When you open the door, it hits you and warmth spreads over your skin. Fighting the smoke and heat, I brace myself and head inside. As you walk through a burning building, flames flicker around you. You find what you want and run away. It's so cold outside that I start shivering and my hands and feet go numb.
But when I remove the headset, everything stops. An incredibly realistic training exercise is now complete. All of these sensations felt real, but they were not caused by changes in my surroundings. Instead, carefully selected chemicals were injected into the skin to mimic different emotions.
Such stimuli have long helped us understand the most complex of the human senses: touch. In the 1990s, research into capsaicin, an extract from chili peppers, and menthol, found in peppermint, helped determine how our bodies respond to heat and cold. now, Jasmine Lu and colleagues at the University of Chicago They use this knowledge to create chemically induced sensations that make virtual environments incredibly realistic.
With a technology called chemical haptics, they built a wearable device that, when placed on the skin, can cause the wearer to experience different sensations, such as hot or cold, numbness or tingling, depending on their needs. . Its uses could include creating highly realistic virtual worlds for gamers to explore, training firefighters, and more. But will we ever be able to fully recreate the experience of touching the real thing? And if we can't, what might we stand to lose?
According to information theory, Johann Sebastian Bach was a great composer
Granger Collection / Alamy Stock Photo
Johann Sebastian Bach is considered one of the great composers of Western classical music. Researchers are currently trying to find out why by analyzing his music using information theory.
Suman Kulkarni Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania wanted to understand how the ability to recall and predict music is related to its structure. They decided to analyze Bach's works because he produced a huge number of works with a variety of structures, including religious hymns called chorales and the fast-paced masterpiece Toccata.
First, the researchers transformed each configuration into an information network by representing each note as a node and each transition between notes as an edge and connecting them. Using this network, we compared the amount of information in each work. Intended to entertain and surprise, toccatas contain more information than chorales, which are composed for more contemplative settings such as churches.
Kulkarni and her colleagues also used information networks to compare listeners' perceptions of Bach's music. They started with an existing computer model based on an experiment in which participants responded to a series of images on a screen. The researchers then measured how surprising the elements of the array were. They adapted an information network based on this model to music, where the links between each node are used to determine how likely a listener thinks two connected notes are to be played in succession, or how likely they actually are. It expresses how surprised you would be if that happened to you. Because humans don't learn information perfectly, a network that shows people's estimated sonic changes to a song is unlikely to accurately match a network based directly on that song. Researchers can quantify that discrepancy.
In this case, the discrepancy is low, suggesting that Bach's works convey information fairly effectively. But Kulkarni wants to fine-tune computer models of human perception to better match actual brain scans of people listening to music.
“More than just knowing frequencies, neuroscience has the missing link between complex structures like music and the brain's response to them. [of sounds]. This study could provide an exciting step forward.” randy mackintosh At Simon Fraser University, Canada. However, there are many other factors that influence how a person perceives music. For example, how long the person listens to songs, whether they have musical training, etc. These still need to be explained, he says.
Even in information theory, it is still not clear whether Bach's compositional style was exceptional compared to other types of music. McIntosh said his own previous research has found some general similarities between the musicians, similar to the differences between Bach and rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen, but more detailed analysis is needed. It states that.
“I would like to perform the same analysis for different composers and non-Western music,” Kulkarni says.
In wargame simulations, AI chatbots often choose violence
Gilon Hao/Getty Images
In multiple replays of the wargame simulation, OpenAI's most powerful artificial intelligence chooses to launch a nuclear attack. Its proactive approach is explained as follows: Let's use it.'' “I just want the world to be at peace.''
These results suggest that the U.S. military is leveraging the expertise of companies like Palantir and Scale AI to develop chat systems based on a type of AI called large-scale language models (LLMs) to aid military planning during simulated conflicts. Brought to you while testing the bot. Palantir declined to comment, and Scale AI did not respond to requests for comment. Even OpenAI, which once blocked military use of its AI models, has begun working with the US Department of Defense.
“Given that OpenAI recently changed its terms of service to no longer prohibit military and wartime use cases, it is more important than ever to understand the impact of such large-scale language model applications. I am.” Anka Ruel at Stanford University in California.
“Our policy does not allow us to use tools to harm people, develop weapons, monitor communications, or harm others or destroy property. But there are also national security use cases that align with our mission,” said an OpenAI spokesperson. “Therefore, the goal of our policy update is to provide clarity and the ability to have these discussions.”
Reuel and her colleagues asked the AI to role-play as a real-world country in three different simulation scenarios: an invasion, a cyberattack, and a neutral scenario in which no conflict is initiated. In each round, the AI provides a rationale for possible next actions, ranging from peaceful options such as “initiating formal peace negotiations,'' to “imposing trade restrictions'' to “escalating a full-scale nuclear attack.'' Choose from 27 actions, including aggressive options ranging from
“In a future where AI systems act as advisors, humans will naturally want to know the rationale behind their decisions,” he says. Juan Pablo Riveraco-author of the study at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
The researchers tested LLMs including OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, Anthropic's Claude 2, and Meta's Llama 2. They used a common training method based on human feedback to improve each model's ability to follow human instructions and safety guidelines. All of these AIs are supported by Palantir's commercial AI platform, but are not necessarily part of Palantir's U.S. military partnership, according to company documentation. gabriel mucobi, study co-author at Stanford University. Anthropic and Meta declined to comment.
In simulations, the AI showed a tendency to invest in military power and unexpectedly increase the risk of conflict, even in simulated neutral scenarios. “Unpredictability in your actions makes it difficult for the enemy to predict and react in the way you want,” he says. lisa cock The professor at Claremont McKenna College in California was not involved in the study.
The researchers also tested a basic version of OpenAI's GPT-4 without any additional training or safety guardrails. This GPT-4 based model of his unexpectedly turned out to be the most violent and at times provided nonsensical explanations. In one case, it was replicating the crawling text at the beginning of a movie. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Reuel said the unpredictable behavior and strange explanations from the GPT-4-based model are particularly concerning because research shows how easily AI safety guardrails can be circumvented or removed. Masu.
The US military currently does not authorize AI to make decisions such as escalating major military action or launching nuclear missiles. But Koch cautioned that humans tend to trust recommendations from automated systems. This could undermine the supposed safeguard of giving humans final say over diplomatic or military decisions.
He said it would be useful to see how the AI's behavior compares to human players and in simulations. edward geist at the RAND Corporation, a think tank in California. However, he agreed with the team's conclusion that AI should not be trusted to make such critical decisions regarding war and peace. “These large-scale language models are not a panacea for military problems,” he says.
A research team led by scientists from Calicut University has described a new species of agamid lizard discovered in the Indian state of Kerala.
Agastya Gama Edge, an uncollected female from the reference locality habitat of Kuramab, Idukki District, Kerala, India. Image credit: Sandeep Das.
The newly confirmed species belong to the following: Agastya Gama, a previously monotypic genus of diurnal, terrestrial, insectivorous lizards of the family Agamiidae.
“Terrestrial agamids, which inhabit the forests of southern India and Sri Lanka, are currently classified into two separate genera. Agastya Gama and Otocryptis It is based on genetic and morphological grounds,” said Calicut University researcher Sandeep Das and colleagues.
“Genus Otocryptis It originally included two species. Otocryptis Bed Dormitory From the southern Western Ghats of India, Otocryptis wigmannii It comes from the humid region of Sri Lanka. ”
“After a long gap, additional species Otocryptis nigristigma Illustrated from the dry forests of Sri Lanka. ”
“In 2018, scientists showed that the Sri Lankan kangaroo skink is paraphyletic with the Western Ghats kangaroo skink.”
“This prompted them to establish a monotypic genus.” Agastya Gama to accommodate Indians. Otocryptis Bed Dormitory however, no molecular data are available. Otocryptis nigristigma”
Agastya Gama Edge Lifetime: (A) An unrecovered adult male from Kuramab, Idukki District, Kerala, India. (B) Females not collected from the same locality. Image credit: Sandeep Das.
named Agastya Gama EdgeThe new species is a small agamid lizard with a body length of 3 to 4.3 centimeters.
“Agastya Gama Edge It is the second species of the genus Agastya Gama” said the researchers.
“On the surface, they are similar. Agastya Gama Bed Dormitory They vary in overall shape, size, and color, but can be distinguished by the combination of letters. ”
Agastya Gama Edge It is currently known only from evergreen forests in the Idukki district of Kerala, India. All records of this species are between 636 and 835 m above sea level.
“We encountered more individuals from March to May,” the scientists said.
“Disturbed habitats such as roadside vegetation and plantation areas had lower numbers compared to undisturbed vegetation types.”
“During the breeding season from March to May, males had creamy spots on their throats. Young individuals were observed in June and July.”
“Discovery of the second species Agastya Gama “The reptile diversity of the Western Ghats is increasing,” they added.
“Agastya Gama Bed Dormitory Its range is home to a variety of habitat types, including myristica wetlands, hilltop tropical evergreen forests in the south, tropical evergreen forests on the west coast, tropical semi-evergreen forests on the west coast, and secondary moist mixed deciduous forests in the south. I am. Agastya Gama Edge So far it has been recorded only from tropical semi-evergreen and evergreen forests. ”
“Our study shows that the two species are geographically separated by about 80 km in a straight line.”
discovery of Agastya Gama Edge is explained in paper It was published in the magazine vertebrate zoology.
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S. Das other. 2024. Discovery of a new species of kangaroo lizard (Squamatora: Agamiidae: Agastya Gama) from the southern Western Ghats of India. vertebrate zoology 74: 151-168; doi: 10.3897/vz.74.e113084
As California prepares for another strong atmospheric river storm on Sunday, Lake Tulare serves as a reminder of the impactful effects these extreme storms can have.
The lake’s floodwaters, which were formed after approximately 12 atmospheric river storms hit California in 2023, are still present 9 months after the resurgence of the “ghost lake.” More than a month later, they still cover thousands of acres of prime farmland.
The continuing presence of the lake in this part of the Central Valley emphasizes how the environmental impacts of last year’s extreme rainfall are still affecting California. While this weekend’s storms could bring heavy precipitation to other parts of the state, most flooding effects are not expected to last long.
Currently, Lake Tulare is rapidly shrinking despite recent rainfall. As of Thursday, about 4,532 acres of farmland were still underwater, but the floodwaters have subsided, according to Kings County spokesman Justin Caporusso. This means the lake is now less than 20 times smaller than last year’s peak, and life is returning to normal for nearby residents.
Sgt. Nate Ferrier of the Kings County Sheriff’s Office, who visited the lake in late January, noted that much of the lake has been cleaned up.
“The farming community was already revitalized,” he said. “There were tractors everywhere.”
The lake was a natural feature of the southern San Joaquin Valley until settlers dug irrigation canals to reroute water and drain agricultural land more than a century ago. Last year, the Tulare Basin flooded after a series of storms because reservoirs could not handle heavy snowmelt runoff from the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Caporusso stated that this week’s atmospheric river storms, expected to be accompanied by a significant storm on Sunday, are unlikely to have a significant impact on Tulare Lake. The reservoir upstream of the lake has the capacity to handle the precipitation, and the California Department of Water Resources found that about 45% of normal snow falls in the southern Sierra Nevada during this period.
Nearly all Tesla vehicles sold in the U.S. are being recalled due to small warning lights in the instrument panel. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the recall of about 2.2 million vehicles on Friday, indicating increased scrutiny of electric vehicle manufacturers. Additionally, the agency upgraded its 2023 investigation into Tesla’s steering problems to a technical analysis, bringing it one step closer to a recall.
The update in response to the recall will enhance warnings and alerts for drivers. The document from NHTSA highlights that the font size for brake, parking, and anti-lock brake warning lights is smaller than required by federal safety standards, potentially making important safety information difficult to read and increasing the risk of a collision. The agency identified the problem during a routine safety compliance audit on January 8th. While Tesla has identified three warranty claims related to the issue, there are no reports of crashes or injuries.
The recall to fix the warning light issue will be done through a software update, affecting multiple models from 2012 to 2024. Tesla has already started releasing software updates, and owners will be notified by letter starting March 30th.
Following the announcement of the recall, Tesla’s stock fell another 2.7% in early trading on Friday, reaching its lowest level since May of last year.
In addition to the warning light issue, Tesla has faced scrutiny for its Autopilot system. Last December, NHTSA pressured Tesla to recall over 2 million vehicles for software updates and fixes related to the flawed system designed to make drivers more careful when using Autopilot. The recall was prompted by a two-year investigation into crashes involving the use of Autopilot, some of which were deadly.
Additionally, Tesla is recalling over 1.6 million electric vehicles exported to China due to problems with automatic assisted steering and door latch controls. The State Administration for Market Regulation in China announced the recall in early January, with Tesla planning to use remote upgrades to resolve the issue.
Overall, Tesla has faced challenges in addressing various safety concerns with its vehicles, including steering problems and Autopilot system issues, leading to substantial recalls and regulatory scrutiny.
Remember in 2021, when Brood XIII and it’s coming soon.
What is a cicada?
Cicadas are large, durable insects with transparent wings and large compound eyes. They have a unique corrugated exoskeletal structure called a “timbal” on the side of their abdomen, and it is this organ that produces the loud buzzing sound.
