OpenAI has acquired Hiro Finance, a startup offering AI-powered financial planning tools, marking its second startup purchase in two weeks. The deal was announced on Monday, with fiscal terms undisclosed. Hiro's founder Ethan Bloch announced on LinkedIn that the product will cease operations on April 20, giving users until May 13 to migrate data.

April 15, 2026 Reported by AI

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have found that Seychelles warblers with closer social ties share more similar gut microbes, particularly anaerobic types spread through direct contact. The study on Cousin Island suggests social interactions drive this microbial exchange. Similar effects likely occur among humans living together.

Google has begun rolling out a new 'Skills' feature in its Chrome browser on desktop, enabling users to save and quickly reuse custom Gemini AI prompts. The update makes it easier to repeat tasks like calculating protein in recipes or comparing products across tabs. Skills sync across devices when signed into a Google account and include a library of premade prompts.

April 14, 2026 Reported by AI Fact checked

Scientists at EPFL report that a transient shape change in mitochondria—known as “pearling,” in which the organelle briefly forms bead-like constrictions—can redistribute clusters of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) into more evenly spaced nucleoids. The work, published April 2, 2026 in Science, suggests the process is triggered by calcium influx into mitochondria and may help explain how cells maintain robust mtDNA organization, a feature implicated in a range of mitochondrial-related disorders.

Federal prosecutors say Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, 36, was arrested and charged after an April 7 Immigration and Customs Enforcement stop in Patterson, California, during which authorities allege he struck an agent with his car. Mendoza Hernandez was shot multiple times during the encounter and later appeared in federal court in Sacramento on the assault charge, according to court filings and reporting by the Associated Press and other outlets.

April 14, 2026 Reported by AI

OpenAI has released a new AI model, GPT-5.4-Cyber, exclusively to verified cybersecurity professionals. The fine-tuned version of its GPT-5.4 model aims to test defenses against jailbreaks and adversarial attacks. This move follows Anthropic's recent announcement of its own powerful model.