As part of their ongoing celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 35th anniversary, NASA and ESA have shared a new image of the Eagle Nebula, specifically a “spire of cosmic gas and dust” that’s in a region last captured by the telescope two decades ago.
The tower in the image is 9.5 light years tall, according to NASA and ESA, and only a portion of the larger Eagle Nebula, which is considered a “nursery” for young stars. The tower’s unique mix of oranges and dark blues is thanks to a combination of swirling hydrogen gas and space dust. The nebula’s “Eagle” name comes from how it looks when you pan across it, where edge clouds like the one in the image look like the wings of a giant bird of prey.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll
As of late, the James Webb Telescope has become the designated source for spectacular images of space, but clearly Hubble still has some juice in it, too. Some of that is thanks to “new data processing techniques” that are being applied to the images captured by the telescope.
The Eagle Nebula is just one of several celestial targets Hubble is revisiting for its 35th anniversary. By capturing different angles and using data differently, the telescope is able to produce more spectacularly colored images. There’s no major discoveries made with these “reruns,” but they are, without a doubt, even cooler than before.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/celebrate-the-35th-anniversary-of-the-hubble-space-telescope-with-a-gigantic-tower-of-gas-and-dust-184340147.html?src=rss
The Apple Sports app just introduced a new feature called Game Card Sharing. This lets users generate digital game cards that carry information about a specific match. The cards can be generated for upcoming, live and completed games. In the latter two cases, the score will be displayed.
The cool part about these cards is that they are shareable across iMessage or via social media platforms. I could see this being useful in a group chat with friends, as a handy way to keep track of an ongoing match. Just look for the share button on the upper-right side of each card.
There is one caveat. It requires the latest version of iOS, so it might be time to finally strap in for an update. These cards work with a whole bunch of sports leagues, including the NBA, MLB, NHL and even stuff like the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-apple-sports-app-now-lets-users-create-and-share-game-cards-184235076.html?src=rss
For those of us whose memory of high school biology hasn’t faded entirely, planarians will probably sound very familiar. They’re generally used as an example of one of the extreme ends of regenerative capacity. While some animals like mammals have a limited ability to regenerate lost tissues, planarians can be cut roughly in half and regenerate either an entire head or entire tail, depending on which part of the body you choose to keep track of.
In doing so, they have to re-establish something that is typically only needed early in an animal’s development: a signaling system that helps tell cells where the animal’s head and tail are. Now, a US-based team asked a question that I’d never have thought of: What happens if you cut the animal in half early in development, while the developmental head-to-tail signaling system is still active? The answer turned out to be surprisingly complex.
Heads or tails?
Planarians are small flatworms that would probably be living quiet lives somewhere if biologists hadn’t discovered their ability to regenerate lots of adult tissues when damaged. The process has been well-studied by this point and involves the formation of a cluster of stem cells, called a blastema, at the site of damage. From there, many of the signals that control the formation of specialized tissues in the embryo get re-activated, directing the stem cells down the developmental pathways needed to reproduce any lost organs.
Bruce66423 shares a report: Toothpaste can be widely contaminated with lead and other dangerous heavy metals, new research shows.
Most of 51 brands of toothpaste tested for lead contained the dangerous heavy metal, including those for children or those marketed as green. The testing, conducted by Lead Safe Mama, also found concerning levels of highly toxic arsenic, mercury and cadmium in many brands.
About 90% of toothpastes contained lead, 65% contained arsenic, just under half contained mercury, and one-third had cadmium. Many brands contain a number of the toxins. The highest levels detected violated the state of Washington’s limits, but not federal limits. The thresholds have been roundly criticized by public health advocates for not being protective — no level of exposure to lead is safe, the federal government has found. Bruce66423 asks: “As ever the question that should be asked is: ‘What level is worth worrying about and why?'”
The Nintendo Switch 2 uses MicroSD Express cards—a faster and better version of the old MicroSD cards used on the Switch and other devices—to store downloaded games. But it might be tricky to buy one of these tiny storage chips, as they have started selling out since the Switch 2’s reveal.
