The American Academy of Pediatrics has reaffirmed its support for gender-affirming medical for children as the treatments face a growing push for bans and restrictions across the U.S. The board for the group unanimously reaffirmed its 2018 position on the treatments

The European Parliament voted to completely ban real-time, remote biometric surveillance — a decision that will put lawmakers

The universe went in “extreme slow motion” at its beginning, and has dramatically sped up since, scientists have found. The discovery, predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, was finally confirmed after scientists observed the universe soon after the Big Bang. Einstein’s theory suggests that we should be able to see the distant universe, when it was much older than it is today, running much more slowly. But scientists have not been able to actually look that far and confirm the theory. Now scientists have used bright quasars as a sort of space clock, allowing them to measure time when the universe was much older than it is today. “Looking back to a time when the universe was just over a billion years old, we see time appearing to flow five times slower,” said Geraint Lewis from the University of Sydney, lead author on the new research. “If you were there, in this infant universe, one second would seem like one second – but from our position, more than 12 billion years into the future, that early time appears to drag.” Professor Lewis and other researchers gathered data from 200 quasars for the research. Quasars are very active supermassive black holes that sit in the middle of early galaxies, and hence provide a reliable way to look back at a much younger universe. Previous researchers have done the same using supernovae, or massive exploding stars. Those are useful but they are also difficult to see at the very very long distances of the early universe, meaning that the confirmation was limited only to about half the age of the cosmos. Now by using quasars scientists were able to look much further back, to just a tenth of the age of the universe, when it was only a billion years old. “Thanks to Einstein, we know that time and space are intertwined and, since the dawn of time in the singularity of the Big Bang, the universe has been expanding,” Professor Lewis said. “This expansion of space means that our observations of the early universe should appear to be much slower than time flows today. “In this paper, we have established that back to about a billion years after the Big Bang.” The work is described in a new paper, ‘Detection of the cosmological time dilation of high-redshift quasars’, published in Nature Astronomy. Read More Astronomers discover ‘shooting stars’ on the Sun Tonight’s ’supermoon’ will be biggest full moon of 2023 so far – here’s how to see it Euclid: UK-backed space mission takes off to uncover mysteries of dark universe Astronomers discover ‘shooting stars’ on the Sun Tonight’s ’supermoon’ will be biggest full moon of 2023 so far – here’s how to see it Euclid: UK-backed space mission takes off to uncover mysteries of dark universe

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2023--

Thailand is preparing contingency plans to deal with a potential drought that could last years and squeeze global

Austin FC's veteran striker Gyasi Zardes opened the scoreboard Saturday night with his 100th MLS goal during the Copa Tejas match against state rivals the Houston Dynamo.

By Pete Schroeder WASHINGTON The chance for persistent inflation to keep interest rates higher and potential losses in

U.S. applications for jobless claims rose slightly last week but remain at healthy levels as companies seem reticent to let go of employees in a tight labor market

The key to understanding survival on Mars could all revolve around Britain’s deepest mine in North Yorkshire. It sounds surreal, but scientists are testing conditions a kilometre under the surface in a disused salt mine in order to plan and test out conditions on the Red Planet. Research is being undertaken by figures at the University of Birmingham, who have launched the new Bio-SPHERE project. The study is seeing a 3,000-metre tunnel network turned into a laboratory, with participants recreating conditions that humans would experience on the surface of the planet. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists are focusing their efforts in the Boulby salt mine which is north of the Yorkshire Wolds. A three-metre wide simulation module was the first research space to open there. The location has been chosen due to the ultra-low levels of radiation, with the tunnels used to gauge just how effective underground spaces are for blocking radiation. Lead researcher Dr Alexandra Iordachescu, in the University of Birmingham’s School of Chemical Engineering, said: “This new capability will help to gather information that can advise on life support systems, devices and biomaterials which could be used in medical emergencies in deep space. “The data is likely to bring numerous benefits for Earth-based applications as well, such as delivering biomedical interventions in remote areas or in hazardous environments.” NASA is developing a way to send humans to Mars in the 2030's - and a recent study has suggested women would be the best astronauts for this exploration. Researchers from the European Space Agency (ESA) found women use less oxygen, produce less carbon dioxide and require less food in comparison to males. A mission lasting 1,080 days with four women astronauts was simulated by researchers who found they needed 3.736 pounds less food, and saving more than $158 million in the process. 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.

An interesting thing to say on television.

Fox News has quietly changed a headline on a highly controversial article that equated a Pride flag hung at the White House with “grooming and paedophilia”. After a furious response from LGBTQ+ advocates and White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates, who accused the network of “characteristically lying through its teeth”, Fox altered the headline while keeping the central “grooming” allegations in the article. The original headline and a since-deleted tweet by Fox News’ lifestyle reporter Kerry Byrne read: “White House flew controversial new transgender flag that promotes grooming and pedophilia, say critics.” The article quoted a founder of the far-right Gays Against Groomers activist group who claimed the flag was a political statement about “indoctrinating kids and trans kids and pushing kids to sterilize and mutilate themselves”. Mr Bates later shared a screenshot of Mr Byrne’s request for comment on Twitter which made no mention of a link to paedophilia or grooming. “FoxNews is characteristically lying through their teeth,” Mr Bates tweeted. “Please see Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network. Fox never even communicated the malicious and discredited foundation of this article to the White House. Then they lie about whether we responded at all,” he tweeted. After the backlash, Fox News revised the headline on Wednesday to “White House flew controversial new transgender flag that troubles some critics in the gay community”. Fox Digital did not add a footnote explaining that the article had been changed. The flag in question, known as the Progress Pride flag, was designed by artist Daniel Quasar in 2018 and is based on the original multi-coloured rainbow flag and the transgender pride flag, according to Northwestern University. The White House confirmed to Mediaite that it had responded to Fox News to say it had been flying the flag for three years at Pride events. Fox News later updated its story after publication to include the response. The edited version included a line saying: “The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the flag’s design and meaning.” Twitter users pointed out that Fox’s parent company wrapped its logo in the same flag to promote inclusiveness in a corporate responsibility report in 2022. Fox News did not respond to The Independent‘s request for comment. A White House spokesperson referred The Independent to Mr Bates’ tweets. Fox News, other right-wing media organisations and far-right personalities have repeatedly pushed a narrative linking transgender rights to paedophilia. The “grooming conspiracy theory”, which has led to state legislatures passing dozens of punitive laws targeting the LGBTQ+ community, is based on “discredited research and junk science”, according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre. On Wednesday night, a Biden administration source told CNN: “Fox paid the biggest settlement in media history because they platformed dangerous lies, and the lesson they took from that experience is to repeat the same behaviour, including spreading baseless QAnon filth?” This comes after Fox News came under fire earlier this week for describing President Joe Biden as a “wannabe dictator” who tried to have “his political rival arrested” during Donald Trump’s post-arraignment speech. Read More White House condemns Fox News chyron calling Biden ‘wannabe dictator’ as broadcaster walks back accusation Trump news – live: Trump rejected efforts to settle classified papers as Melania spotted in NYC on birthday Barr, Pompeo, Pence, Haley: All the Trump allies who have now changed their tune over indictment After expulsion and reinstatement, Tennessee Reps. Pearson, Jones advance past Democratic primaries US, Japan, Philippines agree to strengthen security ties amid tensions over China, North Korea Commerce Department announces nearly $1 billion in grants for 'middle mile' internet access

Mama June and her daughter have been accused of 'financially dominating'