Science

SpotlightRaphaël Rodriguez: The French Chemist Challenging Cancer Cells’ Achilles’ Heel

Bélinda Ibrahim 09/07 15:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Raphaël Rodriguez Ferroptosis Curie Institute Cancer Metastatic Cells

At the Curie Institute in the heart of Paris, a low-profile chemist is taking on one of the biggest puzzles in modern cancer research. Raphaël Rodriguez, a research director at the CNRS, has spent years investigating how metastatic cells —scattered, dormant tumor cells that often evade treatment — manage to defy medicine. More importantly, he ...

SpotlightClimate Change Made European Heatwave Up To 4C Hotter: Study

This is Beirut 09/07 09:15 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Europe Climate

Human-caused climate change made recent European heatwaves up to 4C hotter in many cities, scientists said on Wednesday, pushing temperatures into deadly territory for thousands of vulnerable people. This likely led to far more heat-related deaths than would have occurred without the influence of global warming, concluded a rapid study of the ...

When AI Develops an Attitude of Its Own

Lyne Sammouri 06/07 16:00 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

AI Artificial Intelligence Technology

You ask your AI assistant or chatbot to do something, and instead of just doing what you told it to do, it dodges your request, deceives you or backtalks like a stubborn taxi driver who refuses to put the meter on. It might find an exception, or even lie to get what it's trying to do. Frustrating, isn't it? This might have surprised you. But in ...

ChronicleClimate Change: Salvation Through Poetry

Fady Noun 05/07 09:30 - Reading : 6 minute(s)

Pope Francis Donald Trump Europe USA global warming

The current heatwave scorching Europe and the drought gripping Lebanon trace back to a single root cause: climate disruption driven by global warming and soaring CO₂ emissions—both reflecting what Pope Francis memorably called “despotic anthropocentrism,” a worldview that elevates humankind above all else, heedless of the rich diversity ...

IRCAD Lebanon: The Liver and Pancreas Go Robotic

Makram Haddad 03/07 22:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Middle East IRCAD Antoine Maalouf Robotic Pancreas

Under the luminous ceilings of the Clinique du Levant, IRCAD Lebanon officially launched yesterday its very first international course on robotic liver and pancreas surgery. A first in Lebanon, described by its president, Dr. Antoine Maalouf, as “a quantum leap in regional surgical practice.” “What we are launching here goes beyond the ...

SpotlightHow Robots and Raw Earth Are Redefining Homebuilding

Bélinda Ibrahim 03/07 14:00 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Homebuilding Robots Cocoons TECLA Italy

They look like cocoons, settled on the ground as if they had naturally grown there. No straight lines, no concrete, just earth, carefully layered by two robotic arms moving with the grace of a choreographed dance. In 200 hours—barely eight days—an entire house takes shape. Printed on site using only natural materials. Its name? TECLA. Its ...

SpotlightWhat If Whales Could Speak? AI Is Listening In

Bélinda Ibrahim 02/07 18:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

AI Whales Humpback Whale Humans Science Conversation

For decades, scientists believed whales sang only to navigate, attract mates or maintain social bond. But recent research by the SETI Institute and the University of California, Davis is challenging this view. Using AI, researchers have identified remarkably structured acoustic patterns and behaviors suggesting some cetaceans may be attempting to ...

ALMA Telescope Reveals Unprecedented Detail in Early Galaxies

This is Beirut 02/07 10:20 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

USA

Chile's ALMA observatory, which houses some of the world's most powerful telescopes, has captured its most detailed images to date of the building blocks of the early universe – primarily cold gases, dust, and stellar light in 39 galaxies. "We've never achieved so much detail and depth in galaxies from the early universe," Sergio Martin, head ...

SpotlightWhen Students Stop Thinking: The Hidden Cost of AI-Written Essays

This is Beirut 02/07 10:10 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Artificial intelligence Education ChatGPT

When Jocelyn Leitzinger had her university students write about times in their lives they had witnessed discrimination, she noticed that a woman named Sally was the victim in many of the stories. "It was very clear that ChatGPT had decided this is a common woman's name," said Leitzinger, who teaches an undergraduate class on business and society ...

Lebanon: A Laboratory for a Pharmaceutical Industry in Full Transformation

Makram Haddad 02/07 09:00 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Lebanon Pharmaceutical industry Crisis

Lebanon has always played a central role in the health field in the Middle East. A land of renowned hospitals, foreign-trained doctors, Gulf patients and proven pharmaceutical know-how, the 1990s saw the return in force of multinational drug companies, firmly established in a country relying on imports as a guarantee of quality in a liberal ...

Europe on High Alert as Surprise Early Heatwave Creeps North

This is Beirut 01/07 19:07 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Belgium Brussels Atomium

Europe on high alert as surprise early heatwave creeps north Paris, France 01/07/2025 - 19:03 (UTC + 3) Schools were partially shut in France, iconic monuments closed to tourists, and cities across Europe put on high alert as a record-breaking early summer heatwave spread across the continent Tuesday. Withering conditions that ...

AI is Learning to Lie, Scheme, and Threaten its Creators

This is Beirut 29/06 09:55 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Donald Trump European Union United States AI Science

The world's most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors - lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic's latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital ...