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All the Breakthroughs You Missed: The Biggest Science Stories from August 10–11, 2025

All the Breakthroughs You Missed: The Biggest Science Stories from August 10–11, 2025

Medicine & Health Space & Astronomy Climate & Environment Physics & Materials Science Technology & Innovation Sources: The above summaries are based on reports and press releases from reputable outlets and journals, including The Guardian theguardian.com theguardian.com, Science sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com, NASA space.com, ScienceDaily/RAS sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com, Euronews (AP) euronews.com euronews.com, Reuters reuters.com reuters.com, Nature sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com, and university press releases sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. Each story’s details and quotes are drawn from the original research publications or official statements by experts involved.
11 August 2025
Dazzling Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight – Your Skywatch Guide for August 11–12, 2025

Dazzling Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight – Your Skywatch Guide for August 11–12, 2025

Perseid meteor shower peaks August 11–12 (into the pre-dawn hours) with an 84% full Moon washing out fainter meteors, so expected rates drop to about 10–20 per hour instead of the usual 50–100. The best viewing window is midnight to dawn, with a peak surge around 2–3 a.m. local time as the Perseid radiant in Perseus climbs high. Fireballs may still appear, and occasional long-lasting earthgrazers could skim the atmosphere early in the night even under moonlight. Venus and Jupiter form a close dawn conjunction on August 11–12, about 1 degree apart, visible to the naked eye about 1–2 hours
11 August 2025
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Rocket Scrubs, Astronaut Splashdown & Moon Race Milestones – Space News Roundup (Aug 10–11, 2025)

Rocket Scrubs, Astronaut Splashdown & Moon Race Milestones – Space News Roundup (Aug 10–11, 2025)

Astronaut Homecoming & ISS Updates Rocket Launch Drama & Satellite Missions Moon Exploration & Global Programs Science & New Discoveries Commercial & Industry Developments Sources: This report compiles information from official agency releases, trusted news outlets, and expert commentary. Key sources include NASA press releases nasa.gov spacepolicyonline.com, Spaceflight Now spaceflightnow.com spaceflightnow.com, Space.com space.com space.com, SpaceNews ts2.tech ts2.tech, SatNews news.satnews.com, SpacePolicyOnline spacepolicyonline.com spacepolicyonline.com, and other referenced publications as noted above. Each cited link provides further details on the respective news item for readers seeking more information.
11 August 2025
Tech Shocks: Chips Squeezed, Hacks Mended & Space Race Delays – Tech News Roundup (Aug 10–11, 2025)

Tech Shocks: Chips Squeezed, Hacks Mended & Space Race Delays – Tech News Roundup (Aug 10–11, 2025)

AOL will discontinue its Dial-up Internet service on September 30, 2025 after a 34-year run. AOL will retire the AOL Dialer software and the AOL Shield browser, both optimized for older operating systems, alongside the dial-up shutdown. Marks & Spencer relaunched its online click-and-collect service on August 11, 2025 after a 15-week ransomware outage that began in late April, with four suspects linked to the DragonForce group arrested. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ordered urgent patches for a Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerability that could enable total domain compromise, with federal agencies told to patch by August 11, 2025. Nvidia
11 August 2025
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AI’s Weekend Shockwave: GPT-5 Launch, Chip War Heats Up & ‘Deathbots’ Stir Debate (Aug 10–11, 2025)

AI’s Weekend Shockwave: GPT-5 Launch, Chip War Heats Up & ‘Deathbots’ Stir Debate (Aug 10–11, 2025)

OpenAI launched GPT-5, touted as a significant step toward artificial general intelligence and now accessible to free ChatGPT users with usage limits, while being integrated into Microsoft Copilot. OpenAI released two open-weight models, gpt-oss-120b (117-billion parameters) and gpt-oss-20b (21B parameters), which can run on a single high-end GPU (~80 GB VRAM) or a laptop (~16 GB RAM) and are available via Hugging Face, though training data specifics are withheld. NASA and Google unveiled a Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant to aid deep-space crews, announced in a Google blog on Aug. 8, providing real-time health analyses during Artemis missions and succeeding
11 August 2025
How to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower 2025 – Peak Dates, Best Viewing Times, and Tips

