‘I
I think AI is going to change everything,” San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo told me earlier this year. “We just don’t know how.” Artificial intelligence’s influence on the creative industries can already be seen everywhere in film, television and music, but dance relies heavily on live bodies performing in front of an audience. As a format, it appears to be somewhat isolated. However, this week, choreographers Ao Nakamura and Esteban Lecoq, collectively known as AΦEis launching Lilith.Aeon, what is billed as the world’s first AI-driven dance production. The performer, Lilith, is an AI co-created with Mr. Nakamura and Mr. Lecoq. “She” appears in an LED cube, which the audience moves around, and their movements trigger Lilith’s dance.
Nakamura and Lecoq argue that they are interested in enhancing storytelling, rather than pursuing cutting-edge technology for its own sake. Working as dancers with the theater company Punchdrunk opened their eyes to the idea of immersive experiences, which led to virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and now AI. Their question is always, “How can we make this technology happen?” But it’s not like robots are going to take over the world.
Lilith.Aeon’s story is inspired by transhumanism (using technology to evolve beyond human limitations) and began as a script written by an AI bot. Nakamura and Lecoq provided all of their research to AI, including images, audiobooks, and discussions. “And we were able to interact with the AI, collaborate with it, and co-create the work together.” The two created a “dictionary-like” step that Lilith was trained on; The AI continued to generate new “words” of its own. They were excited when Lilith did something they never expected, but the choreography is still tailored to their aesthetic. “It’s not random,” Lecoq says. “I’m not interested in looking at things like screensavers.”
“It’s not random. I’m not interested in looking at things like screensavers.” … Lilith.Aeon. Photo: Shaneobenson @Shaneobenson
You can’t talk about AI in dance without talking about Wayne McGregor. Always at the forefront when it comes to technology, I first started researching AI 20 years ago. McGregor developed it in collaboration with Google. Somais a choreographic tool trained on his 25-year archive of work that can analyze thousands of hours of video and derive real-time suggestions, just as dancers improvise in the studio. He used AISOMA to generate a new version of his 2017 work autobiography It varies from performance to performance. His latest project, which opens next year, is on another earthdeveloped with Professor Geoffrey Shaw in Hong Kong, uses a 360-degree screen with sensing technology to allow viewers to build their own experiences.
choreographer alexander whitley We are also developing ways to use AI to integrate audiences into our work. The VR version of The Rite of Spring works on using audience movements as triggers for avatars trained on Whitley’s database of choreography. This technology allows amateur spectators to make their movements more artistic, and even allows them to arrange their movements to the music, like a dance version of Autotune.
Technology is developing rapidly. A type of motion capture that was once the province of Hollywood studios is now accessible through an app on your phone (try it) Move.ai), much of the progress is being driven by the gaming industry. However, there are some pitfalls that are worth looking into. Video game performers, including motion capture actors, impressive In the US, due to concerns about being replaced by AI (similar to the actors’ strike in 2023). Dancers are already being recorded by companies that build motion banks (“We’ve done about a million projects that require motion capture, like someone spinning on their head,” McGregor says). And the issue of rights and royalties when using dancers’ movements (and expertise) to train AI is a big one. McGregor said outright acquisitions were common in motion capture deals in the past. “We didn’t understand how the technology would be applied in the future.” He is currently working with Arts Council England on intellectual property (IP), motion data and “ethical AI”. I would like to take action. If done well, this could become a new source of income for dancers. “Coding choreo makes coin,” quotes Jonzi D from a hip-hop show. frayedfeaturing AI-generated dancing avatars.
But what if you want to create coins for others? Dancing is an ever-changing art form, passed down through dance floors, studios, and now social media, and where ideas originate. It can be difficult to know or prove what happened. You can copyright a dance piece, but you can’t copyright a step, as dancers who tried to sue the makers of the video game Fortnite discovered. Files can be copyrighted. Nigerian choreographer Kudus Onyikeku uses AI to recognize and classify movements to build a dance databank and protect intellectual property, especially of black artists, which has often been exploited in the past. We are conducting research.
Artists who are serious about AI are partnering with big companies like Nvidia, Amazon, and Dell. They get technology, and in return companies get ideas, accolades, and importantly, data. Are they selling their souls or just pragmatism? Potentially, it affects both directions. “We don’t want to be an adopter of technology,” McGregor says. “You want to be part of the conversation from the beginning and be the voice. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, otherwise you’ll just be servicing the technology.” Often developing tools Commercial funding is the only way to do so, and some tools have the potential to democratize dance and demystify it. Whitley is working on software that can be used in education, allowing students with no dance knowledge to create their own choreography on screen.
A scene from Wayne McGregor & Co.’s Autobiography (v95 and v96) held at Sadler’s Wells, London, earlier this year. Photo: Tristram Kenton/Guardian
“I think humans and AI can do great things together,” says Jonzi D. But he also notices that most of the AI-generated content he sees has a certain similar look. “It comes down to how creatively you can use it.” Lecoq agrees that if everything is trained on the same content, everything will look the same. Art will undermine itself. “It would be lazy not to push the boundaries further,” he says. AI is not a shortcut when developing technology as we go along, as AΦE does. “It’s a long cut. It’s a very difficult and lonely process.”
Rojo thinks of several useful applications for AI in dance. For example, algorithms that can solve the headache of recasting a ballet when someone is injured can calculate who is available, who knows the role, etc. in seconds. Less useful, she says, “is if the composers were changed, the set and lighting designers were changed,” and the choreography patterns were created by artificial intelligence. “And it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”
However, computer intrusion into creativity is nothing new. “Computers are the future of dance,’’ said the choreographer. Merce Cunningham Back in 1995, he had already been working on the LifeForms program for six years, manipulating avatars on screen and transmitting the results to dancers. The intention was to shed the dancers’ natural habit of one movement instinctively leading to another and find something new, which choreographers have always tried.
So is that good or bad for the industry? “I try to avoid the binary of technology as either a savior or a destroyer,” Whitley says. There will inevitably be disruptive effects on the industry, “but there are also some really exciting possibilities that come with it.” Not all dancers will lose their jobs. “I’m not worried about turnover at all,” McGregor says. For him, it’s about using technology to better understand the complexities of the human body. “And we are far from building a version that somehow replicates the brilliance of the human body. Human virtuosity and ingenuity are what we are most often associated with.”
Watching dance is also about getting to know the limits of the human body and seeing it reach its limits. There’s no point in having an avatar that can do anything. Mr McGregor said: “There is no danger in the digital world.” But even if there is AI intervention in the choreography, “when performed by living, breathing humans, it becomes meaningful and tangible.” says Whitley. “Certainly, live performance cannot replace digital experiences,” Nakamura says. She’s not interested in seeing real people replicated on screen (“What do you mean?”), but with Lilith.Aeon, she wants to create something that couldn’t exist otherwise. I’m thinking. But despite the fact that AΦE is pioneering the latest in artificial intelligence, Lecoq claims that they are not very interested in technology. “The best technology that I like is the washing machine and the microwave.”
a The warrior and his wolf traverse a stunning landscape in a video game like no other. Cranes soar from a sparkling pond, while wild boars and stags wander in the background. The camera pans out to reveal a vast plain with yellow flowers spreading in all directions and cracked mountains in the distance. However, corruption lurks in this beautiful world. Birds fall from the sky, and black flowers emerge as a masked demon preys on them. These are the enemies that the warrior, armed with a thin blade, must defeat. But the task is daunting, as there are many foes to face, and the warrior is accompanied only by his faithful wolf companion.
Neva does not rely on words to embellish its setting. The game immerses players in a visually stunning world brought to life by developer Nomada Studio’s animation and accompanied by evocative music from Barcelona-based Berlinist. While many games prioritize style over substance, Neva excels on all fronts. The emotional impact of watching the world deteriorate and creatures succumb to darkness is profound, leaving players moved by the experience.
The journey begins with a small wolf pup that grows alongside the player, relying on their protection in the face of darkness. Players must utilize various abilities such as dashes, double jumps, and a rapier to combat the encroaching evil and safeguard their companion. The bond between the warrior and the wolf forms the heart of the game, evolving as the seasons change and the characters face new challenges.
“The bond between you and this wolf is the emotional center of this game.” Photo provided by: Nomada Studio
As the wolf matures, it gains new abilities and forms a crucial partnership with the player, aiding in combat and offering protection. The growth and development of the wolf symbolize the evolving relationship between player and companion, adding depth to the gameplay experience.
Neva seamlessly blends nature with changing architecture, creating diverse challenges that test players’ skills. The puzzles and combat scenarios are well-crafted, providing a balance of difficulty and consequence. The game’s visual design and atmospheric storytelling draw players into a captivating world where choices matter and dangers lurk at every turn.
Reminiscent of critically acclaimed games like Journey, Neva offers a compelling and emotionally resonant experience that lingers long after the credits roll. The journey towards the distant mountain, fraught with challenges and revelations, culminates in a poignant conclusion that leaves players reflecting on the profound impact of their adventure.
Volcanoes have been responsible for some of the most awe-inspiring and deadliest natural disasters in history, from the destruction of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD to the devastating eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in 2010.
There are more than 1,500 active volcanoes around the world, with one eruption occurring on average every week. But which of these eruptions are the most powerful?
Today, we have the ability to observe and measure volcanic eruptions with much more accuracy than in the past. Using the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) and the Dense Rock Equivalent Scale (DRE), we can compare the strength and destructive power of different volcanoes.
10. Mount St. Helens (1980) – VEI 5, DRE 0.5km3
Eruption of Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood, Washington, USA, photographed during the May 1980 eruption. Photo courtesy of Getty Images
Deaths: 57
In the morning of May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted explosively. Signs of magma movement had been observed for months prior, but the magnitude of the explosion still took many by surprise. The eruption produced blast winds of up to 1,080 km/h and devastated everything in a 600 km² radius within minutes, making it the most destructive volcanic eruption in U.S. history.
9. El Chichon (1982) – VEI 5, DRE 1.1km3
El Chichon volcano spews a column of ash and steam high into the sky above the evacuated town of El Volcan, Mexico, in March 1982. Photo by Getty Images
Estimated deaths: 1,900
El Chichon volcano in Chiapas, Mexico, erupted in 1982 after over 600 years of dormancy, catching many off guard. A deadly pyroclastic flow and sulfur dioxide emissions caused significant damage and casualties near the volcano.
8. Mount Hudson (1991) – VEI 5, DRE 1.6-2.7km3
Aerial photo of Mount Hudson Volcano taken on August 23, 1991. Photo by Norm Banks/US Geological Survey/Wikipedia
…
This massive eruption not only reduced Mount Tambora's elevation by a third, but also spewed huge amounts of ash and gas into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun.
In the long term, this led to massive food shortages worldwide, with 1816 becoming known as “the year without a summer.” It is estimated that at least 71,000 people ultimately died of starvation as a result of the eruption.
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The world of Warcraft has a persistent identity problem: Once one of the biggest games in the world, it’s now approaching its 20th anniversary, and with each passing year, developer Blizzard faces the daunting task of proving that WoW still has a place in today’s gaming world.
This goes some way to explaining why Blizzard has tried to reinvent WoW multiple times. Six years after its initial release, the developers attempted to radically remake the game world with 2010’s Cataclysm expansion, in which ancient dragons ravaged and reshaped the realm of Azeroth (an experience you can relive in the recently re-released Cataclysm Classic). Since then, Blizzard has tried a variety of gimmicks to keep WoW fresh, including the now-rather infamous mechanic that saw players increase their power level for two years before losing that power at the end of each expansion cycle.
These gimmicks, combined with an antiquated approach to gameplay updates, created a sense of unease among WoW fans, as players felt unloved and taken for granted. Two years ago, the Dragonflight expansion felt like a make-or-break moment. But what was meant to be WoW’s final installment turned out to be a much-needed breath of fresh air. Dragonflight scraped away the chaff and pared WoW’s gameplay down to a tightness that harkened back to its glory days. After a gimmick-filled experiment, it seemed Blizzard had decided on the most radical of game design approaches: making a better game.
I’ll be honest, I was skeptical that this latest expansion, The War Within, could maintain its momentum. Delving into dank, dark depths in search of adventure, treasure, and intrigue is one of fantasy’s enduring tropes, and with good reason. But after soaring through the skies in Dragonflight, “Awesome… But Underground!” felt like a thematic nosedive.
But War Within tells us something great why We’re exploring the bowels of the Earth. Historically, the quality of WoW’s writing hasn’t been a strong point, but here, a fantastic cast of voice actors and surprisingly compelling in-game cinematics tell a more compelling story than ever before. The expansion also introduces a charismatic villain who, while still a bit hackneyed, is a refreshing contrast to the beefy baritone baddies WoW tends to default to.
But while a compelling story is important, an MMORPG is only as good as how you feel when you play it every day. So far, The War Within has excelled in this regard. Over the past two years, Blizzard has been steadily experimenting with a variety of new features to make players’ lives easier. These include long-awaited improvements to WoW’s antiquated menus and on-screen information, the ability to run with an AI companion as you learn new dungeons, and the new “Warbands” feature that lets you progress towards all of the in-game objectives with any character without mindlessly repeating hours of play every time you want to try out a druid instead of a rogue. All of this is smoothly integrated into the leveling experience, resulting in the most satisfying start to a WoW expansion pack I’ve experienced.
Gorgeous…World of Warcraft: The War Within. Photo: Blizzard
The flashy new “Hero Talents” tweak WoW’s complicated talent trees by adding a little stylistic flair and class fantasy. For example, my dueling giant sword-toting Fury Warrior can be transformed into a lightning-powered stomping machine under the Mountain Thane hero tree. But sadly, these options don’t have much consistency, and I’m often forced to choose what’s most powerful in combat, rather than the flashier, more exciting options. Depending on how your particular class, spec, and hero tree perform, the choice can be either an intense delight or an intense frustration. I ended up regretting demoting my Warrior from Mountain Thane to the much less exciting but higher-damage Slayer tree.
The War Within also introduces “Deeps” – shorter dungeons scattered throughout the landscape that can be tackled alone or with a group of up to five people. The game badly needed a flexible alternative to raids, which still require you to spend one evening each week with a group of 10-25 other players. Deeps are suited to players who only have an hour of freedom every once in a while, but want to feel like they’re making progress towards their character and gear goals. If the Deeps are properly maintained over the coming months and years, I can see myself spending a lot of time there.
