So you were busy, and you forgot to maintain your Duolingo streak. Now, Duo, that little green owl, is mad at you, and you’re disappointed in yourself. Whether you’re studying a language, chess, math, music or another course, a streak slip-up is not checkmate anymore. 

On Monday, the language-learning program announced a one-month treat for forgetful customers. Beginning Monday, players who lose their streak of consecutive learning days can restore that streak by completing three lessons in one sitting. 

But if you’re going to skip a day, do it in June, because this restoration feature lasts for only that month.

Streaks are a big deal for many Duolingo customers. More than 15 million players have a streak that’s over a year long, the company says, and an unofficial Duolingo streak hall of fame cited by USA Today reports that the longest Duolingo streaks run 13 years. It takes only one missed day to ruin a streak, so players who might be traveling, ill or otherwise distracted can easily lose a streak that took years to build.

To rebuild your streak, it must be at least 30 days long, and learners must complete the three required lessons in the same playing period.

Eligible learners will see the option appear in their app, prompting them to revive their streak.

Advertisement

Recovering lost streaks has been one of the most consistent requests Duolingo hears from learners, a Duolingo representative said in a statement. “In the past year alone, tens of thousands of learners asked for their streak back across social media in more than 80 countries.”

Ireland has a national target of 8GW of installed solar capacity by 2030 under the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme.

Ireland’s solar sector has almost quadrupled its total energy capacity to 2.7GW over the past three years, according to Solar Ireland’s annual ‘Scale of Solar’ report on the industry.

Ireland’s total connected solar capacity is now predicted to exceed 3.3GW by the end of this year, having grown by 297pc since 2023 and by 53pc, or nearly 1GW, in the 12 months to May 2026.

In the past year, solar generated more than 1.17TWh of electricity across Ireland, according to the report, with the equivalent of 460,000 homes powered by the country’s total connected solar capacity.

Solar farms providing utility-scale capacity surpassed the 1.5GW mark across the year. Small-scale capacity from rooftop systems installed at farms, schools, retail premises, community buildings and smaller industrial facilities reached 58MW, while micro-generation capacity from households, farms, schools and small businesses reached 805MW.

Ireland has a national target of 8GW of installed solar capacity by 2030 under the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme. To achieve this, the report estimated, an additional 0.8-1.3GW of capacity per year until 2030 will be required, with between 5,000 and 7,000 new jobs potentially being created and contributions of more than €2.3bn to Ireland’s economy possibly resulting from solar developments.

Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy Darragh O’Brien, TD said: “In just 12 months, Ireland added 1GW of solar capacity, helping to strengthen Ireland’s energy resilience, reduce emissions and increase the share of domestically generated renewable electricity on our system.

“As electricity demand continues to grow, driven by electrification across homes, transport and industry, investment in renewable energy infrastructure will be essential.

“Solar is already making an increasingly important contribution to Ireland’s electricity system and will continue to play a key role in supporting energy resilience, economic competitiveness and a sustainable energy future.”

The report noted that more than 190,000 Irish homes and businesses have implemented rooftop solar electricity generation capabilities, with Clare being the county with the highest such uptake per capita.

Rooftop solar adoption can account for an estimated removal of 155,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions over the past 12 months, according to the report.

For utility-scale or solar farm generation, Meath (441GWh), Wexford (174GWh) and Cork (110GWh) were the three most productive counties over the past year.

CEO of Solar Ireland Ronan Power said: “Ireland’s solar story is no longer defined solely by ambition. It is increasingly defined by delivery.

“Solar is now making a meaningful contribution to homes, farms, schools, businesses and communities nationwide. Maintaining this momentum will require continued collaboration across industry, Government, regulators and system operators.

“Grid infrastructure, planning processes, workforce capacity, market design and public participation will all play a critical role in determining how quickly Ireland can continue scaling solar generation.”

SiliconRepublic.com recently spoke to Calvin Lan, the CEO of Huawei Ireland, about Ireland’s solar and renewable energy targets.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

OpenAI appears to be testing a new subscription and experience for science use cases, but it’s unclear if it’ll be available to everyone regardless of their background.

As spotted on X, this new subscription/model is called “ChatGPT for Science,” and references to the feature were spotted on the web build.

Right now, OpenAI offers ChatGPT for personal use, Teams, and business/enterprise.

While ChatGPT personal works for everybody, Teams requires you to have a company domain and at least three users. On the other hand, ChatGPT business is restricted to legal entities.

It’s likely that ChatGPT for Science will have similar restrictions, and only verified institutes or universities would be able to use it.

OpenAI has been optimizing ChatGPT for scientific use cases

It’s not the first time we’ve seen OpenAI’s attempt to build models or subscriptions specifically for science use cases.

OpenAI recently announced GPT-Rosalind, which is built on the foundation of its advanced GPT-5.5 architecture, but it’s not just a reskinned ChatGPT with a science prompt.

