting. It’s not clear to me what that means,” he told Sunrise.

‘So I’m playing it safe. I’m on the sidewalk handing out flyers.

More to come.

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Scientists claim they are close to saving Dodo from extinction

Jeffrey Bailey — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 01:02:48 +0000

SCIENTISTS claim they are making “incredible progress” in their efforts to bring the dodo back from the dead.

The large, flightless bird was hurried Threatened with extinction on its native island of Mauritius 350 years ago.

The dodo was threatened with extinction on its native island of Mauritius 350 years agoCredit: SWNS

Scientists used DNA from a skull to completely sequence the species' genomeCredit: SWNS

But a genetic engineering company used DNA from a museum skull to completely sequence the species' genome.

It is now developing genetically modified chickens that can hopefully act as surrogate mothers to carry embryos.

US-based Colossal Biosciences has worked with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation to find a location for its return.

Dr. Beth Shapiro, member of the Colossal Scientific Advisory Board, said: “The Dodo is a great example of a species that became extinct because we – humans – made it impossible for them to survive in their native habitat.

“I have focused my entire career on genetic advances in ancient DNA and am the first to completely sequence the Dodo genome. I am pleased to be working with Colossal and the people of Mauritius on the extinction and eventual rewilding of the Dodo.

“I especially look forward to advancing genetic rescue tools focused on birds and bird conservation.”

Rare Dodo skeleton to go under the hammer at Summers Place Auctions, West Sussex

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Baby names on the brink of extinction revealed, with celebrity-inspired names plummeting in popularity

Sabir Ansary — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 23:25:12 +0000

Peggy, Kiera, Nelson and Buddy are all names on the brink of extinction, according to British parenting resource BabyCentre.

Experts say names in decline this year include celebrity-related picks such as Bruno, after the singer, and Vivienne, after the late designer.

Over the past year, once-popular names have dwindled, leading experts to classify them as “endangered.”

The nearly extinct names have been identified by research looking at the biggest declines between 2022 and 2023, and experts believe they will continue to decline throughout the year.

Faye Mingo, head of marketing at BabyCentre, said Mirror: 'These names may not be as popular anymore, but they can be the perfect choice for your new arrival if you want a unique baby name. Although these names are familiar, they are probably the only child in their class with this name.'

The top spot for most endangered boys' names is Keanu, while for girls Flo is most at risk (stock image)

Keanu ranks first for the most 'endangered' boy names for 2024.

The drop supports the idea of a decline in celebrity-based names, considering critically acclaimed Matrix actor Keanu Reeves.

Surprisingly, Flo – a shortened spelling of Florence – is considered the most endangered name for girls.

Once again, the decline could be linked to rising actress Florence Pugh, who was associated with the nickname 'Miss Flo' last year.

Most endangered boy names for 2024

Keanu

Ryder

Leroy

Younes

Aydan

Griff

Bowen

Bruno

Jameson

Moses

Nelson

Preston

Tiger

Friend

Hans

Luigi

Mattias

Miller

Raffy

Roscoe

Most endangered girls' names for 2024

Flo

Maira

Vivienne

Zahraa

Alyssia

Deema

Kiera

Latifa

Nihira

Peggy

Tianna

Anita

Bailey

Elyse

Indiana

Renee

Saira

Drew

Macey

Maddy

However, parents may choose to officially name their children Florence and use Flo colloquially.

Likewise, Maddy was under fire. Perhaps this suggests that parents are instead opting for the more traditional version, Madeline.

Faye explained that they have been keeping a close eye on alternative spellings that fluctuate on the charts.

However, she realized that some parents still prefer this option to be unique.

She said: 'We know there are always parents looking for something unique, so Zahraa, Kiera, Alyssia or Elyse could be the perfect choice for parents who want a name that stands out from the crowd.'

Elsewhere, traditional names associated with the baby boomer generation are also on the decline.

For example, Leroy and Nelson are declared 'endangered' by BabyCentre.

While Renee and Anita run the same risk when it comes to girls' names.

It comes after the most popular baby names of 2023 were revealed, with a new name claiming the top spot on the girls' list – although it may come as no surprise.

While Mohammed continues to rule for boys, a girl's name previously pushed out of the top spot has once again secured the crown, according to BabyCentre, the leading pregnancy and parenting destination.

From data obtained by the MirrorOlivia has returned to the number one spot for 2023, partly due to the way BabyCentre ranks her name.

The parenting platform now considers all spellings of a name as separate entries. Although Sophia was one of the most popular names in the country, the rankings have dropped significantly since 'Sophia' and 'Sofia' were categorized separately.

It means Lily, who took first place in the half-year results and was previously attributed to Princess Lilibet, has had her crown stolen by an old favorite, Olivia.

