One builder showcases custom-built photobioreactor from start to finish, having printed the majority of its components on a conventional 3D printer sitting on a work surface. The final machine simply sits there silently day after day, converting water and light into useable biomass without the need for anyone to pay attention to it.

Spirulina fills the main chamber since the design ensures a consistent temperature, light, and air supply around the clock. A small initial amount of culture, roughly a gallon, expands over the next few weeks when fresh water and nutrients are introduced. The light enters from the sides, and there’s an air bubbler to keep everything mixed up and full of oxygen. Sensors are on the job, keeping an eye on things to ensure that the algae has enough to grow and reproduce swiftly, providing a few grams of dried biomass per week after the culture is fully established.

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Things begin with the Bambu Lab A1 printer laying down thermoplastic layers for the frame, tank supports, and custom fittings. Large pieces come together quickly due to automated calibration and the printer’s rapid speeds. The printed parts fit together nicely and snugly, requiring little more than a touch of tidying before assembling the entire device. Off-the-shelf pumps, lighting, and tubing are then inserted into the plastic skeleton, changing it into a sealed environment that retains the liquid inside without leaking everywhere.

When everything is more or less upright, the electronics take over. A Raspberry Pi 5 serves as the main controller, with two Arduinos acting as task specialists. One Arduino is responsible for running the lights, heating, and bubbler on a regular basis. The second only handles the automated sampling procedure, which checks the acidity levels without allowing the sensors to run dry or deviate off course. A series of USB wires transmit basic text commands back and forth to keep the entire arrangement in sync.

Measuring pH is particularly difficult since the probe must remain wet and clean between readings. So there’s a small rotating part that removes the lids off the storage vials, rinses the sensor in deionized water, and then moves it to grab a sample from the culture before returning it to the vial. A spinning pill inside a silicone tube attached to magnets to provide gentle stirring and minimize residue buildup. As a bonus, the same motion shuts up the vial, preventing evaporation. This all runs on its own tiny schedule and logs each outcome in case somebody wants to look it up later.

Data appears on a touchscreen that looks like a control panel. At a glance, graphs indicate how light intensity decreases at the bottom of the tank as algae density increases and blocks more light. The temperature readings are always displayed directly in front of you. When harvest time approaches, when the light curve finally flattens out, signaling peak concentration, the system drains a section of the culture, filtering out the good stuff while allowing the remainder to continue growing. Once harvested, the material is spread out on trays, dries in a few hours, and is pulverized into a fine green powder that can be stored or used immediately as fish food.

The biomass yield is currently around eight grams per week, which is sufficient to support a small aquaponic setup and reduce the need to purchase as much feed. Dried spirulina can also be stored for up to two years, providing a shelf-stable protein source right from your own backyard. And when your algae feed your fish, your fish waste fertilizes your plants, and your plant trimmings return to the algal culture, the entire system just keeps cycling round and round without any external assistance. Once the first culture is established, there is no need for additional inputs.

Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s former chief product officer who was recently tapped to build a new AI workspace for scientists, Prism, is leaving the company, WIRED has confirmed. Weil was previously an early executive leading product at Instagram.

“Today is my last day at OpenAI, as OpenAI for Science is being decentralized into other research teams,” Weil said in a social media post on Friday, shortly after WIRED reported his departure. “It’s been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science.”

Weil did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

OpenAI is also sunsetting Prism, which the company launched as a web app in January to give scientists a better way to work with AI. The company is folding the roughly 10-person team behind it under OpenAI’s head of Codex, Thibault Sottiaux, and aims to incorporate Prism’s capabilities into its desktop Codex app. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the changes and tells WIRED this is part of the company’s effort to unify its business and product strategy. OpenAI has broader ambitions to turn Codex, its AI coding application, into an “everything app.”

Weil, who joined OpenAI in June 2024, announced last September that he would be starting a new initiative inside of the company called OpenAI for Science. Now, OpenAI is dispersing those employees throughout the company’s product, research, and infrastructure teams. An OpenAI spokesperson reiterated the company’s commitment to accelerating scientific discovery and says it’s one of the clearest ways AI can benefit humanity. Earlier on Friday, the company announced a new series of AI models—GPT-Rosalind—built to help life sciences researchers work faster.

OpenAI is trying to refocus the company around a few key areas, such as enterprise offerings and coding, as the company faces increasing pressure from rivals like Anthropic and gears up to file for an IPO later this year. In March, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI deployment, Fidji Simo, told staff that the company needs to simplify its product offerings. The push to divert resources to more consequential efforts resulted in OpenAI discontinuing its Sora video-generation app.

Unrelated to Weil’s news, two other executives announced on Friday that they are departing OpenAI. OpenAI’s chief technology officer of enterprise applications, Srinivas Narayanan, announced internally that he is leaving the company to spend time with his family. Narayanan had joined OpenAI as the company’s VP of engineering. And Bill Peebles, head of Sora, posted on X that he was done at OpenAI as well.

