レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world's largest countries, according to a United Nations University report, which also predicts their water use, energy use, and pollution will double in just four years as the use of artificial intelligence grows. Last year, global data centers used 448 trillion watt-hours of electricity, more than all but 10 countries in the...

Life tasks like paying bills, canceling subscriptions, and answering overdue emails are becoming a reason to socialize for friends, couples, roommates, and other people who get together for what's known as “admin dates.” The low-pressure gatherings taking place in coffee shops, accommodating bars, and private homes are intended to turn tedious and procrastination-inducing adult responsibilities in...

European Union leaders, worried about the continent relying too heavily on American companies for AI and cloud computing services and Asia for microchips, are pushing back. The 27-nation bloc unveiled a "tech sovereignty" package with measures to promote homegrown European alternatives to Big Tech services and hardware. The efforts by Brussels have gained urgency as leaders worry about dependence...

Imagine taking part in a job interview not conducted by a human, but by an AI avatar. What might seem dystopian in concept is an increasing reality for some applicants. As employers face surging application numbers and a flood of AI-written CVs, companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to screen candidates. And as workers flood into offices across the capital, the process of g...

Whether they’re rummaging through grass in a park or scuttling along pavements on the hunt for crumbs, pigeons seem to fit right in busy London. But the same bird that often blends in as part of the urban background has helped scientists investigate one of the hardest questions in biology. How can a pigeon be taken many kilometers from home and still find its way back? After all, unlike their huma...

A novel pill helped people with advanced pancreatic cancer live longer, researchers reported, raising hopes of long-needed better treatments for one of the deadliest types of cancer. “While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study. The drug is called Daraxonrasib, and it blocks a mutated...

Your favorite pair of jeans may have traveled around the world through cotton farms, dye houses, wash facilities, and factories before ending up in your closet. The denim may have never been worn, but it is stonewashed, sanded, chemically faded, or laser-treated to look like it. Those processes can require significant amounts of water, energy, and chemicals—part of the reason denim has become a gr...

Ohio, one of the nation's data center destination hot spots, is suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition with other states to attract the massive new facilities that power and train artificial intelligence chatbots. The move by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets, and the industry...

For weddings, vacations, or other special occasions, more consumers are turning to clothing rental services instead of buying something new. These subscription-based services, often marketed as a sustainable alternative to fast fashion, ship straight to customers everything from everyday and workwear to dresses, handbags, and formalwear. Then, the items are returned for someone else to use. “I hav...

Oreo is teaming up with K-pop supergroup BTS for a bit of marketing dynamite that capitalizes on consumers' growing interest in global flavors. Mondelez, Oreo's parent company, said that BTS-themed Oreos would go on sale June 1 online and June 8 in stores. The cookies, which feature purple wafers in a nod to the band's signature color, would be sold in more than 80 markets around the world, making...

America has been called the “breadbasket of the world” due to its export of food products across the globe. Now, with the U.S. agriculture industry grappling with a shrinking labor force and aging farmers, many operations are pivoting to automation. The manufacturer, Carbon Robotics, is making the machines that use lasers and artificial intelligence in the U.S. and selling them to farms across the...

After more than a decade of mixing and kneading dough in his family’s Brooklyn pizzeria, Salvatore Lo Duca recently made a distressing discovery: a key component of their thin-crust pies, bromated flour, contained a suspected carcinogen already banned in much of the world. So, in the back kitchen of Lo Duca Pizzeria, the 39-year-old began tweaking the original recipe handed down by his parents—wit...

The Trump administration loosened federal rules requiring grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cooling equipment, a step that President Donald Trump said would help lower grocery costs. Trump said at a White House ceremony that the action by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would "substantially lower costs for consumers" by delaying costly...

Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons, and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. In May, the India Meteorological Department forecasted maximum temperatures of around 45 °C (113 °F) in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather departmen...

A neat stack of 79-cent bananas and rows of colorful fruit flanked the bilingual alternative pop band Luna Luna as they performed for a small audience at a Latino grocery store in northern Delaware. The show was part of the monthly Mercadito sessions put on by the Fiesta Fresh Market, a family-owned store in the Philadelphia metro-area city of New Castle, far away from the massive music industry h...

Beginning in the 1970s, just about every Filipino household in America was either hauling balikbayan boxes in person or mailing them to relatives back in the Philippines. These care packages that held goodies from the U.S. were seen as an expression of support during hard economic times, as well as one of pure love. "Balik" and "bayan," Tagalog for "return" and "homeland," respectively, were what...

The mental well-being of three elephants in a zoo in South Africa is the subject of an unusual court case, with animal welfare groups saying they are depressed and should be moved to a larger conservation park where they can be happy. The case will ask a South African court to decide if the state is meeting its legal obligations with regard to the welfare of the animals and the conditions in which...

An adolescent owl that was found stuck in a concrete mixer in southwestern Utah is finally on the mend, flying free and maybe a bit wiser from the ordeal. The great horned owl somehow made his way into the truck-mounted mixer in late October and was discovered by workers pouring concrete at a resort construction site. Lucky for him, a series of people gave a hoot about his predicament. Workers hos...

An ever-changing, AI-powered portrait of British adults has been launched in the U.K. People can submit selfies, which are turned into digital pictures as part of one collective artwork. It’s called ‘A National Portrait,’ and it invites adults in the U.K. to take photographs that are transformed using Google’s AI technology. The finished sketches can be submitted to The National Portrait Gallery,...

Shares of eBay are soaring before the opening bell as Ryan Cohen's GameStop pursues an approximately $56 billion takeover of the company, seeing it as a vehicle to compete with online retail giant Amazon. The national gaming retailer said that its approximately 1,600 U.S. stores could become drop-off and shipping locations. One proposal includes live sales broadcasts from GameStop locations featur...

Greece is preparing major constitutional changes, including an amendment requiring that artificial intelligence serve human society. Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis outlined the proposed revisions, casting them as necessary to safeguard future generations given global concerns about AI’s risks to democratic governance and humanity itself. “It’s very important that, in this process...

The packaging on some snacks in Japan is turning a somber black-and-white, as the war in Iran disrupts the supply of an ingredient used in colored ink. Tokyo-based Calbee Inc., which makes potato chips and cereal, said what's inside remains the same. Calbee's popular snacks are available in Japan's ubiquitous convenience stores and shipped to the United States, China, and Australia. "This measure...

Meta Platforms said it's rolling out an “incognito” mode for WhatsApp users to have private conversations with its AI chatbot, a move intended to ease privacy concerns about sensitive information that users share in chats. The social media company said in a blog post that incognito chat mode provides a way to have private, temporary conversations with Meta AI, its artificial intelligence assistant...

Senators unanimously approved a resolution to withhold their pay during government shutdowns, an attempt to make federal closures financially painful for lawmakers after a string of record-breaking impasses in the past year. The bipartisan support for the measure comes at a time when federal closures have become longer and more frequent, frustrating lawmakers who say there should be punishment whe...

Britain’s traditional fish and chip supper is under pressure from rising fish prices and tighter catch limits, to the knock-on effects of global conflict and higher energy costs. The National Federation of Fish Friers says the number of shops selling fish and chips has fallen from more than 30,000 to around 9,000 in recent years, amid increasing financial strain. For over a decade, Brockley’s Rock...