Block, Jack Dorsey’s Financial Technology Company, is letting go of nearly 1,000 current employees while also implementing other changes to its business in its second major move in over a year.
Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter before founding the Block in 2009 and previously served as the CEO of Twitter, informed employees of the impending layoffs in an email titled “Small Block,” which was seen by the Guardian. The layoffs will impact over 930 employees, transition almost 200 managers to unmanaged roles, and close nearly 800 open positions.
Block operates payment platform Square, money transfer app CashApp, and music streaming service Tidal.
Dorsey stated in the email that the layoffs and organizational changes were not aimed at specific financial targets, replacing individuals with AI, or changing staffing limits. This reorganization follows a previous one in early 2024, where around 1,000 employees were laid off and Dorsey reduced the workforce to approximately 12,000 employees.
Instead, Dorsey explained that this latest reorganization is intended to raise performance standards, streamline the organization, and promote quicker decision-making. Last year, Dorsey used a similar approach in notifying staff about layoffs, emphasizing the need to “rebuild like a startup.”
In the recent email, Dorsey expressed that “we have been slow to act, and that is not fair to individuals or the company.”
The Block’s stocks have declined by 29% this year. Despite Dorsey taking on more operational responsibilities, concerns have been raised by shareholders about the company’s revenue and profits. Dorsey highlighted in the email that part of his role is to increase the company’s stock value, and the reorganization will enable them to focus and execute effectively towards that goal.
“When we identify a need for action, we must act decisively, and there has been a lack of action,” the CEO stated. “We need to enhance accessibility, transparency, and automation as our industry must evolve quickly to stay ahead of changing trends.”
A spokesperson for the Block did not respond to requests for comments or emails.
A nest box with windows made of transparent wood arranged with heat lamps to test the thermal properties of the material
Bharat Baruah et al. (2025)
The windows and smartphone screens can one day be built from clear wood mixed with egg whites and may be safely composted at the end of life.
Researchers are interested in using wood to make biodegradable alternatives to glass with better insulating properties or replacing plastics with electronic devices. Wood was previously transformed into a transparent material by altering or removing organic polymer lignin from it and injecting epoxy as a replacement, which produces a non-biodegradable product.
now Bharat Baruah Kennesaw State University in Georgia and his colleagues have developed a process of replacing synthetic epoxy with natural egg whites and rice extracts.
“[Previous examples of transparent wood are] It’s very difficult to integrate, it’s difficult to make, and you spend a lot of time, energy and money making them, so we thought of making something that can be easily made naturally,” says Barua.
He was urged to use egg whites in his home building in Assam, India, which dates back to the 1500s, using a cement-like mixture containing sand, sticky rice and egg whites. “It was cement from the time and those buildings are still there,” Barua says. “They are still there, over the fourth century and beyond, and after the fifth century, but that has always been fascinating to me.”
The team ingested a sheet of balsa wood, soaked sodium sulfate, sodium hydroxide, and diluted bleach in a vacuum chamber, removing lignin and hemicellulose, leaving only a paper-like cellulose structure. The voids of the ingredients were then filled with a mixture of rice extract and egg whites and then dried in an oven at 60°C (140°F) to create a translucent plate with a slight brown tint. “It’s not 100% transparent, but it’s translucent,” says Barua. “And it’s biodegradable.”
Barua and his colleagues built a small birdhouse equipped with clear wooden windows as a basic mockup, and found to remain cool at 5-6°C (9-11°F) when exposed to heat lamps than the same birdhouse equipped with glass windows. The study will be presented today at the American Chemical Society’s Spring Conference in San Diego, California.
Barua said further research will investigate technologies to improve the strength and thermal properties of the material, as well as transparency.
Kashiwara Kuniki, a Japanese mathematician, has been awarded the Abel Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics. Dr. Kashiwara’s work combines algebra, geometry, and differential equations in a unique and abstract manner.
The Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, responsible for the Abel Prize, announced the honor on Wednesday morning.
“He resolved difficult open speculations and connected previously unknown areas, surprising mathematicians,” said Helge Holden, chairman of the awards committee.
Mathematicians can use connections between different mathematical domains to address complex problems and gain a deeper understanding.
Kawakaze, 78, from Kyoto University, is considered “very important in many different fields of mathematics,” stated Holden.
Dr. Kashiwara, when asked if his work solved real-world problems, responded with a negative. The honor comes with approximately $700,000 in prize money.
Unlike Nobel Prize winners, Dr. Kashiwara was informed of his accolade a week prior to the public announcement.
The Norwegian Academy surprises Abel Prize winners with notifications similar to surprise birthday parties.
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Marit Westerguard, executive director of the Norwegian Academy, personally informed Dr. Kashiwara of his selection as Abel of the year.
Dr. Kashiwara, initially confused due to internet issues, was eventually able to grasp the news conveyed to him in Japanese.
Having been attracted to mathematics from a young age, Dr. Kashiwara’s work reflects his passion for algebraic analysis.
Real-world phenomena are explained using real and imaginary numbers, showcasing the interconnection between mathematics and the physical world.
Dr. Kashiwara’s impactful work in mathematics links abstract ideas to insightful combinations for mathematicians across various disciplines.
His innovative approaches, such as the Crystal Base, have opened new avenues of research in the field.
Welcome to opt-out. A semi-regular column that will help you navigate online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The final column covered what to do with the 23andMe account after the company filed bankruptcy. If you would like to skip to a section for specific tips, click on the “Jump to Jump” menu at the top of this article.
If you are a visa or green card holder who has plans to travel to the US, reports that people have been ousted at the airport for messages found on their devices may encourage you to make a second trip plan. You may ask Customs and Border Protection (CBP) if you can search for your phone, if you can opt out, and what to do to minimize the risk.
The simple answer is yes, CBP can search for devices. Constitutional protections are generally weak at US borders, including airports. You can try to opt out, but in some circumstances you may be willing to risk the potential consequences of not complying, which can include confiscation of your device.
Privacy experts say everyone needs to conduct a personal risk assessment. This should include immigration status, travel history and data on your mobile phone. Depending on your situation, data that may not be sensitive to others will not fit every solution into every solution. For example, if CBP attempts to search for a mobile phone or wants to lock down your device before heading to the airport, it could affect its rating.
Although CBP said it searched only about 47,000 devices of 420 million people crossing US borders in 2024, it was not as easy to figure out whether there is a risk of device searching, as the Guardian said border enforcement was unpredictable under the Trump administration. French officials said French scientists were recently kicked out at a Texas airport after immigration officers found texts critical of Trump on his phone.
“The ultra-conservative perspective is to assume that they are completely hinged and that even the most benign reasons for travel are targeting non-citizens in searching for these devices,” said Sophia Cope, a senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit digital rights group.
If you are a US citizen, you must be hospitalized in the country. That said, there are still some risks in some jurisdictions that devices are being searched for domestic reasons as CBP will allow them to work with the FBI or local police to proceed with domestic investigations.
There are steps you can take to make it difficult for CBP executives to access the device and its data. So, what should you do to protect your mobile phone data from searching? The main thing is to prepare before heading to the airport. This is what you should think about:
Determine whether to comply with phone searches
Before you travel, start preparing for the possibility of being drawn into a secondary screening. First, you need to determine whether immigration officers will comply with whether they ask if they can search for devices. They may request a password for your mobile phone, or you may unlock the device. Ideally, you will unlock your device yourself and will not share your password. You can decide not to give your consent, but it has its own risk.
From a Guide to the border From EFF: “This presents a no-win dilemma. If the traveler is compliant, the agent can scrutinize and copy sensitive digital information. If the traveler declines, the agent can seize the device and expose the traveler to additional questions and detention.”
If you reject a search, the officer may decide that you are not worth the trouble because you are not at high risk. They may let you go. However, on the back, the decline can lengthen the process or the border agent can confiscate the device. If they’ve confiscated your device, then you can confiscate your device so that they can document that they have your device when you try to get it back, and that they can document that they have your device when you try to get it back. Without giving up the password, immigrant staff can unlock it themselves using a variety of tools on their devices. You can also try to guess your password, so make sure you have a strong, long password.
There are many reasons why you might not want to risk being suppressed or confiscated from your device for longer than you have already done.
If you plan to adhere to phone searches to avoid further complications, you can search your phone manually or with forensic tools. It’s worth preparing for both types of searches.
Turn off your phone and ID before entering the US
EFF recommends turning off your device completely before entering the US. This could potentially bring your phone or laptop back to an enhanced security state, which could make it difficult for anyone to break the encryption on their devices.
Privacy advocates also recommend that you ensure that your device requires a password to decrypt or unlock it. For example, if you are using a Face ID or fingerprint to unlock your phone, it will allow executives to use it to access the device.
Please do not wipe the phone
You may think that the most protective option is to wipe your phone completely before traveling, use a burner without a phone, or travel. However, EFF’s COPE said it could actually raise doubts.
“If people do that, they’ll feel bad and they’ll just ignore them,” Coop said. “If you cross a border without data on your device, you can in itself consider it suspicious.”
Instead, we suggest selectively delete that information, rather than wiping the entire device, if there is data or text that appears to be cooperative but you don’t want to access, instead of wiping it all out.
The most important step to take before you travel is to encrypt the data on your device. This is different from using encrypted messaging services such as signals. Device encryption makes it difficult for CBP executives to access files on their phones or laptops or recover deleted files, even if they confiscate their devices and submit to sophisticated forensic tools.
Fortunately, All recent models Full device encryption will automatically be turned on for both iPhones and most Android phones. On Android, the “Security” menu is[詳細設定]Double check that yours is turned on in the tab. As CBP cannot walk through the front door of the device, you need to choose a strong password that is not easy to guess. Here is Good primer How to create a strong password.
“This encryption is as good as the encryption passphrase someone uses on their devices,” said Bill Buddington, senior staff technician at EFF. “So the best advice is to choose a powerful 9-12 random (or 4-5 words) passphrase for your device and make sure that biometric unlocks like face ID and touch ID rotate. off You can confiscate any device when passing through sensitive areas such as checkpoints or anywhere else. ”
On the other hand, laptops don’t come with all device encryption. Some encryption tools can be used to encrypt your data. MacOS has a tool called FileVault that can be accessed by searching in the top right corner of the screen. Some Windows computers come with a tool called a bitlocker that can be used to encrypt devices. EFF has a complete list of tools that can be used on various operating systems here.
For those traveling with devices owned by their employer or someone else, you should have conversations with them before you travel to make sure your devices are well protected.
How to safely delete data
In addition to encrypting your device, you should not want to delete certain text, apps, photos, etc. that you think are sensitive or show it to government agents.
To safely delete this data, there are several steps and limitations. If you haven’t wiped your phone completely, you may choose to delete certain files as there may be suspicion. That more practical option may be effective for manual searches and rough searches, but may not be sufficient if more sophisticated searches occur with US immigrant personnel. The files may not be completely deleted, or there may be references to these files that are still on your device.
In addition to ensuring that your device is encrypted, you must also make sure you have deleted the files from the Trash. For example, in iMessage, clicking Filter in the top left corner will find the “Recently Deleted” folder. Make sure you cleared the text from there. On iPhone, there is one file It has been deleted Both the main Imessage interface and the “recently deleted” file are permanently deleted, according to the company.
Cope recommends preemptively deleting apps you don’t want to search for. This protection method is incomplete as advanced searches may reveal that the app is installed, but for example, in manual searches, it is a way to avoid searching for WhatsApp messages.
Go to the cloud storage server
During a search for law enforcement within US boundaries, cloud storage servers are less protected than devices. However, at the border, there is currently a policy in place that prohibits CBP from searching for online cloud services. In reality, that means that immigration officers need to go into plane mode before searching for their mobile phones.
“They specifically say that executives are only allowed to consider data that they are "resident on the device,"” Cope says. “It’s data that’s actually on your phone, laptop, or camera hard drive. If it’s an internet-connected device, you’re supposed to be disconnected from the internet.”
If for some reason there is data that cannot be permanently deleted or cannot be deleted, you can delete it from your device and save it to cloud storage such as iCloud, Google Drive, or Microsoft One Drive.
This is a high-level guide that may not touch on the details of your situation. A complete comprehensive guide on how to protect your device with Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Elon Musk’s X stands to gain financially if the government removes £800 million in taxes on US tech companies as part of the economic deal with Donald Trump.
Dan Niedel, head of nonprofit tax policy, mentioned that social media platforms will be affected by the digital services tax in the negotiations between the US and the UK.
“It’s clear that X will be obligated to pay the DST,” he stated.
The Minister has been in talks about eliminating the DST as part of the negotiations with the US, in exchange for the Trump administration allowing the UK to avoid tariffs that would be imposed on April 2nd.
Technology secretary Peter Kyle emphasized that taxes are a crucial aspect and that they are exploring various concerns and opportunities for the future.
Prime Minister Rachel Reeves also expressed similar sentiments during a recent BBC interview.
Labour lawmakers are worried that dropping the DST under pressure from the Trump administration could result in revenue loss and cuts to essential services.
Reeves is under pressure to make spending cuts to comply with fiscal rules, including welfare reforms and civil servant layoffs.
Can improving brain health be as simple as navigating your way through life? That’s the intriguing question posed in recent research published in the British Medical Journal, which found that being a taxi or ambulance driver may offer protection against dementia.
A study by Harvard researchers examined the working lives and causes of death of millions of Americans and discovered that taxi and ambulance drivers have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer’s disease-related deaths among about 400 different occupations.
The theory suggests that frequent navigation tasks could play a role in protecting against Alzheimer’s disease, which is a significant cause of mortality. In fact, between 2012 and 2021, more people died from dementia in the UK than from any other cause. According to Alzheimer’s Disease Research UK, 75,000 Britons succumbed to the disease in 2023 alone.
Navigating without GPS may help keep your brain sharp – Illustration Credit: Kyle Smart
As we live longer, the risk of dementia increases. The question arises: should we ditch the map app and rely on our natural navigation skills for a longer, healthier life? Previous research has shown that training to become a London taxi driver can actually alter the brain’s structure.
London cabbies, who undergo the rigorous “knowledge” test to master the city’s streets, show an enlargement of the hippocampus, the brain area responsible for spatial processing and navigation. This is significant because the hippocampus is one of the first areas affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
While Harvard’s research suggests that taxi and ambulance drivers have a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease, it also points out that they tend to have shorter lifespans. This raises questions about the longevity of individuals in these professions and their susceptibility to the disease.
