Hidden inland boulder is proof of massive tsunami that hit Tonga 7,000 years ago
They were specifically looking for boulders, as they can only be carried ashore or moved by massive waves in 'high-energy events, such as tsunamis or storms,' according to a May 14 study published in the journal Marine Geology.
Aerial photo revealed several boulders, but the largest was hidden from view.
Local farmers speaking with the researchers told them of a boulder deep inland atop a cliff, covered by dense vegetation that obscured it from aerial view, and led them to it.
'I was so surprised; it is located far inland outside of our field work area,' study author and Ph.D. candidate Martin Köhler said in a news release from The University of Queensland's School of the Environment.
'It was quite unbelievable to see this big piece of rock sitting there covered in and surrounded by vegetation,' Köhler said.
Researchers said 7,000 years ago, a tsunami about 164 feet tall— the height of the Arc de Triomphe, or a giant sequoia — dislodged the enormous rock and moved it 656 feet inland.
At 45 feet long, 22 feet tall, 39 feet wide and weighing 1,300 tons, the 'exceptional' Maka Lahi is the world's largest cliff-top boulder, according to the study.
Models suggest the tsunami was triggered by a landslide caused by an earthquake near the Tonga-Kermadec Trench, according to the study.
'Understanding past extreme events is critical for hazard preparation and risk assessment now and in the future,' coastal geomorphologist Annie Lau said in the release.
According to Lau, the region has a 'long history of tsunamis triggered by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes along the underwater Tofua Ridge and the Tonga Trench.'
The research team included Martin Köhler, Annie Lau, Koki Nakata, Kazuhisa Goto, James Goff, Daniel Köhler, Mafoa Penisoni.
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Business Wire
20-06-2025
- Business Wire
Archeus Technologies Receives FDA Clearance of Investigational New Drug Application for ART-101 in Development for the Treatment of Prostate Cancer
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Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Yahoo
Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M
Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines. The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises to harness the nuclear reaction that powers the sun to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth. If startups are able to complete commercially viable fusion power plants, then they have the potential to upend trillion-dollar markets. The bullish wave buoying the fusion industry has been driven by three advances: more powerful computer chips, more sophisticated AI, and powerful high-temperature superconducting magnets. Together, they have helped deliver more sophisticated reactor designs, better simulations, and more complex control schemes. It doesn't hurt that, at the end of 2022, a U.S. Department of Energy lab announced that it had produced a controlled fusion reaction that produced more power than the lasers had imparted to the fuel pellet. The experiment had crossed what's known as scientific breakeven, and while it's still a long ways from commercial breakeven, where the reaction produces more than the entire facility consumes, it was a long-awaited step that proved the underlying science was sound. Founders have built on that momentum in recent years, pushing the private fusion industry forward at a rapid pace. With a $1.8 billion Series B, Commonwealth Fusion Systems catapulted itself into the pole position in 2021. Since then, the company has been quiet on the fundraising front (no surprise), but it has been hard at work in Massachusetts building Sparc, its first-of-a-kind power plant intended to produce power at what it calls 'commercially relevant' levels. Sparc's reactor uses a tokamak design, which resembles a doughnut. The D-shaped cross section is wound with high-temperature superconducting tape, which when energized, generates a powerful magnetic field that will contain and compress the superheated plasma. In Sparc's successor, the commercial-scale Arc, heat generated from the reaction is converted to steam to power a turbine. CFS designed its magnets in collaboration with MIT, where co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard worked as a researcher on fusion reactor designs and high-temperature superconductors. Backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Engine, Bill Gates, and others, Devens, Massachusetts-based CFS expects to have Arc operational in the early 2030s. The company has raised a total of $2 billion, according to PitchBook. Founded in 1998, TAE Technologies (formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy) was spun out of the University of California, Irvine by Norman Rostoker. It uses a field-reversed configuration, but with a twist: after the two plasma shots collide in the middle of the reactor, the company bombards the plasma with particle beams to keep it spinning in a cigar shape. That improves the stability of the plasma, allowing more time for fusion to occur and for more heat to be extracted to spin a turbine. The company raised $150 million in June from existing investors, including Google, Chevron, and New Enterprise. TAE has raised $1.79 billion in total, according to PitchBook. Of all fusion startups, Helion has the most aggressive timeline. The company plans to produce electricity from its reactor in 2028. Its first customer? Microsoft. Helion, based in Everett, Washington, uses a type of reactor called a field-reversed configuration, where magnets surround a reaction chamber that looks like an hourglass with a bulge at the point where the two sides come together. At each end of the hourglass, they spin the plasma into doughnut shapes that are shot toward each other at more than 1 million mph. When they collide in the middle, additional magnets help induce fusion. When fusion occurs, it boosts the plasma's own magnetic field, which induces an electrical current