Though I can already see people clamoring to unlock the HDR from the Battle Pass to camp in the most mundane of spots, the return of the Kilo 141 probably excites me the most. This high-powered assault rifle is immensely accurate straight out of the gate, but with the right attachments, it’s virtually unstoppable. I…
In a Black Mirror-esque turn, some cash-strapped actors who didn’t fully understand the consequences are regretting selling their likenesses to be used in AI videos that they consider embarrassing, damaging, or harmful, AFP reported.
Among them is a 29-year-old New York-based actor, Adam Coy, who licensed rights to his face and voice to a company called MCM for one year for $1,000 without thinking, “am I crossing a line by doing this?” His partner’s mother later found videos where he appeared as a doomsayer predicting disasters, he told the AFP.
South Korean actor Simon Lee’s AI likeness was similarly used to spook naïve Internet users but in a potentially more harmful way. He told the AFP that he was “stunned” to find his AI avatar promoting “questionable health cures on TikTok and Instagram,” feeling ashamed to have his face linked to obvious scams.
We like to think that our home is also our fortress of privacy: Once you walk through your front door, you’re free from prying eyes (or lenses) and can relax. There are a ton of ways to ensure your privacy inside, starting with items like window films, shades, and curtains. And if you want to protect your outdoor space from neighbors peering over the fence, you have several easy options.
Most of those options, however, assume your neighbors are on the same level as you. If the neighboring homes are located above yours, you’ll need to re-think your privacy plan. This is especially true if your neighbors have outdoor areas that offer a perfect view of your backyard. If you get the sense you’re being watched every time you step outside your house, here are a few ways you can regain some privacy.
Plant trees
The simplest long-term option is to plant trees—specifically canopy trees, whose branches stretch out and form a living roof over the area below. You’ll want to consult with an arborist or other landscaping professional to identify canopy trees that will thrive in your region and climate. You’ll also want to get some advice on spacing out the trees so you eventually get the lush, thick “roof” effect that will offer the privacy you’re looking for (not to mention cool down the space and block out the sun’s damaging rays).
Note the word “eventually,” however: Trees don’t just pop up in a matter of days. Maple trees, for example, are excellent canopy trees, but can take several decades to reach their full height and size. But if you’re going to be in the house (and using the yard) for a long time to come, investing in canopy trees will solve your problem and beautify the space.
Install shade sails
A shade sail is typically a large triangular or rectangular sheet of fabric that you attach to posts or existing structures in your yard (such as a fence). They let air and rain through, but block out the sun, creating shade wherever you want it. That means they can be used for vertical privacy, too—one or more shade sails installed in your yard will block someone’s view of your yard from above.
Shade sails are relatively affordable and easily installed. You can buy a shade sail kit that comes with everything you need, but it’s easy to DIY by sinking a few posts or attaching some hooks to your fence or exterior walls. They can also be quickly removed if your circumstances change.
Add a covered patio
If you have a defined patio or deck space where you spend most of your time being observed by your neighbors (or imagining you are), you can cover it pretty easily using several options:
Speaking of pergolas, if your neighbor’s house looms over your yard, you can enhance your privacy by building a pergola near your fence line where their house is located. The angle will work in your favor; even a modest pergola can block much of your neighbor’s view if they’re not looking straight down into your yard. And if you have multiple neighbors up there, you can add a strong of pergolas along the fence line to block the angle everywhere.
You’ll have to check local regulations (or your homeowners association) before building. Some areas will require a pergola to be a set distance from a boundary fence (e.g., 16 feet), while others might have a calculation based on the size of the property and the height of your fence.
