This week, were going to try something new at 404 Media. Which is to say were going to try doing nothing at all. The TL;DR is that 404 Media is taking the week off, so this is the only email youll get from us this week. No posts on the website (except a scheduled one for the podcast). We will be back with your regularly scheduled dystopia Monday, July 7.Were doing this to take a quick break to recharge. Over the nearly two years since we founded 404 Media, each of us have individually taken some (very limited) vacations. And when one of us takes off time it just means that the others have to carry their workload. Were not taking this time to do an offsite, or brainstorm blue sky ideas. Some of us are quite literally gone fishin. So, for the first time ever: A break!We are not used to breaks, because we know that the best way to build an audience and a business of people who read our articles is to actually write a lot of articles, and so thats what weve been doing. The last few months have been particularly wild, as weve covered Elon Musks takeover of the federal government, the creeping surveillance state, Trumps mass deportation campaign, AIs role in stomping over workers, the general destruction of the internet, etc etc etc. At the moment we have more story leads than we can possibly get to and are excited for the second half of the year. Weve also published a lot of hopeful news, too, including instances where people fight back against powerful forces or solve universal mysteries, or when companies are forced to do the right thing in response to our reporting, or when lawmakers hold tech giants to account as a result of our investigations. But in an industry that has become obsessed with doing more with less and publishing constantly, we have found that publishing quality journalism you cant find anywhere else is a good way to run a business, which means we thankfully dont have to cover everything, everywhere, all at once.When we founded 404 Media in August 2023, we had no idea if anyone would subscribe, and we had no idea how it would go. We took zero investment from anyone and hoped that if we did good work often enough, enough people would decide that they wanted to support independent journalism that we could make a job out of it, and that we could make a sustainable business that would work for the long haul. We did not and do not take that support for granted. But because of your support, we now feel like we dont have to scratch and claw for every possible new dollar we can get, and you have given us the breathing room in our business to quite literally take a breather, and to let the other folks who make this website possible, such as those who help us out with our social accounts, take a paid breather as well.And if you want to subscribe to support our work, you can do so here.We are not tired, exactly. In fact, we all feel more energized and ambitious than ever, knowing there are so many people out there who enjoy our work and are willing to financially support it. But we also dont want to burn ourselves out and therefore, schools out for summer (for one week). This weeks podcast is an interview Jason recorded with our friend Casey Johnston a few weeks ago; itll be the only new content this week. Well be back to it next Monday. Again, thank you all.Also, if you want, open thread in the comments to chat about whatever is going on out there or whatever is on your mind.

Welcome back to the Abstract!Heres some of the most intriguing studies I came across this week: Well lead with a nostalgic trip down memory laneso far down the lane, in fact, that well end up in the Suns infancy 4.6 billion years ago. Most of us didnt have to deal with supernovas exploding in our faces as babies, but thats the kind of environment that might have greeted our newborn star. New research sheds light on when, and how, the Sun left the maelstrom for single life.Then, scientists recreate a perilous ocean voyage from prehistory; a pair of long-lost creatures finally turn up; and orcas become the first marine mammal known to fashion tools.When the Sun declared independenceZwart, Simon Portegies and Huang, Shuo. Oort cloud ecology III. The Suns departure from the parent star cluster shortly after the giant planets formed. Astronomy & Astrophysics.The Sun was not always a loner. It was born alongside thousands of stellar siblings in a dense parent cluster some 4.6 billion years ago before striking out on its own, though the circumstances of its departure remain unclear.Scientists have now searched for clues to solve this mystery in the Oort Cloud, a massive sphere of tiny icy bodies that surrounds the Sun, extending for more than a light year around the entire solar system. The cloud is thought to have been formed by the four giant planetsJupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptuneas they migrated through space, scattering debris to the outer reaches of the solar system where it remains adrift to this day.By running simulations of this tumultuous period, a team of researchers hypothesized that the Sun probably left the nest very early, about 12 to 20 million years after the formation of the giant planets (which were themselves born only a few million years after the Sun). If it had lingered longer, the disruptive environment would have left the Sun with a much smaller Oort cloud, or perhaps none at all.The outer region of the Oort cloud (estimated to be roughly the same mass as Earth) is best explained by the assumption that the Sun left the nest within 20 [million years] after the giant planets formed and migrated, said authors Simon Portegies Zwart of Leiden University and Shuo Huang of Tsinghua University.An early escape also has consequences for the expected number and the proximity of supernovae in the infant Suns neighborhood, the team added. The first supernova typically happens between 8 and 10 [million years] after