All posts tagged: flashing

‘Warning lights for a coming war are flashing red – and Britain is not prepared’ | UK News

‘Warning lights for a coming war are flashing red – and Britain is not prepared’ | UK News

Almost all warnings and indicators that a wider war is coming are flashing red and it is “breathtaking” that the UK government is failing to better prepare, a top academic has warned. Dr Rob Johnson, director of the Changing Character of Conflict Centre at Oxford University, said China is taking the steps that would be expected to have the ability to attack Taiwan, while Russia could well be readying to launch military operations against a NATO country. This comes on top of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is in its fifth year, and the US and Israeli war against Iran. Mr Johnson has compiled a list of 80 “indicators of conflict preparation and coming armed attack” by drawing on the lessons of history, including the run up to the Second World War. The indicators cover the kind of military activity and hostile diplomacy demonstrated by a nation that is preparing to launch an armed attack, as well as societal changes and government information campaigns. Asked how many of them are already flashing, Mr …

‘Every indicator is flashing red,’ says UN as it warns of record ‘climate imbalance’ | Science, Climate & Tech News

‘Every indicator is flashing red,’ says UN as it warns of record ‘climate imbalance’ | Science, Climate & Tech News

The Earth’s climate is in a “state of emergency”, according to the United Nations which has warned it is more out of balance than at any other time in observed history.  The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which is the UN’s weather agency, predicted that rapid and large-scale changes to the global climate in recent decades would trigger harmful repercussions lasting centuries. It comes as rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere drive global warming and melt ice. The WMO’s annual “state of the global climate” report, released on Monday, also highlighted the impact in 2025 of intense heatwaves, heavy rainfall, wildfires, drought, tropical cyclones, storms, and flooding, including widespread death and vast economic losses. Image: United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres. Pic: Reuters It further demonstrated the cascading impacts that extreme weather events were having worldwide, including food insecurity and displacement, and health risks driven by shifting rainfall patterns, like mosquito-borne dengue disease and heat stress. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned the global climate is in a “state of emergency”. “Planet Earth is being pushed beyond …

The Economy’s Warning Light Is Flashing Yellow

The Economy’s Warning Light Is Flashing Yellow

The job market is weakening, inflation is still too high, and we’re at serious risk of a once-in-50-years oil shock. This is almost the exact set of conditions that triggered the stagflation of the 1970s, which at the time was America’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. At the moment, the economy is still far from that kind of doomsday scenario, but the direction of travel is disquieting. The economy’s warning lights might not yet be flashing red, but they are certainly flashing yellow. The jobs report released this morning showed that the U.S. labor market lost 92,000 jobs in February, causing the unemployment rate to rise to 4.4 percent. The numbers for the previous two months, which had suggested decent job growth, were also revised downward: January now showed fewer job gains than initially estimated and December showed overall job losses. These new numbers continue the trend of last month’s revisions, which showed that the economy had added just 181,000 jobs in all of 2025, a tenth of the jobs that had been …

Can flashing light alter your mind? The science of stroboscopic stimulation

Can flashing light alter your mind? The science of stroboscopic stimulation

Light therapy sounds wholesome. Clean. Almost pastoral. Sit in front of a lamp. Feel better. In our latest episode of the Strange Health podcast, we discovered that it can also mean strapping on a flashing mask and watching your own brain generate kaleidoscopic hallucinations behind closed eyelids. The spark for this episode was a stroboscopic light device called the Lumenate Nova, promoted on social media by celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Rosamund Pike, who serves as the brand’s creative director and is also an investor. The device claims to use carefully timed pulses of light to guide users into altered, meditative states, described by the company as “sober tripping”. I was sceptical but gave it a go. “Sober tripping” sounded like a level of experimentation I could live with. After watching what looked like brightly coloured fireworks, I eventually felt as if I were surrounded by a mountainscape, basking in a warm ray of sunshine coming from the left side of my vision. I had to remind myself I was on my sofa in Doncaster …

Cyber flashing just become a priority offence – here’s what changes from today | Science, Climate & Tech News

Cyber flashing just become a priority offence – here’s what changes from today | Science, Climate & Tech News

Cyber flashing became illegal in 2024. Now, the government is making it a priority offence, putting the pressure on tech companies to do something about it.  Cyber flashing is when someone sends a non-consensual explicit picture – best known as a “dick pic”. It’s most often women on the receiving end and, according to research by dating app Bumble, the adults most likely to receive those images are women between 40 and 45 years old. That being said, it’s an extremely common experience online, with one in three teenage girls saying they’ve received an unwanted sexual image, according to YouGov data. What changes now? Under the Online Safety Act, which began being fully enforced in July last year, online platforms have to make sure they’re not hosting illegal content. If they are, they can be fined 10% of their revenue by Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, or £18m, whichever is higher. By making cyber flashing a priority offence, the government is signalling to the regulator and tech firms that it takes this crime particularly seriously. …

Cyber flashing just become a priority offence – here’s what changes from today | Science, Climate & Tech News

Cyber flashing just became a priority offence – here’s what changes from today | Science, Climate & Tech News

Cyber flashing became illegal in 2024. Now, the government is making it a priority offence, putting the pressure on tech companies to do something about it.  Cyber flashing is when someone sends a non-consensual explicit picture – best known as a “dick pic”. It’s most often women on the receiving end and, according to research by dating app Bumble, the adults most likely to receive those images are women between 40 and 45 years old. That being said, it’s an extremely common experience online, with one in three teenage girls saying they’ve received an unwanted sexual image, according to YouGov data. What changes now? Under the Online Safety Act, which began being fully enforced in July last year, online platforms have to make sure they’re not hosting illegal content. If they are, they can be fined 10% of their revenue by Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, or £18m, whichever is higher. By making cyber flashing a priority offence, the government is signalling to the regulator and tech firms that it takes this crime particularly seriously. …