How to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower 2025 – Peak Dates, Best Viewing Times, and Tips

The Perseids peak on August 12–13, 2025, as Earth passes through the densest part of Swift-Tuttle’s debris, with the official peak around 02:30–03:00 UTC on August 13. The Moon will be a bright waning gibbous at about 83–84% illumination during peak, severely reducing counts from the typical 50–100 meteors per hour to about 10–20 per hour. The best viewing times are after midnight local time, with NASA noting a prime window around 2–3 a.m. local time. The radiant lies in the constellation Perseus, near the Perseus–Cassiopeia border, so many meteors appear to radiate from that area. The shower’s material comes
11 August 2025
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Don’t Miss the 2025 Perseids: Ultimate Guide to Photographing August’s Meteor Shower

Don’t Miss the 2025 Perseids: Ultimate Guide to Photographing August’s Meteor Shower

The Perseid meteor shower peaks on the night of August 12 into the early hours of August 13, 2025. The peak occurs three days after a full moon, so bright moonlight reduces fainter meteors and you may see about 10–20 meteors per hour under moonlit skies. In North America and Europe, the peak is the night of Aug 12–13 with the best rates from midnight to dawn as Perseus rises in the northeast. In Asia and Australia, the peak timing is around 2:30 UTC on Aug 13, with good opportunities in the pre-dawn hours of Aug 12 and Aug 13.
11 August 2025
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From Revolutionary Beginnings to AI-Powered Future: The Epic Evolution of iOS 1–26 (2007–2025)

From Revolutionary Beginnings to AI-Powered Future: The Epic Evolution of iOS 1–26 (2007–2025)

iPhone OS 1 launched June 29, 2007 on the original iPhone, introducing a capacitive multi‑touch UI but offering no native third‑party apps. iPhone OS 2 released July 11, 2008, introducing the App Store with 500 apps at launch and 10 million app downloads in the first three days. iPhone OS 3 (June 17, 2009) added Copy, Cut & Paste, MMS support for iPhone 3G/3GS, Spotlight search, and improved Notes/Voice features. iOS 4 arrived June 21, 2010, rebranding to iOS, bringing true multitasking (limited) and the iPhone 4 Retina Display at 960×640. iOS 6 (September 19, 2012) replaced Google Maps with
11 August 2025
Android 17’s Massive Upgrades Revealed: Features, Leaks, Release Date & How It Outshines Android 14 & 15

Android’s Epic Evolution: A Complete History from Android 1.0 to Android 15 (2008–2025)

Android 1.0 debuted publicly on September 23, 2008 on the T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream), launching Google’s first public Android release. Android 1.5 Cupcake, released in April 2009, introduced the first on-screen keyboard and home-screen widgets and began the dessert-naming tradition. Android 1.6 Donut, released in September 2009, added support for multiple screen sizes and CDMA networks such as Verizon, expanding Android’s device reach. Android 2.0–2.1 Eclair, launched October 2009 (2.0) with turn-by-turn Google Maps Navigation and pinch-to-zoom, followed by 2.1 in early 2010. Android 2.2 Froyo, released May 2010, brought a Just-In-Time compiler, mobile hotspot, USB tethering, and Flash support
11 August 2025
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The Ultimate Windows Version Comparison: From 1985’s Windows 1.0 to Windows 11 and Beyond

The Ultimate Windows Version Comparison: From 1985’s Windows 1.0 to Windows 11 and Beyond