Sure, The War Within is only just beginning its two-year lifecycle, but this is WoW’s best achievement in years, and while Blizzard will continue to grapple with Warcraft’s place in the modern gaming landscape, especially with WoW’s 20th anniversary approaching, the game still feels relevant in a way it hasn’t felt in a long time.
Astronomers have discovered six new worlds that look like planets but formed like stars. These so-called “rogue worlds” are between five and 15 times the mass of Jupiter, and one of them may even host the beginnings of a miniature solar system.
Ray Jayawardene Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a researcher from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and his colleagues discovered these strange worlds in the NGC 1333 star cluster. Despite being planet-sized, none of these worlds orbit a star. This indicates that they likely formed by the collapse of a cloud of dust and gas, similar to how stars like our Sun are born. These objects that form like stars but are not massive enough to sustain the fusion of hydrogen are called brown dwarfs, or failed stars.
“In some ways, the most shocking thing is what we didn't find,” Jayawardene says. “Even though we had the sensitivity to do so, we couldn't find anything with a mass less than five times that of Jupiter.” This may indicate that brown dwarfs can't form at lower masses — that is, they are the smallest objects that can form like stars.
From their observations, the researchers found that about 10 percent of the objects in NGC 1333 are made up of brown dwarfs — a much higher number than expected based on star formation models — and that additional processes, such as turbulence, may be driving the formation of these nomadic planets.
One of the brown dwarfs is particularly unusual, with a ring of dust around it similar to the ones that formed the planets in our solar system. At about five times the mass of Jupiter, it's the smallest planet with such a ring ever found and may mark the beginning of a strange, shrunken planetary system around a dysfunctional star.
“From the miniature world around these objects, [brown dwarf] “It will glow mostly in the infrared, with a very reddish glow, and over hundreds of millions of years it will gradually fade away and become invisible,” Jayawardene says. As the brown dwarf fades, any planets that form around it will freeze out completely, darkening the entire system and making it a less than promising world for searching for life.
“I Last week, I sent out TechScape to our readers, hoping to take a break from writing about Elon Musk. However, my news editor had other plans: “Can you keep an eye on Elon Musk’s Twitter feed this week?”
Reading Musk’s tweets, I felt like my brain was melting. Even though I’d covered him for years, his online presence surprised me. From promoting Tesla and SpaceX to sharing cheesy nerdy jokes and diving into right-wing politics, his chaotic behavior had a new twist.
His briefest overnight break came on Saturday night, when he retweeted controversial content and then dived back in hours later with more questionable tweets.
Musk’s involvement in UK politics pushed him further into the far-right spectrum. Engaging with controversial figures like Lauren Southern and supporting Britain First’s co-leader, Musk’s online persona was more divisive than ever. Now, they are his supporters.
Well, that’s fine.
Today I’ll give you a good example from the world of AI that shows the difference between a scientific press release and a scientific paper. University of Bath’s press release claims AI poses no existential threat to humanity, but the actual research paints a different picture.
The study questions the capabilities of large-scale language models, suggesting that they are not as groundbreaking as claimed.
While the press release version is attention-grabbing, the scientific paper delves deeper into the limitations of AI capabilities. It highlights the challenges of ensuring AI safety in the face of emergent capabilities.
The paper reveals that emergent AI capabilities might not be as groundbreaking as they seem and are more controllable than believed. This sheds light on the complexity of AI safety in the face of evolving technology.
The pain of training
Nvidia’s use of YouTube data to train AI has led to legal troubles. A federal lawsuit alleges Nvidia stole videos from YouTube creators to train its AI, sparking a debate about intellectual property rights.
This lawsuit underscores the challenges AI companies face when sourcing training data. While some companies openly disregard copyright restrictions, others like Nvidia face legal battles over data usage.
On the other hand, companies like Google have a different approach due to their dominant position in the tech industry. Many websites allow Google to use their content for AI training to maintain visibility in search results.
Ask Me Anything
In my final TechScape after 11 years at the Guardian, I’m answering readers’ questions. Feel free to ask me anything tech-related, and I’ll do my best to provide insights and recommendations.
TThe Crush House developer Nerial describes the game as a “first-person shooter,” which is a surprisingly accurate tagline. On the Malibu coastline, a grand vaporwave-and-neon mansion stands. Producer Jae sleeps in a bleak little basement below. Your job is to roam the house from behind the camera, filming the reality show’s hot and sexy cast. You pick a panel of 12 for each season, chase them around the glitzy grounds, and make sure they fight, kiss, or both to boost ratings and satisfy viewers. You’re free to move around, but you’re warned never to talk to the cast. As the tagline suggests, the game certainly has a first-person shooter vibe, but instead of a gun, you’re brandishing a camera. Think sexy Pokémon Snap.
Every night a different demographic tunes in, and all of them have very specific needs. Some want to see drama, some want to see art in the house, some want to see food being prepared, and of course some want to see detailed, zoomed-in looks at feet, lots of feet, or other body parts. Your job is to satisfy them all, or risk your show being canceled.
What a surprise…Crash House. Photography: Devolver Digital
This makes the play experience a fun and surprising cinematography simulator. Audience requests scroll across the screen, telling you where the cast sleeps, asking where you shower, asking if anyone will kiss you even once. They’re weirdos, but if you don’t listen to them, you’re fired. The script is sharp, funny, and sometimes a little shocking. Definitely one of the funniest games I’ve played this year. Conversations between cast members are algorithmically executed. Each of the 12 brings something slightly different to the table, and different possibilities for getting along or clashing with the other housemates. This means every combination is a surprise. If one set doesn’t work out, you can try a different combination in the next season. The housemates don’t care. You come back fresh, as if your memory has been wiped, or worse.
At night, when the housemates have retired to bed, the player re-enters the house and adds props to make it more interesting. These props (some of which match the interests of the housemates) cost money earned by running surreal advertisements during the day. Another challenge is finding a balance between the advertisements and the viewers who might enjoy them. Of course, more engaged viewers bring in more money, which might allow you to buy a sauna, a lighthouse, a saxophone, etc. – all things that make the house more interesting.
But as you set up your props after dark, you might bump into an escaped housemate who asks you for a favor: more airtime, a specific angle, a personal request to be filmed flirting with two people to really piss your mom off. It’s up to you to decide if you want to grant it or not. Going this route will reveal the stories behind the poolside fun and deep chats by the bonfire. Of course, there’s more going on than meets the eye. What fun it will be to discover the darkness that lingers behind the neon lights.
If The Crush House was simply a smart, funny photography and cinematography game, I would have been pleased and pleased. But the game offers players much more than that. Beneath the snappy text and playful design, it also has a quirky heart. It’s worth noting that the review build still had its moments of glitches, but the strength of the idea and execution far outweighs any technical issues. This in itself is remarkable. The Crush House is so much fun that I didn’t want to turn it off, even when some parts were a little broken. It’s a great way to spend the last cool evenings of summer, and the season ahead.
“Demographic composition has changed significantly in recent years,” Li Junhua, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said in a news release.
The report predicts that the world’s population will continue to grow over the coming decades, from 8.2 billion in 2024 to a peak of nearly 10.3 billion in the next 50 to 60 years. But population won’t keep growing forever: By 2100, the world’s population is expected to return to 10.2 billion, 6% lower than UN experts predicted a decade ago.
The United Nations’ last population assessment, released in 2022, suggested humanity could reach 10.4 billion people by the late 2000s, but falling birth rates in some of the world’s largest countries, including China, are one of the reasons why the population peak will come sooner than expected.
More than half of countries have fertility rates below 2.1 children per woman, or the “replacement rate,” the number of children each woman needs to have to avoid population decline.
An additional 48 countries, including Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey and Iran, are also expected to see their populations peak over the next 30 years.
India’s population is 1.4India’s population is expected to surpass China’s in 2022, surpassing 2 billion and becoming the world’s most populous country. India’s population is also expected to continue growing until the middle of this century, according to the report.
However, China’s population continues to decline.
“China has experienced a rapid and significant decline in births in recent years,” said Patrick Garland, head of the Population Estimates and Projections Division at the United Nations Population Division.
“The changes China has undergone in the past generation are among the fastest in the world,” Garland said.
Without immigration, the United States would also face a population decline. It is one of about 50 countries projected to continue experiencing population growth due to increased immigration. The U.S. population is projected to grow from 345 million in 2024 to 421 million by the end of the century.
People pass through a crowded street in Kampala, Uganda. Since 2013, Uganda’s population has grown by 13 million people, or nearly 40 percent, second only to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Badru Katumba/AFP via Getty Images
A growing country is likely to exacerbate problems related to consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and other drivers of global warming. A growing population also means more people are exposed to climate risks such as droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather events that are intensified by global warming.
“Just because a challenge might emerge 60 years from now doesn’t mean it’s pointless to talk about it now,” said Dean Spears, an associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Decades from now, people will be talking about these new demographic changes with the same level of academic and societal concern that we are talking about today about climate change,” Spears said.
Countries where population growth is expected to continue through to 2054 include India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria. In parts of Africa, including Angola, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Somalia, populations are expected to double dramatically between 2024 and 2054, according to the United Nations.
But a growing population on Earth does not necessarily mean that climate change will occur faster. Most of the world’s fastest growing regions are also countries that have historically contributed the least to global warming. These regions are also typically disproportionately affected by climate change.
The report notes that life expectancy has recovered after the impact of the pandemic. Global life expectancy will be 73.2 years in 2023, up from the pandemic low of 70.9 years in 2021 and higher than the pre-pandemic level of 72.4 years five years ago. Global life expectancy is projected to reach 81.7 years in 2100.
As life expectancy increases and birth rates fall, the world’s population is ageing. Projections show that by 2080, people aged 65 and over will outnumber children under 18. By 2023, there will be almost three times as many children as people aged 65 and over.
TOny, who is in his 50s, recently did a quick calculation of how much time he’s spent watching porn in his life. “The results were horrifying,” he says. Eight years. “It’s hard to even think about. The frustration is intense.”
Tony saw his first “hardcore” movie on VHS in the 1980s, when he was 12 years old. It was in his 20s that he first got online, which turned his habit into a “full-blown addiction.” For the past 30 years, he’s managed to maintain a double life: he works in care, has friendships and relationships with men and women. But there’s one side of him he keeps completely secret.
“So far, I’ve only told three people about this: two therapists, and now you,” he says. “I’ve kept it a complete secret from everyone I’ve ever known. I’m very careful to cover my tracks, even in relationships. My lack of interest in sex with my partner might be the only thing that makes her wonder.”
Tony has tried many times to stop watching porn but has never been able to go more than a month without it. He’s tried cutting down, banned masturbation, blocked porn sites, and tried to quit completely. But “the addict’s brain is very cunning and manipulative,” he says. He also tried therapy, but found it difficult to keep up with the costs long-term.
Still, Tony is grateful for one thing: he was young before the internet. “At least I had a normal youth. Parties, shows, adventures with friends. I had a girlfriend. I had a sex life. A guy like me doesn’t have that chance now.”
All statistics on pornography use in the UK and globally have skyrocketed due to the widespread use of mobile phones: in May 2023 alone, around 13.8 million people, a third of all internet-using adults, viewed pornography online. According to Ofcom
Of these, two-thirds were male. Although pornography companies do not report (or acknowledge) statistics on underage viewers, on average, children in the UK first see pornography at age 12. In a recent study, the Children’s Commissioner for England said: Much of what young people see is violent and extreme.
This tournament Insect Week It showcases the best insect photography by amateurs of all ages, shedding light on the miniature world of insects.
The overall winner of this year’s competition is Luke Chambers from the UK, whose piece “Sleeping Cuckoos” depicts two beautiful cuckoo bees resting on a blade of grass covered with morning dew (scroll down to see it).
The overall winner in the “18 and under” category was 17-year-old Gustaf Pallenmark from Sweden, whose work “Silence” shows a striped damselfly at rest.
The Royal Entomological Society exists to advance the science of insects through research and to increase public understanding and appreciation of insects and the vital role they play in the Earth’s ecosystems.
Here are this year’s fantastic contest winners and some other favourites.
Special Award for Under 18s – Purple Fire
Leaf-cutter wasp (Megachile lagopoda). This species is under threat due to intensive land use. Photo: Gustav Pallenmark
Portrait of Special Praise – Picasso Bug
The aptly named Picasso bug (Sphaerocoris annulus) was photographed in Louiru, Kenya. Photo by Robin Backhouse
Under 18 Runner-up – Robber Fly Breakfast
A spindly-legged centipede fly (Leptarththrus brevirostris) feeds on small insects. Photo by Jamie Smart
Special Award Portrait – Flowers of Evil
European mantis (Mantis religiosa) among cyclamen. Photo by Panagiotis Dalagiorgos
Honorable Mention Portrait – Brown Argus Roosting at Sunrise
A brown argus butterfly (Alicia agastis) warms itself on a stalk of grass as the sun rises, Martin Down, Dorset, UK. Photo by Richard Sheldrake
Particularly praised behavior – mating veins
Two mating Timandra comai moths. Timandra comai moths belong to the Geometridae family. They get their name from the distinctive reddish stripes that run from wing to wing. Photo by Heath McDonald
Specially praised environment – a pair of silverfish
These silverfish (family Bacillarioidea) appear to be stuck together in tiny clay nest structures. Some of their shiny silvery scales are frayed, which may indicate an imminent moult. Photographed in Western Australia. Photo by Frank Ashwood.
Under 18 Winner – Tranquility
A striped male Calopteryx splendens dragonfly photographed in Sweden. Photo by Gustav Pallenmark
Special Smartphone Award – Pollinator
A common Carder’s bumblebee (Bombus pascuorum) collecting pollen from a flower. Photo by Michael Wood
Particularly praised behavior – fatal attraction
A swarm of dead flying ants floats on the surface of a swimming pool. United States. Photo by Rosemary Haleem
Special Award for Under 18s – Camouflage Masters
An Indian praying mantis (Schizocephala bicornis) transforms into a leaf. The color of the mantis and the leaf are almost the same and it is impossible to spot the insect unless it is moving. The mantis’s body was following the veins of the leaf, making it difficult to identify. Photo by Kushaan A Ksheerasagar
Particularly praised behavior – Conopidae column
Male and female red-legged bees (Sicus ferrugineus) nestle after mating. The smaller male guards the female, making sure no other suitors ruin the night. Photo by Luke Chambers
Special Smartphone Award – Wasps join cream teas
A German hornet (Vespula germanica) joins a family enjoying a cream tea at a British cafe. Photo by Abi Batten
Special Smartphone Award – The Moth and the Mountain
A male wolf moth (Saturnia pavonia) rests on the heather on the slopes of Meal Buide. In the background you can see the summit of Stack an Lochaine in the Scottish Highlands. Photographed in Scotland, UK in May 2023. Photo by Marianne Cockburn.
