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April 17, 20253 min read'Chaos' Angle Explains Why Pedestrian Traffic Snarls to a StopIn general, crowds like to form lanes to get across—until too many people go in too many different directionsBy Gayoung Lee edited by Allison Parshall Orbon Alija/Getty ImagesHumans walking in crowds tend to form orderly lanes. It’s something we do “without even knowing [why],” says Iker Zuriguel, a physicist at the University of Navarra in Spain. But sometimes, such as in crosswalks during peak commuting times, that order turns to utter chaos. Mathematicians used physics models and gymnasium experiments to understand why and pinpointed a specific “critical angle” of the crowd’s movement—13 degrees—to explain why crowded pathways snarl to a standstill.This knowledge isn’t just useful at rush hour. “Managing a crowd [efficiently]—in train situations, concerts, even in the streets—is very important” for safety and city building, explains Zuriguel, who wasn’t involved in the new study. In the recent paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, mathematicians asked participants on either side of a gymnasium to walk to the other side without colliding with anyone. Each participant wore a little paper hat with a barcode to track their movements.The researchers considered each person as a “particle” in a physics model—a method they had previously used to show that people in crowds would form orderly lanes. But obviously this doesn’t always happen in real life. “Humans are not perfect particles; we’re idealizing them somewhat,” explains study co-author Karol Bacik, an applied mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They have some free will” and often different destinations or goals. People form these lanes as it “suits them, and then they can split off again,” adds study co-author Tim Rogers, a mathematician at the University of Bath in England.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.In experimental work, the researchers recorded the movements of pedestrians using an overhead camera.Karol Bacik, MITThe researchers wanted to test what factors disrupted the naturally occurring lanes. At first, Bacik and Rogers considered that a few “outliers” running across the lane randomly could be to blame, but they found that there was no strict number of people that needed to deviate from their lane for foot traffic to start breaking down. The researchers instead measured the deviation of the entire crowd by averaging the angles at which each participant was walking to obtain what they called the crowd’s angular spread. In the crowded gym, the researchers instructed participants to act out different scenarios. In one round, they were all told to walk as straight across as possible—or with essentially zero degrees of deviation. This led to lane formation, as expected. But in other trials, each participant was directed to veer in different directions, increasing the crowd’s angular spread.Only when the crowd’s average walking angle hit 13 degrees from a straight line did the flow break down into a completely random structure—in other words, chaos. This may seem like a relatively small deviation from “head-on,” and indeed, it’s less than the angle of a pencil tip. But that average deviation was enough for participants’ paths of travel to severely intersect, causing people to pause, sidestep, and reroute and impeding the easy flow.Crowd flow - from order to chaos. In experimental work, the researchers recorded the movements of pedestrians using an overhead camera.Karol Bacik, MITThat said, knowledge of this “chaos” angle would be more useful for civil planners and engineers than individual pedestrians, who can control their own behavior but not that of others. In the real world, “every situation will be different,” Rogers says. But taking into account the physics and math of lane formation when spaces are designed—be they gymnasiums, stadiums, sidewalks or crosswalks—offers an additional perspective on how people move in crowds.“When people are designing spaces that pedestrians are going to use,” Rogers says, “they might want to think about what cues there are, what kind of restrictions of motion there are, what kind of destinations and origins are in this space ... considering angular spreads [will give] more chance for nice, smooth lanes to be the norm.”

