Cruxatodon kiltlingtonensisA small mammal from the Jurassic period
Maiya Carrara
During the Middle Jurassic, small mammals lived much longer than modern ones and received parental care for years rather than weeks, suggesting that at some point there was a major change in the growth rates of small mammals, although the exact cause is unknown.
The discovery is based on two fossil skeletons of extinct mouse-sized creatures. Cruxatodon kiltlingtonensis, It lived on the Isle of Skye in Scotland about 166 million years ago, and its fossils were unearthed decades apart, the first in the 1970s and the second in 2016.
The unusual discovery of two fossils of the same species, one adult and one juvenile, allowed the team to compare the specimens to study how the animals grew and developed. “That meant we could ask questions we never dreamed of with just one specimen,” he says. Elsa Panciroli At the National Museum of Scotland.
First, the scientists used X-ray images to count the growth rings on the specimens' teeth, which are similar to growth rings on tree trunks and can be used to estimate age. They found that the adult specimens were about 7 years old, and the juvenile specimens were between 7 months and 2 years old.
Panciroli said he expected the fossil to be much younger, since the pup still had its baby teeth. “This was quite surprising, as this animal is about the size of a squirrel or a shrew,” Panciroli said. “We would have expected its teeth to grow back within a few weeks or months, so we could see straight away that it must have been developing quite differently. [than modern species].”
This discovery K. Quiltrington Mice took up to two years to wean from their mothers, a big jump from the few weeks most small mammals require today. Analysis of the length and size of the fossil bones reveals that the animals “grew throughout their lives,” Panchiroli says. Today, small mammals like mice grow rapidly when they're young but then stop growing as adults.
It's unclear exactly when and why small mammals evolved this way, but Panchiroli said it could be linked to environmental changes or it could be the result of mammals having warmer blood and a faster metabolism.
Panciroli and her team return to Skye every year, and are optimistic that they will be able to better understand these changes: “Hopefully in the coming years we'll find more fossils and new ways to ask these questions,” she says.
Occasionally, you may have the opportunity to witness the Northern Lights from your home in the UK or US. Tonight (Wednesday, July 24) presents a moderate chance of seeing these mesmerizing lights.
Typically, the Northern Lights are only visible in countries like Canada, Russia, and Sweden, but they have been spotted from as far as Penzance in Cornwall earlier this year.
While it’s rare for the lights to reach Cornwall, seeing the Northern Lights from the UK is not uncommon, although it requires a severe geomagnetic storm, which is a rare occurrence.
When can I see the Aurora tonight?
The Space Weather Forecast suggests that a solar storm may hit the Earth this week, potentially making the Northern Lights visible in parts of the UK on Wednesday, July 24.
Unfortunately, the Northern Lights can only be seen in certain parts of the UK, such as the north of England and Northern Ireland.
In the United States, it may be visible across several northern and upper Midwestern states from New York to Idaho.
However, due to the season, the window for viewing the Northern Lights is limited.
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How to increase your chances of seeing the Aurora
To enhance your chances of witnessing the Northern Lights, it is advisable to move away from urban areas with clear skies and minimal light pollution.
Locate a north-facing shoreline for the best viewing experience with fewer obstructions and less light pollution.
What Causes the Northern Lights?
The Aurora Borealis occurs when high-energy particles from the Sun collide with lower-energy particles in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Geomagnetic storms can push the Aurora further south, making them visible in regions where they are not usually seen.
These storms are more likely to occur during the waning stages of a solar cycle, when coronal holes generate high-speed solar wind that disrupts Earth’s magnetic field.
Why do the auroras have different colors?
The color of the Northern Lights can vary based on the atoms in Earth’s atmosphere reacting with the Sun’s energy.
Green auroras are produced by high-altitude oxygen atoms, while blue, yellow, or red auroras indicate lower-altitude oxygen or nitrogen atoms colliding with solar particles.
What does “Aurora” mean?
The term “Aurora Borealis” roughly translates to “North Wind Dawn” and is a nickname for the Northern Lights. Boreas is the god of the north wind in ancient Greek mythology.
The Southern Lights are also known as “Aurora Australis”, translating to “southern wind dawn”. These lights can be influenced by geomagnetic storms and have been seen in locations like New Zealand and Australia.
Meta has announced that its new artificial intelligence model is the first open-source system that can compete with major players like OpenAI and Anthropic.
The company revealed in a blog post that its latest model, named “Llama 3.1 405B,” is able to perform well in various tasks compared to its competitors. This advancement could potentially make one of the most powerful AI models accessible without any intermediaries controlling access or usage.
Meta stated, “Developers have the freedom to customize the models according to their requirements, train them on new data sets, and fine-tune them further. This empowers developers worldwide to harness the capabilities of generative AI without sharing any data with Meta, and run their applications in any environment.”
Users of Llama on Meta’s app in the US will benefit from an additional layer of security, as the system is open-source and cannot be mandated for use by other companies.
Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the importance of open source for the future of AI, highlighting its potential to enhance productivity, creativity, and quality of life while ensuring technology is deployed safely and evenly across society.
While Meta’s model matches the size of competing systems, its true effectiveness will be determined through fair testing against other models like GPT-4o.
Currently, Llama 3.1 405B is only accessible to users in 22 countries, excluding the EU. However, it is expected that the open-source system will expand to other regions soon.
A spot robot equipped with a burner for weed removal
Song, Deok-jin et al. (2024)
Robot dogs equipped with burners could be used to prevent weeds from growing on farms, offering a potential alternative to harmful herbicides.
Even highly targeted herbicides can cause environmental problems and affect local wildlife, and “superweeds” are rapidly evolving resistance to the most common herbicides like glyphosate.
Looking for alternative solutions Song Deokjin Researchers at Texas A&M University have developed a weed control system that uses short bursts of heat from a propane gas torch controlled by a robotic arm attached to a Boston Dynamics Spot Robot.
Rather than incinerating weeds, the robot is designed to identify and heat the core of the plant, which can stop weed growth for weeks, Song said. “It doesn’t kill the weeds, it just inhibits their growth, giving the crop a chance to fight them.”
Song and his team first tested the flame nozzle to see if it could accurately target the center of the weeds, then deployed the robot in a cotton field that was also planted with weeds, including sunflowers, which are native to Texas.Sun Flower) and giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifidaFive tests showed the robot could find weeds and focus an average of 95 percent of its flames on them to burn them down.
Song said a major limitation of the Spot robot is its battery life — in this setup it can only operate for about 40 minutes before needing to be recharged — but the team is working on upgrading to a longer-lasting device. They’re also considering equipping the robot dog with an electric shock device that can deliver more than 10,000 volts of current, which would stop weeds from growing for longer.
“With other machines, people use a fairly broad, inaccurate flame to kill weeds. That’s been around for a while, but I’ve never seen anything as precise as this.” Simon Pearson A researcher at the University of Lincoln in the UK said the robot’s success will depend on how precisely it can deliver the flames without damaging valuable crops.
Article updated on July 24, 2024
The article has been revised to more accurately describe battery life for burning tools and robots.
Komodo dragons, some of the most ferocious reptiles on Earth, strengthen their teeth with iron caps, and researchers believe some dinosaurs may have had this adaptation as well.
Komodo dragon (Komodo dragon coati) is endemic to several Indonesian islands and preys on larger animals such as deer, pigs, and buffalo; it can grow to three meters in length and weigh up to 150 kilograms.
When I noticed that the animal had orange serrations on its teeth, Aaron LeBlanc The researcher, from King's College London, says he initially dismissed it as staining: “It wasn't until I visited the museum collection and saw all the teeth along the skulls of many Komodo dragon specimens that I became convinced I was looking at a new adaptation for this iconic reptile,” he says.
LeBlanc and his colleagues used high-powered x-rays at a synchrotron facility to examine the surfaces of Komodo dragon teeth and identify the different elements found along the teeth.
“When we mapped the cross-sections of Komodo dragon teeth, we quickly saw that iron was concentrated at the cutting edge and tip of the tooth, but not anywhere else in the tooth,” LeBlanc says, “and this matches up exactly with the orange stains we see on the teeth under a microscope.”
Komodo dragon tooth with orange steel cap
Dr Aaron LeBlanc, King's College London
Komodo dragon enamel is incredibly thin compared to human teeth, LeBlanc said: At the serrated edge, the enamel is just 20 micrometers thick, about a quarter of the thickness of a human hair. Human tooth enamel is about 100 times thicker.
The iron coating on Komodo dragon teeth is coated on top of this extremely thin layer of enamel, which the team believes gives the enamel extra strength, protects the serrations as the dragon eats its prey, or acts as a barrier against acidic digestive juices.
Iron is readily available in the environment, especially for large carnivores, and it's thought that the cells that make enamel change their behavior towards the final layer, producing an iron-rich finish.
Crocodiles and alligators can also concentrate iron in their enamel, but their teeth do not have iron-rich crowns.
The researchers also looked for iron coatings on the dinosaur fossil teeth. They haven't found evidence yet, but the researchers think that could be because the iron signal was destroyed by fossilization. “We need to look at better preserved dinosaur teeth to be sure,” LeBlanc said.
Leblanc says his fellow dentists are intrigued by the potential of these natural materials: “It's still a long way off, but I can imagine a time when we develop new enamel coatings inspired by nature, perhaps even the Komodo dragon,” he says.
A researcher plucks the feathers of a bird as part of an experiment to investigate Neanderthal cooking techniques.
Mariana Navaiz
To learn more about Neanderthal culinary talents, archaeologists cooked five wild birds using only fire, their hands, and stone tools. The experiment shows that our ancient relatives needed significant manual skill to use a flint blade to butcher an animal without injuring themselves.
Neanderthals lived in Europe and Asia until about 40,000 years ago. Hearths have been found at many of their sites, and there is evidence that they hunted large animals such as elephants and cave lions.
Mariana Navaiz Researchers at the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution in Tarragona, Spain, say that by recreating ancient activities such as cooking and butchering using tools available at the time, scientists can gain insight into how prehistoric humans lived.
She and her colleagues wanted to better understand archaeological bird remains associated with Neanderthals that date back about 90,000 years ago and were found in deposits in Portugal.
The team selected five birds that had died at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Portugal and were similar in size and species to those found at the archaeological site.Crow), Turtledove(Columba Palumbus) and two European collared doves (Streptopelia decaoctoThe tools used in the experiment were pieces of flint prepared by students of stone tool technology.
All five birds were plucked by hand. The crow and pigeon were butchered raw, while the remaining three were roasted over charcoal. The cooked birds were easily butchered without stone tools, but the raw birds required considerable effort using a flint blade.
“Paleolithic knives were certainly very sharp and required careful handling,” Navais says. “The precision and effort required to use these tools without injuring oneself highlights the practical challenges Neanderthals would have faced in their everyday food processing activities.”
Once the dissection was complete, the researchers prepared the bones and analyzed them for distinctive marks caused by stone tools and fire, as well as identifying wear marks from flint tools.
The burn marks and tool marks were then compared to Neanderthal food remains found at the archaeological sites of Fighiera Brava and Oliveira in Portugal, where bird bones with burn marks and cut marks matched the team’s reconstruction, Navaís said.
“Our experimental studies demonstrate that flaked raw birds display characteristic cut marks, especially around tendons and joints, while roasted birds display burn marks and increased brittleness leading to fractures,” she says. “These findings help distinguish between human-induced modifications and those caused by natural processes or other animals, such as trampling or the activity of rodents, raptors and carnivores.”
