Micro- and nanoplastic particles “infiltrate all systems of the body, including the brain,” notes the University of Rhode Island, “where they can accumulate and trigger Alzheimer’s-like conditions, according to a new study by researchers in the University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy.”

ScienceDaily shares the announcement:

After a previous study that showed how microplastics can infiltrate all systems of the body — including the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from harmful substances as small as viruses and bacteria — University of Rhode Island pharmacy assistant professor Jaime Ross expanded the study to determine the brain health impacts of the plastic toxins. Her findings indicate that the accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics in the brain can lead to cognitive decline and even Alzheimer’s disease, especially in those who carry genetic risk factors.

Ross’ latest study, published recently in the journal Environmental Research Communications, examined mice that had been genetically modified to include the naturally occurring gene APOE4, a strong indicator of Alzheimer’s risk making people 3.5 times more likely to develop the disease than those who carry the APOE3 variant of the gene that is passed from parents to offspring… Ross and her team exposed two groups of mice — one with the APOE4 variant and one with APOE3 — to micro- and nanoplastics in their drinking water over a period of three weeks. The tiny particles from polystyrene — among the most abundant plastics in the world, found in Styrofoam take-out containers, plastic cups and more — infiltrated the mice’ organs, including the brain, as expected…

Ross’ team then ran the mice through a series of tests to examine their cognitive ability, beginning with an open-field test, in which researchers put a mouse in a chamber and allow it to explore at will for 90 minutes. Ordinarily, a mouse will hug the walls, naturally attempting to hide from potential predators. However, after microplastic exposure, the APOE4 mice — especially the male mice — tended to wander more in the middle of the chamber and spend time in open space, leaving themselves vulnerable to predators…

The results are concerning enough to warrant further study into the cognitive decline caused by exposure to micro- and nanoplastics, which are among the most prominent environmental toxins to which people are routinely exposed… Ross is continuing to expand her research into the topic and encourages others to do so, in the hope of leading to better regulation of the toxins.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“OpenAI’s video generation tool, Sora, can create high-definition clips of just about anything you could ask for…” reports the Washington Post.
“But OpenAI has not specified which videos it grabbed to make Sora, saying only that it combined ‘publicly available and licensed data’…”

With ChatGPT, OpenAI helped popularize the now-standard industry practice of building more capable AI tools by scraping vast quantities of text from the web without consent. With Sora, launched in December, OpenAI staff said they built a pioneering video generator by taking a similar approach. They developed ways to feed the system more online video — in more varied formats — including vertical videos and longer, higher-resolution clips… To explore what content OpenAI may have used, The Washington Post used Sora to create hundreds of videos that show it can closely mimic movies, TV shows and other content…

In dozens of tests, The Post found that Sora can create clips that closely resemble Netflix shows such as “Wednesday”; popular video games like “Minecraft”; and beloved cartoon characters, as well as the animated logos for Warner Bros., DreamWorks and other Hollywood studios, movies and TV shows. The publicly available version of Sora can generate only 20-second clips, without audio. In most cases, the look-alike scenes were made by typing basic requests like “universal studios intro.” The results also showed that Sora can create AI videos with the logos or watermarks that broadcasters and tech companies use to brand their video content, including those for the National Basketball Association, Chinese-owned social app TikTok and Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch…

Sora’s ability to re-create specific imagery and brands suggests a version of the originals appeared in the tool’s training data, AI researchers said. “The model is mimicking the training data. There’s no magic,” said Joanna Materzynska, a PhD researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied datasets used in AI. An AI tool’s ability to reproduce proprietary content doesn’t necessarily indicate that the original material was copied or obtained from its creators or owners. Content of all kinds is uploaded to video and social platforms, often without the consent of the copyright holder… Materzynska co-authored a study last year that found more than 70 percent of public video datasets commonly used in AI research contained content scraped from YouTube.
Netflix and Twitch said they did not have a content partnership for training OpenAI, according to the article (which adds that OpenAI “has yet to face a copyright suit over the data used for Sora.”)
Two key quotes from the article:

“Unauthorized scraping of YouTube content continues to be a violation of our Terms of Service.” — YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon
“We train on publicly available data consistent with fair use and use industry-leading safeguards to avoid replicating the material they learn from.” — OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As businesses around the world have shifted their digital infrastructure over the last decade from self-hosted servers to the cloud, they’ve benefitted from the standardized, built-in security features of major cloud providers like Microsoft. But with so much riding on these systems, there can be potentially disastrous consequences at a massive scale if something goes wrong. Case in point: Security researcher Dirk-jan Mollema recently stumbled upon a pair of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Azure’s identity and access management platform that could have been exploited for a potentially cataclysmic takeover of all Azure customer accounts.