Playdate's second season includes brand-new game from FTL and Into the Breach studio Plus a new Shadowgate and more. Image credit: Playdate News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on April 17, 2025 We already knew it was coming, but Playdate - the cute boutique handheld console with the crank - has just announced its second second of games, and one of those is a brand-new project from the massively acclaimed studio behind FTL and Into the Breach. As announced during Playdate's latest showcase, FTL developer Subset Games' Fulcrum Defender is "totally different" to the studio's earlier titles, and sees players attempting to survive for as long as possible while holding back wave after wave of incoming enemies. Aiming utilises the crank as foes approach from all sides on the radar-like screen, with attack patterns growing more complex over time. As things progress, upgrades such as new weapons can be unlocked, with the key to survival being a "smart build and good aim". "I wanted to make a replayable experience that starts off slow and relaxing, but gradually ramps up until it becomes frantic chaos," primary developer Jay Ma explained of Fulcrum Defender in today's Playdate announcement. "Originally I did not plan on finishing this game, I was making it as a form of self-therapy. I have been struggling with Long COVID... and I wanted to prove to myself that I could still make games in my current state." Playdate's season two showcase.Watch on YouTube Fulcrum Defender is one of 12 new games coming to Playdate as part of Season Two, with three more having so far been revealed in detail. There's developer Pixel Ghost's Shadowgate PD, for instance, which reimagines the classic point-and-click adventure series with new music, art, and features. It follows players - in the role of The Seed of Prophecy - as they travel deep into the titular living castle in a bid to defeat the evil Warlock Lord who resides there. That's alongside Taria & Como, a physics-based puzzle platformer built around swinging rather than jumping. Developed by Popseed Studio Inc and JuVee Productions, it charts the adventures of Taria, a young girl with a prosthetic leg, who sets out to rescue her sister Como in a world that constantly underestimates her. And finally for the full reveals, there's Dig! Dig! Dino!, from Dom 2D (Flinthook) & Fáyer (Arco). This one casts players as a crew of palaeontologists in a game about digging for dinosaurs bones, analysing strange artefacts, and uncovering long-buried secrets. "Sell off coins and treasure to build an arsenal of digging tools," explains its announcement, "then upgrade them to go deeper and find even more bones and loot!" Playdate's second season costs $39 USD and will see two of its 12 included games release each week between 29th May and 3rd July. There's also a tease for a "must-see surprise" that'll be "something a little different". Season Two's remaining eight games will be properly revealed at a later date, but their titles and developers have been announced as follows: Chance's Lucky Escape - Developed by Goloso Games (Spike II: The Great Emu War) and Julia Minamata (The Crimson Diamond) Otto's Galactic Groove - Developed by Team Otto (Skwish) Catchadiablos - Developed by Amano Games (Pullfrog Deluxe) The Whiteout - Developed by Scenic Route Software (Post Hero, Generations) Black Hole Havoc - Developed by Cosmic Bros (Jolly Chimp Champ) Wheelsprung - Developed by Nino van Hooff (Gravity Express) and Julie Bjørnskov (Escape the Arcade) Tiny Turnip - Developed by Luke Sanderson (Paper Pilot) Long Puppy - Developed by Indiana-Jonas (Surmount) ▀▄▀▄▀▄ - Developed by Dustin Mierau (Playmaker, Path, Napster) And if you haven't yet picked up a Playdate, they're now readily available on creator Panic Inc's store for $229 USD, with refurbished units costing $179. A new cover in the same shade of yellow as the Playdate has also been released for $34 - just be aware those prices don't include shipping or taxes, which can be pretty substantial outside the US.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Most of the Fortnite skins return at some point. Epic Games re-releases some of them every few months, while some are unvaulted for years. Keeping skins in the vault makes the community eager for their return, and some stayed there for more than five years. Unfortunately, a couple of popular skins, which have been vaulted for more than three years, will not return anytime soon. Many Fortnite players are familiar with Jinx and Vi, two characters from “Arcane,” a popular TV show. These characters are also part of League of Legends, a MOBA video game. They were added to Fortnite during the first season of the show, but unfortunately, they will not come back soon. Popular Arcane skins will not return to Fortnite for a long time Back in November 2021, Epic Games added Jinx to Fortnite. A few months later, her sister, Vi, also came to the Item Shop. Both of these skins were last seen on February 5, 2022, and it doesn’t seem that they will return anytime soon. Marc Merrill, the co-founder of Riot Games and an executive producer of Arcane, spoke about the skins earlier this week and teased their potential return. Unfortunately, this won’t happen soon. The Riot co-founder provided an update on X (formerly Twitter), speaking about the partnership between his company and Epic Games. He brought up the launch of Season 1 of Arcane back in 2021, saying that the Fortnite collaboration made it special. Jinx and Vi skins won’t return to Fortnite soon. Image by VideoGamer “Since then, Fortnite has evolved a ton with new experiences and collabs, and we’ve had a lot of conversations with Epic about what might be possible,” Merrill wrote on his account. “They’ve been great partners, but we haven’t been able to find the right fit to bring the Arcane skins back and it unfortunately won’t be happening in the foreseeable future.” The show producer concluded with, “If anything changes in the future, we’ll let you know ASAP!” As a result, there’s a high likelihood that the Fortnite x Arcane skins will remain vaulted for at least another year. Currently, they rank among the rarest Fortnite skins ever, and they could soon make it into the top 10. Related Topics Fortnite Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