Neanderthals were skilled enough to capture and prepare small, fast-moving animals like birds, Navais said. “This study highlights the cognitive capabilities of Neanderthals and demonstrates their ability to capture and prepare small, fast-moving prey like birds, challenging previous ideas that they were incapable of such complex tasks.”
Sam Lin Researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia say experimental archaeology is like reverse engineering, comparing what happens in modern samples with archaeological material to try to interpret what happened in the past.
In this case, one of the main findings is that cooked birds don’t require tools to prepare them for eating, which means some bones may not necessarily bear tool marks. “They learned that you just need to tear apart a cooked wild bird, just like we do when we eat barbecued chicken,” Lin said.
This is the first documented collision between a boat and a basking shark, indicating that such incidents may be more common than previously thought. Further monitoring is needed to quantify the issue and enforce a code of conduct for boats to protect the sharks.
Alexandra McInturff Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered a 7-meter long female basking shark (Setohinus Maximus) on April 24 using a device that records movement in three axes: depth, position, and video.
McInturff mentioned that due to the limited availability and duration of sensors for tagging sharks, capturing a collision incident could shed light on its frequency.
The video footage shows the shark feeding at the surface, then abruptly changing direction to collide with the boat. The shark appears to panic and rapidly dives back into the water before coming to a stop at the ocean floor.
A camera attached to a basking shark captures images before, during and after a ship collision
Oregon State University’s Big Fish Lab.
The researchers observed that the tag on the shark came off about seven hours after the impact, leading to changes in behavior. The video footage revealed visible damage on the shark’s skin, but the extent of recovery remains uncertain.
The basking shark species is globally endangered but thrives off the coast of Ireland. To protect them, efforts like the recent designation of Ireland’s first National Marine Park are crucial. McInturff advocates for a mandatory code of conduct for boats interacting with basking sharks to address the issue effectively.
“We’ve seen evidence of boat strikes on sharks before, indicating a potentially widespread problem,” McInturff explained. “Implementing enforceable rules for boat conduct is essential to safeguard these animals.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has denied reports that surfaced last week that he plans to donate $45 million a month to a super PAC working to elect President Donald Trump.
Musk appeared on Jordan Peterson’s show on Tuesday and said the allegations were “simply not true.” “I’m not giving $45 million a month to Donald Trump,” he said.
“What I’ve done is I’ve created a pack, or a super pack, or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “It’s called the America Pack.”
Super PACs (short for political action committees) are independent political organizations that allow donors to give unlimited amounts, but there are contribution limits on individuals and organizations other than super PACs.
After his interview with Peterson, Musk Reply “Yeah right,” he commented on a clip of X’s interview, as well as another tweet addressing the reports. To tell“Yeah, that’s ridiculous. I donate some money to America PAC, but at a much lower level. The PAC’s core values are supporting meritocracy and individual liberty. Republicans are largely, but not entirely, on the side of meritocracy and liberty.”
The denial came days after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who has enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination in August.
Also on Tuesday, The New York Times report The super PAC employed former staffers from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign. “The super PAC has created an air of mystery around Trump, with other outside groups knowing almost nothing about its plans,” the Times reported.
But aides to DeSantis’ initial campaign manager, Genera Peck, and Phil Cox, former chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said the campaign was seeking to become one of the major groups supporting Trump, which could help increase its legitimacy within the Republican establishment.
“It’s about promoting the principles that made America great in the first place,” Musk said on Peterson’s show. “I wouldn’t say I’m, like, a MAGA,” he added, referring to Trump’s catchphrase. “I think America is great. I’m more of a MAG, someone who makes America greater.”
Musk did not disclose how much he plans to donate to the PAC.
AmericaPac already has the backing of Musk’s friends and allies in the tech industry, the Times reported. reportJoe Lonsdale, who co-founded the software company Palantir with Peter Thiel, Major Political Donors President Trump’s new running mate is Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.
The Winklevoss twins, crypto entrepreneurs who have accused Joe Biden of waging a war on cryptocurrencies through regulation, have also contributed to the effort, The Wall Street Journal reports. reportIn June, they praised Trump as a “pro-Bitcoin, pro-crypto and pro-business.”
Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery in the Pacific Ocean that challenges our understanding of Earth’s history and the origin of life. They have found evidence of oxygen production in the deep, lightless depths of the ocean.
The results of this study published in Nature Chemistry challenge the traditional belief that oxygen on Earth is solely produced through photosynthesis.
Lead by Professor Andrew Sweetman, researchers from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) made this discovery while exploring the depths of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, between Hawaii and Mexico.
Named “dark oxygen,” this mysterious phenomenon occurs at depths where light cannot penetrate. The researchers discovered the potential source of this oxygen production while studying polymetallic nodules on the ocean floor, rich in precious metals used in electronics.
These nodules may have the ability to split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen through seawater electrolysis. This finding has significant implications for deep-sea mining activities and the protection of marine habitats.
Director of SAMS, Professor Nicholas Owens, described this discovery as one of the most exciting in marine science, prompting a reevaluation of the evolution of complex life on Earth.
This alternative source of oxygen production challenges the conventional view that cyanobacteria were the first oxygen producers on Earth. It calls for a reconsideration of how complex life evolved and the importance of protecting deep-sea habitats.
To learn more about the experts involved in this research, visit the About the Experts section below.
About the Experts
Andrew Sweetman: Research Group Leader for Benthic Ecology and Biogeochemistry at the Scottish Institute for Marine Science, with extensive experience in deep-sea ecology research.
Nicholas Owens: A marine scientist and Council Member of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, involved in environmental science research and education.
For more information, continue exploring this fascinating discovery and its implications for Earth’s history and marine ecosystems.
According to a recent study conducted by researchers from Bond University, University of Helsinki, and Helsinki University Hospital, increasing fluid intake can help reduce the occurrence of urinary tract infections (UTIs) compared to no treatment. However, consuming cranberry juice has shown even better clinical outcomes in terms of decreased UTIs and antibiotic usage, suggesting that it should be considered as a management option for UTIs.
Cranberry juice drinkers are 54% less likely to develop a urinary tract infection. Image courtesy of The Loves of Eirlys.
“Urinary tract infections are one of the most common bacterial infections,” stated lead author Christian Moro, PhD, along with his colleagues.
“Over 50% of women and more than 20% of men will experience UTIs at least once in their lifetime, making it the most prevalent bacterial infection in children.”
“While antibiotics have traditionally been effective for UTI treatment, the growing resistance of bacteria to these drugs poses a challenge.”
“Studies have shown that over 90% of UTIs contain drug-resistant bacteria, many of which are resistant to multiple antibiotics.”
“Given the rise in microbial resistance to antibiotics, it is essential to explore evidence-based non-drug interventions for UTI prevention and treatment.”
“Reducing antibiotic usage will not only alleviate the financial and clinical burden of prescriptions but also address the increasing issue of antibiotic resistance.”
“Encouraging patients to increase fluid intake and incorporating cranberry juice or tablets have been proposed as beneficial strategies.”
“However, the existing literature on this topic is extensive, with conflicting findings regarding the effectiveness of cranberries.”
The authors utilized a novel research approach known as network meta-analysis, enabling simultaneous comparisons of multiple interventions across various studies.
A total of 20 trials involving 3,091 individuals were analyzed, with 18 of these studies revealing that cranberry juice consumption was linked to a 54% lower UTI incidence compared to no treatment and a 27% lower incidence than placebo liquids.
“These results have the potential to reduce the reliance on antibiotics for UTI treatment,” commented Dr. Moro.
“More than half of women will experience a UTI, often resulting in antibiotic prescriptions.”
“Given the escalating antibiotic resistance, identifying effective non-pharmaceutical interventions is critical.”
“Cranberry juice presents a straightforward and effective intervention that should be considered in managing UTIs.”
Furthermore, the study found that cranberry juice led to a 59% reduction in antibiotic requirements and significantly alleviated symptoms in individuals with active UTIs.
“Simple measures like increasing water intake or taking cranberry tablets also showed benefits, albeit not as pronounced as consuming cranberries in liquid form such as juice,” the researchers noted.
Read their paper published in the journal European Urology Focus.
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Christian Moro others Cranberry juice, cranberry tablets, or liquid therapy for urinary tract infections: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. Yurol Focus Published online on July 18, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.euf.2024.07.002
This article is based on a press release provided by Bond University.
In celebration of our 25th anniversary NASA’s Chandra X-ray ObservatoryThe Chandra team has released 25 new images of cosmic objects and phenomena.
This collection of images was released to celebrate Chandra’s 25th anniversary. Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO.
On July 23, 1999, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched into orbit carrying Chandra, the heaviest payload carried by the shuttle at the time.
Under the command of Commander Eileen Collins, the astronauts aboard Columbia successfully placed Chandra into a highly elliptical orbit roughly equivalent to one-third the distance to the Moon.
“For a quarter century, Chandra has made one amazing discovery after another,” said Dr. Pat Slane, director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center.
“Astronomers have used Chandra to explore mysteries that were unknown when the telescope was built, including exoplanets and dark energy.”
“Chandra is a great success story for humanity and its pursuit of knowledge,” said Dr. Andrew Schnell, acting Chandra project manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
“The telescope’s incredible achievements have been made possible through the hard work and dedication of the team.”
The new series of images is a sample of the roughly 25,000 observations Chandra has taken during its quarter-century in space.
In 1976, Riccardo Giacconi and Harvey Tananbaum first proposed the mission that would become Chandra to NASA.
Eventually, Chandra was selected as one of NASA’s great observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the now-retired Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, each observing a different kind of light.
In 2002, Giacconi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering contributions to astrophysics that led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources and laid the foundation for the development and launch of Chandra.
Today, astronomers continue to use Chandra data in conjunction with other powerful telescopes, including the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE).
“On behalf of the STS-93 crew, we are incredibly proud of the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the talented team that built and launched this astronomical gem,” said Eileen Collins, commander of Space Shuttle Columbia, which launched Chandra into space in 1999.
“Chandra’s discoveries have continued to amaze and inspire us for the past 25 years.”
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This article is a version of a press release provided by NASA.
East Africa contains the world’s most complete record of human evolution, yet scientists know little about how long-term biogeographic dynamics in the region have influenced human diversity and distribution.
An artist’s depiction of early human habitation in Tanzania 1.8 million years ago. Image courtesy of M. Lopez-Herrera / Enrique Baquedano / Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project.
In the new study, Dr. Ignacio Razaga-Baster from the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) and his colleagues focused on the mammal fossil record of the East African Rift Valley.
“The Late Cenozoic fossil beds of the East African Rift Valley provide the world’s richest, longest and most continuous record of human evolution and its environmental context,” the authors explained.
“As such, the human and faunal records of East Africa have been central to understanding the factors that shaped human evolutionary history.”
“Our study provides a new perspective on how climatic and environmental changes over the past six million years have influenced mammal and human evolution,” Dr Razaghabastar said.
“This study particularly highlights how biotic homogenization – the process by which the faunas of different regions become more similar in composition – has been an important factor in the evolution of ecosystems and the species that live in them.”
“Beta diversity analysis, which shows the relationships between regional and local biodiversity, allows us to trace how changes in vegetation and climate have driven patterns of dispersal and extinction over time.”