Despite the potential benefits of navigation tasks for brain health, researchers indicate that the study’s findings need to be interpreted within the context of historical mortality data. The widespread use of GPS today could impact the results, as navigation skills may vary among different generations.
Experts like Professor Hugo Spiers of UCL believe that honing navigation skills, especially through outdoor activities, can contribute to overall brain health. Engaging in activities that challenge spatial thinking and physical activity, such as walking in nature, can have positive effects on brain function and may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
So, the next time you’re choosing a route, consider stepping outside and navigating your way to improved brain health. Who knows, it might just be the key to a healthier, sharper mind.
About our experts
Hugo Spiers is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at UCL, leading the taxi brain project at the university. His research has been featured in prestigious journals like Nature, Proceedings of the United States Academy of Sciences, and Public Library Science.
On January 18th, I was one of millions of Americans, scrolling through Tiktok when the all-you-can-eat video buffet service suddenly stopped just before the federal ban came into effect.
It was a breathtaking moment when I was mourning me. For daily doses of Hollywood gossip, video game news, anime updates, where did I wonder where I was going now?
Tiktok, owned by a Chinese company, was bytedance, and rose to life the next day, facing legal deadlines to find or face a ban on US owners. President Trump then quickly signed an executive order extending the window for Tiktok’s sale to April 5th.
With that new deadline approaching, Tiktok’s fate, claiming more than 170 million American users, remains uncertain. However, for now, at least, it seems unlikely that there will be a repeated blackout in January.
Last month, Trump He told reporters That he can extend the deadline again. And while bytedance has not confirmed sales plans, Oracle, Data Center Company and others have emerged as potential suitors.
The latest deadlines provide convenient members to reflect on the role of apps in society. This is what I found.
Tiktok is still the best short video app
Tiktok started as Musical.ly 11 years ago. It’s an app for users to post lip sync videos, but over time it has evolved into a generic video app that lets people scroll through short clips of news and entertainment. Currently, there are over 1 billion users worldwide.
With Tiktok’s popularity surged worldwide over the past five years, Meta, Google and others have created clones that allow users to scroll through video clips endlessly. but Young users still prefer Tiktok To watch a short video, according to a survey by research firm Emarketer.
Tiktok’s preferences may be linked in part to product quality. Videos made on Tiktok generally look clearer, more rigorously edited and catchy than videos made with similar apps like Instagram reels. (Why drink lukewarm cola when you can get a classic cola?) Tiktok’s tools, including the editing app Capcut, streamline the production of video for your app.
For me, switching to the reel felt crazy when Tiktok was temporarily down. Many users have posted videos they found to be incomplete, including a video of sourdough bread that I was asked to read the caption to learn how to bake the perfect bread. Why don’t you explain it in a video instead of a small text caption?
Meta, who owns Instagram, catches up to Tiktok’s editing tools. An Instagram spokesperson mentioned a company spokesperson announcement The editor is CapCut’s competitor for editing reel videos and is expected to debut in the coming weeks. This tool allows Instagram users to upload videos to a higher resolution, improving image quality, among other perks.
Tiktok’s secret source, which others have not replicated either, is an algorithm for people to decide which video they want to watch next. Many people in their research say that Tiktok surfaces the type of video they want to watch for everything from diet ideas to video games, and glues them to the screen for hours a day.
Mental health concerns are rising
The effectiveness of Tiktok in keeping people scrolling has been a topic of widespread concern among parents and academic researchers wondering whether people could be thought of as obsessed with apps, just like video game addiction.
Research on this topic continues and remains conclusive. One, It was released last year He also looked into the overuse of Tiktok, led by Christian Montag, a professor of cognitive and brain science at the University of Macau in China. The study reported that although few people involved 378 participants of various ages, they were obsessed with Tiktok.
But broadly speaking, the consensus from multiple studies on Tiktok and other social media apps is that young people are more likely to report being addicted, Dr. Montag said in an interview.
“I don’t think kids should appear on these platforms at all,” he said of an app similar to Tiktok. People’s brains can take at least 20 years, mature and self-regulate, he added.
A Tiktok spokesperson said the app includes tools to manage screen time, including new settings for Tiktok to block children’s phone work during certain times.
Growth of a marketing platform for brands
Tiktok has become the main hub for companies to promote their products through posted videos and products sold at the in-app store, Tiktok Shop.
The company is working hard to make Americans realize the impact on the economy, running flashy advertising campaigns in newspapers and billboards, portraying them as a small business champion.
A Tiktok spokesperson cited a study claiming that Tiktok increased revenues for small businesses to $15 billion in 2023. This is the number that should be collected with salt grains because Tiktok asked for research. However, from scrolling through Tiktok, it is clear that many brands enjoy using it to spread videos showing quirky products.
Tiktok’s video confesses that he was inspired to buy expensive tools to remove dog fur from car seats and an automatic scrubber to clean the kitchen sink.
As for the so-called creators, the platform usually helps self-promotion rather than making money, as influencers post videos of Tiktok that often get viral, said actress Alyssa McKay, who has a follower of Tiktok in New Jersey.
The video, which earns 2 million views, can earn her a few dollars, she said. She added that it is because Tiktok only pays for the scenery that comes from people who have not yet followed you.
That’s still a national security concern
Tiktok was banned in the first place because he feared that US government officials could share data collected by American users with the Chinese government for espionage purposes.
These concerns peaked at the Supreme Court hearing in January. There, the Biden administration argued to ban the app. This cites concerns that Tiktok could create new pathways for China’s intelligence reporting agency that permeates American infrastructure. However, authorities did not provide evidence that Tiktok was associated with such a threat.
But Tiktok is linked to a small US data scandal. Tiktok confirmed in 2022 that four employees were fired for using the app to silly several journalists to track information sources.
Tiktok spokesperson pointed to a video This app protects the data of American users on server systems protected by Oracle, a collaborative US database giant, and prevents unauthorized foreign access.
Matthew Green, a security researcher at Johns Hopkins University and an associate professor of computer science, said that the US government’s security concerns about Tiktoc have been exaggerated as there has yet to be a major scandal, but it is effective because of the potential for hypothetical harm.
Many apps created by American companies are companies that collect information about us and sell insights to data brokers, marketers, including parts of China. But Tiktok in particular can gather sensitive data on Americans that are useful for hostile governments, such as address books, Dr. Green added.
“We’re leaking so much information, we don’t need Tiktok to make things worse, but with millions of different phones running this app, things get worse,” Dr. Green said.
Using Nircam and Miri instruments installed in the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers created high-resolution images Herbig-Haro Object 49/50 (HH 49/50) is located approximately 630 light years away from the constellation of Chamaleon.
Webb observed Herbig Halo 49/50 in high resolution near-infrared light with Nircam and Miri Instruments. Image credits: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI.
The Herbig-Haro object is a small bright patch of nebula associated with protostals in the star-forming region.
These structures were first observed in the 19th century by American astronomer Sherburn Wesley Burnham, but were not recognized as a distinct type of ejection nebula until the 1940s.
The first astronomers to study them in detail were George Harbigue and Guillermo Halo, and they were later named.
Herbig Halo objects are formed in very specific circumstances. Hot gas discharged by the newborn star collides with the gas, hitting it at a speed of up to 250,000 kmh (155,000 mph), creating a bright shock wave.
They come in a wide range of shapes. The basic configuration is usually the same. Twin jets of hot gases are ejected in the opposite direction from the forming stars and flow through interstellar space.
“When NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope observed it in 2006, scientists called the HH 49/50 The Cosmic Tornado because of its helical appearance, but they were unsure about the nature of the fuzzy object at the tip of the “tornado.”
“Because of the high resolution of imaging, Webb provides a different visual impression of HH 49/50 by revealing fine features of impacted regions during the runoff, revealing fuzzy objects as distant spiral galaxies and displaying the oceans of distant background galaxies.”
The HH 49/50 is part of the Chamaeleon I Cloud Complex, one of the closest active star-forming regions.
“This cloud complex is likely to resemble the environment our Sun formed,” the astronomer said.
“Previous observations of the region show that HH 49/50 runoff is away from us at a rate of 100-300 km per second, and is just one feature of the larger runoff.”
“Webb’s Nircam and Miri’s HH 49/50 observations lash out on the area with the locations of shining hydrogen molecules, carbon monoxide molecules, and dust particles represented by orange and red.”
New Webb observations probe small spatial scale details that help astronomers model the properties of jets and understand how they affect the surrounding materials.
“The arc-shaped feature of the HH 49/50 refers to the source of this spill, similar to the water wake created by speeding boats,” the researchers said.
“Based on past observations, scientists suspect that the Protostal, known as the Cederblad 110 IRS4, is a plausible driver of jet activity.”
“The CED 110 IRS4 is a Class I Protostal, located about 1.5 light years from HH 49/50.”
“Class I Protostals are young objects (tens of thousands to a million years ago) at primetime when earning Mass.”
“They usually have an identifiable disc of the material surrounding it.
“Scientists have recently studied this protostal and used Webb’s Nilkah and Milli observations to obtain inventory of the ice composition of its environment.”
“Those detailed webb images of the HH 49/50 arcs can more accurately identify the orientation to the jet source, but not all arcs return in the same direction.”
“There is an interesting outcrop feature (in the top right of the main runoff) that could be another accidental accident of another runoff associated with slow precession of intermittent jet sources, for example.”
“Or alternatively, this feature could be the result of a major spill breaking apart.”
“The accidental galaxy at the tip of HH 49/50 is a much more distant, troublesome spiral galaxy.”
“There is a prominent central bulge, represented in blue, indicating the position of the old stars.”
“The bulge also gives hints from the sidelobes that suggest this could be a thin group.”
“The reddish masses within the spiral arm indicate a warm dust location and a group of formed stars.”
“The galaxies will show sheltered bubbles in these dusty areas, similar to the nearby galaxies Webb observed as part of the Phangs programme.”
“Webb captured these two unrelated objects with a lucky alignment.”
“For thousands of years, the edge of the HH 49/50 has moved outwards, eventually appearing to hide a distant galaxy.”
New research shows that satiety-inducing molecules called bombesins are present not only in humans and other vertebrates, but also invertebrates such as starfish and their marine relatives.
Common starfish (Rubens of Asteria) Brofjorden is located in Govik, the Lysekil municipality in Sweden. Image credit: W. Carter.
Bombesin, a small peptide, plays an important role in regulating hunger by signaling when it is sufficient for us to eat.
When injected into mammals, bombesin was found to reduce the size of the meal and increase the time between meals.
This has led scientists to believe that bombesin-like neurohormones produced in the brain and intestines are part of the body’s natural system to control food intake.
Furthermore, along with weight loss inducers such as Ozempic, compounds that mimic the action of bombesin are occurring for the treatment of obesity.
In a new study, Professor Maurice Elphick and colleagues at Queen Mary University in London explored the evolutionary history of bombesin.
By analyzing the genome of invertebrates, they discovered a gene encoding a bombesin-like neurohormone. Common starfish (Rubens of Asteria) other cerebral dermatosis, such as sea urchins and sea cucumbers.
“It was like searching for needles in a haystack, but eventually we discovered a gene encoding a bombesin-like neurohormones in the genome of a starfish and its parent,” Professor Elphick said.
Researchers then turned their attention to the function of the bombesin in this starfish, named Arbn.
Mass spectrometry was used to determine the molecular structure of ARBNs and to be chemically synthesized and tested.
They investigated how ARBN affects starfish feeding behavior. Starfish have a unique way of eating. The stomach is stretched out from the mouth to digest prey such as mussels and oysters.
“When I tested Arbn, I found that it caused a starfish stomach contraction,” said Dr. Weiling Huang, a researcher at Queen Mary University in London.
“This suggested that ARBN may be involved in stimulating stomach contractions when starfish stop feeding.”
“And this is exactly what I found. When I injected Albun into the starfish while pounding my stomach, it caused my stomach and returned it to my mouth.”
“In addition, it took longer to surround the mussels compared to those injected with ARBN, which also delayed the onset of feeding.”
The discovery of the ancient role of bombesin in appetite regulation sheds light on the evolutionary origins of animal feeding behavior.
“We can estimate that this function dates back 5 billion years to the common ancestors of starfish, humans and other vertebrates,” Professor Elphick said.
a paper Regarding the survey results, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Heiling Han et al. 2025. Discovery and functional characterization of bombesin-type neuropeptide signaling systems in invertebrates. pnasin press; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2420966122
The air is filled with birds chirping, and the land is a tableau of soft greenery and gentle light. This is Ho’oulu ‘āina, a 100-acre reserve with an unusual twist. It is linked to a community health center and is where patients come to heal the land and themselves.
As climate change accelerates and the Trump administration abandons the fight, Ho’oulu ‘āina is an example of how people in all 50 red and blue states are working to restore land, clean waterways, reduce pollution and protect wildlife.
50 states, 50 revisions This is a series about local solutions to environmental issues. I’ll come more this year.
Twenty years ago, Ho’oulu ‘āina was ignored and overrunned with trash and invasive plants. But today it is thriving.
And then, volunteers and patients who spent a long time there, removing non-enemous plants and growing vegetables, fruits and herbs, experienced body and soul recovery.
There is Growing research It shows that spending time in nature can improve mental, physical and cognitive health.
Older people who once relied on canes and pedestrians have regained some mobility. Diabetics have seen their glucose levels drop. The depressed teens woke up brightly. In Hawaiian, the name Ho’oulu ‘āina means “growing for the land.”
“Many people within the health centre saw the land as a way and a kind of tool to improve human health,” said Puni Jackson, program director at Ho’oulu ‘āina. But for the native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders who make up the majority of clinic patients, the connection to nature is both familial and profound, Jackson said. “It’s a sacred relationship,” she said.
Ho’oulu ‘āina is a 10-minute drive from the clinic, a bushy road, crossing a wooden bridge, above a rugged dirt driveway leading to grassy fields adjacent to the forest. The land features bread and banana trees, medicinal plants and taro, organic gardens, low-haired buildings, and a small pharmacist who watches patients by Jackson, an indigenous medical practitioner of Hawaii.
The call of the conch shell evoked dolphin hunters from their beds. Under the moonlight, six men shuffled into the village church.
There the priest led them in a whispering prayer. The tide was high that day. The salt water was pooled in part of the village on Fanarey Island, part of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.
They paddled out into wooden canoes before the first light, cutting through the darkness until they were miles away from the coast. After a few hours of scans, we saw one of the hunters, Leslie Hughi, slashing open the glassy water. He raised a 10-foot-long bamboo stick with a cloth tied to the end, warning others of his discovery. He then called his wife. He had found a dolphin. The hunt begins.
