All posts tagged: Foundations

Does dark energy really exist? Our work identifies cracks in the foundations of today’s cosmological model

Does dark energy really exist? Our work identifies cracks in the foundations of today’s cosmological model

Published by skeptic

According to our best understanding, the universe is expanding – and is doing so at an accelerating rate. This is believed to be caused by something called the “cosmological constant”, which was first proposed by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity. In recent decades, it has become better known as dark energy, which is believed to make up about 70% of the universe. Crucial to this realisation were studies of Type Ia supernovae – exploding white dwarf stars. These are thought to emit a specific amount of light, which allows astronomers to determine their distances very accurately and thereby track the expansion of the universe. This work was awarded the 2011 Nobel prize in physics. The accelerating expansion of the universe is thought to be due to negative pressure, an unusual property of dark energy that allows it to overcome the attractive force of gravity. Yet the exact nature of dark energy remains a puzzle. It cannot be explained by our best theory for the fundamental building blocks of the universe – known …

Babies are born with the neural foundations for maths

Babies are born with the neural foundations for maths

Published by skeptic

We are born with an understanding of numbers, which has probably given us a huge evolutionary advantage Marc Calleja / Alamy Babies are born with an innate sense of numbers, and now, the brain mechanisms behind this ability have been identified for the first time. Within days or even hours of being born, a group of babies could distinguish between four and 12 stimuli, with their brain activity showing how this rudimentary sense of numerosity is in place. “Extracting numerical information from the environment is just like seeing the world in colour, for most people,” says Brian Butterworth at University College London, who wasn’t involved in the research. By which, he means that having a sense of numbers is part of our essential “start-up” toolkit. Just as you look at a bowl of pears and perceive them as green without having to reason, the brain is also primed to extract an approximate quantity from a scene. Marco Buiatti at the University of Trento in Italy and his colleagues wanted to examine the brain mechanisms that …

Artist Foundations Control B. in Assets, Topped by Twombly at .5 B.

Artist Foundations Control $9 B. in Assets, Topped by Twombly at $1.5 B.

Published by Jenni Sidey

Since the 1990s, a small network of artist-endowed foundations has expanded dramatically, now controlling roughly $9 billion in assets, according to new research collected by the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundation Initiative (AEFI), a center that studies philanthropy in the U.S. The researchers tracked how, as the country’s economy has grown, a few hundred artists in the U.S. established nonprofits and endowed foundations before their deaths in the U.S., creating legal and financial frameworks to protect and promote their work. That latest figure is up about 17 percent from the $7.7 billion reported in 2018 when AEFI, which has offices in Washington, D.C. and New York, last published their findings. The new number is nearly triple the $3.5 billion the group reported in 2011. Related Articles According to financial figures provided by AEFI’s director, Christine J. Vincent, and reviewed by ARTnews,  just five of the roughly 500 foundations captured in their research hold well over 50 percent of the $9 billion total, with Cy Twombly’s foundation alone presiding over $1.5 billion in assets, including art works. The …

Tracy Sturdivant, the Ms. Foundation’s Next Leader, Wants to Expand the Feminist Funder’s Coalition

Tracy Sturdivant, the Ms. Foundation’s Next Leader, Wants to Expand the Feminist Funder’s Coalition

Published by Sam Flores

NEW YORK (AP) — It is rare, the Ms. Foundation’s next leader acknowledged, for a Black woman to take the helm of a major nonprofit from another Black woman. It is even rarer, she noted, for that organization to be financially healthy. And yet that is the position Tracy Sturdivant will enter when she succeeds Teresa Younger as the president and CEO of the first national philanthropy run by and for women. The Ms. Foundation introduced Sturdivant on Tuesday at its annual New York City gala, where feminists such as #MeToo founder Tarana Burke were honored. The foundation is “not in crisis,” but “ready for what’s to come” with Sturdivant in charge, Younger said in a statement shared ahead of the announcement. The foundation built a $100 million-plus endowment and explicitly centered women and girls of color during her tenure. With that strong footing Sturdivant sees an opportunity to expand the coalition of people who see gender justice as their charge, too. As many funders disinvest from Black-led nonprofits, she is committed to “unapologetically” supporting …

The best foundations in the UK for every skin type – from glowy to full coverage, tested | Beauty

The best foundations in the UK for every skin type – from glowy to full coverage, tested | Beauty

Published by Sam Flores

As a makeup-loving teenager, I spent countless hours of my precious youth practising how to apply makeup, and spent more money than I dare to count buying products. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. My cosmetics drawers quickly filled with fun mascaras, bronzers and eyeshadow palettes, but my choice of foundation was ruining the look of anything I applied on top. Whether it was oxidising and turning my skin orange, or mismatched formulation types causing the whole look to separate on the skin, getting a lasting natural finish seemed impossible. Had I spent a little more time picking out the best foundation for my skin type, I wouldn’t be haunted by so many embarrassing photos from my adolescence. As an adult, I’ve since learned that no matter your makeup look – natural, glam, gothic or anything else – as Meghan Trainor once sang, it is indeed all about the “base”. Pick the right one and you’ll achieve a flawless finish that lasts …