By rapidly contracting and relaxing the “ribs” of the eardrum (essentially folding the eardrum), cicadas produce chirping, clicking, or snapping sounds. And thanks to the insect’s hollow abdomen, this sound is amplified.This is the most complex sound- and vibration-producing organ of any arthropod, and the eardrum is probably evolved over 300 million years ago.
There are over 3,000 species of cicadas around the world, but only one species exists in the UK: the endangered New Forest cicada. cicadetta montana. In fact, it is so endangered that No one has seen it since the 1990s.There is a possibility that that species is already extinct.
Adult cicadas can take up to 17 years to complete development. – Photo credit: Getty
Why a huge cicada explosion will occur in 2024
To make it easier to track the patterns of occurrence of different populations, entomologists divide cicadas into “family members.” This is especially helpful for periodic cicadas that spend longer underground than their annual or dog days.
Different chicks usually appear at different times. But this year is quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime event, as his two offspring, Brood XIII (born every 17 years) and Brood XIX (born every 13 years), will be born at the same time.
The last time these brothers were in sync was 221 years ago* in 1803. And he is in 2245 when it happens again. And it just so happens that these two of his brothers are geographically adjacent. So if you live in Illinois or Indiana, you’re in for a double whammy.
result? Billions of cicadas will emerge in a noisy mating frenzy sometime this spring. Some estimates suggest that as many as 1 trillion cicadas could be seen in this so-called “insect apocalypse.”
Brood XIII last saw the light of day in 2007, but it may first appear in April or when soil temperatures reach around 17.7°C (64°F). Brood XIX is also expected to follow him around mid-May.
Be careful of rain showers at this time of year. The influx of warm water will encourage these noisy creatures to leave their underground nests.
How many cicadas are there?
There are seven types of periodic cicadas, Magicada. Currently, in the 13 year cicada he has 3 different chicks and in the 17 year cicada he has 12 chicks. They are all native to the United States.
R
Obin Khoury’s daughter Kristen was 15 years old when she was allowed to open her own Instagram account. “We considered ourselves responsible and did everything we could to ensure safety,” Corey says. Months later, Kristen disappeared from her parents’ home after being groomed by a criminal gang on Instagram’s direct message service and sold as prostitutes on the streets of Houston.
Colley said her daughter never recovered from the ordeal. Kristen returned to her home, but after she was trafficked again, she went missing. Her mother does not know if she is still alive.
Corey blames the gang that trafficked his daughter for destroying her life. She also blames Instagram, which she believes played a key role in the sex trafficking of her daughter. “If Instagram didn’t exist, none of this would have happened to my daughter,” she says. “Instagram made it so easy.” [for these people] do this. ”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this after addressing the audience at this week’s U.S. Senate committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation. Photo: Evelyn Hochstein/Reuters
During the hearing, Zuckerberg, along with other social media executives, was questioned about the extent of harm to children on their platforms, and said there was no “causal effect” between social media and poor mental health among young people. He denied there was any evidence that there was a relationship.
He then addressed parents gathered at a Congressional hearing and apologized to parents who had lost children to sexual exploitation and harassment for what they had gone through.
Corey doesn’t have time to hear Zuckerberg’s apology. “If she wanted to, she could stop all the harm that’s happening on her platform,” she says. “Words are not enough. He needs to act.”
She said her daughter was a “normal, happy child” until 2019, when she became the target of a criminal organization operating a prostitution ring in downtown Houston.
Boys working as gang scouts at Kristen’s school identified Kristen as a potential target, and she was flooded with messages from gang members through the direct message feature on her Instagram account.
“They promised her a Louis Vuitton bag in an Instagram message, promised her a yacht trip, things like that,” Corey says. “They say, ‘Come party with me.'”
A few months after she started receiving messages, the gang lured Kristen out of her parents’ home. Two weeks later, police found her in Houston’s red-light district.
“[When she came home] She started talking more about what they had done to her,” Corey says. “The babies’ mouths came out with horrifying stories about what they were forced to do.”
Corrie said Kristen returned to her family traumatized, frightened, angry and a different person.
“I searched for my daughter in some really dark places,” Robin Corey says. “We are conducting DNA testing on the remains that match her description.” Photo: Tola Olawale/The Guardian
Chinese reconnaissance balloon flies over Canada and the United States just before being shot down over South Carolina in 2023
Joe Granita/ZUMA Presswire/Shutterstock
When Chinese reconnaissance balloons flew over the United States and Canada last year, tens of thousands of bots competed to shape the discussion on Twitter, according to an analysis of social media posts.
Kathleen Curley and Lynette Hui Xiang Ng A research team from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania tracked approximately 1.2 million tweets posted by more than 120,000 users on Twitter (later renamed to X) between January 31, 2023 and February 22, 2023. did. All tweets included the hashtags #chineseballoon and #weatherballoon and discussed the controversial airborne. The US claimed that China used it for espionage.
Tweets were then located using Twitter's location feature and checked with an algorithm called . bot hunterlook for signs that the account is not managed by a human.
“There are many things going on. [identifying a bot] Examples are whether messages are being sent so fast that a human could literally not type them that fast, or if someone is geotagged for one minute in London, but in New Zealand a person can physically type For example, if it is not possible. Please do that,” says Carly.
Researchers found that about 35 percent of geotagged users in the U.S. exhibited bot-like behavior, while 65 percent appeared to be human. In China, the proportions were reversed, with 64 percent bots and 36 percent humans.
Of the accounts claiming to be from neither country, 42 percent were bots and 58 percent were human. Although reliable numbers are difficult to come by, previous research suggests that 10-20% of Twitter users are bots. The bot autonomously performs tasks such as sending her Twitter messages to users on the platform and “liking” other posts.often used to try influence public opinion.
“We're seeing more bot activity in tweets that appear to be coming from Chinese communities than we are seeing coming from American communities,” Curley said. The overall rate of bot accounts was also higher during the Chinese spy balloon debate than at other events, researchers said.
As an example, a bot based in China posted: “#USA #China #February 14th” […] Some may speculate that the US is using the #China spyballoon “excuse” to escalate tensions with #Beijing. Remember, US airspace is highly controlled and we have more accurate satellite technology for spying. ”
Neither Carley nor Ng would speculate on who might be behind the bot. stephen buckley Researchers at City University of London said: “There is likely to be a mix of state and individual actors seeking to sway and manipulate public opinion regarding breaking news.”
As for whether bot activity has made a difference, Curley said: “The fact that bots speak a little differently to humans means what people were reading will look a little different and future conversations will look different.” Buckley says it's important to be “very wary” of content you post and assume it wasn't posted by a human.
FOne evening, my housemates and I were coming back from the pub with a few hangers on. The classic 1990s TV show “The Word” ends with a raucous live performance by the up-and-coming grunge band, and now it's time to play video games.
Online multiplayer didn't exist during the original PlayStation or Sega Saturn decade. If you wanted to play against a human, you had to play against a friend in your living room or someone else you found in the pub when it closed. It had to be accessible, competitive, and something that two or four people could play at the same time. We had to keep the rounds short because everyone wanted to play. That always means one of his two options: a soccer sim or a fighting game.
In the mid-1990s, fighting games were the most popular genre on consoles, along with driving sims. At the time, major hardware manufacturers and arcade companies were keen to corner the emerging market of real-time 3D games, games with polygonal characters and environments that replaced the essentially flat 2D world of sprites and backgrounds. did. These games were the future. And the fighting genre was the perfect showcase. These games featured large character models that benefited from 3D graphics and smooth animation, but also featured primarily static arenas, so they didn't need to fill up your disk or system. Memory that stores a lot of environmental data. He also has a huge fan base thanks to his 1980s classics like Yie Ar Kung-Fu and Karate Champ, as well as early 1990s hits Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. Did. It fit perfectly.
1995 saw the release of Tekken on the PlayStation and Virtua Fighter on the Saturn. There was also the beautiful battle arena Toshinden by Tamsoft, which featured a feast of then-cutting-edge texture-mapped visuals, bizarre characters, and special moves. When Tekken 2 was released in August 1995, it sold over 5 million copies and cemented the genre's importance with its cinematic sequences and cool combatants. A year later, the N64 entered the fray with Killer Instinct Gold, Sega gave us Fighting Vipers and Last Bronx, and Capcom diversified the genre with Street Fighter Alpha 2, the horror-themed Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, and 3D weapon-based I was desperately working on it. The sci-fi battle Star Gladiator and the crossover classic X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Squaresoft, the creator of Final Fantasy, also took on the bizarre futuristic fighter Tubal No 1, which became a bestseller in Japan, probably because it came with a playable demo disc for Final Fantasy VII. .
Fighting games never went away. Even as people began to flock online for first-person shooters like Call of Duty, or abandoned social play altogether for new narrative adventure titles (Tomb Raiders, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto). Regardless, Tekken, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Guilty Gear and a few other heavy hitters have held on, supported by a fiercely competitive community. It's great to see renewed interest in it through the excellent Street Fighter 6, the ridiculous Mortal Kombat 1, and the recent Tekken 8. I hope this ignites a passion for the old titles, the ones you used to play from 11:30pm to 5am on Friday nights. Once the Word is finished. Honestly, every Street Fighter game is worth playing. Tekken 3 remains a benchmark classic. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution is beautiful and complex. He then ventured into the cult world of SNK's greats (Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, etc.) and descended the rabbit hole of his Arc System works to the frankly insane Guilty. You can also dive into the world of Gear.
The colors, the sounds, the characters, the combat…the praise you get when you pull off a super move and throw your fellow characters into space. The camaraderie of the arena. Log on to the Internet and raid his GameFaq site for a list of fan-created character moves and combos. Give your friend a boring third-party controller to play with while investing in his first fighting stick. The 1990s were his decade, the furnace of modern industry, as the game grew, diversified, brought in new people and spread its tentacles into wider culture. And for a few intense, glorious years, fighting games were at the absolute forefront.
Meta stock soared 15% in after-hours trading. The company’s strong fourth quarter results came a day after CEO Mark Zuckerberg was assaulted during a controversial Congressional hearing.
The company also announced that it would pay investors a dividend of 50 cents per share for the first time and authorized a $50 billion stock repurchase program.
Overall, Meta reported fourth-quarter revenue of $40.1 billion, beating expectations of $39.18 billion and increasing 25% year-over-year. The report comes as Meta, like many major technology companies, seeks to integrate artificial intelligence tools into its core products. In a statement accompanying the report, Zuckerberg said Meta was “a significant step forward in our vision of evolving AI and the Metaverse.”
“We anticipate that our ambitious long-term AI research and product development efforts will require increased infrastructure investment beyond this year,” the company’s press release said.
During last quarter’s earnings call, Zuckerberg touted Meta’s plans to invest in AI, saying it would be the company’s biggest investment area in 2024. Zuckerberg said in a video he shared on Instagram in early January that his company would acquire $9 billion worth of AI. Nvidia chips help scale up AI
Zuckerberg said AI will not only enhance ad campaigns and increase ad revenue, but AI will also be used to support new meta-products such as AI chatbots. Advertising revenue, the company’s core business, was $38.7 billion, compared with $31.25 billion in the same period last year. His Meta hardware products, such as the Quest 3 VR headset, still don’t account for a large percentage of the company’s revenue. Zuckerberg said on a conference call Thursday that he expects Meta to begin rolling out its AI services more broadly in the coming months.
Meta has laid off more than 20,000 employees in 2023 as it focuses on cost-cutting measures as part of what Zuckerberg has dubbed the “Year of Efficiency.” These efforts seem to have paid off, with Meta’s operating profit margin doubling from 20% in the same period of 2022 to 41%. Meanwhile, expenses decreased 8% year-on-year to $23.73 billion. Chief Financial Officer Susan Lee said on a conference call that Meta had more than 67,300 employees at the end of the fourth quarter, down 22% from a year ago, but that “hiring efforts have resumed. '', which resulted in a 2% increase from the third quarter.
Regulatory headwinds are probably top of mind for investors following Meta’s public taunts during Wednesday’s Congressional hearing. The hearing was convened to question Zuckerberg and other tech executives over the impact of their platforms on young users. The CEO expressed his condolences to the parents in the crowd who lost their children to online exploitation.
Throughout the hearing, lawmakers touted a bill that could strip Meta and other platforms of legal immunity for content posted on them, a move that would make Meta and other platforms illegal in 41 states over its impact on young users. It was enacted several months after a major lawsuit was filed by the attorney general. New Mexico’s attorney general also accused the company of failing to prevent child sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
As a result of regulatory concerns, Meta has sought to diversify its core business, which has so far relied on advertising, which collects vast amounts of user data. Reality Labs, the division responsible for developing virtual reality products, faced a loss of $4.65 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $4.28 billion in the same period last year, bringing its total loss for 2023 to $16.1 billion. It reached $20 million. Meta said in a press release that it expects operating losses to “increase significantly year-over-year” as Reality Labs continues to expand its ecosystem.
In addition to regulatory concerns, Meta sees its platform’s user base tightening as young users in particular migrate to new platforms such as TikTok. The company said its platform is experiencing faster growth outside the United States. Insider information Principal Analyst Jasmine Enberg.
“On the usage side, Facebook continued to see a squeeze in user growth, but as expected, most of the new users came from outside of North America,” she said. “In the U.S., popularity among teenagers has become a liability in the eyes of lawmakers, which could hinder Facebook and Instagram’s efforts to grow in the country.”
Ministers must protect content creators whose work has been used without permission by tech companies for AI products like chatbots, which generate significant financial gains, according to a House of Lords committee.
