List of All Articles with Tag 'science'

Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter to 'X' continues as the new logo is officially placed on top of the company's building in San Fransisco, and just as almost every decision made by Musk since he took over the platform, this one is being made fun of just the same. The X has appeared on top of the building after San Francisco police stopped workers on Monday from removing Twitter's bird logo from the side of the building after they hadn't taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe in the case that something fell. Any change to the sing also requires a permit to make sure that everything is safely attached as well as ensuring that any letters or symbols are consistent "with the historical nature of the building," according to Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection. In light of the 'X' now on top of the building, the city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation as planning review and approval is also necessary for the sign. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter After a photo of the new sign was posted on social media, many continued to mock Musk for his persistence to rebrand the website: Musk has tweeted photos and videos of the new sign as well as saying that the landlord of the building "keeps calling the police about our sign modifications!" The 'X' logo appeared at the top of the desktop version of the site on Monday as Musk works on rebranding the entire platform. 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.

By his early twenties, Pan Gongsheng’s ambition had already propelled him from a farming village in eastern China

Managerial decisions laced with ego are brutal, and you'll get the chance to make some especially brutal decisions in F1 Manager 23, the second instalment of Frontier's F1 Manager series that looks to do for Formula One what Football Manager did for football - only with the polish of official licensing. In F1 Manager, you swap the driving seat for the boss' headset. You're less Max Verstappen and more Christian Horner. You'll develop cars, hire/fire drivers and staff, build facilites, call-in pit stops, tweak engineering, and lead race-day tactics. In essence, you're doing everything except steering the thing. You're letting your hand-picked disciples carry out your masterplan. So, those decisions? Lance Stroll was out of the door - I'm telling you. Why? Well - I wanted an Aston Martin dream team of my own making. I wanted Fernando Alonso paired with a Lewis Hamilton, a Charles Leclerc, a Lando Norris - even a Daniel Ricciardo. I wanted to transform the brand into a mythical Formula One beast, a team pairing of legend (even if it risked the Hamilton v Alonso disaster of years gone by, but they've both grown up now. I wanted a legend in that car. I prayed I could bring back Sebastian Vettel, but I couldn't. And with all of this whirring in my mind, Stroll did the damnedest thing. It's Saudi Arabia. Race week 2 of the season and my mind is made up. Despite my bias favouring Alonso in terms of car build and strategy, Stroll finishes third. Of course, my instructions nurse him to that position - but he is performing with the deck stacked against him. Monaco comes, and Stroll places ahead of Alonso. The only thing I could do is start to sandbag him and reduce his practice time - or god forbid, refuse to send him out for qualifying. That wouldn't be right though, would it? Here - in my own little world - the idea of F1 emerged in its most maximalist form. A rich playboy starts to lead the pack amongst his gifted peers. Somehow, perhaps only in my world, Stroll had pitched ahead of Alonso. His confidence was greater, and he was performing better. Nothing that F1 Manager 23 can provide will better the stories you make in your own head, but the game provides the tools to see those stories play out in a virtual sandbox - and with results you might not expect. Or be banking on. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Rewrite history The entire point of sport management simulations is to write your own history and make your own story, but new to F1 Manager this year is the entertaining ability to re-write history. The new 'Race Replay' mode offers players the perhaps 'easier' task of taking over the pitlane control and strategy for one team per real-life race weekend. Fancy taking McLaren over the finish line at the recent British Grand Prix? You can! Will you pit Norris for fresh tyres or hope he struggles to hold the pack up for Piastri to complete a 'Papaya Podium'? It's your call (I put Norris on fresh tyres and forgot about Piastri, thus failing the challenge). There are two modes within Race Replay - one, where you can plan glory from your chosen team's starting position, another where you can dive mid-race into a selected scenario. The point is this: It lets you put your money where your mouth is. Especially if you've been losing it at Ferrari's decision making over the years (rightly so). It's an entertaining mode for the week-in and week-out fan - and a very welcome addition Practice makes perfect - and career mode is a blast (again) The meat of F1 Manager 2023 takes place in the career mode, which is simple enough to understand; but has grown quite brutal in some aspects. Not a great deal has changed - but very much like Football Manager releases, there's extra layers of polish and additional depth. The new addition of tyre temperatures adds even more discomfort to race weekends. There are fully simulated feeder leagues so that you can plan for the future. Sprint races are also a thing in-game. It also appears that the financial structures from last year have been adjusted. The cost cap is more of a presence, and you certainly feel the budget impact as a 'weaker' team when a driver whacks a car into a wall, because it will scupper your car development plans. The driving AI feels much improved, and opposition cars and managers will try to game you with pit stops and tyre changes. The pit stops are also a 'new feature' as, just like your car, you can improve your pit staff to increase your marginal gains. All of this builds into a fairly dramatic experience come raceday. The outcome hinges on your decisions, and there are a few more tactical options this time around. You can demand that Lance Stroll - for instance - defends hard against the chasing pack to make room for Fernando Alonso to catch up or progress ahead. You could tell Alonso to give it his all in overtakes. Likewise, you can tell them to cool off - in addition to the existing options of pushing tyres and fuel, All of this will have an impact on your lap times, and of course, tyre condition. Race days can be slightly boring if you're starting from the back, but there's as many unique thrills in snatching a point as there are fighting for a podium. When your strategy pays off - with help from inclement weather and drivers - it feels incredible. When a driver slips off track, or when you get your calls wrong it feels awful, plain and simple. When drivers compliment the car setup during practice, it's a neat win. When they diss it, it's a pain. And that in itself is perhaps F1 Manager's greatest achievement. It captures the intensity of race weekends in a bottle. Verdict F1 Manager could look better. It could be deeper. It could feature more customisation (likely hamstrung by licensing anyway), and certainly more audio lines from engineers and drivers to avoid robotic 2024/2025/2026 seasons. You should be able to add your own team like in the F1 2023 series. The 'jank' which comes with the territory of a math-based game engine rather than a physics-based engine is all-too noticeable once you see a race car crash (as it was last year). However, there is genuine brilliance within F1 Manager 23. Particularly for newcomers who might be put off by the depth of the game. Unlike last year, they can now can live their Drive To Survive fantasy with the Race Replay feature before jumping into career-mode Diehards can enjoy it all the same, and then get to grips with the lurking threat of tyre temperatures and tactical options. By next season, ideally we'll be talking about an F1 Manager game that is complete with all the features needed to land the perfect Formula 1 sandbox. What we have, though, is a game that is in the slipstream to greatness. It's a game that ticks all the boxes for F1 fans, who can put their knowledge to the test and enjoy building a great car, and a great team. 8/10 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.

