All posts tagged: Eyes

Sea spider with hairy feet, three lips, and red eyes found in Canada

Sea spider with hairy feet, three lips, and red eyes found in Canada

Published by Jenni Sidey

Halloween season doesn’t technically start until October, but marine biologists are celebrating a little early this year. In a recently published study for the journal Organisms Diversity & Evolution, ecologists at the University of British Columbia have described a pair of newly identified oceanic horrors. Two species of sea spider—one that views the world through red eyes, and another crawling with parasites. Sea spiders aren’t spiders, per se, but they are related to arachnids and fellow arthropods such as horseshoe crabs and scorpions. The ocean animals first evolved around 500 million years ago and range anywhere between less than half-an-inch to over two feet in size. Some species have as many as 12 legs, while most of them suck up their nutrients using a proboscis.  “They’ve retained some weird traits,” conceded UBC zoologist and study co-author Cormac Toler-Scott in a university profile. T. kiixin is unable to properly clean itself with its short legs, which attracts parasites. Credit: Cormac Toler-Scott The weirdness doesn’t stop there. Sea spiders breathe through the skin, and females produce eggs …

This App Makes Your Laptop Screen Look Like Paper

This App Makes Your Laptop Screen Look Like Paper

Published by skeptic

Tech is so sterile now—everything lives on the same shiny screens. It’s nice, then, when you find an application that exists mostly just to add a little grit to these devices. That’s how I’m interpreting Paperman, which makes everything on your computer screen look like it’s printed on paper. The application, from Finnish developers DoublOne, does this by adding a textural overlay onto everything you see on the screen. I’m typing this on my MacBook, but everything on my screen looks like it’s on premium stationery. Fans of old video games know about CRT filters, which emulate the look of old convex displays. Paperman is like that, but it mimics paper instead of a retro television. Just open the application, choose which kind of paper you want, and your entire display gets overlaid with a pleasing texture. The goal is to help you focus on your work and to make the screen more pleasing to look at. The developers have collected a bunch of academic research, collected on a page on Paperman’s website, that points …

Trump eyes busy week of meetings as UN General Assembly gathers

Trump eyes busy week of meetings as UN General Assembly gathers

Published by Sam Flores

MEETING WITH DEMOCRATIC MAYOR Trump, a Republican who is originally from New York City, is also set to meet on Monday with Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the mayor’s office told Reuters in a statement on Sunday.  The meeting will take place at the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion, and will focus on “issues affecting New York City and New Yorkers”, it said. The two politicians have criticised each other’s policy positions and hold radically different worldviews, yet their first meeting last November at the White House proved to be friendly, and Mamdani described their second meeting earlier this year as productive. A White House official confirmed the meeting with Mamdani. ZELENSKYY MEETING ON TUESDAY Also on Trump’s agenda is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said in a social media post on Sunday that he and Trump agreed to meet in New York.  The Ukrainian leader did not say when the meeting would take place, but a person familiar with the matter said it is expected to happen on Tuesday. The White House did not respond …

China Rare Earth Giant Eyes Takeover Of MP Materials’ Seventh-Largest Shareholder As Resource War Intensifies

China Rare Earth Giant Eyes Takeover Of MP Materials’ Seventh-Largest Shareholder As Resource War Intensifies

Published by Jenni Sidey

One way to view the Reuters report saying that state-owned China Rare Earth Group is in takeover talks with Shenghe Resources is that the deal could further cement Beijing’s control over critical materials, especially rare earths. But what’s most intriguing is that Shenghe holds a minority stake in US rare earth producer MP Materials. The potential takeover would bring one of China’s top rare earth mining and refining companies under the state group’s control, with some private ownership. It would also extend that control to Shenghe’s overseas holdings, including a 3.11% stake (7th largest shareholder) in MP Materials. The outlet reported: Talks between the two companies have been underway since earlier this year, said the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter. China Rare Earth Group wants to take a controlling stake, one of the people said. The takeover would almost certainly cause some alarms in Washington: a major Chinese state-owned supplier could inherit a minority holding in a US company amid efforts by Washington to break China’s stranglehold …

Zach Cregger Reboot Movie Eyes Big Opening

Zach Cregger Reboot Movie Eyes Big Opening

Published by Daniella Wilson

Resident Evil looks to get off to a running start in its opening weekend at the box office. Sony Pictures releases writer-director Zach Cregger‘s horror-survival video game adaptation on Friday in roughly 3,500 North American theaters, with the studio projecting a debut frame of $40 million for the three-day weekend. This is in line with third-party tracking services, although some of those have upped their expectations in recent days as interest heats up, with the possibility that the opening gets close to $50 million or higher. It carries a $75 million production budget. A launch of $40 million would give the new Resident Evil the distinction of the highest-grossing opening in the history of the franchise. The series’ previous titles have collectively grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide. Hailing from TriStar Pictures, Constantin Film and Davis Film, Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser in the story of a medical courier (Abrams) attempting to deliver a precious item in the midst of a deadly viral outbreak in Raccoon City. …