The Lords Communications and Digital Committee stated that the UK’s legal framework is failing to uphold copyright principles as AI development progresses.
The commission highlighted that high-tech companies are using copyrighted materials without authorization and reaping substantial benefits.
Copyright has become a crucial issue in the development of generative AI, which involves creating text, images, and audio from human commands.
The committee called for government action against copyright infringement and urged for an update to the legal framework to prevent such outcomes.
Additionally, the committee recommended that the government evaluate whether the current copyright law adequately safeguards the rights of copyright owners and consider amending the law if there is legal uncertainty.
Furthermore, the Intellectual Property Office of the government is working on a code of practice for copyright and AI. The Copyright Act of 1988 exempts text and data mining for “non-commercial” research, but the government had initially planned to extend this exemption to all uses in 2022, which has since been withdrawn.
In the US, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is facing lawsuits for alleged copyright infringement, as it has been accused of using copyrighted material to create its tools. Similarly, Microsoft and other companies have emphasized the potential negative impacts of restricted access to data on the functionality of AI models.
The committee also cautioned the government about the prolonged technological disruption caused by AI and the need to prevent the concentration of market power in a few companies’ hands.
A government spokesperson indicated that the Intellectual Property Office has been collaborating with stakeholders to formulate voluntary regulations on AI and copyright, aimed at facilitating the thriving coexistence of AI and creative industries.
I I am at a fortunate stage in my parenting journey where I have a son who is old enough to have a girlfriend who is smart enough to give his boyfriend’s father a truly thoughtful gift at Christmas. Masu.That’s how I started unwrapping 10 things video games can teach us about life, philosophy, and everything else Written by Jordan Erica Webber and Daniel Griliopoulos.
Books, like video games, require an investment of time, so giving them as gifts can be risky. You don’t throw it on your stiff feet like a sock or slap it on your tired face like aftershave. The opposite can also happen if your feet smell or your face is cold.
Personally, I find academic books about video games ironic. Because in the 90s he wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 program ‘Are Books Dead?’ I argued that video games had made written language unnecessary. This was clearly a stupid question, but this was a decade of speaking out loud without needing information to back it up, and that’s one of the reasons it was such a glorious time to be alive. , was just one of the reasons why Liam Gallagher was that hero.
10 things video games can teach us about life, philosophy, and everything else. Photo: Jordan Erica Weber
This is a great book that will make you think more about games. I usually don’t really think through my decisions because the hellish timer is counting down and the aliens are chasing me.
The book gives an example from Mass Effect 3 where you decide whether to save Admiral Corris and his five-man crew from the geth. It’s a matter of utilitarian philosophy — “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” — and the curveball thrown at us is that if we rescue the crew and let them die, a bunch of officers will panic. This is because they fall into a trap, lose their collective consciousness, and fly towards them. Doom Killing has more than the original five.
But the downside of the game as a thought experiment for me is that this wasn’t that hard of a decision. As a gamer, I knew that saving Collis would yield better results than keeping his small crew alive. The crew members don’t have long, complicated names like Admiral Zaal Coris, Admiral Kwib Kwib, so they’re not going to help me in the future. Look for badges with it in holiday gift shops.
It was the right decision for me as a gamer, but the game doesn’t allow me to see if any of the crew members went on to be cured of their cancer. But what I really want is to get the most points and get that crazy big bastard gun in my next playthrough to unlock the special ending. Do you want to tackle these lofty questions regardless? Games should be fun, right?
The authors argue that it is the “fun” aspect of video games that makes them a more convenient medium for philosophy than books, and as the book states, “Philosophy has become so popular that it has become a compulsory subject in schools. “Very few governments take it seriously.'' Games may be the only place kids can learn about this topic. This is really depressing. And it’s almost certainly still true today. (This book was published in 2017).
Games are also great for philosophical discussions because you don’t have to worry about crazy theoretical situations. you play them. As you can see. You don’t have to argue with people by saying, “But I can’t do it.” actually “Go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby,” because that’s probably possible in the game. (Think Wolfenstein IV: Hitler Hospital.) Every time we turn on the console, we suspend our disbelief. Whether it’s a plumber growing by eating mushrooms or Arbroath winning the European Champions League on FM in 2024. In real life, I would never be in a situation where I would choose one life out of five (hopefully). Video games allow you to do that.
The Last of Us Part I on PlayStation 5 and PC. Photo: Naughty Dog/Sony
I wish they would give you more options like that. The Last of Us presents the ultimate test of utilitarian philosophy.Will Joel sacrifice Ellie to save humanity? But as the player you cannot choose that – Ellie Must And just like saving the five red shirts in Mass Effect 3, it wasn’t a perfect solution after all. Other mishaps followed, and the sequel ended up dealing with them. It would be interesting if Naughty Dog made a version where Ellie died. A sequel to a game from another world!
I want those choices, but otherwise, when I’m forced to make choices in a game, I don’t want to use them as philosophical thought experiments or exciting ways to test morality. I don’t think so. I choose the one that earns me the most points. I grew up playing arcade games. There, the only measure of success was adding up the numbers. My children’s generation is different. They grew up playing the game. I scattered petals around me or I experienced life as a mountain.,
there were no points at all. They are literally allowed to consider: all.
A prestigious portrait competition has defended its ability to allow entrants to submit works generated by artificial intelligence, arguing that art should reflect social change rather than being stagnant.
of Brisbane Portrait Award The work, which is worth a top prize of $50,000, is being described as Queensland’s answer to the Archibalds, and selected works will be exhibited at the Brisbane Powerhouse later this year.
This year, the Brisbane Portrait Prize has announced in its entry terms and conditions that as long as the artwork is original and “fully completed and fully owned” by the entrant, it is “completed in whole or in part by generative artificial intelligence.” It states that it will accept submissions that have been submitted. .
A spokesperson for the awards told Guardian Australia that allowing AI submissions acknowledged that the definition of art is not stagnant and is always growing.
“The BPP prides itself on being a contemporary prize, fostering the continued evolution of the art and participating in the conversation around it, while always being interested in what ‘contemporary’ portraiture is.” ” they said.
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A spokesperson said that in the past, more traditional artists objected to allowing digital and photographic submissions, but it is now generally accepted in the art world.
“As technology continues to adapt and integrate into our society, the use of assistive technology is already paving the way for inclusion for artists with disabilities, and we believe that the use of AI tools and methodologies will continue to grow in this field. “We believe this is the next step,” the spokesperson said.
The previous winner, painter Stephen Tiernan, said: told ABC The creation of AI-generated works still involves an artistic process, and the rule changes ultimately kept the awards modern.
A spokesperson said the contest will determine ownership of works based on the terms of the process used and the AI program behind it. At the time of submission, artists must declare that they have full copyright to their submitted work.
Dr Rita Maturionite, a senior lecturer in law at Macquarie University, said that under Australian copyright law, AIs themselves cannot be authors, but how much of an AI-assisted work of art can humans own in order to claim ownership. He said whether the information would have to be entered remains an open question.
“What is unclear is [is] “How much human contribution is enough for a person to become a writer?” she said. “Is one prompt enough for her, or does she need to create 100 prompts?”
A spokesperson for the Brisbane Portrait Prize said if the artist contributed “sufficient independent intellectual effort” to the creation of the work, it was likely to be protected by copyright.
“An example of someone determining full ownership of content is when an artist uses an AI tool to use elements of some of their own original work, and all original designs belong solely to the artist. This could be the case if we create new artwork,” the spokesperson said.
“We recognize that AI is an evolving field and that our laws often keep pace with technological advances.”
Dr TJ Thomson, Senior Lecturer in RMIT's School of Media and Communication, said: 'Creating an image through a camera and imagining an image through a keyword prompt are completely different experiences that require very different skills. There is,” he said.
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“If you have some knowledge of photography principles and equipment, you can understand the intent of the photo, but it’s not fair to pit camera-generated images against AI-generated images.”
This is not the first contest to tackle AI entries since the explosion of widely available generative AI applications over the past year.
The National Portrait Gallery’s 2024 National Photographic Portrait Awards allows the use of generative AI tools in the development of submitted photographic works, but does not allow images that are entirely AI-generated.
However, there are strict conditions, such as requiring details of which tools were used and how. If your prompts to AI include someone else’s name, image, work, or creative style, you must obtain their explicit consent.
Thomson said the competition was a messy space with many unanswered questions, but other competitions in the meantime are likely to have similar results.
In November, the World Press Photo Contest announced it would exclude AI-generated entries from its public format after receiving “honest and thoughtful feedback,” and said the ban was “in line with our long-standing values of accuracy and authenticity.” He said that it was something that
German artist Boris Eldagsen said he submitted an AI-generated photo of two women “as cheeky monkeys” to see if there would be a competition for AI images, and he won a prize at Sony last year. He declined the award in the Creative Open category of the World Photography Awards.
“They’re not,” he said last April.
In Sydney last year, a woman claimed to have taken a photo of her son with a mobile phone but lost out in a competition after judges suspected it was generated by AI.
At the NGV Triennial Exhibition to be held in Melbourne this year, Works by Irish artist Kevin Abosch They created “deepfakes of scenes depicting social unrest around the world,” including in Melbourne, and investigated how manipulated information fuels social unrest.
If you open your eyes anywhere on Earth, there is life, whether it’s pigeons in the park or invisible microbes covering every surface. However, when the Earth was born 4.5 billion years ago, it was barren. How did the first life originate?
Simply put, I don’t know. Then you’ll be able to reproduce it. Scientists can put the right chemicals into a sealed container under the right conditions, and when they open it, they will find a living organism. No one has ever done this before.
But while we don’t know exactly how life began, there are plenty of clues.
Let’s start with the simplest. What is life made of, and where do its components come from? Living organisms contain thousands of chemicals, including proteins and nucleic acids that carry genetic information. Although these chemicals are complex, we now know that their constituent parts are very easily formed.
The first evidence for this was published in 1953 by a young chemist named Stanley Miller. He filled a glass device with water and his three gases to imitate the oceans and air of the young Earth. Miller heated water and delivered an electric shock to the air to imitate lightning. Within a few days, the setup produced amino acids, which are fragments of proteins.
Since then, scientists have conducted many similar studies. In a study published in September 2020, researchers led by Sara Simcucci, now president of a startup company, Alchemy Co., Ltd.), compiled dozens of experiments. They created a “map” that shows how chemicals change into other substances. He started with just six chemicals used daily, such as water and methane. Creates the tens of thousands of substances found in living things.
The implication is that the young Earth was a biochemical factory. However, having a large amount of these chemicals does not necessarily mean that life will emerge. Just like a pile of bricks automatically becomes a house.
This is where things get tricky. Because we have to think about why something is alive. It boils down to three things. Firstly, the organism often has to maintain itself with an outer layer, and removing that outer layer immediately becomes a problem. Secondly, it must feed itself. This involves complex chemical reactions. And third, life must reproduce itself. In other words, life must have genes that can be inherited.
Research into the origins of life over the past 50 years has been dominated by attempts to create one of these systems on our own, for example by creating genetic molecules that reproduce by copying themselves. Other bits were supposed to come later.
Personally, I have doubts about this approach. None of the three systems live alone; they need each other. Moreover, if Earth were so good at making all the chemicals for life, all three systems could have formed in the same place at the same time. This may be more likely to occur in confined spaces such as deep-sea hydrothermal vents or terrestrial pools.
We still don’t know exactly how life originated, but what was once a complete mystery is now less inexplicable.
In a cross-sectional study, researchers from Chung-Ang University and elsewhere analyzed data from the Korean HEXA Cohort Study to investigate the association between kimchi consumption and obesity among Korean adults. They showed that total kimchi intake of one to three servings per day was inversely associated with obesity risk in men. Additionally, in men, higher intakes of baechu kimchi (cabbage kimchi) were associated with lower prevalence of obesity and abdominal obesity. It was found that higher intake of gakdugi (radish kimchi) was associated with lower prevalence of abdominal obesity in both men and women. However, all results indicate a “J-shaped” association, suggesting that overconsumption may increase obesity prevalence.
Consuming 1 to 3 servings of kimchi per day has been shown to reduce obesity risk in men. Image credit: Lee Dong-won.
Kimchi is traditionally consumed as a side dish in Korea and is produced by salting and fermenting vegetables with various flavorings and seasonings such as onions, garlic, chili powder, salted shrimp, and fish sauce.
The main vegetables in kimchi are cabbage and radish, and kimchi is low in calories and rich in dietary fiber, lactic acid bacteria, vitamins, and polyphenols.
Fermented kimchi contains the following major types of lactic acid bacteria: leuconostoc seed, lactic acid bacteria Species and Weissella spp.
especially, lactic acid bacteria It is the dominant species of kimchi lactic acid bacteria in late seed fermentation.
In previously published experimental studies, Lactobacillus brevis and Lactobacillus plantarum Components isolated from kimchi had anti-obesity effects.
And researchers Hyein Jung and colleagues at Chung-Ang University wanted to know whether regular consumption was associated with a reduced risk of overall and/or abdominal obesity, which is considered to be particularly harmful to health. .
Scientists used data from 115,726 participants (36,756 men and 78,970 women, average age 51 years) who took part in the Health Examination (HEXA) study.
HEXA is a large-scale community-based longitudinal study of the Korean Genomic Epidemiology Study, which aims to investigate environmental and genetic risk factors for common long-term conditions in Korean adults aged 40 years and older.