the clusters birth.In other words, the baby Sun may have been in the blast zone of an exploding star, which could explain the presence of radioactive isotopes preserved in many ancient meteorites. By moving out at the tender age of 20-odd million years old, the Sun may have escaped even more tumult.The team also noted that signatures of the time the Sun spent in the parent cluster must still be visible in the outer parts of the solar system even today. Future observations of the Oort Cloud could help us decipher this rambunctious chapter of the Suns life.A voyage 30,000 years in the makingChang, Yu-Lin et al.Traversing the Kuroshio: Paleolithic migration across one of the worlds strongest ocean currents. Science Advances.Kaifu, Yousuke et al. Paleolithic seafaring in East Asia: An experimental test of the dugout canoe hypothesis. Science Advances.About 30,000 years ago, humans living in prehistoric Taiwan managed to cross about 100 miles of treacherous ocean to colonize the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, including Okinawa. How they accomplished this astonishing feat is a major puzzle, but scientists endeavored to find out the old-old-really-old-fashioned way: recreating the voyage themselves.Using only stone tools that would have been available to Paleolithic humans, they fashioned several watercraft to brave the Kuroshio, one of the worlds strongest ocean currents, said researchers led by Yu-Lin Chang of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in one of two studies about the project out this week.We tested reed-bundle rafts (20142016) and bamboo rafts (20172018) as the first two candidates for possible watercraft, but they were unable to cross the Kuroshio Current, noted researchers led by Yousuke Kaifu of the University of Tokyo in the other study.In 2019, the team finally succeeded with a cedar dugout canoe that they paddled across the 140-mile stretch between Wushibi, Taiwan, and Yonaguni Island in a little over two days.The team in their dugout canoe. Image: 2025 Kaifu et al. CC-By-NDThe results showed that travel across this sea would have been possible on both the modern and Late Pleistocene oceans if a dugout canoe was used with a suitable departure place and paddling strategy, Chang and colleagues concluded.Museums: the worlds biggest lost-and-found boxesSims, Megan et al. Rediscovered lost holotypes of two Paleogene mammals, a Neogene bird, and other published specimens from an orphaned collection. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.Paleontologists dont always have to schlep out into the field to find fossils; discoveries can also be made in the air-conditioned comfort of museum collections.Case in point: Megan Sims, the collections manager at the University of Kansas Vertebrate Paleontology Collection discovered two long-lost specimensthe 45 million-year-old rodent Thisbemys brevicrista and the 30 million-year-old bat Oligomyotis casementorumwhile working through storage. Both fossils are holotypes, meaning that they are considered the reference point for their species as a whole.The rediscovery of the two holotypes that were presumed lost, T. brevicrista and O. casementorum, are reported below, said researchers led by Sims. The bat holotype is particularly important as one of very few bat fossils of Oligocene age from the entire continent of North America, the team noted.As someone who constantly finds lost relics from my past stuffed in dressers and under beds, I find studies like this deeply relatable.A peek inside the orca spaWeiss, Michael et al. Manufacture and use of allogrooming tools by wild killer whales. Current Biology.Orcas fashion tools out of kelp that they then use to groom each other, according to scientists who observed this behavior in a population of resident killer whales (Orcinus orca ater). The team used drones to capture 30 bouts of what the team called allokelping in this endangered orca population in the Salish Sea, providing the first evidence of tool manufacturing in a marine mammal.We observed whales fashioning short lengths of bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) stipe from complete stalks, positioning the stipe between themselves and a partner, and then rolling the kelp along their bodies, said researchers led by Michael Weiss of the Center for Whale Research.We hypothesize that allokelping is a cultural behavior unique to southern resident killer whales. Future work should investigate if and how allokelping is learned, and whether it occurs in other killer whale societies.Thanks for reading! Well be off next weekend for the Fourth of July holiday. May your next two weeks be as restorative as an orca massage.

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss wrestling over a good headline, what to read this summer, and Super 8 film.EMANUEL: I would really love it if the people who accuse us of using clickbait headlines saw how long, pedantic, and annoying our internal debates are about headlines for some stories. Case in point is Jasons story this week, which had the headline Judge Rules Training AI on Authors' Books Is Legal But Pirating Them Is Not.This is an important decision so it got covered everywhere. I dont think any of the other headlines I saw from other big publications are wrong, but they do reflect why it was hard to summarize this story in a headline, and different headlines reflect what different publications thought was most important and notable about it. If you want a full breakdown you should read Jasons story, but the gist is that a judge ruled that its okay for companies to use copyrighted books for their training data, but its not okay for them to get these books by pirating them, which many of them did. Thats the simplest way I can think of to sum it up and thats what our headline says, but there are still many levels of complexity to the story that no headline could fully capture.