Special Prize Portrait – Centipede
A brown heath robberies (Epitriptus cingulatus) resting on long grass in Droxford, Hampshire, UK. Photo by Stephen Mahy
Particularly rewarded behavior – Junk Bugs
Junk bugs (Chrysopidae) are voracious predators of the insect kingdom, so named because they wear vegetable matter and the exoskeletons of past victims on their backs as part of a complex camouflage to fool predators. Photo by Rosa Dunbar
Special Featured Portrait – The Third Eye
A photo of a velvet wasp (Ichneumonidae) in a moth trap in the UK. Photo by Ben James
2nd place overall – Caddisfly larvae
Spotted sedge caddisfly (Glyphotaelius pellucidus) larvae in a gelatinous egg sac. Taken on a leaf overhanging the water, this image shows newly hatched caddisfly larvae in a clear, gelatinous egg sac. The larvae fall into the water and live as aquatic insects through their larval and pupal stages. Photo by Tim Jonas
Overall Winner – Sleeping Cuckoo
A flying squirrel (Epeolus variegatus) sleeps on a leaf. Morning dew is visible on the surface of its eyes. Photo by Luke Chambers
The Moon, Earth’s steadfast companion that remains in orbit, has been a popular subject of discussion since the early days of space exploration. Missions have been planned, rovers have explored its surface, and even a flag has been planted there.
But why all the interest? The Moon is over 400,000 km away from Earth, a considerable distance to travel, and it poses many challenges as a potential habitat for humans, such as exposure to solar radiation.
However, the Moon offers other advantages. Being largely untouched, it presents opportunities for planetary research, scientific experiments, and notably, mining for valuable resources.
There is a growing interest in lunar exploration, raising the important question of lunar ownership. Philosopher and author AC Grayling addresses this topic in his new book, “Who owns the moon?”
SF: Why are we interested in going to the moon, and will it ever happen?
ACG: The Moon holds vast resources, making it a lucrative target for mining operations. Coupled with the rapid pace of technological advancements, the obstacles to lunar exploration are likely to be overcome. Significant investments are being made in this endeavor, indicating the potential benefits that could be derived.
While some argue that lunar exploration is not feasible, the lure of valuable resources like Helium-3 for clean nuclear fusion makes the Moon an attractive destination for mining activities.
SF: So who actually owns the moon?
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, agreed upon by the United Nations, asserts that the Moon cannot be militarized or claimed for sovereignty or ownership. It is considered a shared resource belonging to all of humanity.
With various nations eyeing lunar exploration and exploitation, concerns about potential conflicts arise, highlighting the need for clearer regulations and agreements.
What are the next steps? Will the law be strengthened?
Efforts are being made to establish binding regulations, but the presence of multiple space agencies and rivalries between nations complicate the process. Initiatives like the Artemis Accords aim to set guidelines for responsible behavior in space.
However, the prospect of a new space race between major powers like the US, China, and Russia raises concerns about the potential for conflict and competition in space.
Can history give us any indication of what might happen?
The Antarctic Treaty serves as a model for international cooperation in preserving shared resources. However, challenges to extend the treaty’s scope and conflicting claims in Antarctica hint at the complexities of managing common territories.
Similar issues could arise in lunar exploration, especially with the potential for valuable mineral resources like Helium-3. The absence of clear regulations and the lack of a universal agreement on space governance present significant hurdles.
Is there an argument to leave the moon alone?
Given the Moon’s vast and barren nature, concerns about environmental impacts are minimal compared to Earth. Utilizing lunar resources for space exploration and sustainable practices could be more beneficial in the long run.
What’s the next step after the moon?
The Moon’s potential as a refueling station for Mars missions opens up new possibilities for further space exploration. As colonies on celestial bodies evolve, questions of independence and governance will arise, shaping the future of human presence in space.
In conclusion, the direction of space activities will determine whether they align with values upheld on Earth or devolve into profit-driven ventures. Clear regulations and international cooperation are essential to ensure a sustainable and equitable future in space.
About our expert, A.C. Grayling
AC Grayling is a philosopher and author of the book “Whose Moon is It?” He is also the founder of the New College of the Humanities and a respected figure in literary criticism and intellectual discourse.
2,000-year-old wine discovered in Roman tomb in Carmona, Spain
Juan Manuel Roman/University of Cordoba
Chemical analysis has revealed that a reddish liquid discovered in a 2,000-year-old Roman mausoleum in Spain is the oldest known liquid wine.
“I was shocked and couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. Jose Rafael Luis Arebola “It was inconceivable that the liquid could remain in this state for 2,000 years,” said a researcher from the University of Cordoba in Spain.
Until now, a sealed vessel found near Speyer, Germany, believed to be around 1,700 years old, was thought to have contained the oldest known wine, but it had never been opened.
Discovered by chance in 2019 in Carmona, near Seville, the Spanish tomb dates to the 1st century AD and belonged to a wealthy family. Eight burial niches were carved into the walls and contained six urns made of limestone, sandstone, and glass. Half contained the remains of a woman, the other half of a man. Two of the urns were inscribed with the names of the deceased: “Hispanae” and “Señicio.”
One of the glass jars, encased in a lead shell, contained the skeletal remains of a 45-year-old man, a gold ring engraved with an image of the two-faced Roman god Janus, and approximately five liters of liquid.
Luis Arrebola and his team studied the composition of the reddish liquid using various methods, including liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and found that it had a pH value of 7.5, which is much more alkaline than normal for wine and indicates severe spoilage.
Its mineral profile was similar to that of modern sherry and fino wines from Spain, and it contained seven types of polyphenols, natural antioxidant compounds found only in wine.
Entrance to the Mausoleum of Carmona, where wine was discovered
Juan Manuel Roman/University of Cordoba
The absence of syringic acid, a compound produced by the breakdown of the main pigment in red wine, confirmed that the wine was white, presumably intended for the dead to drink on their journey to the afterlife.
“The discovery of a 2,000-year-old liquid believed to be wine in a Roman jar is unusual and an important event, providing unique insights into Roman burial practices.” David Tanasi “This shows the continuity between ancient and modern wine production,” say researchers from the University of South Florida.
Luis Arrebola plans to carry out further tests to identify any residues of microorganisms such as bacteria or yeast that may be present in the wine.
MaA lot has changed for Hidetaka Miyazaki in the past decade. In May 2014, he became president of FromSoftware, the Japanese game developer known for the dark fantasy blockbusters Demon’s Souls (2009), Dark Souls (2011), and Bloodborne (2015), all of which he directed himself. At the time, FromSoftware’s games were critically acclaimed and had a devoted following, but they sold poorly, only selling a few million copies each. But in 2022, the company released the gloriously imposing Elden Ring, a collaboration with fantasy author George R.R. Martin. Not only is it Miyazaki’s best work, it’s also his most popular to date, having sold 25 million copies to date. FromSoftware is no longer a niche company that produces cult hits; it’s now a company that produces bona fide blockbusters.
Has this changed Miyazaki’s thinking? Given how unforgiving and ruthless his game world is, it may not be surprising that he’s not the most optimistic person you’ll ever meet. “Elden Ring was in a league of its own in terms of success and critical acclaim, but what we try to do as a company is to never assume that it’s going to happen again in future games,” he told me in an interview in Los Angeles. “We never make decisions based on the assumption that because we did it once, it’s going to happen again. Allowing for this fairly conservative prediction gives us room to fail, which ultimately leads to better games and better decisions. Indirectly, I think that the assumption that we’re not going to make hits anymore, that conservative outlook, inspires and helps our game design.”
Miyazaki and the From Software team Comfortable. And even if they did, it’s hard to imagine they would have made a game as demanding, ambitious, and at times brutal.
Shadow of the Eldtree, a major expansion for Elden Ring, is released today. It takes players to a terrifying land of shadows, filled with amber skies, fearsomely grotesque monsters, and vengeful, forgotten warriors. From Software’s games are notoriously difficult, demanding extraordinary grit, determination, and drive from the player. Shadow of the Eldtree may be the hardest yet. Shadow of the Eldtree will put even those with 100 hours of Eldtree experience on the back foot. But it handsomely rewards persistence with a complex, fascinatingly opaque storyline and memorable battles against fearsome entities, from ghostly, leaf-adorned dragons to giant walking cages of human ash. The sense of accomplishment you feel when you finally conquer the unconquerable in a Miyazaki work remains unmatched.
The harsh nature of Eld Tree feels like a dump of cold water on me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing this game for 15 years, but Elden Ring feels just a little more approachable than other FromSoftware games. If you get stuck somewhere, you can move somewhere else, rather than charging at the same near-impossible boss over and over again. There are more options, and you can always try a different approach. It doesn’t feel like you’re having your face shoved in the dirt, as I said to Miyazaki. all At the time. Does he think this is part of the reason Elden Ring has garnered more fans than Dark Souls or the 2019 ninja fantasy Sekiro?
Miyazaki: “I’ve always felt that the world is a really harsh place.” Photo: FromSoftware/Sony
“That’s certainly part of the intention. Elden Ring gives players a lot more freedom because of its open-world nature and game design,” he muses. “At no point in the game did we want players to feel boxed in or overly limited in the scope of what they can do and experience in that world. It’s not a very gloomy, dark fantasy that we’ve become accustomed to in past FromSoftware games… The same starkness and coldness is still there, but we wanted to create beautiful moments. Conceptually, there’s a bit of high fantasy in there. It feels like you have a break, both in terms of the difficulty and the learning curve, but also in the world setting.”
Every new FromSoftware release brings up a bit of a discussion about difficulty and accessibility in modern games. Some developers choose to offer easier modes for less experienced or time-poor players. Sometimes they even remove enemies from the game entirely.
But this doesn’t suit a game like Elden Ring – difficulty is what the game is about, and reducing the difficulty stifles creativity.
“If you really want people all over the world to play your game, you can just make the difficulty lower and lower, but that wasn’t the right approach,” Miyazaki said. “If we had taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have turned out the way it did, because the sense of accomplishment that players get from overcoming these hurdles is a very fundamental part of the gaming experience. If you lower the difficulty, you take away that joy. I think it ruins the game itself.”
For Miyazaki, improving through failure isn’t just a game design principle, it’s something of a personal philosophy. As president, he creates a work environment where developers can experiment and ideas don’t get bogged down. No one project dictates a developer’s entire future. His big break came in 2006, when he was put in charge of managing a struggling fantasy project at FromSoftware. The game would become Demon’s Souls. “I thought if I could figure out how to manage the game, I could turn it into whatever I wanted,” he told The Guardian’s Simon Parkin in 2015. “The best part was that if my idea failed, nobody cared. It was already a failure.”
“To be honest, I don’t think it’s that different now than it was 15 years ago when we were making Demon’s Souls,” he laughs when I remind him of this. “What I try to foster in our environment is to make sure that young directors and game designers have the same kind of experience that I had when I was working on Demon’s Souls, that if this game fails, it’s not the end of the world. I think that mentality and attitude helps people grow.”
Mr. Miyazaki is different. The first time I met him In 2011“I’ve always been a big fan of the game,” he said at Tokyo Game Show, just before the release of Dark Souls, the game that would thrust him into the spotlight. Quiet and soft-spoken, his eyes glued to the carpet, he says he used to shy away from being the center of attention. But now he’s much more confident and comfortable talking about both business and game design. When he thinks, he looks up at the ceiling, not down at the floor. He’s now a father to a young daughter and leads a company. And like players of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, he’s emerged as a more capable person.
However, he remains as hands-on as ever as a game designer. “Regardless of my title or position in the company, there is always the joy and satisfaction I get from making games,” he says. “I enjoy helping to nurture and develop young directors who will take the company to the next level. But sitting in an administrative office all day is not my style. I want to really get my hands dirty and continue to make games together, and through that, pass on my process to other generations of talent. I’ve held the title of president for almost 10 years now, but I’d say about 95% of my work and time at the company is devoted to game making and game direction. In this ratio, I’d say I’ve only had about 6 months of actual experience as an executive!”
The world is also very different from when Demon’s Souls was a big hit. I think the reason why more people are resonating with the work of Hayao Miyazaki and From Software is because we’ve become accustomed to a feeling of helplessness. For those who have lived through the last 15 years of pandemics, political turmoil, and looming climate disaster, bleak situations are not so foreign. What Elden Ring gives us is a glimmer of hope that, perhaps, if we are strong and persistent enough, we can triumph against all odds.
“A lot of From Software’s games throw you into this barren wasteland and make it a very harsh, harsh, cold experience… I don’t think what we’ve done in the game has changed, but maybe the world will change. Have “The last few years have been exceptional in terms of what’s going on around us, but even before that I felt the world was a very harsh place. I’ve always lived with that worldview, that value system. So this idea of being cast out into the wilderness and planting the seeds of growth feels almost universal to me. Maybe more people are discovering that now.”
I think what a lot of people miss in From Software’s games is a sense of hope. First Interview In a 2010 email exchange with Miyazaki, he told me about the origins of Demon’s Souls’ unusual multiplayer, in which players can summon anonymous helpers to help them get through a particularly frightening area or boss encounter. He was driving up a hill in the winter when everyone got stuck. It wasn’t until everyone in the back started helping by pushing the car in front to the top of the hill that someone finally made it. He called it a “connection of mutual aid between fickle people,” adding, “Oddly enough, that event will probably stick in my mind for a long time. It sticks for a long time precisely because it was so fleeting.”
Elden Ring is filled with these fleeting moments of beauty and friendship, and they’re all the more meaningful because they’re so rare. In a harsh world, moments of respite are precious.
“If I look deeply into my history, there are definitely experiences that have influenced my identity, the worldview that drives me to make games,” Miyazaki said. “I’ve never taken a step back and thought about what triggered it, but there’s definitely something that’s the reason these are the types of games I want to see and make. If I looked in the mirror and took a hard look at myself… if I went on a soul-searching journey to find out why, I might be disappointed in myself. It would force me to face how boring and ordinary I am. Maybe I’m intentionally avoiding that. That’s what keeps the creativity flowing.”