The exits of Weil, Peebles, and Narayanan are just the latest in a series of executive shake-ups at OpenAI. The company recently announced a major reorganization of its executive team as Simo took a medical leave to focus on her health. In the same announcement, OpenAI said cofounder and president Greg Brockman would oversee the company’s products in the interim, and the company’s chief marketing officer, Kate Rouch, would take a leave of absence due to medical issues. Chief operating officer Brad Lightcap transitioned to a “special projects” role as part of the restructuring as well.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seemed to acknowledge the various upheavals in a recent blog post. “I am also very aware that OpenAI is now a major platform, not a scrappy startup, and we need to operate in a more predictable way now,” he wrote. “It has been an extremely intense, chaotic, and high-pressure few years.”

PwC research found that Irish companies are somewhat lagging behind their global peers where AI implementation and benefits are concerned.

Professional services company PwC has released data exploring how organisational leaders are navigating AI gains across a range of areas, such as growth, revenue, investment, workflows, autonomous decisions, reinventing business models and governance, and analysing where the AI leaders are driving results.

PwC collected data for a survey from 1,217 senior executives around the world, including from Ireland, at a director level or above, at companies across 25 sectors and multiple regions worldwide. 

From that information, PwC found that nearly three-quarters (74pc) of AI’s economic gains are being utilised by only 20pc of companies. According to the findings, this is indicative of a “stark and widening divide between a small group of AI leaders and the majority of businesses still stuck in pilot mode”.

Commenting on the report, David Lee, the chief technology leader for PwC Ireland, said, “Many companies are busy rolling out AI pilots, but only a minority are converting that activity into measurable financial returns.

“The leaders stand out because they point AI at growth, not just cost reduction, and back that ambition with the foundations that make AI scalable and reliable.”

Is Ireland keeping pace?

Ireland specifically was found to be falling behind its global peers when it comes to AI implementation and benefits.

Lee said: “Based on our previous studies, Irish companies do somewhat lag global peers where AI implementation and benefits are concerned.”

He added that “PwC’s 2026 Irish CEO survey reveals fewer Irish CEOs (8pc) report AI application across a range of business areas compared to global counterparts (18pc), including demand generation, products, services, experiences and strategic direction-setting”.

He noted: “Some of the benefits from AI are also taking longer to come through compared to global peers, with Irish organisations seeing the opportunities from AI, but are not yet grasping the transformative powers.

“17pc of Irish CEOs say that AI has delivered increased revenues in the past 12 months, behind global peers (29pc). Nearly a quarter (23pc) say that AI has delivered cost reductions in the past 12 months, also behind global peers (26pc).”

The companies that are leading were found to be roughly two to three times more likely to use AI to identify and pursue growth opportunities or reinvent their business model. They are also twice as likely to redesign workflows to incorporate AI rather than simply adding new AI tools.

They are nearly three times more likely to have increased the number of decisions made without human intervention and were shown to be going further in relation to AI governance. Within high-performing companies, trust at scale models were found to be effective. 

The report said, “AI leaders are more likely than other companies to have mechanisms such as a responsible AI framework (1.7 times as likely as other companies) and a cross-functional AI governance board (1.5 times). As a result of their efforts, their employees are twice as likely to trust AI outputs.”

Time for a change

PwC’s report suggested that a failure to shift the current approach to the implementation of artificial intelligence by the majority would likely widen the performance gap between AI leaders and “laggards”, particularly as leading organisations continue to learn, grow, and automate safely and speedily.  

Commenting on the results of the research, Martin Duffy, the head of AI and emerging technologies at PwC Ireland, said: “AI return on investment comes down to execution discipline – clear metrics, fast stop-or-scale decisions and designs built for reuse. Value shows up when AI is embedded in everyday workflows, not isolated pilots.”

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Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,400 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc’s Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you’ve finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I’ve also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc’s Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

Grinex, a US-sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange registered in Kyrgyzstan, said it’s halting operations after experiencing a $13 million heist carried out by “western special services” hackers.

Researchers from TRM, which has confirmed the theft, put the value of stolen assets at $15 million after discovering roughly 70 drained addresses, about 16 more than Grinex reported. Neither TRM nor fellow blockchain research firm Elliptic has said how the attackers slipped past Grinex’s defenses. Grinex said it has been under almost constant attack attempts since incorporating 16 months ago. The latest attacks, it said, targeted Russian users of the exchange.

Damaging “Russia’s financial sovereignty”

“The digital footprints and nature of the attack indicate an unprecedented level of resources and technology available exclusively to the structures of unfriendly states,” Grinex said. “According to preliminary data, the attack was coordinated with the aim of causing direct damage to Russia’s financial sovereignty.”

“Due to the attack, the Grinex exchange is forced to suspend operations,” Grinex continued. “All available information has been transferred to law enforcement agencies. An application has been submitted to the location of the infrastructure to initiate a criminal case.”

TRM said that TokenSpot, a second Kyrgyzstan-based exchange, was also breached. Two of the exchange’s addresses sent funds to the same consolidation address used by the affected Grinex-linked wallets. What’s more, both exchanges became inoperable on Wednesday, suggesting they were hit by the same attacker.

TRM said TokenSpot was a front for Grinex, which the US Treasury Department sanctioned last year. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said that Grinex, in turn, was a rebrand of Garantex, an exchange it had sanctioned in 2022. The department said then that Ganantex had “directly facilitated notorious ransomware actors and other cybercriminals by processing over $100 million in transactions linked to illicit activities since 2019.” Last year’s sanctions against Grinex came a few months after TRM said that the exchange was likely a front for Ganantex.