Invest in tall fencing
Finally, privacy fencing isn’t your best option for elevated neighbors, but if it is your only option for some reason, go big and install an extremely tall privacy fence. You’ll need to check local regulations to see if there are legal limits to how tall your fencing can be and then build or buy a fence at the maximum height (you can buy pre-made 12-foot and even 16-foot tall privacy fencing, though you’ll likely pay a steep price). As with pergolas near the perimeter, a tall enough fence can block your neighbors’ viewing angle. Another option is to grow a “living fence” using hedges or other plants (such as nigra arborvitae, which can reach 30 feet in height). You’ll have to wait for your plants to mature, but this can be a prettier option than a looming fence.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Members of the European Parliament were offered special pouches to protect digital devices from espionage and tampering for a visit to Hungary this week, a sign of rising spying fears within Europe.
Five lawmakers from the Parliament’s civil liberties committee traveled to Hungary on Monday for a three-day visit to inspect the EU member country’s progress on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.
One lawmaker on the trip confirmed to POLITICO that the Parliament officials joining the delegation were offered Faraday bags — special metal-lined pouches that block electromagnetic signals — by the Parliament’s services and were also advised to be cautious about using public Wi-Fi networks or charging facilities.
How did you get into cycling? As an asthmatic kid I did very little sport – cardio was just not accessible for me. I met my partner in 2013 and she was a serious cyclist – one of the first ‘dates’ we had was me supporting her at Ride London (which she completed in 6 hours – so far ahead of schedule that I nearly missed cheering her on at all!) She bought me a bike as a housewarming present when we moved in together, but our first (tiny) ride nearly killed me. Due to work travel and because of me not riding, she had practically stopped cycling and was getting quite seriously depressed. In July 2016 I said “‘”Right, you need to start riding again, we’re cycling. Together!” I told her if after a mile she hated it she could go home, but that I was riding the 7-mile loop from our home. Of course by 1 mile, where there’s a little hill (to me at the time!) she was out of sight and I was puffing up it like a snail. Miraculously I discovered I COULD cycle, and in July 2017 we did Ride London, and in 2018 London to Paris.
When Covid hit, and cycling was one of the few things you could still do, we decided to join a local cycling club to discover new routes (and cafes once they were open again). It became apparent that there was very little provision for women who couldn’t ride far and fast, and, shockingly, unexpected resistance to such provision from those women who *could* ‘hang with the boys’. I’m a fairly strong personality (as you’ll come to see ) so if I felt utterly rejected, how on earth did less forceful women feel?
This lead to me training as a British Cycling Breeze Champion (women’s ride leader), and I quickly gathered a group of regular riders. Soon, though, they reached beyond the limitations of Breeze (especially living near the Cotswolds, where a limitation of 12% gradients was near impossible to stick to!) and I ended up forming a women’s cycling club called the Severn Belles. Many of the riders had no cycling wardrobe and once they got beyond short flat rides they were in need of more technical kit. I designed a striking kit for us which always gets lots of looks and comments when we’re out and about.
The progress by some of them was incredible – from shy ladies simply wanting to improve confidence on their tri cycling leg, to confident women tackling some pretty long and spicy sportives.
How many years have you been racing on Zwift? I started riding on Zwift in Oct 2023, because even if it’s not cold or wet where I live it’s windy, so I was never going out. I decided to have a go at racing in about April 2024 because the barriers are so much less than outdoors – no entry fees, no slogging back to your car if you have a mechanical or get terminally dropped, no bad weather, no potholes, and no chance of falling off (unless you sprint REALLY hard and topple the turbo ) I really enjoyed it and was soon jealous of the folk in teams getting to ride WTRL TTT and ZRL, then in July 2024 there just happened to be a call for C and D cat riders, and I’ve never looked back.
Are you part of a Virtual team? Yes! eSRT were looking for riders last summer and I was so lucky to join them. We have some of the best racers on Zwift (check out the ZwiftPower rankings of some of our guys!) and women who’ve raced for Sweden in the eSports World Champs, but they’re SO encouraging and supportive of all the lower cat riders. We joke that there’s no ReST in eSRT, but we just like to go hard when we race. I just love them and have really found my home I’ve even started learning Swedish on Duolingo for the odd occasion when someone posts in Swedish or links to a Swedish event or website, and so that when we have IRL meetups (yep this really happens, despite the geographical spread, and yes, ABBA is a universal theme ) I can try to repay some of the riders’ brilliance in conducting everything in a foreign language. Ja är hemma med eSRT
What do you love most about racing? I love that I just can’t let someone get away from me. Racing makes me push myself far harder than I would on my own, even in a workout. I may not have the power or endurance to catch the girl in front, but I’ll push myself to and beyond my limits trying!