Dietary intake in the previous year was assessed using a validated 106-item food frequency questionnaire. In this survey, participants were asked to indicate how often they ate one serving of each food item: never, rarely, or three times a day.
Kimchi total includes Baechu. Kakudugi. Nabak and donchimi (watery kimchi). Others include takana kimchi.
Baechu kimchi or gahdugi kimchi weighs 50g, and nabak kimchi or donchimi kimchi weighs 95g.
We measured each participant's height, weight, BMI, and waist circumference. BMI 18.5 was defined as underweight. Normal weight is 18.5-25. Obesity for people over 25 years old.
Abdominal obesity was defined as waist circumference of at least 90 cm for men and at least 85 cm for women. Approximately 36% of men and 25% of women's girlfriends were obese.
The results showed a J-shaped curve, likely because the higher the consumption, the higher the intake of total energy, carbohydrates, protein, fat, sodium, and cooked rice, the researchers said. ing.
Compared to participants who ate less than one serving of kimchi per day, those who ate five or more servings were more likely to gain weight, have a larger waist size, and be obese.
They were also less highly educated, had lower incomes, and were more likely to drink alcohol.
However, after accounting for potentially influencing factors, researchers found that consuming up to three servings of kimchi per day was associated with an 11% lower obesity rate compared with less than one serving per day.
Among men, those who consumed three or more servings of baechu kimchi per day had a 10% lower prevalence of obesity and a 10% lower prevalence of abdominal obesity compared to those who consumed less than one serving per day.
For women, consuming this type of kimchi two to three times a day was associated with an 8% lower obesity rate, and consuming one to two times a day was associated with a 6% lower incidence of abdominal obesity.
It was found that eating less than the average amount of gakdugi kimchi reduced obesity rates by about 9% for both men and women.
Consumption of 25 g/day for men and 11 g/day for women reduced the risk of abdominal obesity by 8% (men) to 11% (women) compared to no intake.
“A 'J-shaped' association was observed across all outcomes, suggesting that overconsumption may increase obesity prevalence,” the authors said.
“Kimchi is also one of the major sources of sodium intake, so the health benefits of other ingredients should be considered when recommending appropriate amounts.”
H. Jung other. 2024. Association between kimchi intake and obesity based on BMI and abdominal obesity in Korean adults: A cross-sectional analysis of a health checkup survey. BMJ Open 14: e076650; doi: 10.1136/bmjoopen-2023-076650
astronomer using NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope They captured a striking photo of NGC 5427, which is part of the interacting galaxy pair Arp 271.
This Hubble image shows NGC 5427, a spiral galaxy located about 120 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Image credit: NASA / ESA / R. Foley, University of California, Santa Cruz / Gladys Kober, NASA and The Catholic University of America.
Alp 271 It was originally discovered in 1785 by German-born British astronomer William Herschel.
It is located about 120 million light-years away toward the constellation Virgo, and its extent is about 130,000 light-years.
It is unclear whether the interaction experienced by NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 will end in a collision and ultimately lead to the merger of the two galaxies, or whether the galaxies will simply experience a very close encounter.
It is absolutely certain that they are already interacting with each other, as material has been stripped from galaxies to create bridges of stars and dust that connect them.
In the distant future, our Milky Way galaxy will undergo a similar collision with the Andromeda galaxy, which is currently located about 2.6 million light-years away from the Milky Way.
“NGC 5426 is below NGC 5427 and outside the frame of this image,” Hubble astronomers said.
“However, the gravitational effects of this pair can be seen in the distortion of the galaxy and the cosmic bridge of stars seen in the lower right region of the image.”
“NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are locked in an interaction lasting tens of millions of years.”
“Whether they will eventually collide and merge is still uncertain, but their mutual attraction has already led to the birth of many new stars.”
“These young stars are visible in the faint bridge connecting the two galaxies at the bottom of the image.”
“Such bridges provide a path for the two galaxies to continue sharing gas and dust that will form new stars.”
“We believe Arp 271 serves as a blueprint for future interactions between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, which are expected to occur in about 4 billion years.”
Marine biologist at Schmidt Ocean Institute R/V Falco Two expeditions in 2023 exploring seamounts off Costa Rica's Pacific coast discovered at least four new species of deep-sea octopus.
A newly hatched octopus swims away from its egg near a small rocky outcrop informally known as El Dorado Hill. Image credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute.
“The impact is that R/V Falco Research to understand Costa Rica's deep Pacific Ocean will continue into the future and hopefully generate awareness that will lead to policies that protect the country's deep sea,” said Dr. Jorge Cortés, a researcher at the University of Costa Rica.
“We hope this expedition will inspire new generations. Further international cooperation is needed to increase knowledge about our deep-sea heritage.”
During the first expedition in June 2023, Dr. Cortes and colleagues discovered two octopus farms associated with thermal springs.
Six months later, they returned to the nursery and confirmed that they appear to be active year-round.
They also observed several other new species of octopus away from the hot springs.
One of the new species belongs to the genus Octopus Muusocops The octopus is named after the small rocky outcrop, informally known as El Dorado Hills, where it was first discovered.
This is a different species, closely related to, but a different deep-sea octopus farm, found in California's Davidson Seamount in 2018.
Of the four new species in Costa Rica, only the dorado octopus was observed spawning in hot springs.
This discovery is Muusocops This genus evolved to raise its eggs in warm springs on the ocean floor.
“After hard work, our team has discovered a new hydrothermal spring off the coast of Costa Rica, which has become a nursery for deep-sea octopuses and a unique biodiversity site,” said Dr. Beth Orcutt, a researcher at the Bigelow Institute of Marine Science. We confirmed that this is the habitat.”
“It was less than 10 years ago that low-temperature hydrothermal eruptions were detected in ancient volcanoes located far from mid-ocean ridges.”
“These locations are very difficult to find because you can't detect any trace of it in the water column.”
Researchers also discovered a thriving deep-sea skating nursery on the top of another seamount in Costa Rican waters, which they named Skatepark.
They also discovered three hydrothermal springs within the region, located 10 to 30 nautical miles from each other.
These springs all differ from each other in the temperature and chemistry of their fluids, indicating that unique reaction processes drive their formation.
“The Schmidt Ocean Institute supports the global scientific community wherever it is located. Falcor ” said Dr. Jyothika Virmani, Executive Director. Schmidt Ocean Institute.
“Dr. Cortés and Dr. Orcutt have assembled a team that truly embodies international collaboration that empowers Costa Rica's domestic scientists and enriches local knowledge and understanding of the ocean.”
“We look forward to operating off the coasts of Peru and Chile in 2024 and welcoming scientists from South America.”
Markarian 817 is the Seyfert 1 galaxy located 430 million light-years away in the constellation Draco. Also known as Mrk 817 or QSO J1436+5847, it hosts an active supermassive black hole of 81 million solar masses.
This artist's impression shows super-fast winds blowing from the center of the galaxy Markarian 817. These winds travel at millions of kilometers per hour and remove interstellar gas from vast regions of space. Without this gas, galaxies cannot form new stars, and the black holes at the galaxies' centers have little left to eat. The inset shows what is happening at the center of the galaxy. A supermassive black hole draws in gas from its surroundings to form a hot, brightly lit accretion disk (orange). The wind (white) is caused by a magnetic field within the disk, which causes particles to fly in all directions at incredibly high speeds. These winds effectively block the X-rays (blue) emitted by the extremely hot plasma surrounding the black hole, called the corona.Zack other. Using his X-ray telescope XMM-Newton at ESA, he captured Markarian 817 blowing out super-fast winds. This wind, which lasts for about a year, will have a major impact on star formation in the galaxy. The fact that black holes at the centers of galaxies exhibited fairly average activity levels before generating winds suggests that supervelocity black hole winds are much more common than previously thought. doing. In other words, black holes and their host galaxies strongly influence each other's evolution. Image credit: ESA / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
At the center of every large galaxy is a supermassive black hole whose enormous gravitational pull pulls in gas from its surroundings.
As the gas spirals inward, it collects in a flat accretion disk around the black hole, where it heats up and glows.
Over time, the gas closest to the black hole passes the point of no return and gets swallowed up.
But black holes consume only a portion of the gas that swirls toward them.
While surrounding the black hole, some matter is bounced back into space, much like a messy toddler spilling everything on his plate.
In a more dramatic episode, a black hole turns the entire table upside down. The gas in the accretion disk is thrown off in all directions at such high velocities that it wipes out the surrounding interstellar gas.
This not only deprives the black hole of food, but also means that new stars cannot form over large areas and the structure of the galaxy changes.
Until now, this ultrafast black hole wind had only been detected as coming from a very bright accretion disk at the limit of its ability to pull in matter.
At this time, ESA's XMM-Newton spacecraft detected superfast winds in Markarian 817, a decidedly average galaxy that could be described as “just having a snack.”
“With the fans on the highest setting, we would expect very fast winds,” said Dr. Miranda Zak, an astronomer at the University of Michigan.
“In the galaxy we studied called Markarian 817, the fans were turned on at a lower power setting, but still produced incredibly energetic winds.”
“It is very rare to observe ultrafast winds, and even rarer to detect winds with enough energy to change the properties of the host galaxy.”
“The fact that Markarian 817 produced these winds for about a year, even though it was not particularly active, suggests that the black hole may have changed the shape of its host galaxy much more than previously thought. “This suggests that there is a sex,” said Roman astronomer Elias Cammun. Tre University.
Active galactic nuclei emit high-energy light, including X-rays. Markarian 817 stood out to astronomers because it was extremely quiet.
“The X-ray signal was so weak that I knew I was doing something wrong,” Zak said.
Follow-up observations using ESA's XMM Newton revealed what was actually happening. The superfast winds from the accretion disk acted like a shroud, blocking the X-rays emitted from the black hole's immediate surroundings.
These measurements were supported by observations made with NASA's NuSTAR telescope.
Detailed analysis of X-ray measurements revealed that Markarian 817's center did not send out a single puff of gas, but instead created a gust of wind storm over a wide area of the accretion disk.
The winds lasted for hundreds of days and consisted of at least three distinct components, each traveling at a few percent of the speed of light.
This solves an unsolved puzzle in understanding how black holes and their surrounding galaxies interact with each other.
Many galaxies, including the Milky Way, appear to have large regions around their centers where few new stars form.
This could be explained by black hole winds sweeping away star-forming gas, but this works only if the winds are fast enough, persist long enough, and are produced by black holes at typical activity levels. limited to cases where
“One of the many unresolved problems in black hole research is the problem of achieving detection through long-term observations over many hours to capture important events,” said Dr. Norbert Schartel, a scientist on the XMM-Newton project. says.
“This highlights the paramount importance of the XMM-Newton mission into the future.”
“No other mission can achieve that combination of high sensitivity and the ability to make long, uninterrupted observations.”
a paper Regarding the survey results, Astrophysics Journal Letter.
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Miranda K. Zackother. 2024. Seyfert 1.2 Markarian 817 Hidden Sub-Eddington Feedback Intense Feedback.APJL 962, L1; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad1407
Mapping how interactions between different organs change during pregnancy could help us better understand conditions such as pre-eclampsia.
Tetra Images, LLC / Alamy
Scientists have mapped for the first time the metabolic changes that different parts of a primate's body undergo during pregnancy. The results suggest that pregnancy-related conditions such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes may be due to “rewiring” errors when these changes occur.
Outside of pregnancy, different body systems normally “supply” each other with molecular nutrients, known as metabolites, in relatively equal exchange.
However, during pregnancy, major changes occur in tissues throughout the body. for example, Heart pumps up to 40% more. However, the thymus gland, which is involved in the immune system, “shrinks very quickly” to prevent rejection of the fetus. See Chan Ng at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
After studying Effects of metabolites on stem cells, Ng was curious about the role they play during pregnancy. During this period, “a lot of things are growing and regenerating…It's something you only see in comic books and superhero movies where people transform,” he says.
To learn more, Ng et al. collected 273 tissue samples from 12 cynomolgus monkeys (cynomolgus monkey), including when the monkey was in each trimester of pregnancy and when it was not pregnant. Samples were taken from 23 body parts, including five areas of her body: uterus, liver, spinal cord, skin, blood and heart.
The researchers analyzed the samples for metabolites and compared each site during non-pregnancy to the equivalent site during the third trimester.
As expected, when the macaques were not pregnant, Ng said, the metabolites were distributed fairly evenly across the body. But to her surprise, pregnancy caused her interactions to be “dramatically reprogrammed.”
For example, during the first trimester, the uterus reduced communication with the heart and skeletal muscles and instead “coupled” with the developing placenta. During the second trimester of pregnancy, the fully formed placenta began pumping “large amounts of metabolites” to the heart, ovaries, and liver. On the other hand, the uterus gradually migrated towards union with the scalp by the third trimester of pregnancy.
Also, during the third trimester, important exchanges between skeletal muscles and the spinal cord took place. Researchers have not investigated why these coupling changes occur.
When the flow of “reprogrammed” metabolites deviates from what is considered normal during pregnancy, certain conditions can occur, Ng says.
In a separate experiment, researchers took serum samples from 32 pregnant women and found that levels of the metabolite corticosterone were “significantly reduced” in patients with preeclampsia, Ng said. He states: Then, when they removed corticosterone from human placental cells in the lab, they caused pre-eclampsia-like inflammation. “Corticosterone is an important steroid in human pregnancy,” says Ng. “It’s been undervalued.”