These men are among the last dolphin hunters in the Solomon Islands. Some critics say the massacre is cruel and unnecessary. But for some 130 residents of Fanarei, traditional hunts have taken on a new urgency as climate change threatens their homes. They say they need dolphins for their valuable teeth, used as local currency to buy land in the highlands and escape the sinking home.
Each tooth is worth three Solomon Islands dollars (about $0.36) (price set by the Chief of Fanarei), and a single dolphin hunt, which costs about $200, can bring tens of thousands of dollars, more than any other economic activity on the island.
“We regret killing the dolphin, but we really have no other option,” Fugi said. He mentioned that he would be willing to give up the hunt if there was an alternative way to secure his family’s future.
Crops can no longer be grown on about a third of the wana rays in New York City’s Central Park. Once fertile land has been ruined by erosion of salt water. The government promotes seaweed farming as a source of income, while overseas conservation groups provide cash to end the hunt. However, the ocean is both an existential threat and the most profitable resource for villagers. Government research suggests that the island could be underwater by the end of the century.
“For lowland islands like us, I witness with my own eyes how rising oceans affect our lives,” said Principal Wilson Fee, Fanaray.
Almost 500 buildings in the province’s capital get heat from clean, renewable sources deep in the ground.
It’s very easy to get into Boise’s hot water. After all, it’s Idaho, a state filled with hundreds of hot springs.
The city has used warm water in its natural environment to create a geothermal system that operates the largest local government in the country.
Nearly 500 Boise Business, Government Buildings, Houses, and Hospital and University Buildings; City Hall and YMCA. – Warmed by heat drawn directly from a hot water reservoir or aquifer below the ground. Idaho State University in Boise is the only US that uses geothermal heat. In winter, heat warms some sidewalks and raises the temperature of the hot tub to melt the snow.
50 states, 50 revisions This is a series about local solutions to environmental issues. I’ll come more this year.
Renewable, reliable and relatively free of pollution, but geothermal heating is possible due to fault lines that expose groundwater to hot rocks and heat the water to about 170 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 77 degrees Celsius. The water is drawn from a well in a nearby hilly area into a closed loop network of pipes reaching the building, then returned to the aquifer to reheat.
In each building, geothermal heat is transferred to the water through adjacent pipes, dispersing the heat throughout the building.
“We pumped water, borrowed heat for the building, then reverted it back to the aquifer,” said Tina Riley, Geothermal Development Coordinator at Boise.
The number of buildings that heat up the city of Boise in this way has increased more than six times over the past 40 years, and has grown along the way. One of the consequences of the expansion is cleaner air. In 2024, city officials calculated that their carbon footprint is 6,500 tons a year, equivalent to removing 1,500 vehicles from the road each year.
“There’s a lot of demand for clean, affordable local energy,” Riley said. “This also has the energy independence.”
Boiseans began using this natural resource to heat the buildings in the 1890s. It gave birth to hundreds of thousands of gallons of piping hot water a day after drilling the well into the aquifer. The water-heated pools and baths of local swimming pools, the Victorian mansion belonging to the head of the Water Company, and hundreds of homes in the area that baptized the Boise Warm Springs Water district.
Things may have ended because it wasn’t due to the oil crisis of the 1970s.
“At that point, the Boise Warm Springs area had been thriving for almost 100 years,” Riley said. “That’s what we saw. Then we say, ‘Let’s do the same thing.’ ”
Today, Boise has four individually operated geothermal hydrothermal systems. One is run by the city, the other is run by the Boise Warm Springs area, and two more serve the Capitol and the U.S. Veterans Affairs buildings.
The city’s system operates as a utility funded by the sale of water rather than taxpayers. Riley said the heat price is roughly comparable to that of natural gas, depending on the efficiency of the building, but it is less expensive when used in parallel with a heat pump.
In the Boise Warm Springs Water area, engineer Scott Lewis said it is particularly cost-effective for warming an old Victorian home where geothermal heat had not been weathered.
He said that because it uses minimal electricity, it means all the stress on the power grid is less. The district costs $1,800 a month to power water pumps that provide heat to more than one million square feet of space. The expansion of the geothermal network is limited by what aquifers can offer, but Lewis said the district is trying to add 30 more homes to the network to meet demand.
“It’s actually very desirable, especially around the area,” he said. “We see that a lot of people are really environmentally conscious around here.”
The heating system attracted visitors from Iceland, Croatia and Australia, making Boise the destination.
“We were from all over the world,” Lewis said. “We love to let everyone know about our little geothermal system here.”
Placebo pills can have real effects through the power of suggestions
72 images / Aramie
Women with premenstrual syndrome appear to benefit from the placebo effect, even if they know they are taking Siamese medication. This suggests that we can provide cheap and simple treatments.
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) with symptoms such as anxiety, mood swings, and abdominal cramps generally affects people with periods of time. Previous research has shown this Placebo pills can reduce symptoms It was unclear whether these benefits remained when people intentionally taking fake medications in women who think they might be taking real medications.
Antje Frey Nascimento The University of Basel in Switzerland and her colleagues recruited 150 women in Switzerland, ages 18-45. In a study that acquired symptoms of 27 PMS on a scale of 0 to 5, participants rated at least one symptom A 4 or 5 at the start of the study. Participants also reported that at least one symptom interfered with society, work, or school life and scored this confusion.
The researchers then randomly assigned a third of participants, taking two placebo pills daily in two menstrual cycles, and informing these people that they are taking Placbos. Another third of participants also took placebo pills, but received additional explanations on how placebo can alleviate symptoms through the power of suggestions and belief.
The remaining third of participants were not given a placebo, but all groups were able to take regular medication. All participants completed a daily survey of PMS symptoms and how much these lives interfered.
By analyzing survey data from participants’ last menstrual cycle, the team found that on average, those who took placebo without explanation, the intensity of PMS symptoms decreased by 50%. These symptoms were half that destroyed their lives.
Those who took the placebo in their explanation reported a 79% reduction in the intensity of symptoms and an 83% reduction in life disruption. “It’s a really big effect you’ll notice in your life.” Stephen Schmidt He was not involved in research at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
When people take placebo pills, they may unconsciously and consciously expect relief from the placebo effect. This appears to produce real improvements by causing the body’s natural release of painkillers, such as endorphins, Schmidt says.
“We live in a pill society where you have all the knowledge about how you get all the benefits of science in your body when you take them, so people expect to feel better,” he says. Emphasizing these potential benefits for people seems to increase their effectiveness, he says.
Despite not taking pills, the control group showed a 33% reduction in symptoms intensities, with 46% less destructive than before. “If you sign up for a study and complete these daily diaries, you can pay more notices when you feel better or when your symptoms improve, so you can see benefits without taking pills,” Schmidt says.
One limitation of this study, he adds, is the greater advantage of placebo effects, as those enrolled in the trial may be more open to alternative treatments than the wider population.
Large studies need to determine whether these placebo benefits last for a long period of time and whether they apply to older adults groups and to a wider range of people in other countries, Schmidt says. If the results endure scrutiny, he says, placebo can ultimately provide an inexpensive and easy way to treat serious health burdens.
At least one shark species has bark that can be chewed. Scientists report that clicks can be made.
During his doctoral studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Carolyn NeederHe was currently studying shark hearing at Woods Hole Marine Facility in Massachusetts. When dealing with sharks during the experiment, she noticed one species – a hound (a rig called a rig)Mustelus lenticulatus) – It looked like it was making a metallic click.
“The sharks weren’t supposed to make noise, so I ignored it,” Nieder says. “And that was just happening.”
The ability to intentionally produce sounds is common among terrestrial animals, as the world full of bird verticals and mammalian plagues shows. However, underwater, many fish make noises by shaving objects or vibrating muscles, and in 2022 researchers reported that relatives near sharks can sometimes click when divers interfere. The shark sounds had not yet been officially explained.
To confirm the presence of the rig’s noise, Nieder and her colleagues brought 10 boys rigs into the lab, caught up in the waters of New Zealand’s North Island. There, they were placed in the tank with sensitive sound recording instruments. The team gently handled the sharks and found that all of them were clicking accordingly. Rigs seem to be the first shark known to produce sounds that are not associated with other actions, such as feeding or bumping into something.
Researchers believe that sharks may be producing sounds by snapping their jaws together. Just like click rays, the rig flattens the teeth, which can produce sharp sounds on the impact. Please listen to the following:
Further research may check whether the cause of clicks and whether there is a feature. Nieder points out that because rigs are small sharks and potential prey for large animals, clicks can play a role in defense when animals are bitten or gripped.
“It could be a bit confusing for predators,” she says. It is also possible that clicks play a role in hunting, she adds, including scaring and inclusive shark crustacean prey.
Rig shark teeth
Eric Palmentier
“This has been seen for a long time, but is a potentially very important area of shark biology,” he says. Aaron Rice He was not involved in research at Cornell University in New York.
When healthy production is widespread among sharks, their clicks may help them study populations that often decline rapidly, says Rice. He says there is a very rich sound data recorded from fish and whale studies, and it is possible that they also shot shark sounds. These can be used to determine if a shark is in the area and add another tool to monitor at-risk predators.
“[The finding] It represents something truly new and new discoveries in basic biology,” says Rice.
Hey, do you want to send it to your group chat? Likewise, are you sure about 1,000%?
Just check it. It was a strange week in the history of group chats, so it’s a seemingly intimate textual conversation that goes back and forth between friends, family and apparently national security officials.
On Monday, Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg. I wrote it That he was accidentally added to group chat with encrypted messaging app signals. He announced plans for the attack on the base of Houthi in Yemen, followed when other national security officials came up with plans for the attack after the celebration emoji.
Just as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle condemned the security breaches, Americans were seen as perceived and distrustful with their own unruly group chat.
“It’s clearly a very relevant screw-in,” Goldberg said. Interview With Tim Miller of Bluwork on Tuesday. “We all texted the wrong people,” he added.
However, these careless texts do not contain high-stakes national security information that is usually shared outside of secure government channels.
The incident could be “the most shocking stupid group chat error in history,” said Tommy Beiotter, a liberal podcaster and former National Security Council spokesman. X’s Video. In the same post, he confessed that he was in an email thread that once mistakenly included singer Lyle Lovett in place of his colleague John Lovett. Approximately 30 emails had been sent before anyone noticed.
Group chat has quietly become a staple of modern communication since 2008, when Apple enabled text messaging with multiple recipients. Private group chats award a kind of juicy intimacy to a book club member, a neighbor’s mom, work friends, or a large family who exchanges hundreds of messages per day.
Feeds tend to be less self-conscious than posts on social media. In 2022, a guest essay from the New York Times declared the group chat “leave the last place online for real conversations.”
Even people with no security clearance are aware of what they share with the pleasant familiarity of group chats. Clayton Fletcher, 48, is part of the WhatsApp group, where he and about 35 other comedians roast each other and tackle new ingredients. He is wary high when a new phone number appears. It didn’t appear to happen when Goldberg was added to the signal chat.
“The wisdom of a comedian’s age is to know your audience,” Fletcher said. “In the modern world, I think it’s like knowing who’s in group chat.”
The intimacy of group chats is often elaborate when it spills into the public eye. In 2021, an anonymous leaker shared a group message from Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, where she planned a trip to Cancun, but millions of members of the senators had no electricity. (Heidi Cruz clearly didn’t understand that group chats didn’t know loyalty,” Jezebel said. read. )
In 2023, the New York Times published a text between the Fox News hosts, which were completely different from the official statement on the 2020 election results. And last year, Daily Beast reported Former House member George Santos texted the humiliation to a group chat that includes members of a New York Republican delegation.
“Sorry, new phone, who’s diss?” Representative Andrew Garbarino I responded.
Our group chats may include people who extend to our professionals and personal lives and who have strong and loose social connections to which we have. It could make them a “minefield” for error, said LM Chilton, author of the upcoming thriller “Everyone in the Group Chat Dies.”
The signal group chat incident was colloquial and especially uncomfortable due to just the tone of Amon Friends (including emojis). And while it may be easy to blame the technology for violations, it was a mistake by national security adviser Michael Waltz to make it accessible to journalists to group chats.
“At the end of the day, it was an artificial mistake and it was with us from the dawn of time,” Chilton said.
New York writer Matt Buquere, 35, found a bit of a dark humor in the way that members of the Signal Group introduced themselves one by one.
Everyone has been added to a group chat where they do not belong to completely. However, he suggested not to stand out unless he was certain he could trust the rest of the group.
“If you have a lot of numbers you don’t know, you should limit group chat participation to thumbs up or ‘haha’ reactions. There’s nothing else,” he said.
Sample analysis of Mars Instrument on NASA’s Curiosity Rover detected decane, anteca and dodecane molecules in Gale Crater samples.
This graphic shows the long chain organic molecules, decane, undercane, dodecane, and rover of curiosity from NASA. Image credit: NASA/Dan Gallagher.
“The main scientific goal of Curiosity is to quantitatively assess the possibility of Mars’ habitability in the past or present,” says Dr. Caroline Freissinet, researcher at Atmosphères ET Observation Spatiales at CNRS and Laboratoire.
“Sample analysis in the MARS (SAM) instrument suite on a rover is dedicated to this task by employing inventory of organic and inorganic compounds present on the surface of Mars as potential chemical biosignatures and investigating the nature of the conservation.”
Using SAM instruments, researchers analyzed molecules released from excavated mudstone samples called Cumberlands, collected in Yellowknife Bay, the geological layer of Gale Crater.
They were able to detect three long chain alkanes: decane (c)10htwenty two), unedecane (c11htwenty four), and dodecan (c12h26).
“These long carbon chains, which contain up to 12 consecutive carbon atoms, can exhibit similar characteristics to the fatty acids produced on Earth through biological activity,” the researchers said.
Dodecane represents the highest molecular mass organic molecule ever identified on the surface of Mars.
“Detection of long-chain alkanes shows various causes of organic matter and storage mechanisms in Cumberland samples,” the scientists said.
“Clays and sulfate minerals are expected to play an important role in this long-term storage.”
According to the author, the source of Mars’ long-chain alkanes remains uncertain.
“Laboratory experiments support sources from the saturated forms of linear chains, primary carboxylic acids, i.e. decano acids, dodecano acids, and tridecano acids, for decane, undecano and dodecano acids, respectively,” they said.
“Abiotic processes can form these acids, but are considered to be a universal product of biochemistry, on the ground and perhaps Mars.”
“The origin and distribution of these molecules therefore has great interest in searching for potential biosignatures on Mars.”
