The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE released thermal energy roughly equivalent to 100,000 times the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, spewing molten rock, pumice, and hot ash over Pompeii. Pompeii's public baths, aqueduct, and water towers were among the preserved structures frozen in time. A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed calcium carbonate deposits from those structures to learn more about the city's water supply and how it changed over time.

Pompeii was founded in the sixth century BCE. Prior research revealed that, early on, the city relied on rainwater stored in cisterns and wells for its water supply. The public baths used weight-lifting machinery to lift water up well shafts that were as deep as 40 meters. As the city developed, so did the complexity of its water supply system, most notably with the construction of an aqueduct between 27 BCE and 14 CE.

The authors of this latest paper were interested in the calcium carbonate deposits left by water in well shafts as well as the baths and aqueduct. The different layers have "different chemical and isotope composition, calcite crystal size, and shape," which in turn could reveal information about seasonal changes in temperature, as well as changes over time in the chemical composition of the water. Analyzing those properties would enable them to "reconstruct the history of such systems—particularly public baths—revealing aspects of their maintenance and the adaptations made during their period of use," the authors wrote.

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The Supreme Court will hear a case that could invalidate the Federal Communications Commission's authority to issue fines against companies regulated by the FCC.

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile challenged the FCC's ability to punish them after the commission fined the carriers for selling customer location data without their users’ consent. AT&T convinced the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn its fine , while Verizon lost in the 2nd Circuit and T-Mobile lost in the District of Columbia Circuit.

Verizon petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse its loss, while the FCC and Justice Department petitioned the court to overturn AT&T's victory in the 5th Circuit. The Supreme Court granted both petitions to hear the challenges and consolidated the cases in a list of orders released Friday. Oral arguments will be held.

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Elon Musk's xAI recently weakened content guard rails for image generation in the Grok AI bot. This led to a new spate of non-consensual sexual imagery on X, much of it aimed at silencing women on the platform. This, along with the creation of sexualized images of children in the more compliant Grok, has led regulators to begin investigating xAI . In the meantime, Google has rules in place for exactly this eventuality—it's just not enforcing them.

It really could not be more clear from Google's publicly available policies that Grok should have been banned yesterday. And yet, it remains in the Play Store. Not only that—it enjoys a T for Teen rating, one notch below the M-rated X app. Apple also still offers the Grok app on its platform, but its rules actually leave more wiggle room.

App content restrictions at Apple and Google have evolved in very different ways. From the start, Apple has been apt to remove apps on a whim, so developers have come to expect that Apple's guidelines may not mention every possible eventuality. As Google has shifted from a laissez-faire attitude to more hard-nosed control of the Play Store, it has progressively piled on clarifications in the content policy. As a result, Google's rules are spelled out in no uncertain terms, and Grok runs afoul of them.

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Among other things, the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to get us closer to finding habitable worlds around faraway stars. From its perch a million miles from Earth, Webb's huge gold-coated mirror collects more light than any other telescope put into space.

The Webb telescope, launched in 2021 at a cost of more than $10 billion, has the sensitivity to peer into distant planetary systems and detect the telltale chemical fingerprints of molecules critical to or indicative of potential life, like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Webb can do this while also observing the oldest observable galaxies in the Universe and studying planets, moons, and smaller objects within our own Solar System.

Naturally, astronomers want to get the most out of their big-budget observatory. That's where NASA's Pandora mission comes in.

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The "more intelligent" version of Siri that Apple plans to release later this year will be backed by Google's Gemini language models, the company announced today. CNBC reports that the deal is part of a "multi-year partnership" between Apple and Google that will allow Apple to use Google's AI models in its own software.

"After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we’re excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users,” reads an Apple statement given to CNBC.

Today's announcement confirms reporting by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman late last year that Apple and Google were nearing a deal . Apple didn't disclose terms, but Gurman said that Apple would be paying Google "about $1 billion a year" for access to its AI models "following an extensive evaluation period."

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Six and a half years ago—after a failed corporate sale attempt , massive financial losses , and the departure / layoff of many key staff— I wrote about what seemed at the time like the "imminent demise" of GameStop. Now, after five years of meme stock mania that helped prop up the company's finances a bit , I'll admit the video game and Funko Pop retailer has lasted much longer as a relevant entity than I anticipated.

GameStop's surprisingly extended run may be beginning to come to an end though, with Polygon reporting late last week that GameStop has abruptly shut down 400 stores across the US, with even more closures expected before the end of the month. That comes on top of 590 US stores that were shuttered in fiscal 2024 (which ended in January of 2025) and stated plans to end operations for hundreds of remaining international stores across Canada, Australia, and Europe in the coming months, per SEC filings .

GameStop still had just over 3,200 stores worldwide as of February 1, 2025, so even hundreds of new and planned store closures don't literally mean the immediate end of the company as a going concern. But when you consider that there were still nearly 6,000 GameStop locations worldwide as of 2019 —nearly 4,000 of which were in the US—the long-term trend is clear.

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Elon Musk's X is currently under investigation in the United Kingdom after failing to stop the platform's chatbot, Grok, from generating thousands of sexualized images of women and children .

On Monday, UK media regulator Ofcom confirmed that X may have violated the UK's Online Safety Act, which requires platforms to block illegal content. The proliferation of "undressed images of people" by X users may amount to intimate image abuse, pornography, and child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the regulator said. And X may also have neglected its duty to stop kids from seeing porn.

"Reports of Grok being used to create and share illegal non-consensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material on X have been deeply concerning," an Ofcom spokesperson said. "Platforms must protect people in the UK from content that’s illegal in the UK, and we won’t hesitate to investigate where we suspect companies are failing in their duties, especially where there’s a risk of harm to children."

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The new Chevrolet Equinox EV is a solid entry into the compact crossover market, and with a (just) sub-$35,000 starting price, it also counts as affordable by the standards of 2026. But if you think that's too rich for your blood, or that the Equinox is still too large for your needs, take heart—the Chevrolet Bolt is back in dealerships now as well.

The Bolt was GM's first modern electric vehicle, following on from the hand-built, pre-lithium ion EV1 and the compliance car that was the Spark EV. We're big fans of the Bolt here at Ars Technica. It offered well more than 200 miles of range in a mass-produced EV at a reasonable price well before Tesla's Model 3 started clogging up our roads, it got more efficient over time, and it managed to be fun to drive in the process.

General Motors (which owns Chevrolet) probably feels less well-disposed toward the Bolt. It lost thousands of dollars on each car it sold, even before the entire fleet had to be recalled for a costly battery replacement . The issue was due to improperly folded tabs on some cells that could cause a battery fire, giving GM ( and its battery partner LG ) plenty of bad press in the process. That recall alone cost $1.8 billion.

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Older adults can dramatically reduce the amount of ultraprocessed foods they eat while keeping a familiar, balanced diet—and this shift leads to improvements across several key markers related to how the body regulates appetite and metabolism. That’s the main finding of a new study my colleagues and I published in the journal Clinical Nutrition .

Ultraprocessed foods are made using industrial techniques and ingredients that aren’t typically used in home cooking. They often contain additives such as emulsifiers, flavorings, colors, and preservatives. Common examples include packaged snacks, ready-to-eat meals, and some processed meats. Studies have linked diets high in ultraprocessed foods to poorer health outcomes .

My team and I enrolled Americans ages 65 and older in our study, many of whom were overweight or had metabolic risk factors such as insulin resistance or high cholesterol. Participants followed two diets low in ultraprocessed foods for eight weeks each. One included lean red meat (pork); the other was vegetarian with milk and eggs. For two weeks in between, participants returned to their usual diets.

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