The team found that faunas from the Late Miocene and Pliocene (approximately 3 million to 6 million years ago) were primarily made up of endemic species.
The shift towards biotic homogenization, or faunal homogenization, began around 3 million years ago with the loss of endemic species within functional groups and an increase in the number of grazing species shared between regions.
This important biogeographic transition coincides closely with the regional expansion of ecosystems dominated by grasses and C4 grasslands that thrive better in warmer, drier climates.
These environmental changes directly affected the feeding and migration patterns of humans and animals that shared the habitat.
“We are certain that hominoids, like other East African mammals, were influenced by many factors. This study offers a new perspective on the link between environmental and human evolutionary change and, through an integrated approach, provides a framework for future research and to test the hypothesis that hominoids adapted to their environment,” Dr Razaghabastar said.
of study Published in the journal on July 15, 2024 Natural Ecology and Evolution.
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J. Rowan othersLong-term biotic homogenization in the East African Rift Valley during the past 6 million years of human evolution. Nat Ecol EvolPublished online July 15, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41559-024-02462-0
According to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, Sunday was the hottest day on record.
The global average temperature reached 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking the previous record set in July last year.
Last month was the hottest June on record worldwide.
Sunday is The hottest day on record According to data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, on Earth:
The global average temperature reached 17.09 degrees Celsius (about 62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), slightly surpassing the previous record of 17.08 degrees Celsius recorded on July 6, 2023.
“We are now in truly uncharted territory and there is no doubt that new records will be broken in the coming months and years as the climate continues to warm,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.
So far, both July this year and July 2023 have been much warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average, according to Copernicus data. Before last year, the hottest day on record was August 12, 2016, when the average temperature reached 16.8 degrees.
Last week, a heatwave that hit southern and central Europe reportedly sparked wildfires in southern Italy, forcing the Greek Ministry of Culture to close the Acropolis for several hours. Associated Press.
In the United States, High temperature warning Six states, including Arizona, California and Montana, enacted special heat stroke laws on Tuesday. Officials believe more than 300 people have died from heat stroke in Maricopa County, Arizona, so far this year.
Last month was the hottest June on record globally, breaking records for the 13th consecutive month of record high temperatures. Copernicus Service Monitoring.
“As it gets hotter, we're going to have to significantly recalibrate how we live our lives,” said Bharat Venkat, director of the UCLA Thermal Lab, which studies the effects of rising temperatures.
As a more personal example, Venkat said he took his dog for a walk at a local mall this summer because the sidewalk was “really hot and I was worried his paws would get burned.”
He stressed that at a larger, more severe level, “many of these adverse effects overlap with existing social inequalities.”
People with underlying medical conditions are more susceptible to heatstroke. People who work outdoors, like delivery people or farmers, face a bigger problem. Certain structures, like prisons and food trucks, retain more heat, making them especially hot for people inside.
Global average temperatures typically peak between late June and early August because this is the hottest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, which contains most of the world's land mass and population.
In the Southern Hemisphere, average temperatures are also rising due to melting Antarctic sea ice, the Copernicus Service reported.
This year has been particularly warm because of an El Niño weather pattern, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist and climate writer at Yale University's Climate Connections.
La Niña is Estimated Arrival There should be a moderate cooling effect over the next few months.
But overall temperatures will continue to rise and records will continue to be broken, Henson said.
Jacqueline Gates of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory isolating livermorium atoms.
Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab 2024 Regents of the University of California
The third heaviest element in the universe has been created in a way that points the way to synthesizing the elusive element 120, the heaviest element in the periodic table.
“We were very shocked, very surprised and very relieved that we had not made the wrong choice in installing the equipment,” he said. Jacqueline Gates At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), California.
She and her colleagues created the element, livermorium, by bombarding pieces of plutonium with beams of charged titanium atoms. Titanium has never been used in such experiments before because it’s hard to turn into a well-controlled beam and it takes millions or trillions of collisions to create just a few new atoms. But physicists think that the titanium beam is essential to making a hypothetical element 120, also known as unbinylium, which has 120 protons in its nucleus.
The researchers first evaporated a rare isotope of titanium in a special oven at 1,650°C (about 3,000°F). They then used microwaves to turn the hot titanium vapor into a charged beam, which they sent into a particle accelerator. When the beam reached about 10% of the speed of light and smashed into a plutonium target, a fragment of it hit a detector, where it detected a trace of two livermorium atoms.
As expected, each atom rapidly decayed into other elements. The stability of an atomic nucleus decreases as an atom’s mass increases. But the measurements were so precise that there’s only about a one in a trillion chance that the discovery was a statistical fluke, Gates says. The researchers announced their findings on July 23. Nuclear Structure 2024 Meeting at Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois.
Michael Thornessen The Michigan State University researcher says the experiment supports the feasibility of creating element 120. “We have to do the basic research and we have to go in the dark, so this is a really important and necessary experiment in that sense,” he says.
Toennesen says the creation of unbinylium will have profound implications for our understanding of the strong force, which determines whether heavy elements are stable. Studying unbinylium may also help us understand how exotic elements formed in the early universe.
The heaviest artificial element to date, element 118 (also known as oganesson), has two more protons than livermorium and was first synthesized in 2002. Since then, researchers have struggled to make atoms even heavier, because that requires colliding already-heavy elements with each other, which themselves tend to be unstable. “It’s really, really difficult work,” Thornesen says.
But the new experiment has LBNL researchers feeling optimistic: They plan to launch experiments aimed at creating element 120 in 2025 after replacing the plutonium target with the heavier element californium.
“I think we’re pretty close to knowing what to do,” Gates says, “and we have an opportunity to add new elements to the periodic table.” [is exciting]”…Very few people get that opportunity.”
A hydrothermal explosion occurred just north of Old Faithful geyser on Tuesday, spewing rocks and steam into the air and forcing visitors to flee to safety, Yellowstone National Park officials said.
According to the National Park Service, the explosion happened around 10:19 a.m. in Biscuit Basin, about two miles northwest of Old Faithful, and no one was injured and the extent of damage is unknown. It said in a statement.
The type of explosion that occurred on Tuesday was hot water related, “rapidly ejecting boiling water, steam, mud and rock debris,” the statement said. According to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Eruption video People, including children, were seen running as columns of black and grey matter and steam spewed into the air.
Yellowstone is famous for its hot springs and thermal pools.
According to the USGS, a hydrothermal explosion occurs when underground water at or near boiling point is rapidly transformed into a stream of water due to a drop in pressure.
Outbursts like Tuesday’s are “relatively common in Yellowstone,” the USGS said. It said in a statement Following the incident, Norris Geyser Basin reported a small explosion in April, and Biscuit Basin reported an explosion in 2009.
Photos posted by Yellowstone National Park showed a nearby trail covered in dirt, rocks and debris.
The National Park Service said the trails and parking lots are closed until further notice due to safety concerns, and noted the explosion is not related to any volcanic activity.
Park staff and USGS personnel are monitoring the situation and will determine when the area can be reopened, officials said.
Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes some crazy ideas for how to tinker with the universe and tests their effects against the laws of physics, from snapping the moon in half to causing doomsday events with gravitational waves. apple, Spotify Or check out our podcast page.
Uranus and Neptune are so similar that we don't need both. That's the idea behind this episode of Dead Planets Society, in which hosts Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane decide to light Uranus on fire.
There's a scientific justification for this, of course. For one thing, burning material and examining the light from it, a process called spectroscopy, is one of the best ways to determine its chemical composition. And because the depths of ice giants remain murky and mysterious, burning up the outer layers could reveal what's underneath.
Before you reach for the matches, let's talk about our special guest, planetary scientist Pole Barn That could be tricky, says a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri: Uranus' outer layers lack the oxygen needed for combustion, he explains, so pumping in more oxygen than is contained in the entire solar system might not be helpful.
But the interior of Uranus isn't just shrouded in mystery – it may also be full of iceberg-like diamond chunks. This quickly changes the host's focus: this is no longer a fireworks mission, but a heist.
While the planet's outer layers would still need to be removed, the most efficient way would probably be to collide it with another planet. Viewed from Earth, this would be seen as a flash of light, a glowing cloud of steam, and perhaps a bright tail forming behind Uranus. The impact would need to be carefully planned so as not to shatter the planet and its diamonds.
But a suitable collision could accomplish both the new goal of obtaining Uranus' diamonds and the original goal of exposing and studying its depths. It could also destroy the entire solar system, but when has the Society of Dead Planets ever worried about that?
Paleontologists have described a new species of snake that lived during the Early Oligocene of Wyoming, based on four nearly complete, articulated specimens found curled together in a burrow.
Hibernophis Brighthaupti It lived 38 million years ago in what is now western Wyoming. Image courtesy of Jasmine Croghan.
Hibernophis Brighthaupti It lived in North America 38 million years ago (Early Oligocene Epoch).
The fossil has unique anatomical features, in part because the specimen is articulated, meaning that it was found all together with its bones in the proper order, which is unusual for a fossil snake.
Hibernophis Brighthaupti Probably an early member Boideia A group that includes modern boas and pythons.
“Modern boas are widespread across the Americas, but their early evolution is poorly understood,” said researchers from the University of Alberta. Professor Michael Caldwell And my colleagues.
“These new and extremely complete fossils add important new information, especially about the evolution of the small burrowing boas known as rubber boas.”
“Traditionally, there has been a lot of discussion about the evolution of small burrowing bores.”
“Hibernophis Brighthaupti This suggests that northern and central North America may have been an important base for their development.”
According to the team: Hibernophis Brighthaupti Thanks to its location, the specimen has been remarkably well preserved for tens of millions of years.
“38 million years ago, these particular Hibernophis Brighthaupti “At the time the snakes lived, the Southern Basin-Range volcanic system was incredibly active, emitting huge amounts of volcanic ash,” said Professor Caldwell, lead author of the study.
“The ash settled and helped preserve the remains of the organisms found within the fine sandy mudstone matrix typical of the White River Formation.”
Paleontologists speculate that the animals may have fallen victim to a small flood.
“Geologically speaking, they were preserved in very unusual conditions,” Professor Caldwell said.
“Fossilization is a brutal process. You need exactly the right conditions to preserve something.”
Four discoveries Hibernophis Brighthaupti The curled-up sleeping arrangement also suggests that this may be the oldest evidence of communal hibernation, a behaviour we know today.
“Modern garter snakes are notorious for congregating in the thousands and hibernating together in burrows and holes,” Professor Caldwell said.
“They do this to take advantage of the ball effect created by hibernating animals to conserve heat.”
“It's fascinating to see evidence of this social behavior and hibernation going back 34 million years.”
of study Published in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
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Jasmine A. Croghan othersMorphology and taxonomy of a new fossil snake from the early Rupelian (Oligocene) White River Formation, Wyoming. Zoological Journal of the Linnean SocietyPublished online June 19, 2024; doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae073
Robot dogs equipped with flame throwers could be used to prevent weeds from growing on farms, offering a potential alternative to harmful herbicides.
Even highly targeted herbicides can cause environmental problems and affect local wildlife, and “superweeds” are rapidly evolving resistance to the most common herbicides like glyphosate.
Looking for alternative solutions Song Deokjin Researchers at Texas A&M University have developed a weed control system that emits short bursts of heat from a propane-powered flame thrower controlled by a robotic arm attached to a Boston Dynamics Spot Robot.