What is your favourite style of race (e.g. points, scratch, iTT, TTT, Chase, duathlon)? TTT. There’s nothing like racing with a bunch of friends to share the pain.
What is your favourite Zwift women’s race series? Iceni, probably cos I won it
What is your most memorable racing experience, inside or outside or BOTH Flamme Rouge Racing Tour France Queen Stage on Quatch Quest. Honestly that was the hardest 10 days of my life! We even had ZRL on the rest day. 9 stages, 221 miles. I may not be the lightest or the strongest or the fastest rider on Zwift, but I’m probably the most bloody-minded – when I decide to do something I’m committed to seeing it through. I must admit, though, I questioned this several times during the event, and swore never to ride the France map again By the final stage I was resigned to just dragging myself round (and to facing divorce if I ever tried anything this stupid again) and I just watched the other riders streaming away. I wasn’t going to be beaten though and on I plodded (climbing is DEFINITELY not my strength, and we’d done an iTT up La Reine the day before…) but as I crept up the Alpe my nemesis popped up on my rider list. I assumed it was a glitch of the hairpins, but then the time gap was suddenly only two minutes. That really fired my motivation so I kept slogging away, watching the gap inching down, until suddenly there she was, stopped on the side! A real tortoise and hare moment. I gave it another burst to try and get as big a gap as I could while she recovered but once she started moving again she was soon eating into it. I was SO determined not to be caught though, and I guess having gone into the red she was the one at a disadvantage. Somehow I held her off – she was right on my heels – and I won the Queen Stage for my category. I was completely astonished and so proud of myself (and nearly in tears because my good racing pal Manon Holtman totally unexpectedly teleported to the end of the race to cheer me on)
(Also fairly fond memories of eSRT Flashcore winning round 1 of ZRL this season – my first outings with the team.)
What is your favourite food to eat post race? I like a good soak in an Epsom salts bath after a hard race. I haven’t really got a sweet tooth so my usual in-bath protein hit is nachos and houmous. If I’m not in the bath it’s a blueberry smoothie (milk, frozen banana, frozen blueberries… freezing the banana gives you the ice cream creaminess without the excess sugar, and blueberries are full of inflammation-zapping antioxidants and immunity-boosting vitamin C)
I also have a weakness for Powerbar 30% Protein+ Chocolate. I’m not great racing in the evenings, but after ZRL I have tortellini with cherry tomatoes and feta. It means I can cook for my wife before the race, and then cook mine in about 5 minutes post-race.
What advice would you give to a woman entering her first Zwift race? JUST DO IT! Warm up first because Zwift race starts are HARD (my go-to here is the INEOS Pre Race Warmup workout on whatever course you’re racing. The routine of completing the same warmup each time relaxes you and prepares you for the race). But get in there, be prepared to be pushed harder than you’ve ever been pushed before, and be prepared to have FUN. Prepare seems to be my mantra here
Any upcoming race you are looking forward to? Always ZRL racing with my Flashcore teamies, but also looking forward to Iceni coming back round to see if I still have what it takes. And of course the unique ‘All cats in one pen’ eSRT Tiny Races, which are brutal but if you’re a powerpack who is good at drafting you can get the A cat girls to drag you along until you die I’m usually totally out of watts by race 3 though.
Where can people follow your racing adventures? If you want to follow me you’d better get yourself in the D Pen for a race, hadn’t you?