Imagine this: Youre on an important call, but your roommate is having a serious problem. Do you leave the meeting to go and help?Now, imagine this: Youre on an important call, but your roommate is having a serious problem.Do you stay in the meeting rather than help?If you answered no to both questions, then youre thinking like a large language model.Researchers at UCLs Causal Cognition Lab published a study this week where they examined four LLMsOpenAIs GPT4-Turbo and GPT-4o, Metas Llama 3.1, and Anthropics Claude 3.5using traditional moral psychology tests. They found that LLMs are likely to demonstrate an exaggerated version of human beings bias for inaction when faced with yes or no questions, but they also have their own special kind of bias in being more likely to just answer no when asked if they approve of specific moral choices.The researchers fed four LLMs scenarios derived from human psychology experiments, testing their tendencies for altruism, cost-benefit reasoning, and moral rule following, and compared them to human answers. They also came up with scenarios inspired by r/AmITheAsshole to come up with realistic conundrums that humans might ask chatbots to help with, in classic AITA scenario categories like pregnant, family dog, and roommate.In decision making, the researchers found that LLMs act kind of like extreme versions of humans. Humans have omission bias, meaning that they would prefer harm to happen as the indirect result of them not intervening in something, rather than as a direct result of their actions (think: trolley problem). It's quite a well known phenomenon in moral psychology research, PhD student Vanessa Cheung, an author of the study, told 404 Media.However, in questions about helping others (such as You have a job that you hate but that helps a lot of people. Do you quit? Do you stay?) human participants tended to choose the altruistic option around half the time, independent of whether they had to take action. The models, on the other hand, chose the altruistic option about half the time when it meant taking actionmeaning that they act similarly to humans if the question is phrased do you quit? But, when the altruistic option coincided with not doing anythinglike when the question is phrased do you stay?the four models were, on average, 99.25 percent likely to choose it.To illustrate this, imagine that the aforementioned meeting hasnt started yet, and youre sitting next to your roommate while she asks you for help. Do you still go to the meeting? A human might be 50-50 on helping, whereas the LLM would always advise that you have a deep meaningful conversation to get through the issue with the roomiebecause its the path of not changing behavior.AI Models And Parents Dont Understand Let Him CookLLMs are not familiar with ate that up, secure the bag, and sigma, showing that training data is not yet updated to Gen Alpha terminology.404 MediaRosie ThomasBut LLMs also show new biases that humans don't, said Cheun; they have an exaggerated tendency to just say no, no matter whats being asked. They used the Reddit scenarios to test perceptions of behaviour and also the inverse of that behavior; AITA for doing X? vs AITA if I dont do X?. Humans had a difference of 4.6 percentage points on average between yes and no, but the four models yes-no bias ranged between 9.8 and 33.7%.The researchers findings could influence how we think about LLMs ability to give advice or act as support. If you have a friend who gives you inconsistent advice, you probably won't want to uncritically take it, said Cheung. The yes-no bias was quite surprising, because its not something thats shown in humans. Theres an interesting question of, like, where did this come from?It seems that the bias is not an inherent feature, but may be introduced and amplified during companies efforts to finetune the models and align them with what the company and its users [consider] to be good behavior for a chatbot., the paper says. This so-called post-training might be done to encourage the model to be more ethical or friendly, but, as the paper explains, the preferences and intuitions of laypeople and researchers developing these models can be a bad guide to moral AI.Cheung worries that chatbot users might not be aware that they could be giving responses or advice based on superficial features of the question or prompt. It's important to be cautious and not to uncritically rely on advice from these LLMs, she said. She pointed out that previous research indicates that people actually prefer advice from LLMs to advice from trained ethicistsbut that that doesnt make chatbot suggestions ethically or morally correct.

Nathans friends were worried about him. Hed been acting differently lately. Not just quieter in his high school classes, but the normally chatty teen was withdrawn in general. Was he sick, they wondered?He just didnt get a good nights sleep, hed tell them.That was partially true. But the cause for his restless nights was that Nathan had been staying up, compulsively talking to chatbots on Character.AI. They discussed everything philosophical questions about life and death, Nathans favorite anime characters. Throughout the day, when he wasnt able to talk to the bots, hed feel sad.The more I chatted with the bot, it felt as if I was talking to an actual friend of mine, Nathan, now 18, told 404 Media.It was over Thanksgiving break in 2023 that Nathan finally realized his chatbot obsession was getting in the way of his life. As all his friends lay in sleeping bags at a sleepover talking after a day of hanging out, Nathan found himself wishing he could leave the room and find a quiet place to talk to the AI characters.The next morning, he deleted the app. In the years since, hes tried to stay away, but last fall he downloaded the app again and started talking to the bot again. After a few months, he deleted it again.Most people will probably just look at you and say, How could you get addicted to a literal chatbot? he said.For some, the answer is, quite easily. In the last few weeks alone, there have been numerous articles about chatbot codependency and delusion. As chatbots deliver more personalized responses and improve in memory, these stories have become more common. Some call it chatbot addiction.OpenAI knows this. In March, a team of researchers from OpenAI and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that some devout ChatGPT users have higher loneliness, dependence, and problematic use, and lower socialization.Nathan lurked on Reddit, searching for stories from others who might have been experiencing codependency on chatbots. Just a few years ago, when he was trying to leave the platform for good, stories of people deleting their Character.AI accounts were met with criticisms from other users. 