Survey results It will be displayed in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Caroline Freecinet et al. 2025. Long chain alkanes are preserved in the mudstones of Mars. pnas 122 (13): e2420580122; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2420580122
The ARC-AGI-2 benchmark is designed to be a difficult test for AI models
Just_Super/Getty Images
The most sophisticated AI models present today are inadequate scores on new benchmarks designed to measure progress towards artificial general information (AGI), and brute-force computing power is not sufficient to improve as evaluators consider the cost of running the model.
There are many competing definitions of AGI, but it is generally thought to refer to AI capable of performing cognitive tasks that humans can do. To measure this, the ARC Awards Foundation previously began a test of reasoning ability called ARC-AGI-1. Last December, Openai announced that the O3 model scored highly in tests, with some asking if the company is approaching AGI achievement.
But now the new test, the ARC-AGI-2, has raised the bar. Although current AI systems on the market are difficult enough to not achieve a score of over 100 digits of 100 in tests, all questions have been answered by at least two people on less than two attempts.
in Blog post Introducing the ARC-AGI-2, ARC president Greg Kamradt said a new benchmark is needed to test skills that differ from previous iterations. “To beat it, you need to demonstrate both high levels of adaptability and high efficiency,” he writes.
The ARC-AGI-2 benchmark differs from other AI benchmark tests in that it focuses on the ability to match the world’s leading PHD performance, but on the ability to complete simple tasks, such as replicating new image changes based on past examples of iconic interpretations. The current model is superior to “deep learning” measured by ARC-AGI-1, but not so good for seemingly simple tasks that require more challenging thinking and interaction with ARC-AGI-2. For example, Openai’s O3-low model won 75.7% on the ARC-AGI-1, but only 4% on the ARC-AGI-2.
This benchmark also adds a new dimension to measure AI capabilities by examining the efficiency of problem solving, as measured at the cost required to complete the task. For example, ARC paid a human tester $17 per task, while O3-low estimates that it would cost $200 for the same task.
“I think ARC-AGI’s new iteration, which now focuses on balancing performance and efficiency, is a major step towards a more realistic evaluation of the AI model,” he says. Joseph Imperial At the University of Bath, UK. “This is a sign that we are moving from a one-dimensional evaluation test that is not only focusing on performance, but also considering a decline in computing power.”
Models that can pass the ARC-AGI-2 should not only be very capable, but also be smaller and lighter, Imperial says. Model efficiency is a key component of the new benchmark. This helps address concerns that AI models are becoming more energy-intensive – Sometimes to the point of waste – to achieve much better results.
However, not everyone is convinced that the new measure will be beneficial. “The whole framing of this to test intelligence is not the correct framing.” Catherine Frick At Staffordshire University, UK. Instead, these benchmarks are extrapolated to imply general functionality across a set of tasks, simply by assessing the ability of AI to properly complete a single task or a set of tasks.
Working well with these benchmarks should not be seen as a major moment for AGI, Flick said:
And another question is what will happen if ARC-AGI-2 is given, or when it is given. Do you need yet another benchmark? “If they develop ARC-AGI-3, I guess they’ll add another axis to the graph [the] The minimum number of humans – whether expert or not, it will take a task to solve, in addition to performance and efficiency,” says Imperial. In other words, discussions about AGI rarely resolve immediately.
West Texas doctors are seeing measles patients whose illness is complicated by alternative therapy approved by vaccine skeptics, including health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Parents in Gaines County, Texas, are at the heart of the outbreak of turbulent measles, many of which have become increasingly repurposed and unproven treatments to protect children who have not been vaccinated against the virus.
One of those supplements is Vitamin A, which Kennedy advertises as a miraculous treatment for measles. Doctors at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they have treated a small number of children who were given so much vitamin A, which has signs of liver damage.
Dr. Summer Davis, who cares for children with acute illnesses at the hospital, said some of them had been receiving unsafe supplements for weeks to prevent measles infection.
“We were sick for just a few days, five days, five days, and five days, but we had been taking it for about three weeks,” Dr. Davis said.
Doctors may manage severe measles by administering high doses of vitamin A in hospitals, but experts do not recommend taking it without supervision from a doctor. Vitamin A is not an effective way to prevent measles. However, two doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are about 97% effective.
At high doses, vitamin A can cause liver damage. Dry skin peeled skin. Hair loss; and in rare cases, seizures and com sleep. So far, doctors at a hospital in West Texas have said they have seen patients with high yellow skin and liver enzymes in both blood tests for both liver signs.
Many of these patients were in hospital due to severe measles infection. The doctor only discovered liver damage after regular lab work.
As of Tuesday, the outbreak that began in January had spread to more than 320 cases in Texas. Forty patients were hospitalized and one child died.
Nearby New Mexico County, the virus has suffered 43 illnesses and two hospitalised. Seven confirmed cases in Oklahoma are also linked to outbreaks.
Local doctors and health officials are increasingly concerned about the growing popularity of unproven treatments to prevent and treat measles. They fear that people will delay serious treatment and refuse vaccination, the only proven way to prevent measles infection.
Alternative medicine has always been popular in Gaines County. Many of the large Mennonite communities in areas where most cases are clustered are avoiding interaction with the healthcare system and adhere to a long tradition of natural therapy.
Health officials said the popularity of Vitamin A’s recent use of measles could go back to a Fox News interview with Kennedy.
in Opinion essay In the Washington Post Tuesday afternoon, Kevin Griffith, who was the communications director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until last week, wrote that he had resigned to handle Kennedy’s outbreak.
“In my last few weeks at the CDC, I saw a career infectious disease expert being tasked with spending valuable time wasting data searches to support Kennedy’s preferred treatment,” writes Griffith.
A few weeks after the interview with Fox News, Drugstore In West Texas, I had a hard time maintaining vitamin A and cod liver oil supplements on my shelf. “I didn’t hear anything about Vitamin A until he said that on TV,” said Katherine Wells, director of public health at Lubbock.
One local doctor, appointed as one of the doctors that Kennedy said in an interview with Fox News, opened a makeshift clinic in Gaines County, and began eliminating a variety of treatments, including vitamin A supplements, to treat active incorrect cases and prevent infection.
Dr. Davis said he suspected that the majority of the children she treated had taken vitamins at home.
Experts say Vitamin A can play an important role in the “advocacy care” provided by doctors to patients with severe measles infection.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, works by replenishing physical reservoirs that have been depleted by viruses that strengthen the immune system.
In hospitals, doctors only give measles children two vitamins, usually over two days, and “adjusting very carefully” the amount according to their age and weight, he said.
Dr. Schaffner emphasized that it is not a miraculous treatment of the virus, and that measles does not have antiviral drugs. Also, there is no reliable evidence that vitamin A can help prevent infection in children in the US, with extremely rare vitamin A defects.
In fact, giving children high doses of repeated vitamins is dangerous. Unlike other vitamins that are washed away from the body via urine, excess vitamin A accumulates in adipose tissue and is more likely to reach dangerous levels over time.
“I think this type of preventative use is particularly concerning,” said Dr. Lara Johnson, another doctor at Lubbock Hospital.
“When you’ve been taking it on your kids for weeks or weeks, you can have a cumulative toxicity impact.,” she added.
Dr. Johnson added that local doctors don’t always accurately reflect the amount of vitamins the label contains and are particularly concerned about parents’ dependence on over-the-counter supplements that can accept dosage recommendations from unverified sources.
Signal, a popular messaging app, has recently come under scrutiny for reports that senior Trump administration officials used the platform to plan wars and inadvertently included journalists in messaging groups.
Launched in 2014 and boasting hundreds of millions of users, the app is favored by journalists, activists, privacy experts, and politicians.
The use of the app by government officials led to intelligence report violations occurring outside of the secure government channels typically used for classified, highly sensitive war plans. This incident raises concerns about the security of Signal and the reasons behind government officials using it. (In general, federal officials are not authorized to install Signal on government-issued devices.)
Here’s what you need to know.
What is Signal used for?
Signal is an encrypted messaging application used for secure communication. It encrypts messages end-to-end, ensuring that the content remains encrypted until it reaches the intended recipient. This method protects users from interception and ensures message confidentiality.
Users can set Signal messages to disappear after a set period of time. They can also enable a feature to auto-delete messages in individual chats.
Who owns Signal?
Signal is owned by an independent nonprofit organization in the U.S. called the Signal Foundation. It is funded through user contributions and grants.
Founded in 2018 with a $50 million donation from Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, the Signal Foundation was established after Acton left WhatsApp due to a dispute with Facebook. Acton teamed up with Moxie Marlinspike, the cryptographer behind Signal’s security system, to create the Signal Foundation, which is structured to prevent data selling incentives.
“There are numerous reasons why Signal is crucial,” wrote Marlinspike, who resigned from the foundation’s board in 2022. “One important reason is to avoid mistakenly adding the Vice President of the U.S. to group chats for coordinating sensitive military operations. This must not be overlooked.”
Is Signal secure?
Yes, Signal is widely regarded as the most secure messaging app due to its encryption technology and other privacy features.
The encryption technology used by Signal is open source, allowing external experts to review and identify any vulnerabilities. This technology is also utilized by services like WhatsApp.
When Signal was targeted by foreign hackers, its encryption technology proved effective. Although there were attempts to compromise user accounts, the encryption remained intact.
In case of a security breach, Signal minimizes user data retention to protect user privacy. Unlike other messaging platforms, Signal does not store user contacts or unnecessary information.
While Signal is secure, it may not be suitable for discussing sensitive military operations if a user’s device is compromised, potentially exposing message content. Government officials should use authorized communication systems to prevent inadvertent disclosures.
Signal representatives have not responded to requests for comment.
Are Signal text messages secure?
Generally, Signal text messages are secure, but users should exercise caution when adding new contacts, similar to other social platforms.
When creating group chats, users should verify that they are including the correct contacts to ensure message confidentiality.
Protein Church has seen a recent surge in young worshippers, with Andrew Scott leading the services.
According to a survey by the CS Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan, two in five Americans aged 13 to 17 reported consuming protein supplements like shakes and powders last year.
An investigation by online supermarket Ocado found that 62% of UK Z and millennials increased their protein intake last year.
On foodie Tiktok, dishes like black bean pasta, tofu-filled pasta sauce, and chickpea and cashew chocolate brownies are gaining popularity.
Cottage cheese has become a favorite due to its high protein content, with a 97% increase in demand reported by Ocado.
While young adults are focusing on consuming more protein, older adults are falling short of the recommended intake levels.
Research from the University of Birmingham in 2020 showed that older adults consume less protein than middle-aged adults.
Another study in 2020 by the University of Sheffield found that only a small percentage of adults over 65 met the daily protein recommendations.
It’s evident that while young people are increasing their protein intake, older adults are struggling to meet their protein needs.
Why middle-aged adults need more protein
Professor Elizabeth Williams from the University of Sheffield explains that protein requirements vary throughout life, with older adults needing more protein to combat reduced protein synthesis efficiency.
Other factors like muscle loss and anabolic resistance in older adults contribute to the need for higher protein intake.
As we age, our bodies need more protein, especially postmenopausal women, as hormonal changes can lead to increased muscle loss. – Credit: Hispanoristic via Getty
Why seniors struggle to eat enough protein
Anabolic resistance and sarcopenia worsen with age, especially among less active individuals, making it crucial for seniors to consume sufficient protein.
Dr. Connor Carrey emphasizes the importance of protein intake for older adults to maintain muscle mass and functional levels.
Not consuming enough protein can lead to muscle loss and bone health issues in older adults.
Elderly individuals and those with fragile health find it challenging to meet their protein requirements.
How much protein is enough?
Protein intake is usually measured in grams per kilogram of body weight, with recommended daily amounts varying for different age groups.
For older adults, experts recommend a higher protein intake of around 1-1.2g/kg per day to support muscle health and prevent muscle loss.
Increasing protein intake through meals like eggs can help middle-aged and older adults maintain muscle mass.
Breakfast is a meal when many of us are protein deficient. This means providing an opportunity to redress the balance.
How to eat enough protein for better health
Eating protein-rich foods like eggs for breakfast can help improve protein intake and support muscle health.
Experts recommend consuming 25g of protein in each meal to maintain muscle mass and overall health.
Switching to protein-rich breakfast options like eggs, yogurt, or nuts can help individuals increase their daily protein intake.
For those struggling to consume large quantities of protein, liquid sources like milk and dairy products are recommended.
Read more:
About our experts:
Professor Elizabeth Williams is a nutrition science professor at the University of Sheffield, specializing in diet-related chronic diseases and healthy aging.
Dr. Connor Carrey is a postdoctoral researcher and nutrition instructor focusing on proteins at University College Cork.
Amani Kite is a functional nutritionist specializing in intestinal, hormonal, and metabolic health.
Skywatchers in the northeastern United States, eastern Canada, and parts of Europe are eagerly anticipating a rare astronomical event this spring. On the morning of Saturday, March 29th, 2025, a partial solar eclipse will grace the sky, coinciding with a spectacular “double sunrise.”
Here is all you need to know about the partial solar eclipse, including where to watch, what to expect, and how to safely observe it.
When is the Partial Solar Eclipse in 2025?
The first and only solar eclipse of 2025 will occur on March 29th, starting at 8:50am GMT (4:50am EDT) and ending at 12:43 PM GMT (8:43am EDT). The maximum solar eclipse will take place at 10:47 AM GMT (6:47AM EDT).
In the US, the solar eclipse will begin at 6:13 AM EDT and end at 7:17am EDT, with the exact times varying based on location. The most dramatic views and longest duration of the eclipse, with 85% of the sun obscured, will be experienced in some areas.
In England, the solar eclipse will begin in London at 9:56am GMT, reach its peak at 11:03 AM, and end at 12:00 PM GMT. The extent of the eclipse may vary slightly depending on location, with Scotland witnessing over 40% obscuration in cities like Glasgow.
Where to Watch the Partial Solar Eclipse?
This partial solar eclipse will be visible across a wide area of the Northern Hemisphere, including the Northeastern United States, Eastern Canada, most of Europe, and northwest Africa.
Fourteen US states, including Washington DC, will witness a partial solar eclipse, with Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia among them.
The point of greatest obscuration will occur in Nunavique, Quebec, where 94% of the sun will be hidden at the peak of the solar eclipse.
Global map of partial solar eclipse shadow paths for March 29, 2025. A yellow curve tracks the extent of the partial eclipse and the proportion of each of these curves, giving the maximum area of the moon-covered sun during the eclipse. -NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
What is a Partial Solar Eclipse?
