We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply. Achieving net zero global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), with declining emissions of other greenhouse gases, is widely expected to halt global warming. CO2 emissions will continue to drive warming until fully balanced by active anthropogenic CO2 removals. For practical reasons, however, many greenhouse gas accounting systems allow some a''passivea'' CO2 uptake, such as enhanced vegetation growth due to CO2 fertilisation, to be included as removals in the definition of net anthropogenic emissions. By including passive CO2 uptake, nominal net zero emissions would not halt global warming, undermining the Paris Agreement. Here we discuss measures addressing this problem, to ensure residual fossil fuel use does not cause further global warming: land management categories should be disaggregated in emissions reporting and targets to better separate the role of passive CO2 uptake; where possible, claimed removals should be additional to passive uptake; and targets should acknowledge the need for Geological Net Zero, meaning one tonne of CO2 permanently restored to the solid Earth for every tonne still generated from fossil sources. We also argue that scientific understanding of net zero provides a basis for allocating responsibility for the protection of passive carbon sinks during and after the transition to Geological Net Zero....

In the final weeks of his presidency, Joe Biden, has agreed to give Ukraine a further hand in shaping the land war against the Russians. On October 17, he granted permission for Ukraine's armed forces to use the long-range Atacms missiles against targets in Russia, a move that prompted the UK to do the same. Ukraine has reacted by using both countries' missiles in attacks on Russian soil, prompting a stern warning from Moscow. But it is Biden's decision to send anti-personnel mines (APLs) to Ukraine to help it shore up its defences against the relentless Russian offensive that has sparked controversy. These landmines are reported to be 'non-persistent' ' meaning they can be set to be active for a limited amount of time and deactivate once their batteries fail. But in an era when the use of anti-personnel mines carries such a taboo ' 164 countries (but not the US or Russia) are signatories to the Ottowa Convention (also known as the mine ban treaty) that prohibits the use, stockpiling or transfer of APLs ' the move has been condemned by international humanitarian organisations....

Snowflake unveiled the deal at the close of the market bell on Wednesday, when it also announced its Q3 2025 earnings. The purchase hasn't yet closed, and it's subject to customary closing conditions, Snowflake noted in a release. Joseph Witt and Luke Roquet, who met while working together at Hortonworks, founded Datavolo in 2023. Witt was previously CVP at Cloudera, while Roquet was Cloudera's CMO and, before that, a business development executive at AWS. Datavolo uses Apache NiFi, an open source project for data processing developed by the NSA, to power a platform for automating data flows between various enterprise data sources. Data 'processors' extract, clean, transform, and enrich data, including for generative AI use cases. With Datavolo, which managed to raise $21 million in venture capital from investors including Citi Ventures and General Catalyst prior to the acquisition, Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy envisions creating more versatile data processing pipelines for Snowflake customers. For example, he says, Datavolo might enable users to replace single-use data connectors with flexible pipelines that let them move data from cloud and on-premise sources to Snowflake's data cloud....

Nvidia raked in more than $19 billion in net income during the last quarter, the company reported on Wednesday, but that did little to assure investors that its rapid growth would continue. On its earnings call, analysts prodded CEO Jensen Huang about how Nvidia would fare if tech companies start using new methods to improve their AI models. The method that underpins OpenAI's o1 model, or 'test-time scaling,' came up quite a lot. It's the idea that AI models will give better answers if you give them more time and computing power to 'think' through questions. Specifically, it adds more compute to the AI inference phase, which is everything that happens after a user hits enter on their prompt. Huang indicated that o1, and test-time scaling more broadly, could play a larger role in Nvidia's business moving forward, calling it 'one of the most exciting developments' and 'a new scaling law.' Huang did his best to ensure investors that Nvidia is well-positioned for the change. This is a big deal for the chip industry because it places a greater emphasis on AI inference. While Nvidia's chips are the gold standard for training AI models, there's a broad set of well-funded startups creating lightning-fast AI inference chips, such as Groq and Cerebras. It could be a more competitive space for Nvidia to operate in....