The early season heatwaves scorched much of the West, resulting in dangerously high temperatures and prompting extreme heat warnings lasting from Friday through Saturday. Southern Nevada saw widespread triple-digit highs, with Death Valley expected to surpass 115 degrees.
Weeks ahead of the official start of summer, we intensified the union message. The organization’s signage campaign aims to address the far-reaching effects of Doge layoffs and budget cuts on the nation’s beloved national parks. In the Southwest, this translates to zero tolerance for extreme heat, according to Shaquille.
“We had to adapt our message to connect with people directly,” he stated.
Results from the National Park Service’s budget cuts are still pending, especially with the peak summer tourist season on the horizon.
Abigail Wine, deputy director of Death Valley National Park, mentioned that park staff are committed to ensuring public safety and raising awareness about the hazards of extreme heat. She urged visitors to take necessary precautions before heading to Death Valley, such as checking weather warnings, verifying closures, and packing adequate water, sunscreen, and other essentials.
“As always, the National Park Service is dedicated to providing visitors with an incredible, safe, and unforgettable experience at Death Valley National Park and throughout the country,” Wines informed NBC News in a statement.
The broader objective of achieving a more perfect union in the Billboard campaign is to spotlight Doge’s controversial actions and the significant cuts instituted by the Trump administration to federal agencies. Shaquille noted that the organization strategically leveraged the bipartisan support enjoyed by national parks to ignite discussion.
According to a 2024 Population Survey from Pew Research Center, the National Park Service ranks as the most favored federal agency, with a favorable rating of 76% among over 9,400 Americans surveyed.
“Many of the locations where we placed our signs are in areas assumed to lean Republican, where a significant number of people likely voted for Donald Trump. Even the Doge component resonates,” Shaquille explained. “But national parks serve as a perfect example of where the limits were overstepped.”
An investigation is underway at a Boston area hospital involving five nurses who worked in the same department and developed brain tumors.
Mass General Brigham Newton Wellesley Hospital reported a total of 11 employees in the fifth floor obstetrics department have raised health concerns, with five of them being diagnosed with benign brain tumors. Two of these tumors are meningiomas, the most common and benign types of brain tumors.
“The investigation did not find any environmental risks associated with the development of brain tumors,” said hospital administrator Jonathan Sonis, in a statement alongside Associate Nurse Sandy Muse Jonathan Sonis.
The hospital conducted the investigation in collaboration with government health and safety officials, ruling out disposable masks, water supplies, nearby X-rays, and chemotherapy treatments as possible sources of the issue.
“Based on these findings, we can assure our staff and patients that there are no environmental risks within our facilities,” the administrator assured.
Exterior of Mass General Brigham Newton Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts. Google Maps
The Massachusetts Nurse Association, currently negotiating nurse compensation at the hospital, expressed their commitment to ongoing investigation.
The union highlighted nurses’ concerns about workplace health, leading to the discovery of individuals with tumors.
“The hospital’s environmental tests were not comprehensive, and they only spoke to a few nurses,” stated MNA spokesman Joe Markman. “The hospital cannot sweep this issue under the rug.”
The state agency and federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration are yet to provide conclusive information on the matter.
According to the American Cancer Society, a cancer cluster would involve an unusually high number of cancer cases within a specific area sharing common characteristics.
“Four out of ten people in the US develop cancer during their lifetime,” stated the association, emphasizing the frequency of cancer occurrences.
In the summer of 1985, I embarked on a lengthy pilgrimage from my home in Cheadle Hulme to the charming Hammersmith Novotel in London for the Commodore Computer Show. As a 14-year-old gamer, I saw this as an opportunity to play the latest games and check out new gaming accessories. However, my main goal was to visit specific exhibitors that I was eager to see. Upon arrival, I noticed a long line of kids at small stands, most of them waiting to get their show program signed by arcade games champion and ZZAP reviewer Julian Lignoll. As a devoted subscriber, I remember the excitement of waiting in that line. I didn’t experience that level of awe again until I met Sigourney Weaver a quarter of a century later.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers that day. In his fantastic new book, The Games of a Lifetime, Rignall himself recalls the surprise of being swarmed by fans. He writes, “We didn’t anticipate that. I didn’t realize that readers were so interested in us, but I loved it.”
However, I don’t think he should have been so surprised. In the mid-80s, during the heyday of C64 and ZX Spectrum home computers, magazines like Crash, ZZAP, and Computer & Video Games were the primary sources of news and opinions about new games. There was a scarcity of information about game developers at the time, so magazine reviewers became industry stars and influencers of that era, even before the rise of social media.