The second important metabolite is thought to be palmitoylcarnitine, which helps process fatty acids and regulate immunity. Ongoing human stem cell research led by Ng suggests that human stem cells may be involved in gestational diabetes, he says.
Based on their findings, the researchers developed an “atlas” of 91 metabolites that consistently change in the tissues of pregnant cynomolgus monkeys. This provides a framework for the involvement of metabolites in regulating health during human pregnancy, Ng said. “There is a treasure trove of small molecules and metabolites that we have discovered. [which] I hope this will further encourage research into new treatments,” he says.
Previous studies have investigated metabolic changes such as: While pregnant rats and mice do, cynomolgus monkeys have reproductive systems much more similar to humans, Ng said. Even though macaques have a shorter gestation period than humans (about 26 weeks compared to the average 40 weeks), they still serve as a reliable model for human reproduction, especially pregnancy-related conditions, he said.
Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images
SpaceX is preparing to launch its massive Starship rocket for the third time. However, the exact launch date will not be announced until the US government's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) completes its investigation into why the previous launch (November 2023) failed to reach orbit.
The Starship rocket's first test launch in April 2023 went out of control due to some engine problems. These failures triggered an automatic flight termination system designed to safely detonate the rocket. It failed, and the rocket continued to tumble until it collapsed. It didn't reach space.
The accident damaged the launch pad and scattered debris over a vast area. SpaceX will begin second Starship test launch in November 2023 after launch facility repairs and updates are made and the FAA certifies that sufficient work has been done to prevent similar damage from occurring again did.
That didn't work either. Everything seemed fine for a few minutes. The rocket reaches space, but then its engine begins to fail and it explodes. Now SpaceX has to build a new rocket, and the FAA has to give it permission to fly.
“We expect that license to be issued in February. So it will be [flight] The third time will happen in February of this year,” SpaceX official Jessica Jensen said at a press conference on January 9th.
Ultimately, Starship is intended to transport astronauts to and from the moon. NASA has selected this rocket for the Artemis III and IV missions planned for 2026 and 2028. The massive rocket could carry astronauts to Mars as early as 2029, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said. But first, Starship must reach space without exploding or breaking apart, and its third flight will be an important test.
An analysis of more than 580,000 dogs in the UK found that small dogs with long noses, such as miniature dachshunds and Shiba Inu dogs, lived the longest. On the other hand, medium-sized dogs such as English bulldogs and Shih Tzus have the shortest lifespans.
“Despite the UK being a nation of dog lovers, we don't have a good handle on the dog population in general and the expected lifespan of dogs in particular,” he says. Kirsten McMillan At the British welfare charity Dogs Trust.
To create a comprehensive analysis of dog lifespans, McMillan and his colleagues collected data from a variety of sources, including veterinarians, pet insurance companies, and animal welfare charities. The data included 584,734 dogs belonging to 155 breeds, of which 284,734 died.
The average lifespan of dogs was 12.5 years. Female dogs had a slightly longer life expectancy at 12.7 years compared to 12.4 years for male dogs.
When the researchers divided dogs into categories based on size and facial shape, they found that small, long-nosed dogs had the highest life expectancy of both sexes, living an average of 13.3 years. Male and female medium-sized flat dogs fared worst, with expected lifespans of just 9.1 and 9.6 years, respectively.
“Many flat-faced breeds, both small and large, such as French bulldogs, St. Bernards, and Presa Canarios, do not perform well,” says McMillan.
Flat-faced dogs are known to face a variety of health problems, including breathing, digestion, and even sleeping problems, which may explain their short lifespans. there is.
One of the most surprising findings was that purebreds had a longer life expectancy than mutts: 12.7 years compared to just 12 years.
“Due to the concept of hybrid vigor, it has long been believed that mixed-breed dogs live longer than purebred dogs,” he says. audrey rule from Virginia Tech was not involved in the study. This refers to the idea that hybrid animals and plants may be healthier because of their genetic diversity, but Lupul says this needs to be investigated further.
“We hope that this study will spur further research into the exact reasons why some breeds die at a young age, ultimately improving the lifespans of our dogs.” McMillan he says.
ERon Musk suffered one of the largest legal losses in U.S. history this week when Tesla’s CEO was stripped of $56 billion in compensation in a lawsuit brought by an unlikely opponent: a former heavy metal drummer. Covered.
Richard Tornetta sued Musk in 2018, when Tornetta, a Pennsylvania resident, owned just nine Tesla shares. The case ultimately went to trial in late 2022, and on Tuesday, a judge sided with Tornetta, invalidating his massive pay deal as unfair to him and all of his Tesla shareholders.
Mr. Tornetta could not be reached for comment, and his lawyer declined to comment.
Before Mr. Tornetta’s lawsuit, Mr. Musk had won a series of lawsuits accusing him of defamation, breach of duty to shareholders and violations of securities laws.
Judging by his online presence, Mr. Tornetta appears to be more interested in creating audio equipment for car customization enthusiasts than pursuing corporate excesses and fraud.
He posts light-hearted videos about his gadgets and mishaps, such as explaining how he burned his eyebrows.
Tornetta also appears in a video playing drums at the former legendary New York club CBGB with his now-defunct metal band Dawn of Collection, describing the sound as “steel-toed.” “It sounded like a quick kick in the face with a work boot.”
On social media, fans of Tesla and Musk seem to feel the incident is a travesty of justice, speculating about Tornetta’s intentions and political affiliations and wondering how investors with such a minuscule stake could He questioned whether he could wield such power.
Delaware’s corporate case law is replete with cases naming individual investors with small stakes that ultimately shaped American corporate law.
Eric Talley, who teaches corporate law at Columbia Law School, said many law firms representing shareholders have a steady stream of investors who can work with them to litigate cases. They may be pension funds with a wide range of stocks, but they are also often individuals like Tornetta.
Talley said it’s common for plaintiffs to sign the paperwork to file a lawsuit and then walk away. Investors won’t pay law firms to take on cases on a contingency basis, as lawyers did in the Musk case.
Mr. Tornetta, like other Tesla shareholders, stands to benefit from winning the lawsuit, saving the company billions of dollars that subordinate boards paid to Mr. Musk.
Business groups have long criticized lawsuits brought by individuals as a sign of potential abuse. A decade ago, Delaware was beset by lawsuits contesting merger deals and led by private investors who owned a minority stake. Cases were often quickly resolved with nonsensical settlements, which always included payments to the lawyers who brought the cases. Delaware judges and lawmakers eventually curbed the practice.
Experts said people like Tornetta are essential to policing the boardroom. Lawmakers and judges have long wanted big investment firms to take the lead in these corporate cases because of their ability to monitor lawyers’ tactics. But experts said fund managers did not want to jeopardize their relationships on Wall Street.
Therefore, it was up to Tornetta to face Mask.
“His name is now etched in the history of corporate law,” Talley said. “My students will be reading ‘Tornetta vs. the Mask’ for the next 10 years.”
This direct air recovery system can extract carbon dioxide from the air and reuse it later, but it requires a lot of energy.
Orjan Ellingvorg / Alamy
Photosensitive molecules called photoacids have the potential to make the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more energy efficient. Researchers are currently devising ways to make photoacids more practical.
This can be particularly beneficial for direct air capture (DAC) systems, which blow air over carbon-trapping materials called adsorbents. Existing systems require large amounts of energy to separate pure CO2 from the adsorbent for storage or use elsewhere. This is a major barrier to using DAC to remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. “Every step I take is hitting a wall,” he says. Anna de Vries At ETH Zurich, Switzerland. “Direct air recovery companies everywhere are struggling and trying to create the most efficient process.”
Adding photoacid to the adsorbent may be effective. When exposed to light, each photoacid molecule changes shape and releases protons, making the solution more acidic. This “pH swing” releases CO2 from the adsorbent and photoacid mixture. When the light is turned off again, the photoacid and pH of the solution return to normal, allowing the adsorbent to absorb CO2 again. This cycle can then be repeated.
Typically, heat or pressure is used to release CO2, but using sunlight or lamps could potentially reduce the energy needed for this step, with the aim of halving the energy requirements of DACs. de Vries says. However, photoacids tend to be unstable and are not very soluble in water, which limits their efficiency in releasing CO2.
De Vries and colleagues added various solvents to the photoacid solution; found the mix This increases the solubility of the photoacid and extends its lifetime from just a few hours to nearly a month.
In another approach, Ubinduni Premadasa Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and colleagues found Another photoacid, which can remain responsive to light for longer and produce more acid, allows CO2 to be released from solution more efficiently.
greg match Researchers at the University of Newcastle in the UK say these are an “elegant and innovative” solution. But larger systems can face challenges, such as loss of solvent through evaporation in the air, he says.
Although these researchers focused on capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, the first large-scale tests on photoacids may be conducted in water. A Washington state startup called Banyu Carbon uses photoacids to separate CO2 from seawater and plans to install a system capable of removing one tonne of CO2 per year in 2024.
In this system, when photoacids are exposed to light, the resulting acidity is temporarily transferred to seawater, and CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere is released from seawater. alex gagnonAccording to the company's co-founders, this reduces the energy needed to separate the CO2 and eliminates the need to power fans.
Researchers studied the lifespans of 500,000 dogs to determine which species live the longest. The answer? Whippets, or dogs shaped like whippets. Research indicates that small dogs with long noses have an average lifespan of 13.3 years (source).
Another study looked at data from over 580,000 individual dogs in the UK, classified as purebreds or mixed breeds, to find out more about the lifespan of different dog breeds.
In addition to breed, the researchers collected data on the dogs’ sex, date of birth, and, if applicable, date of death. This data helped determine mortality rates as well as calculate the median life expectancy for different categories of dogs.
The study found that small, long-nosed dogs have the highest average lifespan at 13.3 years. Conversely, medium-sized short-nosed dogs, especially males, had the shortest average lifespan at 9.1 years.
Interestingly, purebred dogs generally lived longer than mixed breeds, and Labradors were found to have the highest life expectancy at 13.1 years.
The researchers hope that these results will help dog owners better understand the factors that influence their pets’ health and longevity, and they also suggest that future studies should investigate designer breeds due to their different genetic diversity levels.
Dr. Kirsten McMillan, one of the authors of the study, believes that future research should not simply classify dog breeding into pure and mixed categories and emphasizes that this is a complex issue.
Dr. Kirsten McMillan is a DataSEA (Science Engineering and Analysis) Manager at Dogs Trust, and her research has been published in various scientific journals.
A group of 25 California counties has sued Elon Musk’s Tesla, accusing the electric car maker of mishandling hazardous waste at its facilities in the state.
The lawsuits from Los Angeles, Alameda, San Joaquin, San Francisco and other counties were filed Tuesday in California state court. The company is seeking civil penalties and an injunction that would require it to properly dispose of its waste in the future.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The counties accused Tesla of violating the state’s Unfair Business Practices Act and Hazardous Waste Management Act by improperly labeling the waste and sending the material to landfills that cannot accept hazardous materials. California’s Hazardous Waste Management Act can result in civil penalties of as much as $70,000 per day for each violation.
The waste generated or processed at the facility includes paint materials, brake fluid, used batteries, antifreeze, diesel fuel and more, according to the county.
The complaint alleges violations occur at 101 facilities, including Tesla’s manufacturing plant in Fremont. Spokespeople for each county did not immediately provide additional details about the incident.
The lawsuit is not the first time Tesla has faced allegations related to its hazardous waste management practices.
The company reached a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2019 over alleged federal hazardous waste violations at its Fremont plant. In that agreement, Tesla agreed to take steps to properly manage waste within its facilities. and pay a $31,000 fine..
Tesla subsequently filed a lawsuit with the Environmental Protection Agency in 2022 after federal officials alleged it failed to maintain records and implement plans to minimize air pollutants from paint operations at its Fremont factory. They reached an agreement and agreed to pay a penalty of $275,000.
We all have bad days, with a monumental striptease here or an expression of anger there, but have you ever thrown a tantrum so bad that it upsets the balance of the entire galaxy?
If you zoom in on any large galaxy, you’ll find a supermassive black hole that pulls in gas from its surroundings with its immense gravity. As the gas spirals inward, it is squeezed into what is known as an accretion disk, a flat disk of gas orbiting around a massive central object.
Over time, the gas closest to the black hole passes through the point of no return and is essentially chewed up by its immense gravity. However, there’s a twist here. The black hole consumes only a portion of this gas and spits the rest back into space.
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Sometimes, like the naughty black hole discovered by XMM Newton, a black hole doesn’t just spew out a small amount of gas, it spews out its entire meal over hundreds of days. The gas in the accretion disk is thrown off in all directions at such high velocities that it completely wipes out the surrounding interstellar gas.
The effect would be so severe that gas would be blown through space and new stars would no longer be able to form. This completely changes the landscape of the surrounding galaxy where the black hole is found.
Accretion disk surrounding black hole slowly pulls in gas – Credit: European Space Agency
Typically, only black holes with very bright accretion disks spew out gas. These brighter disks typically feature faster “black hole winds” that spew out gas.
“It is extremely rare to observe ultrafast winds, and even rarer to detect winds with enough energy to change the properties of the host galaxy,” the co-authors said. Elias CammonAstronomer at Roma Tre University in Italy.
