Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The

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Barbie fever has officially hit the UK with its London premiere on Wednesday (12 July) to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Greta Gerwig's movie. Margot Robbie took to the pink carpet in a custom Vivienne Westwood gown, inspired by the Enchanted Evening Barbie from 1960. The pale pink gown had a corseted strapless top, floral detailing at the hip, a train and white opera gloves. She walked onto the red carpet with a ruffle around her neck – like the doll – which she later removed. Ryan Gosling, who plays Ken in the film, sported a 70s-inspired spearmint suit with a lighter-coloured shirt underneath. The event saw a host of stars, including Dua Lipa, Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa, Sam Smith, Leomie Anderson, Molly Mae, Andrew Wyatt, Rob Brydon and many more. With the film release just around the corner and the marketing team still putting in overtime to paint the world pink, some people's attention has wandered elsewhere with the very random, yet thought-provoking, question of how old the fictional doll is supposed to be. Now, on paper, the Barbie doll (formerly known as Barbara Millicent Roberts) has existed for over 60 years. The doll was first released in 1959, which would make her 64. Ken arrived two years later. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter However, in the past, Mattel has said Barbie is frozen at 19 years old. Given her impressive CV as a dentist, vet, chef, dancer, designer, and photojournalist, among many more, we'd argue she's not doing too bad. Not to mention her DreamHouse and car ownership, "My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be," Barbie creator Ruth Handler wrote in her 1994 autobiography. "Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices." Barbie is produced by Robbie’s company LuckyChap and will be released in cinemas on July 21. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Norway plans to raise spending of its $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund, citing the need to protect welfare

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Scientists have developed a simple test in the search for alien life, they claim. The breakthrough helps the search for the “holy grail” of astrobiology: a reliable test that will determine whether there is or was life on other planets. The discovery uses artificial intelligence to determine with 90 per cent accuracy whether a sample is biological or not. And it could be used on existing samples, researchers say. That might mean, for instance, that we already have gathered the samples that could tell us whether there is life on Mars. Scientists hope that their test could be used on samples already collected by the Mars Curiosity rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. The rover has an instrument on board to analyse those samples, and that data could be used in the test. The findings could also help tell us more about our own planet, revealing the history of mysterious and ancient rocks found on Earth. “The search for extraterrestrial life remains one of the most tantalizing endeavors in modern science,” said lead author Jim Cleaves of the Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC. “The implications of this new research are many, but there are three big takeaways: First, at some deep level, biochemistry differs from abiotic organic chemistry; second, we can look at Mars and ancient Earth samples to tell if they were once alive; and third, it is likely this new method could distinguish alternative biospheres from those of Earth, with significant implications for future astrobiology missions.” The technique does not look for specific molecules or compounds that could be indicative of life, as much previous work has done. Instead, it looks for small differences in the molecular patterns of samples using different kinds of analysis. It was built by giving an artificial intelligent system data about 134 known samples, with information about whether they are biotic or abiotic. To test it, it was then given new samples – including those from living things, remnants of ancient life and other abiotic samples that did not point to life, such as pure chemicals – and identified them with 90 per cent accuracy. The system also started predicting another kind of sample type, dividing the biotic ones into “living” and “fossils”. That means it could tell the difference between a freshly harvested leaf and something else that died long ago, for instance. Scientists hope that with time it could eventually be able to distinguish other hints in the data, such as signs of photosynthesis or cells that have a nucleus. Previous research has struggled because organic molecules tend t degrade over time. But the new method works even when the samples have decayed and changed significantly, the researchers behind it said. “This routine analytical method has the potential to revolutionize the search for extraterrestrial life and deepen our understanding of both the origin and chemistry of the earliest life on Earth,” said Robert Hazen, of the Carnegie Institution for Science, one of the leaders of the research. “It opens the way to using smart sensors on robotic spacecraft, landers and rovers to search for signs of life before the samples return to Earth.” The findings could also help solve mysteries on life. Many ancient rocks on Earth are at the middle of argument over whether they hold the oldest fossil microbes in life, while others say they do not have any life – and researchers are already feeding data about those rocks from Australia, Canada and elsewhere into the tool. “We’re applying our methods right now to address these long-standing questions about the biogenicity of the organic material in these rocks,” Hazen says. A paper describing the work, ‘A robust, agnostic biosignature based on machine learning’, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read More Nasa has gathered a large piece of a distant asteroid. What now? Nasa spots shocking number of galaxies like our own Nasa just delivered a piece of a distant asteroid to Earth Nasa has gathered a large piece of a distant asteroid. What now? Nasa spots shocking number of galaxies like our own Nasa just delivered a piece of a distant asteroid to Earth

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Rachel Brosnahan picked as the new Lois Lane, Ryan Mallett drowned in Florida, the Kings traded for Pierre-Luc Dubois and more in the Roundup.