Nvidia surpassed Microsoft on Tuesday to become the world’s most valuable company, driven by its essential role in the competition for artificial intelligence dominance.
With a 3.5% increase in its shares to $135.58, Nvidia now has a market capitalization of $3.34 trillion, following its recent surpassing of Apple to become the second-most valuable company.
Originally known for making video-game chips, Nvidia has evolved into a global powerhouse, benefiting from the industry’s shift towards artificial intelligence and becoming a go-to supplier for tech giants.
Outperforming industry giants like Google and Apple, Nvidia’s growth has spurred investment and market interest.
The company’s success has contributed to record highs on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 closing at 5,487.03 on Tuesday.
Nvidia’s shares have soared by approximately 180% this year, significantly outperforming Microsoft’s 19% increase, driven by high demand for its cutting-edge processors.
Tech leaders like Microsoft, Meta Platforms Inc., and Alphabet Inc. are in a race to bolster AI computing capabilities and dominate emerging technologies.
The surge in Nvidia’s stock price has pushed its market capitalization to new heights, adding over $103 billion on Tuesday alone.
By splitting its stock 10-for-1 on June 7, Nvidia aimed to make its highly-valued stock more accessible to retail investors.
Nvidia’s chips, utilized in crucial AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, have driven its revenue and stock price up, arousing increased investor interest in Silicon Valley.
As Nvidia solidifies its presence in the tech sector, CEO Jensen Huang, aged 61, has ascended to the ranks of the world’s wealthiest individuals, with a net worth exceeding $100 billion.
In less than two years, Nvidia’s market capitalization has jumped from $1 trillion to $3 trillion, marking a remarkable growth trajectory.
Bee found herself in a moment of realization when she caught herself mindlessly scrolling through the news on her phone while sitting on the toilet. This made her see the need to reconsider her phone habits.
Tired of the constant intrusion of notification sounds and the compulsive need to check her phone, the 37-year-old Londoner decided to switch to a device that would allow her to stay connected while reducing distractions. When her iPhone broke down a year ago, she opted for the Nokia 2720 Flip, a modern take on the classic flip phone.
As a mother of two young children, she made this choice after learning about the impact of screen time on kids. She realized that her own behavior contradicted the rules she set for her children and wanted to set a better example for them.
Discovering the addictive nature of smartphones and social media further fueled her decision to make a change. Feeling frustrated that tech companies were dictating her daily life, she sought a more mindful approach to using technology.
The emergence of low-tech devices in response to the dominance of smartphones has gained momentum in recent years. Switching to a “dumb phone” or a device like the BoringPhone has become a trend, driven by a desire to disconnect from excessive screen time and embrace a more offline lifestyle.
Jess Perriam, 39, turned to PostCrossing, a platform for sending and receiving postcards from strangers worldwide, to maintain a connection with others without being bombarded by aggressive advertising. She values the reading recommendations and cultural insights she has gained through this more traditional form of communication.
The resurgence of analog media, such as cassettes, vinyl records, and postcards, reflects a broader shift towards reconnecting with physical experiences. David Sacks emphasizes the importance of tactile interactions and sensory engagement in an increasingly digital world.
you Up until about a month ago, the thought of leaving my apartment without headphones plugged into my phone filled me with anxiety. Whether it was a two-minute walk to the store or a two-hour commute where I could hear nothing but my own thoughts and the hustle and bustle of the city, it was enough to send me into a mild state of frenzy.
This obsessive relationship with headphones began earlier this year when a friend of mine, an ambient artist, Lance Laoyen noted that headphones not only disconnect us from the reality of noise pollution, but also continue to distract us under the guise of improving our focus. This conversation sent me into a bit of a spiral of thought that I am prone to fall into, and made me keenly aware of the ubiquity of headphones in our culture and how little attention we pay to them.
In Manchester where I live, it would be hard to find someone in the city centre do not have We wear headphones. Cyclists, commuters, runners, everyone. According to a Statista survey, 30 million people will be using headphones in 2022, the majority of which will be in-ear Bluetooth headphones such as Apple AirPods. By 2027, half of us are predicted to own headphones, the majority of whom will be between the ages of 25 and 45. Many of us choose to listen to something other than the outside world while on the go, whether it’s music, podcasts, or audiobooks, but increasingly I’m beginning to question why.
So in April, I gave up headphones for a month to become more mindful of my relationship with my surroundings, which was addictive to say the least. They were inextricably linked to my daily routine: taking out the trash, exercising, doing the dishes, writing, lunching, sleeping. The only time I ever lived without them was when the battery died. And never, ever, ever, by choice. The anxiety I felt until I was able to charge them should have been enough to at least tell me I was addicted.
Illustration: Luke McConkey/Observer
Of course, it wasn’t always this way. In 1979, Sony launched the revolutionary Walkman, the world’s first personal listening device. It came with lightweight headphones, and it seemed like a miracle that suddenly music could be carried around with you. You could walk around surrounded by your own soundscape. In this sense, headphones have been very different for each generation, becoming more appealing and addictive with each successive generation. Gen X had the Walkman, while millennials loved MP3 players and iPods, digitizing the personal listening experience and making it even easier to listen to anything, anywhere, anytime. Gen Z, my generation, has grown accustomed to smartphones and streaming services. The desire to listen to something other than the outside world has never been stronger.
The invention of the Walkman didn’t just change the way humans listen to music, it changed the way we interact with our surroundings, with others, and with ourselves. It was a revolutionary change, and the use of headphones Accelerates the progression of hearing loss And more Causes an increase in traffic accidents No one seems to question it because people are distracted.
Someone has been closely studying the collective use of headphones. Michael Bull Bull, a professor of acoustics at the University of Sussex, was one of the first sociological studies of headphone adoption. He believes our addiction to headphones can be explained by a very human motivation: the need for control. This can be broken down into four dimensions. The first is cognitive, which has to do with our ability to control our mood; the second is environmental, which has to do with our power to block out unpleasant noises. Then there’s the physical dimension, which can mean anything from feeling more confident when walking through a crowd of strangers to being able to concentrate without being interrupted by unexpected noises. And finally, there’s social control: headphones allow us to block out everyone unless we choose to let them in.
But Bull points out that this control is a double-edged sword. Headphone users often say they’re free, but he says, “for that to be true, they’re dependent on machines. They’re bound by the economic dynamics of the world and the media they use. It’s a huge paradox: you’re manipulated, but that manipulation creates a sense of freedom.” This resonates with me. I try to be mindful of my relationship to things that seem to permeate our culture but aren’t actually necessary. For example, we feel we “need” smartphones and social media accounts just because they’re ubiquitous, but research consistently suggests that these things are not good for us in the long run. Are headphones different?
This paradox is best exemplified by my desire to control both my cognition and my environment. The two go hand in hand. Living in a city often leaves me disoriented. I witness so much horror that I have no choice but to look away. I walk through Manchester listening to Northern Soul, light on my feet, passing homeless people, completely immersed in my audiotopia. In a way, it seems necessary. It’s painful to see so much sadness every day and not be able to immediately help. So I understand the need to feel in control of my experience, the sense of freedom that comes from blocking it all out. The same can be said about blocking out the noise of industrialization. I understand the argument that headphones can be used as a tool for personal liberation, something Bull found in his research. But true liberation is when the outside world becomes more suited to our needs (and the needs of the natural world, of course).
But you can’t change what you don’t notice. This is what Laoyan told me in a conversation that preceded my experiment. I had never thought before about how our frequent use of headphones and unwillingness to hear the outside world cut us off from reality. He approaches the issue from an environmental perspective. An artist and researcher interested in the impact of noise pollution on the natural environment, he says, “For me, understanding noise pollution is a way of processing the kind of environment we have created and are creating and how it affects us ecologically. These unwanted sounds cause a surge in stress hormones in us and animals, which can be destructive if exposed for long periods of time.” He explains that in places with high levels of noise pollution, there is a high risk of mental and physical breakdown. To ignore it is simply to accept it, but change requires criticism, and to criticize, you need to listen.
Refuses to wear headphones It’s not just about acknowledging the ugliness of the world, but experiencing its beauty. When we block out the city noises that we consider negative, we also block out the noises of the natural world. On the way to the gym, as we walk through a tree-lined street, we hear the birds singing. They are not drowned out by traffic, and we can hear them if we listen carefully. It’s so lovely to hear the whole city. Using headphones, and especially listening to music, is a way to “beautify our experience,” making things more beautiful and enjoyable, explains Bull. But there is joy in the real world, too. It’s great to have. Beauty is all around us, and we just need to notice it.
It’s no secret that the practice of gratitude has many benefits for mental health. Being grateful for what exists outside of your possessions, being grateful for what you have even when you feel like you have nothing, is an infinitely positive thing. So what might be truly liberating is to accept things as they are, and know that while a lot of things are bad, there’s also a lot of good stuff. This is what Laoyan calls “taking back control of your ears,” which he encourages. “There’s something empowering about being able to experience the places we live in through our natural sense of touch and feeling,” he says. “Even if new technologies can enhance or extend the human body, there’s no escaping the fact that we’re intricately intertwined with the world.”
All of this may seem a bit philosophical, and may require a shift in perspective beyond simply leaving your headphones at home, but I noticed tangible benefits in my everyday life. During our email correspondence about the experiment, Laoyan asked me if I’d noticed an increase in my “natural energy.” I’d never thought of it that way, but he was right: everyday chores like washing dishes and hanging out laundry that were previously numbingly boring became relaxing, if not enjoyable.
As a neuropsychologist Dr. Amber Johnston Music stimulates dopamine and the brain’s reward center, she explains. We live in a dopamine-filled society, and many of our favorite technologies contribute to this. If we use music to release dopamine during “boring” tasks, it becomes harder to tolerate boredom. “People who can’t tolerate feeling bored seek out dopamine to relieve discomfort, and music and headphones may be a way to achieve that,” she says. “So actually, if you practice not seeking dopamine and spending time in a state where you feel comfortable with boredom instead, it gradually reduces the amount of additional stimulation you need to get the same dopamine release.”
“If I hadn’t known the impact headphones have on society, I would have only had to look at the confused looks on my friends and acquaintances’ faces when I told them I was planning to abstain from headphones.” Photo: Juan Algar/Getty Images
If I didn’t already know about the social impact of headphones, the bewildered looks on my friends and acquaintances’ faces when I told them I was going to stop using them speak volumes. Most of them lamented the fear of being forced to listen to what other people are saying. And I understand. There is power in being able to easily ignore people, especially when it comes to undesirable behavior like catcalling. But it also closes us off from real interaction. study A survey by audio company Jabra found that UK headphone users wear them for an average of 58 minutes a day, and 38% do so to actively avoid talking to others, leading some researchers to worry that this could be contributing to a culture of isolation and a growing sense of loneliness.
I didn’t immediately start talking to strangers on the street the moment I stopped wearing my headphones, but I did hear more human conversations and felt more connected. But most importantly, I was able to give more of my attention to my loved ones when I was on the phone. I would often use my headphones to multitask while talking to people on the phone – making dinner and navigating on Google Maps. Since I stopped doing this, I’ve noticed that when I talk to friends and family, I can give them my full attention.
Still, I’m not actively against headphones. They can increase focus and productivity, and can be invaluable for people with sensory processing issues. But when I decided not to wear them, something magical happened. I began to calm down. Thoughts didn’t disappear, but they didn’t feel so heavy. They passed me by like cars on the highway. I learned to be present and appreciate the world as it is.
A month after the experiment ended, I still wear headphones from time to time, but they don’t have as much control over me as they
TEnnis is one of those sports that only intermittently works well through video games. The odd major series like Pete Sampras, Virtua Tennis, and Smash Court come along, but more often than not we end up relying on old favorites (Take a Bow, Super Tennis). It's been 13 years since TopSpin 4 was released, and the title is considered to be an authentic simulation of the sport that people love. Still looking for a copy until today. But perhaps not anymore. 2K Games has finally produced a sequel. This is a true champion contender.
From the get-go, TopSpin 2K25 has all the details you'd expect from a modern licensed sports sim. All major stadiums and championships are here. However, the playing environment is only well-detailed and not the spectacular theater of photorealism you've come to expect from EA Sports. The opening roster features 25 star players, from Emma Laducane to Andre Agassi. The selection isn't huge, and the quality of the caricatures varies, but it's good enough, and 2K says they plan to add more in the future.
If you don't want to cosplay as Carlos Alcaraz, you can join the full career mode as your own player. Mine is shockingly adorned with his pink Lycra and neon yellow sunglasses, a look that looks like it could easily carry over into real life. There are exhibition matches that you can easily knock out against the AI or up to three friends (online or split screen), and you can also participate in ranked and friendly online tournaments. Your appearance and skillset are fully customizable with a variety of outfits earned through play or (a feature that now seems inevitable) by purchasing a season pass or browsing the store. is. It's great that you can also choose to build a player with a prosthetic leg.
Of course, what really matters is the experience on the court, and that's great. The control system is complex but easy to access, with joypad buttons giving you access to flat, slice, lob, topspin and drop shot options, with power controlled by how long you hold the button down. As with TopSpin 4, timing and positioning are important skills. This is not a Mario Tennis style hit and hope game. If you take your shot too early or too late, your shot will end up in the net, flying off into the top of the stands, or giving another player an easy smash. At the same time, you're always thinking about where your players are on the court relative to the shot you're about to make and the likely return from your opponent. The physical nature of very good players makes the decision-making process even more demanding. It reproduces the weight position and body momentum with delicate precision. Are you so proud of that rushing cross-court slice shot you just landed? Good luck getting back to baseline for Serena Williams' comeback.
For players used to the more visceral feel of Virtua Tennis or the generous forbearance of Mario Tennis, there's a tough learning curve ahead. This is highlighted by the presence of his TopSpin Academy, an in-depth instructional mode that steadily teaches players from basic ground strokes to advanced serve tactics and individual player techniques. Just learning the timing will require several hours of play. If you're just playing the odd knockabout with your friends, there's no need to stress too much, but if you want to progress through Career His mode or play against human opponents online, give yourself a “good” shot. It would be better to hit it. “Perfect” timing at least 75% of the time.