A partial solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun but does not fully block the Sun. Instead, it covers only a portion of the solar disk, creating the appearance of the moon taking a bite out of the sun.
This results in a deep but incomplete solar eclipse, with the sun taking on a crescent shape. Unlike a total solar eclipse, where the sky goes completely dark, daylight remains during a partial solar eclipse, albeit with a dim and eerie quality.
What is a Double Sunrise?
“Double Sunrise” is a rare and stunning visual effect that can occur when a solar eclipse coincides with the rising sun.
From parts of eastern Canada and northeastern United States, the sun may appear as a crescent on the horizon during a partial solar eclipse. The tip of the crescent moon, often called the “devil’s horn,” may also be visible, giving the illusion of two separate sunrises.
Maine and parts of Quebec, Canada, offer the best chance to witness this phenomenon.
After the double sunrise, the sun will continue to rise as a thin arc in the sky.
How to Safely Watch a Partial Solar Eclipse
Unlike a total solar eclipse, partial solar eclipses should never be viewed directly with the naked eye, even when most of the sun is covered. Even small slivers of the sun can cause permanent eye damage.
If possible, obtain eclipse glasses that are certified to ISO 12312-2 international safety standards.
Crowds gather around Bryant Park in New York City, wearing eclipse glasses to witness a partial solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.
If using binoculars, cameras, or telescopes, ensure they are equipped with a solar filter on the front end (not the eyepiece).
If you are unable to find glasses or filters, indirect viewing methods are still possible. By creating a small hole (1-2mm) in a card, you can project sunlight onto a flat surface to observe the solar eclipse safely.
Weather plays a significant role in eclipse visibility. A clear sky offers the best viewing conditions, but even in cloudy weather, you may still experience a dimming effect as the moon passes in front of the sun.
How to Watch the Solar Eclipse 2025 Online
If you are unable to witness the partial solar eclipse in person, don’t worry. You can watch it online. The Royal Observatory Greenwich in the UK will be live streaming the event starting at 10am GMT.
Chatbots were originally designed to chat. But they can generate images too.
On Tuesday, Openai strengthened its ChatGpt chatbot with new technology designed to generate images from detailed, complex and unusual instructions.
For example, explaining a four-panel comic strip that includes the characters that appear on each panel and what they are saying to each other, technology can instantly generate elaborate comics.
Previous versions of ChatGPT can generate images, but by blending these broad concepts, it was not possible to create images reliably.
The new version of CHATGPT illustrates a broader change in artificial intelligence technology. After starting as a mere text-generating system, chatbots have transformed into a tool that combines chat with a variety of other abilities.
The technology also supports a new version of CHATGPT called GPT 4-O, allowing chatbots to receive and respond to voice commands, images and videos. You can even talk.
Released at the end of 2022, the original ChatGpt learned its skills by analyzing a huge amount of texts from across the internet. I learned to answer questions, write poetry and generate computer code.
Could not generate image. But about a year later, Openai released a new version of ChatGPT, which can generate images called Dall-E. However, ChatGpt and Dall-E were separate systems.
Now, Openai is building a single system that learns a wide range of skills from both text and images. When generating your own images, the system can pull out everything ChatGpt has learned from the Internet.
“This is a whole new kind of technology under the hood,” said Gabriel Goh, a researcher at Openai. “We don’t disband image generation and text generation. We hope that everything will be done together.”
Traditionally, AI image generators have had a hard time creating images that are significantly different from existing images. For example, if I asked the image generator to create an image of a bike with a triangular wheel, that was a pain.
Goh said the new ChatGPT could handle this type of request.
Images of “triangle vehicle” made using OpenAI’s new ChatGPT image generator.
Openai said starting Tuesday, this new version of ChatGPT will be available to people using both the free and paid versions of the chatbot. This includes both ChatGpt Plus, a $20-month service, and ChatGpt Pro, a $200 service that provides access to all the company’s latest tools.
(New York Times sued Openai and its partner Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems.)
Alternative Foie Gras for Researchers undergoing stress testing in the lab
Thomas A. Birgiss
French delicate foie gras could be made more ethically thanks to techniques that replicate the way fat is metabolized in forced birds, but the process still relies on farm animals.
Foie gras is made from duck or goose liver that is forcefully applied via tubes. This process, known as gavage, causes organs to expand to ten times the normal amount as the animal stores excess fat.
Researchers say the experience of eating foie gras depends not only on its high fat content, but also on its microscopic distribution of its fat.
now Thomas Birgiss At the Max Planck Institute, the Polymer Institute in Mainz, Germany and his colleagues developed a new process that uses the same bird fat to create the same texture from ducks or geese normally raised and slaughtered into the liver.
“I’m a huge fan of foie gras,” says Birgis. “I was fascinated by this mouthfeel – it was so different to the other putty – so I asked myself, what is it?”
His team had previously tried to make foie gras with putty in the same proportion of fat and liver ratio, but the results were disappointing. In further experiments, collagen was added to replicate the density of foie gras, but it gave me something that felt like a gum in my mouth.
Vilgis then realized that releasing enzymes that divide fat before storing them in the liver is a way to efficiently store large fat molecules as smaller crystalline substances.
He and his colleagues discovered that this process can be replicated by treating fat with an enzyme called yeast lipase. Candida Lugosa. “Lipases are molecular sizers,” says Birgis. Next, the processed fat is mixed with the liver to create fake foie gras.
The team conducted numerous scientific tests, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and compared fake foie glasses with real samples, resulting in promising results. Importantly, however, Vigoris says that the aroma and taste are “substantially not different” from the real thing.
The process is currently patented and researchers are discussing with the industry about commercializing the industry and bringing counterfeit gras to the market.
Due to ethical concerns, and in some countries, including the UK, many alternatives have been developed previously that claim to produce similar results, as it is traditionally illegal to produce foie gras. Also, at least two companies are trying to bring it in Lab-grown foie gras are available on the market.
Dawn Car People for Ethical Animal Treatment (PETA) says lab-fed meat is a more ethical route than a new lipase process that involves animal care and genocide. “We don’t need to kill animals for a fleeting taste moment,” Kerr says. “The future of foie gras is already here, and it doesn’t require any power or throat slits.”
Emotional ads featuring Katie, a young woman diagnosed with a kidney disease at age 19, have been running on Facebook and Instagram for the past month.
She credits a stranger’s kidney with saving her life, highlighting the impact Tiktok has had on people’s lives. The app is positioning itself as a savior and small business supporter amidst concerns about Chinese ownership.
Despite federal laws requiring Tiktok to sell to non-Chinese owners by April 5, the company is pushing back with a new ad campaign emphasizing its role in American lives and businesses.
Tiktok’s marketing efforts have ramped up in recent months, with the app spending millions on ads and working to reassure creators about its future in the US.
In response to legal challenges threatening its existence, Tiktok has dramatically increased its advertising spending and engagement with policymakers.
Experts and creators alike are watching Tiktok’s moves closely as the app navigates uncertain regulatory waters while continuing to operate and advertise in the US.
Tiktok’s future remains uncertain as it faces pressure to sell to non-Chinese owners amidst concerns about data security and China’s influence.
The company is making efforts to reassure users and advertisers while also engaging with policymakers to shape its fate.
Tiktok is positioning itself as a key player in the digital advertising space, with plans to participate in major industry events and continue engaging with creators and brands.
While Tiktok faces uncertainty about its future, the company remains focused on supporting small businesses and engaging with policymakers to shape its fate.
Tiktok’s ad blitz and engagement with policymakers reflect the company’s efforts to address concerns and shape its future in the US market.
Thomas BirgissFood Physicists at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany, have been in love with foie gras for a quarter century. The gorgeous delicateness is a putty or mousse made from the rich, fat liver of ducks and geese.
“It’s truly extraordinary,” Dr. Virgis said, recalling his early encounters with high-quality foie gras when he lived and worked in Strasbourg, France. It was soft and buttery, and as the fat started to melt in my mouth, the flavor evolved and exploded. “It’s like fireworks. Suddenly there’s a feeling of the whole liver,” he said.
But such transcendence is at a price.
To fatten the liver used to create foie gras, farmers force more grains than their bodies need. The excess food is stored as fat in the animal’s liver and has balloons of size.
He sometimes eats foie gras produced by local farmers, but Dr. Virgis discovers that it cannot stand on an industrial scale. “It’s terrible to watch,” he says.
Dr. Virgis somehow thought that “we could make similar products, but without this torture.”
In a paper published in the journal on Tuesday Liquid physicshe and his colleagues believe they have devised techniques that allow ducks and geese to eat and grow normally. But to be clear, this is not a replacement for foie gras that will hold the life of birds.
His lab approach uses enzymes to break down duck fat. Second, the mixture of regular duck liver and treated fats is finished in the same way as traditional foie gras. “Of course, that’s not a 100% agreement, but we’re very close,” Dr. Virgis said.
“It’s far better than many other products that try to simulate foie gras,” he said. It involves the process of using plant fats (“the same flavor, not melting, nothing,” he said) or collagen (“this turns out to be gum,” he said).
Devising this approach was full of failure. When the team tried simply to combine regular duck liver with untreated fat, regardless of the ratio, the result was not foie gras.
“The mechanical properties are different,” he said. “The fat distribution is different. Everything wasn’t working.”
Researchers tried to add emulsifiers and later gelatin from bird skin and bones, but consistency was off.
Dr. Virgis then thought about what would happen when forces were generated inside the bird’s body. Ducks or geese digest all excess food, among other things, using an enzyme called lipase, which acts like a pair of molecular scissors. They can cut fat molecules into small pieces and “rearrange and crystallize in different shapes,” he said. Crystallized fats form irregular clusters surrounded by a matrix of liver proteins, giving them a luxurious flavour and texture.
That was an important insight. “We just did what happens in the small intestines of the lab,” Dr. Virgis said. When the team treated duck fat with lipase, mixed it with regular liver, and studied it using X-ray scattering and other techniques, the results were markedly similar to foie gras.
“The mechanical properties match the properties of foie gras very well,” he said. “This really made me happy because foie gras contains so much basic physics.”
But most importantly, it tasted right. Dr. Virgis was surprised and pleased when he first sampled the fake foie gras. The team adjusted the melting point and fat clustering exactly to the right. “This trick gives you fat so that it melts in your mouth, which is essential,” he said. Dr. Virgis secured a patent for this process.
Roseanna ZiaUniversity of Missouri mechanical and chemical engineers who were not involved in the research praise the research that overcomes key challenges. “One of the difficult things about engineering is to translate what people like and want,” she said.
She explained that foie gras is a kind of soft solid, including butter, chocolate, mayonnaise and ice cream. “It looks like a solid, but when spread out with a knife, it moves like a liquid,” she praises researchers like Dr. Virgis, who can manipulate the behavior of this type of complex material.
He acknowledges that his formulation is “not vegetarian, not vegan.” However, when foie gras is produced and consumed, Dr. Virgis hopes at least some farmers will work to “reduce the suffering of animals a little.”
World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company launched by Donald J. Trump and his sons, announced Tuesday that it plans to deepen the president’s financial ties with crypto as his administration eases industry enforcement.
Stablecoin is known as the company USD1 I wrote it Social media posts do not reveal when it will be sold. A common form of cryptocurrency, Stablecoins is designed to maintain a constant value of $1, and is useful for many types of crypto transactions.
“There are no games, there are no gimmicks, there are just real stability,” says World Liberty Financial Posted With an X account.
Stablecoin is the fourth digital currency sold to the public last year by Trump and his business partners. World Liberty already offers a cryptocurrency called WLFI. This month, the world’s freedom announcement Of these digital coins, they sold $550 million. Business entities associated with Trump have received a 75% reduction in sales.
A few days before taking office, Trump began selling so-called memo coins. This is a kind of digital currency based on online jokes and celebrity mascots. Melania Trump put his memo coins to the market the same weekend.
Trump has aggressively entered the crypto market as his administration eases enforcement and rolls back regulations. According to government ethics experts, his efforts to benefit from industry oversee the vast amount of conflicts of interest that is virtually unprecedented in American history.
World Liberty’s Stablecoin adds to the nasty knot of business conflict. Congress is considering legislation that regulates the ridiculous idiots that could reach Trump’s desk by the end of the year. Trump gave a speech at this month’s crypto conference. Called Regarding Stablecoins’ “simple common sense rules,” he says, “we will expand control of the US dollar.”
Stubcoins are usually supported by assets stored by the coin issuer. Every time a user redeems a Stablecoin, they can go to the issuer and exchange digital coins for cash equivalents.
In an announcement Tuesday, World Liberty said it will use short-term US Treasury, dollar deposits and other cash equivalents to back up stubcoins.
“We provide digital dollar stability that allows sovereign investors and key institutions to confidently integrate into a seamless, secure cross-border trading strategy,” said Zach Whitkoff, one of the founders of World Liberty and the son of Steve Wickoff, Trump’s Envoy to the Middle East.
Trump, a former crypto skeptic, last year embraced digital currency on the campaign trail and committed to transforming the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.” The industry has spent tens of millions of dollars funding Congressional candidates who supported Trump and spoke favorably about the code.
In September, Trump began World Freedom with his sons, starting Steve and Zach Witkoff. They entrusted two little-known entrepreneurs with virtually no track record in the industry, Chase Hero and Zach Falkman, to run the business day by day.
World Liberty initially promised to create a cryptographic platform that allows users to borrow and lend digital currency. However, so far, the company has not launched any products other than WLFI and Stablecoin.
The company has set out on something like a purchase, bringing together a stockpile of etheric cryptocurrency and lesser-known coins like SUI and Link.
In a recent panel, Hero I said That world’s freedom was creating a “strategic reserve” of tokens. He did not explain the ultimate purpose of stockpiling.
The idea had a clear echo of the creation of a US stockpile of Bitcoin, one of Trump’s initiatives at the White House.
A study of over 1,500 children suggests that smartphones are beneficial for mental and social well-being unless they begin using social media.
Justin Martin The University of South Florida surveys state children ages 11 to 13. 25 years of national research To explore the link between digital media and happiness.
The researchers found that 78% of the 1,510 children surveyed owned smartphones, and 21% of these reported symptoms of depression and anxiety. Children with phones were also more likely to report spending time in person with friends.
“We thought ownership of a smartphone was related to negative outcomes or negative measures,” Martin says. “But it wasn’t.”
The researchers found that children with low-income parents are more likely to own smartphones than children with rich parents. The highest prevalence of 87% smartphone ownership was found in children living in households collected between $50,000 and $90,000, while only 67% of children in households who own smartphones over $150,000 have a smartphone.
