All posts tagged: accidental

Man destined to get Alzheimer’s saved by accidental heat therapy

Man destined to get Alzheimer’s saved by accidental heat therapy

Published by skeptic

Doug Whitney (left, pictured with his son Brian in November 2022) is genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s, but has so far dodged the condition Shelby Lum/Associated Press/Alamy A man in the US who was virtually guaranteed to get early-onset Alzheimer’s disease because of his genetics has somehow dodged it, possibly thanks to his inadvertent heat exposure while working as a mechanic in ship engine rooms. The case fits with growing evidence from studies in humans and other animals that suggest that heat therapy may protect against the condition. Doug Whitney’s family carries a variant of a gene called Presenilin 2, inherited from ancestors who have been traced back to a small, 18th-century Volga German village. Carriers of this mutation, which causes aberrant folding of proteins in the brain, almost always develop Alzheimer’s disease in their late 40s or early 50s. “My family has been devastated by this disease,” Whitney said in a press statement. “My mom had 13 brothers and sisters, and 10 died before they were 60 years old. It’s been a plague.” Despite …

Man destined to get Alzheimer’s saved by accidental heat therapy

Man destined for Alzheimer’s may have been saved by accidental therapy

Published by skeptic

Doug Whitney (left, pictured with his son Brian in November 2022) is genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s, but has so far dodged the condition Shelby Lum/Associated Press/Alamy A man in the US who was virtually guaranteed to get early-onset Alzheimer’s disease because of his genetics has somehow dodged it, possibly thanks to his inadvertent heat exposure while working as a mechanic in ship engine rooms. The case fits with growing evidence from studies in humans and other animals that suggest that heat therapy may protect against the condition. Doug Whitney’s family carries a variant of a gene called Presenilin 2, inherited from ancestors who have been traced back to a small, 18th-century Volga German village. Carriers of this mutation, which causes aberrant folding of proteins in the brain, almost always develop Alzheimer’s disease in their late 40s or early 50s. “My family has been devastated by this disease,” Whitney said in a press statement. “My mom had 13 brothers and sisters, and 10 died before they were 60 years old. It’s been a plague.” Despite …

How ‘Big Mistakes’ Made Its Protagonist an Accidental Style God

How ‘Big Mistakes’ Made Its Protagonist an Accidental Style God

Published by Jenni Sidey

When we first meet Big Mistakes protagonist Nicky Dardano, played by the Netflix series’s showrunner and co-creator Dan Levy, he looks like he’s dressed to knock on doors somewhere in midcentury America: pleated khakis, tucked-in shirt, necktie, browline glasses. It’s almost a little Wally Cleaver. But then the details begin to assert themselves. The foulard tie has a certain retro zing; the leather belt hangs just right. His shirts and trousers are perfectly roomy and rumpled in a way that feels lifted straight from a menswear influencer’s Instagram feed. For a character who supposedly doesn’t care about clothes, Nicky looks uncannily in step with the current moment. Big Mistakes follows Nicky—a high-strung, people-pleasing pastor—and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) as a series of poor decisions pulls them deeper and deeper into the criminal underworld of the New Jersey suburbs. “We imagined that he got his clothes from the leftovers bin of a church charity drive,” says Courtney Wheeler, the show’s costume designer. She compares his look to “those grandpas who have that accidental drip.” The …

Militarized snowflakes: The accidental beauty of Renaissance star forts

Militarized snowflakes: The accidental beauty of Renaissance star forts

Published by Jenni Sidey

War is hell. But war is also geometry. And geometry can be quite beautiful. Prime examples of that disturbing paradox are the so-called star forts that proliferated throughout Renaissance Europe. Seen from above, these bastioned fortifications resemble elaborate ornamental diagrams, or perhaps even sacred mandalas. Yet their snowflake-like beauty was unintended. These were machines of war, developed from a mathematical attempt to solve a practical military problem: how to defend an army or a city from enemy artillery. Typical star-shaped fortification from Jean Errard’s influential 1596 treatise. (Credit: Jean Errard, public domain) Foundational to fortification theory was Jean Errard’s 1594 treatise La fortification réduicte en art et démonstrée, in which the French mathematician and engineer used geometry to formalize military architecture, helping to transform fort-building from a traditional craft into a discipline grounded in mathematics. The resulting star forts (so called because of their multiple fortified extrusions) solved a technological crisis. Medieval fortresses, built to withstand ladders, catapults, and siege engines, were no match for gunpowder-powered artillery, the 15th century’s major military innovation. A cannon …