In recent kernel releases there have been performance enhancements to the AES implementations and other cryptographic subsystem code for speeding up the performance on modern Intel and AMD processors. With Linux 6.16 there will be at least some additional small gains to find with Intel and AMD processors bearing AVX-512 when employing AES-XTS…
If you’re in the mood for a dark fantasy RPG, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree offers a grim and challenging 2.5D Soulslike experience with a lot of meat on its bones. Are you wondering just how much meat, though? Well, let’s take a look at how long it takes to beat Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree.
After obliterating the federal office on long COVID and clawing back billions in COVID funding from state health departments, the Trump administration has now entirely erased the online hub for federal COVID-19 resources. In its place now stands a site promoting the unproven idea that the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 was generated in and leaked from a lab in China, sparking the global health crisis.
Navigating to COVID.gov brings up a slick site with rich content that lays out arguments and allegations supporting a lab-based origin of the pandemic and subsequent cover-up by US health officials and Democrats.
Mars has not always been a seemingly lifeless red desert. We have evidence that billions of years ago it had a warm, habitable climate with liquid water in lakes and flowing rivers, which is somewhat confusing, given that Mars is much farther from the Sun than the Earth and that the Sun was much less bright back then. “In order for Mars to be warm enough to host liquid water, there must have been a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” says Benjamin Tutolo, a researcher at the University of Calgary. “The question we’ve been asking for at least 30 years was where the record of all this carbon is.”
Tutolo led a new study of rock samples collected by the Curiosity rover that might have answered this question.
The tallest sediment stack
The mystery of Mars’ missing carbon stems from two seemingly conflicting results. On the one hand, we have already found dried riverbeds and lakes on the surface of Mars, so we know there must have been liquid water on its surface at some point. To account for the presence of this water, every Martian climate model we have run indicates that huge amounts of atmospheric carbon were needed to provide a sufficient greenhouse effect to keep the surface temperature above freezing. But the data we were getting from satellite observations of Mars found much less carbon in the Martian soil than those climate models would suggest. “So, either the models were incorrect—and there’s no good reason to believe that—or there really was lots of carbon in the Martian atmosphere,” Tutolo says.
A communication error between GoDaddy Registry and Markmonitor took Zoom’s services offline for almost two hours on Wednesday when GoDaddy mistakenly blocked the zoom.us domain. The outage affected all services dependent on the zoom.us domain.
GoDaddy’s block prevented top-level domain nameservers from maintaining proper DNS records for zoom.us. This created a classic domain resolution failure — when users attempted to connect to any zoom.us address, their requests couldn’t be routed to Zoom’s servers because the domain effectively disappeared from the internet’s addressing system.
Video meetings abruptly terminated mid-session with browser errors indicating the domain couldn’t be found. Zoom’s status page (status.zoom.us) went offline, hampering communication efforts. Even Zoom’s main website at zoom.com failed as the content delivery network couldn’t reach backend services hosted on zoom.us servers. Customer support capabilities collapsed when account managers using Zoom’s VoIP phones lost connectivity.
Resolution required coordinated effort between Zoom, Markmonitor, and GoDaddy to identify and remove the block. After service restoration, users needed to manually flush their DNS caches using command line instructions (including the sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder command for Mac users).
If you really enjoy a challenge, then Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree may be right up your alley. This 2.5D Soulslike experience is all but certain to test your mettle with perilous exploration and difficult boss battles, promising you many hours of sweaty palms and hard-won victories. If you’re about to dive…
There are so many factors that can influence how we perceive others, which in turn can determine the people we choose as platonic friends or romantic mates. We certainly make snap judgments based on physical appearance, but scent can have a powerful influence, too. According to a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, two heterosexual women meeting for the first time rely partly on scent to judge whether they want to be friends with each other, deciding within minutes—practically at first whiff—whether there is friendship potential.
Social olfactory research largely stems from evolutionary psychology, specifically the work of Swiss biologist Claus Wedekind in 1995. Subtle chemical signals from pheromones are known to play a role in attraction in many species. Scientists had already found evidence in fish and mice that the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which are critical for immune system function (and useful in determining tissue compatibility for transplants, for instance)—showed a marked preference for sexual partners with different MHC genes, perhaps as a way of keeping the gene pool well-mixed and protecting against inbreeding.