“The fact that Markarian 817 is [the galaxy in question] These winds occurred for about a year but were not particularly active, suggesting that the black hole may be changing the shape of its host galaxy much more than previously thought. ing. ”
For scientists, this research improves our understanding of how black holes and the galaxies around them interact. Many galaxies appear to have large regions around their centers where few new stars form. This may be explained by the black hole’s wind sweeping away star-forming gas.
Flipster, the number one trading platform for altcoin liquidity and the fastest growing crypto derivatives platform, has finally announced the Flipster Earn Pool campaign. Although first teased in December last year, news of this long-awaited addition was slow to reach trading platforms. This release is worth the wait, as the platform promises users the chance to earn up to 10,000 USDT* per day (starting on February 1st) in his USDT held in-house. there was. flip star account.
As a derivatives-first platform, a legitimate criticism of Flipster was the lack of options to handle funds during important events.
flip star'sCEO Kim Young-jin Say. Flipster acquisition pool Users can know that their funds are safe and working on our platform while they wait for their next investment move. As a trader, we understand that you can't always feel confident leaving money in a position. With Flipster Earn Pool, you have the potential to earn money on Flipster even when you're not actively trading. ”
Traders choose to have a Flipster account for great opportunities in altcoin derivatives and trading contests. The brand has built a reputation for high altcoin liquidity that is unmatched by its competitors. Although this platform is fairly new, its USP is directly related to attracting top derivatives traders to the app. Flipster Earn Pool aims to appeal to users interested in the opportunity to earn passive income while waiting for the next big deal, which could help grow its user base over time.
The platform is committed to regularly offering the world's first permanent futures listings for tokens that have just finished spot listing on major exchanges. Recent examples include ACE, MANTA, ALT, and DMAIL. These all achieved permanent futures listings on Flipster within four hours of their spot listing on top crypto exchanges.
Ben Rogers, Head of Marketing, said: “Once MANTA launched, some users quickly turned their excitement into big profits, with one user earning $7,675 USDT in a single trade. ALT had similar success, with users earning $5,789 USDT. At the time of publication, the highest altcoin trading profit on Flipster was reported to be 52,310 USDT on ACE, which also featured the world's first PERP on the platform. DMAIL is planning the world premiere of PERP this week, and the company is confident that some users will achieve similar results by turning news into leveraged trading on Flipster.”
The difference now is that users can earn up to 10,000 daily with the funds in their Flipster wallet and can profit from their trades.
Flipster Earn Pool calculates interest daily from a shared prize pool of 10,000 USDT, and users can see how much they have earned with their funds on the Flipster website. To be eligible for returns from day one, a user must ensure that his USDT is present in his Flipster account by 00:01 UTC on February 1st and meets the daily trading requirements. there is. Since it takes time for word to spread about new offers, early participants may be able to earn revenue from idle funds.
About Flipstar
Flipster is the world's fastest growing cryptocurrency derivatives platform. The easy-to-use app provides users with an all-in-one experience with up to 100x leverage on a wide selection of over 200 tokens. It is considered best-in-class in terms of altcoin liquidity, and top tokens such as BTC and ETH are also available. Users can instantly flip, monitor their portfolios and take advantage of market movements anytime, anywhere.Users can start with flipstar.xyz. For media inquiries or requests to interview the team, please feel free to contact pr@flipster.xyz or stay up to date with Flipster. blog. *Terms of use, which can be found at the following site, apply. https://flipsterxyz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8902043575695-Flipster-Earn-Campaign-240201
The source of this content is Flipster. This press release is for informational purposes only. This information does not constitute investment advice or investment recommendations.
contact
head of marketing ben rogers flip star pr@flipster.xyz
More than 50% of undergraduate students admit to using artificial intelligence programs to assist them in writing essays, and educational institutions are exploring the integration of AI programs into the classroom.
A survey conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) of over 1,000 UK undergraduate students found that 53% utilize AI to create content for graded assignments. 25% use applications like Google Bard or ChatGPT to suggest topics, and 12% use them to generate content.
Only 5% of students admitted to directly copying and pasting unedited AI-generated text into their assessments.
Educators are also exploring the use of AI to streamline their tasks, and the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF) has initiated a research project on using AI to develop lesson plans, materials, exams, and model answers.
Dr. Andres Guadams, an expert in intellectual property law at the University of Sussex, expressed that it is not surprising that students are increasingly relying on AI and suggested that clear methods for its use should be established through open discussions.
Hepi’s research revealed that 1 in 3 students utilizing AI report experiencing “hallucinations,” meaning they need additional information such as statistics and academic citations to fill in gaps recognized by the AI.
Mr. Guadams mentioned an essay submitted last year that appeared to use unedited ChatGPT output, resulting in a “boring” writing style. However, as the use of AI becomes more prevalent, fewer students are actively utilizing it.
According to the EEF proposal, AI could potentially reduce the workload of teachers and enhance the quality of education. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan highlighted that AI could handle the “heavy lifting” of marking and planning.
Half of the 58 UK schools participating in the EEF project will be provided with a toolkit to create assessment materials and tailor lessons to specific groups of students. AI-generated lesson plans will be evaluated by an independent panel of experts.
Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the EEF, emphasized the limited research on the impact of AI on real-world education and expressed the importance of this trial in contributing to the evidence base.
A priestess can manipulate time and space in Meredith Mooring's debut novel.
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After an endlessly long January, it's finally time to see what sci-fi fun February has in store for us. This month's lineup is varied. I’m looking forward to the delightfully gory post-apocalyptic novels by Daniel Polanski and Paul E. Hardisty – I love a good story of a world in ruins – and also to Jasper Forde’s latest novel I'm going to take the time.My favorite author from a long time ago air incident Released in 2001. But at the top of my list to track is Meredith Mooring's work. red sight – Starring a blind shrine maiden who can manipulate time and space.
Nothing cheers me up like apocalyptic fun and frolic, and Hugo nominee Polanski's new work sounds like a corker. Manhattan is enveloped in a “toxic cloud” called Funk, which cuts it off from the rest of the world and mutates its population. For generations, when the first tourists in centuries arrived on the island, the survivors were focused only on survival.
This is sitting on my desk at home waiting for the moment I can read it at all.This is the first part of the climate emergency thriller. compulsionThe film sees Kweku Ashworth, born on a sailing ship as his parents escape disaster, set out to uncover what has brought the world into cataclysm. More apocalyptic catastrophes – great!
This is the sequel to Fforde's bestseller. shades of grayfollows “Something Happened'' 500 years ago and is set in a society where class is determined by visible colors. Eddie Russett and Jane Gray realize that this may not make any sense at all and may be unfair, so they investigate.
Unemployed and in debt, Jonathan Abernathy takes a job as a dream auditer, who taps into workers' dreams to relieve their fears and increase productivity. I loved this wonderfully wicked idea, and one reviewer described the novel as a “spiritual sibling.” Severance paybut it's even creepier,' and it's right up my street.
This sounds very strange. Plastic Girl Erin lives in a plastic world, where she sells a type of wearable technology called a smart body to her fellow plastic people. This allows people to fully immerse themselves in the virtual world as a refuge from real life and its wars. Author Elizabeth McCracken says it's “a profound, hilarious, chilling, strange, and immeasurably complex story about an imaginary universe that is also somehow our own broken world.” says.
I like the sound of Corinna, the heroine of Mooring's debut novel. She is a blind priestess who can manipulate time and space, but she has been raised to believe that she is weak and useless. When she takes a job as a navigator on an Imperial ship, she realizes that she is meant to be a weapon of the Empire. But Corinna's world changes forever when her ship is attacked by the infamous pirate Aster Harran.
“Michael Crichton meets Marvel” Venom” says the story's publisher, in which Anna, a refugee and genocide survivor, joins a team investigating “mysterious broadcasts and unknown horrors” as “humanity reels from disaster.” I love the drama promised here.
The setting, suggested by former sci-fi columnist Sally Addy as an Earth to watch in 2024, sees two Earths exist in parallel, and “shifters” can travel back and forth between them. Kanna and Lily are the same person, randomly moving between worlds, lives, and families, but needing to settle in one or the other. And how can we prepare our loved ones for the final disappearance?
Perhaps this debut novel isn't science fiction per se, but it's fiction about science, and I thought it would be interesting, so I wanted to mention it. Helen, a young physicist trying to save the planet, follows his mentor (who is embroiled in a sex scandal with a student) to an island laboratory that provides a safe haven for disgraced artists and scientists. It depicts the decision to go to
The Bone Hunters is loosely inspired by the life of 19th century paleontologist Mary Anning.
alamy stock photo
Again, it's science fiction, not science fiction, and it's advertised as follows: essex snake meet ammonite, it's very hard to say no, at least for me. A loose depiction of the life of a pioneer 19thWritten by century-old paleontologist Mary Anning, the story is set in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England in 1824, when 24-year-old Ada Winters discovers a “rare fossil” on a cliff.
U.S. officials claim to have stopped an attempt by China to plant malware that could potentially damage civilian infrastructure. If the U.S. and China were to go to war, officials warn that Beijing could disrupt the daily life of U.S. citizens. The FBI director issued this warning, stating that he was in a position to carry out such disruptions.
The operation resulted in the destruction of a botnet comprised of hundreds of small office and home routers located in the U.S. that had been hijacked by Chinese hackers in order to hide their tracks with malware. The operation was successful in accomplishing this.
U.S. officials said that the ultimate targets of the attackers included water treatment plants, power grids, and transportation systems in the United States.
These claims align with assessments made by external cybersecurity companies like Microsoft. In May, Microsoft revealed that state-sponsored Chinese hackers had been targeting critical U.S. infrastructure, laying the technological groundwork for potentially disrupting vital communications between the U.S. and Asia during future crises.
Some of the operation, attributed to a group of hackers known as Bolt Typhoon, was halted after the FBI and Justice Department officials obtained a search and seizure order in a Houston federal court in December. U.S. authorities have not disclosed the impact of the disruption, stating that the disrupted botnet was merely “a form of infrastructure used by Bolt Typhoon to obfuscate its activities.” The hackers concealed their actions within normal web traffic and infiltrated their targets through multiple channels, including cloud and internet providers.
FBI Director Chris Wray expressed concern that not enough public attention is being paid to cyber threats that affect “all Americans.” He made this statement before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, echoed similar sentiments during the hearing, emphasizing that China’s cyber threats endanger the lives of Americans at home through disrupted pipelines, telecommunications, contaminated water facilities, and crippled transportation systems, with the goal of inciting social panic and chaos.
The United States has become more aggressive in recent years in its efforts to disrupt and dismantle both criminal and state-sponsored cyber operations. Wray also warned that Chinese government-backed hackers were aiming to steal trade secrets and personal information and influence foreign countries to ultimately supplant the United States as the world’s biggest superpower.
State-sponsored hackers, particularly those from China and Russia, are adept at adapting and finding new infiltration methods and routes, further complicating the threat.
U.S. authorities have long been worried about such hackers lurking in U.S. infrastructure. The older routers used by the Bolt Typhoon group were no longer receiving security updates from their manufacturers, making them easy targets for cyber attacks. Due to the urgency of the situation, U.S. cyber operators removed the malware from these routers without directly notifying their owners and added code to prevent reinfection.
According to Easterly, Chinese cyber attackers took advantage of a fundamental technological flaw in the U.S. that made it easy for them to carry out their attacks. U.S. officials stated that allies were also affected by the Bolt Typhoon hack of critical infrastructure, but they declined to disclose potential actions they might take in response to the attack.
China has repeatedly dismissed the U.S. government’s hacking allegations as baseless, claiming instead that the U.S. is the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks. However, outgoing US Cyber Command and National Security Agency head Gen. Paul Nakasone stated that “responsible cyber attackers” were not targeting civilian infrastructure and had no reason to do so.
your mom’s kitchen Audible, new episodes every week starting Wednesday In this warm and nostalgic celebrity interview series, host Michelle Norris asks guests how the kitchen you grew up in has shaped who you are today. In the first of the new episodes, Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves-McConaughey talk about learning how to tell anecdotes, their grandpa’s wood stove, and how ice cream helps calm arguments. Reminiscing about recognition. That’s a fascinating listen. Alexi Duggins
law and disorder Wide range of weekly episodes available Former High Court judge Nicholas Mostyn, human rights activist Helena Kennedy and former attorney general Charlie Falconer have said their podcasts are “painfully serious and respectful, where everyone can disagree respectfully.” “It won’t become a show,” he promises. And they say this, ruminating on President Trump and the widening gulf between their professions and politicians. Hannah Verdier
Climate scientist Chris Turney, host of “Unf*cking the Future.” Photo: Reuters
unleash the future Wide range of weekly episodes available Wise and foul-mouthed climate scientist Chris Turney offers a cure for Earth-induced existential dread and speaks to those who are doing more than doom-scrolling to make a difference. Maggie “Billie Eilish’s mother” Baird is our first guest and points out that one day a week without meat and dairy can make a big difference. HV
patient 11 Wide range of weekly episodes available This stunning and daring four-part series tells the story of former British youth swimmer Alexis Quinn, who escaped psychiatric treatment to make accusations of widespread sexual assault. This is alarming, given both her story and the year-and-a-half-long investigation into sexual abuse in British mental health units that it sparked. advertisement
Guns and Wands: Official Companion Podcast Wide range of weekly episodes available Alfie Packham and Caroline McEvoy are the hosts of the companion podcast to Game of Thrones meets Peaky Blinders, The Gun and Wand. Of course, the show doesn’t actually exist. That hasn’t stopped the discussion about The Naked Wizard and linguist Dr. Brian Spleen’s lessons on creating mysterious new languages. HV
There’s a podcast for that
Katie Piper is one of the guests on Ellis James and John Robbins’ How Do You Cope? Photo: S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock
this week, Hannah Verdier Our picks for the 5 best podcasts on health and wellnessfrom soothing sounds to calming the tired mind to debunking the myths surrounding health and wellness trends.
slow radio If you find yourself exhausted from not being outside all day, put down your phone and let Slow Radio soothe you. There’s something oddly hypnotic about hearing the dawn chorus three times in a row, even if it involves crazy tweets that sound like angry birds. If you’re not a fan of nature, other meditative sounds are also available in the 30-minute episodes, so you can also delve deeper into chiming clocks or discover the sounds that transmitters hear at night. This is the wellness podcast you never knew you needed, but once you listen to it, you’ll look forward to your daily break.