'Parents spend a lot of time thinking about their baby's name, but also about its spelling. They may be small, but these differences are important to parents, so we will now include all individual spellings of baby names in our listings,” Ms Mingo told the Mirror.

The expert parenting platform released its half-year data earlier in July, putting Lily at the top of the girls' list, followed by Sophia and Olivia.

However, Lily has since fallen to fourth place, while Amelia and Isla claim second and third places.

The top ten girls' names of 2023 are now: Olivia, Amelia, Isla, Lily, Ava, Freya, Ivy, Sophia, Grace and Willow.

Meanwhile, Mohammed still tops the list of boys' names, followed by Noah, Theo, Leo and Oliver.

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Will Extinction Rebellion get its first royal member? Countess Eloise of Orange-Nassau admits she’s open to joining the eco-warrior movement – but critics call the jet-setting royal influencer a ‘hypocrite’

Sabir Ansary — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 18:22:30 +0000

Countess Eloise of Orange-Nassau once refused to join Extinction Rebellion as she opened up about being ashamed of her jet-setting lifestyle.

The countess, 21, grandchild of Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus of the Netherlands, said in a recent interview that she was disappointed with her carbon footprint.

Speak with Media newspaperthe royal family – who have shared photos of luxury holidays to Japan, New York and Italy in recent years – said: ‘It’s a shame I fly so often.’

In the interview, Eloise said that she wants to follow in the footsteps of Dutch Game of Thrones actress Carice van Houten.

The star – who played Melisandre in the hit HBO series – was arrested twice last year for blocking a highway in The Hague during climate protests organized by Extinction Rebellion.

Countess Eloise of Orange-Nassau (pictured) revealed she is open to the possibility of joining Extinction Rebellion

The countess says she has had ‘a lot of contact’ with Van Houten.

She added: “I’m not thinking of getting involved [Extinction Rebellion] now, but who knows at another time.’

In recent years, the Countess has traveled to Prague, Italy, France, Japan, America and is currently on a ski trip.

Despite sharing details of her travels with her 435,000 Instagram followers, Eloise says she still feels bad about the number of trips she takes.

She explains: ‘At the beginning of this year I had a huge feeling of flying shame, it made me nervous about how much I was flying.

‘But the stupid thing is that I also like the world. I try to compensate for that in my daily life.’

The countess also opened up about whether she wants to have children amid the climate change crisis.

She said: ‘Lately I’ve been wondering more and more about bringing children into this world.

The 21-year-old countess has encountered controversy after speaking out about her propensity for jet-setting. She is pictured above at the Harper’ Bazaar Women of the Year Awards in November 2023

Eloise had some wonderful holidays last year, including New York (pictured), Japan and Italy

During her interview with Media Courant, Eloise reveals that she has been in contact with actress Carice van Houten – who was arrested twice last year for blocking a highway in The Hague during climate protests organized by Extinction Rebellion

‘What will the planet look like in fifty years? I don’t know, but I feel like it’s really going to make the world laugh and giggle.”

Although the Countess emphasized that she is not currently a member of Extinction Rebellion, she did not rule it out in the future.

The 21-year-old, who is fifth in line to the Dutch throne, has faced criticism online since the interview was published, with many taking issue with her frequent holidays.

One reader wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: ‘What hypocritical behavior.

‘Doesn’t do any good for the image of the royal family if you ask me.’

A second added: ‘Don’t worry, the commercial influencer is on her first trip of the year: a sponsored ski trip at the expense of a ski goggle brand, for which she can’t even be bothered to follow the brand in question on Insta. #Nepobaby.”

The royal family, who is fifth in line to the Dutch throne, said the current state of the environment is enough to stop her from having children

Eloise, who is currently on a ski trip to ring in the new year, is open to joining Extinction Rebellion in the future

A third wrote: ‘This desire for attention, sometimes wrong, will do her more harm than good in the long run.’

A fourth drew attention to an upcoming climate camp in the Netherlands, saying: ‘This is an opportunity for Eloise: (Note: satire) The Netherlands’ most famous countess can immediately translate her intentions into action.

‘Nice and close to home and within the family, there is probably a vintage fur coat to protect against the cold. Selfie on Insta and done! Just a shame about the anonymity.’

Eloise is the eldest grandchild of Princess Beatrix, the former Queen of the Netherlands, but has largely remained out of the public eye until now, along with her younger siblings Count Claus-Casimir and Countess Leonor.

Social media users took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share their thoughts on Eloise’s statements

The family is seen at some royal occasions, such as the annual winter photo session in Lech, Austria.

Eloise was a member of the Royal House of the Netherlands until the abdication of her grandmother in favor of her uncle.