Ever wondered why certain people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than others? A study has been conducted with the express aim of finding the specific personality traits that cause people to buy into certain theories – and the results go against the sentiment that it’s down to lack of education or knowledge. Shauna Bowes of the Emory University clinical psychologist expressed that there are sometimes complex reasons why people choose to believe them. "Conspiracy theorists are not all likely to be simple-minded, mentally unwell folks – a portrait which is routinely painted in popular culture," says Emory University clinical psychologist Shauna Bowes. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "Instead, many turn to conspiracy theories to fulfil deprived motivational needs and make sense of distress and impairment." The research, which was published in the Psychological Bulletin, involved 170 studies mainly from the US, UK, and Poland and looked into the reasons behind certain beliefs. The biggest reasons they found related to a desire in the subjects to feel safe and to be socially secure, as well as to understand their environment. "Our findings reveal that motivations at large are important, perhaps even essential, pieces of the conspiratorial ideation puzzle," the paper reads. Lower analytical thinking did have a significant correlation to believing conspiracies, but it was actually individual and collective narcissism, and a need to feel unique which had a stronger link. "These results largely map onto a recent theoretical framework advancing that social identity motives may give rise to being drawn to the content of a conspiracy theory, whereas people who are motivated by a desire to feel unique are more likely to believe in general conspiracy theories about how the world works," Bowes said. 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.

