The ‘Black Panther’ director reunites with Michael B. Jordan for an ambitious, uneven movie about blues-playing and blood-sucking in the segregated South.

brain drain Trump admin accused of censoring NIH’s top expert on ultra-processed foods Kevin Hall claims an aide for Kennedy edited his written responses to a reporter. Beth Mole – Apr 17, 2025 6:18 pm | 7 WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 12: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends a St. Patrick's Day breakfast for Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the vice president's residence on March 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty | Kevin Dietsch WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 12: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends a St. Patrick's Day breakfast for Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the vice president's residence on March 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty | Kevin Dietsch Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Kevin Hall, a prominent nutrition expert who led influential studies on ultra-processed foods, has resigned from his long-held position at the National Institutes of Health, alleging censorship of his research by top aides of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In a post on LinkedIn, Hall claimed that he "experienced censorship in the reporting of our research because of agency concerns that it did not appear to fully support preconceived narratives of my agency’s leadership about ultra-processed food addiction." In comments to CBS News, Hall said the censorship was over a study he and his colleagues recently published in the journal Cell Metabolism, which showed that ultra-processed foods did not produce the same large dopamine responses in the brain that are seen with use of addictive drugs. The finding suggests that the mechanism leading people to overconsume ultra-processed foods may be more complex than the studied mechanisms in addiction. This appears to slightly conflict with the beliefs of Kennedy Jr., who has claimed that food companies use additives to make ultra-processed foods addictive. The study "just suggests that they may not be addictive by the typical mechanism that many drugs are addictive," Hall told CBS. "But even this bit of daylight between the preconceived narrative and our study was apparently too much," he said. Hall claims that because of this, aides for Kennedy blocked him from being directly interviewed by New York Times reporters about the study. Instead, Hall was allowed to provide only written responses to the newspaper. However, Hall claims that Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for Kennedy, then downplayed the study's results to the Times and edited Hall's written responses and sent them to the reporter without Hall's consent. Further, Hall claims he was barred from presenting his research on ultra-processed foods at a conference and was forced to either edit a manuscript he had worked on with outside researchers or remove himself as a co-author. An HHS spokesperson denied to CBS that Hall was censored or that his written responses to the Times were edited. "Any attempt to paint this as censorship is a deliberate distortion of the facts," a statement from the HHS said. In response, Hall wrote to CBS, "I wonder how they define censorship?" Hall said he had reached out to NIH leadership about his concerns in hopes it all was an "aberration" but never received a response. "Without any reassurance there wouldn’t be continued censorship or meddling in our research, I felt compelled to accept early retirement to preserve health insurance for my family," he wrote in the LinkedIn post. "Due to very tight deadlines to make this decision, I don’t yet have plans for my future career." Beth Mole Senior Health Reporter Beth Mole Senior Health Reporter Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes. 7 Comments

The last standing pillars of Napata’s temple of Amun in SudanHomoCosmicos/Alamy An excavation in northern Sudan suggests there were limits to the military might of the Roman Empire – even if the Romans weren’t prepared to admit them. The imperial forces claimed they destroyed an ancient city controlled by their enemies, but it turns out they didn’t. Following the downfall and death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, Egypt became a province of the emerging Roman Empire. But Roman Egypt was relatively weak to…

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says video podcasts could be the next format to appear on the streaming service as it pursues creators in many areas.On the company's first quarter earnings call Thursday, Sarandos said the "lines are getting blurry" between podcasts and talk shows, in response to a question on whether video pods could work on Netflix."As the popularity of video podcasts grows, I suspect you'll see some of them find their way to Netflix," Sarandos said.His comments confirmed earlier reporting by Business Insider that Netflix was exploring potential deals with video podcasters as it looked to its next phase of growth.Netflix execs have become increasingly aggressive about putting YouTube creator-led shows on the platform and talking up its advantages to creators.This comes as YouTube leads the media pack in terms of TV watch time. According to Nielsen, YouTube accounted for 12% of TV watching time in March, extending its lead over Netflix, which came in at 7.9%.Netflix's top execs have lately argued that Netflix is better than YouTube in helping creators grow and make money. Alongside other media giants like Amazon and Disney, Netflix has also been leaning into popular YouTubers, picking up deals with the Sidemen, preschool educator Ms. Rachel, and the live dating show Pop the Balloon."We're looking for the next generation of great creators, and we're looking everywhere, not just in film schools and certainly not just in Hollywood," Sarandos said on the call. "Creators today have tools that were unimaginable a decade ago to tell stories, to reach audience."Some creators are eager for the prestige, up-front money, and ability to reach new viewers that Netflix and other Hollywood players can afford.But for others, especially well-established creators, the advantage is less clear when they've built multiplatform businesses independently and enjoy control over their productions as well as direct relationships with their audiences.