Rather than incinerating weeds, the robot is designed to identify and heat the core of the plant, which can stop weed growth for weeks, Song said. “It doesn't kill the weeds, it just inhibits their growth, giving the crop a chance to fight them.”
Song and his team first tested the flame nozzle to see if it could accurately target the center of the weeds, then deployed the robot in a cotton field that was also planted with weeds, including sunflowers, which are native to Texas.Sun Flower) and giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifidaFive tests showed the robot could find weeds and focus an average of 95 percent of its flames on them to burn them down.
Song said the Spot robot's biggest limitation is its battery life — it can only operate for about 40 minutes before needing to be recharged — but the team is working on upgrading it to a longer-lasting device. They're also considering equipping the robot dog with an electric shock device that can deliver more than 10,000 volts of current, which would stop weeds from growing for longer.
“With other machines, people use a fairly broad, inaccurate flame to kill weeds. That's been around for a while, but I've never seen anything as precise as this.” Simon Pearson A researcher at the University of Lincoln in the UK said the robot's success will depend on how precisely it can deliver the flames without damaging valuable crops.
Arizona public health officials are cautioning about the hantavirus, a disease that spreads from rodents to humans and has led to an increase in a deadly pulmonary syndrome. The Arizona Department of Health Services has reported seven confirmed cases and three deaths in the past six months. For more information, check out the recent health alerts.
Most hantavirus cases are seen in the Western and Southwestern U.S., with most states reporting one to four cases per year. Two cases have been reported in California this year. Unfortunately, there is no specific treatment or vaccine for hantavirus.
In Arizona from 2016 to 2022, there have been 11 reported cases of hantavirus, with four cases in 2016, two in 2017, four in 2020, and one in 2022.
Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital, warns that hantaviruses can cause severe and potentially fatal respiratory infections, especially transmitted by rodents like deer mice.
San Diego County and the California Department of Public Health have also noted increased hantavirus activity this year.
Changes in rodent populations affected by season and weather conditions could be contributing to the increase in hantavirus cases in Arizona. People are more likely to come into contact with rodents during the summer when they are more active.
Climate change and extreme weather events may also play a role in the spread of hantavirus.
Dr. Camilo Mora, a professor at the University of Hawaii, warns that climate change could impact the spread of disease-carrier species, leading to potential outbreaks.
Experts emphasize the need for careful handling of rodent excrement and avoidance of contact with rodents to prevent hantavirus infections.
Hantavirus Symptoms
Hantavirus particles are released into the air when disturbed, leading to Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS).
HPS symptoms may appear 1 to 8 weeks after contact with an infected rodent and can progress to serious lung infections if left untreated.
fever
malaise
muscle pain
nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain
Approximately 38% of people with pulmonary symptoms from hantavirus may die from the disease.
How to Prevent Hantavirus
Cleaning up rodent excrement and avoiding contact with rodents are key prevention measures according to experts.
Spring cleaning activities like opening and cleaning closed spaces could increase the risk of rodent infestation and hantavirus exposure.
Proper precautions should be taken when entering closed and unoccupied spaces that may have rodents present.
aAt the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, right after Snake crushes Liquid Ocelot, there’s a never-ending series of cut scenes. Well, that’s not strictly true. do end – 71 minutes later – I just haven’t seen that much of it. I understand that the game’s director, Hideo Kojima, is an avid film fan and took a lot of inspiration from movies, but I don’t care. Those are minutes of your life that you can never get back.
I also don’t like the 20-minute cinematic scenes that pepper Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy, or the hundreds of non-interactive scenes that detail every plot point in an Assassin’s Creed adventure. Taking away the player’s freedom and forcing their attention for extended periods of time is unnecessarily aggressive, and I think it’s time to abolish the practice altogether.
The origins of cutscenes in video games were both technical and situational. Games in the ’90s couldn’t render scenes in real time, and a lot of the narrative talent in games came from film, using tools they knew. This interestingly mirrors the evolution of film. In the 1920s and early 1930s, narrative film was heavily influenced by theater. This makes sense, because the early film industry drew most of its talent from theater — actors, directors, screenwriters, technical staff — and these people brought technology with them.
From stage to screen…Greta Garbo starred in the 1930 film adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play “Anna Christie.”
Photo: Mgm/Sportsphoto/Allstar
The camera tended to stay still with long takes between cuts, observing the action like an audience member. Filming took place on purpose-built sets, not on location. Acting was somewhat staged and theatrical, as performers were accustomed to exaggerating their movements and emotions to be seen by an audience 18 rows back. Early film audiences were also familiar with the conventions of the stage, which helped them ease into the cinematic experience.
But as film evolved into a medium in its own right, new and intimate ways of telling stories emerged. With the invention of the dolly and crane, the camera transformed from a spectator to a moving observer in the world. Actors discovered that small gestures and facial expressions could communicate. From German Expressionism to the French New Wave to the American Auteur films of the 1970s, new storytelling techniques emerged, along with many of the lighting, direction, design, and special effects conventions that are unique to cinema. The medium came into its own.
This process is happening in games too. We see it in increasingly sophisticated fields like environmental storytelling, UX/UI, and narrative design. But despite being a medium where interactivity and immersion are everything, we’re stuck with cutscenes. Look at some of the biggest, most moving narrative games of the last five years — The Last of Us, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man — and most of the emotional moments happen in non-interactive, cinematic sequences that take control away from us. Like children, we’re not entrusted with participation; we’re expected to just sit back and watch the show.
No time to talk… Half-Life.
Photo: Valve
The argument is that sometimes, we need to craft the emotional development of a scene at exactly the right time to deliver the emotional element of that scene. In that case, we’re making the wrong kind of scene. If a mature interactive medium can only tell an emotional story through non-interactive sequences, something is wrong. This is frustrating, because Valve made great strides on this issue 25 years ago. The narrative sci-fi shooter Half-Life contained no cutscenes or cinematic sequences at all. Characters (scientists and guards at the Black Mesa facility) gave in-game exposition as the player explored, while at the same time the increasingly unstable environment told a tale of destruction and suspense. Valve did it again a decade later with the Portal games, combining amusingly chatty robot antagonists with a world where signs, symbols, and voice announcements conveyed all the rules and background details the player needed to know to be intellectually and emotionally immersed.
Game designer Fumito Ueda largely avoided cutscenes in his classic adventure games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, instead immersing us in vague, mysterious worlds where the player creates their own mythology with so little information. Indie studio thatgamecompany’s 2012 masterpiece Journey featured silent characters in a desert wasteland but still moved thousands of players to tears. Campo Santo’s game Firewatch forged a rich mystery out of the Wyoming wilderness and disembodied voices heard over walkie-talkies.
In an age where in-game realism is near-photographic, relying on cutscenes for dramatic, cathartic effect feels even more incongruous and alienating. We get to explore and exist in incredibly vivid worlds, surrounded by characters capable of expressing a wide range of emotions thanks to a combination of performance capture, cutting-edge AI and physics. And that’s all it takes. These are dynamic, immersive worlds. As a player, you only need control of weapons, vehicles and a highly sophisticated progression system to take part in the story.
A voice from the wilderness…Firewatch.
Photo: Campo Santo
Or the story can simply exist in the background, as something we experience or experience second-hand. It’s an interactive version of direct cinema. From Software’s works are great examples of this. There are cutscenes, but they’re short and usually used to introduce a new enemy or show the player a moment of reaction from the world. Otherwise the story is evoked simply by moving through these bleak, gothic landscapes. Author and historian Holly Nielsen says: Expressed with X
Recently, “I’ve spent about 300 hours on Elden Ring. I can’t really tell you anything about the world, characters, or story other than a vague sense of atmosphere.”
A few years ago I interviewed Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard and asked him what the most important part of telling a story in a video game was. “You have to find the tone,” he said, after a long silence. “We look a lot at old John Ford films and the way he captures space. Ford’s shots make you feel a certain way. There’s a thing called tone. As a designer, you have to know how you want the player to feel. Find something outside of the game that has that tone and just stare at it.” Yes, this is another example from a film, but Howard isn’t talking about The Searchers or the Rio Grande story, he’s talking about the feel of the space that Ford created.
Tone. Atmosphere. Feel. These are different words for the same concept, arguably the basis of post-cinematic theory of mainstream game narrative. In an immersive environment, the story isn’t something the player sees but something the player enters, a space of discovery rather than performance, a playground rather than a theater. Stories should be open to broad and bold interpretation, and may even be entirely optional or subliminal. If they do happen to take control away from the player, it should be in radical moments employed sparingly, like turning the camera away or darkening the stage.
Cinematic cut scenes are tyrannical fakes. It’s time to eliminate them.
“Where did CrowdStrike go wrong?” is, if anything, a slightly overly generalized question.
You can also think about it the other way around: if you push an update to every computer on your network at the same time, by the time you find a problem, it’s too late to contain the impact. Alternatively, with a phased rollout, the update is pushed to users in small groups, usually accelerating over time. If you start updating 50 systems at once and then they all immediately lose connection, you hope you notice the problem before you update the next 50 million systems.
If you don’t do a staged rollout, you need to test the update before pushing it to users. The extent of pre-release testing is usually up for debate; there are countless configurations of hardware, software, and user requirements, and your testing regime must narrow down what’s important, and hope that nothing is overlooked. Thankfully, if 100% of computers with the update installed experience crashes and become inoperable until you manually apply a tedious fix, it’s easy to conclude that you didn’t test enough.
If you’re not doing a staged rollout and testing the update before it ships, you need to make sure that: Not broken.
Broken
Many flights at Orlando, Florida’s airport were canceled or delayed amid the CrowdStrike crisis. Photo: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images
In CrowdStrike’s defense, I can understand why this happened. The company offers a service called “endpoint protection,” which if you’ve been in the Windows ecosystem for a few years, might be easiest to think of as antivirus. It’s built for the enterprise market, not the consumer market, and not just protects against common malware, but also tries to prevent individual computers used by companies from gaining a foothold on the corporate network.
This applies not only to PCs used by large corporations that need to provide every employee with a keyboard and mouse, but also to any other business with large amounts of cheap, flexible machines. If you left your house on Friday, you know what that means: advertising displays, point-of-sale terminals, and self-service kiosks were all affected.
The comparison is relevant because CrowdStrike is in a space where speed is crucial. The worst-case scenario, at least until last week, is a ransom worm like WannaCry or NotPetya, malware that not only does significant damage to infected machines but also spreads automatically in and out of corporate networks. So its first line of defense operates quickly: Rather than waiting for a weekly or monthly release schedule for software updates, the company pushes out files daily to address the latest threats to the systems it protects.
Though limited, even a phased rollout could cause real damage. WannaCry destroyed many NHS computers during the few hours it spread unchecked, before being accidentally halted by British security researcher Marcus Hutchins while trying to figure out how it worked. In this scenario, a phased rollout could result in loss of life. Delays in testing could be even more costly.
That means updates shouldn’t cause this kind of problem: rather than new code that runs on each machine, updates are more like dictionary updates that tell already-installed CrowdStrike software what new threats to look out for and how to recognize them.
At the loosest level, you can think of it as something like this article: You’re probably reading it through some application, like a web browser, an email client, or the Guardian app. (If you’ve arranged for someone to print this and deliver it to you with your morning coffee, congratulations!) We haven’t done a staged rollout or full testing of the article, because nothing would happen there.