As if changing Twitter's name to X wasn't enough, Elon Musk is now raising eyebrows with his plans to make the app dark mode-only. "It is better in every way,” the Tesla and SpaceX chief tweeted, confirming it would be bidding farewell to the iconic blue and white theme. Linda Yaccarino, who recently became CEO, has expressed that the app will move away from its short-form nature, and become a 'global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities'. However, users are already in mourning before the transition has begun. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Observers will have a good chance at spotting a dazzling display of meteors and even fireballs during 2023's Perseid meteor shower.

Scientists have resurrected a parasite which has been dormant in the frozen permafrost of Siberia for 46,000 years. The microscopic creatures were first uncovered as part of a remarkable discovery back in 2018. At the time, researchers led by Anastasia Shatilovich found two of the worms in sub-zero temperatures in the soil. At first, it was previously thought that the creatures could stay in their slumber for just 40 years. However, it was later revealed that they could stay inactive for tens of thousands of years. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The creatures tend to shut down their systems when they are in unfavourable conditions. This means they won’t move or reproduce, and their metabolism stops. Carbon analysis has revealed that the worms – also known as nematodes – came from a prehistoric era. The developments could change the way experts approach bringing back other extinct species, too. During an analysis, the research team discovered the worms were Panagrolaimus kolymaensis - a species that was previously thought to be extinct. The scientists wrote in their paper: “Previously, we had shown that nematodes from the Siberian permafrost with morphologies consistent with the genera Panagrolaimus and Plectus could be reanimated thousands of years after they had been frozen. “Several viable nematode individuals were found in two of the more than 300 studied samples of permafrost deposits spanning different ages and genesis.” It’s not the only thing that scientists have recovered from permafrost, either. It was announced earlier this year that scientists are busy working on reviving 'zombie viruses’ that have been lying dormant for tens of thousands of years in Arctic conditions, and while it sounds absolutely terrifying, it could be important when it comes to protecting us all in the future. 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.

It’s lonely at the top – just ask Elon Musk’s former colleagues. The Twitter owner tells the same jokes and anecdotes “over and over” and “seems quite alone,” according to a former senior executive at the company. Esther Crawford, who went viral last year after being pictured sleeping on the floor of Twitter’s office while trying to meet a tough deadline set by Musk, shared her thoughts in a post on the platform which was recently renamed X. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Crawford joined Twitter when it bought her startup in 2020, well before the billionaire took over the social media platform in a $44bn deal last year. The former head of product development, who was sacked in February as part of a round of 200 layoffs, said: “Elon is oddly charming and he's genuinely funny. He also has personality quirks like telling the same stories and jokes over and over. “The challenge is his personality and demeanour can turn on a dime going from excited to angry. “Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him.” She said Twitter employees feared being called into meetings with him or having to deliver bad news. “At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said.” “Product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn't seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. “I saw a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work.” Meanwhile, Musk appeared to put more faith in random feedback and Twitter polls than in his employees who were working to troubleshoot problems. She said: “His boldness, passion and storytelling is inspiring, but his lack of process and empathy is painful.” However, she didn’t pull any punches about the previous management either, calling it “bloated” and “soft and entitled” where “teams could spend months building a feature and then some last-minute kerfuffle meant it'd get killed for being too risky.” Musk recently killed off the iconic bluebird Twitter logo, replacing it with a white X. He has said he wants to create a super-app inspired by China’s WeChat which would offer messaging and payments as well as social media. That vision may be difficult to make a reality, after the collapse of the platform’s advertising business as marketers soured on Musk’s decision to fire thousands of employees and dial down its content moderation efforts. 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.

Europe’s wildfire threat is spreading to the French Riviera, while firefighters in Greece battle more than 100 blazes.