The accidental hacker: how one man gained control of 7,000 robots | Homes

The accidental hacker: how one man gained control of 7,000 robots | Homes

Published by Sam Flores

Name: The accidental hacker. Age: It doesn’t matter how old Sammy Azdoufal is. What he did is what’s important here, and what he did is very much of the age. And what did Azdoufal do? He hooked up his DJI Romo vacuum cleaner to his PS5 controller. Why? Because, he told the New York-based tech news publication the Verge, it sounded fun. OK, each to their own. And how did he do this? He used an AI coding assistant, Claude Code, to reverse-engineer how the home robot vacuum communicated with DJI’s remote cloud servers … Whoa, you’re losing me. I’m losing myself too, to be honest. Look, Azdoufal is a software engineer, he’s the head of AI strategy at a holiday rental company, he knows how to do this stuff. But what’s interesting is what happened next … What happened next? Presumably he lay on the sofa, directing his vacuum cleaner with his joystick – which does actually sound fun, even if it slightly negates the whole point of a robot. He found that not …

Pulp Fiction actor Peter Greene’s cause of death revealed as ‘accidental’ tragedy

Pulp Fiction actor Peter Greene’s cause of death revealed as ‘accidental’ tragedy

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Pulp Fiction actor Peter Greene’s cause of death has been revealed, two months after he was found unresponsive in his New York apartment. Greene, who played memorable villains in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film as well as Jim Carrey comedy The Mask, died on 12 December 2025. On Wednesday (18 February), the New York City medical examiner said that Greene’s death was caused by an accidental gunshot wound to the armpit. The cause was officially listed as “gunshot wound of left axilla with injury of brachial artery”. No other details were given. Greene won the Best Actor prize at the 1994 Taormina International Film Festival for his star-making role in Lodge Kerrigan’s Clean, Shaven, in which he played a man with schizophrenia. He later accepted numerous villain roles, in films including The Mask, where he played mafia kingpin Dorian Tyrell, and The …

Accidental discovery hints at mystery structures within our brain

Accidental discovery hints at mystery structures within our brain

Published by skeptic

Lymphatic-like structures within the brain of a healthy person Shiju Gan/Harvard University Your brain may contain a hidden network of vessels that helps it dispose of metabolic waste. If confirmed to be true in future studies, the discovery could transform our understanding of the brain and even reveal new therapies for conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. “If it’s true, this is huge,” says Per Kristian Eide at Oslo University in Norway, who wasn’t involved in the research. “It would represent a paradigm shift in our understanding of all neurodegenerative diseases, but also conditions like stroke and traumatic brain injury, and our normal brain function.” The brain cleans itself by releasing metabolic waste into the glymphatic system, a network of channels surrounding the brain’s blood vessels that feed into the lymphatic system, the body’s drainage and filtration system. Most imaging studies haven’t spotted lymphatic vessels within the brain, only in its protective outer layer. But now, Chongzhao Ran at Harvard University and his colleagues may have discovered a hidden network of lymphatic-like brain vessels inside the brain …

Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro: What the Accidental Leak

Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro: What the Accidental Leak

Published by skeptic

Samsung may have unintentionally revealed its upcoming wireless earbuds, the Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, through its Lockstar app within the Goodlock customization suite. This unexpected leak provides an early glimpse into the next generation of Samsung’s audio devices, which promise advancements in design, sound quality, and durability. The official launch is scheduled to coincide with the Galaxy S26 release on February 25, 2026, and pricing is expected to remain consistent with the Galaxy Buds 3 series, making these new earbuds an accessible upgrade for many users. How the Leak Happened The leak originated from Samsung’s Lockstar app, a tool designed to enhance user interface customization within the Goodlock suite. The app inadvertently listed the Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro by name, offering an unplanned preview of the company’s upcoming audio devices. This slip-up not only confirms their existence but also hints at Samsung’s broader strategy of integrating hardware and software for a seamless user experience. For you, this means a more cohesive ecosystem where devices work together effortlessly, …

Alan Carr admits to accidental Celebrity Traitors final revelation

Alan Carr admits to accidental Celebrity Traitors final revelation

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Comedian Alan Carr has confessed to BBC’s Celebrity Traitors just 12 hours after filming the final episode, admitting he “felt so stupid”. Carr, 49, was a Traitor on the celebrity edition of the popular reality series, which aired last autumn. He dramatically secured the win and triumphed over Faithfuls historian David Olusoga and actor Nick Mohammed in a tense finale. Speaking on BBC Radio 2’s The Scott Mills Breakfast Show, Carr explained that the secret of his triumph on the show slipping out during the filming of Channel 4’s gameshow Secret Genius. He said: “I felt so stupid. When I did The Traitors, I looked at my work diary and my agent had actually put in work after the first week, and I said ‘oh no, I’m doing The Traitors’. “He said, ‘Alan, you’ll be out first week with your motor …