Evolutionary Cosmology Gains Ground With Universe Natural Selection Theory

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Physicist Lee Smolin's theory of cosmological natural selection proposes that universes reproduce and evolve through a Darwinian-like process. The idea, though long overlooked, is now gaining renewed attention as a growing field called evolutionary cosmology. A Smithsonian Magazine overview highlights the increasingly active research being done around these concepts. The discussion was reignited after a speculative piece called 'Blowtorch Theory,' which expanded on Smolin's ideas, went viral on Hacker News last year. Scientists and enthusiasts alike are beginning to treat the field as an emerging frontier in theoretical physics.

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AI Voice-Cloning Scams Cost Americans Billions as Fraud Surges

Scammers are using AI voice-cloning technology to impersonate loved ones or colleagues in fake crisis calls, tricking victims into sending money urgently and secretly. A short audio sample scraped from social media or voicemails is enough for widely available, low-cost tools to generate a convincing voice imitation. The US FTC recorded approximately $3.5 billion in impostor scam losses in 2025, while the FBI tracked around $893 million in AI-related fraud in its first-ever dedicated category. Deloitte projects generative-AI-enabled fraud in the US could reach $40 billion by 2027, up from roughly $12 billion in 2023. Security experts stress that the most effective defence remains behavioural — verifying any urgent, secretive request for money through a separate, trusted communication channel.

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Horizen's ZEN Token Migrates to Base as ERC-20, Drops Proof-of-Work Mining

ZEN, the ecosystem token of the Horizen network, was migrated from its legacy mainchain to Base as an ERC-20 token in July 2025, ending its previous proof-of-work mining model. The old Horizen chains were discontinued following the migration, though the maximum supply remains capped at 21 million ZEN. ZEN now serves as a governance and ecosystem token, with staking on the Horizen Mainnet having launched in July 2026. Notably, transaction fees on Horizen are paid in ETH rather than ZEN, a detail that distinguishes it from traditional token models. ZEN can be bridged between Base and Horizen via infrastructure such as Stargate and LayerZero, making network awareness essential when transferring or storing the token.

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Shopify: AI-Referred Store Sessions Surged 197% YoY in Q2 2026

Shopify reported that AI-referred sessions to its merchant storefronts grew 197% year over year in Q2 2026, far outpacing organic search growth of 12% over the same period. Orders linked to AI referrals roughly tripled during the quarter, and about half of those sessions landed directly on product detail pages. In spec-driven categories, AI-referred shoppers converted at approximately twice the rate of organic visitors, particularly when merchants maintained structured, enriched catalog data. Shopify noted that AI-referred traffic remains a smaller share of overall visits, but its rapid growth and higher conversion rates make it an increasingly relevant discovery channel. The company recommends a dual approach: continuing to invest in organic search while also ensuring product pages carry accurate, complete, and well-structured information for AI systems to interpret.

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Developer releases open-source Claude Code plugin that logs work sessions to Notion

A developer has released an open-source plugin called claude-journal that automatically summarises Claude Code working sessions and appends structured entries to a Notion work journal. Originally built as a personal tool in May 2025, the plugin was refined over three months before being published for anyone to install. Each journal entry is formatted with a bold outcome headline, a metadata line listing linked tickets and branches, and up to four concise fact-based bullets — kept to around 80 words per topic. The plugin also applies seasonal background colours and weekday icons to callouts, computed via a shell script so the AI model performs no extra lookups. Users need Claude Code and the Notion MCP server to set it up, and can install the plugin directly from within Claude Code.

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