Gardening can be intimidating, even on the smallest of scales—especially when you don’t see people who look like you doing it. This was the case for Amber Grossman, who launched the Instagram account @blackgirlsgardening in 2019 to redress that absence herself.The seeds for the online community were planted in 2017, after Grossman and her husband purchased their home in Wilmington, New York. The yard was an utterly flat, open space teeming with untapped potential for a garden, so she rounded up some old wood boards and nails and set about making raised beds. As she worked on fashioning her plot, Grossman observed that no one else in the neighborhood had gardens. She turned to Instagram for insight. “I was looking for ideas and help and then realized there wasn’t a strong community for Black people in the garden,” she tells AD. When she started @blackgirlsgardening account, she hoped to be a beacon for others in her situation, but had no expectations around how the community would grow.Amber Grossman launched @blackgirlsgardening as an Instagram account in 2019. Photo: Courtesy of Hannah Vega, published by Chronicle BooksCultivating a communityThe page’s popularity soared within the first few weeks. “I was hoping to have a couple thousand followers,” Grossman recalls. “That was the dream.” She watched in awe as the numbers ticked up to 10,000 by a few months in and 60,000 during COVID. Today, the community is nearly 100,000 strong. As @blackgirlsgardening expanded, the editors at Chronicle Books were among those who took notice and approached Grossman about publishing a book on the subject. The fruit of those conversations is on shelves now—Black Girls Gardening: Empowering Stories and Garden Wisdom for Healing and Flourishing in Nature. The tome profiles 31 women sharing their own hands-on gardening experiences, the stories behind what brought them to gardening, and beautiful images of their gardens, which they credit with empowering them to grow sustainable and healthy foods.Black Girls Gardening: Empowering Stories and Garden Wisdom for Healing and Flourishing in Nature“When people go to grocery stores and see the prices or the quality available, they want to turn to gardening,” Grossman says. Beyond the paltry offerings on shelves, often the stores themselves are not available. Urban food deserts, which are areas lacking in access to healthy food shopping options such as groceries and farmers’ markets, disproportionately affect Black communities. The dearth leaves residents relying on corner stores, which offer fewer options for nutritious meals. Many of the women who reached out to the @blackgirlsgardening account did so in search of help growing their own healthy foods at home.Aiming for progress, not perfectionWhile the pictures in the book (and IG page) are stunning, the focus isn’t on gardens with perfect perimeters, hedges that grow neatly all in a row, or symmetrical fruits and vegetables; gardening itself is an inherently messy endeavor. Dirt and mud get everywhere, and despite all her best intentions, a gardener’s plants won’t always prosper. “I share [online and in the book] the hard work that goes into gardening. They are beautiful images, but sometimes you get insight of what to do when plants die or gardens don’t turn out right,” Grossman says. “That’s the whole point of Black Girls Gardening.”

Our special offer on annual subscriptions is only available for another 24 hours. Get 33% off for 1 yearThe digital coup unfolding across America's federal agencies just exposed a disturbing international dimension. A whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board has documented how DOGE's data theft was immediately followed by attempted access from Russian IP addresses – raising grave questions about foreign intelligence penetration of America's most sensitive systems.Daniel Berulis, an IT professional at the NLRB, provided forensic evidence showing that within minutes after DOGE engineers gained "God-tier" access to sensitive labor systems, someone operating from Russia attempted to log in using newly-created DOGE credentials. Not just random guessing – they had the correct username and password.Narativ with Zev Shalev is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This wasn't just some random hacking attempt. According to Berulis' official disclosure to Congress: "Those attempts were 'near real-time'... Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created DOGE accounts — and the person had the correct username and password."While these Russian login attempts were blocked, they reveal the immediate vulnerability created by DOGE's activities. The timing suggests either shocking carelessness or something far more sinister – coordination with foreign intelligence services.Cybersecurity experts who reviewed Berulis' evidence saw techniques consistent with sophisticated Russian intelligence operations. Former FBI cyber official Russ Handorf noted these actions match what we've seen from Russian threat actors targeting U.S. government systems in the past. The key difference? "They were given the keys to the front door."This Russian connection is especially alarming given Elon Musk's well-documented ties to Putin and Russian oligarchs. His companies have received significant Russian investment, including from sanctioned billionaires. The whistleblower's attorney specifically noted the foreign intelligence dimension, stating: "This case has been particularly sensitive as it involves the possibility of sophisticated foreign intelligence gaining access to sensitive government systems."What DOGE engineers did at the NLRB – disabling security logs, using obfuscation code, and extracting approximately 10 gigabytes of sensitive files – perfectly mirrors the techniques used by Russian intelligence services. They even employed DNS tunneling, a technique one threat researcher confirmed "we've seen Russian threat actors do" on government systems.Democratic staff on the House Oversight Committee confirm they've received "multiple verifiable reports showing that DOGE has exfiltrated sensitive government data across agencies" – suggesting this Russian connection might extend beyond the NLRB.The pattern is unmistakable. DOGE is systematically dismantling security protections across government databases while using techniques that create openings for foreign access. As one Interior Department employee told NPR: "Our cyber teams are pissed because they have to sit on their hands when every single alarm system we have regarding insider threats is going off."This isn't just about government efficiency or even domestic power grabs – it's about potentially compromising America's most sensitive systems to foreign adversaries. With DOGE continuing its agency-by-agency data conquest, we're witnessing what may be the most significant national security breach in American history – executed not through hacking, but through executive order.We may indeed be seeing the foundation of a Russian-style surveillance state as I’ve detailed in my new series the New Feudalism. The story was first reported by NPR.Our special offer on annual subscriptions is only available for another 24 hours. Get 33% off for 1 year

Getting The Horns How have F1 25’s developers approached replicating Red Bull’s weird second driver black hole? Well, it’s a bit complicated “They build a setup that gives them the most insane lap time, but I couldn't drive one of their cars.” Image credit: EA News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on April 17, 2025 We’re only four races into real world F1’s 2025 season as I type this, and the Red Bull team has already essentially fired (well, demoted) one of its drivers, drafting in a replacement after just two races. There were no factors outside of on-track performance that played into it as far as we know, just two cars on track that looked to be in totally different classes. The curse of being Max Verstappen’s team mate had already claimed its latest victim - in the form of Liam Lawson making way for the previously overlooked Yuki Tsunoda - prior to me even getting to preview this year’s F1 game. So, I had to ask F1 25’s devs how they’ve gone about replicating just how different two cars in the same team can perform and be like to drive. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. “I think the approach we take with the drivers in particular is that we build them based on what we perceive of their performance in the real world,” senior creative director Lee Mather told me, “So we'll try and build them based on the strengths that we see them have in the sport.” “For example,” he explained, “we use confidence under braking, confidence on the throttle, confidence in close proximity to another car. So, if they've got really good confidence with close proximity, they're more likely to make an overtake or make a risky overtake because they're more comfortable doing so. We have confidence in the wet as well. So, for someone who's maybe not performing at their best, that confidence is built into it. “I think, in that case, you would see in our game that you can have two drivers both driving exactly the same car, but maybe one of them's got less confidence under braking, and you would see that they're not as effective as the other driver. So, while we don't maybe build it to the degree - the extremes - that we've seen recently in the sport, where I think it's maybe not the best representation of their performance because of the time they've had in the car, we do build in those driver traits. “So, you would find one driver is better at certain characteristics than others. Then you've got some drivers where obviously - Max and Lewis, for example - they're strong in pretty much all areas.” I asked Mather if, as well as influencing the AI drivers, the difficulty to extract performance from a car as tricky as the Red Bull is something the player will be able to feel when they hop behind the wheel themselves. “I think the difference for us is we build the cars to try and be as approachable as possible and balanced,” he responded, “I was at the F1 sim racing recently, and they are very much in the Max [Verstappen] school of driving [in] that they build a setup that gives them the most insane lap time, but I couldn't drive one of their cars. I think that's probably a good comparison to sometimes what we see in the sport where some certain extremes are not easy for others to drive, and that's definitely the case in [the sim racing world].” For more on F1 25, make sure to check out the multi-part preview of it we've had going up over the course of this month - here's the first one on the big overhaul to the MyTeam mode.