Known as Entra ID, the system stores each Azure cloud customer’s user identities, sign-in access controls, applications, and subscription management tools. Mollema has studied Entra ID security in depth and published multiple studies about weaknesses in the system, which was formerly known as Azure Active Directory. But while preparing to present at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas in July, Mollema discovered two vulnerabilities that he realized could be used to gain global administrator privileges—essentially god mode—and compromise every Entra ID directory, or what is known as a “tenant.” Mollema says that this would have exposed nearly every Entra ID tenant in the world other than, perhaps, government cloud infrastructure.

“I was just staring at my screen. I was like, ‘No, this shouldn’t really happen,’” says Mollema, who runs the Dutch cybersecurity company Outsider Security and specializes in cloud security. “It was quite bad. As bad as it gets, I would say.”

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Two things about the Specialized Turbo Vado SL 2 6.0 Carbon are hard to fathom: One is how light and lithe it feels as an e-bike, even with the battery off; the other is how hard it is to recite its full name when other riders ask you about the bike at stop lights and pit stops.

I’ve tested about a half-dozen e-bikes for Ars Technica. Each test period has included a ride with my regular group for about 30 miles. Nobody else in my group rides electric, so I try riding with no assist, at least part of the way. Usually I give up after a mile or two, realizing that most e-bikes are not designed for unpowered rides.

On the Carbon (as I’ll call it for the rest of this review), you can ride without power. At 35 pounds, it’s no gram-conscious road bike, but it feels lighter than that number implies. My daily ride is an aluminum-framed model with an internal geared hub that weighs about the same, so I might be a soft target. But it’s a remarkable thing to ride an e-bike that starts with a good unpowered ride and lets you build on that with power.

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Some of the year’s biggest blockbuster games have just dropped or are coming very soon. But among the likes of Borderlands 4, EA Sports FC 26 and Battlefield 6, there are a ton of neat indie games popping up. We’re here to tell you about some of ’em and what else is going on in the space with our weekly indie games roundup.

There were showcases this week from Critical Reflex (which was packed with neat oddities), Game Devs of Color, Six One Indie and Convergence. There’s far too much cool stuff in these for us to highlight everything — during the Six One Indie preshow alone, I added three games to my Steam wishlist. So, if you’re into indie games and have the time, I recommend checking these streams out.

If all of that isn’t enough for you, there’s another indie showcase coming next Wednesday called Indie Fan Fest from The Mix and Digital Bandidos. That’s not all: a Capcom stream is taking place on September 24 (not exactly indie, but Pragmata looks interesting) and rumors of a PlayStation event are ramping up ahead of Tokyo Game Show next week.

Elsewhere, I’ve been keeping an eye on an Itch.io game jam that’s been running this past week. It’s all about falling block games. I’m really enjoying the updates that a developer named Wallaber is sharing on Bluesky for a project called Jelly Well.

A quick note for any indie developers who are joining us before we check out some of this week’s new releases: submissions for the December edition of Day of the Devs are open. Landing a spot in that showcase is one of the highest-profile spotlights an indie developer can get these days, so if you have a cool game to show off, shoot your shot.

New releases

The team behind Patapon is back with a spiritual successor to that classic rhythm game series. There are strategic and roguelike elements in Ratatan, which is from TVT Co. Ltd., Ratata Arts and publisher Game Source Entertainment. There’s co-op for up to four players as well.

You’ll need to match the beat of the soundtrack to defeat enemies, and battles can feature more than 100 characters. It all looks quite charming, though I can’t help but think of that song by Babymetal and Electric Callboy whenever I read the game’s title (the immensely catchy “Ratatata” is rarely far away from my thoughts anyway). Ratatan is out in early access on Steam for $25, but there’s a 10 percent launch discount until September 28.

Lego Voyagers is a lovely-looking co-op adventure from Light Brick Studio (Lego Builder’s Journey) and publisher Annapurna Interactive. It’s out now on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, Steam and Epic Games Store.

Here, you and a partner (there’s local co-op and online support) will go on a journey to rescue an abandoned spaceship. Your lil’ bricks can snap together and combine with other Lego pieces to solve puzzles as you make your way through this land. It’s said to be a fairly short game, clocking in at between three and five hours, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing given how much bloat there is in many games.

I’ve had my eye on Henry Halfhead — from Lululu Entertainment and co-publisher Popagenda — for a while and I’m looking forward to checking out this sandbox adventure. You play as Henry, who is just the top half of a human head. You can transform into any nearby object and play around with things in the environment. A narrator will react to your escapades as you solve challenges and guide Henry through life. There’s a co-op mode too.

Henry Halfhead is available on Steam, Switch and PS5. It typically costs $13, but there’s a 25 percent launch discount until September 30.

11 Bit Studios’ Frostpunk 2 has now landed on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 after debuting on PC this time last year. It’s a city-building survival sim that starts 30 years after a blizzard ravaged the planet and caused an eternal winter.

I dig the set up and aesthetic here. City builders in this vein aren’t usually my kind of thing, but since Frostpunk 2 is on Game Pass, I might give it a try.