Unfortunately, the update pushed out on Friday actually did something. High-level technical details remain unclear, and until CrowdStrike reveals the full details, we’ll just take their word for it. The update, which was meant to teach the system how to detect a specific type of cyberattack that had already been seen in the wild, actually “introduced a logic error, causing the operating system to crash.”
I’ve been covering this sort of thing for over a decade now, and my guess is that this “logic error” boils down to one of two things: Either an almost incomprehensible failure condition occurs in one of the most complex systems mankind has ever built, causing a catastrophic event through an almost unthinkable combination of bad luck, or someone does something incredibly stupid.
Sometimes there are no classes
Consumer self-service kiosks operated by Britain’s South Western Railway were also affected. Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images
There have been a lot of comments over the past few days.
This is an inevitable evil that results from the concentration of power in the technology sector in just a few companies.
This is an inevitable consequence of the EU prohibiting Microsoft from restricting antivirus companies’ ability to tamper with basic levels of Windows.
This is the inevitable harm of cybersecurity regulation that focuses more on checking boxes than on actual security.
This wasn’t a security issue because no one was hacked – it was just a bug.
None of it worked. CrowdStrike, despite the disruption it caused, doesn’t wield much power. It’s one of the big players in the space, but it’s installed on only about 1% of PCs. Microsoft says: They claim that the failure happened only because of regulations.Meanwhile, in the alternative where third-party security companies can’t operate on Windows, with Microsoft setting itself up as the only line of defense, it looks like we’ll be in a world where the first big failure actually affects 100% of PCs.
Cybersecurity regulations have actually benefited companies that have adopted CrowdStrike, making complicated certification processes into a simple checkbox check, and maybe that’s a good thing: “Buy a product to be safe” is the only reasonable request for the vast majority of companies, and CrowdStrike has delivered, except for that one unfortunate time.
But unfortunate or not, it was definitely a security issue. The golden triangle of information security has three goals: confidentiality (are the secrets kept secret?), integrity (is the data correct?), and availability (can the system be used?). CrowdStrike could not maintain availability, which meant they could not protect their customers’ information security.
In the end, the only lesson I can take comfort in is that this is going to happen more. We’ve managed so well with so many of our society’s failures that the ones that hit us from now on will be more unexpected, more severe, and less prepared for. Just as a driver can become so confident in their cruise control that they lose control right before an accident, we’ve managed to make catastrophic IT failures so rare that recovering from them is a marathon effort.
Yay?
The Wider TechScape
Social media automatically distributes problematic content to young men with little oversight. Illustration: Nash Weerasekera/The Guardian
“A complete river of rubbish”: Josh Taylor of The Guardian Australia Facebook and Instagram Algorithms The blank account fueled sexism and misogyny.
Is the world’s largest search engine broken? Tom Faber asks Google It is losing momentum.
Is this the end? The Story of Craig Wright? Post The Court’s Full Decision Post on your Twitter feed that you feel like the last decade of your career is final.
Parents have even more reason to worry, as AI technology overwhelms capture efforts. Child Abuser.
and Roblox Back in the spotlight Child sexual abuse failureCritics say the company’s privacy stance makes things worse.
Cybersecurity company Wizz has turned down a $23bn (£18bn) takeover offer from Google’s parent Alphabet, making it the largest takeover bid ever for a tech company, and has opted for a stock market listing instead.
Alphabet had been in discussions with Wizz, a company established by graduates of Israel’s cyber-intelligence program, in an effort to catch up with competitors Microsoft and Amazon in the competitive cloud-services market.
Wiz provides a service that scans data on cloud storage platforms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure for potential security threats.
The New York-based startup, which is financially backed by investors such as Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital, was last valued at $12 billion.
In an internal email to employees, the company expressed gratitude for the offer but decided to remain committed to its mission of building Wiz. CEO Assaf Rapaport outlined the company’s objectives of reaching $1 billion in annual recurring revenue and going public.
Despite the tempting offer, the company’s trust in its skilled team reaffirmed their decision. The positive response from the market further reinforced their aim to create a platform that is loved by both security and development teams.
As of Tuesday morning, neither Wizz nor Google have released an official statement regarding the end of the acquisition negotiations.
There are concerns that the deal may face regulatory challenges as authorities seek to tighten their control over acquisitions involving major tech companies.
Last month, the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission agreed to investigate leading players in the AI market, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia.
Established in 2020, Wizz was valued at $12 billion in a funding round in May, attracting investments from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive.
Wiz claims to have 40% of the Fortune 100 as clients and boasts an annual recurring revenue of $350 million.
The U.S. has seen a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions due to the growth of clean energy, but it falls short of the targets set in the Paris climate agreement, according to a recent analysis by Rhodium. Rhodium is a research firm that monitors U.S. progress in meeting climate change objectives.
In the Paris agreement, 194 nations pledged to limit the global average temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius. The U.S. has set a goal to reduce emissions by at least 50% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. However, Rhodium’s report projects that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will only be 32 to 43 percent below this benchmark by 2030, and 38 to 56 percent below it five years later.
The report indicates that clean energy investments are rapidly increasing, economic growth is no longer reliant on fossil fuels, and President Joe Biden’s climate change initiatives are speeding up electrification efforts.
Despite these positive developments, there are obstacles to overcome. Data centers consuming large amounts of power are driving up electricity demand, recent Supreme Court rulings have weakened federal regulatory powers, and there is a divide between Democrats and Republicans on climate policies as an election approaches.
The U.S. achieved record-breaking numbers last year in adding solar power and clean energy storage to the grid. Ben King, associate director of energy and climate at Rhodium Group, believes these years will be remembered as a pivotal moment in climate policy.
However, the transition to clean energy needs to accelerate further to meet U.S. emissions targets without additional policy actions. Clean energy capacity must increase significantly to achieve Rhodium’s high-end emissions reduction projections.
Challenges such as building transmission lines, sourcing materials for wind power projects, and obtaining licenses for new facilities need to be addressed to speed up the energy transition, according to King.
The report predicts a substantial increase in electricity demand by 2035, driven by the electrification of vehicles and appliances, as well as the usage of data centers for various energy-intensive activities.
Investments in clean energy, transportation, and technology are on the rise, with companies pouring $71 billion into these sectors in the first quarter of 2024, a significant increase from the previous year.
The future of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will be influenced by the upcoming election, with potential policy changes depending on the outcome. Rhodium anticipates environmental policy challenges following recent Supreme Court decisions, and the next administration will need to strategize to address these challenges.
Researchers from the Scottish Institute for Marine Science have discovered that the deep ocean floor of the Pacific Ocean, covered with polymetallic nodules, produces so-called “dark oxygen.”
Polymetallic nodules recovered from the ocean floor in a Northwestern University lab. Image courtesy of Camille Bridgewater/Northwestern University.
Polymetallic nodules – naturally occurring mineral deposits that form on the seafloor – are commonly found in the sediment-covered abyssal plains of oceans around the world.
These consist primarily of iron and manganese oxides, but also contain metals such as cobalt and rare earth elements, which are essential components of many advanced, low-carbon energy technologies.
For the new study, Dr Andrew Sweetman from the Scottish Institute for Marine Science and his colleagues carried out experiments using chambers placed on the seafloor at a depth of around 4,200 metres to measure oxygen levels at multiple sites more than 4,000 kilometres apart in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the central Pacific Ocean, where polymetallic nodules are found.
Nearly every experiment showed a steady increase in oxygen levels over the two days.
The researchers conducted additional laboratory analysis and claim that the source of the detected oxygen release is polymetallic nodules.
Based on numerical simulations, they hypothesize that the electrical properties of the nodes are responsible for oxygen production.
While the researchers note that it is difficult to estimate how much oxygen polymetallic nodules produce over a wide area, they suggest that this source of oxygen may support ecosystems on the deep seafloor, which could be affected if these nodules are mined.
“We understand that oxygen was needed for aerobic life to begin on Earth, and Earth's oxygen supply began with photosynthetic organisms,” Dr Sweetman said.
“But we now know that oxygen is produced even in the deep ocean, where there is no light.”
“So I think we need to rethink questions like where did aerobic life begin.”
of result Published in a journal Nature Chemistry.
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A.K. Sweetman othersEvidence for dark oxygen production on the deep seafloor. National GeographyPublished online July 22, 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01480-8
This article is based on a press release provided by Springer Nature and Northwestern University.
Palaeontologists have discovered the fossil of a previously unknown species of lizard in mid-Cretaceous amber unearthed in northern Myanmar.
Reconstructing your life Electrosincus Zeddyparts of the lizard not represented in available sources have been blurred. Image courtesy of Stephanie Abramowicz.
The newly discovered species was a small lizard, estimated to be about 3 centimetres (1.2 inches) long from snout to anus.
Named Electrosincus ZeddyIt lived during the mid-Cretaceous period, about 99 million years ago.
Unlike other squamate animals (lizards and snakes) that lived during the Mesozoic era, they have a layered and complex structure. Cortical bone They are arranged alternately around the body, supporting its classification as a lizard. Gerbils.
“The family Pectiniidae is a highly diverse lineage of squamate animals that is now nearly universally distributed in temperate and tropical regions around the world,” said Dr. Juan Daza of Sam Houston State University and colleagues.
“This comprises more than 1,745 described extant species, about 15 percent of all extant lizards.”
“Typically, lizards have cylindrical bodies and relatively short limbs, and evolution towards shortening or loss of limbs has occurred in more than 50 lizard lineages.”
“Among the living syncoids (Xanthus, Gerphosauridae, Cordylidae, and Syncoidae), syncoid species have the greatest range in body length, ranging from tiny species just a few centimetres in length to extinct species. Tiliqua FrangensIt may have reached a height of more than 50 centimetres.”
“Skinks also vary greatly in the number of presacral vertebrae, ranging from 26 to 108, which, together with round scales and compound bone plates, may have facilitated the repeated evolution of depressed and limbless morphologies.”
“Most lizards have smooth, circular scales beneath which extend compound osteoderms, which are bony plates within the dermis made up of multiple articulating dermal fragments per scale.”
Electrosincus ZeddyVentral (a) and dorsal (b) views of the fossil. Detail of the right foot (c, e) and bone plate (d). X-ray of the entire specimen, showing skeletal remains and some articulated and scattered bone plates (f). Image courtesy of Daza. others., doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66451-w.
One Burmese Amber (Burmit) Preservation Electrosincus Zeddy It was discovered in a Mid-Cretaceous outcrop about 100 km west of Myitkyina Township, Myitkyina District, Kachin State in northern Myanmar.
The specimen contains two separate parts of a lizard, including scales and mainly appendicular bones, but is clearly part of a single individual.
“To date, more than 100 squamate specimens have been discovered in Burmite,” the paleontologists said.
“Within this large sample, the new fossil is the only one that preserves this cortical bone morphology, which makes it diagnosable as a Snecidae and distinguishes it from all known fossil squamates from the Cretaceous.”
“Although the specimen is incomplete, it preserves both postcranial skeletal elements and integumentary structures, which, although less than ideal, provides a basis for comparison with putative synthid specimens that may be discovered in the future.”
“This specimen has a combination of compound bony plates and overlapping circular scales that are only seen in lizards.”
“We suggest that this type of osteoderm evolved as a response to increased scale overlap and reduced stiffness of the skin armour,” the researchers concluded.