Scotty: Self-help If you’re really struggling with your mental health, it can be a little overwhelming to be bombarded with positive mantras. So Scotty (above), cabaret artist, activist, and all-around brilliant egg, has the antidote you need. In his “Amateur Guide to Staying Alive,” he doesn’t tell you to meditate, move more, or write a bullet journal, but he does say that he has tried to keep himself sane over the years. Let’s talk about everything. This podcast has a warm and intimate feel, with Scotty appearing as the friend you need when you’re walking in the rain. He’s always been like that, but sometimes he wonders why on earth he does it.
Zoe’s Science and Nutrition Zoe’s research is leading a revolution in health and nutrition, powered by ongoing research, and this podcast is the perfect place to stay up to date with the latest news. We have episodes dedicated to many of the big food questions that make the headlines, including dairy, snacking, protein, nuts, and more. Find the latest research on gut health, artificial sweeteners, and ultra-processed foods, all with an evidence-based perspective from scientists. When you’re surrounded by diet advice that ranges from low-carb to keto to fasting, it’s nice to hear a fresh, balanced approach.
maintenance phase In a world full of Instagram influencers, almond moms, and leg days, Michael Hobbs and Aubrey Gordon are a breath of fresh air, debunking the ‘science’ behind health and wellness fads . Many questions are being discussed. Why do I have to walk 10,000 steps a day? How do you navigate a doctor’s weigh-in when you don’t want to step on the scale? And do French women really not gain weight? For these two, there are no superstitions, old statistics or “everything I ate in a day” videos, just laugh-out-loud humor and common sense that run through every episode.
How do you deal with it?with ellis and john Hosts Ellis James and John Robbins are so open about their mental health day-to-day that their guests can’t help but join in. In this series, James Cracknell, Katie Piper and Jordan Gray talk about what they’ve had to overcome in their lives. Each episode begins with the hosts checking in with each other (“How’s your shame?”), with plenty of time for warmth and conversation. Particularly moving are the scenes in which Robbins opens up about her struggle with alcohol, admitting that “I couldn’t go anywhere because I was like that,” and how she began her recovery.
Apparently it’s dripped into the ear! brain leak It brings together Jackseptic Eye (Sean McLaughlin) and Ethan Nestor for a funny and unconventional deep dive inside their heads, right down to the slimy parts.
What happens when you marry someone whose partner has already committed a crime?Package deals you didn’t ask for Shit!i married twins.
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Managing your child’s relationship with screens can be a minefield, from navigating TikTok trends to evading parental controls.
By age 11, 91% of UK children owned smartphones, while the data from Ofcom found that 80% of children between 9 and 16 used them daily to access the internet. In the US, research suggested that 42% of children owned a smartphone by age 10 and 91% by age 14.
The lockdown accelerated the already increasing trend of device use among children and adults. Post-pandemic, children’s screen time has increased, according to a BBC survey. Average US 11-14 year-olds spent up to nine hours a day in front of screens, according to the CDC.
Parents expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of time their children spent online and its effect on mood and concentration. Strategies for limiting screen time vary, ranging from using tools like Google’s Family Link to setting rules about when screens are allowed.
According to 2018 CDC data, the average 11- to 14-year-old in the United States spent nine hours in front of a screen each day. Photo: Grechanyuk Aleksandr/Alamy
Many parents struggle to monitor their child’s screen time due to work and other obligations. Some expressed concern about children spending excessive time on smartphones, while others found value in the educational content their children accessed.
// Rich Link content
The rise of smartphones has created challenges for young people, affecting their social lives and increasing pressure. Many parents strive to find a balance in their children’s device usage, acknowledging both the benefits and potential drawbacks.
A type of deep-sea angler fish called the black sea devil
Doug Perine / Alamy
The unique sexual strategy of deep-sea anglerfish may have helped their ancestors move into entirely new habitats, allowing for the incredible diversity of species that thrive today.
chase brownstein Researchers at Yale University have reconstructed the evolution of more than 160 species of deep-sea anglerfish (keratioids). Known for their large jaws and bioluminescent lures, serratioids are a subgroup of the larger order of the anglerfish family, which also includes monkfish and other bizarre benthic creatures such as monkfish, sea toads, and batfish. Using genetic sequencing, the researchers discovered that the ancestors of keratioids walked on pectoral fins at the bottom of the deep ocean. But 55 million years ago, some creatures began swimming in the ocean's vast deep-pelagic, or “midnight,” zone. There, over a period of just 5 million years, they became more genetically diverse than their ocean-floor relatives.
He said this is strange because the ocean floor and coral reefs typically have a greater variety of species. elizabeth miller At the University of California, Irvine. Environments with many topographical features lend themselves to the specialization of organisms. But with constant temperatures and vast expanses of waterless ocean, “the deep pelagic zone is truly the most homogeneous habitat on Earth,” she says.
Miller and her colleagues Monkfish species family tree Although her team and Brownstein's team used different methods, their studies are largely consistent regarding the timeline and scale of deep-sea monkfish diversification.
Brownstein's team found that this surprising diversification may be due to the serratioids' parasite-like reproductive strategy. That is, the small male uses his jaws to attach to the much larger female until he is ready to mate. In some species, the two can even permanently fuse together, such as sharing a circulatory system. This unique mating technique could theoretically benefit deep-sea monkfish, as they are very unlikely to encounter other members of their species during their lifetime.
Brownstein's analysis shows that the traits necessary for this parasitism, such as the difference in body size between males and females and the weakness of their immune systems that prevent them from attacking attached males, are the result of the evolution of monkfish diving into the deep sea. It turns out that it has existed for a long time.
“Most of this complex trait existed before the serratioids entered the deep ocean,” he says. “Basically, it's not the gas inside the engine, [of diversity]Sexual parasitism was like a preparation to press the gas pedal. ”
Miller said it's “possible” that a parasitic lifestyle helped the anglerfish invade deep-sea habitats, but it’s unclear how the fish subsequently achieved so much diversification. It remains as it is.
Answering this question will be a daunting task, especially since it is difficult to recover intact monkfish samples from the deep ocean.but cory evans Rice University in Texas says having two matching comprehensive family trees will help other researchers investigate.
“I think monkfish enthusiasts will be reading a lot of these two papers over the next six months,” he says.
The stars that exist in our universe are definitely huge. In fact, our closest star, the Sun, has a diameter of an astonishing 1.4 million km (865,000 miles), which is large enough to fit 1.3 million Earths within it.
However, within the grand scale of the universe, this is a fairly average size. Although many stars are small, scientists have discovered many cosmic giants that are hundreds of times larger. But what is the largest star in the universe?
Introducing the 10 biggest stars ever known to humanity.
10.HV888
HV 888 is circled in the center of the image. Photo courtesy of ESO/Digitalized Sky Survey 2
HV 888 looks a lot like Clifford the dog, except it is located 163,000 light-years away, and is red and very large.
With a solar radius of 1,374 (our Sun has a solar radius of 1), this scarlet supergiant’s color actually indicates that it is nearing the end of its life. Scientists don’t know exactly when the star will go supernova. It could be today, or the star could continue to burn for millions of more years.
Until then, HV 888 will shine incredibly brightly, about 300,000 to more than 500,000 times brighter than the Sun. In other words, anyone living on one of this star’s possible exoplanets would likely need some pretty bright sunglasses.
9. Ah, Scorpio
Star AH Scorpio. Photo courtesy of ESO/Digitalized Sky Survey 2
AH Scorpii is a red supergiant star found in the constellation Scorpius, hence its name. Although she is 1,411 times larger than the Sun, the star is probably much cooler, with a surface temperature between 3,176.85°C (5750.33°F) and 3,408.85°C (6167.93°F). For comparison, our sun is hot at 5,226.85°C (9380.33°F).In other words, AH Scorpio is still very very hot.
8.CM Velorum
Star CM Verorum. Photo courtesy of ESO/Digitalized Sky Survey 2
CM Bellorum, located in the constellation Vela, is a red star 1,416 times larger than the Sun. However, despite its size, this star is invisible to the naked eye without a telescope. This is partly due to its distance from Earth, which is calculated to be approximately 15,000 light-years away.
7.HD12463
Star HD 12463. Photo credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Not much is known about the star, known as HD 12463, but it is estimated to be 1,420 times larger than the Sun. It is located about 163,000 light-years from us in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy derived from the Milky Way.
6. VY Canis Major
Star VY Canis Major. Photo courtesy of ESO/Digitalized Sky Survey 2
VY Canis Majoris is an oxygen-rich supergiant star 1,420 times larger than the Sun. It is so large that even traveling at the speed of light, it would take him 6 hours to circumnavigate its surface (try this with the Sun and it would take only 14.5 seconds).
Even if you have the time, I don’t recommend it. The temperature of this star is 3,730°C (6,740°F). It’s also incredibly bright, about 300,000 to 500,000 times brighter than the Sun.
5.HD 269551
Star HD 269551 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Photo courtesy of ESO/Digitalized Sky Survey 2
HD 269551 may not have the catchiest name in the universe, but it’s still a memorable star for its massive size. Its size has been measured to be 1,439 times that of the Sun.
Like many of the large stars on this list, HD 269551 is highly unstable and nearing the end of its life, and will explode as a supernova within the next few million years (a very short time in the grand scale of the universe) It is expected that
4.RSGC1-F01
Spitzer telescope image of the RSGC1 star cluster, home to RSGC1 F01 and many other massive stars. Photo by NASA/Spitzer Telescope
RSGC1 F01 is located in a star cluster in the Milky Way galaxy in the constellation Scuta. Its size is estimated to be 1,436 to 1,530 times that of the Sun.
Remarkably, if RSGC1-F02 were placed at the center of our solar system, the star’s surface (known as the photosphere) would reach Jupiter’s orbit.
3.WOH 5170
WOH S170 shot with DSS2. Photo courtesy of Eso/Digitalized Sky Survey 2
WOH S170, located in the constellation Leo, is a red star 1,461 times larger than the Sun. Wow, sure.
2.WOH G64
This image shows WOH G64 (circled) in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. Photo courtesy of NASA
WOH G64 is a very large star, 1,540 times the size of the Sun.That’s also very likely very Dusty: Encased in a thick layer of tiny particles about 1 light-year in diameter.
WHO G64 is also a very cool star (literally), with a temperature of 3,100°C (or 5,600°F). Compare this to the surface temperature of the sun. The sun’s surface temperature is a fairly warm 5,226.85°C (9380.33°F).
1. UY spine
Photo courtesy of Eso/Digitalized Sky Survey 2
UY Scuti is the largest star ever observed in the universe. The red supergiant star is 1,708 times the width of the Sun and has a radius of 1.2 billion km (738 million miles). This star is located approximately 9,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scutum, near the center of the Milky Way.
Despite its massive size, UY Scutum’s temperature is actually 40 percent colder than the Sun’s 3092°C (1700°F). This is because the star has already used up most of its hydrogen fuel, which produces heat and light. This lower temperature means the star emits a reddish glow.
UY Scuti is also a surprisingly young star, probably only 10 to 20 million years old. It may sound like an exaggeration, but the age of our sun is estimated to be 4.6 billion years. But UY Scuti burns through its fuel so quickly that the star is likely at the end of its life and may only have a few million years left.
It is not clear what happens to UY Scuti at the end of its life cycle. It’s possible that the star could explode in a polar nova (triggering a shock wave that triggers the formation of new stars), but one theory suggests UY Scuti would collapse to form a hotter star.
Let's be honest: Email can be a nightmare. Most of the time, we're all just trying to find that vital needle in a haystack of spam, receipts, and old messages from family members who refuse to start group chats.
This never happened before. In the good old days, email was easy, unintrusive, and frankly boring. That's exactly what it was supposed to be. Now, if every coffee shop you've ever visited in your life is trying to get you, you have two options – sink or swim.
For some people, email means spending hours sorting through, responding to, and fixing the clutter in their inbox. For others, it's easier to ignore everything and reach into his heap of messy emails to get what they need… but you don't have to be like any of these experiences. Actually, there is a better way to email.
we talked Paul LevyA social scientist and digital mastery expert, he helps organize the world's chaotic digital lives, from email to social media. He will give you tips and tricks to get you back on your feet.
1. Ignore the Inbox Zero Myth
Created by productivity expert Marlin Mann, Inbox Zero is a concept that's gotten a lot of attention. The concept is incredibly simple. There are no emails in your inbox (who would have thought!).