Japan eyes changing prostitution law to punish sex buyers

Japan eyes changing prostitution law to punish sex buyers

Published by Sam Flores

TOKYO: Japan should overhaul its prostitution law to punish those who seek to buy sex, experts recommended on Thursday (Sep 17) in proposals likely to lead to changes to the decades-old legislation. Currently, street sex workers face fines or imprisonment for public solicitation, but their customers face no punishment, making Japan an outlier among developed countries. Calling for the abolition of this asymmetry, the panel of legal experts proposed in a report that clients also be penalised for solicitation both in public and online. It is seen as almost certain that the justice ministry will make legal amendments based on the panel’s conclusions. Acts such as negotiating paid sex in public and loitering on the street to “browse” sex workers should be considered punishable, the panel said. Some campaigners have demanded a “Nordic model” that decriminalises selling sex while criminalising paying for it – adopted by countries like Sweden, Norway and France. However, the panel did not recommend decriminalising sex work altogether or redefining prostitution to include acts beyond vaginal intercourse. Some sellers, the panel …

Diesel Crack Spread Explodes To Record As Russia Weighs Longer Export Ban, US Eyes Its Own

Diesel Crack Spread Explodes To Record As Russia Weighs Longer Export Ban, US Eyes Its Own

Published by Jenni Sidey

Diesel futures and refining spreads climbed to record highs as worsening supply disruptions in the Gulf and Russia tightened availability of the industrial fuel that powers the global economy. Potential export restrictions, or at least extending risk, are compounding the squeeze: Moscow is reportedly considering extending its diesel export ban, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday he was “open to exploring” a US diesel export ban. Nymex heating oil futures, the US benchmark for diesel, jumped 6.1% Tuesday to their highest settlement in records dating to 1986. European gasoil futures climbed 6.2% to a record in data going back to 1989.  The squeeze was even more severe in refining spreads. The US heating oil crack, which measures the difference between fuel and crude prices, surged to $117 a barrel on Wednesday morning, the highest level in Bloomberg data going back to 2009. Moves in diesel and refining spreads show the energy shock isn’t necessarily in crude available on global markets but is, in fact, festering deep inside the industrial fuel market as …

The Download: AI’s real extinction threat and age-reversal tech for eyes

The Download: AI’s real extinction threat and age-reversal tech for eyes

Published by skeptic

Join MIT Technology Review executive editor Niall Firth, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, and AI reporter Grace Huckins for a subscriber-only conversation unpacking the debate around AI extinction. They’ll explore where the fears come from, whether they hold any water and, if they do, what we should do about them. Register now to attend on Tuesday, September 15 at 16:00 BST / 11:00am EST / 8:00am PST. Want to join the conversation? Subscribe to MIT Technology Review for exclusive access to all our Roundtables. This geneticist’s age-reversal tech could help restore sight Yuancheng (Ryan) Lu is obsessed with aging. And with eyes. As he steps outside the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his aviator glasses darken automatically in the sun. Age-related blindness runs in his family, and his own 23andMe test came back with a mutation for macular degeneration, a top cause of vision loss in old age. That obsession extends to his work. Lu is behind one of the coolest results in rejuvenation science and eye research: an age-reversal technique called reprogramming that …

Swedish far-right eyes role in government

Swedish far-right eyes role in government

Published by Sam Flores

As Sweden heads into a closely fought election, the far right is gaining ground by tapping into concerns over crime and security, issues that some voters increasingly associate with migration. On FRANCE 24, Stockholm University sociologist Zeth Isaksson said the movement has also softened its image in recent years, making it more acceptable to a broader electorate, while also cautioning against overstating the strength of the far right in Sweden. Source link

Andy Burnham eyes expanding support for fan-owned sports clubs | Politics News

Andy Burnham eyes expanding support for fan-owned sports clubs | Politics News

Published by Sam Flores

Andy Burnham wants to expand support for fan-owned sports clubs, reviving a policy he helped pioneer under New Labour. At his first meeting with Co-operative Labour MPs, the prime minister pointed to the Supporters Direct organisation he chaired early in his career and said the government should “look to work on it again”, sources who were present told Sky News. Supporters Direct helped set up more than 200 supporters trusts for football clubs, giving fans a voice and financial stake in how they operate. The movement saved many clubs from ruin with around 50 football clubs now fully or partially fan-owned, including EFL clubs AFC Wimbledon and Exeter. Under fan-owned models, financial surplus is traditionally reinvested back into the club rather than paid out as dividends to outside shareholders. No clubs operate this way in the Premier League but it has been praised as a solution to stop exploitation lower down in the game. One MP present at the meeting said fan-owned sport was “definitely a personal passion” of the prime minister, although they conceded …