8 Tech & Science News Stories for Monday, August 17, 2026: What the Retro app actually is, and how to use it

Here are today’s 8 verified tech & science stories, covering Tech & Apps, AI Tools and Science & Space.

Table of Contents

Every item below links to its original source.

The TLDR

Tech & Apps: What the Retro app actually is, and how to use it
AI Tools: Why people are skeptical of Zuckerberg’s AI vision
Science & Space: NASA funds spherical robots that could explore Titan’s caves

Tech & Apps

What the Retro app actually is, and how to use it

Also in today’s tech news: Retro, a “friends-only photo journal” app from Instagram Stories co-creator Nathan Sharp, is getting fresh attention as an ad-free, algorithm-free alternative to typical social feeds, per Engadget. Users post photos on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, and friends can see roughly the last four weeks of posts unless they’re given a “key” for full history access. The free tier limits posting to once a week; a paid tier ($2/week, $5/month, or $36/year) unlocks video uploads and posting on any date. If algorithm-driven feeds aren’t your thing, it’s worth a look — see our guide on discovering new music by working with the algorithm for a related take on ditching the algorithm.

Fourth plaintiff joins lawsuit over Grok-generated CSAM

A fourth plaintiff, a woman from Wyoming, has joined a lawsuit accusing Elon Musk’s xAI of allowing its Grok chatbot to generate child sexual abuse material, according to Engadget. She alleges her stepfather used Grok to turn a childhood photo of her into exploitative images. The suit follows an original complaint filed by three Tennessee teenagers, and xAI is separately facing scrutiny from California’s attorney general and the European Union over AI-generated CSAM and nonconsensual deepfakes.

Wildfire smoke now outpaces other pollution as a prenatal risk

Decades of clean-air regulation cut pregnant people’s exposure to harmful vehicle and industrial emissions, but new research reported by Ars Technica finds wildfire smoke has become a bigger source of prenatal air-pollution exposure than those human-caused sources. The finding suggests climate-driven wildfires are eroding gains made by decades of clean-air rules.

AI Tools

Why people are skeptical of Zuckerberg’s AI vision

On TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, reporters discussed why the public reaction to Mark Zuckerberg’s AI vision has been skeptical, per TechCrunch. Zuckerberg recently published a roughly 6,500-word essay describing a future where everyone has a highly capable personal AI agent, but the hosts pointed to Meta’s social-media reputation and the vagueness of some of the promises as reasons people aren’t convinced. They also noted Meta isn’t typically counted among the leading makers of proprietary AI models or popular consumer AI assistants.

Science & Space

NASA funds spherical robots that could explore Titan’s caves

NASA has awarded early-stage NIAC funding to SPARK, a concept for spherical flying robots that would use ion engines to explore the cave systems of Saturn’s moon Titan, according to Space.com. Titan has karst terrain with sinkholes and caves that would be difficult for a wheeled rover to navigate, so the team argues a flying design could reach areas a rover couldn’t. The grant’s first phase runs nine months, and the concept would need to clear a second phase, lasting up to two years, before it’s realistically ready to fly.

Artemis II pilot thanks NASA for letting him fly Orion by hand

Artemis II pilot Victor Glover thanked NASA for trusting the crew to fly the Orion capsule by hand during part of the mission, saying “I’m still blown away by that trust, and it flew marvelously,” according to Space.com. He made the comments alongside crewmates Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen at a public event at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on August 3, 2026. The Artemis II mission flew around the moon and back, marking the first crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit in 53 years.

Physicists find their strongest evidence yet for a ‘glueball’ particle

Physicists working on China’s BESIII experiment have found what they call the strongest evidence yet that a particle known as X(2370) is a “glueball” — matter made purely of gluons, the particles that carry the strong nuclear force — after analyzing billions of particle-decay events, according to ScienceAlert. The team measured X(2370)’s mass, spin, and decay patterns for the first time and confirmed a property called its “flavor-singlet nature,” which researchers describe as glueballs’ most important characteristic. Glueballs were first predicted by theory roughly 50 years ago but had never been confirmed this clearly. For more offbeat science, see our explainer on why certain fabrics shock you more.

A Nigerian fishing town keeps losing homes to the Atlantic

In Ayetoro, a coastal town of about 10,000 people in southern Nigeria founded in 1947, rising seas and coastal erosion have destroyed homes that residents keep rebuilding further inland, only to lose them again, according to Phys.org. Erosion has accelerated since the early 2000s, and some families have had to relocate more than three times. Researchers point to climate change combined with the clearing of coastal wetlands and floodplains, which once absorbed ocean surges, as key factors behind the losses.

Explore more: discovering new music by working with the algorithm, why certain fabrics shock you more.