Month: October 2024

Enlarge / A male argali sheep in the wild. (credit: Getty Images)

Readers of a certain age might remember Dolly, a Finn-Dorset sheep born in 1996 to three mothers and some proud Scottish scientists. Dolly generated global headlines just by being alive, as she was the first mammal to be cloned using DNA taken from body (somatic) cells.

In this form of cloning, a somatic cell provides the cloned animal's complete DNA, which is then injected into an unfertilized egg cell that has had its existing genetic material removed. Zap the egg with a bit of current, implant it into the womb of a surrogate mother, wait a few months, and bam—out pops Dolly.

The process proved that the magic of embryonic development wasn't hidden only in eggs and sperm; even somatic cells from mature animals were capable of reproducing the whole creature and of generating any cell needed by the developing embryo.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft will begin rolling this year's annual Windows 11 update out to consumers starting today, the company announced at a Windows- and Copilot-centric event today. The Windows 11 2024 Update, also known as Windows 11 24H2, will roll out in phases, starting with Windows 11 PCs running versions 22H2 or 23H2 that have opted in to getting new feature updates faster.

New features in 24H2 include an Energy Saver feature that replaces the older Battery Saver settings, support for Wi-Fi 7 and 80Gbps USB4 Version 2.0 ports, text labels for common actions like copy and paste in the right-click/context menu, and tweaks to how the Quick Settings panels work.

For the handful of PCs that meet Microsoft's requirements for the Copilot+ program—16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS)—Windows 11 24H2 will eventually add support for the overhauled Recall feature, a better Windows Search function, a "super resolution" feature for the Photos app that offers to upscale older pictures, generative fill and erase features in the Paint app, and other features.