But this is a good thing. 2K Games has created a game that feels like a proper simulation in terms of the array of tactical options available at any given moment and the demands placed on the player's skill. By completing TopSpin Academy, I learned a lot about real tennis strategy and how professional players differ in the way they use their baseline and net plays. There's also plenty of room to grow as a player by experimenting with power shots, perfecting tricky drop shots, and redistributing player attribute points to support different tactical approaches. it is clear.
Thirteen years is a long time to wait for a new tennis sim, but TopSpin 2K25 is well worth it. If there's one thing this game teaches you, it's the value of determined patience.Well, and you can Looks great with pink Lycra and yellow sunglasses.
R game marks an important milestone in the gaming world with the launch of the $RGAME token, scheduled for April 8, 2024 at 10am UTC.
This big step for R Games will launch on platforms such as DAOMaker. pools financeListed on top exchanges such as , Finceptor, and Paragen. Gate.io, mexico globalPancakeSwap, Raydium, BingX.
A strong community at Fabwelt Studios and WEMIX Play supports this release.
$RGAME is poised to transform the blockchain industry with artificial intelligence, precision engineering, and racing.
Ferrum Network, BMW Capital, Lavender Capital, Qu Ventures, Odiyana Ventures, IBC Group, Mario Nawfal, Sky Wee, Yuen Wong, Robbie Jo, Rajan Raj.
Main features of R game include
interoperable NFTs
User-generated content feature
Design using AI
This unique combination sets R Games apart as a frontrunner in the Web3 AI and gaming space, catering to both experienced gamers and beginners.
As the countdown to TGE and IDO begins, R Games invites gamers, investors, and enthusiasts alike to join us on a journey to revolutionize the gaming industry and unlock new possibilities in the Web3 world.
The future of R games
Looking to the future, R Games has ambitious plans in place.
Development work is focused on implementing upgrades such as an advanced upgrade system, virtual garage, and AI integration.
These additional features are designed to provide users with different opportunities to earn money using models such as:
develop and acquire
Watch to Earn
PLAY AND EARN
Players can tweak and electronically upgrade all vehicle models in the game within the Workshop, providing a customizable experience.
The integration of AI technology allows users to easily design car characters without any technical expertise.
Roadmap also includes diverse modes such as F1, Street Racing, Story Mode, and Off-Road Racing to cater to a wide audience.
About RGames
R game is a highly customized platform offering diverse game modes aimed at building the largest blockchain-based racing ecosystem.
The R Games team comes from the successful studio venture Gyros Studios LCC, formerly known as Fabwelt Studios LLC, which built numerous successful blockchain games.
Loet de Hooge, Abhishek Pegada, and Rubina Naaz are the visionary founders of R Games, bringing together diverse expertise and passion for gaming and blockchain technology.
Loet de Hooge is known for its technical capabilities and innovation.
Abhishek Pegada will contribute strategic leadership and business acumen, while Rubina Naaz brings a creative, user-centric approach to the team.
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, April 1, 2024, Chainwire
quick take
BSXBacked by the Base Ecosystem Fund, the company raises the bar as one of the world’s leading high-performance decentralized exchanges, combining the benefits of centralized exchange and self-custody with an enhanced platform that offers the best of both worlds. We aim to provide a unique DeFi trading experience. Characteristics of decentralized exchanges.
BSX will begin trading on Base L2 Mainnet Alpha on April 1, 2024.
After the conclusion of the public testnet trading phase in Q1, BSX, the new standard for premier high-performance decentralized exchanges (DEX), is scheduled to begin trading on Base L2 Mainnet Alpha on April 1, 2024 is.
BSX is backed by a number of prominent investors including Base Ecosystem Fund, Bankless Ventures, CMS Holdings, No Limit Holdings, Saison Capital, Kyros Ventures, WW Ventures and others. BSX is also advised by Arthur Hayes, founder and CIO of Maelstrom and co-founder of BitMEX.
BSX aims to provide the ultimate DeFi trading experience, combining the liquidity, premium UX, and user-friendly features of a centralized exchange (CEX) with the pricing and self-custody features of a (DEX). By leveraging the Base network, BSX offers ultra-fast trading and low trading fees while ensuring transparency and accuracy through on-chain payments.
BSX also streamlines the interface and flow for retail traders, allowing them to easily connect to existing wallets, enable one-click trading, and execute transactions securely on-chain. BSX users will have access to a wide range of crypto products including permanent, spot and more all in one place.
Main product contents:
Low gas trading: Base transaction costs are minimal and highly optimized, allowing for near gas-free settlements. This makes the total transaction cost comparable to CEX.
unparalleled performance: Our high-performance trading engine provides extremely low latency and instant guaranteed execution. Combined with the one-click instant trading feature, it provides an experience that is equal to or better than CEX trading.
Self-management and transparency: BSX gives you full control of your funds without hidden counterparty risks by settling all trades on-chain. your keys, your coins.
API integration: BSX’s delegated key feature simplifies the use of external trading terminals without exposing your private keys or relinquishing control of your funds.
BSX launched its private testnet in November 2023, welcoming early adopters from an extensive waiting list of 80,000 members. His public testnet in January 2024 saw 5,000 traders participate, contributing to his solid $5 billion in total trading volume during the period.
BSX is positioned to compete with major centralized exchanges such as Binance and OKX, with crypto perpetual trading to begin in April, followed by other products later this year.visit bsx.exchange Trade and join our upcoming exciting rewards program for new traders or visit:
TFor a kid growing up in Britain in the 1980s, the Atari 400 and 800 machines seemed incredibly appealing. Most of my friends had a Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum (occasionally he also used an Amstrad or Acorn Electron), but I only saw Atari computers in cool TV shows and movies like Videodrome and Police Story. That never happened. These two models, released in 1979, featured an Antic video processor that provided excellent graphics for the time, and a sound chip named Pokey to improve audio. These, like the Apple II, were seminal machines for young game programmers looking to create new types of experiences beyond simple arcade conversions.
Opening up the new Atari 400 Mini was a strangely emotional experience. The latest nostalgic release from Retro Games is an exquisitely detailed recreation of the original computer, featuring a non-functional version of the famous membrane keyboard in luscious 1970s beige, orange, and brown. It has 4 joystick ports (currently rather USB) (from the original Atari joystick port standard). The console comes with a new version of the classic Atari CX40 joystick, with the subtle addition of eight buttons that can now summon the keyboard to provide additional input options in Atari 400/800 games. Masu.
It includes 25 games that show the range of what was being produced on the 400 and 800 (the 800 was a higher-end model with more memory and a better keyboard) in the early 1980s. There are quaint home versions of classic arcade titles like “Asteroids,” “Millipede,” and “Battlezone,” which are, after all, what home console and computer developers had to do at the time. It’s a fascinating reminder of the compromises that weren’t made. And there are many more to come, including Capture the Flag, Paul Allen Edelstein’s two-player first-person tracking game, and his MULE, a multiplayer colonial strategy game that influenced the entire management simulation industry. You can get a glimpse of the genre.
There’s also some interesting experimentation in creating fast-paced 3D visuals in the form of futuristic racing sims Elektra Glide and Encounter. Written by Paul Woakes, who later went on to create one of his most fascinating 3D sci-fi adventure titles of this era, Mercenary.
Some games will be familiar to anyone who bought a C64 Mini or other retro machine, but the Atari 400 version was often the first to be released, so you get the primary source material here. Well almost. Although there is no original hardware used, the emulators that Retro Games employs to run all these games are robust and accurate, allowing them to recreate these 40-year-old gems very well.
400 Mini Millipede. Photo: Atari/Retro Game/Prion
And while they’re definitely older, many of these titles, including Boulder Dash and Lee (originally titled by Bruce Lee, whose license has probably expired), remain as truly playable relics. Saved. Either way, I’ve had many hours of fun discovering games I’ve never seen before, as well as familiar favorites in various guises. Additionally, in typical mini-console style, there is a rewind feature to fix mistakes, and the game can be saved to memory. You can also fine-tune your visual settings and choose CRT effects that mimic the display style of a traditional TV. A virtual keyboard is also available if you want to play games that require more input options. It’s not always easy to use, but it’s nice to be able to use it when necessary.
Interestingly, one of the 400 Mini’s selling points is its ability to “load your own programs.” This is a euphemism in the instruction manual for the console to play game files known as ROMs, which can be loaded via a USB stick. Most people will find these ROMs on the internet, but the legality of freely downloading game files is murky to say the least. So Retro Games leaves it up to you to figure this out. I ran a few games to test this aspect and it was a surprisingly smooth process. The emulator accepts files in many popular formats and plays both Atari 400 and 800 titles, as well as his later XL/XE variations. When you insert a USB stick with game ROMs, you’ll see a thumb drive icon in the games list on the screen, and clicking on it will show the games you’ve added. The system also supports games that originally appeared on multiple discs. Additionally, you can reconfigure the joystick buttons to suit the input requirements of most games you’re trying out.
Lee (formerly Bruce Lee) riding a 400 Mini. Photo: Atari/Retro Game/Prion
At £100, the 400 Mini isn’t cheap, and the game is a great choice for new players who prefer their Mega Drive or PC Engine Mini machines with their attractive 16-bit visuals and familiar series. It may not be appealing. But as an accessible museum piece, it’s a fascinating and well-made device that reveals games you’ve never played in its original form, as well as an entirely fresh retro experience. This industry has always failed to protect its heritage and history. Official archives are often exposed and inaccessible. The Mini Console is a small attempt to address this issue in an intuitive and well-chosen format.
I’m a long way from that kid growing up in the 1980s now, but finally playing these Atari 400 gems reminded me of him and what he was fascinated by. That in itself gives value to this little machine.
The danger of aging explosives from unexploded ordnance is increasing
Gail P. Novik (2024)
A study of unexploded ordnance from World War II found that one of the explosives it contained had become shock-sensitive and could ignite if dropped during disposal. The explosive, called Amatol, was widely used during World War I and World War II and is still included in some of the ammunition used during Russia's war in Ukraine.
“Based on our findings, we can say it's relatively safe to handle, but you can't treat it like TNT,” he says. Gail Petter Novik At the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. “In contrast to TNT, it can definitely explode if dropped.”
There are millions of tons of unexploded ordnance around the world, some in old ammunition dumps and some in shells and bombs that did not explode after being fired or dropped. Novick said there is a widespread misconception that unexploded ordnance becomes less dangerous over time. In a 2022 study, he examined samples of TNT and PETN, two of the most widely used high explosives, taken from World War II bombs and shells. test and There was no deterioration in explosive properties..
He has now tested the impact sensitivity of five samples of Amatol taken from unexploded World War II bombs and artillery shells found in Norway. The test involved dropping weights from various heights on small samples to see what would explode. All five samples were more sensitive to shock than expected with Amatol, and one sample was four times more sensitive.
Novick says this discovery will change the way he and his team deal with unexploded ordnance. For example, when clearing a dump, fewer volumes are transported at once. He now plans to find out why shock sensitivity has increased. “We think sensitive crystals or salts may have formed,” he says.
This may be the result of contaminants from the manufacturing process, or reactions with the metal case as the lining deteriorates, or simply due to aging.
Amatol is the name used to describe an explosive made from a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate. It was developed by Britain's Royal Arsenal in 1915 when TNT was in short supply. As TNT production increased at the end of World War II, many countries stopped using Amatol, although it continued to be used in countries such as the Soviet Union. “Several types of Soviet-era ammunition currently in use in Ukraine are known to contain Amatol,” Novik said.
It's impossible to say what percentage of the world's unexploded ordnance contains amatol, he says. But five of the 20 bombs and shells he cut open for this study contained the substance, and so did most of the World War II unexploded ordnance he examined. has been found.
Accidents in which unexploded ordnance explodes also occur frequently.For example, in 2023, World War II bombs Explosion at Great Yarmouth Currently being disposed of in the UK. In 2004, new scientist A US ship that sank in the Thames Estuary was carrying 1,400 tonnes of high explosives and posed a serious threat to nearby towns, an unpublished risk assessment has revealed. A 2023 survey of the ship found plans to remove the mast could be dangerous and were postponed.
demi Announces partnership with innovative tokenized mining platform bit clusteris a leading mining solutions provider and this is an important step in expanding the production capacity of both companies.
demithe innovative tokenized mining platform revolutionizing the industry, has announced a strategic partnership with . bit cluster, a leading mining solutions provider. This collaboration means DeMi can scale up multiple times while optimizing energy costs. This will allow users of the platform to more effectively mine cryptocurrencies using only their electricity bill. $0.049 per kWh.
Equipment power is converted as follows: DEMI tokenthis process involves the conversion of computing power from mining equipment. DEMI token, serves as a concrete representation and confirmation of the purchase of the specified hashrate. To start mining on the platform, users simply purchase and stake these tokens. This innovative approach makes it easy for users to actively participate in the mining process. This system not only democratizes access to mining by simplifying the entry process, but also ensures that participants can directly contribute to and benefit from the network's security and consensus mechanisms.
By the end of December 2023, bit cluster announced that it will launch a 120MW data center in ethiopia The total area is 30,000 square meters. This amount of power allows you to install over 30,000 mining machines such as the Antminer S21 200Th.
“We considered many options for locating the equipment,” Andrei Maschitsky demi product ownerSaid. “And after months of searching, we finally found the ideal solution. bit cluster Facility in Ethiopia. This country has a perfect climate. The average daily temperature is from 12 to 23 degrees, without dust or heat.of bit cluster The data center is located in the capital Addis Ababa, which is convenient for logistics. The main reason for this decision was the low cost of electricity. ”
demi has already deployed over 500 devices in its new facility with a total capacity of 59 Petahash and plans to further expand its mining capacity. bit cluster Ethiopian data center.
For more information about DeMi's partnership with BitCluster, users can visit: here.
About Demi
DeMi is a tokenized mining platform that allows users to earn BTC rewards using DEMI tokens. DeMi enables users to engage in crypto mining effectively by providing a unique mining experience.