Don’t Die, Collect Loot hit early access on Steam this week. This is a vertically scrolling Vampire Survivors-esque roguelite from solo developer Dan Marchand (aka Dan Makes Video Games) and indie.io.

If you’ve been looking for a new way to watch numbers go up and live out a power fantasy, this one might be of interest. For what it’s worth, I love the chiptune music in the trailer. Don’t Die, Collect Loot costs $10 and there’s a 10 percent discount until October 3.

A trailer for Troleu hooked me in during publisher Critical Reflex’s showcase. At its essence, this is a trolleybus conductor simulator, but it looks like things will get very much out of hand. You’ll get into fist fights with unruly passengers (who may include aliens) and punt them from the vehicle if necessary. There are multiple routes, leaderboards and even a T. rex. It all seems quite chaotic.

Troleu, which was made by solo developer andrground, is out now on Steam. You can get it for 20 percent off the regular price of $10 until September 29.

Speaking of aliens, here’s a theme park (and zoo?) simulator with a difference: it’s set in the universe of Mars Attacks. In Mars Attracts, you can abduct humans and experiment on the lowly primates for the entertainment of Martians, who come for the cruelty. The Convergence Games showcase featured a short look at the early stages of the game — experimenting on the loely specimens is your path to unlocking upgrades.

Outlier’s Mars Attracts is in early access on Steam. The $25 game has a 10 percent discount until September 22, and I might just pick it up.

Upcoming

Relooted was one of the more exciting games that caught our attention during Summer Game Fest. South African developer Nyamakop is creating a heist game that sees your crew setting out to reclaim plundered African artifacts from the hands of private collectors. It’s a terrific setup, and you can now find out how the game actually plays thanks to a demo that dropped this week on Steam.

You’ll get to play through the tutorial and one mission while getting a sense of the game’s story. Before you grab any of the valuable artifacts, you’ll need to spend a little time planning your escape from a given area with the help of your crew. You can replay the mission to try different options and routes.

I enjoyed the demo quite a bit. The movement is slick (it reminds me a bit of Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield) and the light strategy and puzzle solving sits just right for me. There’s no release date for Relooted as yet, but I’ll absolutely be playing it. The game is coming to Steam, Epic Games Store and Xbox Series X/S.

Dispatch is a game we’ve covered a few times, and now it has a release date. This is a superhero workplace comedy from AdHoc Studio, a team of former Telltale developers. It’s about a sidelined hero who becomes a superhero dispatcher.

The animation and art look sumptuous, and there’s an outstanding cast that includes Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey, Matthew Mercer and Jeffrey Wright. Dispatch is coming your way on October 22 on Steam (where you can check out a demo) and PS5.

Jupiter Junkworks had flown under my radar, but it’s firmly on there after a gameplay trailer was featured in the Convergence showcase. It’s a Tetris-style game in which you can slam parts of each tetromino into gaps further down the screen.

This arcade puzzler from Pixel Drake has a narrative that involves a trio of ragtag travelers learning to work together and make something of a spaceship salvage yard. Jupiter Junkworks is coming to Steam and Switch, and there’s a demo on the former.

It wouldn’t be an indie game roundup without a Metroidvania, and this week Critical Reflex showed off one that’s also a dating sim. There’s a new Steam demo available (but no release date as yet) for 2Awesome Studio’s Altered Alma, the trailer for which is drenched in a lovely “cyberpink.”

Okay, how about another Metroidvania? Solo developer Eric Manahan (aka The Matte Black Studio) is billing Lucid as the first “Celestoidvania” — take a wild guess which platformer it’s taking inspiration from.

One other reason to get excited about Lucid is that it features music from bearbot and the legendary David Wise, who famously worked on the Donkey Kong Country series. Fingers crossed that the crystalpunk aesthetic of this game will lead Wise to create a piece that’s on par with “Aquatic Ambiance.” In any case, a demo for Lucid is available on Steam now. There’s no release date as yet for this game, which Apogee Entertainment is publishing.

A Heavy Morning was the most compelling game to me in the Game Devs of Color showcase. It’s a narrative adventure focused on mental health. The aim is to help a young woman who is struggling to get out of bed to start her day. Among other things, you’ll enter her mind to help remove mental blocks with the help of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques.

The latest trailer for this game from Saf Interactive and co-publisher Bright Gambit features an absolutely lovely art style. You’ll be able to play it on Xbox and Steam this fall.

I’ll take any excuse I can to write about Skate Story. Every time a new trailer pops up (as was the case during the Game Devos of Color showcase), I think it’s one of the coolest-looking games I’ve ever seen. Publisher Devolver Digital has now confirmed that along with the previously announced Steam and PS5 releases, Sam Eng’s Skate Story is coming to Nintendo Switch 2.

Alas, there’s still no release date for Skate Story. But Devolver says it will arrive by the end of the year, so I’m glad it hasn’t been pushed back to 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/patapons-spiritual-successor-co-op-lego-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110022924.html?src=rss