inside the reactor's magnetic coils. That electricity is then harvested directly from the machine. The company raised $425 million in January 2025, around the same time that it turned on Polaris, a prototype reactor. Helion has raised $1.03 billion, according to PitchBook. Investors include Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, KKR, BlackRock, Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital Management, and Capricorn Investment Group. Pacific Fusion burst out of the gate with a $900 million Series A, a whopping sum even among well-funded fusion startups. The company will use inertial confinement to achieve fusion, but instead of lasers compressing the fuel, it will use coordinated electromagnetic pulses. The trick is in the timing: All 156 impedance-matched Marx generators need to produce 2 terawatts for 100 nanoseconds, and those pulses need to simultaneously converge on the target. The company is led by CEO Eric Lander, the scientist who led the Human Genome Project, and president Will Regan. Pacific Fusion's funding might be massive, but the startup hasn't gotten it all at once. Rather, its investors will pay out in tranches when the company achieves specified milestones, an approach that's common in biotech. Shine Technologies is taking a cautious — and possibly pragmatic — approach to generating fusion power. Selling electrons from a fusion power plant is years off, so instead, it's starting by selling neutron testing and medical isotopes. More recently, it has been developing a way to recycle radioactive waste. Shine hasn't picked an approach for a future fusion reactor, instead saying that it's developing necessary skills for when that time comes. The company has raised a total of $778 million, according to PitchBook. Investors include Energy Ventures Group, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Nucleation Capital, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Now its third-decade, General Fusion has raised $440.53 million, according to PitchBook. The Richmond, British Columbia-based company was founded in 2002 by physicist Michel Laberge, who wanted to prove a different approach to fusion known as magnetized target fusion (MTF). Investors include Jeff Bezos, Temasek, BDC Capital, and Chrysalix Venture Capital. In an General Fusion's reactor, a liquid metal wall surrounds a chamber in which plasma is injected. Pistons surrounding the wall push it inward, compressing the plasma inside and sparking a fusion reaction. The resulting neutrons heat the liquid metal, which can be circulated through a heat exchanger to generate steam to spin a turbine. General Fusion hit a rough patch in spring 2025. The company ran short of cash as it was building LM26, its latest device that it hoped would hit breakeven in 2026. Just days after hitting a key milestone, it laid off 25% of its staff. Tokamak Energy takes the usual tokamak design — the doughnut shape — and squeezes it, reducing its aspect ratio to the point where the outer bounds start resembling a sphere. Like many other tokamak-based startups, the company uses high-temperature superconducting magnets (of the rare earth barium copper oxide, or REBCO, variety). Since its design is more compact than a traditional tokamak, it requires less in the way of magnets, which should reduce costs. The Oxfordshire, UK-based startup's ST40 prototype, which looks like a large, steampunk Fabergé egg, generated an ultra-hot, 100 million degree C plasma in 2022. Its next generation, Demo 4, is currently under construction and is intended to test the company's magnets in 'fusion power plant-relevant scenarios.' Tokamak Energy raised $125 million in November 2024 to continue its reactor design efforts and expand its magnet business. In total, the company has raised $336 million from investors including Future Planet Capital, In-Q-Tel, Midven, and Capri-Sun founder Hans-Peter Wild, according to PitchBook. Zap Energy isn't using high-temperature superconducting magnets or super-powerful lasers to keep its plasma confined. Rather, it zaps the plasma (get it?) with an electric current, which then generates its own magnetic field. The magnetic field compresses the plasma about 1 millimeter, at which point ignition occurs. The neutrons released by the fusion reaction bombard a liquid metal blanket that surrounds the reactor, heating it up. The liquid metal is then cycled through a heat exchanger, where it produces steam to drive a turbine. Like Helion, Zap Energy is based in Everett, Washington, and the company has raised $327 million, according to PitchBook. Backers include Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon, Energy Impact Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Bill Gates as an angel. Most investors have favored large startups that are pursuing tokamak designs or some flavor of inertial confinement. But stellarators have shown great promise in scientific experiments, including the Wendelstein 7-X reactor in Germany. Proxima Fusion is bucking the trend, though, having attracted a €130 million Series A that brings its total raised to more than €185 million. Investors include Balderton Capital and Cherry Ventures. Stellarators are similar to tokamaks in that they confine plasma in a ring-like shape using powerful magnets. But they do it with a twist — literally. Rather than force plasma into a human-designed ring, stellarators twist and bulge to accommodate the plasma's quirks. The result should be a plasma that remains stable for longer, increasing the chances of fusion reactions. Marvel Fusion follows the inertial confinement approach, the same basic technique that the National Ignition Facility used to prove that controlled nuclear fusion reactions could produce more power than was needed to kick them off. Marvel fires powerful lasers at a target embedded with silicon nanostructures that cascade under the bombardment, compressing the fuel to the point of ignition. Because the target is made using silicon, it should be relatively simple to manufacture, leaning on the semiconductor manufacturing