About Bitcluster
BitCluster is a modern mining solution provider. BitCluster provides an end-to-end solution for hosting and maintaining high-power computing hardware for users looking to expand their Bitcoin mining capabilities while keeping energy costs at the lowest possible level.
contact
demi product owner Andrei Maschitsky demi info@demi.gg
EStepping into the Trocadero complex in central London in the late 1990s can be an overwhelming and euphoric experience. The vast building was then home to Sega World, an “indoor theme park” and arcade based on the “Joypolis” concept that had seen the Japanese gaming giant flourish in its homeland. Away from the hustle and bustle of Coventry Street, visitors walk past the Sonic the Hedgehog statue at the door before stepping onto the famous ‘Rocket Escalator’. A vision of the future in brushed steel and electric blue lighting. An escalator ride takes people through a large central open area to the upper floors of the building, where they can get a glimpse of the various attractions that occupy each floor (a mad bazooka bumper car, a ghost hunt VR experience), and then… Visitors were deposited on the top floor. Wind your way through themed zones such as a carnival and sports arena.
Around you, a trembling choir of AS-1 simulator rides, with arcade machines whining and hydraulics roaring, along with rows of Sega’s VR-1 virtual reality experience, complete with eight-person pods. It was chirping over the excited chatter of the guests there. and interactive shooting games. Intermittently, the sudden mechanical groan of Pepsi He Max He drops filled the air, along with the screams of the occupants. The speakers belted out the biggest pop hits of the era. Props like a life-sized Harrier jump jet and his carefully placed F1 car filled the gaps in a cabinet that housed arcade icons like Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter. Sega insisted in a promotional video that the entire experience was “the ultimate futuristic entertainment.”
Visitors will take a virtual reality trip with the SegaWorld 3D experience circa 1997.
Photo: Nigel Dickinson/Alamy
However, this excitement and spectacle was not new to the Trocadero. The Trocadero has been a place of diverse attraction for over 200 years. After humble beginnings building six simple cottages, the property was redeveloped in 1774 by his tennis court, circus, restaurant, pool hall, dance performances, and for some time after his 1950s. The sex industry became popular. In 1878, it was renamed the Royal Trocadero Music Hall, after the Trocadero Palace in Paris. It then became a theatre, and in 1896 he was taken over by J Lyons & Co, who reopened the building as the Trocadero Restaurant, offering dances, performances, parties and Edwardian-style meals until 1965.
In 1984, the building was demolished again and the 400,000 sq ft complex was reinvented at a cost of £45 million as Britain’s largest indoor entertainment center, featuring a Guinness Book of Records exhibition, shops and multiplex cinema. Ta. In 1990, an amusement arcade named Funland was born with a large selection of the latest coin-ops. Dark area on the first floor. In the coming years, it will become the center of British arcade culture, housing games like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Mortal Kombat and Virtua Fighter 2 before most other coin-op palaces .
I I have a bad cold, but I felt better after watching Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. This is the game’s equivalent of honey, lemon, and a hot water bottle, full of deliciousness and warmth. But it’s also strange and melancholic, an iconic mark of Moomin and part of the reason for the enduring popularity of Jansson’s work. It’s weird, sad, creepy, wholesome, and fun.
The plot follows Snufkin, a philosophical wanderer, preparing to return to Moominvalley in the spring and meet his best friend Moomintroll after the Moomins wake up from hibernation. However, he finds his way blocked by a park patrolled by police. The administrators of Hemulen Park have decided to extend their powers to build gardens throughout Moominvalley, managed according to strict signposted rules. Enraged by this unjust natural enclosure, Snufkin begins tearing up his sign. And in a tempting logic, once all the signs are gone, the cops just walk away because there are no more rules to enforce. This allows Snufkin to freely rewild the area, tearing up paving slabs and dismantling fences.
This conflict with park management forms the basis of the game, and there are several parks where Snufkin must sneak around the sights of roaming police officers while destroying signs. Snufkin uses his trusty harmonica to charm animals and solve puzzles, and then adds flutes and drums to his arsenal, but outside of this novel use of musical instruments to interact with the world, there are no innovations. There are very few. You’re given a shopping list of quests to complete, many of which involve finding specific objects or characters, and there’s also the familiar stealth section that’s been used in countless games before.
Full of kindness and warmth… Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. Photo: Hyper Games/Low Fury
But beyond that, this works as a tour through the characters and locations of the Moomin world. Although the story is original and only loosely based on the events of the 1954 book Moomin Summer Madness, the game still remains very faithful to Tove Jansson’s original text and uses her beautiful artwork convincingly. It presents itself as a facsimile of the events of the novel as a whole.
Early on, we’re introduced to the terrifying Groke, who can freeze fire when he sits on it, and soon certain small, unnamed creatures are tagged along with Snufkin. Toffle is also here, but he is too scared to come down from the tree. There’s also Two Ticky, Mrs. Fillyjonk, Lady Snork, and the Hatter, to name a few. Fans of Jansson’s work will rejoice at every cameo appearance, but even if these names mean nothing to you, Melody of Moominvalley does a good job of showing why these characters are so beloved. This is a children’s fairy tale world populated by deeply flawed adults, mixed with some very strange and biting satire. Mrs. Fillyonk is the original helicopter parent. Snufkin was an eco-warrior long before the word was coined.
That was also strangely sad. Most of the time, the characters seem too wrapped up in their own neuroses and obsessions to ever truly be happy, but I’m sure they can overcome their traumas and differences and somehow manage to get along. That fact is what makes this world so uplifting. In that sense, the choice of Sigur Ros for the uplifting yet melancholic soundtrack is an inspiration.
The melodies of Moominvalley are simple and non-challenging, but they are disappointingly short, so you can see almost everything in a day’s play. Still, it’s all so carefully put together that it’s hard to begrudge these shortcomings. It’s all about licensing. Tove’s short stay in his faithfully recreated version of Jansson’s strange and memorable world is worth the price of admission.
Dune is the nickname for the planet Arrakis, a harsh desert world in the Canopus system where much of the story unfolds. The primary residents are the resilient Fremen people and their native species, the Shai Huld, enormous sandworms that can live for thousands of years and grow over two kilometers long.
The Shai Huld’s main diet consists of sand, with tiny organisms called sand plankton as a supplement. Their digestion of this bland food releases oxygen, which makes the planet’s atmosphere breathable for humans. This process is similar to Earth’s photosynthesis, where plants and bacteria produce oxygen through sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.
Professor Gary King of Louisiana State University is studying the use of photosynthetic bacteria to introduce oxygen into Mars’ atmosphere, a concept known as terraforming. By creating greenhouse gases to warm the planet and melt ice into a liquid form, automated factories could potentially make Mars habitable for humans.
Without a protective magnetic field like Earth’s, Mars lost its original atmosphere due to high-energy radiation from the sun. Establishing a biosphere on Mars could lead to oxygen production, replenishing what is lost due to radiation exposure.
Can we live without water?
Arrakis, despite being a harsh desert, is home to the Fremen people who rely on innovative technologies like the Stillsuit to recycle all the water they excrete. These suits filter sweat, urine, and feces to recover water for the wearer to drink, powered by the user’s movements.
Similar water recycling systems are used on the International Space Station to reuse up to 93% of water on board. Mars, with limited liquid water, may adopt similar technologies to sustain human life on the planet.
Research shows promise in extracting water from the atmosphere using moisture-absorbing technology, offering solutions for clean water production in arid regions.
SSix months ago, my son Zach started playing a video game that I knew little about, and as a games journalist, it was a little disconcerting. Warframe is an online science fiction shooter game created by Canadian-based developer Digital Extremes and first released in 2013. Although it’s hardly talked about outside of its fanbase, it has 75 million registered users and is consistently one of his biggest titles on Steam.
Set in a far-future solar system infested with hostile alien forces, players join the side of the Tenno, an ancient warlike race whose primary weapons are barely sentient cybernetic fighters (the warframes of the title). Zack spends hours each day flying between planets, completing missions and exploring while battling enemies such as the brutal clone army known as the Grineer and the giant, disease-ridden Infested. This sounds similar to Destiny, The Division, Final Fantasy XIV Online, and a dozen other so-called live service games that run indefinitely online, with new tasks, locations, and items added all the time. However, Warframe attracted his son’s attention. He has one important reason for that. It’s a very friendly and welcoming community.
Zach is on the autism spectrum and is now 18 years old, but he still finds it difficult to socialize in the real world. He’s loved games like Minecraft and his Fortnite for years, but as he’s gotten older, he’s gotten into darker, more mature stories and worlds. When I saw that he stumbled upon this epic gothic space opera, I was concerned that it would lead him to join gaming’s less bland communities: edgelords, griefers, and Call of Duty fans. I was worried that I would be in contact with aspiring professional gamers who could turn a shooting game like this into a game. A difficult place for vulnerable people.
More friendly shooting…Warframe. Photo: Digital Extremes
But in Warframe, the experience was different. The other players were immediately friendly, welcoming, and accommodating. What helped Zack from the beginning was the game’s well-maintained and very lively on-screen chat window. This allows players to ask questions and share tips and experiences without speaking. This is a huge advantage for neurodivergent players. In-game chat is not uncommon in live service games, but this place is mostly fine with proper moderation. Other players will do their best to help Zack, helping him find rare resources such as argon crystals, and escorting him to planets they have not yet unlocked. They also gave him weapons and items. He joined the Clan a few weeks ago and has made new friends throughout the US and Europe and hangs out together regularly.
According to Digital Extremes, they realized very early in development that building and maintaining a welcoming community was essential. “The community department was one of his first departments on the team,” says his creative director Rebecca Ford. She nods in recognition when I tell her how much people have helped my son. “[The in-game chat] is a place where you can say, “I have no idea what I’m doing” or “Does anyone have any advice for this build?” Warframe is a complex, cooperative, hard science fiction world. For us, that channel was essential.”
Rebecca Ford, Creative Director at Digital Extremes. Photo: Digital Extremes
I I eagerly anticipate chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen shared by a bio-based startup in San Francisco. Despite being diagnosed with pre-diabetes a few years back, I typically steer clear of sweets. However, I have a secret weapon – Monchi Monchi, a unique plant fiber-based drink mix designed to expand in the stomach like a sponge, soaking up sugar from food and preventing premature absorption.
The concept behind this product is that it can trap a significant amount of sugar, with laboratory tests showing it can absorb 6 grams of sugar per 1 gram of the mix. Various types of sugar like sucrose, glucose, fructose, and some simple starches can be sequestered. With each sachet containing just over 4 grams, the goal is to counteract the sugar in snacks and provide the gut with fiber replenishment. “How can you enjoy food without compromising your health? I believe we’ve found a solution,” shared Paolo Costa, the company’s co-founder and CEO, as he demonstrated mixing the powder with water and consuming it.
Welcome to the emerging technology of carbohydrate removal, which focuses on neutralizing carbohydrates post-consumption rather than pre-consumption. Despite the rising rates of diabetes and obesity, sugar substitutes, the main method for reducing sugar intake, fall short. They can alter the taste and texture of foods and raise safety concerns. Additionally, they do not stimulate the brain’s reward centers like sugar does. Sugar removal technology offers the enticing prospect of enjoying sugar in a healthier, guilt-free manner. John Topinka, the research and strategy director at Kraft Heinz, believes the entire food industry could benefit from such technology.
Launched in 2019, BioLumen introduced Monch Monch to the U.S. market as a supplement in November. Each granule, a unique microsponge, is composed of plant cellulose (insoluble fibers) infused with the company’s specialized hydrogel (soluble fibers) designed to soak up sugar. Priced at $150 (approximately £120) per month for two bags daily, the product is not widely available yet. However, BioLumen’s vision is to offer it as an ingredient for food manufacturers to incorporate into their products. Having already received “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) designation in the US, the company is actively working on lowering costs.
The chief medical officer and co-founders of BioLumen include Robert Lustig, a Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, known for raising awareness about the health risks of excessive sugar consumption. While presenting unpublished data from a small human trial showing reduced blood sugar spikes and insulin response with the product, Lustig emphasized the need for a larger, longer-term study to confirm the findings. Further tests, including stool studies, are necessary to determine the exact amount of excreted sugar and its overall efficacy in countering sugar intake.
a Sugar sponges are not the only solution being explored. Some are pursuing a different path by converting sugar into fiber in the intestines. This feat surpasses the digestive enzymes’ capabilities but can be achieved by integrating specific enzymes into foods in carefully measured quantities.
Researchers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Bioinspired Engineering, in collaboration with Kraft Heinz, developed a method utilizing naturally occurring plant enzymes to convert sugars into fiber and encasing them in an edible coating.
The coating, made of fibers, keeps the enzymes dormant in the food while on shelves. In less acidic conditions in the intestines, the coating expands to release the enzymes that break down sugars into simpler components like glucose and fructose. Fructose is converted into soluble fiber, beneficial to the gut microbiome, producing inulin.
Most of the glucose, however, is still absorbed by the body. By encapsulating enzymes that convert glucose into fiber, the coating could potentially offer further benefits. Wyss plans to license this technology to a start-up for further testing and regulatory approval, with anticipated commercialization among US manufacturers in 2026.
Joining Wyss in the enzyme pathway is a British start-up, Zaya, formerly known as Inulox. Their product, Convero, is an enhanced version of a natural inulosucrase enzyme distinct from Wyss’s. Zya’s research shows that this substance, produced using genome-edited microorganisms, efficiently converts sugar into fiber in the intestines.
Through simulated gut models, Zya found that around 30% of carbohydrates are converted to fiber, primarily targeting fructose for conversion into inulin. This proposed change holds promise for humanity, potentially enabling impactful claims in the food industry. Initial pig studies on the natural enzyme showed no harm to the animals, with further studies planned for the enhanced version and human trials.
Requiring minimal amounts for efficacy, both Wyss’s and Zya’s enzymes are easily integrated into existing foods without significant modifications. While there may be an additional cost premium, it is deemed manageable. Zya aims to secure US regulatory approval as a food ingredient by 2026, with plans to expand into Europe and the UK.
Emphasizing functional claims over health claims, Zya focuses on the sugar-to-fiber conversion aspect. By making sugar more digestible, the company envisions a shift towards a more beneficial sugar consumption approach. “Enjoy sugar responsibly with improved digestion,” states Josh Sauer, CEO of Zya.
While these innovative techniques hold promise in mitigating sugar impact on the body, further research is necessary, notes Graham McGregor, charity chairman and professor at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London. Careful evaluation of clinical trials and safety considerations is crucial before widespread adoption of such products.
Despite the potential benefits, Professor Tim Spector, from King’s College London and co-founder of personal nutrition company Zoe, raises concerns about these products encouraging unhealthy food choices. Stressing the importance of whole foods and reducing ultra-processed products, Spector suggests focusing on a balanced diet. The technology offers tools to manage sugar intake but does not address other harmful food components, urging a holistic dietary approach.