Estee Lauder, Armani & By Terry Reformulated Foundations Tested

Estee Lauder, Armani & By Terry Reformulated Foundations Tested

Published by Daniella Wilson

 Beauty’s biggest blockbusters are getting a 2026 upgrade but are you ready to embrace the change? Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a self-respecting beauty devotee quite like the word ‘discontinued’ unless, of course, we’re talking about ‘reformulated’. And no, that’s not over-dramatic. There’s bone fide psychology at play. Humans feel losses more strongly than equivalent gains – a phenomenon known as loss aversion. In other words, losing a beloved lipstick hurts more than the thrill of discovering a new one. It hits harder in beauty because our products are woven into daily ritual. Reformulations can feel even more unsettling than discontinuations, even if the new version is objectively better because of the perceived loss of a familiar formula, coupled with expectation violation (it has the same name but it’s not quite the same product). So what happens when beauty’s most beloved superstars get a glow-up nobody asked for? Spoiler: we think you’re going to like the results.  All change!    2026 may be the year of the Fire Horse, but transformative energy is …

META Delays AI Rollout Because It Sucks, May License Gemini; Musk Reboots xAI ‘From The Foundations Up’

META Delays AI Rollout Because It Sucks, May License Gemini; Musk Reboots xAI ‘From The Foundations Up’

Published by Jenni Sidey

Mark Zuckerberg bet the farm on AI supremacy, and this year’s crop is infested with bugs. According to a new report, Meta has quietly pushed back the launch of its next-generation foundational AI model, internally code-named Avocado, from this month until at least May. The reason? Internal tests showed it underperforming on key benchmarks for reasoning, coding, and writing – trailing rivals like Google’s Gemini 3.0, even as it beat Meta’s own prior efforts and older Google models. The model, code-named Avocado, outperformed Meta’s previous A.I. model and did better than Google’s Gemini 2.5 model from March, two of the people said. But it has not performed as strongly as Gemini 3.0 from November, they said. -NYT This delay arrives after Zuckerberg has poured unprecedented resources into the race. Meta is guiding for $115–135 billion in capital expenditures this year alone – nearly double last year’s spend – with the overwhelming majority earmarked for AI data centers, compute clusters, and infrastructure. The company has also signaled longer-term commitments approaching $600 billion in U.S. investments, plus a …

Elon Musk Says He’s Epically Screwed Up at xAI, Is Rebuilding “From the Foundations”

Elon Musk Says He’s Epically Screwed Up at xAI, Is Rebuilding “From the Foundations”

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Besides headlines about the majority of original cofounders fleeing the company, Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has struggled to gain much media attention as of late — particularly as competitor Anthropic’s high-profile spat with the Pentagon continues to develop. The Grok chatbot maker, which has been reeling from a flood of deepfake smut and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) following a “pivot to porn,” continues to grapple for relevancy. Following its merger with Musk’s SpaceX last month, even more of the company’s 12 cofounders announced they would be leaving the company on Thursday. “Last day at xAI,” cofounder and image generation product lead Guodong Zhang tweeted. “Wild journey past three years but excited about next chapter.” As of a month ago, half of xAI’s founding team of 12 individuals had resigned. As of today, that number has grown to nine, meaning that a mere three are left, as Bloomberg points out. In the face of it all, Musk …

Trump’s second term has eroded the foundations of our democracy

Trump’s second term has eroded the foundations of our democracy

Published by Sam Flores

One year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, a pattern emerges. Across dozens of executive orders, agency memos, funding decisions and enforcement changes, the administration has weakened federal civil rights law and the foundations of the country’s racially inclusive democracy. From the start, the U.S. was not built to include everyone equally. The Constitution protected and promoted slavery. Most states limited voting to white men. Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to “free white persons.” These choices were not accidents. They shaped who could belong and who could exercise political power, and they entrenched a racial political majority that lasted for generations. That began to change in the 1960s. After decades of protest and pressure, Congress enacted laws that prohibited discrimination in employment, education, voting, immigration and housing. Federal agencies were charged with enforcing those laws, collecting data to identify discrimination and conditioning public funds on compliance. These choices reshaped U.S. demographics and institutions, with the current Congress “the most racially and ethnically diverse in history,” according to the Pew Research Center. The laws did not eliminate racial …

MTG Foundations Jumpstart deal: Booster Box for 1 at Amazon

MTG Foundations Jumpstart deal: Booster Box for $101 at Amazon

Published by skeptic

SAVE 23%: As of Jan. 19, the Magic: The Gathering Foundations Jumpstart 2025 Booster Box is on sale for $101.56, down from $131.76, at Amazon. That’s a 23% discount or $30.02 in savings. $101.56 at Amazon $131.76 Save $30.20   If you’ve ever tried to teach a newbie how to play Magic: The Gathering, you know the deck-building phase is usually where you lose them. With Magic: The Gathering Foundations Jumpstart 2025 Booster Box, you can skip the intros and get straight to the game. SEE ALSO: Xbox is preparing to bring ads to cloud gaming As of Jan. 19, the Magic: The Gathering Foundations Jumpstart 2025 Booster Box is down to $101.56 at Amazon. That’s roughly 23% off the list price. The current market price on TCGplayer is hovering around $95, so you’re paying about a $5 premium here. Considering that includes Prime shipping (and you don’t have to hunt down a specific seller), it’s a pretty fair trade-off to get it to your door fast. Mashable Deals By signing up, you agree to …