Instead, it is a highly specialized, purpose-built model designed specifically for enterprise-scale life sciences research.

GPT-Rosalind is locked behind what OpenAI calls a “trusted-access deployment structure.”

This means the model is strictly available to eligible organizations, such as major pharmaceutical companies like Novo Nordisk or verified research institutions, that are conducting legitimate, public-benefit scientific research.

It requires enterprise-grade security and strong safety governance, mirroring and exceeding the strict requirements of ChatGPT Enterprise.

OpenAI may be planning to bring some of these capabilities to all institutions through ChatGPT for Science, rather than locking them to select partners.

In other words, ChatGPT for Science will have special grounding in discoveries and research around scientific topics compared to a regular subscription.

At the moment, we don’t know when ChatGPT for Science will go live, but it’s being actively tested on the web, and an announcement is likely weeks away.

Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.

The Picus whitepaper shows how breach and attack simulation tests your SIEM and EDR rules so threats stop slipping by detection.

Get the whitepaper

What just happened? President Trump says that Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and build its chips in America. In a Truth Social post, Trump complained that “Stupid Presidents” had “let Taiwan and others steal our Semiconductor Factories.”

“When I won my Second Term (Third, actually!), it was clear America needed its Semiconductor Industry to come back to the U.S.A. We design everything, but we need to BUILD it here, NOW!” Trump wrote. “So I decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America.”

The post comes just over a month after reports that Apple and Intel were working on a chip manufacturing deal. The discussions had been underway for more than a year and recently evolved into a formal arrangement.

It’s no secret that Apple’s reliance on TSMC is becoming strained as AI chipmakers such as Nvidia and AMD battle it out for the most advanced production capacity. Partnering with Intel would help Apple increase its chip capacity as it diversifies its manufacturing base.

Apple and Intel did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours, so for now the announcement remains a Trump post rather than a joint confirmation. There are also questions around timing, scale, process nodes, yields, and which components Intel would make.

If this proves to be true, the deal would be a major win for Intel Foundry. Team Blue has spent years trying to convince outside customers that it can again compete at the top end of semiconductor manufacturing. Landing even a limited slice of Apple’s business would give that effort a huge boost.

Apple has spent the decade so far moving Macs away from Intel-designed processors after launching its own Arm-based M-series chips in 2020. This time, however, Intel would be acting as a contract manufacturer for chips Apple designs itself.

Trump has made domestic manufacturing one of the biggest issues of his second term, especially in semiconductors. Apple pledged $500 billion in US investment at the start of 2025, which arrived amid tariff pressure on Chinese imports and possible semiconductor duties. The company later unveiled another $100 billion US investment plan after Trump repeatedly criticized Apple for assembling iPhones overseas.

Trump’s post also mentions the US government’s investment in Intel. Early last year, his administration converted almost $9 billion in federal funding into Intel equity, giving it roughly a 10% stake. The government has also backed tariffs of around 100% on imported semiconductors, with exemptions for companies producing in the US or promising to do so.

This isn’t a sign that US-made iPhones are suddenly realistic. As we’ve noted before, moving final iPhone assembly to America would be wildly difficult, potentially expensive, and time consuming. Chips are a different matter, though. Reliable US capacity from Intel could give Apple a little more breathing room in the world’s tightest chip market.

Supplements are “like a religion” for Pachi Paris, a 29-year-old from Miami who works in finance. So when he and his wife started trying to conceive last year, it felt only natural that he started taking pills meant to boost his fertility, to the tune of $250 per month.

Six months later, “we found it odd that she’s not pregnant yet,” Paris said. “We both got a workup done, and it turns out that I was one that had some health issues going on with my sperm.” That came as a surprise, given Paris is young, works out, and has a healthy diet—but he’s hardly alone.

Beyond taking fertility supplements, men are going to increasingly extreme lengths to optimize their sperm health. They’re icing their testicles, avoiding pornography, and monitoring their semen’s “vitality scores” as part of the so-called sperm-maxxing trend.

While many sperm-maxxing influencers offer classic wellness misinformation—no, you don’t need to replace all your briefs with organic cotton boxers to keep cool down there—and many biohackers are relying on unproven metrics, the trend has an unexpected upside: a large male audience is newly interested in their reproductive health. It comes just as researchers are making the case that men’s well-being plays a key role in fertility—as well as pregnancy health and early child development.

“I’m encouraged anytime the spotlight shifts to male fertility,” says Michael Eisenberg, a professor of urology at Stanford University. “I think it’s been underappreciated for a long time … [and] fertility is a team sport.”

Infertility, or the inability to conceive after a year of trying, affects about one in six people worldwide. Reproductive health has long been seen as women’s territory, given women bear the physical burden of pregnancy. While some studies suggest male factors cause an estimated 30 percent to 50 percent of infertility cases, men are not evaluated in roughly one in four cases.