Their paper Published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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JD Daza others2024. A compound osteoderm preserved in amber identifies it as the oldest known lizard. Scientific Reports 14, 15662; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66451-w
When chimpanzees socialize, they exchange gestures at a rate similar to how humans converse.
The researchers surveyed five wild chimpanzees.Pan troglodytesThe researchers studied 8,559 gestures made by 252 chimpanzees across chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) communities in East Africa — one of the largest studies of its kind. They recorded face-to-face interactions between the apes, recording the timing of one chimpanzee's gestures relative to those of the other.
An analysis of the ape “conversations” found that chimpanzees' signaling intervals are remarkably similar to human interactions, and even a little faster: “On average, it takes 120 milliseconds between the end of one gesture and the start of the next,” the researchers say. Gal Badig “In humans, the average is about 200 milliseconds, so this is very close,” said researchers at the University of St Andrews in the UK.
All chimpanzee groups responded quickly, but the exact timing varied from group to group: for example, chimpanzees from Sonso, Uganda, took a few milliseconds longer to return the gesture than the other chimpanzee groups studied.
Such differences in timing exist in human languages too. For example, Japanese speakers generally Faster turn changes Japanese people have a different conversational style than Danish speakers. “We don't know exactly why,” says Vadig. “As with humans, we don't know if it's a cultural difference, something we've learned over time, or a reaction to our environment.”
Chimpanzees interacting in the Budongo Forest in Uganda
Adrian Soldati
Only 14 percent of the interactions the researchers observed between chimpanzees involved any kind of interaction. Most consisted of a single gesture, such as “go away” or “follow me,” in which the other person ran away or followed. But interactions were more frequent when the chimpanzees were negotiating over food or grooming.
“What's really exciting about this study is that it shows that communication is a cooperative, socially engaged process in non-human animals,” Budig says, “and that the processes involved in human language may have actually evolved much earlier than we thought.”
Nodules taken from the ocean floor being examined in a laboratory
Camille Bridgewater (2024)
Metallic nodules scattered across the floor of the Indian and Pacific Oceans provide a source of oxygen for nearby marine life, a discovery that could upend our understanding of the deep ocean.
In some areas, the abyssal plains are dotted with potato-sized nodules rich in valuable cobalt, manganese and nickel that are targets for deep-sea mining activities.
Andrew Sweetman Researchers from the Scottish Institute for Marine Science in Oban, UK, were conducting research in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean (a region rich in nodules) in 2013 when they first noticed something odd about these waters.
Sweetman and his colleagues sent a machine to the ocean floor, sealed off a 22-square-centimeter section of the seafloor, and measured the flow of oxygen. Far from decreasing, the data suggested that oxygen content was actually increasing in the monitored areas.
But in the absence of any noticeable vegetation, Sweetman says, that didn’t make sense. “I was taught from an early age that oxygen-rich ecosystems were only possible through photosynthesis,” he says. He came to the conclusion that the machine he was using was flawed. “I literally ignored the data,” he says.
Then, in 2021, Sweetman went on another research cruise in the Pacific Ocean, and the machine made the same discovery: elevated oxygen levels at the ocean floor, even using a different measurement method.
“We were seeing the same oxygen production in these two different data sets,” Sweetman says, “and suddenly we realized that we’d been ignoring this incredibly innovative process for the last eight or nine years.”
He and his colleagues speculated that the metal nodules must play a role in boosting oxygen levels in the deep ocean, and laboratory tests of contaminating sediments and nodules ruled out the presence of oxygen-producing microorganisms.
Instead, Sweetman says the material in the nodules acts as a “geo-battery,” generating an electrical current that splits seawater into hydrogen and oxygen. “The reason these nodules are mined is because they contain everything you need to make electric car batteries,” he says. “What if the nodules themselves were acting as natural geo-batteries?”
When the team examined the rocks, they found that each nodule generated an electrical potential of up to 1 volt — when they combined together they could generate enough voltage to electrolyze seawater into hydrogen and oxygen, explaining why oxygen levels rise.
“We may have discovered a new natural source of oxygen,” Sweetman said, “We don’t know how widespread it is in time and space, but it’s very intriguing.”
Many questions remain unanswered. For example, the source of energy that creates the current remains a mystery. It’s also unclear whether the reaction occurs continuously, under what conditions, or how this oxygen contributes to maintaining the surrounding ecosystem. “We don’t have all the information yet, but we know it’s happening,” Sweetman says.
In deep-sea environments without sunlight or vegetation, some life forms get their energy from chemicals spewing from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Some scientists believe life on Earth first emerged at these vents, but these early organisms would have needed a source of oxygen to make food from inorganic compounds. The new discovery suggests that the nodules could have been the oxygen source that helped life begin, Sweetman said.
That interpretation may be unreasonable, Donald Canfield The University of Southern Denmark researcher points out that oxygen is needed to produce the manganese oxides found in nodules. “Oxygenic photosynthesis is a prerequisite for the formation of nodules,” he says. “Therefore, oxygen production by nodules is not an alternative oxygen production equivalent to oxygenic photosynthesis. It is highly unlikely that nodules played a role in oxygenating the Earth.”
but, Ruth Blake The Yale researchers say the idea of producing oxygen in the deep sea remains “exciting” and that further study is needed into the phenomenon and its potential impact on deep-sea ecosystems.
Sweetman’s research was funded in part by The Metals Company (TMC), a deep-sea mining company that is targeting metal nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton field. Patrick Downs TMC’s Downs said he had “serious concerns” about the findings, adding that his company’s analysis suggested Sweetman’s results were due to outside oxygen contamination. “We intend to write a rebuttal,” Downs said in a statement. New Scientist.
But the findings are likely to strengthen calls for a ban on deep-sea mining, backed by many oceanographers who say their understanding of these regions is still evolving. Paul Dando Researchers from the British Marine Biological Society said the paper reinforced the view among deep-sea scientists that “we shouldn’t mine these nodules until we understand their ecology”.
Sweetman said the discovery isn’t necessarily a “say-tale” move for deep-sea mining, but it could limit mining in places where oxygen production is low, and more research is needed to explore how sediments disturbed by the mining process affect oxygen production, he said.
AI could help us predict the weather more accurately
LaniMiro Lotufo Neto/Alamy
Google researchers have developed an artificial intelligence that they say can predict weather and climate patterns as accurately as current physical models, but with less computing power.
Existing forecasts are based on mathematical models run by extremely powerful supercomputers that deterministically predict what will happen in the future. Since they were first used in the 1950s, these models have become increasingly detailed and require more and more computer power.
Several projects aim to replace these computationally intensive tasks with much less demanding AI, including a DeepMind tool that forecasts localized rainfall over short periods of time. But like most AI models, the problem is that they are “black boxes” whose inner workings are mysterious and whose methods can’t be explained or replicated. And meteorologists say that if these models are trained on historical data, they will have a hard time predicting unprecedented events now being caused by climate change.
now, Dmitry Kochkov The researchers, from Google Research in California, and his colleagues created a model called NeuralGCM that balances the two approaches.
Typical climate models divide the Earth's surface into a grid of cells up to 100 kilometers in size. Due to limitations in computing power, simulating at high resolution is impractical. Phenomena such as clouds, turbulence, and convection within these cells are only approximated by computer codes that are continually adjusted to more closely match observed data. This approach, called parameterization, aims to at least partially capture small-scale phenomena that are not captured by broader physical models.
NeuralGCM has been trained to take over this small-scale approximation, making it less computationally intensive and more accurate. In the paper, the researchers say their model can process 70,000 days of simulations in 24 hours using a single chip called a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). By comparison, competing models, called X-Shield A supercomputer with thousands of processing units is used to process the simulation, which lasts just 19 days.
The paper also claims that NeuralGCM performs predictions at a rate comparable to or better than best-in-class models. Google did not respond to a request for an interview. New Scientist.
Tim Palmer The Oxford researcher says the work is an interesting attempt to find a third way between pure physics and opaque AI approximations: “I'm uncomfortable with the idea of completely abandoning the equations of motion and moving to AI systems that even experts say they don't fully understand,” he says.
This hybrid approach is likely to spur further discussion and research in the modeling community, but time will tell whether it will be adopted by modeling engineers around the world, he says. “It's a good step in the right direction and the type of research we should be doing. It's great to see different alternatives being explored.”
According to a team of astronomers from the University of Hull, spotting a deepfake is as simple as looking for stars in the eyes. They propose that AI-generated fakes can be identified by examining human eyes in a similar manner to studying photos of galaxies. This means that if the reflections in a person’s eye match, then the image is likely of a real human. If not, it is likely a deepfake.
In this image, the person on the left (Scarlett Johansson) is real and the one on the right is generated by AI. Below their faces are painted eyeballs. The reflections in the eyeballs match in the real person but are inaccurate (from a physical standpoint) in the fake one. Image credit: Adejumoke Owolabi / CC BY 4.0.
“The eye reflections match up for real people but are incorrect (from a physics standpoint) for fake people,” said Prof Kevin Pimblett, from the University of Hull.
Professor Pimblett and his colleagues analysed the light reflections of the human eye in real and AI-generated images.
They then quantified the reflections using a method commonly used in astronomy to check for consistency between the reflections in the left and right eyes.
In fake images, the reflections in both eyes are often inconsistent, while in real images the reflections in both eyes are usually the same.
“To measure the shape of a galaxy we analyse whether it has a compact centre, whether it has symmetry and how smooth it is – we analyse the distribution of light,” Professor Pimblett said.
“We automatically detect the reflections and run their morphological features through CAS (density, asymmetry, smoothness) Gini Coefficient. This is to compare the similarities between the left and right eyeballs.”
“Our findings suggest that there are some differences between the two types of deepfakes.”
The Gini coefficient is typically used to measure how light in an image of a galaxy is distributed from pixel to pixel.
This measurement is done by ordering the pixels that make up an image of a galaxy in order of increasing flux, and comparing the result with what would be expected from a perfectly uniform flux distribution.
A Gini value of 0 is a galaxy whose light is evenly distributed across all pixels in the image, and a Gini value of 1 is a galaxy whose light is all concentrated in one pixel.
The astronomers also tested the CAS parameter, a tool originally developed by astronomers to measure the distribution of a galaxy’s light to determine its morphology, but found it to be useless for predicting false eyes.
“It’s important to note that this is not a silver bullet for detecting fake images,” Professor Pimblett said.
“There are false positives and false negatives, and it doesn’t detect everything.”
“But this method provides a foundation, a plan of attack, in the arms race to detect deepfakes.”
In this new image, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope focuses its lens on the center of spiral galaxy NGC 3430.
This Hubble image shows NGC 3430, a spiral galaxy about 100 million light-years away in the constellation Cygnus Minor. The color image was created from separate exposures taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the visible and near-infrared spectral regions. The image is based on data acquired through two filters. Color is produced by assigning a different hue to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image courtesy of NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Kilpatrick.
NGC 3430 It is located about 100 million light years away in the constellation Cygnus Minor.
Also known as IC 2613, LEDA 32614 and UGC 5982, the galaxy has a diameter of about 85,000 light-years.
NGC 3430 First discovered It was discovered on December 7, 1785 by German-born British astronomer William Herschel.
“Several other galaxies lie relatively close to this one, just outside the frame,” the Hubble astronomers said.
“One of them is close enough that gravitational interactions could drive star formation in NGC 3430.”