While the future of sugar reduction technologies is promising, Lustig highlights the ongoing challenge of giving up sugar entirely. “We need all the tools we can get,” he concludes.
A 40-year-old nuclear fusion reactor in the UK has set a world record for energy output in its final run before permanent shutdown, scientists have announced.
The Joint European Taurus (JET) in Oxfordshire began operations in 1983. During its operation, it briefly became the hottest point in the solar system, reaching 150 million degrees Celsius.
The reactor's previous record was in 2021 for a reaction that lasted five seconds and produced 59 megajoules of thermal energy. However, it surpassed this in its final test in late 2023, using just 0.2 milligrams of fuel to sustain the reaction for 5.2 seconds, reaching an output of 69 megajoules.
Inside the JET fusion reactor
eurofusion
This corresponds to an output of 12.5 megawatts, enough to power 12,000 homes, Mikhail Maslov of the UK Atomic Energy Agency said at a press conference on February 8.
Today's nuclear power plants rely on nuclear fission reactions, in which atoms are shattered to release energy and small particles. Fusion works in reverse, pushing smaller particles together into larger atoms.
Nuclear fusion can produce more energy without any of the radioactive waste produced by nuclear fission, but there is still no practical way to use the process in power plants.
JET trains atoms of two stable isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, together in a plasma to create helium, releasing a huge amount of energy at the same time. This is the same reaction that powers our sun. This is a type of fusion reactor known as a tokamak, which uses rings of electromagnets to contain plasma in a donut shape.
Scientists conducted the final experiment using deuterium and tritium fuel on JET in October last year, and other experiments continued until December. However, the machine is now permanently closed and will be decommissioned over the next 16 years.
Juan Matthews Researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK say many secrets will be revealed during JET's dismantling. For example, how the reactor lining deteriorated from contact with the plasma, and where in the machine the precious tritium, worth around £30,000 a gram, is embedded. You can recover. This will be important information for future research and commercial reactors.
“It's great to have a little bit of a bang,” Matthews said. “It has a noble history. Now that it has served its purpose, we plan to squeeze out more information during the decommissioning period as well. So it's not sad. It's something to be celebrated.”
France's larger, more modern replacement for JET, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), is nearing completion, with first experiments scheduled to begin in 2025.
ITER construction project deputy director Tim Luce told a news conference that ITER plans to expand its energy output to 500 megawatts and possibly 700 megawatts.
“These are what I normally call power plant sizes,” he said. “They are at the lowest level of cost required for a power generation facility. Moreover, to obtain high fusion power and gain the timescale needs to be extended to at least 300 seconds, but from an energy production point of view it is probably less than an hour. So what JET has done is exactly a scale model of what we need to do with the ITER project.”
Another reactor using the same design, the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, recently succeeded in sustaining a reaction for 30 seconds at temperatures above 100 million degrees Celsius.
Other approaches to creating practical fusion reactors are also being pursued around the world, such as the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. It fired a very powerful laser into the fuel capsule, a process called inertial confinement fusion, and was able to release almost twice the energy that was put into it.
Blades forming part of the world's largest onshore wind turbine
Sanichi Renewable Energy
The largest onshore wind turbine blade in world history has been manufactured in China. Each foil is 131 meters long, enough to dwarf Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty.
Once installed in central China in the coming months, each structure containing a 15-megawatt turbine and three blades will be more than 260 meters in diameter.
The SY1310A onshore wind turbine blades were manufactured by SANY Renewable Energy at its factory in Bayannur, northern China.
The company said in a statement that the longer blade length increases requirements for stiffness and strength, as well as the need for protection from extreme weather events such as lightning strikes.
“Several advanced innovations have been applied to this blade, including a high-performance airfoil with a thick, blunt trailing edge, an optimized airfoil layout, and increased overall thickness.” .
Peter Majewski Researchers at the University of South Australia say the advantage of such large wind turbines is that the larger they are, the fewer turbines are needed. “But the bigger they are, the more visible they are, so it has to be socially acceptable to build such large structures,” he says.
“These are huge structures that are expensive to build and just as expensive to remove.”
Wind turbine blades may continue to grow in size, but the logistics of transporting such huge blades make their use difficult, Majewski said. It also says manufacturers and society need to consider what will happen to these structures as they age.
Majewski is researching the issue of recycling wind turbine blades.in 2022 surveyHe and his colleagues predicted that tens of thousands of tons of wind farm blades could have to go to landfill by 2050, when existing turbines reach the end of their 20- to 30-year lifespans.
However, he welcomed the use of recycled polyurethane as part of the construction of these newly announced blades.
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.
○On Sunday, January 22, 1984, the Los Angeles Raiders defeated the Washington Redskins 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII. With the exception of a few older Raiders fans, we all remember him that night 40 years ago with one ad that set the tone for the techno-optimism that would dominate the 21st century. did.
Advertisement showed an auditorium full of zombie-like figures watching a projection of an elderly leader resembling the Emperor from 1980's The Empire Strikes Back. A young, athletic woman wearing red and white (the colors of the flag of Poland, which waged a massive labor uprising against the Soviet-controlled communist state) spins a hammer and frames the face of her leader. He threw it across the screen. As armored police rush in to stop her.
The ad explicitly referenced George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984. Meanwhile, then-President Ronald Reagan began his re-election campaign with the audacity to confront the threat of the totalitarian Soviet Union, increasing the risk of global nuclear annihilation.
That same month, Apple began selling personal computers. This will change the way we think about computing technology in our lives and will lead to many of the ideological changes that will drive the 21st century. In many ways, the long 21st century began 40 years ago this week for him.
From a garage-based startup in Cupertino, California, we have steadily grown to where we are today. The most valuable company in the history of the world, Apple has changed the way we experience culture and each other. While not the only force to do so, if you look at other ruling forces that left their mark in 1984, such as Reagan, Apple is a key player in how we view and govern ourselves over the next 40 years. It was part of a larger change. Years later, it still impacts daily life in ways few could have imagined at the time.
Before the Macintosh debuted, Apple created high-quality computers like the Apple II (1979) that ran programs using the standard operating system at the time, the Apple Disc Operating System (which was similar to the Apple Disc Operating System). was highly regarded among computer enthusiasts for producing innovative desktop computers. MS-DOS was provided by a small then-starting company called Microsoft and could be programmed in languages such as Basic.
Companies like Texas Instruments and Atari had brought user-friendly computers to homes before the Macintosh, and IBM and Commodore had made desktop computers for businesses, but the Macintosh was something different. I was promised something.
The Macintosh created a mass market for usable computers that looked more like magic than machines. The Macintosh is a sealed box that hides the board and cables and presents a sleekly designed box, similar to the MacBook and the iPhone, which was released in 2007 and was the most influential and profitable of Apple's products. We have established design standards for what will become.
The iPhone represents much of what's appealing and loathsome about 21st century life. This is a device that does things that no other device or technology can do. It just provides all of that in its own controlled environment that masks all of the actual technology and the human agency that created it. There may be a little elf in there.
Billions of people now use such equipment, but few people ever look inside or think about the people who mined the metals and assembled the parts in dangerous conditions. plug. There are now cars and appliances designed to feel like an iPhone, all glass, metal, curves, and icons. None of them provide any clues for humans to build or maintain them. Everything seems like magic.
The shift to magic by design has blinded us to the real situation of most people working and living in the world. Gated devices are similar to gated communities. What's more, the sealed boxes are equipped with ubiquitous cameras and location devices, and when connected through invisible radio signals, serve as a global surveillance system that Soviet dictators never dreamed of. . We have also entered a world of soft control beyond Orwell's imagination.
Gated communities began to grow in popularity in the United States during the Reagan administration. It was to provide the illusion of safety against imagined but undefined invaders. They also resembled private states, with exclusive membership and strict rules of etiquette.
Reagan won reelection in a landslide in the November 1984 election. His Reagan victory established a nearly unwavering commitment to market fundamentalism and technological optimism that was largely adopted by Reagan's critics and even his successors like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. . Outside the United States, ostensibly left-wing 20th century leaders such as Greece's Andreas Papandreou, France's François Mitterrand, and Britain's Tony Blair limited the vision of change that the growing neoliberal consensus allowed. was.
By the beginning of this century, questioning the techno-optimism imposed by Apple and the faith in neoliberalism secured by Reagan's hold on the world's political imagination seems like a fit of sulking or sulking. Probably. Does anyone doubt the democratizing and liberating potential of computer technology and free markets?
Now, a quarter of the way through this century, it's clear that the only promises kept were to Apple's shareholders and the descendants of Reagan's politicians. Democracy is in tatters around the world. Networked computers rob relationships, communities, and society of the joy and humanity. The economy is more stratified than ever before. Politics excludes any positive vision of a better future.
Of course, you can't blame Apple or Reagan. They simply distilled, harnessed, and sold back to us what we longed for: a simple story of inevitable progress and liberation. If we had heeded the warnings in Orwell's book instead of Apple's ads, we might have learned that simple stories never have happy endings.
Most animals see the world differently than humans, and now it's a little easier to see through their eyes. Using two cameras and some software, the system can create videos that show people what a scene looks like to different species.
“We went outside to photograph birds in the trees, and only then did the brightness of the ultraviolet-colored sky sink in,” he says. Bella Vasas at Queen Mary University of London. “The color of the sky for most animals is different from the color of the sky for us.”
Vasas and colleagues used two commercial cameras housed in 3D-printed cases to record video in both visible and ultraviolet light. They then ran that footage through the software they developed to estimate the wavelengths of light that a particular animal sees with the naked eye. The program processes video frames to reflect the perspective of a particular animal.
The results include a colorful video showing a bee watching a caterpillar reveal hidden body parts to fight off predators, and a close-up of a jumping spider. The camera system works best within 2 meters (6 feet) of the animal, which is not moving so fast that the camera loses focus. Daniel Hanley Co-authored by researchers at George Mason University in Virginia. He says the method works on many insects, spiders, lizards, turtles, birds and mammals.
The “gold standard” for this type of research, he said, is hyperspectral imaging, a technique that can capture uniform wavelengths of light across the visible and ultraviolet spectrum. Jolyon Troscianko at the University of Exeter, UK. But while such equipment costs him more than $20,000, a new camera system costs only a few thousand dollars. This could allow it to be used more widely for photographing moving, life-like animal exhibits. “Imagine a bird of paradise that shows color instantly,” he says.
The Gallup World Poll collects data from various sources each year to determine which countries are the happiest in the world. The world happiness report for 2023 reveals changes in the top 10, while the top spot has remained the same for six editions.
The World Happiness Report measures general happiness by assigning scores to each country using data collected on life evaluations. The Cantril ladder survey asks individuals to score their life on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 as the worst and 10 as the best. Approximately 1,000 survey responses are used for each country.
To calculate a country’s individual score, known as the Life Expectancy Rating, the Happiness Report takes an average of numbers from people surveyed in each country over the past three years.
Among the countries surveyed, Afghanistan was once again named the world’s unhappiest country with a score of 1.859. Meanwhile, the UK ranks 19th in happiness with a score of 6.796, while the US ranks 15th with a score of 6.894.
According to the World Happiness Report, New Zealand will be the 10th happiest country in the world in 2023, with a score of 7.123. This is the second year in a row that New Zealand has ranked 10th.
New Zealand, the first of only two non-European countries on this list, is famous for being a film location for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.
9. Luxembourg
The ninth happiest country in the world in 2023 was Luxembourg, with a World Happiness Report score of 7.228. The small European nation was ranked sixth in 2022, dropping three places this year.
Luxembourg is a landlocked country, bordering Germany, Belgium, and France.
8. Switzerland
Switzerland ranks 8th in the 2023 World Happiness Report with a score of 7.240. This represents the biggest decline in happiness in the top 10, following fourth place in 2022.
Switzerland, the second landlocked country after Luxembourg, is famous for its mountains, ski resorts, chocolate, and banks.
The seventh happiest country in the world in 2023 was Norway, with a score of 7.315. In this year’s World Happiness Report, the country moved up one place from 8th place in 2022.
Norway, the first Scandinavian country on this list, shares a long border with Sweden and is famous for its fjords and the Northern Lights.
Sweden is the 6th happiest country on earth with a World Happiness Report score of 7.395. The Scandinavian country moved up one place from her seventh place in 2022.
Sweden is known for its forests, lakes, and as the birthplace of ABBA, IKEA, and many of the world’s greatest metal bands.
5. Netherlands
The fifth happiest country in the world is the Netherlands, with a score of 7.403 according to the World Happiness Report. In 2023, it ranked in the top five for the second year in a row.
The Netherlands is famous for its windmills, clogs, colorful poppies, and as the home of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
4. Israel
Israel
With a score of 7.473, Israel will be the fourth happiest country in the world in 2023. Since the 2022 World Happiness Report, the country has risen from 9th to 4th place in the top 10.
Israel faces many diplomatic issues and is only one of two non-European countries on the list.
3. Iceland
According to the World Happiness Report, the third happiest country in the world in 2023 is Iceland, with a score of 7.530. This is the second year in a row that Iceland has been ranked third.
Iceland is the country with the smallest population on this list, with just 375,436 inhabitants.
2. Denmark
Denmark is the second happiest country on earth, with a score of 7.586 in the World Happiness Report. Denmark has been named the second happiest country in the world for four years in a row.
Denmark was a founding member of NATO, the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the OECD, and the OSCE.
1. Finland
According to the 2023 World Happiness Report, Finland is the happiest country in the world. Finland has been named the happiest country on Earth for six years in a row.
In the report, Finland achieved an overall score of 7.804. Finland is known as the home of Santa Claus, reindeer, and its love of saunas. Approximately 74% of Finland is covered in forest.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is used to measure a person's level of intelligence. Scores are collected by participants who complete standardized tests that measure abilities such as riddle solving and memory.
A given IQ score is relative to the general intelligence score of the population, usually based on a median score of about 100. A score below 85 is considered a bad score, and a score above 130 is considered smart (top 2 percent of the population).
It is difficult to accurately determine intelligence, and due to cultural differences and other factors, it is always worth discounting IQ scores.as a study at Frontiers of systems neuroscience says.Intelligence test scores are often misunderstood and can be abused”
Another factor to consider is that IQ scores are not a unit of measurement. For example, someone with an IQ score of 130 is not 30% smarter than someone with an IQ score of 100. Given the changes in the test over the decades, it is also difficult to compare scores achieved at different times.