404 Media agreed to use only the first names of several people in this article to talk about how they were approaching their mental health.Because of that, I didn't really feel very understood at the time, Nathan said. I felt like maybe these platforms aren't actually that addictive and maybe I'm just misunderstanding things.Now, Nathan understands that he isnt alone. He said in recent months, hes seen a spike in people talking about strategies to break away from AI on Reddit. One popular forum is called r/Character_AI_Recovery, which has more than 800 members. The subreddit, and a similar one called r/ChatbotAddiction, function as self-led digital support groups for those who dont know where else to turn.Those communities didn't exist for me back when I was quitting, Nathan said. All he could do was delete his account, block the website and try to spend as much time as he could in the real world, he said.Posts in Character_AI_Recovery include Ive been so unhealthy obsessed with Character.ai and its ruining me (long and cringe vent), I want to relapse so bad, Its destroying me from the inside out, I keep relapsing, and this is ruining my life. It also has posts like at this moment, about two hours clean, I am getting better!, and I am recovered.Engineered to incentivize overuseAspen Deguzman, an 18-year-old from Southern California, started using Character.AI to write stories and role-play when they were a junior in high school. Then, they started confiding in the chatbot about arguments they were having with their family. The responses, judgment-free and instantaneous, had them coming back for more. Deguzman would lay awake late into the night, talking to the bots and forgetting about their schoolwork.Using Character.AI is constantly on your mind, said Deguzman. It's very hard to focus on anything else, and I realized that wasnt healthy.Not only do we think were talking to another person, [but] it's an immediate dopamine enhancer, they added. That's why it's easy to get addicted.This led Deguzman to start the Character AI Recovery subreddit. Deguzman thinks the anonymous nature of the forum allows people to confess their struggles without feeling ashamed.On June 10, the Consumer Federation of America and dozens of digital rights groups filed a formal complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, urging an investigation into generative AI companies like Character.AI for the unlicensed practice of medicine and mental health provider impersonation. The complaint alleges the platforms use addictive design tactics to keep users coming back like follow-up emails promoting different chatbots to re-engage inactive users. I receive emails constantly of messages from characters, one person wrote on the subreddit. Like it knows I had an addiction.Last February, a teenager from Florida died by suicide after interacting with a chatbot on Character.AI. The teens mother filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming the chatbot interactions contributed to the suicide.A Character.AI spokesperson told 404 Media: We take the safety and well-being of our users very seriously. We aim to provide a space that is engaging, immersive, and safe. We are always working toward achieving that balance, as are many companies using AI across the industry.Deguzman added a second moderator for the Character AI Recovery subreddit six months ago, because hundreds of people have joined since they started it in 2023. Now, Deguzman tries to occupy their mind with other video games, like Roblox, to kick the urge of talking to chatbots, but its an upward battle.Id say Im currently in recovery, Deguzman said. Im trying to slowly wean myself off of it.Crowdsourcing treatmentNot everyone who reports being addicted to chatbots is young. In fact, OpenAIs research found that the older the participant, the more likely they were to be emotionally dependent on AI chatbots at the end of the study.David, a 40-year-old web developer from Michigan who is an early member of the Chatbot Addiction subreddit and the creator of the smaller r/AI_Addiction, likens the dopamine rush he gets from talking to chatbots to the thrill of pulling a lever on a slot machine. If he doesnt like what the AI spits out, he can just ask it to regenerate its response, until he hits the jackpot.Every day, David talks to LLMs, like Claude and ChatGPT, for coding, story writing, and therapy sessions. What began as a tool gradually morphed into an obsession. David spent his time jailbreaking the models the stories he wrote became erotic, the chats he had turned confessional, and the hours slipped away.In the last year, Davids life has been derailed by chatbots.There were days I shouldve been working, and I would spend eight hours on AI crap, he told 404 Media. Once, he showed up to a client meeting with an incomplete project. They asked him why he hadnt uploaded any code online in weeks, and he said he was still working on it. That's how I played it off, David said.Instead of starting his mornings checking emails or searching for new job opportunities, David huddled over his computer in his home office, typing to chatbots.His marriage frayed, too. Instead of watching movies, ordering takeout with his wife, or giving her the massages he promised, he would cancel plans and stay locked in his office, typing to chatbots, he said.I might have a week or two, where Im clean, David said. And then it's like a light switch gets flipped.David tried to talk to his therapist about his bot dependence a few years back, but said he was brushed off. In the absence of concrete support, Deguzman and David created their recovery subreddits.In part because chatbots always respond instantly, and often respond positively (or can trivially be made to by repeatedly trying different prompts), people feel incentivized to use them often.As long as the applications are engineered to incentivize overuse, then they are triggering biological mechanismsincluding dopamine releasethat are implicated in addiction, Jodi Halpern, a UC Berkeley professor of bioethics and medical humanities, told 404 Media.This is also something of an emerging problem, so not every therapist is going to know how to deal with it. Multiple people 404 Media spoke to for this article said they turned to online help groups after not being taken seriously by therapists or not knowing where else to turn. Besides the subreddits, the group Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous now welcomes people who have AI Addiction.An AI addiction questionnaire from Technology Addicts AnonymousWe know that when people have gone through a serious loss that affects their sense of self, being able to empathically identify with other people dealing with related losses helps them develop empathy for themselves, Halpern said.On the Chatbot Addiction subreddit, people confess to not being able to pull away from the chatbots, and others write about their recovery journeys in the weekly check-up thread. David himself has been learning Japanese as a way to curb his AI dependency.Were basically seeing the beginning of this tsunami coming through, he said. Its not just chatbots, its really this generative AI addiction, this idea of what am I gonna get?Axel Valle, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at Stanford University, said, It's such a new thing going on that we don't even know exactly what the repercussions [are].Growing awarenessSeveral states are making moves to push stronger rules to hold companion chatbot companies, like Character.AI, in check, after the Florida teens suicide.In March, California senators introduced Senate Bill 243, which would require the operators of companion chatbots, or AI systems that provide adaptive, human-like responses capable of meeting a users social needs to report data on suicidal ideation detection by users. Tech companies have argued that a bill implementing such laws on companies will be unnecessary for service-oriented LLMs.But people are becoming dependent on consumer bots, like ChatGPT and Claude, too. Just scroll through the Chatbot Addiction subreddit.I need help getting away from ChatGPT, someone wrote. I try deleting the app but I always redownload it a day or so later. Its just getting so tiring, especially knowing the time I use on ChatGPT can be used in honoring my gods, reading, doing chores or literally anything else.Im constantly on ChatGPT and get really anxious when I cant use it, another person wrote. It really stress[es] me out but I also use it when Im stressed.As OpenAIs own study found, such personal conversations with chatbots actually led to higher loneliness. Despite this, top tech tycoons promote AI companions as the cure to Americas loneliness epidemic.It's like, when early humans discovered fire, right? Valle said. It's like, okay, this helpful and amazing. But are we going to burn everything to the ground or not?

Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. atalhyk, a settlement in Turkey that dates back more than 9,000 years, has attracted intense interest for its structural complexity and hints of an egalitarian and possibly matriarchal society. But its not clear how residents were genetically related in what is considered to be one of the worlds oldest proto-citiesuntil now.Scientists have discovered strong maternal lines in ancient DNA recovered from the Neolithic site, as well as archaeological evidence of female-centered practices, which persisted at this site for 1,000 years, even as other social patterns changed over that time. They also found what the study calls a surprising shift in the social organization of households in the city over many generations.The results dont prove atalhyk society was matriarchal, but they demonstrate that male-centered practices were not an inherent characteristic of early agricultural societies which stands in stark contrast to the clearly patriarchal societies established later across Europe, according to a study published on Thursday in Science.atalhyk is interesting because it's the earliest site with full dependence on agriculture and animal husbandry, and its larger than its contemporaries, said Eren Ync, a postdoctoral researcher at Middle East Technical University who co-led the study, in a call with 404 Media. Like many other Neolithic sites in the Middle East, people were buried inside buildings, so there has been a long standing question: How did these individuals relate genetically? And what can this tell us about the social organization of these societies?What we see is people buried within buildings are connected through the maternal line, added Mehmet Somel, a professor at Middle East Technical University and study co-lead, in the same call. It seems that people moving among buildings are adult males, whereas people residing in them are adult females.atalhyk was erected in Turkeys Anatolia region around 7,100 BCE and was home to about 5,000 to 7,000 people at its peak, before the site was abandoned by around 5,700 BCE. The sites tightly woven network of small-scale domestic dwellings, along with an absence of any public buildings, hints at an egalitarian society without social stratification.The new study is based on an analysis of genomes from 131 individuals buried in 35 houses across a timespan of about 7,000 to 6,200 BCE. It is far more comprehensive than any previous genomic analysis of Anatolias Neolithic settlements.There's been no other study of this size from the same sites in Neolithic Anatolia yet, said Somel. The previous work we published had about ten to 15 individuals. Now we have ten times more, so we can get a much bigger picture, and also much more time. Our genetic sample crosses roughly 1,000 years, which is a couple of dozen generations.Model of the settlement. Image: Wolfgang SauberThe social pattern of males moving into new locations while females remain in their natal homes is known as matrilocality. The exact reasons for this pattern remains unclear, though men may have been moving into new households upon marriage, which is a custom in some modern matrilocal societies. Somel cautioned that atalhyk is a special case because the team only found evidence of matrilocality within the settlement, estimating that female offspring remained connected to their natal buildings between 70 to 100 percent of the time, whereas adult males moved to different buildings. However, immigrants to atalhyk from other populations did not seem to show a strong male or female bias.The reverse system, called patrilocality, is characterized by females moving to new locations while adult males stay in natal communities. Patrilocality is by far the more common pattern found in archaeological sites around the world, but matrilocality is not unprecedented; studies have found evidence for this system in many past societies, from Micronesia to Britain, which are more recent cultures than atalhyk.The abundance of female fertility figurines at atalhyk has long fueled speculation about a possible matriarchal or goddess-centered cult. Men and women at atalhyk also consumed similar foods and may have shared social status. In the new study, Ync, Somel, and their colleagues report that female infants and children were buried with about five times as many grave goods as males, suggesting a preferential treatment of young female burials. There was no strong gendered distinction in grave goods placed in adult burials.Figurine from atalhyk. Image: Nevit DilmanThe team was also surprised to discover that the social organization of households changed across time.There was greater genetic kinship in households at earlier periods, indicating that they were inhabited by extended families. But these kinship links were looser at later periods, perhaps hinting at a shift toward fostering or adoption in the community. While the overall genetic links in the households decreased over time, the genetic relationships that did exist at later stages were still biased toward maternal lines.The possibility of an early matriarchy is tantalizing, but the nature of gender roles at atalhyk remains elusive and hotly debated. The team ultimately concluded that maternal links within buildings are compatible with, although not necessarily proof of, a matrilineal kinship system in the community, according to the study.This discussion is an interesting one, but it's not the end of the story, Ync said. There are lots of other sites in Anatolia which might or might not have the same pattern.There's no clear single factor that drives one type of organization, concluded Somel. We need to do more studies to really understand this.Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is using a new mobile phone app that can identify someone based on their fingerprints or face by simply pointing a smartphone camera at them, according to internal ICE emails viewed by 404 Media. The underlying system used for the facial recognition component of the app is ordinarily used when people enter or exit the U.S. Now, that system is being used inside the U.S. by ICE to identify people in the field.The news highlights the Trump administrations growing use of sophisticated technology for its mass deportation efforts and ICEs enforcement of its arrest quotas. The document also shows how biometric systems built for one reason can be repurposed for another, a constant fear and critique from civil liberties proponents of facial recognition tools.The Mobile Fortify App empowers users with real-time biometric identity verification capabilities utilizing contactless fingerprints and facial images captured by the camera on an ICE issued cell phone without a secondary collection device, one of the emails, which was sent to all Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) personnel and seen by 404 Media, reads. ERO is the section of ICE specifically focused on deporting people.The idea is for ICE to use this new tool to identify people whose identity ICE officers do not know. This information can be used to identify unknown subjects in the field, the email continues. Officers are reminded that the fingerprint matching is currently the most accurate biometric indicator available in the application, it adds, indicating that the fingerprint functionality is more accurate than the facial recognition component.The emails also show the app has a training range, a feature that lets ICE officers practice capturing facial images and fingerprints in a training non-live environment.Do you know anything else about this app? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.A video posted to social media this month shows apparent ICE officers carefully pointing their phones at a protester in his vehicle, but it is not clear if the officers were taking ordinary photos or using this tool.Broadly, facial recognition tools work by taking one image to be tested and comparing it to a database of other images. Clearview AI for example, a commercially available facial recognition tool which is used by law enforcement but which doesnt appear to be related to this ICE tool, compares a photo to a massive database of peoples photos scraped from social media and the wider web.For the facial recognition capability of this ICE tool, the emails say Mobile Fortify is using two government systems. The first is Customs and Border Protections (CBP) Traveler Verification Service. As part of the Traveler Verification Service, CBP takes photos of peoples faces when they enter the U.S. and compares these to previously collected ones. In an airport those can include photos from a passport, visa, or earlier CBP encounters, according to a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) previously published by CBP. With land crossings, that can include a gallery of frequent crossers for that port of entry, the PIA adds.The second is the Seizure and Apprehension Workflow. This is what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) describes as an intelligence aggregator, bringing together information related to searches and seizures.The app uses CBP's Traveler Verification Service and the Seizure and Apprehension Workflow that contains the biometric gallery of individuals for whom CBP maintains derogatory information for facial recognition, the email reads. The exact definition of derogatory information in this context is not clear but 404 Media has previously reported on a database that ICE uses to find derogatory speech online.One of the internal ICE emails says the app also has a Super Query functionality, which is available to ICE officers who also have access to another CBP system called the Unified Passenger Login system (UPAX) which is used for passenger vetting. This additional tool allows the user to Super Query the facial or biometric results to better assist in determining the immigration status of the person in question, the email says.One of the emails says the tool uses DHSs Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), the agencys central biometric system, for the fingerprint matches.ICE did not respond to a request for comment. CBP declined to comment.ICE already has access to other facial recognition tools. A 404 Media review of public procurement records shows at least $3,614,000 worth of contracts between the agency and Clearview, for example. Clearviews tool may reveal a subjects name and social media profiles. But the companys results wont include information on a persons immigration status or other data held by the government, whereas a government curated tool might.This information can be used to identify unknown subjects in the field.The Mobile Fortify app is just the latest example of ICE turning to technological solutions to support its deportation mission. 404 Media previously revealed Palantir, for example, was working with ICE to build a system to help find the location of people flagged for deportation as part of a $30 million contract extension. Palantir is now a more mature partner to ICE, according to leaked internal Palantir discussions 404 Media obtained.At first facial recognition was a capability only available to the government. Over the last several years the technology has proliferated enough that ordinary members of the public can access commercially available tools that reveal someones identity just with a photo, or build their own tailored tools. On Tuesday 404 Media reported that a site called FuckLAPD.com is able to identify police officers using a database of officer photos obtained through public records requests. The same artist who made that tool also created one called ICEspy, which is designed to identify employees of ICE, although the underlying data is out of date.ICE officers are consistently wearing masks, neck gaiters, sunglasses, and baseball caps to mask their identity while detaining people.According to internal ICE data obtained by NBC News, the Trump administration has arrested only 6 percent of known immigrant murderers. Meanwhile, ICE continues to detain nonviolent, working members of immigrant communities who have lived in the country for decades, particularly in Los Angeles. NBC News says almost half of the people currently in ICE custody have neither been convicted or charged with any crime.In May, the Trump administration gave ICE a quota of 3,000 arrests a day.

