Chris Campbell:

Wikimedia Foundation: OpenAI Agents Tried To Edit Pages and Compromise Notes Tool

OpenAI agents tried to compromise a public note-taking tool, attempted to edit Wikipedia pages, and possibly contributed to site disruptions earlier this year, according to a new statement from the Wikimedia Foundation.

The nonprofit released a detailed investigative report about a series of incidents involving OpenAI agents that repeatedly abused the site's rules and took several unauthorized actions.

The California-based foundation is best known for hosting and running Wikipedia – which has more than 67 million articles across 300 languages. It has become one of the most popular sources of information over the last decade, allowing people to make verified edits to pages.

The organization's investigation found edits made to Wikipedia pages by OpenAI agents that were not published. The agents also made "potentially malicious edits" that were intended to misuse a citation tool "as a proxy for fetching data from remote services."

Wikipedia does allow bots to make edits to pages when they are disclosed and approved by community editors, but those rules weren't followed in this incident.

Wikimedia also found two other issues tied to OpenAI agents, including unsuccessful attempts to compromise Etherpad – a note-taking tool the organization hosts as a community service.

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Ray Blanco:

Blood Tests Reveal Why Astronauts Get Constipated in Space

Constipation is a familiar problem for astronauts, but scientists have not fully understood why spending time in space can disrupt normal digestion.

New research from the University of Copenhagen, conducted in collaboration with NASA, offers a possible explanation. Scientists analyzed blood samples from 52 astronauts who spent months aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and found signs that the digestive system begins changing relatively soon after astronauts leave Earth.

"We see changes in astronauts' blood samples that indicate that the gut bacteria begin to ferment protein to a greater extent than usual within weeks after the astronauts arrive in space, and this change continues until they are back on Earth," says joint first author and associate professor at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Giorgia La Barbera.

The researchers suspect that microgravity may slow the movement of food through the digestive tract. If food remains in the intestines longer, bacteria have more time to turn to protein fermentation. The results could matter beyond digestion because changes in the gut can influence other parts of the body, including the brain.

The findings could become especially important as space agencies prepare for longer missions to the Moon and eventually Mars.

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Davis Wilson:

Paramount Completes $110 Billion Acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery To Form Skydance

Skydance Corporation completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, creating a combined entertainment company named Skydance that trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "SKYD." Warner Bros.

Discovery stock ceased trading on Nasdaq, effective Tuesday. WBD shareholders received $31.01666668 per share in cash under the terms of the agreement, the company said.

The deal unites two film studios, two global streaming services, and a television portfolio spanning CBS, HBO, CNN, CBS News, and a collection of cable networks. The combined entity claims more than 200 million streaming subscribers across platforms, a franchise library running from Top Gun and Harry Potter to White Lotus and SpongeBob SquarePants, and pro forma content spending of more than $30 billion over the last 12-month period.

David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Skydance, called the closing "a historic day" in a statement, saying the combined company would focus on "building a company that empowers creatives, entertains audiences and rewards shareholders."

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