“It was really Dickensian”…Zzap! 64 magazines. Photo: Chris Daw / Bitmap Books
What I find most captivating about Rignall’s books is tracing his journey from Seaside Arcade Tournaments to game development editing and eventually becoming the editorial director at Mammoth Video Game Site IGN. As a child, I pictured a lavish, high-tech publishing office in a sleek modernist building. However, Zzap! 64’s origins were in a small rented office in Yeovil. Rignall recalls, “We were all crammed into one room with a few C64s tucked away in the broom cupboard. Video games were always considered lowbrow, but in those early days, it was truly Dickensian.”
Major magazine companies weren’t as glamorous as one might think. When Rignall worked for C&VG in 1988, he transitioned from a relatively small newsroom to the sprawling EMAP headquarters in Farringdon, London. As he remembers, “It was a dusty pit with typewriters, smelly carpets, and outdated interior fixtures that looked like they hadn’t been updated since the 1970s. Oh, and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts were everywhere.”
Matt Bielby, who went on to launch legendary game magazines Superplay and PC Gamer, transitioned from being a C&VG junior writer to joining Sinclair at Dennis Publishing. “Dennis was even dingier and smokier than EMAP,” he recalls. “It was housed in several small buildings along the northern end of Oxford Street at Tottenham Court Road; initially, we were stacked on top of each other with computer shoppers, kits precariously balancing on shaky desks… I had to share a desk initially.”
In the mid-80s, Your Sinclair emerged as a pioneer of a new style of irreverent and personality-driven gaming journalism. Earlier home computer magazines focused on programming tips and articles about printers and word processing software, but these new publications put games front and center. Sinclair’s founding editor, Teresa Morgan, drew inspiration from reading Smash Hits at just 17. She recalls, “They had a distinct voice and made their writers visible. So, intentionally, we included caricatures of reviewers in the magazine. Everyone could express their personality, making readers feel connected to us.”
This connection sometimes led to strange encounters. “I remember receiving all sorts of odd things in the mail,” says Morgan. “Someone once sent me my own toenails.”
Like Smash Hits, Your Sinclair became known for developing its unique language and humor, creating silly photo stories reminiscent of Jackie magazine, and covering quirky games like a lawnmower simulator developed by magazine contributor Duncan McDonald. Readers were active participants, with their letters and artwork becoming essential elements of the magazine’s content. Rignall reflects, “By the early ’90s, when we launched the Average Machine, the magazine was 100% designed to be interactive. Text pages, Q&A sections, and editorials were essentially proto-social media before the term was even coined. Readers were encouraged to send in crazy photos, sketches, drawings, you name it. We aimed to create a sense of community run by its members.”
Multi-format Forever… Computer & Video Game Magazine Photo: Chris Daw/Bitmap Books
However, the traditional magazine production process was a different story. Before desktop publishing software came into play, everything was done manually. “You would type it up on your Apricot Proto PC, save it to a disk, then hand it over to the typesetter,” Rignall explains. “They would print a galley (print-quality text), cut it out with scissors, and lay out the pages with glue along with photos and other design elements.”
Taking screenshots was an art form of its own. By the time I started at Edge Magazine in 1995, the process had turned digital. I had a program that allowed me to capture screenshots from the console, which then connected to my Mac via a video card. But in the ’80s, it was a different story. “We took screenshots by placing a film camera in front of a clean TV screen and snapping a photo of it,” Rignall recalls. “I had to set up blackout curtains in the game room, turn off all lights, and create a dark environment. It was challenging because I had to synchronize the camera.”
In essence, the production of game magazines was slow, labor-intensive, and at times chaotic as small, young teams churned out dozens of reviews each month. “It’s no wonder that magazines in the mid to late ’80s were riddled with errors,” Rignall comments. “Typos, incorrect information, text in the wrong place, missing elements, inaccuracies… you name it. The process was an absolute mess.”
Yet, in a way, this chaos was part of their charm. Game magazines pushed the limits of publishing technology, and when the digital age arrived, they were often at the forefront of innovative publications using software like Pagemaker and Quark Xpress. Morgan reminisces about launching Zero in 1989, aiming for a more sophisticated gaming magazine. “It had a glossy, highly designed look. We won the European Magazine Award for two consecutive years.”
These magazines were at the heart of video game culture, offering a window into an exciting new world. “The industry was very tight-knit – everyone knew each other,” Morgan recalls. “We had a healthy sense of competition. We would often have developers visit the office, or we’d go to their homes and interview them in their pajamas.”