We feel a new main coming along...The Mario Kart World Direct has been and gone, and we learnt... not all that much actually. What we did get out of it, mind you, is a fresh batch of screenshots from Nintendo, showcasing the majority of our new racers with some stunning close-ups.World appears to have the series' biggest roster yet, with an almighty line-up of characters at your disposal and even more options if you include all the unlockable costumes. We're already breaking down every confirmed character in our guide, but if you want to feast your eyes on some of the newbies, we've got the following gallery for you to see 'em at a glance.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

In Brief Posted: 11:02 AM PDT · April 17, 2025 Image Credits:girafchik123 / Getty Images AI benchmarking platform Chatbot Arena forms a new company Chatbot Arena, the crowdsourced benchmarking project major AI labs rely on to test and market their AI models, is forming a company called Arena Intelligence Inc., reports Bloomberg. In a blog post published Thursday, Chatbot Arena said that the company will “give [it] the resources to improve [its platform] significantly over what it is today.” The team also pledged to continue to provide neutral testing grounds for AI not influenced by outside interests. Founded in 2023, Chatbot Arena has become something of an AI industry obsession. Primarily run by UC Berkeley-affiliated researchers, Chatbot Arena has partnered with companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to make flagship models available for its community to evaluate. Chatbot Arena was previously funded through a combination of grants and donations, including from Google’s Kaggle data science platform, Andreessen Horowitz, and Together AI. The organization’s fledgling company hasn’t disclosed any potential new backers yet — nor has it decided on a business model. Topics

Since the Trump administration rolled out its first rounds of tariffs in March, sudden announcements and equally quick rollbacks have created an unpredictable market for manufacturers and vendors of sustainable building products like lumber and aluminum. “For supply chain logistics, the quick announcements and quick rollouts are a stress factor for anyone involved in the chain,” said Rick Arrington, production planner at Texas-based custom lumber mill Delta Millworks. “The loggers don’t know, the sawmills don’t know, the distributors don’t know. It’s uncertainty across the board.” So far, lumber imports from Canada have generally been exempted from tariffs, but later this year, the U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to raise countervailing and anti-subsidy duties on Canadian softwood from 14.5 percent to 34.5 percent. New tariffs are disrupting supply chain logistics in the building industry, including at manufacturers such as Delta Millworks. (Sarah Mellet) Manufacturers across industries are now in wait-and-see mode. As things may change from one day to the next, both short- and long-term consequences are difficult to predict, they say. But some have already had to adjust. Price Hikes Delta Millworks, which creates made-to-order products, has already hiked its prices on western red cedar and western hemlock, even though the increased tariffs aren’t in effect yet. The risk for potential additional levies is behind it, Robbie Davis, the lumber mill’s CEO, told AN. “With uncertainty like this, we have to assume the tariffs are already in place based on the supply of these specialty products,” he said. 3form, a materials company out of Salt Lake City, sources its resin from the U.S. but imports some of its other materials. Marketing director Chris Pales said that the company has seen increased prices on some of the materials it sources. Now, he noted, the tariffs have required 3form to consider where to source materials from. The key question here, Pales said, is: “Are there alternative suppliers, whether domestic or international, that can help us maintain the same quality materials and products while also offering a price point that makes sense for everyone?” The cost of aluminum on the global market has gone up in the wake of the 25 percent tariffs on aluminum and steel that went into effect in March. However, Ray Shelton, chief sustainability and communications officer at low-carbon aluminum product manufacturer YKK AP, said he does not believe that price increases will impact supply sources. Most of the aluminum imported to the U.S. comes from Canada, and for nearly a century, there has been an integrated supply chain of the material, explained Duncan Pitchford, president of Hydro Aluminum Metals USA and head of commercial Americas. He added that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which went into effect in 2020, stabilized the North American aluminum supply chain. “We would like to see that stability maintained going forward. The current situation, of course, disrupts that,” Pitchford said. Canadian mass timber construction company StructureCraft remains optimistic about the future of the country’s wood industry despite current fluctuations and uncertainty in the market. “We are feeling very confident about the future of our industry. We’re seeing growth in adoption of mass timber across many project types,” said the company’s manager of business development and preconstruction, Gerald Epp. The White House has argued tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the U.S. Whether domestic production of lumber and aluminum goods will increase remains to be seen, however. “I don’t think you could just switch gears and say, ‘Let’s procure low-carbon aluminum in the U.S.’ Whether it’s low-carbon aluminum or normal aluminum, America currently doesn’t have the capacity to supply the demand that America has,” Shelton noted. Mass timber plants keep popping up across the U.S., creating affordable timber products.(Courtesy TimberLab) The European Connection Today’s premier lumber manufacturers also depend on European technology, said Chris Evans, president of Timberlab, an Oregon-based construction company and manufacturer of engineered wood products. Tariffs on things like steel, machinery, and other equipment from Europe could slow the growth of the American lumber industry. Still, mass timber plants keep popping up across the nation, creating affordable timber products, he argued. “That’s translating into better price stability, and then more of these mass timber buildings coming into the market and replacing concrete and steel buildings on commercial projects,” he said. The tariffs, Evans added, could be a good motivator to build up lumber manufacturing in the U.S. at a time when forests are growing crowded; using small-diameter trees to make cross-laminated timber, for example, would thin out forests and reduce wildfire risks. Specialty wood products, like those made by Delta Millworks, can often only be sourced from certain locations in the world, but European thermal and chemical modification technologies required for such products are being introduced in the U.S. to be used on native trees. Delta Millworks currently partners with Finnish manufacturer Lunawood to bring its thermal technology to the U.S. to be used on domestic wood. But this also highlights a benefit domestic manufacturing can reap from open intercontinental trade, said Arrington. “This is a product of the import relationship we have with this European country. I think it’s important to see how it all connects.” Oscar Fock is an award-winning freelance journalist based in New York City, where he reports on climate change, its effects on humans, and how we are responding.