However, getting there is much more complicated. To get to this point, you should delete all emails unless they contain ongoing correspondence or important information. After a rather long sorting process, everything that's left is put into a folder and voila! You have reached inbox zero.
Some people swear by this technique, but it’s not a winner for everyone. Entire magazine article about its flaws. So where does Inbox Zero fit in? “It's like fighting a fire or trying to keep your head above water,” Levy says.much evidence suggests The thing is, this drip-feeding system of erasing emails is actually not that efficient.
The Hubble team has released a stunning photo of the face-on spiral galaxy ESO 420-13 taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
This Hubble image shows spiral galaxy ESO 420-13 facing forward. Image credit: NASA / ESA / University of Virginia A. Evans / Gladys Kober, NASA and The Catholic University of America.
ESO420-13 It is a spiral galaxy located south of the constellation Eridanus.
This galaxy, also known as LEDA 14702, IRAS 04118-3207, or 2MASX J04134969-3200252, Seyfert Galaxy.
“Dark dust lanes are visible against the backdrop of the glow of the galaxy's many stars,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“About 10% of all galaxies in the universe are thought to be Seyfert galaxies.”
“They are typically spiral galaxies and have very bright nuclei, the result of a supermassive black hole at their center accreting large amounts of radiation-emitting material.”
“The centers of these active galaxies are the brightest when observed with light outside the visible spectrum.”
“Galaxies containing active galactic nuclei of this type are often so bright that the glow of the nucleus washes out the host galaxy itself.”
“But the Seyfert galaxy is unique because the galaxy itself is also visible.”
“In the case of ESO 420-13, we can enjoy the galaxy's almost perfectly round disk, brighter core, and swirling dark dust filaments.”
Astronomers observed ESO 420-13 as part of their research. bright infrared galaxy (LIRG).
“These galaxies are known to be very bright in the infrared part of the spectrum,” the researchers said.
“Galaxy interactions trigger new star-forming regions in LIRG that become extremely bright in infrared light.”
New treatment cuts the gene for kallikrein, a protein involved in inflammation (illustrated)
BIOSYM TECHNOLOGIES, INC./Science Photo Library
Nine people with a rare genetic disease that causes a life-threatening inflammatory response appear to have been cured after taking part in the first trial of a new version of CRISPR-based gene therapy.
This condition, called hereditary angioedema, causes sudden swelling of tissue that affects parts of the body such as the face and throat, similar to aspects of an allergic reaction, but cannot be treated with anti-allergy drugs.
Ten people who received a one-time gene therapy administered directly into the body saw a 95 per cent reduction in the number of 'swelling attacks' in the first six months after the treatment took effect. . Since then, all but one have had no further seizures for at least a year, although one patient who received the lowest dose had one mild seizure. “This is potentially a cure,” he says Padmalal Gurugama At Cambridge University Hospital in the UK, we worked on a new approach.
Hereditary angioedema is usually caused by mutations in the gene that encodes a protein called C1 inhibitor, which is involved in suppressing inflammation, which is part of the immune response.
People with this condition may experience a sudden buildup of fluid under their skin several times a month, which is painful and can cause suffocation if it gets stuck in the throat. This attack can be caused by a virus, changes in hormone levels, or stress.
Existing drugs that can reverse attacks work by blocking another molecule involved in inflammation called kallikrein, which is made in the liver. Because people can be born without the ability to make kallikrein without adverse effects, the results suggest that it is safe to permanently block kallikrein through gene therapy, Gurgama said.
The new treatment, developed by a company called Intellia Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, consists of genetic material designed to cut the kallikrein gene. It is encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles and taken up by liver cells. One person was treated in the UK and nine in New Zealand and the Netherlands.
An unusual feature of this therapy is that it is administered directly to humans, a method also referred to as “in vivo” delivery. “They get one infusion and that's it,” he says. julian gilmore from University College London was not involved in the study. “It's very appealing.”
So far, most other CRISPR-based gene therapies have been administered “outside the body.” This means a more complex and time-consuming procedure of taking some of a person's cells outside the body, changing the cells in a lab, and then reinjecting them.
CRISPR gene therapy is being developed for multiple genetic diseases, with the first treatments recently approved in the UK and US to help patients with two forms of genetic anemia: sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia. Ta.
The success of the latest trial is “very exciting,” Gilmore said. Development of CRISPR-based treatments for people with various liver-related conditions, called transthyretin amyloidosis. “This technology could be applied to any disease caused by a mutant protein produced exclusively in the liver, where it is desirable to knock down that protein,” he says.
homo sapiens is connected with Rinkombi Lanisia Yersmanovician Culture According to three papers published in , Neanderthals existed in central and northwestern Europe long before they became extinct in southwestern Europe. journal Nature And that journal natural ecology and evolution. The evidence is homo sapiens And the fact that Neanderthals lived side by side is consistent with genomic evidence that the two species occasionally interbred. Suspicions have also been raised that modern humans' invasion of Europe and Asia about 50,000 years ago may have driven Neanderthals to extinction.
Stratigraphy including location of homo sapiens Bones, a map of the LRJ site, and stone tools from the Ranis site in Germany. Image credit: Mylopotamitaki other., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06923-7.
The Paleolithic Rincombi-Lanisia-Jerzmanovician (LRJ) culture or technocomplex spread across northwestern and central Europe.
The Ranis Cave site in the Orla River Valley, Thuringia, Germany, is one of the eponymous LRJ sites based on its unique configuration of bifacial and monofacial points.
Previous dating had shown that the site was more than 40,000 years old, but there were no recognizable bones to show who made the tools, so it was unclear whether they were the product of Neanderthals. It was unclear whether it was a product of Neanderthals or not. homo sapiens.
“The new discovery is homo sapiens Who created this technology homo sapiens At this time, 45,000 years ago, they were this far north,” said Dr. Elena Zavala, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.
“So these are some of the earliest.” homo sapiens In Europe. “
“The cave ruins of Ranis provide evidence of initial dispersal. homo sapiens It is widespread throughout the high latitudes of Europe,” said Professor Jean-Jacques Hubelin, a researcher at the Collège de France.
“It turns out that stone structures thought to have been made by Neanderthals were actually part of early Neanderthals.” homo sapiens toolkit. ”
“This fundamentally changes what we know about this period. homo sapiens Long before Neanderthals disappeared in southwestern Europe, they reached northwestern Europe. ”
Scientists carried out genetic analysis of hominid bone fragments from new deep excavations carried out at Ranis between 2016 and 2022, as well as from earlier excavations in the 1930s.
Because the DNA in ancient bones is highly fragmented, she used special techniques to isolate and sequence the DNA. All of it is mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited only from the mother.
“We have confirmed that the bone fragments are: homo sapiens. Interestingly, some of the fragments shared the same mitochondrial DNA sequence, even if they were from different excavations,” Dr. Zavala said.
“This indicates that these fragments belong to the same person or his maternal relatives, and connects these new discoveries with discoveries from decades ago.”
The bone fragments were initially identified as human through analysis of bone proteins in a field called paleoproteomics.
The authors found that by comparing the Ranis mtDNA sequences with mtDNA obtained from human remains from other Paleolithic sites in Europe, they were able to construct an early Stone Age family tree. It's done. homo sapiens All over Europe.
All but one of the 13 Ranis fragments are very similar to each other and, surprisingly, to the mtDNA of a 43,000-year-old female skull discovered in the Zlaty Kush cave in the Czech Republic. Ta. The only standout player was in the same group as a player from Italy.
“That raises some questions: Was this a single population? What is the relationship here?” Dr. Zavala said.
“But when it comes to mtDNA, that's just one side of history. It's just the maternal side. We need nuclear DNA to investigate this.”
The researchers also found that Ranis Cave is primarily used by hibernating cave bears and denning hyenas, with only periodic human presence.
This low-density archaeological footprint is consistent with other LRJ sites and is best explained by short-term, opportunistic visits by small, mobile settler groups. homo sapiens.
“This means that even in these early groups, homo sapiens “Humans, dispersed across Eurasia, already had some ability to adapt to such harsh climatic conditions,” said Dr Sara Pederzani, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of La Laguna.
“Until recently, it was thought that resilience to cold climate conditions would not emerge until several thousand years later. So this is a fascinating and surprising result.”
The research team also carried out radiocarbon dating of human and animal bones taken from different layers of the site to reconstruct the site's age, focusing on bones with signs of human modification on their surfaces. They then correlated the age with the presence of humans in the cave.
“we, homo sapiens The Francis Crick Institute said Dr. Helen Furus, a postdoctoral researcher at .
“The evidence suggests that homo sapiens They occupied this site sporadically for 47,500 years. ”
In 2013, Oncilla (Hyōmon)a species of small spotted cat native to the Americas; the northern tabby cat (Hyōmon) and southern tabby cat (Hyōmon). A new study led by the University of Maranhão has shown that Oncilla is actually three different species.
Cloudy tabby cat (leopardus pardinoides). Image credit: Johannes Pfleiderer.
The oncilla is a wild cat about the size of a domestic cat that lives in the mountains and rainforests of Costa Rica, Brazil, and Argentina.
These creatures, also known as tabby cats, Margaise (Hyōmon) and Ocelot (Hyōmon)but they are small, with slender builds and narrow muzzles.
They weigh only 1.5 kg, but usually do not exceed 3 kg, with males being slightly larger than females. The body length is 35-60cm and the height is about 25cm.
Oncilla has a yellowish-ochre background fur with a pattern of mainly open rosettes.
They eat small mammals, lizards, birds, eggs, invertebrates, and sometimes even tree frogs.
They typically live between 10 and 14 years in the wild, but have been known to live up to 23 years in captivity.
They are threatened by habitat loss from cattle ranching, agriculture, and the local pet trade.
Tadeu de Oliveira, a researcher at the University of Maranhão, and his colleagues say: “The tabby cat species group is the progenitor of an ancient classification system and one of the most intriguing, mysterious and fascinating groups of cats. “It is,” he said.
“Due to the limited knowledge available, the tabby cat has long been subject to several preconceptions regarding its range and associated habitats, both before and after species divergence. These include: and its presence in the Pantanal.”
“As it stands, the tabby cat species complex currently consists of two species. Hyōmon and Hyōmonthe former is further divided into three subspecies. Leopardus tigrinus oncilla, Leopardus tigrinus pardinoidesand leopardus tigrinus tigrinus” they added.
“Hyōmon and Hyōmon Both are currently defined as globally endangered species. ”
“They live in some of the most endangered ecoregions and biodiversity hotspots in the Americas, including the Cerrado, the tropical Andes, the Atlantic Forest, and the Talamanca Mountains.”
“As an exception, leopardus tigrinus tigrinus, there are no published conservation priority areas for entities within the complex. ”
“Given the endangered status of these species and the high rates of habitat loss within their respective ranges, it is unlikely that viable populations of these species will exist. It is essential to identify areas with high levels.”
Typical examples of tabby cat species complexes: (a) Savannah tabby cat (Hyōmon); (b) Cloudy tabby cat (leopardus pardinoides); (c) Atlantic Forest tabby cat (Hyōmon). Image credit: Ricardo Ribeiro / Johannes Pfleiderer / de Oliveira other., doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-52379-8.
In their study, the authors sought to determine the actual distribution range of tabby cat species and subspecies, compare their characteristics, and assess similarities and differences between them.
Ultimately, they aimed to characterize tabby cats and determine the actual number of the species.
“Our results revealed the existence of a cryptic species, the Claudi tabby cat (leopardus pardinoides), which includes both Leopardus tigrinus oncilla and Leopardus tigrinus pardinoides,” they said.
According to the team: leopardus pardinoides It is a long-tailed cat with short rounded ears and weighs 2.27 kg.
This new species has a strikingly margay-looking head with a rich reddish/oranged/gray-yellow background color and is adorned with irregularly shaped medium to large 'cloudy' rosettes. , with dense, soft fur, strongly marked and often coalesced.
The characteristic is LEopardus pardinoides There is only one pair of breasts/nipples.
This species is found in the extinct cloud forests of southern Central America and the Andes, usually above 1,500 meters above sea level, especially between 2,000 and 3,000 meters, in subtropical/temperate climates with mild temperatures and very abundant precipitation. You can see it. Usually located in areas where ocelot numbers are low or non-existent.
“leopardus pardinoides “Distributed along 11 mountain ecoregions,” the researchers said.
“In Central America, it is restricted to the Tilaran Mountains, Central Volcanic Mountains, and Talamanca Mountains (Talamancan Mountains Forest ecoregion) in Costa Rica and Panama and the eastern montane forests of Panama.”
“The lowland rainforests and wetlands of the Atrato River basin of the Choco Darien ecoregion are the main barrier between the populations of the brown tabby cat in eastern Panama and the Andes, while in the north the species is restricted to the Isthmian Atlantic rainforest. limited by.”
“In South America, its range extends from the Andean forests of Venezuela through the eastern, central, and western mountain ranges of Colombia to Ecuador, through Peru, Bolivia, and the Yungas Forest ecoregion of the southern Andes, and ends in northwestern Argentina.”
“The core area of its distribution is in Colombia, but it also extends to Ecuador.”
of the team result appear in the diary scientific report.
_____
TG de Oliveira other. 2024. Ecological modeling, biogeography and phenotypic analysis establish a transdimensional niche for the tabby cat, revealing a new species. science officer 14, 2395; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-52379-8
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