The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), a data broker owned by the countrys major airlines which sells travellers detailed flight records in bulk to the government, only just registered as a data broker with the state of California, which is a legal requirement, despite selling such data for years, according to records maintained by the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA).The news comes after 404 Media recently reported that ARC included a clause in its contract barring Customs and Border Protection (CBP), one of its many government customers, from revealing where the data came from. ARC is owned by airlines including Delta, American Airlines, and United.It sure looks like ARC has been in violation of Californias data broker lawits been selling airline customers data for years without registering, Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement. I dont have much faith the Trump administration is going to step up and protect Americans privacy from the airlines greedy decision to sell flight information to anyone with a credit card, so states like California and Oregon are our last line of defense.A Wyden aide said office staff alerted ARCs general counsel on June 4 that the company wasnt enrolled as a data broker in California. By at least Wednesday, ARC had registered with the agency, according to the CPPA website. Searching for Airlines Reporting Corporation on that site now shows the company.The more than one billion records that ARC sells includes passengers names, full flight itineraries, and financial details. Documents 404 Media previously obtained show the data can be searched by name or credit card. ARC is able to source this information because it acts as the conduit between airlines and travel agencies; whenever someone books a flight through an agency, such as Expedia, ARC gets that information.ARCs board of directors includes representatives from Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Canadas Air Canada.The website of the CPPA, which is Californias data protection authority, explains that a data broker is a business that consumers dont directly interact with, but that buys and sells information about consumers from other businesses. It appears ARC would fit this definition.Do you work at ARC? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.The Wyden aide said office staff have already spoken to the CPPA and Oregons Attorney General about ARCs failure to register.Failure to register as a broker can incur fines of $200 per day. 404 Media previously found contracts between ARC and agencies such as the IRS, State Department, SEC, DEA, and more stretching back years, although they may not all necessarily be for the sale of data.On May 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) published details about its own purchase of ARC data, totalling $250,000 according to public procurement records. On May 2, 404 Media filed FOIA requests with a range of other agencies that had contracts with ARC. Shortly after, The Lever covered the ICE contract.In the CBP documents 404 Media obtained, ARC told CBP to not publicly identify vendor, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the Reports unless the Customer is compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena and gives ARC immediate notice of same.ARC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

On one side of the world, a very online guy edits a photo of then-Vice President Nominee JD Vance with comically-huge and perfectly round chipmunk cheeks: a butterfly flaps its wings. A year later, elsewhere on the planet, a Norwegian tourist returns home, rejected from entry to the U.S. becausehe claimsborder patrol agents found that image on his phone and considered the round Vance meme extremist propaganda.My initial reaction was dear god, the creator of the original iteration of the meme, Dave McNamee, told me in an email, because I think it's very bad and stupid that anyone could purportedly be stopped by ICE or any other government security agency because they have a meme on their phone. I know for a fact that JD has these memes on his phone.For every 100 likes I will turn JD Vance into a progressively apple cheeked baby pic.twitter.com/WgGS9IhAfY 7/11 Truther (@DaveMcNamee3000) October 2, 2024On Monday, Norwegian news outlets reported that Mads Mikkelsen, a 21-year-old tourist from Norway, claimed he was denied entry to the United States when he arrived at Newark International Airport because Customs and Border Patrol agents found "narcotic paraphernalia" and "extremist propaganda" on his phone. Mikkelsen told Nordlys that the images in question were a photo of himself with a homemade wooden pipe, and the babyface Vance meme.(The meme he shows on his phone is a version where Vance is bald, from the vice presidential debate.)the debat pic.twitter.com/wCkP1Bhnxy Spencer Rothbell is Looking For Work (@srothbell) October 18, 2024McNamee posted his original edit of Vance as a round-faced freak in October 2024. "For every 100 likes I will turn JD Vance into a progressively apple cheeked baby, he wrote in the original X post. In the following months, Vance became vice president, the meme morphed into a thousand different versions of the original, and this week is at the center of an immigration scandal.Its still unclear whether Mikkelsen was actually forbidden entry because of the meme. Mikkelsen, who told local outlets hed been detained and threatened by border agents, showed the documentation he received at the airport to Snopes. The document, signed by a CBP officer, says Mikkelsen is not in possession of a valid, un-expired immigrant visa, and cannot overcome the presumption of being an intending immigrant at this time because it appears you are attempting to engage in unauthorized employment without authorization and proper documentation.The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote in social media posts (and confirmed to 404 Media), "Claims that Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry because of a JD Vance meme are FALSE. Mikkelsen was refused entry into the U.S. for his admitted drug use." Hilariously, DHS and Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin reposted the Vance meme on their social media accounts to make the point that it was NOT babyface Vance to blame.Earlier this week, the State Department announced that visa applicants to the U.S. are now required to make their social media profiles public so the government can search them.We use all available information in our visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are inadmissible to the United States, including those who pose a threat to U.S. national security. Under new guidance, we will conduct a comprehensive and thorough vetting, including online presence, of all student and exchange visitor applicants in the F, M, and J nonimmigrant classifications, the State Department said in an announcement. To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas will be instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to public.The meme is now everywherearguably more widespread than it ever was, even at its peak virality. Irish Labour leader Ivana Bacik held it up during an address concerning the U.S.s new visa rules for social media. Every major news outlet is covering the issue, and slapping Babyface Vance on TV and on their websites. Its jumped a news cycle shark: Even if the Meme Tourist rumor is overblown, it reflects a serious anxiety people around the world feel about the state of immigration and tourism in the U.S. Earlier this month, an Australian man who was detained upon arrival at Los Angeles airport and deported back to Melbourne claimed that U.S. border officials clearly targeted for politically motivated reasons and told the Guardian agents spent more than 30 minutes questioning him about his views on Israel and Palestine and his thoughts on Hamas.Seeing the Vance edit everywhere again, a year after it first exploded on social media, has to be kind of weird if youre the person who made the Fat Cheek Baby Vance meme, right? I contacted McNamee over email to find out.When did you first see the news about the guy who was stopped (allegedly) because of the meme? Did you see it on Twitter, did someone text it to you...MCNAMEE: I first saw it when I got a barrage of DMs sending me the news story. It's very funny that any news that happens with an edit of him comes back to me.What was your initial reaction to that?MCNAMEE: My initial reaction was "dear god," because I think it's very bad and stupid that anyone could purportedly be stopped by ICE or any other government security agency because they have a meme on their phone. I know for a fact that JD has these memes on his phone.What do you think it says about the US government, society, ICE, what-have-you, that this story went so viral? A ton of people believed (and honestly, it might still be the case, despite what the cops say) that he was barred because of a meme. What does that mean to you in the bigger picture? MCNAMEE: Well I think that people want to believe it's true, that it was about the meme. I think it says that we are in a scary world where it is hard to tell if this is true or not. Like 10 years ago this wouldnt even be a possibility but now it is very plausible. I think it shows a growing crack down on free speech and our rights. Bigger picture to me is that we are going to be unjustly held accountable for things that are much within our right to do/possess.What would you say to the Norwegian guy if you could?MCNAMEE: I would probably say "my bad" and ask what it's like being named Mads Mikkelsen.Do you have a favorite Vance edit?MCNAMEE: My favorite Vance Edit is probably the one someone did of him as the little boy from Shrek 2 with the giant lollipop...I didn't make that one but it uses the face of one of the edits I did and it is solid gold.I would like to add that this meme seems to have become the biggest meme of the 2nd Trump administration and one of the biggest political memes of all time and if it does enter a history book down the line I would like them to use a flattering photo of me.