“100% designed around interactivity”…Mean Machines Magazine. Photo: Chris Daw/Bitmap Books
However, by the late 1980s, the focus shifted from home computers to consoles, with readers seeking direct information from Japan, the birthplace of gaming. Rignall notes, “The one who started writing about Japanese content for British audiences was Tony Takouji in 1987, which kicked off a series of CVG average machines that I took over a year later. I stumbled upon a Japanese bookstore near the EMAP office in 1988, and it was a goldmine. I couldn’t understand what was written until translators were found a month or two later, but I could decipher the game from the screenshots.”
Rignall’s book serves as a memoir of the gaming industry, exploring how games from Battle Zone to Forbidden Forest challenged Western notions of interactive entertainment for both players and journalists. By the time I entered the industry, it had evolved into a more stable and professional environment. Future Publishing operated out of a beautiful building in Bath, while Edge shared Beaufort House, a former Georgian pub, with titles like Super Play and Game Master. It was a thrilling time with great magazines, yet we carried on the legacy of the chaotic magazines that came before us in our spirit, work ethic, and humor.
Morgan looks back fondly on those times, recalling a memorable experience at a Microprose press event. “It was for the Tom Clancy flight simulator. They invited 10 journalists, and we all went on a light aircraft. Wild Bill Steely, MicroProse co-founder and ex-fighter pilot, did loops. I took turns with my sick bag. There was a champagne breakfast on the boat… and the camaraderie with the YS team was incredible. We got to play the game before anyone else. I’ve never laughed that much. It felt like the start of something special.”
II’m writing this from a room slowly orbiting the Earth. Behind a screen that floats in front of me, through a huge opening where a wall should be, a planet slowly rotates and appears close enough to take up most of my field of vision. To my right it’s morning in Australia. The first vestiges of India and Europe are illuminated and dotted to my left. The soft drone of the air circulation system hums quietly behind me.
I spent a week using a virtual reality headset to do everything I could: work, exercise, compose music. This was the year that VR threatened to go mainstream as prices became more affordable and Apple entered the market. So I wanted to see how far VR has come since I first tried it in the mid-2010s, when the main experience was available. It was a nauseating roller coaster simulator. I used Meta’s latest model, called the Quest 3, and the conclusion was clear. This means it works now. It feels a little unfinished, but we’ve finally reached the point where VR is possible. It becomes really useful.
The biggest surprise was working in VR. This is not recommended. When you put on the headset, you can summon multiple screens, all connected to your computer, and make them as large as you want and place them anywhere in your environment. “Pass-through” – the ability to see digital objects superimposed on the real world, enabled by a camera built into the front of the headset – means you can cut out a window from the virtual environment to see the keyboard. You can also choose any number of work environments, from minimalist cafes to mountain huts, and switch between them at will. I quickly reached the point where if I was working alone, I would rather work in virtual reality than in real life.
The main problem is the overall lack of polish. The headset doesn’t feel like a finished product. It’s probably 10% too heavy, like a lab prototype that hasn’t been improved yet. The battery alone won’t last the entire day. Sometimes the controller disconnects without explanation. I brought it on a plane to do some work, but the challenge of connecting to my laptop using the onboard Wi-Fi proved insurmountable.
But watching movies in VR while flying was nothing special. Yes, I felt the need to apologize to my neighbor in a very British way. Wearing a headset in public has not yet become socially acceptable. But as soon as I pressed play, I realized I would never be able to go back to in-flight entertainment. I was sitting in a movie theater with the lights dimmed and several rows of seats separating me from a giant screen on a virtual wall. In long periods without turbulence, we really forgot we were flying. The one downside is that I was so engrossed in it that I almost missed the breakfast cart passing by.
“Today, the key to getting the most out of VR is to use it for activities you do yourself, even if you’re not a gamer.” Photo: Marissa Leshnoff/The Guardian
Of course, the movie theater was empty except for me – by design. Other apps are intentionally less sparsely populated. I downloaded one that promised a live virtual concert. Upon entering the virtual lobby, I discovered that there was no concert going on and no sign of one being scheduled. No problem. It also provided a space for people to mingle when acts weren’t performing. I loaded it. It was a beautifully designed virtual world, all domes and arches and curved slopes. But it was a ghost town. I was the only one there. And this is considered to be one of the most popular apps for live music on the internet.
When most people think of VR, they often think of Ready Player One. This is a science fiction novel and film about a world where people spend most of their time in a shared virtual reality, where they gather as avatars to interact, talk, and watch sports and music. together. This feels like a long way off. There are games that give hints about this group experience, such as “Gorilla Tag,” where children gather together after school to play tag as gorillas, talking to each other and moving around by waving their arms. However, VR adoption has not yet become widespread enough to make Ready Player One’s vision a reality. Now, the key to getting the most out of VR is to use it for activities you do yourself, even if you’re not a gamer.
