Technologies

Woolly mammoth extinction blamed on climate change, not human hunting

«This is a stark lesson from history and shows how unpredictable climate change is — once something is lost, there is no going back.»

About 4,000 years ago, the last majestic woolly mammoth roaming Earth vanished, and for decades, scientists believed the colossal ancestors of elephants went extinct because humans hunted them relentlessly. DNA analysis of the animals’ old stomping grounds, however, reveals a different story.

The likelier culprit, researchers now say, was rapid climate change that ultimately wiped out the creatures’ food supply. But besides solving the mystery of the disappearing mammoths, these findings may offer a glimpse into the fates of other species if our present climate crisis isn’t controlled.

«We have shown that climate change, specifically precipitation, directly drives the change in the vegetation — humans had no impact on [the mammoths] at all based on our models,» Yucheng Wang, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge and first author of the paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, said in a statement.

Co-author Eske Willerslev, a fellow at the University of Cambridge and director of the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen, added, «This is a stark lesson from history and shows how unpredictable climate change is — once something is lost, there is no going back.»

These gentle beings that dined on grass and flowers lived alongside Neanderthals. While many encounters might have been peaceful, the animals were a hot commodity when it came to making fur coats, musical and artistic instruments and hearty meals. That’s because of their thick, chocolate-colored fur, their sturdy, enormous tusks and their huge size.

They weighed approximately 6 tons and stood about 13 feet (4 meters) tall — as Wang puts it, woolly mammoths could «grow to the height of a double-decker bus.»

«Scientists have argued for 100 years about why mammoths went extinct,» Willerslev said. «Humans have been blamed because the animals had survived for millions of years without climate change killing them off before, but when they lived alongside humans they didn’t last long and we were accused of hunting them to death.»

It makes sense that prehistoric people were suspected to be behind woolly mammoths’ eventual demise instead of climate change. These animals somehow withstood the Ice Age about 12,000 years ago — the fanciful Disney movie Ice Age has some thoughts on that — but the new study’s researchers decided to dig a little deeper.

Over a period of 10 years, Willerslev led a team in dissecting DNA fragments collected from the Arctic soil where mammoths were known to graze. The samples were collected over 20 years and analyzed using a method called DNA shotgun sequencing.

DNA shotgun sequencing is an indirect way to create genetic profiles without requiring a person or animal to physically be there. Instead of collecting genetic information from bones or teeth, the method sequences DNA from traces of urine or discarded cells. Scientists have also used this tool to track the movement of COVID-19 by creating DNA profiles from sewage remnants.

The researchers looking into ancient mammoths discovered populations of the enormous animals — uncovered using the sequencing method — were depleted at a rate consistent with the quick speed of climate change at the time. Willerslev says it was because «as the climate warmed up, trees and wetland plants took over and replaced the mammoth’s grassland habitats.»

«When the climate got wetter and the ice began to melt, it led to the formation of lakes, rivers and marshes,» he said. «The ecosystem changed and the biomass of the vegetation reduced and would not have been able to sustain the herds of mammoths.»

Wang also notes that prehistoric humans would’ve probably spent most of their time hunting animals much smaller and easier to capture than enormous woolly mammoths, suggesting their impact on the animals’ extinction was arguably smaller than intuitively thought.

Another important aspect of the findings, Wang said, is «we have finally been able to prove that it was not just the climate changing that was the problem, but the speed of it that was the final nail in the coffin — they were not able to adapt quickly enough when the landscape dramatically transformed and their food became scarce.»

Such speed is why the researchers naturally drew parallels between what happened back then and what appears to be in store for us now. For instance, our global temperature is rising so quickly that many countries’ former goal of limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) is now considered nearly impossible by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s unless immediate, drastic measures are taken, they say.

«It shows nothing is guaranteed when it comes to the impact of dramatic changes in the weather,» Willerslav said. «The early humans would have seen the world change beyond all recognition. That could easily happen again, and we cannot take for granted that we will even be around to witness it.»

«The only thing we can predict with any certainty is that the change will be massive.»

Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know