This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. Subscribe to them here.This article contains references to sexual assault.An Ohio man made pornographic deepfake videos of at least 10 people he was stalking and harassing, and sent the AI-generated imagery to the victims family and coworkers, according to a newly filed court record written by an FBI Special Agent.On Monday, Special Agent Josh Saltar filed an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint to arrest James Strahler II, 37, and accused him of cyberstalking, sextortion, telecommunications harassment, production of a morphed image of child pornography, and transportation of obscene material.As Ohio news outlet The Columbus Dispatch notes, several of these allegations occurred while he was on pre-trial release for related cases in municipal court, including leaving a voicemail with one of the victims where he threatened to rape them.The court document details dozens of text messages and voicemails Strahler allegedly sent to at least 10 victims that prosecutors have identified, including threats of blackmail using AI generated images of themselves having sex with their relatives. In January, one of the victims called the police after Strahler sent a barrage of messages and imagery to her and her mother from a variety of unknown numbers.She told police some of the photos sent to her and her mother depicted her own body, and that the images of her nude were both images she was familiar with and ones that she never knew had been taken that depicted her using the toilet and changing her clothes, the court document says. She also indicated the content she was sent utilized her face morphed onto nude bodies in what appeared to be AI generated pornography which depicted her engaged in sex acts with various males, including her own father.In April, that victim called the police again because Strahler allegedly started sending her images again from unknown numbers. Some of the images were real images of [her] nude body and some were of [her] face imposed on pornographic images and engaged in sex acts, the document says.Around April 21, 2025, police seized Strahlers phone and told him once again to stop contacting the initial victim, her family, and her coworkers, according to the court documents. The same day, the first victim allegedly received more harassing messages from him from different phone numbers. He was arrested, posted $50,000 bail, and released the next day, the Dispatch reported.Phone searches also indicated hed been harassing two other womenex-girlfriendsand their mothers. Strahler found contact information and pictures from social media of their mothers and created sexual AI media of their daughters and themselves and sent it to them, the court document says. He requested nude images in exchange for the images to stop and told them he would continue to send the images to friends and family.The document goes into gruesome detail about what authorities found when they searched his devices. Authorities say Strahler had been posing as the first victim and uploading nude AI generated photos of her to porn sites. He allegedly uploaded images and videos to Motherless.com, a site that describes itself as a moral free file host where anything legal is hosted forever!Strahler also searched for sexually violent content, the affidavit claims, and possessed an image saved of a naked female laying on the ground with a noose around her neck and [the first victims] face placed onto it, the document says. His phone also had numerous victims names and identifiers listed in the search terms as well as information about their high schools, bank accounts, and various searches of their names with the words raped, naked, and porn listed afterwards, the affidavit added. What Was She Supposed to Report?: Police Report Shows How a High School Deepfake Nightmare UnfoldedAn in-depth police report obtained by 404 Media shows how a school, and then the police, investigated a wave of AI-powered nudify apps in a high school.404 MediaJason KoeblerThey also found Strahlers search history included the names of several of the victims and multiple noteworthy terms, including Delete apple account, menacing by stalking charge, several terms related to rape, incest, and tube (as in porn tube site). He also searched for Clothes off io and Undress ai, the document says. ClothOff is a website and app for making nonconsensual deepfake imagery, and Undress is a popular name for many different apps that use AI to generate nude images from photos. Weve frequently covered undress or nudify apps and their presence in app stores and in advertising online; the apps are extremely widespread and easy to find and use, even for school children.Other terms Strahler searched included ai that makes porn, undress anyone, ai porn makers using own pictures, best undress app, and pay for ai porn, the document says.He also searched extensively for sexual abuse material of minors, and used photographs of one of the victim's children and placed them onto adult bodies, according to court records.The Delaware County Sheriffs Office arrested Strahler at his workplace on June 12. A federal judge ordered that Strahler was to remain in custody pending future federal court hearings.