Windows 1.0 debuted in November 1985 as Microsoft’s first graphical user interface on PCs, running on top of MS-DOS as an “operating environment” with tiled windows due to an Apple licensing agreement. Windows 2.0, released in December 1987, introduced overlapping windows, desktop icons, keyboard shortcuts, expanded memory and 16-color VGA graphics, and bundled early Word and Excel. Windows 3.0 (May 1990) and Windows 3.1 (April 1992) brought mainstream adoption with 386 Enhanced Mode, up to 16 MB RAM, 256-color graphics, Program Manager and File Manager, and the Ctrl+Alt+Del soft reboot. Windows 95, launched August 24, 1995, introduced the Start Menu
11 August 2025
From Macintosh System 1 to macOS Sequoia: The Epic Evolution of Apple’s OS

From Macintosh System 1 to macOS Sequoia: The Epic Evolution of Apple’s OS

The original Macintosh debuted in January 1984 with System 1, introducing windows, icons, menus, and mouse-based interaction. System 7, released in 1991, added virtual memory and 32-bit addressing, along with built-in networking features like AppleTalk. In 1997 Apple acquired NeXT, giving Mac OS X a Unix-based core (Darwin/BSD) with the Mach kernel, leading to Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah in March 2001. The PowerPC-to-Intel transition was announced at WWDC 2005, and by 2007 the entire Mac lineup had shifted to Intel, aided by Rosetta and Universal Binaries; Leopard 10.5 (2007) introduced Time Machine, Spaces, and Boot Camp. OS X 10.6
11 August 2025
Grenadines Internet Access 2025: Fiber, 4G, and Starlink Connecting Paradise

Grenadines Internet Access 2025: Fiber, 4G, and Starlink Connecting Paradise

In 2019, the World Bank–funded CARCIP project installed a subsea fiber-optic cable linking St. Vincent to the Grenadines, with over 150 miles laid by late 2019 and open access for both Digicel and Flow. Flow’s Bequia upgrade in 2021 migrated services from copper DSL and microwave backhaul to hybrid fiber-coax, delivering minimum speeds of 50 Mbps and top tiers around 250 Mbps, a 25× average speed increase. Digicel+ Fiber was launched as SVG’s 100% fiber-to-the-home network, with residential plans from 250 Mbps down (125 Mbps up) to 500 Mbps down (250 Mbps up), roughly EC$129/month for Fibre 250 and EC$225/month
10 August 2025
Astrophotography Showdown: Sony A7 IV vs Canon EOS Ra vs Nikon D810A – Which Captures the Cosmos Best?

Astrophotography Showdown: Sony A7 IV vs Canon EOS Ra vs Nikon D810A – Which Captures the Cosmos Best?

The Sony A7 IV uses a 33MP back-illuminated CMOS sensor with ~5.12µm pixels and delivers unusually clean high-ISO performance, with ISO 12,800 showing little noise and star-eater largely mitigated. The Canon EOS Ra modifies its infrared-cut filter to pass roughly four times as much hydrogen-alpha light, offers 30× magnification live view for precise focusing, and provides base ISO 100–40,000 (expandable to 102,400). The Nikon D810A is built around a 36.3MP sensor with a specially tuned IR-cut that passes four times more Hα light, removes the optical low-pass filter for maximum sharpness, and has a base ISO of 200 with superb
10 August 2025
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Northern Lights Alert: Best Places, Timing & Photography Tips for 2025’s Auroras

Northern Lights Alert: Best Places, Timing & Photography Tips for 2025’s Auroras

The absolute peak of Solar Cycle 25 is expected around July 2025, with about 115 sunspots mid-year. Noaa SWPC recorded a G2 geomagnetic storm on August 9, 2025, and issued G1–G2 watches on multiple days that month. Norway’s Tromsø (69°N), Alta, and the Svalbard archipelago (74–81°N) offer frequent auroras, with best viewing from late September through March and peak darkness November–January. Iceland’s prime viewing runs September to April, with the Westfjords and northern Iceland offering the clearest skies near popular spots like Thingvellir National Park and the Reykjanes Peninsula. Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories (62°N) experiences about 240 aurora nights
10 August 2025
Battle of the Telescopes: StellaLyra 8″ & Apertura AD8 Dobsonians vs. Vaonis Vespera II Smart Scope (2025 Comparison)