Men’s health plays a role in whether a pregnancy ends in miscarriage, the mother suffers from preeclampsia—a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication—or the baby is born with birth defects, though the overall risks are low. Sperm carry epigenetic marks that are sensitive to a man’s environment before conception, meaning lifestyle choices can affect sperm health.

That’s where sperm-maxxers come in, tracking their sperm count, motility (the sperm’s ability to swim to the egg), morphology (the sperm’s shape and size), and DNA fragmentation. It takes roughly two to three months for a new sperm to fully mature, so lifestyle changes to improve sperm health can quickly yield results.

While some viral accounts suggest men eat lots of beef, butter, and raw milk, studies show that diets high in saturated fats are tied to lower sperm count, which makes pregnancy less likely. The Mediterranean diet, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and fiber, is associated with better sperm quality, including sperm count, motility, and morphology.

Research also points to environmental toxins, such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals and microplastics, as potential culprits of male infertility. Prolonged exposure may cause oxidative stress—an imbalance in the body between antioxidants and unstable molecules known as free radicals, leading to cell damage—which can reduce sperm motility and viability.

Longevity influencer Bryan Johnson famously (or infamously, depending on your perspective) posted last month about allegedly ridding his semen of microplastics and the steps he took. Some of them are just good environmental advice—getting rid of plastic cutting boards, for example—but for fertility-minded men, there are other steps that are likely more important.

The prominent researcher is jumping ship at a critical point in the global race to develop the world’s most powerful AI technologies.

Noam Shazeer, the vice-president of engineering at Google and the Gemini AI model co-lead, has announced that he will be leaving the organisation in order to join rival artificial intelligence innovator Open AI. 

Shazeer is a key figure in the AI space and his departure comes at a critical moment in the race by organisations to develop the most sophisticated and advanced AI models. Notably, he announced his departure ahead of Anthropic’s plans to become an IPO. 

He co-authored a pioneering paper on AI in 2017, exploring the transformer architecture that defines the GenAI of today. He previously left Google in 2021 and founded his own company Character.AI, returning with a team of researchers in 2024, reportedly in a deal valued at roughly $2.7bn.  

Commenting in a post on X, Shazeer said, “I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there. It was a difficult decision to move on. I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we’ve built together.  It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you.”

Shazeer is joining ahead of OpenAI’s anticipated plans to transition into an IPO and according to reports he will act as the organisation’s lead for AI architecture research, where he will essentially study how to build models.

In another comment on X, OpenAI’s Sam Altman explained that he had wanted to work with Shazeer “since the very beginning of OpenAI”, joking that it “only took 10 years” and would be “worth the wait”. 

A Google spokesperson said, “We are grateful for Noam’s meaningful contributions to Google over the years and we wish him well.”

Also this week, senior US officials held discussions with several major AI companies regarding the potential for the federal government to acquire shares in their firms, according to Semafor. Reportedly, talks are still underway regarding AI companies ceding AI stakes to the government, with a potential meeting with US president Donald Trump yet to be confirmed. 

Sources close to the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Semafor that OpenAI’s Altman “has discussed the idea with senior Trump administration officials periodically since the president began his second term”.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Public sector

Every buzzword deployed in quest to transform into ‘country that is equipped for an AI world’

The UK Cabinet Office is looking for an AI and Innovation Director who can develop civil servants’ use of artificial intelligence and change the way the civil service works.

The task of persuading public sector workers to love AI involves “re-imagining the future workforce and business model” for the UK’s civil service, promoting adoption of AI tools, “championing, coordinating, and tracking AI adoption” across government departments, and instilling an “AI-first culture,” according to the job advert.

As that list implies, the individual will need to be “a natural influencer” with a “deep understanding of the AI landscape,” both traditional and generative, ideally with experience of building AI services.

“My ambition is for the civil service to be a global leader in AI government transformation, to enable a more productive civil service that achieves world-class outcomes for citizens and a country that is equipped for an AI world,” writes Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo in an information pack published with the job ad. “We are seeking an exceptional individual who is an experienced strategic leader, can deliver under pressure, and will help shape the direction of the civil service at a pivotal time.”

The exceptional individual in question will need to be content to serve King and country for a relatively modest £100,000 to £163,000 a year, albeit with generous pension contributions, compared with some private sector equivalents. They will have to agree to an expected assignment period of at least three years, although this is not contractual, and be British, a national of most European countries, or any Commonwealth country. The right to work in the UK is another requirement.

Reg readers who fit the bill can apply by submitting a CV and a 1,000-word statement about why they are suitable by five minutes to midnight on Monday, July 13. While candidates can use AI in applying, “all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate, and taken directly from your own experience,” so perhaps championing AI adoption should wait until after getting the job given the technology’s propensity to make things up. ®