For at least some types of knowledge workers, work is one such activity, and someone closely involved in the industry recently told me that it is considered the fastest growing use case. It is being I feel that productivity can be easily improved with VR. Gone is the office clutter, replaced by a calming environment that matches your mood for the day. Monitors that would cost thousands of dollars in the real world are displayed in front of you on demand. A virtual forest in the mountains is far better than the gray walls of my study as a place to sit down at my keyboard and write music. All distractions disappear from view.
Another thing is exercise. I was doing a personal training session in my garden, and a virtual trainer was floating in the air right in front of me. Passthrough, which was only recently added to Quest, is important here because it means you can use weights. This was not a smart idea in previous models as it completely obscured the real world. While many people have tried to join a gym temporarily and failed, it’s not unreasonable to hope that on-demand personal training at home might help them get back to exercising regularly.
Apple’s Vision Pro headset, launched earlier this year, was meant to be the starting gun for VR. That wasn’t the case. It’s a marvel of engineering and has magical uses, but it’s still lacking in compelling apps. £3,500 price tag For most people that is ruled out. Stories of headsets gathering dust or being returned have led some to believe that VR is nothing more than a hype bubble created by a tech industry desperate to find the next big thing.
But VR isn’t all hype. Sure, there are kinks that need to be smoothed out. But I think we’ve reached a tipping point. It’s really useful if you’re bringing this in for single player and something you don’t really use in public. Work, entertainment, exercise – everything is already great in VR. Don’t rely on tiny rectangular screens as a way for humans to communicate with machines.
Ed Newton-Rex is the founder of Fairly Trained, a nonprofit organization that certifies generative AI companies that respect the rights of creators, and a visiting scholar at Stanford University.
We live in the age of black hole photography. In 2019, the first photograph of a black hole was published. Naturally, it was difficult to capture. In fact, it required a telescope almost as large as the Earth. But for researchers like Alex Lupsaski of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, that wasn't enough. Lupsaski and his colleagues aim to capture a more detailed image, but to achieve that, they will need an even larger telescope.
The 2019 groundbreaking photo was taken by a network of radio observatories dotted around Earth, collectively known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Eight observatories worked together to produce an image as sharp as a single dish larger than anything we could actually build. Lupsaski is part of a team planning the launch of the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) telescope, which will extend this network 20,000 kilometers from Earth into space, effectively creating a receiver larger than Earth. This, he says, will give researchers the precision they need to measure a mysterious part of a black hole called the photon ring. In this case, the photon ring is produced by the supermassive black hole M87* in a nearby galaxy that appeared in the first photo.
LupsaskaAs deputy project scientist for the BHEX mission, he's a theorist specializing in the physics of extreme environments like the heart of a black hole. He tells us why this is our best hope of beating Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, and why an ambitious space mission is the key to finally unlocking that theory.
A neuroscientist who helped develop a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has been indicted on fraud charges.
The charges relate to allegations that the scientists fabricated research images and data that they may have used to win grant funding.
Manipulation of research images is a growing concern in the scientific community.
A neuroscientist who contributed to the development of a potential Alzheimer’s disease treatment is facing fraud charges after a federal grand jury indictment on Thursday.
The indictment alleges that Wang Huaoyang, a professor of medicine at the City University of New York, engaged in fraudulent activities, including falsifying research images and data to secure grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Wang worked with Cassava Sciences, a pharmaceutical company based in Austin, Texas, on the development of simufilam, a drug candidate for Alzheimer’s disease. The indictment states that Wang received around $16 million in grant funding from Cassava for early-stage drug development.
The indictment accuses Wang of fraud against the United States, wire fraud, and making false statements. It claims that Wang manipulated images of Western blots, a laboratory technique used to detect proteins, to support his research and grant applications.
The indictment also suggests that Wang provided false information to scientific journals to support his research on symphyllum, a drug currently in late-stage clinical trials.
Despite the charges, Wang did not respond to requests for comment. His research has faced scrutiny in the past, leading to retractions of multiple studies and an investigation by CUNY.
Cassava Sciences confirmed that Wang was not involved in their latest clinical trials and emphasized that his research focused on early-stage drug development.
The scientific community has expressed growing concerns about research misconduct and the manipulation of data and images. Instances of research misconduct, such as the allegations against Wang, have led to retractions of studies and raised questions about the integrity of scientific research.
CUNY has stated that they will cooperate fully with the federal investigation into Wang’s alleged misconduct until the matter is resolved. The university acknowledges the seriousness of the charges and the impact they may have on the scientific community.
The case highlights the importance of maintaining integrity and transparency in scientific research to ensure the credibility and validity of scientific discoveries.
Retraction Watch has reported on the retraction of several academic papers authored by Wang, further underscoring the need for accountability and ethical practices in scientific research.
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