“NGC 3430 is such an excellent example of a galactic spiral that it may be the reason it became part of the sample Edwin Hubble used to define the classification of galaxies.”
“The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was named after him in 1926. Wrote the paper The project classifies about 400 galaxies according to their appearance: spiral, barred spiral, lenticular, elliptical, and irregular.”
“This easy-to-understand typology was highly influential, and the modern, more detailed systems used by astronomers today are still based on it.”
“NGC 3430 itself is a SAc galaxy, i.e. a spiral galaxy with no central bar and open, well-defined arms,” the researchers added.
“At the time Hubble’s paper was published, the study of galaxies themselves was still in its infancy.”
“Thanks to Henrietta Levitt’s work on Cepheid variables, Hubble had only two years earlier settled the debate over whether these ‘nebulae’, as they were then called, were located within our galaxy or whether they were distant, separate stars.”
“He himself refers to an ‘extragalactic nebula’ in his paper, suggesting that it is outside the Milky Way galaxy.”
“Once it became clear that these distant objects were very different from real nebulae, the highly poetic term ‘island universe’ became popular for a time.”
“NGC 3430 may still seem worthy of this moniker, but today we refer to it and objects like it simply as a galaxy.”
‘T“There’s a giant rock that fell from the sky on an island in Scotland. They call it Dragonstone,” Tears of Metal director Raphael Toulouse explains, “and the British send their general out to [a look]”
“But then the general finds the rock and goes a little rogue, a little bit like Apocalypse Now. He breaks ties with the English, takes control of the island, and the English start mining this giant rock to make weapons and armor, but it also affects their minds. So the Scots organize to take the island back. And that’s where you come in.”
In Tears of Metal, you play as the leader of a Scottish battalion, and your job is to get closer and closer to Dragonstone while cutting down breakaway English troops. But as you get closer to the supernatural meteorite, the beautiful green backdrop of the Scottish Highlands gradually transforms into a hellish world. “It gets weirder and weirder, and by the end it looks almost post-apocalyptic,” Toulouse says.
You start with around 10 soldiers, but you can recruit more, and they’ll get stronger over time. Tears of Metal is a roguelike, so if you’re defeated you’ll be sent back to the start of the game, but you’ll keep any troops you’ve gathered for your next playthrough. However, just like in the alien-fighting XCOM series, if one of your soldiers dies in battle, he’s lost forever. The stakes are high, and you may have to rush to rescue your favorite characters before they’re wiped out for good.
Sensitivity warning: imitation blood.
The game is reminiscent of Dynasty Warriors, a series in which powerful warriors mow down hundreds of enemies in fantastical re-enactments of historical battles. Toulouse acknowledges that the series was a “huge influence,” but says the game relies less on button mashing. Up to four players can play together, each with their own army.
Toulouse is CEO of Paper Cult, an indie studio he co-founded in Montreal, Canada, nearly a decade ago. Which begs the question: why a French-Canadian indie studio is making a game set in Scotland? “That’s a good question,” Toulouse says, adding that the game originally had a completely different setting. Settling on medieval Scotland was a marketing decision; they wanted something instantly recognizable. But there’s also the fact that Toulouse is partial to the movies of Mel Gibson.
“I was a huge Braveheart fan,” he says. “I would always watch the movie with my friends after school. I would watch it over and over again. I loved the action scenes, and the Braveheart soundtrack is amazing.”
Toulouse has no personal connection to Scotland, but says Paper Cult has “a lot of connections with Scottish people” and works with writers who visit friends in Scotland every year. “We’re really trying to involve Scottish people in the project,” he adds, noting that the dialogue, in particular, will be of interest to Scots who still remember the terrible tragedy. Narration of William Wallace’s election campaign Age of Empires II users will be relieved to hear this.
Paper Cult has been working on Tears of Metal for around four years, but the release date is still a long way off, slated for next year. But since the game was revealed at Summer Game Fest in early June, Toulouse has been amazed by the audience’s response. He says it has been added to wishlists on Steam more than 100,000 times. “Within the first few days, we had over 100,000 people added to wishlists,” he says. [after the announcement]we surpassed [our previous game] “This is my lifetime wish list for Bloodroots,” Toulouse says with a hint of excitement. “I’m super excited.”
Yellow crystals Elemental Sulfur According to the Curiosity team, the discoveries were made when NASA's Curiosity rover accidentally drove over a rock on May 30, 2024, breaking it apart.
Yellow crystals of elemental sulfur on Mars. Image courtesy of NASA.
Although sulfur may remind you of the smell of rotten eggs, elemental sulfur is odorless.
It forms only under a narrow range of conditions that scientists have not linked to the history of the place.
Curiosity then discovered lots of bright chunks of rock that looked similar to the rock the rover had crushed.
“Finding a rock block made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist and a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“It can't be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
It was one of several Curiosity discovered while driving off-road through a channel in Gediz Canyon, a 5-kilometer (3-mile) groove that runs gently down part of Mount Sharp, where Curiosity has been climbing the base of the mountain since 2014.
The channel was discovered from space years before the rover launched and is one of the main reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars.
Researchers believe the channel was carved out by flows of liquid water and debris, leaving a ridge of rock and sediment stretching for 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) on the mountainside below the channel.
The goal is to better understand how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues are helping, there is still much to learn from this dramatic formation.
Since Curiosity arrived in the strait earlier this year, scientists have been studying whether a large pile of rubble that rose from the bottom of the strait was formed by an ancient flood or landslide.
The latest clues from the spacecraft suggest that both played a role: some mountains appear to have been left by powerful flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more localized landslides.
These conclusions are based on the rocks found in the debris middens: while stones carried by water are rounded like river stones, some of the debris middens are littered with more angular rocks that appear to have been deposited by dry avalanches.
Eventually, water seeped into all the material that had settled here.
Chemical reactions caused by water have caused white “halo” shapes to appear on some of the rocks.
Erosion by wind and sand has revealed the shapes of these halos over the years.
“This has not been a quiet period for Mars,” said Dr. Becky Williams, a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's Mast Camera.
“There has been a lot of activity here. We're seeing multiple flows through the channel, including heavy flooding and rocky flows.”
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This article is a version of a press release provided by NASA.
yes
You can track your calories, steps, and even the number of streams on your favorite songs. Now, you can also quantify your awesomeness with Aura Points, which determine your level of attractiveness. (It’s basically charisma, and if you didn’t know that, you just lost 100 Aura points.)
Asking someone out and getting a “yes” results in losing 100 aura points. Using Snapchat after the age of 19 is frowned upon and leads to a deduction of 1,000 aura points. Answering a question confidently in class, even if it’s wrong, puts you in the negative.
According to a TikTok explanation, this trend has caused a 378% spike in posts with the hashtag #aurapoints between May and June. It’s all about exuding a positive, carefree, and confident attitude to earn points and gain entry into the cool-kids club.
The concept of Aura Points is a modern twist on the elusive “it” factor, popularized by stars like Clara Bow and Evelyn Nesbitt, now reimagined for the younger generation. Gain your Aura Points to join the cool club, or risk losing them and facing consequences.
Stories on TikTok illustrate how people earn and lose points. Acting breezy and confident in tough situations earns you points, while staying with a cheating partner results in a deduction that no aura person would accept. Some scenarios are absurd but entertaining.
While Aura Points are mostly light-hearted, some creators use them to symbolize personal growth moments. It can be a way to reflect on important life choices and behaviors that define one’s character positively.
Young TikTok users share anecdotes of their point-earning and losing experiences. The trend aligns with Gen Z’s interest in cosmic belief systems like astrology. It offers a playful yet insightful approach to evaluating personal growth and character development.
Aura Points may seem like a modern TikTok fad, but they draw parallels to ancient virtue ethics from Greek and Roman philosophy. It’s more than just a superficial trend; it encourages self-reflection and moral alignment with personal values.
The concept of Aura Points also relates to moral credit, where positive actions counterbalance potential negative ones. It serves as a gamified system to assess behavior and invite constructive criticism.
Just like Alain de Botton’s notion of “status anxiety,” Aura Points reflect the ongoing concern for how others perceive us and our quest for self-worth. It’s a way for individuals to navigate social evaluation and engage in status transactions.
Understanding the philosophy behind this TikTok trend? Congratulations, you’ve earned 1,000 Aura points!
An extensive number of the 8.5 million devices affected by the recent global IT outage have been restored online, as reported by the cybersecurity company involved in the incident.
CrowdStrike mentioned that they are currently experimenting with technology to expedite the rebooting process of systems, while experts caution that recovering fully from the IT outage last Friday might take several weeks.
During the incident, numerous flights were canceled, broadcasters went off-air, medical appointments were disrupted, and countless PCs failed to boot after a CrowdStrike software update unintentionally caused devices using the Microsoft Windows OS to malfunction.
CrowdStrike posted updates on social media outlining the progress in resolving the glitch. According to an expert, this incident caused “the biggest IT outage in history.”
The US company stated, “A substantial number of the roughly 8.5 million Windows devices affected are now operational and back online.”
CrowdStrike remains focused on restoring all systems as quickly as possible, and of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices, a significant number are back online and operational.
Working with our customers, we tested new techniques to accelerate the affected areas…
CrowdStrike mentioned ongoing tests for new methods to speed up the repair process of impacted systems, aiming to make this technology accessible to businesses and organizations.
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister confirmed that CrowdStrike plans to implement an automated fix similar to Microsoft’s to address this issue in an upcoming update.
Experts cautioned that affected computers might require manual repairs and could face prolonged restoration times since the outage.
Over 1,500 flights were canceled in the US for a third consecutive day, with Delta Airlines in Atlanta particularly struggling, while 45 flights were canceled in the UK on Saturday.
Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Air Lines, stated that critical applications within the airline’s IT systems were impacted by the issue. He mentioned that crew tracking-related tools were affected, causing difficulty in managing the high number of changes due to the outage.
Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, canceled 400 flights over the weekend primarily due to an IT issue.
NHS England in the UK issued warnings about potential delays as they work on restoring the health service from the outage. They advised patients with appointments to attend unless instructed otherwise.
The British Medical Association mentioned that regular GP services might not resume immediately due to significant IT-related delays.
An NHS spokesperson stated, “The system is back online now, and with the dedicated efforts of NHS staff, we hope to minimize any further disruptions. However, please expect some delays as services are being restored, especially with GPs needing to reschedule appointments.”
Pharmacy services in the UK are anticipated to be slower than usual as the recovery process continues.
Nick Kaye, president of the National Pharmacists Association, urged customers to be patient as local pharmacies work through the backlog of prescriptions caused by the IT outage last week.
circleWhen you enter this unique boutique video game festival, you’ll be greeted by bullet hell shooters with a painterly twist. ZOE Go away! As you dodge and fire attacks at breakneck speed, the game immerses you in an intoxicating shower of pointillist color, dazzling your eyes and challenging your thumbs. Leave after reading Initially resembling dark fantasy Quake clones, these games present a peculiar challenge of checking text messages on your phone while battling through dungeons. They are subversive games that cleverly twist common design tropes.
Violating the norm, the Glasgow Independent Games Festival was previously known as the Southside Game Festival. The recent event was held at Civic House, nestled in the shadow of the M8, a concrete eyesore cutting through Glasgow. The showcased games, created by developers residing in or near Glasgow, boast quirkiness and lower budgets compared to mainstream titles. Co-founder Joe Bain aims to place these works within games’ broader cultural context, steering away from the profit-driven atmosphere of trade shows like Gamescom.
