Author: DW

The result came as a surprise to researchers at the Icaro Lab in Italy. They set out to examine whether different language styles — in this case prompts in the form of poems — influence AI models’ ability to recognize banned or harmful content. And the answer was a resounding yes.  Using poetry, researchers were able to get around safety guardrails — and it’s not entirely clear why.  For their study titled “Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models,” the researchers took 1,200 potentially harmful prompts from a database normally used to test the security of AI language models…

Their worldwide exports transformed them into some of the most prosperous regions in Europe, but now Germany’s auto capitals are veering toward harder times. Cities like Wolfsburg, Ingolstadt and Stuttgart — home to Volkswagen, Audi and Mercedes, respectively — are seeing dramatic drops in tax revenues as their flagship firms struggle. The result has been a messy budget season, with officials scrambling to cover widening funding gaps through borrowing, higher fees and spending cuts. In Friedrichshafen, a high-earning community on Lake Constance in southwestern Germany and home to auto parts supplier ZF, the city is set to more than double fees for…

Family doctors are probably the best place to obtain trusted, first-point information about vaccines and other medicines, say experts, amid a growing and public conflict between the Trump Administration’s health agencies and professional, independent medical groups. Forty-four such groups, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and American Academy of Pediatrics, co-signed a statement protesting a new recommendation by the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a high-level government advisory panel on vaccine safety and effectiveness. The ACIP voted that the hepatitis B vaccine, typically administered to all newborns in the US within the first hours of birth, be optional…

Angry spectators broke down barricades and stormed the pitch at a stadium in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata after soccer star Lionel Messi left the arena earlier than expected. Messi, who is on a three-day visit billed as a “GOAT (greatest of all time) Tour,” arrived in the eastern state of West Bengal early Saturday. Fans greeted the 38-year-old Argentina and Inter Miami forward with chants of his name. How did Messi’s fans react to his Kolkata visit? At Kolkata’s Salt Lake Stadium, Messi walked around the pitch, waving to the crowd before leaving the stadium ahead of schedule. Frustrated spectators, some…

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. ” This opening line from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” wasn’t just a sly dig at the marriage market of early 19th-century England; it is perhaps one of the most recognizable lines in English literature. It hooks readers with Austen’s trademark social satire, implying that a woman’s best chance at security was to marry a rich man. Today, her words provide fodder for memes and TikTok reels, while her six novels have been adapted countless times in countless ways, from the classic…

The bigger the boom, the deeper and longer the bust. After two decades of runaway growth, by 2020, China’s real estate bubble had pushed home prices to more than 17 times the average salaries. A perfect storm drove the boom, including reforms in 1998 that shifted housing from state provision to private ownership, the migration of nearly half a billion Chinese from rural areas to cities and abundant credit from state banks. A frenzy of construction transformed China’s skyline, families poured savings into apartments and property speculation became the norm, helping millions of middle-class households to feel richer and spend more. The turning…

India was due to send its own spacecraft, crewed with its own astronauts, into orbit in 2022. But COVID-19 and a series of technical setbacks have consistently delayed the Gaganyaan mission’s progress. ISRO — the Indian Space Research Organization — has now certified its LMV3 launch rocket for human travel and is aiming to complete three uncrewed launches of the Gaganyaan spacecraft in 2026.  If things go to plan, three astronauts (or “Gaganyatris”) selected from air force pilots Prasanth Balakrishnan, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap and Shubhanshui Shukla, will be strapped in for the maiden voyage. The earliest that launch could take place is…

Almost 20 years after the birth of the idea, only the fourth edition of the African Youth Games are underway in Angola this month. With the 2022 edition cancelled due to scheduling issues, it took until this past summer in Algeria before the continent’s youth aged 14-17 were finally able to compete against each other again. The inaugural African School Games (ASG) were a success, and a reminder of how important these events are for young people. The African Youth Games (December 10-20), with 14-17 year olds from across the continent are competing across 33 sports. The inclusion of two traditional board games,…

Archaeologists wrote in the journal Nature this week that they have unearthed the oldest-known evidence of deliberate fire-making by prehistoric humans in the English county of Suffolk.  The hearth was discovered in Barnham in the UK, near a buried site that was once a pond where Neanderthals are thought to have lived roughly 415,000 years ago. The authors wrote that the site seems to provide “unequivocal evidence of deliberate fire-making” that “has remained elusive” because of the difficulties in distinguishing between naturally occurring fires being used by prehistoric humans and controlled fires being created on demand. Early humans are thought to have…

Space enthusiasts and amateur astronomers will have plenty of action to enjoy throughout 2026, with supermoons, solar eclipses and meteor showers across the night skies. But there’s still time to catch the final meteor showers of 2025. The Geminids and Ursids are still showering During December, it’s possible to see multiple meteors each hour. You’ll want to be away from bright lights to see them (and wear warm clothes, depending on where in the world you’re watching from). The Geminids are the remains of an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. They are visible across most inhabited parts of the world, appearing near the…