Battle of the Telescopes: StellaLyra 8″ & Apertura AD8 Dobsonians vs. Vaonis Vespera II Smart Scope (2025 Comparison)

StellaLyra 8″ f/6 and Apertura AD8 are both 203 mm (8″) parabolic-mirror Dobsonians with a 1200 mm focal length (≈ f/6). Vaonis Vespera II uses a 50 mm f/5 quadruplet apochromatic refractor with a built‑in camera and a Sony IMX585 sensor (8.3 MP). The StellaLyra and Apertura are manual Dobsonians on wooden alt-az mounts, while the Vespera II is a motorized GoTo system with auto‑initialization and tracking. The Vespera II offers a native field of view around 1.6° × 0.9°, enabling large targets to be captured on its screen. Visual observing with the 8″ Dobs delivers real-time eyepiece views, whereas
10 August 2025
The Best Telescopes of 2025: What the Pros Are Using and What You Should Buy

The Best Telescopes of 2025: What the Pros Are Using and What You Should Buy

The Celestron NexStar 8SE is a 203 mm Schmidt-Cassegrain with a GoTo computerized fork mount and f/10 optics, delivering bright, detailed views but at a high price for beginners. The Sky-Watcher 8-inch Dobsonian is a 203 mm reflector on a manual alt-azimuth mount with f/6, offering a large light bucket at low cost but no tracking. The Celestron NexStar Evolution 9.25 has a 235 mm aperture, premium Go-To fork mount with built-in battery and WiFi app, but is heavy (~28 kg) and expensive. The Sky-Watcher SkyMax 150 Maksutov-Cassegrain delivers high-power planetary detail with a 150 mm aperture and f/12, but
10 August 2025
Breakthrough Cures, FDA Shake-Ups & Pharma Mega‑Deals: Global Health News Roundup (Aug 9–10, 2025)

Breakthrough Cures, FDA Shake-Ups & Pharma Mega‑Deals: Global Health News Roundup (Aug 9–10, 2025)

Researchers in China unveiled a hydrogel-based “smart” wound dressing that speeds diabetic ulcer healing, with a single application achieving about 90% wound closure in 12 days by delivering microRNA-loaded vesicles that suppress the vessel-growth inhibitor TSP-1. A Swedish study published August 8 identified 87 DNA methylation sites in blood from 752 newly diagnosed diabetics followed for seven years, creating a score that predicted cardiovascular outcomes with 96% accuracy for identifying low-risk patients. A natural compound in maple tree syrup, epicatechin gallate (ECG), blocked Streptococcus mutans biofilm formation in lab tests, suggesting potential as a safe plaque-preventing agent in mouthwash or
10 August 2025
Record Closing Highs, GPT-5 Unleashed, and a $500 Billion Surprise – Business News Roundup (Aug 9–10, 2025)

Record Closing Highs, GPT-5 Unleashed, and a $500 Billion Surprise – Business News Roundup (Aug 9–10, 2025)

The Nasdaq Composite notched its 18th record closing high of 2025. OpenAI released GPT-5 on August 7, billed as the “smartest, fastest, most useful” model, now available to 700 million ChatGPT users, with a target of a $500 billion valuation in secondary-share sales. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michelle Bowman signaled three rate cuts likely by year-end, with easing possibly starting in September. The White House issued an executive order to expand 401(k) access to alternative assets like crypto and private equity, amid concerns about liquidity and higher fees on an estimated $10 trillion in 401(k) assets. Nexstar Media Group was
10 August 2025
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AI Stocks Frenzy: Mega Deals, GPT-5 Hype and Bubble Warnings Fuel Aug 9–10 Market Buzz