Breaking the rules with wit and fun…Glasgow Independent Games Festival Photo: Mhairi Teresa
During a panel on “Unconventional Games,” game maker Stephen Gill-Murphy from Glasgow (aka Katamites) offered a sharp critique of what he termed the media’s “cult of depth.” He argued that games often lead players deeper into virtual worlds only to reveal the lack of coherence at the end. Gill-Murphy transformed this idea into a chilling horror game with intentional flatness called Murderer’s Anthology, available for play at the event.
At the festival, participants engage in activities like making amends with deceased virtual pets through Tamagotchi Seance, where they interact with virtual animals through spoken dialogue. Another intriguing game on display is Apartment Story, a simulator showcasing the chaotic everyday life in a single room with elements of a gangster thriller and The Sims.
An unconventional convention…the Glasgow Independent Games Festival. Photo: Mhairi Teresa
Spontaneous interactions are vital at these events. Participants come together to engage in a language decoding game like Kevin (1997-2077), deciphering cryptic images and text without clear instructions. This collaborative puzzle-solving process transforms the game into a participatory artwork, offering a collective experience with no definitive answers.
While Scottish video games were once synonymous with Edinburgh’s Rockstar North, the co-founder Ryan Caulfield emphasizes the abundance of “weird and wonderful” options available today. Amidst the prevalence of profit-driven live-service looter-shooters, playing games that defy conventions with irreverence at this festival is truly exciting.
The recent focus in news has been on the progress of artificial intelligence (AI) in the past couple of years. ChatGPT and DALL·E are examples of AI models that many people associate with AI. AI tools are utilized by astronomers to analyze vast data sets, which would be impractical to manually go through. Machine Learning Algorithms (ML) are crucial for categorizing data based on predetermined parameters derived from previous studies. An example of ML usage is in the identification of elusive patterns in sky surveys by astronomers, though the limitations of this method in classifying objects in space are not thoroughly understood.
To address these limitations, a group of scientists led by Pamela Marchand-Cortes at the University of La Serena in Chile tested the capabilities of ML. They used ML models like Rotation forest, Random forest, and Logit Boost to categorize objects beyond the Milky Way galaxy based on their properties. The team aimed to see if ML could accurately categorize objects already manually classified. The challenge was in the dense region of sky obscured by dust in the Milky Way, known as the “Avoidance Zone.” The team’s experiment showed that ML had difficulty in categorizing objects in this challenging area.
The team gathered and analyzed data from X-ray images to manually identify objects and compare ML’s performance. ML correctly identified large objects like galaxies in only a few instances, showcasing its limitations. Despite the potential for ML to assist in studying obscured regions of the universe, the team recommended training AI models with diverse samples to enhance accuracy in future research.
a
Climbers cling to dizzying rock faces, toes digging in, knuckles white, limbs trembling with extreme tension. In this perilous moment, they have a few options: move quickly to regain their balance, rest for a few seconds, or simply let go and hope the belay can support their weight as they succumb to the massif.
Cairn, the new “survival climbing game” from French studio The Game Bakers, is full of dangerous, panic-inducing moments like this. There’s no visible stamina bar, meaning players must derive all their information from the state of their controllable climber, Aava. When under extreme stress, Aava’s breathing becomes intense and rapid and shallow, and her body begins to tremble. “We want you to focus on her posture and the railing in front of her,” says creative director Emeric Thoa.
Beneath this naturalistic presentation lies a huge amount of mathematical calculation. Using only the left analog stick, you control all of Aava’s body and limbs, and lock in handholds and footholds with the press of a button. The system calculates the stress on Aava’s limbs and core in real time, which determines the most physically realistic next movement for Aava. “Limbs are chosen automatically by the system; it predicts which arms and legs will move smoothly and easily,” Thoa explains. “The challenge for the player is to keep Aava balanced.”
This kind of dynamic scrambling is a far cry from Assassin’s Creed’s automated parkour, which has you clinging to stone walls with the pull of a trigger, or the navigation puzzles of recent climbing hit Jusant, which have you clinging to mineral outcrops on a predetermined path up a mountain. Cairn makes even the most dizzying activities even more complex by combining a freeform control system with a meticulously designed mountain, whose intersecting routes even Thoa and his colleagues don’t fully understand.
“It’s 2024, and there are words like ‘procedural’ and ‘AI,’ but we designed this mountain and built it completely by hand, placing every rock and crevice and handhold,” Thoa says. “It’s really hard work, and very iterative. I’m really grateful to our level design team.”
What sights and emotions await the player and Arva on their journey? Tore remains tight-lipped, saying only that he and the studio consulted with renowned mountaineer Elizabeth Revol, who spoke of “the intense freedom you feel when you push yourself past your limits at the top of the Earth.” Another detail that stayed in the game’s creator’s mind was that upon reaching the highest, thinnest mountain air, Revol experienced an almost delirious euphoria, “crying, screaming, going into a kind of strange trance.”
Cairn arrives with multiple game modes: the story sees Aava take on a gruelling, multi-day climb of a single mountain, and there’s an Expedition mode with additional mountains and challenges. Those willing to forgo the safety of the rope can also climb “free solo.” “This is where the real fun begins,” declares Toa, with a devilish glower, who, unlike Joussant, “will definitely die” in Cairn.
So what’s the Dark Souls of climbing games? Probably. But as Thoa stresses, “this isn’t a rage game.” Rather, he says, Cairn aims to convey “what climbing and alpinism is really about.” “You try, you fall, you try again, you fall, and then when you manage to get up, it’s very satisfying.”
Child safety experts have claimed that Apple lacks effective monitoring and scanning protocols for child sexual abuse materials on its platforms, posing concerns about addressing the increasing amount of such content associated with artificial intelligence.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the UK has criticized Apple for underestimating the prevalence of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on its products. Data obtained by the NSPCC from the police shows that perpetrators in England and Wales use Apple’s iCloud, iMessage, and FaceTime for storing and sharing more CSAM than in all other reported countries combined.
Based on information collected through a Freedom of Information request and shared exclusively with The Guardian, child protection organizations discovered that Apple was linked to 337 cases of child abuse imagery offenses recorded in England and Wales between April 2022 and March 2023. In 2023, Apple reported only 267 suspected instances of child abuse imagery globally to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), contrasting with much higher numbers reported by other leading tech companies, with Google submitting over 1.47 million and Meta reporting more than 30.6 million, as per NCMEC reports mentioned in the Annual Report.
All US-based technology companies are mandated to report any detected cases of CSAM on their platforms to the NCMEC. Apple’s iMessage service is encrypted, preventing Apple from viewing user messages, similar to Meta’s WhatsApp, which reported about 1.4 million suspected CSAM cases to the NCMEC in 2023.
Richard Collard, head of child safety online policy at NSPCC, expressed concern over Apple’s discrepancy in handling child abuse images and urged the company to prioritize safety and comply with online safety legislation in the UK.
Apple declined to comment but referenced a statement from August where it decided against implementing a program to scan iCloud photos for CSAM, citing user privacy and security as top priorities.
In late 2022, Apple abandoned plans for an iCloud photo scanning tool called Neural Match, which would have compared uploaded images to a database of known child abuse images. This decision faced opposition from digital rights groups and child safety advocates.
Experts are worried about Apple’s AI system, Apple Intelligence, introduced in June, especially as AI-generated child abuse content poses risks to children and law enforcement’s ability to protect them.
Child safety advocates are concerned about the increase in AI-generated CSAM reports and the potential harm caused by such images to survivors and victims of child abuse.
Sarah Gardner, CEO of Heat Initiative, criticized Apple’s insufficient efforts in detecting CSAM and urged the company to enhance its safety measures.
Child safety experts worry about the implications of Apple’s AI technology on the safety of children and the prevalence of CSAM online.
It’s clear that people are not prepared for the “digital worker” yet.
CEO Sarah Franklin learned this lesson. Lattice is a platform for HR and performance management that offers services like performance coaching, talent reviews, onboarding automation, compensation management, and many other HR tools to over 5,000 organizations globally.
So, what exactly is a Digital Employee? According to Franklin, avatars like engineer Devin, lawyer Harvey, service agent Einstein, and sales agent Piper have “entered the workplace and become colleagues.” However, these are not real employees but AI-powered bots like Cognitive.ai and Eligible performing tasks on behalf of humans.
Salesforce Einstein, for example, helps sales and marketing agents forecast revenue, complete tasks, and connect with prospects. These digital workers like Devin and Piper don’t require health insurance, paid vacation, or retirement plans.
Despite backlash, Franklin announced on July 9th that the company will support digital employees as part of its platform and treat them like human workers.
However, this decision faced criticism on platforms like LinkedIn for treating AI agents as employees. Disagreements arose on how this approach disrespects actual human employees and reduces them to mere “resources” to be measured against machines.
The objections eventually led Franklin to reconsider the company’s plans. The controversy raised legitimate concerns about the inevitability of the “digital employee.”
AI is still in its early stages, evident from the failures of Google and Microsoft’s AI models. While the future may hold potential for digital employees to outperform humans someday, that time is not now.
Utilizing artificial intelligence to analyze GP records for hidden patterns has significantly improved cancer detection rates for doctors.
The “C the Signs” AI tool used by general practitioner practices has increased cancer detection rates from 58.7% to 66.0%. This tool examines patients’ medical records, compiling past medical history, test results, prescriptions, treatments, and personal characteristics like age, postcode, and family history to indicate potential cancer risks.
Additionally, the tool prompts doctors to inquire about new symptoms and recommends tests or referrals for patients if it detects patterns suggesting a heightened risk of certain cancer types.
Currently in use in about 1,400 practices in England, “C the Signs” was tested in 35 practices in the East of England in May 2021, covering 420,000 patients.
Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a study revealed that cancer detection rates rose from 58.7% to 66.0% by March 31, 2022, in clinics using the system, while remaining similar in those that did not utilize it.
Dr. Bea Bakshi, who developed “C the Signs” with colleague Miles Paling, emphasized the importance of early and quick cancer diagnosis through their system detecting over 50 types of cancer.
The tool was validated in a previous study analyzing 118,677 patients, where 7,295 were diagnosed with cancer and 7,056 were accurately identified by the algorithm.
Notably, the system’s ability to predict if a patient was unlikely to have cancer resulted in only 2.8% of these cases being confirmed with cancer diagnosis within six months.
Concerned by delays in cancer diagnosis, Bakshi developed the tool after witnessing a patient’s late pancreatic cancer diagnosis three weeks before their death, highlighting the importance of early detection.
“With two-thirds of deaths from untestable cancers, early diagnosis is crucial,” Bakshi emphasized.
In the UK, GPs follow National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines to decide when to refer patients for cancer diagnosis, guided by tools like “C the Signs.”
The NHS’s long-term cancer plan aims to diagnose 75% of cancers at stage 1 or 2 by 2028, utilizing innovative technologies like the Garelli blood test for early cancer detection.
Decision support systems like “C the Signs,” improving patient awareness of cancer symptoms, and enhancing access to diagnostic technologies are essential for effective cancer detection, according to healthcare professionals.
NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer, Professor Peter Johnson, highlighted the progress in increasing early cancer diagnoses and access to timely treatments, emphasizing the importance of leveraging technology for improved cancer care.
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