Martin suggests that this may reflect the school policies that children attended, in response to a greater awareness of negative headlines about the supposed risks of social media affecting their mental health.
But such a ban — Florida was the first US state to introduce in 2023 — could be in a volatile scientific position, Martin says. “We were careful to emphasize associations rather than causality, but children with smartphones probably use them for social purposes and like many adults,” he says.
However, not all smartphone use is a benefit of dirt. The researchers also found that children who said they were often posted on social media were twice as likely to report sleep problems or symptoms of depression or anxiety compared to people who never use these platforms. That said, the study failed to determine whether increased use of social media has led to mental health and sleep problems, or whether the opposite is true, says Martin.
“We recommend that parents and adults consider protecting their children from the social platforms that their children post frequently, or try to avoid posting on social platforms,” says Martin. “Of course, it’s hard to tell your kids. ‘You can use Instagram. You can use Tiktok, but don’t post it.” ”
Children surveyed are evenly divided on the merits of social media, with 34% agreeing that social media is more harmful than good, 33% disagreeing, and the rest are undecided about the issue.
“This is an attractive study that makes an important distinction, especially between smartphones and social media,” he says. Jess Maddox At the University of Alabama. “These two are synonyms for each other, but this study shows that they are not actually the same.”
“These are truly subtle findings and we hope that parents, educators and politicians will not be banned, but will encourage them to think more about their children’s education on smartphones and social media,” she says.
David Ellis At Bath University in the UK, this work confirms similar findings from previous studies, but understanding more work to understand what the data is directing us before deciding what to do about children’s smartphone use is that “the lack of analysis will strengthen conclusions that are more difficult to justify policy changes.”
Han Jong-Hee, co-director of Samsung Electronics and nearly four-year veteran of South Korean consumer technology giant, passed away on Tuesday.
According to a company spokesman, Han, 63, suffered a sudden heart attack.
Since 2022, Han has shared the Chief Executive Officer and CEO of Samsung’s semiconductor business, and more recently Jun Young Hyun. Jun was named Samsung Electronics’ sole CEO on Tuesday after Han’s death, the company said: Announcement.
Han has been running Samsung’s home appliance business since 2021, and added the operation of a digital appliance to his brief a year later. He was also a member of the board. Previously, he oversaw a group that created visual displays for various Samsung electronic devices.
Han graduated from Inha University in Incheon, South Korea and earned a degree in electrical engineering. He joined Samsung in 1988 at a pivotal time in the company’s history, shortly after the death of its founder, Lee Byungchul.
Lee’s son and successor dominated the market for thin displays and mobile phones, pushing Samsung mercilessly through the technological changes of the 1990s and 2000s.
Samsung is the largest and most successful conglomerate known as Choi Bol, which transformed South Korea’s economy into a global export powerhouse. Samsung Electronics is a significant part of it of the country’s exports. Samsung is one of the most popular brands in the global smartphone market, competing with Apple and Xiaomi. It is also the world’s largest manufacturer of memory chips used in everything from electric vehicles and smartwatches to advanced artificial intelligence servers.
Han was survived by his wife and three children, the company said. The funeral will be held on Thursday at the funeral home of Samsung Seoul Hospital, a spokeswoman said.
Apple withdraws one of its crypto services from its UK customers
Slandstock / Alamy
The former cybersecurity chief called the UK government “naive” for Apple’s request to add a backdoor to its software. This allows the UK Intelligence Agency to search customer data.
Ciaran Martin He is the head of cybersecurity at the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and was the first CEO of the National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC) before joining Oxford University in 2020. New Scientist On reports that the UK government has made an unprecedented request to grant Apple access to data stored anywhere in the world, even if it is encrypted.
Such an order, made under the Investigation Powers Act of 2016, is intended to be made in secret, but Martin says it’s not surprising that details appear to have been leaked. “I think the idea that this type of order for companies like Apple would work secretly was probably naive,” he says.
Martin says that while it’s not uncommon for governments and industries to collide with security issues, he is “not cumbersome, but susceptible to some form of compromise.” He says several times during his career at Intelligence Reporting Agency, technology companies have requested that malicious actors remove features used to harm national security or criminal enterprises. He refused to give detailsBut they often said these are small specialized technology providers.
“They’ll have a new app or something, and it will become a criminal favourite for certain features, and you just say, ‘Look, you can’t do this,'” says Martin. “They are little niche technology, they are widely used. They are more misused than they are used.
At the end of the day, he says, the government must accept that non-crackable encryption will remain here. “The ship sailed,” says Martin. “I think the government has to agree to this in the end, and I think in the long run, I’m trying to force a global Titan. [US] The West Coast is not going well. ”
The Australian author expresses being “lively alive” and feels violated knowing their work was allegedly included in a pirated dataset used to train AI.
Parents company of Facebook and Instagram faces a copyright infringement lawsuit from US authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates and comedian Sarah Silverman.
In a court application from January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly approved using the book’s online archive, Libgen Dataset, to train the company’s AI models, despite warnings from the AI executive team of its pirated nature.
Books by notable Australian authors, including former Prime Ministers Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, and John Howard, are among those published.
Holden Sheppard, author of Invisible Boys, a popular young adult novel adapted to a Stan series, expressed disappointment that his work was utilized in training meta AI.
He expressed his disapproval of his books being used without consent to train generative AI systems, considering it unethical and illegal and calling for fair compensation for the authors.
He emphasized the need for AI-specific laws in Australia to ensure compliance with existing copyright laws by generative AI developers or deployers.
Journalist and author Tracey Spicer discovered two of her books, including one that addresses artificial intelligence, were included in the dataset without her consent.
She called for a class-action lawsuit in Australia and urged affected authors to contact local federal lawmakers.
She criticized big technology companies for profiting while reducing writers to a serf-like status, highlighting the financial struggles of many authors.
…
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, an award-winning film critic and author of several books, expressed her frustration and called for government action.
The Australian Authors Association urged Facebook to advocate for authors whose work was used without permission.
Society Chair Sophie Cunningham contacted affected authors and condemned the treatment of writers by large companies profiting from their work.
Cunningham criticized Meta’s dealings with writers as exploitative and called for fair treatment and compensation for authors.
Mehta declined to comment on the ongoing lawsuit and is reportedly lobbying for AI training on copyrighted data via executive orders.
Previously, Melbourne publisher Black Inc. Books raised concerns about the use of AI in the industry, with some companies entering agreements with publishers for content use.
Researchers have discovered that certain chemical imbalances in the brain may help explain the higher risk of depression in teenage girls compared to boys.
They specifically highlighted the role of a chemical called tryptophan, an essential amino acid found in foods like turkey, chicken, eggs, milk, nuts, and seeds. Tryptophan is used by the body to produce serotonin, a brain chemical that influences mood, sleep, and happiness.
When tryptophan is broken down in the brain, it can lead to the production of beneficial chemicals like kynurenic acid, as well as harmful chemicals.
Tryptophan (the molecular structure shown here) is one of the 20 standard amino acids – Photo credit: Getty
A study by scientists from King’s College London analyzed blood and depression symptoms in Brazilian teenagers aged 14-16, linking these chemicals with depression in both genders.
According to Professor Valeria Mondeli, senior author and Kings’ clinical professor of psychoimmune, adolescence is a time of significant changes with little understanding of the biological factors contributing to depression differences between teenage boys and girls.
The researchers found that girls at high risk of depression had lower levels of brain health kynurenic acid compared to low-risk individuals, indicating potential harm from tryptophan breakdown.
Girls and women are twice as likely to experience depression compared to men, and the researchers suggested this may be linked to the unbalanced kynurenine pathway’s effects on the brain.
Dr. Nagum Nickhesrat, the first author of the study, expressed hope that the findings could lead to better support for teenagers with depression, possibly through drugs targeting the kynurenine pathway.
Understanding the kynurenine pathway’s role in depression development during teenage years could provide insight into better management strategies for depression.
Welcome to opt-out. A semi-regular column that will help you navigate online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. In the final column, we covered how to stop tech companies spying on your phone, just as Trump promises to deport the public.
DNA testing company 23AndMe filed for bankruptcy after months of concern over its financial health and the ability to keep users’ genetic information safe. In light of the uncertainty looming about the future of the company, one thing needs to be done to protect today’s privacy. Delete your 23andMe account.
If you use this service to discover your ancestors via DNA, the highly sensitive information you share with 23andMe may be transferred to the company’s final buyer. 23AndMe has many privacy controls, but you will need to allow users to opt out of sharing data with scientific researchers or the company will remove the sample.
Generally, privacy and civil liberty experts do not recommend using ancestors and DNA testing services. There are few federal privacy regulations that limit the way businesses use your information in the United States. How private companies maintain, store, and share it is up to the whims of those who are doing it. Our privacy policy changes frequently, and our executive suites are also changing. Not only is data vulnerable to hacking, it can also be used on a variety of commercial products and shared with law enforcement agencies.
23Andme argues that new owners must comply with existing laws regarding the sale and use of consumer genetic data, but the reality in the US is that only a handful of states legally protect this type of personal information. In California, where this type of privacy protection exists, Attorney General Rob Bonta issued an urgent “consumer alert” encouraging Californians to delete their 23andMe data.
“In California, there is a robust privacy law that allows consumers to take control and require companies to delete genetic data,” Bonta said. “Given the financial distress reported by 23Andme, it reminds us to consider calling Californians their rights and instructing 23andMe to delete the data and destroy samples of genetic material held by the company.”
There is good reason for concern. 23Andme suffered a massive hack in 2023 affecting around 7 million users. The hackers first revealed that they were able to access information when they tried to sell what they claimed. Ashkenazi Jewish Descend and 100,000 Chinese Users At the popular hacking forum. In addition to a class action lawsuit that alleges that the company failed to inform users of data breach in a timely manner, the company said it is facing more than that. 50 Other Litigations A hack triggered. The issue is also international. The UK Intelligence Commission’s office issued an intention to fine the company earlier this month, which was £4.59 million.
If you are one of the 15m people who have already handed over your DNA to 23andMe, what can you do to protect your data?
How to delete your 23andMe account
Main things to do to protect your genetic privacy: Delete your account.
There are major precautions. The company says that even if you delete your account, you still need to keep the information in the archive. “23andMe and/or our contracted genotyping laboratory will retain the genetic information, date of birth and gender necessary to comply with applicable legal obligations.
If you are reading this and are trying to determine whether to do DNA testing with any of these private companies, don’t give the above warning. Depending on which state you are in, the data will not be completely erased.
That being said, it is worth the effort to delete your account and all of its data. Here’s how to do it: Go to Login, Settings and scroll to “23andMe Data”.[表示]Click and scroll to “Delete Data”.[データを永続的に削除]Click. You will receive an email from the company to confirm your request. (Please check your spam folder.) If you do not confirm it via the link provided in your email, the request will not complete.
The company says that when the account is deleted, it will “automatically opt out of the investigation and destroy the sample.”
If you do not delete your account, opt out of sharing your data
If you want to keep a 23andMe account, the next best thing to do is have the sample disposed of, stop sharing information, and remove it from future research. You can also do this from the settings.
Stop sharing reports resulting from DNA testingscroll down and click “Privacy/Share” and[編集]Click. From there you should be able to adjust the sharing settings for the report.
Ask the company to dispose of the DNA samplesgo back to Settings, scroll to Settings,[編集]Click to opt out of sharing the sample with the company. The company will throw away your samples.
To stop the company from sharing your DNA with future research projects, Return to Settings, scroll down to edit Research and Product Outlets and edit permissions.
These changes are not retroactive. Rescinding your consent to use DNA in your research will only stop your data from being used in new research; It may take up to 30 days.
If you have specific questions about your account information, you can also email Privacy@23andme.com.
A steep trail near the top Aerial Trams in Palm Springs It was covered with a sponge-like fallen needle and wist-strung pine cone on its ankle. It was also shady, and although it was tough, it felt amazing after the first 7 miles Cloud hiking from cactus Not much was offered bird The value of the remedy of the Leaf.
I was already hiking 7,549 feet vertical feet, and had about 3,000 to get to the top of Mount San Jacinto, a granite rock mountain that towers just west of Palm Springs, California.
For this, I chose the third time from the cactus to the cloud hike, and I chose the day in mid-November, but the conditions were perfect. The 22-mile hike has risen from the desert floor to a 10,834-foot peak, then six miles and 2,400-foot vertical feet, reaching a $14 ride.
I started trekking at an altitude of 482 feet near the Palm Springs MuseumImmediately after sunriseAt 6:41am, carrying enough water to continue to the first water source, the 8,400-foot ranger station, I packed some jackets to deal with the swing of wild temperatures from bottom to top.
People have many reasons to try cacti on clouds. This is one of the most biodiversity hikes in the country. It is a rare wilderness experience on the edge of an urban area. But more than anything, there is the pure boldness of the hiking. In my previous ascension, each of them was motivated by the idea that, following the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, divorce and completion of treatment for stage 3 breast cancer, I was not sorry for myself by committing myself to this challenge. And what if I made it? Well, that was proof that I could handle anything.
This time my MS was in remission, my marriage was fulfilling, and I had been cancer-free for almost nine years. More than 15 years after the first cactus to the clouds, it was finally about the landscape, not me. I had hidden pocket guides to plants in the San Jacinto Mountains and had planned to take some time to stop the cedars and smell them.
The cloud route from full cactus is only very suitable, but you can also hike that section. Walk one mile from the trailhead to the picnic area and look back. Or take the tram and take the Top Station, then climb the summit on Mount San Jacinto. You can also trek to the top of the tram and then take it on and save the next day’s summit, as you did this time due to sudden leg pain. Each offers you the chance to find eternal views of the Coachella Valley, as well as the Cactus Lens, the Cooper Hawks and the Golden Eagles.
Heart-worthy shapes and smells
Mount San Jacinto is not particularly noticeable, but the difference in altitude from the base to the summit is the case. The mountain rises approximately 10,400 feet over approximately six horizontal miles. This sudden trend explains the unusual species of life of plants passing through four life zones, apart from the roughly climbing equivalent of Mount Everest.
The trail begins between desert species such as barrel cactus and creosote, and then Chaparal, Scrub oak and Manzanita. After that, the pine forests mix together. At the summit, the trees are shorter, collected and included by altitude and elements. Pines on the arms and legsthrives in places that are hardly anywhere else.