AI Stocks Frenzy: Mega Deals, GPT-5 Hype and Bubble Warnings Fuel Aug 9–10 Market Buzz

AMD’s Q2 data-center chip sales rose 14% to $3.2 billion but missed forecasts, while Nvidia’s stock surged 73%. SMCI shares plunged 18% in one day after missing revenue targets and cutting guidance amid Nvidia delays and rising competition, erasing over $6 billion in value overnight. By Aug. 7–8, the AI-chip rally resumed as Nvidia and Broadcom hit all-time highs, and AMD rebounded about 5% while TSMC rose roughly 5% on tariff optimism. The U.S. Commerce Department began issuing licenses for Nvidia’s H20 AI GPUs to China, potentially easing an export ban that Nvidia warned could cost $8 billion in sales
10 August 2025
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Breakthroughs, Blunders, and the Bizarre: The Biggest Science Stories You Missed This Weekend

Breakthroughs, Blunders, and the Bizarre: The Biggest Science Stories You Missed This Weekend

Space Climate & Environment Health & Medicine Technology & AI OpenAI Unleashes GPT-5: A major leap in artificial intelligence made headlines as OpenAI officially released GPT-5, the newest version of the AI model behind ChatGPT. Launched on Thursday and rolled out globally, GPT-5 is being touted as a significant upgrade in reasoning and expertise. The model has 700 million+ users via ChatGPT, and aims directly at business and professional applications. OpenAI says GPT-5 can “instantaneously” generate working software code, solve advanced math problems, and provide expert-level answers on a wide range of subjects – a notable jump toward AI that
10 August 2025
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Stock Market Today

ASML stock price jumps as AI spending race returns; jobs data and dividend dates ahead

ASML stock price jumps as AI spending race returns; jobs data and dividend dates ahead

8 February 2026
ASML’s U.S.-listed shares jumped 4.6% to $1,413 on Friday, tracking a 5.7% rally in chip stocks after Amazon and Alphabet signaled higher AI infrastructure spending. Peers Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA each gained over 6%. ASML’s interim dividend goes ex-dividend Feb. 9 in Amsterdam and Feb. 10 in New York, with payment set for Feb. 18. U.S. jobs and inflation data are due next week.
Ashtead Group share price ends week higher as U.S. listing clock ticks — what to watch next

Ashtead Group share price ends week higher as U.S. listing clock ticks — what to watch next

8 February 2026
Ashtead Group shares closed up 1.1% at 4,936 pence Friday after the company confirmed a new round of share buybacks. The firm expects its U.S. listing to become effective Feb. 26, with a UK share swap on Feb. 27 and new shares trading March 2. FTSE Russell plans to remove Ashtead from its UK indexes from March 2. Index funds are preparing for the change as the company shifts its primary listing to New York.
Beazley share price sits below Zurich’s £8bn offer — what to watch before London reopens

Beazley share price sits below Zurich’s £8bn offer — what to watch before London reopens

8 February 2026
Beazley shares closed flat at 1,236 pence Friday as Zurich faces a Feb. 16 deadline to make a firm takeover offer or withdraw. Zurich and Beazley have agreed in principle on key terms valuing Beazley at up to 1,335 pence per share. Recent filings show Vanguard and FMR LLC among top shareholders. The shares remain below the possible offer price as due diligence continues.
Tesco share price: what to watch after Friday’s close as rate and wage bets shift

Tesco share price: what to watch after Friday’s close as rate and wage bets shift

8 February 2026
Tesco shares closed at 452.10 pence on Friday, up 0.62%, as UK markets ended the week higher. Investors weighed Bank of England signals on interest rates and rising supermarket wage costs, with Lidl and rivals announcing pay increases ahead of April’s minimum wage hike. Morrisons is considering raising up to £1 billion against its store portfolio, according to Sky News. Tesco continues its share buyback program after a January profit forecast upgrade.
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