In theory, there is no limit to IQ scores. The theoretical maximum score is often 200, but some people exceed that number.
Who has the highest IQ in the world?
Terence Tao, pictured above, is said to currently have the highest IQ score in the world, with an impressive score of 225-230. If the Chinese-American mathematician scored his 230 points, he would definitely be in the lead.
However, it is Marilyn Voss Savant who is practically on par with the title.she record The Guinness World Records IQ is 228 and was published from 1986 to 1989 until records were discontinued in 1990, when IQ scores were considered too unreliable to be documented.
Christopher Hirata has the second highest confirmed IQ, with a whopping score of 225. There are several others with the same or higher scores. Again, the same caution applies that IQ scores should be taken with a grain of salt, especially for scores before IQ tests were invented.
What is the highest IQ ever?
It is difficult to determine who has the highest IQ of all time. For many great minds, IQ tests did not exist during their time on Earth. The legitimacy of other people who allegedly took intelligence tests has also been called into question because official records are difficult to find.
But that doesn't stop some humans from being declared to have the highest IQs of all time.
William James Sidis, said to be the smartest man in history, is the benchmark for child prodigies. He was reportedly able to read a newspaper at just 18 months old, entered Harvard University at age 11, and graduated at age 16.
He has authored various studies, including the creation of artificial languages. bendergord's book (8 years old) and living and inanimate objects (He dealt with cosmology and the reversibility of the … read more…
What is the strongest animal in the world? This is an important question, especially if you are moving and can’t afford to hire movers.
But suppose you have an animal that helps you get around. Which one should you choose? What is the strongest animal? Who can lift the most weight?
To answer this most important question, we have compiled a list of the strongest animals on Earth today. Get ready to journey through a world of brute force as you marvel at incredibly strong birds, muscular polar bears, and powerful punching cows.
10. Harpy Eagle – Can lift 18 kg (twice its own body weight)
A female harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) carries prey such as a skinned and half-eaten coati (Nasua nasua) to her nest. Pousada Curpila Dalaras, southwestern Brazil.Photo credit: Alamy
Female harpy eagles are the strongest birds in the world. Females are stronger than males and can lift up to 18 kg, about twice their own body weight. This is useful when choosing prey and means a greater variety of animals are available for dinner.
They are apex predators at the top of the food chain. And when you see strength like this, you can see why.
9. Leopard – Can lift 125 kg (about twice its body weight).
A leopard (Panthera pardus) takes shelter in a tree at Sabi Sands Nature Reserve in Mpumalanga, South Africa.Photo credit: David Silverman/Getty Images
The average male leopard weighs between 30 kg and 70 kg, and the largest leopards can lift weights of 125 kg using strong jaw muscles and powerful legs and claws.
Leopards are not as strong as rivals like tigers and lions, so after hunting they need this strength to pull large prey up trees to protect them from rivals. This ability is also useful for storing food out of reach for later consumption.
Before the movie Top Gun, kids dreamed of being astronauts or sports stars. But after the release of the film, everyone wanted to be pilots in high-tech fighter jets.
Our gallery provides information about the 10 fastest jet planes in the world and their history.
Strap in and get your sick bags ready as we take to the skies to see which jet is the fastest.
10 – F-22 Raptor
An F-22 Raptor flies over Kadena Air Base, Japan on a routine training mission.Photo by Sergeant Major Andy Dunaway/U.S. Air Force
The F-22 Raptor is a single-seat stealth fighter with a top speed of Mach 2.25 and long-range cruise capability. Its stealth capabilities are so advanced that it’s not allowed to be sold outside the United States. Despite its speed and stealth, it has been overshadowed by the F-35 Lightning II jet. Only 187 were built, making it rare to see in the air.
9 – MiG-29 Fulcrum
Bangladesh Air Force MiG-29 with full afterburner.Photo credit: Bangladesh Air Force/Wikipedia
The MiG-29 was built by the Soviet Union and has a top speed of Mach 2.3. Despite its age, it’s still used in many countries around the world.
8 – F-14 Tomcat
An F-14D Tomcat flies over the Persian Gulf region. Photo by Sergeant Rob Tabor/USAF
The F-14 has a top speed of Mach 2.34 and has been in service for over 30 years.
7 – MiG-23 Frogger
An aerial view of a Soviet-era MiG-23 jet in flight.Photo credit: U.S. Air Force
The MiG-23 has a top speed of Mach 2.35 and is known for its agility. Over 5,000 were built and it is still in use today.
6 – Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker
Sukhoi Su-27 demonstrating its capabilities at the MAKS-2005 air show.Photo credit: Dmitry Pichugin/Wikipedia
The Sukhoi Su-27 has a top speed of Mach 2.35 and is known for its excellent range and flight maneuverability. It remains in production more than 40 years after its introduction.
GPS satellites play a crucial role in Earth measurements by relaying information to other satellites. Laser retroreflector arrays (LRA) have emerged as a technological advancement that enhances the precision of geodesy, the study of the Earth’s shape and changes. LRAs enable the collection of precise distance measurements necessary for monitoring global phenomena like sea level rise and tectonic movements. They work by reflecting laser light back to its original source, allowing scientists to accurately measure changes in the Earth’s surface.
Numerous federal agencies, including NASA, the U.S. Space Command, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, have been involved in improving the accuracy of Earth measurements. The use of LRAs has allowed geolocation of all Earth observations to improve, enabling scientists to strategize and anticipate changes in the Earth’s angular momentum, changes in the Earth’s figure, and significant geodetic factors.
Laser retroreflector arrays function by reflecting light directly back towards its original source, as they consist of mirrors placed at right angles. They are instrumental in providing precise location information to ground stations on Earth, aiding in pinpointing the Earth’s center of mass and aiding in geodetic measurements. The ability to measure minute changes in the Earth’s center of gravity is of utmost importance as it aids in quantifying and understanding larger shifts resulting from events like tsunamis or earthquakes.
Overall, the implementation of laser retroreflector arrays is essential in studying Earth’s shape, gravity, and rotation, as well as determining changes over time. It is a fundamental component of daily life that aids in understanding how the world is changing.
In a TikTok video, a small girl in Gaza covered in ash asks for her mother. This is one of her millions of videos about the Israeli-Hamas conflict that have captivated users on her social platform.Heartbreaking stories and harrowing images pouring out of the conflict zone have boiled emotions thousands of miles away on the streets of London and turned social media into a battlefield.Millions of TikToks are uploaded every day, offering a variety of perspectives. israel-hamas war, as new generations join in the latest iteration of the long-running conflict. For many people, it is now their main source of news.The platform is known for short, snappy video clips that can gain huge reach by being shared and re-shared.”When anger is stirred up, things tend to spread faster,” said Dr. Christine Chen, senior lecturer in war studies at King’s College London.In the US, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley even claimed that TikTok makes people “17% more anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas” every 30 minutes, but there is no clear evidence to support that claim. do not have.Prominent British TikTok creators on both sides of the conflict say the platform provides an opportunity to foster conversations across the divide and highlight stories missed by mainstream media.
TikTok itself said it was responding “quickly and forcefully” to the Israel-Hamas war, accelerating efforts to remove fake accounts and involvement.Looking at the numbers alone, TikTok’s content appears to have a pro-Palestinian slant, but the platform argues that this reflects broader trends on social media and among younger viewers in general. There is.
src=”Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London in support of Palestine”
“Anytime you have a strong emotional reaction, you’re much more likely to engage,” says Dr. Chen. “Social media platforms like it, so naturally we tend to spread it and stir it up even more.”The result, she says, is increased polarization and difficulty in having calm conversations.Short video clips about specific events during the conflict struggle to summarize all the relevant context, she added. “It’s very easy to bring up that particular incident and it goes viral and then the conversation dies down.”Dr Martin Farr, senior lecturer in modern British history at Newcastle University, said people had seen things on their phones in recent months that they would never forget and may shape their views on the conflict.”The scale of the violence, the scale of the loss of life, and people’s sense that one or the other was responsible, rather than a more complex and necessarily nuanced perception of the situation, was very extraordinary.” he says.”There’s an urge in all of these things to be more provocative.”Dr. Farr also pointed to what he called “atrophy.” Hamas The attacks on Israel began as the death toll in the Gaza Strip soared.Asked whether social media has exacerbated divisions over Israel and Palestine, he said: “I don’t think it’s necessarily made it worse. I think it’s hurt understanding.”
src=”Benny Greenstein asks people about Israel and Palestine. Photo: bennyjeeee”
Some of Benny’s TikToks clearly support one side or the other, while others are unsure or argue that a humane approach is needed.The comments are filled with posts supporting Israel and Palestine and users calling for “genocide.”Benny said he is inspired by his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, and is determined to use his position to promote peace and love.Isobel Dye, 22, is currently studying for a master’s degree at LSE and has been posting on TikTok for several years, amassing more than 164,000 followers.Her interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in particular the plight of Palestinians, began in 2021 when she attended a pro-Palestinian rally.
src=”Isabelle Dye says she reached 1 million users on TikTok in one week”
“I try to talk about things that the mainstream media doesn’t cover,” she says. ‘The British are deeply complicit’ [in the conflict], we can’t help but have an opinion on this. ”Her TikToks typically feature news clips or stories of her speaking to the camera overlaid at the top. She says she reached about 1 million people in the last week.Isobel’s audience at the time was predominantly female (80%), 66% of whom were between the ages of 18 and 24. This is a great example of how TikTok is reaching a younger demographic. Only 28% of people aged 16 to 24 read newspapers in print or online. According to Ofcom.When asked if TikTok is a good place for people involved in conflict, she said yes, with the right voices. “I try to center Palestinian voices,” she added.
src=”Pro-Israel demonstration in London”
read more:British destroyer joins task force to protect Red SeaFamily pleads for new hostage dealDebra Burns, 59, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, attends schools in England and speaks about anti-Semitism. Seeking her new audience, she also started posting about her family’s stories on her TikTok.”I’m not necessarily a prime TikTok viewer,” she says. “My mission is to spread the story of the Holocaust in hopes that it will enlighten people and that something like it will never happen again.”In the terrifying aftermath of Hamas’ attacks on Israel, she began using TikTok to amplify calls for the safe return of hostages.“I feel like a small voice, like David and Goliath, in the midst of massive anti-Israel and anti-Semitism on social media,” she says.”I don’t post about conflicts because there are a lot of people who are more knowledgeable than me and who work on conflicts better. I just try to do what I can to help them. ”
src=”TikTok tried to explain how its algorithm works”
Amid the debate over how it decides what content to show users, TikTok published a lengthy blog post saying its recommendation algorithm doesn’t take sides.”The content people see on TikTok is generated by our community, and recommendations are based on content people have previously engaged with.”TikTok does not ‘promote’ one side of an issue over another,” the company said.Videos are ranked using a predictive score based on what TikToks users have previously watched.Specifically regarding the Israel-Hamas war, TikTok said it has responded “swiftly and forcefully” and has removed more than 925,000 videos for violating policies such as violence and hate speech.It added: “TikTok does not allow inaccurate, misleading, or false content that, whether intended or not, may cause serious harm to individuals or society.”The platform said it removed more than 50,000 videos between October 7 and October 31 for containing “harmful misinformation.”While it may not be a popular app for politicians (in fact, it’s banned from UK government devices), it’s clear that TikTok is a big part of the debate about Israel and Palestine.The October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent invasion of Gaza galvanized a new generation to join the struggle for peace in the Middle East. And places like TikTok are where that conversation takes place.Watch ‘Crossing the Divide’, a Sky News documentary about how the Israel-Hamas war has divided the people of Britain, on Saturday 23 December at 9pm.
NASA’s EMIT has produced the first global map of hematite, goethite, and kaolinite in the dry regions of Earth using data from the year ending November 2023. The mission collected billions of data measurements of three different minerals along with seven minerals that could impact climate when released into the air. The mission, EMIT, aims to provide a detailed map of the mineral composition of Earth’s dust source regions, which can help scientists model the impact of fine particles on climate change.
EMIT launched to the International Space Station in 2022, will be launched by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and surveys the Earth’s surface from approximately 250 miles in the air. The mission captures high-resolution images to create detailed maps of surface composition and is capable of detecting plumes of methane and carbon dioxide emitted by various human activities. EMIT’s data will be used to improve climate models and study the effects of dust on global ecosystems, including its impact on phytoplankton blooms and the transport of essential nutrients over long distances.
In addition to tracking the 10 major minerals as part of its primary mission, EMIT’s data also tracks other minerals, vegetation types, snow and ice, and even humans at or near the surface. The instrument was selected from NASA’s Earth Venture Instrument-4 public offering and is managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. The data collected by EMIT is publicly available for use by other researchers and the public at the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center.
Washington University in St. Louis published a new study on December 17, 2023, examining the health risks of PM2.5 and global reduction efforts. The study found that global PM2.5 exposure has decreased since 2011, mainly due to China’s efforts. The researchers emphasize the health benefits of exposure reduction and emphasize the need for continued monitoring and mitigation efforts, especially in densely populated areas.
The study, conducted by researchers at Washington University, quantified changes in air pollution from 1998 to 2019 and concluded that further mitigation efforts are still needed.
PM2.5, which is 2.5 micrometers or smaller, poses a significant global environmental health risk. It can lead to respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and high blood pressure, and permanent developmental problems in children. Exposure to PM2.5 is also associated with an increased risk of premature death.
To address these negative effects, several countries, including China, have reduced their exposure to PM2.5. Yet, the study raises questions about the effectiveness of these efforts and which regions are making the most progress in driving PM2.5 reductions.
The research, led by Randall Martin, examined PM2.5 data from 1998 to 2019 and found that China’s strict air quality controls were the biggest cause of the global reversal in PM2.5 exposure. This reduced exposure resulted in 1.1 million fewer premature deaths in China between 2011 and 2019, as well as improved health outcomes more generally.
Overall, the study underscores the need for continued reductions in PM2.5 exposure globally and emphasizes the importance of sustained monitoring, especially in poorly monitored but highly populated regions such as South Asia and the Middle East. The success in PM2.5 reduction demonstrates the benefits of mitigation efforts and provides motivation for further progress.
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