Everything in space – from the Earth and Sun to black holes – accounts for just 15% of all matter in the universe^[1]. The rest of the cosmos seems to be made of an invisible material astronomers call dark matter^[2].

Astronomers know dark matter

To think about an artificial limb is to think about a person. It’s an object of touch and motion made to be used, one that attaches to the body and interacts with its user’s world.

Historical artifacts of prosthetic limbs are far removed from this

Christopher Pelkey was shot and killed in a road range incident in 2021. On May 8, 2025, at the sentencing hearing for his killer, an AI video reconstruction of Pelkey delivered a victim impact statement^[1]. The trial judge reported being deeply moved^[2]

Months after the Pentagon rolled out a policy aimed at wooing back service members booted from the military over the COVID-19 vaccine, the Pentagon has confirmed that only 13 people -- all Army^[1] soldiers -- have rejoined.

Shortly after coming back to office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that^[2], while short on details, mandated the military reinstate troops who refused the vaccine with "full back pay^[3], benefits, bonus payments, or compensation."

The Pentagon then spent months articulating that order into a policy that was rolled out in April^[4] and, while making good on the promise of back pay, it came with some major administrative hurdles and the caveat of yearslong military commitments.

Read Next: Constraints on Trump's War Powers Rejected by Senate After Iran Strikes^[5]

In late April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth trumpeted the policy, telling a group of troops at the Army War College^[6] that those who refused the vaccine were "warriors of conscience" and that "we hope they come back quickly."

Several days later, the Pentagon's "Rapid Response" account said^[7] that "we have reinstated these vital members with BACKPAY" before proclaiming that "this is the Golden Age for our service members."

From 2023 until April, service members had always been able to return to military service -- though without any incentives or back pay. Only 113 of the more than 8,000 discharged service members had chosen to do so.

Yet according to a Defense Department official, after the new policy rolled out, they received interest from around 700 people across the five military services. The biggest interest came from 418 discharged Marines, while the lowest was from the Air Force^[8], which had 56 people come forward.

Of those 700, only 97 took the necessary second step of moving forward with having their military records reviewed and corrected.

According to Navy^[9] documents released in April^[10], a discharged sailor interested in reinstatement would be entitled to back pay but minus anything they earned while out of the military -- and that offer was also contingent on a four-year commitment^[11].

The document explained that what leaders like Trump have called "full back pay" was actually a "financial benefit."

Navy officials would take all the basic pay, food and housing allowances, and bonuses that a sailor would have earned had they stayed in but then deduct any wages that were earned while they were a civilian, as well as any VA disability payments^[12], among other payouts.

Service members would be presented with that figure ahead of their decision to return or not.

According to data shown to Military.com, of those 97 people, only 13 Army soldiers had been reinstated between the beginning of April and the end of May.

The figure stands in sharp contrast to the enthusiasm with which most of the services pushed out news of the updated policy on social media^[13] in the spring. The Army even bragged that "about 150 soldiers"^[14] had taken some step toward rejoining in early April.

However, the Pentagon's data from the end of May showed that the Army seemed to make little progress on that figure, reporting that the service had 141 interested people and 43 more going through records review.

Meanwhile, Tim Dill, a senior official with the Pentagon's Office of Personnel and Readiness, told reporters in April that an initial group of just over 100 service members -- those who chose to return ahead of the back pay policy -- would not benefit from the new plan.

"The department is also grateful for their decision to return," he said but added that "there is not currently a mechanism that we have provided for them to put in for the same calculations that we're doing for those that would return today."

Anyone still interested in returning under the new policy has until April 1, 2026, to seek reinstatement.

Related: Troops Booted over COVID-19 Vaccine Are Being Offered Back Pay But Not Huge Payouts^[15]

Four big tech executives the Army^[1] directly commissioned to be lieutenant colonels, with no military background, will not recuse themselves from business dealings with the Department of Defense -- as the Pentagon, particularly the Army, cozies up to Silicon Valley.

Earlier this month, the Army announced Detachment 201, the name being a reference to HTTP code^[2], for the newly commissioned executives of Palantir, Meta and OpenAI. The new formation is set to recruit tech executives to work on major Army challenges, but the service has not articulated exactly what those individuals would do -- instead focusing on recruiting^[3] talent and creating jobs around them.

"They're not making acquisition decisions, they're not senior decision-makers," Steve Warren, an Army spokesperson, told reporters Wednesday when asked about what oversight mechanisms are in place over the new unit. "It's not in our interest to show any favoritism to a company -- that would be the exact opposite of what we're trying to do, right? What we want is competition. That's what we're looking for; these guys will help us think about that."