“The environment and lifestyle look very different from the top of Mount San Jacinto in the desert of Colorado Sonoran,” he said. Conservation Biology Center A few days before hiking at the University of California, Riverside. But the most interesting is the zones between the zones, she said. “That’s where it is the most biodiversity is.”
Davis was right. Between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, the green smelled a variety of things, resulting in an incredible array of shapes, textures, hues and sizes. It was like hiking a bowl of mixed salad greens: cedar, manzanita, oak, agave Jeffrey Pines Add a butterscotch hint into the air.
The burnt below, the above cold
Conditions that make cactus prominent towards the clouds dangerous. The trail hiker died of dehydration and exposure. “We take one deadly a year,” said volunteer Eric Holden. Riverside Mountain Rescueone of four search and rescue teams to deal with hikers suffering on the route.
To protect both hikers and rescuers, Mount San Jacinto State Park In summer, parts of the route were closed under authority (three digit temperatures at the bottom) and winter (snow and frozen conditions at the top). In 2024, the trail closed in early July and reopened on November 4th.
There is little shade for the first 7,000 feet and no ten miles of water. “One of the biggest killers is a hiker who has come to realize he has no physical fitness and is beginning to turn around,” Holden said. “It might be cool when it started at 3am, but now I’m not feeling well and I’m hiking to temperatures that could go above 100 degrees.”
In winter, snow can make it difficult to track. In particular, at 1,000 feet, 1,000 feet below the top of the tram, hikers are stuck on a cliff. I stayed on the path of this section by following my previous GPS tracks from cactus to cloud hiking.
A challenging “Super Day Hiking”
Backpacker magazine Call the cactus to cloud the hike on the fifth most difficult day in America. Most hikers take 12-16 hours. I tried to entertain myself from the relentless climb by identifying exactly which species of Manzanita was scratching my feet, but it did so much to deflect me. I sat down, sitting on a flat rock 6,000 feet above the trailhead, next to either a pink business or a green leaf manzanita.
At least I was hiking uphill. Most veteran hikers understand that while ascending is a tough job, going downhill is a real punishment. In fact, there are clouds from cactus to clouds. Because much of the descent occurs on the streetcars.
“We were dedicated to hikers and were always looking for challenges,” said Sue Birnbaum, one of the six members of the group. Coachella Valley Hiking Club He was the first person to complete the annual Cactus to Clouds Challenge in 1993.
The challenge linked three existing trails, which are “extraordinary super day hikes.” The Museum, Skyline and Mount San Jacin To Peak Trail go beyond a mixture of local, state and federal land and property owned by the Agua Caliente India reservations, which have been operating since 1963.
Above the world
One paradox of cactus to clouds: better if there are no clouds. They obscure the scenery and sometimes the trail itself. This rise held a different kind of paradox for me too. It was the first time I’d hiked separately on the summit trail, but as I listened to my body and spared my legs, I felt a surge in pride.
Against the Pacific panorama, sparkling Salton Sea, and the peaks of the terrible sacred Takitz, spectacular cauliflower-shaped clouds floated thousands of feet below. At about 90 minutes of sunset, they caught and reflected the shades you can usually see in a mango ice cream scoop.
Despite the warm orange radiating across the sky, the summit was frozen and gusts of wind had collapsed. I was tied up in three jackets containing a hooded, swollen coat and would have happily accepted another. So I wanted as much as I wanted to last longer, and I wanted even more to avoid frostbite.
I headed back from the rocks back onto the trail and turned myself towards the tram and across the cluster of things I had identified. Bush Chin Capin. My pocket guide said the fruit tastes like chestnuts. The next time you do the cactus on the clouds, always stop and try it.
If you’re going
The trail is located just north of the Palm Springs Museum, approximately 6.5 miles from the foot of the tram car. After the hike, you can use ride services such as Uber or Lyft to return to the trailhead parking lot.
When Starbucks announced last month it was firing more than 1,000 corporate employees, it highlighted a disturbing trend for white-collar workers. Slow wage growth.
It also fueled that long-standing discussion of economists. Is recent unemployment just a temporary development? Or will they inform something more ominous and irreversible?
After sitting below 4% for more than two years, the overall unemployment rate since May has surpassed that threshold.
Economists say the job market remains strong by historical standards, and much of the recent weakening appears to be linked to the economic impact of the pandemic. Companies actively hired amid a surge in demand and moved to layoffs after the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates. Many of these companies are trying to make their businesses more lean under investor pressure.
But amid the rapid advances in artificial intelligence and President Trump’s federal targets, it disproportionately supports white-collar jobs, which some thinks it has begun a permanent decline in knowledge work.
Karltannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust, said: “I tell people that there are waves.”
To date, few industries have typical shifts over the last few years than creating video games. The boom began in 2020 Couch-bound Americans searched for a new form of home entertainment. The industry reversed the course and actively hired it before embarking on a period of layoffs. Thousands of video game workers lost their jobs last year and the previous year.
The scale of unemployment is Game Developers Choice AwardsThe industry’s annual awards show complained about the “record layoffs” during the 2024 opening monologue. The unionization trend that began with low-wage quality assurance testers that same year has spread to better-paid workers, such as game producers, designers, engineers, and more, of companies making hit games. fall out and World of Warcraft.
At Bethesda Game Studios, owned by Microsoft and creating fallout, workers said they had unionized some because they felt the union would leverage in the soft labor market, as they were wary of rounds of company layoffs in 2023 and 2024.
“It was the first time Bethesda had experienced a layoff in such a long time,” said Taylor Welling, a studio producer who earned a master’s degree in interactive entertainment. “It scared so many people,” Microsoft declined to comment.
unemployment Finance and related industrieswhile still low, it increased by about a quarter from 2022 to 2024. The rise in interest rates slowed demand for mortgages, and businesses were trying to lean more. In Revenue Call Last summer, Wells Fargo’s chief executive noted that the company’s “efficiency initiative” had pruned its workforce over 16 quarters, including a cut in nearly 50% of workers in the company’s home lending sector since 2023.
Last fall, Wells Fargo fired about a quarter of the approximately 45 employees of the Behavioral Management Intake Team, which confirms accusations of corporate misconduct against customers and employees. Heather Rolfs, The let go of lawyer said she believes the company is trying to save money by reducing the US workforce, and she and her colleagues believe it is an attractive target as they have recently tried to put in on the union.
“I think it’s great to get rid of two birds with one stone,” Rolfs said. Some of her former colleagues say they are worriedly waiting every Tuesday after payday. “We feel we can be fired at any time,” he said. Eden Davis, Another worker on the team.
A spokesman for Wells Fargo said in a statement that the layoffs have nothing to do with the union, saying “we will regularly review and adjust staffing levels to suit the market situation.” He said two managers on the team also lost their jobs.
Atif Rafiq, author of a book on corporate strategy in senior positions at McDonald and Amazon, said many companies are trying to emulate Amazon’s model of building teams that go beyond capabilities to reduce barriers between workers with different expertise, such as coding and marketing. In the process, they may discover redundancy and take on layoffs.
CEO Brian Nicole in a memo announcing the layoffs at Starbucks last month I quoted the goal “Delete layers and replicas and create smaller, more agile teams.” Nissan provided similar evidence for management reductions announcement this month.
Overall, the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show Unemployment rates among university graduates have risen by 30% (2% to 2.6%) since falling from the bottom in September 2022, compared to about 18% (3.4% to 4%) for all workers. An analysis by Julia Pollack, Chief Economist at Zippleck Crutter, shows that unemployment rates are the highest among those with bachelor’s or university degrees, but do not have a degree.
Employment rates were slower for jobs that require university degrees than for other jobs. According to ADP Researchresearching the labor market.
Some economists say these trends are inherently short-term and may have little concern for themselves. Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard University, noted that the increase in unemployment rates among college-educated workers was slightly greater than the overall increase in unemployment rates, and unemployment rates for both groups remained low due to historic measures.
Professor Katz argued that slowing wage growth for middle-class workers could simply reflect the discounts that these workers effectively accepted in exchange for being able to work from home. Data from the Institute of Liberal Economic Policy Wages for workers in the 70th and 80th percentiles of income distribution have shown that since 2019 they have grown more slowly than wages in other groups.
However, there are other indications that returns on university degrees may have changed over time. Wage gap between people with university degrees and those without one It has grown steadily It started in 1980, but has been flattened over the past 15 years, but it remains high.
Flattening may partially reflect the fact that as university attendance increases, there are more college-educated workers that employers can choose. However, some economists Make a claim What it reflects Reduced Employer Needs For university graduates, for example, information technology is more sophisticated, which means fewer jobs like bookkeeping. Such jobs do not necessarily require a university degree, but they were often appealing to graduates.
Artificial intelligence can also reduce the need for it by increasing the automation of white-collar jobs. recently Academic Paper Software developers using AI coding assistants have improved their key measures of productivity by over 25%, and found that productivity gains appear to be the biggest among the most experienced developers. The results suggested that employing AI could reduce the wage premium enjoyed by more experienced coders as it erodes productivity benefits over beginners.
Mert Demirer, a MIT economist who co-authored the paper, said in an interview that the work of software developers could change over the long term, making human coders a type of project manager overseeing multiple AI assistants. In that case, wages could rise as humans become more productive. Also, if cheaper software leads to even greater demand, AI will expand employment among coders.
Still, at least in the short term, many tech executives and their investors seem to see AI as a way to trim staffing. Software engineers at large tech companies said they refused to be named for fear of harming their job prospects. His team was about half of last year, and he and his colleagues said they were expected to do roughly the same amount of work by relying on AI assistants. Overall, Unemployment rate In the technology and related industries, it jumped more than half from 2022 to 2024, from 2.9% to 4.4%.
Then there was Trump’s attempt to remake the federal government. This has so far resulted in job losses and employment freezes for federal employees and employees of universities and other nonprofits that rely on government funds. Johns Hopkins University, which relies heavily on funding for federal research, announced this month that it has abandoned 2,000 workers around the world as a result of Trump’s cuts.
Professor Katz at Harvard University noted that the majority of university-educated workers relied on the federal government over other groups, either directly or through nonprofit funding. “What appears to be a major contraction in science and research, education and government spending could potentially have a very large impact,” he said.
“The overall unemployment rate among university graduates does not seem to be particularly rising,” he added. “But that could be in the next six months.”
On an early summer day of 1876 near Druid Hill Park in Baltimore, a middle-aged woman carrying three large, corrupt mushrooms repelled fellow travelers in horse-drawn carriages.
Even wrapped in paper, the foul smell of the aptly named Stinkhorn mushroom was overwhelming, but the woman suffocated her laughter as two other passengers griped about the surrounding flies. The smell didn’t bother her. All she cared about was to bring specimens home to study them, she would write later.
This is Mary Elizabeth Banning, a self-taught mycologist who has been doing creative research into Maryland fungi for nearly 40 years.
Miss Bunning characterized thousands of specimens she found in the countryside of Baltimore and its surrounding areas, identifying 23 new species in science at the time.
The talented artist has collected these observations into a manuscript called “Maryland Fungi.” It consisted of 175 stunning watercolor paintings, each with an accurate yet intimate portrait of a particular species, as well as detailed scientific explanations and anecdotes about the collection of mushrooms.
The manuscript was Miss Bunning’s life work, and she wanted to see it published. But it ended in the drawers of the New York State Museum in Albany and has been forgotten for almost a century.
Her watercolors make up the backbone Exhibition at the museum It will open this month and will run until January 4th next year. The exhibition, called “Outcasts,” recognizes not only the museum’s Mycology collection, but also the museum’s Mycology Collection, as well as the museum’s Mycology Collection.
Miss Banning is known as the fungus “vegetable exile.” At the time (and throughout 1969) fungi were classified as distinctive plants. Most botanistsFrom the mid-19th century, their research was considered a backwater of research.
It was the exile who banned herself. “She was very much hoping to be part of the science community,” said John Haynes, a museum’s mycology curator until she retired in 2005 and a wide-ranging study of her history. But as a woman living in the 19th century, the path was largely closed to her.
Like her contemporaries like Beatrix Potter, she tried to make her mark in the emerging field of mycology.
One scientist gave her Charles Horton Peck, who worked at the museum as New York’s first national botanist from 1868 to 1913. A prominent American mycologic man, Peck has dedicated most of his career to fungi, gathering over 33,000 specimens in a New York survey, surpassing 2,700 New New Kachiuk reports.
“A lot of the fungi that people recognize from New York and the northeast are what Peck explained,” said Dr. Kaisian.
Miss Banning first wrote Mr. Peck in 1878, seeking feedback on her manuscript. Unlike the other scientists she tried to contact, he wrote back and they responded for nearly 20 years. Her letters are part of which are on display, providing a window into their relationship.
“You are my only friend on the debate land of the Official Gazette,” she wrote to him in 1879. She recorded her collection forays and scientific observations, and conveyed her dreams of the manuscript. “I have a strong will,” she wrote in 1889.
Miss Banning’s letters were often whimsical and passionate. None of Mr. Peck’s letters to her remained, but his tone in the other letters suggested he was much more restrained. Nevertheless, he treated Miss Vanning like a respected colleague – providing her scientific guidance, an account of the species with her support, and even an account of the species named after her. Their scientific bonds could not be denied.
“It’s a love story, but not between them. They both were in love with fungi,” Haynes said. The play he wrote about their relationship from Miss Bunning’s letter will take place at the exhibition’s gallery opening event on April 4th at the museum.
However, the love triangle tends to change particularly sourly. With no visible publishing prospects for her own, Miss Bunning sent her manuscript to Mr. Peck in 1890, hoping that he could publish it. “He would have had the resources to make it a permanent part of the mycologic record,” Dr. Kaisian said. But he never did.
She expressed how difficult it was to let go of her job and asked her to reassure her that she appreciated her contribution to the field, but she was not received that recognition. “In her letter, she seems to have passed away without really understanding the legacy, the value of her work,” Dr. Kaisian said.
In one of her final letters to Mr. Peck in 1897, six years before her death, Miss Bunning lamented the loss of the book as she fell into poverty alone in a room home in Virginia. “I hardly know that I’ve given up on an illustrated book,” she wrote. “To tell you the truth, I want to look at it and call it my own again, but this is by no means.”
“It still brings tears to my eyes,” Dr. Haynes said.
It was originally Dr. Haynes who revealed the manuscript of Miss Bunning.
The eccentric curator showed it to him in 1969 when he visited the museum for a job interview. He recalls being surprised by the colors that were beautifully preserved by the fact that pages had not been opened to sunlight for decades.