She and her siblings were then no longer part of the household, but remain members of the royal family.

Eloise was baptized into the Church of the Netherlands on December 15, 2002 in the Royal Chapel of Paleis Het Loo in Apeldoorn.

Her godparents are her paternal uncle, Prince Friso, her paternal cousin, Princess Carolina, Marchioness of Sala, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Sophie van de Wow.

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AI poses a ‘risk of extinction’, industry leaders warn

Jeffrey Bailey — Tue, 30 May 2023 09:13:26 +0000

A group of industry leaders plans to warn Tuesday that the artificial intelligence technology they are building could one day pose an existential threat to humanity and should be considered a societal risk akin to pandemics and nuclear war.

Reducing the risk of AI extinction should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war. one sentence statement is expected to be released by the Center for AI Safety, a non-profit organization. The open letter was signed by more than 350 executives, researchers and engineers working in AI

Signatories included top executives from three of the leading AI companies: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind; and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic.

Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, two of three researchers who won a Turing Award for their pioneering work on neural networks and who are often considered “godfathers” of the modern AI movement, signed the statement, along with other prominent researchers in the field (The third Turing Award winner, Yann LeCun, who leads Meta’s AI research effort, had not yet signed on Tuesday.)

The statement comes at a time of growing concern about the potential harms of artificial intelligence. Recent developments in so-called large language models – the type of AI system used by ChatGPT and other chatbots – have raised fears that AI could soon be widely used to spread misinformation and propaganda, or that it could create millions of white-collar jobs. to eliminate .

Some believe AI could eventually become powerful enough to cause societal disruption within a few years if nothing is done to slow it down, though researchers sometimes stop explaining how that would happen.

These fears are shared by numerous industry leaders, putting them in the unusual position of claiming that a technology they are building — and in many cases racing furiously to build faster than their competitors — carries serious risks and needs to be more tightly regulated .

This month, Mr. Altman, Mr. Hassabis and Mr. Amodei met with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss AI regulation. In a Senate testimony after the meeting, Mr. Altman warned that the risks posed by advanced AI systems were serious enough to warrant government intervention and called for AI to be regulated for the potential harm.

Dan Hendrycks, the executive director of the Center for AI Safety, said in an interview that the open letter was a “coming out” for some industry leaders who had expressed concerns – but only privately – about the risks of the technology they were to develop.

“There’s a common misconception, even in the AI community, that there are only a handful of doomers,” said Mr. hendrycks. “But in fact, a lot of people would privately voice their concerns about these things.”

Some skeptics argue that AI technology is still too immature to pose an existential threat. When it comes to current AI systems, they are more concerned about short-term problems, such as biased and incorrect responses, than longer-term dangers.

But others have argued that AI is improving so fast that it has already surpassed human performance in some areas, and soon to be in others. They say the technology has shown signs of advanced capability and understanding, prompting fears that “artificial general intelligence” or AGI, a type of artificial intelligence that can match or exceed human-level performance on a wide variety of tasks, could that maybe won’t. be far away.

In a blog post last week, Mr. Altman and two other OpenAI executives suggested several ways in which high-performance AI systems could be managed responsibly. They called for collaboration among the leading AI makers, more technical research into major language models, and the formation of an international AI security organization, similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency, that seeks to control the use of nuclear weapons.

Mr Altman has also expressed his support for rules that would require makers of large, advanced AI models to register for a government-issued license.

In March, more than 1,000 technologists and researchers signed another open letter calling for a six-month pause in the development of the biggest AI models, citing concerns about “an out-of-control race to create increasingly powerful digital minds.” develop and deploy. ”

That letter, which was written by another AI-focused nonprofit, the Future of Life Institute, was signed by Elon Musk and other well-known tech leaders, but didn’t have many signatures from the leading AI labs.

The brevity of the Center for AI Safety’s new statement — just 22 words in all — was intended to unite AI experts who may disagree about the nature of specific risks or steps to prevent those risks, but who have general concerns. shared about powerful AI systems, Mr Hendrycks said.

“We didn’t want to insist on a very large menu of 30 possible interventions,” said Mr. hendrycks. “When that happens, it dilutes the message.”

The statement was initially shared with a few high-profile AI experts, including Mr Hinton, who this month quit his job at Google so he could speak more freely, he said, about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. From there, it made its way to several of the big AI labs, where some of the employees then signed up.

The urgency of AI leaders’ warnings has increased as millions of people turn to AI chatbots for entertainment, companionship and increased productivity, and as the underlying technology advances at a rapid pace.

“I think if this technology goes wrong, it could go pretty wrong,” Mr. Altman told the Senate subcommittee. “We want to work with the government to prevent that.”

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