Wedekind introduced the so-called “sweaty T-shirt” method to study the possible role of MHC in mate preferences in humans. Male participants wore the same T-shirt for two days, which were then placed in identical boxes. Women participants then smelled each shirt and indicated which ones they found most sexually attractive. Wedekind found that the women overwhelmingly preferred the T-shirt smells of men who had the most dissimilar MHCs to their own. The only caveat: The preference was reversed in women who were taking oral birth control.
Tesla is facing a proposed class action suit over allegations that it has been speeding up odometers so its vehicles will fall out of warranty faster, according to a report by Reuters. This would make it easier for the company to get out of paying for repairs.
Nyree Hinton, the plaintiff in the case, alleges that Tesla odometer readers are designed to change with energy consumption, driver behavior and mysterious predictive algorithms, and not actual mileage driven. He said that the odometer on the 2020 Model Y he bought in December 2022 had 36,772 miles on the clock at the time of purchase.
Hinton alleges that the odometer went up by 72 miles each day, when he only drove around 20. He made comparisons to his other vehicles and concluded that the odometer ran, at the minimum, 15 percent fast. This caused his 50,000-mile basic warranty to expire ahead of schedule, which forced him to pay a $10,000 suspension repair bill out of pocket.
“By tying warranty limits and lease mileage caps to inflated ‘odometer’ readings, Tesla increases repair revenue, reduces warranty obligations, and compels consumers to purchase extended warranties prematurely,” the complaint said.
Hinton is seeking compensatory damage for himself, but also punitive damages for all Tesla drivers in California. This encompasses over one million vehicles, according to court papers. Tesla has denied all allegations in the lawsuit. EV forums and related subreddits, however, are filled with odometer complaints involving the company.
Tesla owners are seeing inflated odometer readings 20-30% higher than driving the same route with a different vehicle or compared to Google Maps trip distance.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Tesla has been charged with fibbing about mileage data. The automaker has faced litigation that accused it of inflating vehicle driving ranges. It has also been accused of forming a secret “Diversion Team” that would cancel range-related service appointments.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/tesla-accused-of-messing-with-odometers-to-get-out-of-repair-bills-165625372.html?src=rss
) so if I felt utterly rejected, how on earth did less forceful women feel?
) I really enjoyed it and was soon jealous of the folk in teams getting to ride WTRL TTT and ZRL, then in July 2024 there just happened to be a call for C and D cat riders, and I’ve never looked back. 
I’ve even started learning Swedish on Duolingo for the odd occasion when someone posts in Swedish or links to a Swedish event or website, and so that when we have IRL meetups (yep this really happens, despite the geographical spread, and yes, ABBA is a universal theme 
) I can try to repay some of the riders’ brilliance in conducting everything in a foreign language. Ja är hemma med eSRT 
By the final stage I was resigned to just dragging myself round (and to facing divorce if I ever tried anything this stupid again) and I just watched the other riders streaming away. I wasn’t going to be beaten though and on I plodded (climbing is DEFINITELY not my strength, and we’d done an iTT up La Reine the day before…) but as I crept up the Alpe my nemesis popped up on my rider list. I assumed it was a glitch of the hairpins, but then the time gap was suddenly only two minutes. That really fired my motivation so I kept slogging away, watching the gap inching down, until suddenly there she was, stopped on the side! A real tortoise and hare moment. I gave it another burst to try and get as big a gap as I could while she recovered but once she started moving again she was soon eating into it. I was SO determined not to be caught though, and I guess having gone into the red she was the one at a disadvantage. Somehow I held her off – she was right on my heels – and I won the Queen Stage for my category. I was completely astonished and so proud of myself (and nearly in tears because my good racing pal Manon Holtman totally unexpectedly teleported to the end of the race to cheer me on) 
)
