The emergence of synthetic pigments in the 19th century had an immense impact on the art world, particularly the availability of emerald-green pigments, prized for their intense brilliance by such masters as Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet. The downside was that these pigments often degraded over time, resulting in cracks and uneven surfaces and the formation of dark copper oxides—even the release of arsenic compounds.

Naturally it’s a major concern for conservationists of such masterpieces. So it should be welcome news that European researchers have used synchrotron radiation and various other analytical tools to determine whether light and/or humidity are the culprits behind that degradation and how, specifically, it occurs, according to a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

Science has become a valuable tool for art conservationists, especially various X-ray imaging methods. For instance, in 2019, we reported on how many of the oil paintings at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had been developing tiny, pin-sized blisters, almost like acne, for decades. Chemists concluded that the blisters are actually metal carboxylate soaps, the result of a chemical reaction between metal ions in the lead and zinc pigments and fatty acids in the binding medium used in the paint. The soaps start to clump together to form the blisters and migrate through the paint film.

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The US space agency ended months of speculation about the next flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, confirming Monday that the vehicle will carry only cargo to the International Space Station.

NASA and Boeing are now targeting no earlier than April 2026 to fly the uncrewed Starliner-1 mission, the space agency said. Launching by next April will require completion of rigorous test, certification, and mission readiness activities, NASA added in a statement .

“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, in a statement.

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AT&T provided flights from Washington, DC, to Las Vegas and accommodation so Ars could attend the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

LAS VEGAS—Formula 1 held the third annual Las Vegas Grand Prix this past weekend in the Nevada city. The race is an outlier in so many ways, and a divisive one at that. Some love the bright lights that make it appear to be set in Mega-City One or F-Zero . Others resent the rampant commercialism of F1 at its most excessive. And this time, Ars was on the ground, making one of our periodic visits to the series. The race we saw was something of a damp squib, seemingly leaving McLaren’s Lando Norris in control of the championship.

At least that’s how it looked when I left the track on Saturday night. Within a few hours, Norris and his teammate (and one of his two title rivals) Oscar Piastri were both disqualified for having worn away too much of the “legality plank” underneath the car—more on that in a while.

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The UK government will promise to buy emerging chip technology from British companies in a 100 million pound ($130 million) bid to boost growth by supporting the artificial intelligence sector.

Liz Kendall, the science secretary, said the government would offer guaranteed payments to British startups producing AI hardware that can help sectors such as life sciences and financial services.

Under a “first customer” promise modeled on the way the government bought COVID vaccines, Kendall’s department will commit in advance to buying AI inference chips that meet set performance standards.

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The company that pioneered small launch has had a big year.

Rocket Lab broke its annual launch record with the Electron booster—17 successful missions this year, and counting—and is close to bringing its much larger Neutron rocket to the launch pad.

The company also expanded its in-space business, including playing a key role in supporting the landing of Firefly’s Blue Ghost mission on the Moon and building two small satellites just launched to Mars.

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In 2016, the legendary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki was shown a bizarre AI-generated video of a misshapen human body crawling across a floor.

Miyazaki declared himself “utterly disgusted” by the technology demo, which he considered an “insult to life itself.”

“If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it,” Miyazaki said. “I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all.”

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Hacker conferences—like all conventions—are notorious for giving attendees a parting gift of mystery illness. To combat “con crud,” New Zealand’s premier hacker conference, Kawaiicon, quietly launched a real-time, room-by-room carbon dioxide monitoring system for attendees.

To get the system up and running, event organizers installed DIY CO ₂ monitors throughout the Michael Fowler Centre venue before conference doors opened on November 6. Attendees were able to check a public online dashboard for clean air readings for session rooms, kids’ areas, the front desk, and more, all before even showing up. “It’s ALMOST like we are all nerds in a risk-based industry,” the organizers wrote on the convention’s website.

“What they did is fantastic,” Jeff Moss, founder of the Defcon and Black Hat security conferences, told WIRED. “CO ₂ is being used as an approximation for so many things, but there are no easy, inexpensive network monitoring solutions available. Kawaiicon building something to do this is the true spirit of hacking.”

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One of the world’s premier security organizations has canceled the results of its annual leadership election after an official lost an encryption key needed to unlock results stored in a verifiable and privacy-preserving voting system.

The International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) said Friday that the votes were submitted and tallied using Helios , an open source voting system that uses peer-reviewed cryptography to cast and count votes in a verifiable, confidential, and privacy-preserving way. Helios encrypts each vote in a way that assures each ballot is secret. Other cryptography used by Helios allows each voter to confirm their ballot was counted fairly.

An “honest but unfortunate human mistake”

Per the association’s bylaws, three members of the election committee act as independent trustees. To prevent two of them from colluding to cook the results, each trustee holds a third of the cryptographic key material needed to decrypt results.

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A man in Ireland earned the unpleasant distinction of developing an exceedingly rare infection on his penis—one that has a puzzling origin, but may be connected to his work with dead animals.

According to an article published in ASM Case Reports on Thursday, the 57-year-old man went to a hospital in Dublin after his penis became red, swollen, and painful over the course of a week. He also had a fever. Doctors promptly admitted him to the hospital and noted that he had received a kidney transplant 15 years prior. As such, he was on immunosuppressive drugs, which keep his body from rejecting the organ, but could also allow infections to run amok.

Initial blood work found hints of an infection, and the doctors initially suspected a bacterial skin infection (cellulitis) had taken hold in his nether region. So, they put him on some standard antibiotics for that. But his penis only got worse, redder, and more swollen. This prompted consultation with infectious disease doctors.

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