Author: Lucas Bennett

Wall Street closed on a high on Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite reaching a fresh record after strong earnings from two of America’s most recognisable technology companies lifted investor confidence across the board. The Nasdaq added 64 points to close at 5,163, narrowly surpassing its previous record set in late June, driven largely by better-than-expected quarterly results from both Netflix and eBay. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 70 points to 18,120, while the S&P 500 gained nearly 17 points to finish at 2,124. Google provided one of the day’s most closely watched results, reporting earnings of $6.99 per share…

American car buyers turned their backs on modest family saloons in July, instead pushing demand for SUVs and premium vehicles to levels not seen since before the financial crash, with industry-wide sales climbing five percent to more than 1.5 million vehicles in a single month. The figures, compiled by Autodata Corp, point to a market that has firmly rejected recession-era expectations that consumers would downsize and spend more cautiously. Instead, luxury brands now account for 11.5 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States so far this year, up from 10.2 percent three years ago, according to car shopping…

Young adults who carry a gene linked to Alzheimer’s disease navigate virtual environments differently from those without the genetic risk factor, according to new research that could open a fresh route to early detection of the condition. The study, led by scientists at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and published in the journal Science, found that people aged between 18 and 30 who carry the APOE e4 gene variant — which is associated with increased Alzheimer’s risk — showed measurable differences in both brain activity and movement behaviour during a virtual maze test, even though their overall performance scores…

The claim that being admitted to hospital on a Sunday makes you significantly more likely to die has become one of the most repeated arguments in the long-running dispute over seven-day NHS working. But how solid is the evidence actually behind it? The figure most commonly cited suggests weekend admissions carry roughly a sixteen percent greater risk of death. Ministers have pointed to statistics suggesting around 6,000 lives a year could be saved by moving the majority of hospital doctors onto seven-day contracts. The problem is that researchers and statisticians have struggled to find reliable data that supports those specific…

Giant pandas living in one of China’s most protected nature reserves have been found to seek out the company of other pandas far more than previously thought, according to research using tracking technology rarely permitted on the endangered species. The findings emerged from a two-year study conducted at the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China, where researchers from Michigan State University’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability monitored five bears between 2010 and 2012 using GPS collar technology. What made the project possible was an unusual decision by the Chinese government, which had banned the use of GPS collars on…

A person’s eye colour could one day help doctors assess their risk of developing alcohol dependency, according to new research that has found a statistically significant link between light-coloured eyes and alcoholism. The study, carried out by scientists at the University of Vermont and published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, followed 1,263 European Americans and found that those with light eyes — including blue, grey and green — were more likely to show signs of alcohol dependency than those with darker eyes. Among the light-eyed participants, those with blue eyes recorded the highest rates of dependency. The finding…

A senior Republican congressman has warned his party may have no choice but to seek Democratic support to elect the next House Speaker, following Kevin McCarthy’s sudden and unexpected decision to withdraw from the race. McCarthy’s exit blindsided colleagues and threw the House into uncertainty, with no clear successor immediately emerging. In the moments after the announcement, Pennsylvania Republican Charlie Dent told CNN the situation had fundamentally changed the political landscape inside the chamber. Dent argued that whoever takes the speakership must not be a candidate who wins the role by making concessions to the most hardline members of the…

Engineers at a US university have developed a free application that could significantly extend the battery life of Android smartphones by targeting one of the most persistent but least visible causes of power loss — apps that continue running checks in the background while the phone appears to be off. The tool, called Hush, was created by a team at Purdue University in Indiana following a large-scale study of energy consumption across 2,000 Android handsets. The research found that applications which regularly ping servers for updates account for roughly 30% of the battery power a phone loses while in sleep…

A browser extension used by millions to strip advertisements from websites has built a business model that charges some of the internet’s biggest companies for the privilege of having their ads exempted from its blocking list — while letting the vast majority through at no cost. Adblock Plus, made by German company Eyeo, operates what it calls an Acceptable Ads list: a register of advertisements deemed unobtrusive enough to be allowed through its filter. Any company or publisher can apply to be included, but those operating at scale — large advertising networks and major publishers — are charged a fee…

A court order targeting one Wikipedia page about a form of hashish briefly caused Russian internet providers to block the entire website, exposing a fundamental technical problem at the heart of Moscow’s approach to internet censorship. The ban, triggered by a ruling from a court in a small southern Russian town, targeted a Wikipedia entry about charas — a type of cannabis resin originating in India. Authorities deemed the page harmful and ordered it removed. Wikipedia refused. Because the site operates using the secure https protocol, internet providers faced an all-or-nothing choice: they could not block a single page without…