Warhound Raises $200 Million for Genetically Modified Military Dogs

A startup founded by Palmer Luckey has raised $200 million to genetically modify dogs for military service. The company, Warhound, plans to alter the animals' senses to help them detect explosives and provide security for troops.

The funding round included investment from Sequoia. Colossal Biosciences is collaborating with Warhound on the technical work involving cloning and gene editing. The goal is to create canines with enhanced capabilities beyond those of standard military dogs.

In the medical field, Moderna and Merck reported that their mRNA cancer vaccine reduced the risk of death by 42%. The vaccine also lowered the chance of cancer returning in patients with melanoma.

Researchers also confirmed that prime editing, a precise DNA rewriting tool, has been used in its first human patient. The procedure targeted liver cells to modify genetic code directly.

Cybersecurity experts assessed a recent set of flaws in the PHP programming language. While the vulnerabilities initially knocked websites offline globally, officials said no successful attacks have yet emerged. Experts noted the flaws are harder to exploit than initially feared, though public patches can also reveal methods to hackers.

In energy news, Google launched a virtual power plant program that pays customers to reduce their energy use. This frees up capacity for the company's data centers. A separate report stated that Google illegally cut down 250,000 trees in Finland to build a data center site.

Climate scientists suggested that fossil fuel emissions may have prevented the Earth from entering a new ice age. The data indicates modern warming is reversing 2,000 years of ice growth. In related research, scientists recreated solar flares in the lab to investigate why the Sun's corona is hotter than its surface.