industry's decades of experience. The inertial confinement fusion startup is building a demonstration facility in collaboration with Colorado State University, which it expects to have operational by 2027. Munich-based Marvel has raised a total of $161 million from investors including b2venture, Deutsche Telekom, Earlybird, HV Capital, and Taavet Hinrikus and Albert Wenger as angels. First Light dropped its pursuit of fusion power in March 2025, pivoting instead to become a technology supplier to fusion startups and other companies. The startup had previously followed an approach known as inertial confinement, in which fusion fuel pellets are compressed until they ignite. First Light, which is based in Oxfordshire, U.K., has raised $140 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Invesco, IP Group, and Tencent. Though nothing about fusion can be described as simple, Xcimer takes a relatively straightforward approach: follow the basic science that's behind the National Ignition Facility's breakthrough net-positive experiment, and redesign the technology that underpins it from the ground up. The Colorado-based startup is aiming for a 10-megajoule laser system, five times more powerful than NIF's setup that made history. Molten salt walls surround the reaction chamber, absorbing heat and protecting the first solid wall from damage. Founded in January 2022, Xcimer has already raised $109 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Hedosophia, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Emerson Collective, Gigascale Capital, and Lowercarbon Capital. This story was originally published in September 2024 and will be continually updated. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Hamilton Spectator
12-06-2025
- Hamilton Spectator
VERSES® 'Digital Brain' Featured in WIRED and Popular Mechanics
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 12, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — VERSES AI Inc. (CBOE: VERS; OTCQB: VRSSF) ('VERSES' or the 'Company') a cognitive computing company specializing in next-generation agentic software systems today announced important third-party recognition of its digital-brain architecture, AXIOM, following features in WIRED and Popular Mechanics and public acknowledgement from ARC-AGI benchmark creator François Chollet. WIRED: A 'very original' path to AGI In WIRED 's feature ' A Deep Learning Alternative Can Help AI Agents Gameplay the Real World ,' senior writer Will Knight describes AXIOM as 'a new machine-learning approach that draws inspiration from how the human brain models and learns about the world.' He adds that it 'offers an alternative to the artificial neural networks dominant in modern AI' and highlights its 'impressive efficiency' across multiple video-game environments. François Chollet—Keras inventor, TIME 100 AI honoree, and creator of the ARC-AGI benchmark—told WIRED : 'The general goals of the [VERSES] approach and some of its key features track with what I see as the most important problems to focus on to get to AGI… The work strikes me as very original… We need more people trying out new ideas away from the beaten path of large language models.' Chollet also posted on acknowledging that active inference—as demonstrated by AXIOM, where agents act to reduce uncertainty by aligning their internal world models with reality—is 'badly missing from the deep-learning era' and '100% correct' New Benchmarks For AGI - Gameworlds Chollet's well known benchmark for AGI known as ARC-AGI—which measures progress toward general intelligence—tests AI systems on spatial-reasoning tasks and is used by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others as the industry's gold standard. ARC-AGI 3, the next installment of this benchmark, is expected to deploy 100+ novel game worlds to test a new set of capabilities. We believe that this reflects the AI community's move from static Q&A to interactive environments, where games serve as the medium to force agents to explore, form hypotheses, and spontaneously generalize. AXIOM's Active-Inference engine has already demonstrated these skills: it learns unfamiliar worlds, plans by minimizing uncertainty, and adapts in real time— using its cognitive architecture. On the Gameworld 10K benchmark, AXIOM outperformed Google DeepMind's DreamerV3 by up to 60%, used 99% less compute, and learned 39× faster as validated by Soothsayer Analytics, in June. Popular Mechanics: 'This breakthrough could redefine intelligence forever.' Popular Mechanics also published a feature article titled ' This AI Model Can Mimic Human Thought—And May Even Be Capable of Reading Your Mind ,' calling Genius—VERSES' product suite powered by AXIOM— 'a level up from existing AI' and noting that Genius agents run on watts instead of gigawatts and can operate from a laptop battery rather than the cloud. The article begins: 'AI is learning to think like us, bridging the worlds of biology and technology. This breakthrough could redefine intelligence forever.' 'AXIOM was built for interactive intelligence—exploring, planning, and learning in real time,' said VERSES CEO Gabriel René. 'Active Inference is designed to master new worlds faster, with far less compute and human-like adaptability—bringing us closer to truly human-level AI and, we believe, positioning VERSES as the market leader.' Notes to editors About VERSES VERSES® is a cognitive computing company building next-generation intelligent software systems modeled after the wisdom and genius of Nature. Designed around first principles found in science, physics and biology, our flagship product, Genius,™ is an agentic enterprise intelligence platform designed to generate reliable domain-specific predictions and decisions under uncertainty. Imagine a Smarter World that elevates human potential through technology inspired by Nature. Learn more at , LinkedIn and X . On behalf of the Company Gabriel René, Founder & CEO, VERSES AI Inc. Press Inquiries: press@ Investor Relations Inquiries James Christodoulou, Chief Financial Officer IR@ , +1(212)970-8889