He exhibited some of the paintings in 1981, and they were on display several more times, including the birth of Miss Banenning, including Talbot County, Maryland. With the help of this spotlight, Miss Bunning was led to the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994. However, since the mid-1990s, the photographs were packed in as pigments decompose quickly in light.
Beyond Miss Bunning’s work, “Outcasts” gives visitors a glimpse into the broader historical background of mycology. “Fungi are extremely important organisms, dating back hundreds of millions of years, they shape the very texture of the Earth,” Dr. Kaisian said. “But their stories are still mystical and often ignored.”
In addition to Miss Bunning’s watercolors and letters, the exhibition includes many other artifacts and experiences. Visitors can explore one of Peck’s microscopes and mushroom specimens, one of the recently collected by Dr. Kaysian, or marvel at the incredibly realistic wax sculpture of New York fungi, created for the museum in 1917 by artist Henri Marchand and his son Paul.
The murals, created by museum artists, show the biology of fungi, their role in ecosystems, and their evolutionary history. Rare Fossils of Prototaxite, a 30-foot-high fungus that lived during the Devonian period about 400 million years ago refers to how much the Earth has changed over time.
Overall, Dr. Kaysian said he hopes the exhibition will demonstrate why such natural history collections deserve public support and preservation.
The 150-year-old specimen, hidden in a cabinet where visitors rarely see scientists, maps the limits of a variety of organisms, both geographically and genetically.
“The Natural History Collection is an active repository for contemporary research,” Dr. Kaisian said. “We need more scientific communication about what’s going on here and why it’s important.”
Studies spanning three decades on eight popular diets have pinpointed the ones most likely to promote long-term health since the 1970s.
The Alternative Healthy Diet Index (AHEI) diets have shown slightly superior health benefits compared to the planetary health food index, Mediterranean diet, and healthy plant-based diets.
The AHEI diet focuses on increased consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and nuts while limiting other foods like sugary drinks, red and processed meat, salt, and trans fats. Some meat, fish, and dairy products are allowed in moderation.
Other diets studied had similar characteristics but varied in terms of the amount of permissible meat intake for foods like olive oil, fish, and berries.
“This diet provides all the essential nutrients and food varieties necessary for maintaining a healthy life,” stated corresponding author Dr. Marta Guash Fere, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen in an interview with BBC Science Focus. “It is a widely recognized dietary pattern focused on disease prevention.”
The study’s healthy diet emphasizes plant foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes, and nuts – Credit: Marcos Elif Castillo Ramirez via Getty
The study conducted by Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health, Copenhagen University, and the University of Montreal analyzed data from over 105,000 middle-aged nurses and healthcare professionals.
Participants completed meal surveys over 30 years which were scored based on their adherence to eight different dietary patterns.
While only 9.3% of participants were categorized as healthy agers, those closest to the AHEI diet were found to be 86% more likely to reach 70 years of age in good health.
These individuals were also over twice as likely to reach 75 years of age in good health compared to those following diets less similar to the AHEI diet.
Healthy aging was defined as reaching 70 years of age with good cognitive, physical, and mental health without major chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
“This research focuses on healthy aging, aiming not just for longevity but for quality of life as well,” explained Guash Ferre. “We are concerned with maintaining overall health in various aspects – physical, cognitive, emotional, and mental.”
The second most effective diet was the Planetary Health Diet Index, promoting both human and environmental health by favoring plant-based diets.
Adherence to any of the eight diets was associated with improved aging, all emphasizing high plant food intake over meat, including vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes.
Though they shared similarities, some diets were variations of the Mediterranean diet focused on longevity, while others were more plant-based or designed for specific purposes like reducing inflammation or safeguarding against cognitive decline.
Guash Ferre noted the intriguing aspect that the diet most conducive to healthy aging includes moderate incorporation of healthy animal-based foods.
She suggested that these proteins might benefit middle-aged and older populations by protecting against conditions like osteoporosis but may not be ideal for younger adults not addressed in the study.
Reduced consumption of ultra-processed foods was linked to improved aging, a finding detailed in Natural Medicine.
Read more:
About our experts:
Dr. Marta Guash Fere is an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and at the Department of Nutrition in Harvard Chan School of Public Health. She holds a PhD in nutritional epidemiology.
Earlier this month, a mysterious spaceship named X-37B landed at Vandenburg Space Force base near Santa Barbara, California. This experimental project, shrouded in secrecy, has been ongoing for over a decade.
Details about the X-37B and its mission are scarce, but fragments of information have been gradually unveiled over the years, allowing us to piece together the puzzle of what is happening in space.
While the public eye is fixed on the race to the moon by private companies and national space agencies, a more secretive competition is taking place in the background.
The X-37B is just one of many clandestine experiments conducted by countries like the US, Russia, and China. Recent revelations shed light on the features of this mysterious spacecraft and give a glimpse into the future of military space operations.
The X-37B is seen here on the runway after a successful completion of the sixth mission. – Staff Sergeant Adam Shanks / US Space Force
What do you know about the X-37B?
The X-37B, built by Boeing, is a cutting-edge spacecraft born out of NASA’s X-37 program. It embarked on its first flight in 2010 and has since been managed by various US military entities, including the US Space Force.
The US Space Force, established in 2019, recognizes the importance of space in future conflicts and aims to achieve space superiority through operations like space control.
The X-37B, despite not being a weapon itself, plays a crucial role in preparing the US for potential space warfare scenarios. Its capabilities are key in collecting data and testing new technologies in the space domain.
Recent maneuvers like the “aero brake” operation have showcased the agility and versatility of the X-37B, hinting at its potential role in future defense strategies.
While the specifics of the X-37B’s missions remain classified, its significance lies in its contribution to the US military’s readiness for an evolving space landscape.
War in Space: Where does the X-37B fit?
As space becomes increasingly congested with satellites and new technologies, the X-37B’s role in collecting data and testing capabilities is vital for understanding the evolving space environment.
The spacecraft’s ability to operate autonomously and perform complex maneuvers like aero braking sets it apart as a valuable asset in modernizing US space defense strategies.
While countries like China and Russia are also developing secretive space capabilities, the X-37B represents the US’s commitment to maintaining a competitive edge in space while adapting to new threats.
Overall, the X-37B serves as a reminder that space is no longer just a realm of exploration, but a frontier where countries must prepare for defense and strategic advantage.
About our experts
Vivienne Machi: Military space editor at Aviation Week, with a decade of experience covering international military and space technology.
Todd Harrison: Senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in defense strategy, budget, and space policy.
Challenging assumptions about infant memory, a new Yale-led study shows that 12-month-old young infants can code memory. Findings suggest that infant amnesia – the inability to remember the first few years of our lives – is likely caused by impaired memory retrieval, rather than being unable to form memories in the first place.
Yates et al. The mechanical basis of this infant amnesia was investigated by scanning the brains of awake infants with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Image credit: Kang Heungbo.
Despite childhood being a period of rapid learning, memories from this point do not continue to later childhoods or adults.
In general, humans cannot remember events in the first three years of their lives. This is a phenomenon known as infant amnesia.
The reason why grown-up humans have long-standing blind spots in their episode memories during their early childhood remains the puzzle.
One theory suggests that this occurs. This is because the hippocampus, a brain region important for episodic memory, is not fully developed during infancy.
However, rodent studies challenge this idea that memory traces or sculptures are formed in the infant hippocampus, but are inaccessible over time.
In humans, infants exhibit memory through behaviors such as conditioned responses, mimicking, and recognition of familiar stimuli.
However, it remains unclear whether these abilities are dependent on the hippocampus or other brain structures.
“The characteristic of these types of memories we call episode memories is that you can explain them to others, but that’s off the table when you’re dealing with pre-language toddlers.”
For this study, researchers wanted to identify robust methods for testing temporary memory in infants.
Scientists used an approach that showed images of new faces, objects, or scenes in infants between four months and two years.
After that, after the infant saw several other images, they showed the previously seen images next to the new one.
“When the baby sees something previously, when they see it again, they’re hoping to see more of it,” Professor Torque Brown said.
“In this task, if the toddler is staring at a previously seen image more than the new one next to it, it can be interpreted as the baby perceives it as familiar.”
The authors have pioneered methods for performing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with awake infants over the past decade (has been historically difficult due to the short attention span and inability to remain stationary).
Specifically, we assessed whether hippocampal activity is related to infant memory strength.
They discovered that the greater hippocampal activity when infants are looking at new images, the longer they see it when the infant reappears later.
The posterior part of the hippocampus (near the back of the head) where encoding activity was most intense, is the same region that is most associated with adult episodic memory.
These findings were true across a sample of 26 infants, but were the strongest among infants over 12 months (half of the sample group).
“This age effect leads to a more complete theory of how the hippocampus develops to support learning and memory,” Professor Torque Brown said.
Previously, the team found that the hippocampus of a 3 month-old young infant exhibits a different type of memory known as statistical learning.
While the memory of the episode deals with certain events, such as sharing Thai meals with out-of-town visitors last night, statistical learning is to extract patterns across events, such as restaurants that look like restaurants, specific dishes found or typical appearances where they are served seated.
These two types of memory use different neuronal pathways in the hippocampus.
And in previous animal studies, researchers have shown that statistical learning pathways seen in the anterior part of the hippocampus develop faster than that of temporary memory.
Therefore, the authors suspected that episodic memories could appear in childhood for about a year or more.
This developmental progression makes sense when thinking about the needs of babies.
“Statistical learning is about extracting the structure of the world around us,” Professor Torque Brown said.
“This is important for the development of language, vision, concepts, etc., and so I understand why statistical learning is played faster than episodic memory.”
Still, new research shows that episode memories can be encoded by the hippocampus earlier than previously thought, long before the earliest memories that can be reported as adults. So what about these memories?
“There are a few possibilities,” Professor Torque Brown said.
“One thing is that it simply doesn’t last long because memory may not be converted into long-term storage.”
“The other thing is that memories are still there long after encoding and we don’t have access to them.”
“And we think that might be the latter.”
“In our ongoing work, we test whether toddlers, toddlers and children remember home videos taken from the perspective of (young) babies.
“The new findings provide important connections.”
“Human work is significantly compatible with recent animal evidence that infant amnesia is a problem of recovery.”
“We are beginning to track the durability of hippocampal memory throughout childhood and entertain the possibilities of radical science fiction.
Sales of a new Tesla car in Europe plummeted last month since Elon Musk’s involvement in Trump’s administration, indicating potential buyer backlash towards his controversial behavior.
The electric car manufacturer sold just under 16,000 vehicles in Europe last month, a 44% decrease across 25 countries including the EU, the UK, Norway, and Switzerland.
Tesla’s market share dropped to 9.6%, its lowest in five years. January also saw a 45% decline in sales compared to 2024.
Although the UK reported a 21% increase in new Tesla vehicle registrations in February, Tesla’s overall sales in Europe are struggling due to Musk’s political involvement and the Model Y overhaul.
Analysts are monitoring Musk’s impact on Tesla amidst concerns of consumer backlash and competition within the EV market. Brands like Tesla, with limited model lineups, are vulnerable during model transitions.
Other automakers like Volkswagen, BMW, and Mini have seen sales growth in Europe, outpacing Tesla in February.
BYD, a Chinese-owned company, has reported significant sales increases, overshadowing Tesla in revenue and sales figures.
BYD has emerged as a strong competitor to Tesla, exceeding them in revenue and sales volume, especially with their line of hybrid cars.
Polestar, owned by Geely, Volvo’s parent company, has also shown growth in vehicle sales in the European market.
BYD’s market value has surged, positioning them as a key player in the electric vehicle industry alongside Tesla and other major automakers.
Despite these challenges, Tesla’s shares rose 6% on Monday, showing resilience in the market amid increasing competition and regulatory changes.
Overall car sales in European markets saw a slight drop, while BEV registrations rose significantly, indicating a shift towards electric vehicles in the region.
2MASX J23453268-0449256 (J2345-0449 for short), a very huge, rapidly spinning, jet lag spiral galaxy with approximately 947 million light years in the Aquarius constellation, a mass of billions of people billions that are billions of times the sun’s, and mounted on a massive radio jet spanning six million light years. This is one of the largest known in any spiral galaxy, and such powerful jets are almost exclusively found in elliptical galaxies rather than spiral, thus covering the conventional wisdom of galaxies’ evolution. It also means that the Milky Way can potentially create similar energetic jets in the future.
This image shows the Spiral Galaxy 2Masx J23453268-0449256 and its huge radio jet. Image credit: Bagchi et al. /Giant Metrure Lave Radio Telescope.
“This discovery is more than just weird. It forces us to rethink the evolution of galaxies and how super-large black holes grow and shape the environment within them,” said Professor Joydeep Baguch of Christ University.
“If spiral galaxies can not only survive, but also thrive under such extreme conditions, what does this mean for the future of our own Milky Way galaxies?”
“Can our Galaxy experience similar high-energy phenomena that have serious consequences for the survival of precious lives within it?”
In a new study, astronomers have unraveled the structure and evolution of the Spiral Galaxy J2345-0449, three times the size of the Milky Way.
Using observations from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, Giant Metruh Rave Radio Telescope, Atacama’s Large Millimeter/Sub-Millimeter Array (ALMA), and multi-wavelength analysis, we detected the giant ultrafine black holes of its mind and radio jets in the largest radio jets by creating rare galaxies.
Traditionally, scientists believed that such huge, superimpression violent activities would destroy the delicate structures of spiral galaxies.
But for all possibilities, J2345-0449 retains its quiet nature with a well-defined spiral arm, bright nuclear bars and an uninterrupted ring of stars.
In addition to enigma, the galaxy is surrounded by vast halos of hot x-ray exhaust, providing important insights into its history.
This halo cools slowly over time, but the black hole jets act like space furnaces, preventing new star formation despite the abundant star-building materials present.
The authors also found that J2345-0449 contains 10 times the dark matter as the Milky Way.
“Understanding these rare galaxies could provide important clues about the invisible forces that govern the universe, such as the nature of dark matter, the long-term fate of the galaxy, and the origin of life,” says Ph.D. A student at the University of Christ.
“In the end, this research brings us one step closer to solving the mystery of the Cosmos and reminds us that the universe holds surprise beyond our imagination.”
Survey results It was published in Monthly Notices from the Royal Astronomical Society.
____
Joydeep Bagchi et al. 2025. Announcing bulge disk structures, AGN feedback and baryon landscapes in a large helical galaxy with MPC-scale radio jets. mnras 538(3): 1628-1652; doi: 10.1093/mnras/staf229
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