Ever wondered why people say they can smell rain before it rains? They are not pulling your leg - there is real science behind it. It is all because of petrichor, made up from the Greek words "petra", meaning stone, and '"ichor", which refers to the golden fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in their mythology. It basically means the the "smell of rain" with the phrase coined by Australian scientists Joy Bear and Richard Thomas in 1964. Jeff Weber, a meteorologist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Unidata Program Center told the Mirror: "Petrichor is caused by oils derived from plants, primarily leaves, that accumulate over dry periods. These oils settle into soils or onto pavement over time and are released into the atmosphere by being disturbed by rainfall." According to the Met Office, the reason people claim to smell rain because it comes is because "when a higher humidity is experienced as a precursor to rain, the pores of rocks and soil become trapped with moisture forcing some of the oils to be released into the air". Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Despite some being released before it actually rains, the strongest smell is released during. This is when raindrops landing on soil "trap tiny air bubbles on the surface which then shoot upward" and "burst out of the drop throwing aerosols of scent into the air where they are then distributed by the wind". The smell is produced by a soil bacteria which releases a chemical called geosmin, which provides an "earthy", musky or fresh aroma. Before it rains, a person might be able to smell the scent of ozone, or O3, which is a naturally present gas in the atmosphere which gets its name from the Greek word 'ozein', or smell. It sometimes indicate that a storm is on the way because pockets of gas are pushed down to ground level by winds. This means that those who are sensitive to the smells will likely be able to pick them up. So now you know. 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.

The release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has generated a flurry of interest in the man behind the atomic bomb, Julius Robert Oppenheimer. The film tells the story of the physicist and his role in the Manhattan Project, which was the the codename given to the development of the A-bomb. Oppenheimer, who referred to himself as “death, destroyer of worlds”, was the figurehead of the project, which involved splitting the atom and the devastation wrought by two atomic bombs being dropped on Japan in 1945. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The first bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. It killed tens of thousands of people. It was nicknamed Little Boy. Oppenheimer Atomic bomb How it Works | First Nuclear Bomb www.youtube.com A second bomb fell days later on the city of Nagasaki, this time nicknamed Fat Man. Historians believe more than 200,000 people died as a result of the events, with millions more severely affected. Now, YouTube channel AiTelly has produced a video of what exactly happens inside such a weapon to create such a wave of destruction. The animation shows that when the bomb falls, it activates a switch that triggers a trio of navy gun primers, which in turn ignite a charge inside the weapon. Four silk powder bags containing two pounds of cordite, an explosive powder, push the the uranium projectile forward at 300 metres-per-second. The uranium collides with more uranium at the front of the bomb, combining them with four polonium initiators, which create nuclear fission. This is the act of splitting the atom, and it is what creates the huge expulsion of energy – the explosion. 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.

A meteor exploded over the Atlantic Ocean at a force comparable to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during the Second World War. While this may sound like a scary prospect, there is nothing to worry about as this asteroid did not actually hit the Earth. The debris burned up at a height of around 31 kilometres above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil, experts say. Data from NASA showed that the meteor appeared to release the equivalent energy of around 12,000 tonnes of TNT - that's approximately 12 kilotons of explosive power. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Similarly, the Hiroshima Bomb detonated with an approximate energy of 15 kilotons – that is, 15 thousand tonnes of TNT equivalent. This force caused devastation in the Japanese city and killed at least 80,000 people instantly, with tens of thousands dying later due to radiation exposure. Although 12 kilotonnes does sound like a lot, there have also been other explosions that have had a higher number than this. One example is the 450 kilotons of explosive energy (0.45 megatons) released as a result of the Chelyabinsk meteor back in 2013 - 26 to 33 times as much energy as the Hiroshima Bomb. The house-sized asteroid exploded 14 miles above the ground and generated a shock wave that blew out windows over 200 square miles and damaged some buildings. Over 1,600 people were injured in the blast, mostly due to broken glass, according to NASA. Elsewhere, amazing footage captures the moment a meteor crashes into the moon and, scientists discover a secret planet hiding in our solar system. 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.