Read Next: New Army Shaving Policy Will Allow Soldiers with Skin Condition that Affects Mostly Black Men to Be Kicked Out^[4]

The four include Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer for Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, chief product officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, adviser at Thinking Machines Lab and former chief research officer for OpenAI.

They'll take part in an extremely accelerated two-week training course to familiarize themselves with the Army. Some of that will be online training and the rest will be at Fort Benning, Georgia. It's unclear whether they'll have to adhere to typical service standards including fitness and marksmanship.

Sankar has pledged to donate all of the money he earns as a part-time officer to Army Emergency Relief^[5], the de facto nonprofit for soldiers and their families, according to a Palantir spokesperson. Pay for a part-time officer at his rank with no time in service would amount to roughly $10,000 per year but could be higher or lower depending on how much time they commit to the Army.

Last year, Sankar sold Palantir stock amounting to $367.9 million^[6] and has made numerous other multimillion-dollar deals. None of the other executives, now Army Reserve officers, responded to requests for comment. None of them were made available for interviews.

Just before Bosworth was sworn in, Meta announced a deal with defense technology company Anduril to pursue military contracts that involve artificial intelligence and augmented reality, which could be worth millions of dollars.

OpenAI also announced a $200 million defense contract within days of Bosworth being sworn in to develop an artificial intelligence tool. Palantir has been involved in numerous enormous federal deals, particularly during the second Trump administration, including a $759 million Army contract for AI development and another massive project to compile data on Americans^[7]. 

While in regular formations, lieutenant colonel is a senior rank that garners respect. Inside the Pentagon, it's often the bare minimum rank to enter the room -- a relatively junior-grade officer in a sea of top brass and high-level civilian decision-makers. The law allows the military to direct commission up to the rank of colonel, but that would require Senate confirmation.

Military.com spoke with nearly two dozen Army and Pentagon officials -- from midgrade officers to senior brass -- as well as defense analysts and Capitol Hill aides. Across the board, there was strong support for the concept of pulling high-end civilian tech talent into uniform, particularly in a bureaucracy often faulted for its glacial pace of change.

"If we end up in a war in an Indo-Pacific conflict, we're going to need to tap more people like this," said Katherine Kuzminski, a national security personnel expert at the Center for a New American Security.

And the potential benefits go beyond Silicon Valley-style innovation.

"Tech is the hot new thing, but think about the logistics piece," Kuzminski added. "How do you capture that from UPS or FedEx? How do we feed our service members in a contested environment?"

Still, nearly all sources raised red flags about how the Army handled the rollout, calling it a self-inflicted optics nightmare. Service officials have insisted none of those executives will be involved in decision-making on government contracts, yet there is virtually no systemic oversight on that potential conflict of interest.

The decision to grant officer commissions to executives with no military background, without clear recusal from future defense business, sparked concerns of ethical lapses and blurred lines.

Several officials warned that any future Pentagon deals involving the companies could be tainted by perceptions of favoritism, potentially souring relationships with competing contractors and casting a shadow over future acquisitions.

Most officials interviewed see long-term promise for the Army, but the initiative is also emerging as a flashpoint -- the latest sign of the service's growing relationship with Silicon Valley, a rapidly warming connection that's turning into a growing concern for lawmakers worried about big-tech influence and lobbying.

Much of the concern centers on what, exactly, wealthy tech executives already wielding outsized influence stand to gain from a formal relationship with the Army.

Service officials insist patriotism is the driving force. However, while the Pentagon has long tapped private-sector talent through advisory roles and consulting gigs, issuing uniforms^[8] marks a largely unprecedented step in the modern era.

While an executive role will likely have more influence than a reserve officer with no notable title, working directly with the Army would likely yield more networking opportunities within the Pentagon and constant direct contact with senior Army leaders.

"When it isn't obvious what rich guys get out of something, that's what worries me," one Capitol Hill national security adviser told Military.com on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly.

Related: Pentagon Plans $5 Billion for Border, Bets on Trump Bill to Fill Funding Gaps^[9]

More than 60% of traffic collisions at intersections^[1] involve left turns. Some U.S. cities – including San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Birmingham, Alabama – are restricting left turns^[2].

Dr. Vikash Gayah^[3], a professor of civil engineering at Penn State University and the interim director of the Larson Transportation Institute^[4],...

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision^[1] on June 27, 2025, that will reshape how states protect children online. In a case assessing a Texas law requiring age verification to access porn sites, the court created a new legal path that makes it easier for states to craft laws regulating what kids see and do on the internet.

In a...