Google just lost a huge antitrust case. A federal judge in Virginia ruled on Thursday that the search giant illegally maintained a monopoly in the online advertising market, leveraging its position to make more money and squash competition. The Justice Department, which initiated the case along with several states, has called for Google to be broken up.For Google — and possibly Big Tech as a whole — the timing of this news could not be worse. We’re now years into the government’s war on Big Tech companies that spans both the Biden and Trump administrations, and major battles are finally being decided. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg just spent three days on the stand in a case that will decide if Meta’s acquisitions of apps like Instagram and WhatsApp violated antitrust laws. In August, Google lost another big antitrust case, when another judge ruled that it illegally maintained a monopoly over search and search advertising, recommending that Google spin off its Chrome browser. (The remedy phase of that case actually begins on Monday.) The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 states sued Amazon over its online marketplace monopoly and will go to trial next year. And then there’s Apple, which is embroiled in an antitrust case of its own, its third in the past 15 years.“The court confirmed that Google used its monopoly power … to lock in publishers and foreclose competition in ad exchanges, violating antitrust law and putting our digital markets and information environment under Google’s control,” Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, said in a statement. “That’s illegal monopolization, plain and simple.”Holding Big Tech to account is a bipartisan issue. The case that Google lost last year was initially filed by the first Trump administration in 2020, and after the Biden administration doubled down on antitrust enforcement, the second Trump administration shows no signs of backing off. Vice President JD Vance has been a vocal opponent of Big Tech’s unchecked power and expressed support of Lina Khan, who grew to prominence for calling out Amazon’s antitrust violations and served as FTC chair in the Biden administration. Trump signaled that he intends to take on Big Tech by replacing Khan with another antitrust hawk, Andrew Ferguson.Google suffering back-to-back losses in court feels like it could be a tipping point.Reining in Big Tech is also a popular idea. Some 59 percent of Americans were in favor of breaking up Big Tech companies, according to a 2021 poll by Vox and Data for Progress. And that poll was conducted before revelations by whistleblower Frances Haugen that Facebook knew its products were harming children, and before Google was accused of using AI bots to steal data from millions of users without their consent. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that most Americans think social media companies have too much power over politics and society, and about half think the government should do more to regulate them.Google suffering back-to-back losses in court feels like it could be a tipping point.“We’re reaching an integrity crisis moment,” said Davi Ottenheimer, vice president of trust and digital ethics at the data privacy company Inrupt. “And that’s what we have to get to get movement in the United States.Then again, if we’ve learned anything from decades of antitrust enforcement in the United States, it’s that breaking up big companies — especially big technology companies — is hard. Microsoft avoided a breakup after losing a landmark antitrust case in 1998 over its bundling of Internet Explorer in Windows. The remedies from that ruling nevertheless increased competition in the browser space and eventually helped pave the way for Google Chrome, which is now a main character in Google’s antitrust drama.The result of other major antitrust cases in the past have been the tech companies settling or paying big fines, which they can afford. For example, a decade ago, Apple lost an antitrust case over colluding with publishers to fix e-book prices and ultimately paid $450 million as part of a settlement. Google lost three major antitrust cases in the European Union at the end of the 2010s and paid about $9.5 billion in fines. And yet, Google remains intact.We don’t yet know how Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple will fare. We do know that some of the tech CEOs whoflew to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, who gave millions to Trump’s campaign and inauguration, and who praised the president on the Joe Rogan’s show are probably getting nervous.We also don’t know if Trump will stop these lawsuits if he decides that’s what he wants. Zuckerberg, who has spent millions courting Trump in recent months, would probably love this option. Ferguson, the FTC chair, recently told The Verge that he’d “obey lawful orders” if Trump asks but would “be very surprised if anything like that ever happened.”See More:

The discourse around the end of the Snyderverse in The Flash has been brought up again to that era’s Batman, Ben Affleck. In a career-spanning video interview with GQ, the actor was asked if the last iteration of the Batsuit he wore as the character was his favorite, and the answer is an new all-timer Affleck-is-tired meme. “I mean, I hated the bat suits,” he said. “The bat suits are horrendous to wear.” It’s a known issue with superhero costumes, which often look like armored athleisure but are seemingly always uncomfortable to wear. Affleck continued, “They’re hot for one thing, they don’t breathe. They’re made to look the way they want them to look and there’s no thought put into the human being.” “And so what happens is that you just start sweating. Now, I’m already—I sweat, you know what I mean? I get hot and so in that thing, you would just be pouring water because it’s got the cowl over it. Like there’s one thing to wear the suit, but once you cover your head, I guess that’s where all your heat kind of escapes and you feel it.” Affleck gave credit to the stunt guys who had to spend the most time actually wearing the outfit. “Even the most highly trained, much more fit stunt guys, the parkour guys, the action guys, they could do that for about like 45-50 minutes and then they were like gonna get heat stroke,” he said. “So you had to come out of it and that was really the thing, was that it just made it difficult to make the movie because it was so hot. And it also does not make you feel very heroic because you’re instantly exhausted and really sweaty and kind of trying to hide like the sweat pouring down your face. Like ‘No, we can go again, I’m fine, I’m good’ and the eye black [liner] is running.” While his time in the role was fraught with a lot of discourse and difficulties, Affleck seems glad to be out of the suit at least. “Maybe you know, Christian [Bale] or Rob [Pattinson], guys like that were just better at maybe, you know, dealing with it. But I found it to be the least fun part of it.” Wardrobe gripes aside, Affleck does have appreciation for his DC era, which began with his partnership on the vision of Batman he shared with Zack Snyder on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and the Snyder cut of The Justice League. “Somebody sent me something that showed me the Snyder cut of The Justice League was my highest-rated movie on IMDb, which I found quite interesting,” he said. “I think it’s because one of the things the Snyder cut, so to speak, [it] is actually really the movie that Zack wanted to make. You have a director with a very clear idea of the kind of story they understand and want to tell. And then you’ve got a commercial expectation, for example, like a very valuable like IP property, etc. And so there’s so sometimes they’ll hire this person for their distinctive take and view and then want to impose on that something different.” Snyder was famously shuffled off The Justice League before getting a second crack at it, and Affleck, as a  filmmaker himself, was pleased that it worked out in his collaborator’s favor. “One of the things about directing is typically you want to have it be closest to what that director is interested in and finds appealing. And so that movie is very much what Zack’s vision was. And it’s a rare thing that somebody gets the chance to go back and revisit and try to do what they wanted to do. And given the difficulty of that movie, I was very happy for Zack, [that] he got a chance to do that.” Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Get Awesome 28 blender addons and amazing stuff. 🌐 Get It ALL: https://superhivemarket.com/products/launch-bundle?ref=110 Alt Tab Easy Hdri [50%]: https://superhivemarket.com/products/alt-tab-easy-hdri?ref=110 ✨ Get Premium Blender Addons: https://bit.ly/3jbu8s7 🎓 Learn to Animate in Blender: https://bit.ly/3A1NWac 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Get Character Creator 4 - https://bit.ly/3b16Wcw 🦿 Get Iclone 8.5 - https://bit.ly/38QDfbb 🪮 FiberShop - Realtime Hair Tool: https://tinyurl.com/2hd2t5v 📂 Big Ref Database: https://bit.ly/3PLtaQ8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ✉️ Join Weekly Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3lpfvSm ❤️Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/asknk 🔔Discord: https://discord.gg/G2kmTjUFGm 🐣Twitter: https://bit.ly/3a0tADG ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- █ █ Blender Premium Tutorials █ █ 🎓🥇Blender Tutorials #1: https://bit.ly/3nbfTEu 🎓🥈Blender Tutorials #2: https://tinyurl.com/yeyrkreh 🎓🔨 Learn HardSurface In Blender: https://bit.ly/3E5nP2T 🎓🚙 3D Cars Building, Rigging & Animation: https://bit.ly/4h5HXEq 🎓 🚘Cinematic Car Animation Course: https://bit.ly/3ORFccG 🎓🚴🏻 Alive! - Animation Course: https://bit.ly/3AEFvyA 🎓🧑🏻‍🎨 Human - Realistic Portrait Creation: https://bit.ly/2XvMT1j ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #asknk #free3D #free3Dmodels #free3Dresources #freetextures #freematerials #freefriday #premium #b3d #blender3d #free #addons #blenderaddons #new #3dnews #release #update 🖼️Thumbnail Art: **Artworks used on thumbnails are to support artists who used the principal or third-party tools discussed within the video.** #SupportsArtist

tutorial/project walk through: https://youtu.be/BtQOderay3E the project shows how you can easily create motion graphics and is a small comparison between 3d applications like blender and after effects, it show cases the strength of blender vs after effects and how you can make convincing renders without making everything look super realistic, the project was inspired by mostafa azzam's render https://www.behance.net/gallery/221673221/Rexona-Ad?tracking_source=search_projects |ad&l=71 if you want to see more renders like these turned into animations just post a link in the comments thanks links: project files: patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/126777698/ Geometry Nodes Course: https://www.udemy.com/course/mastering-geometry-nodes-in-blender/?couponCode=ENDOFVIDEO HOUDINI COURSE: https://www.udemy.com/course/houdini-for-every-artist/?couponCode=TOPCHANNEL1ON1 Blender Vfx Course: https://www.gamedev.tv/courses/blender4-visual-effects?ref=zgjln2y discord invite: https://discord.gg/RMsWKZnnMe

Rocks on the coast of Iceland couldn’t possibly tell us anything about the Roman Empire. Or could they? According to a study in Geology, a collection of rocks on Iceland’s coast reveals the severity of the Late Antique Little Ice Age — a period of climate change that may have contributed to the Roman Empire’s collapse. “When it comes to the fall of the Roman Empire, this climate shift may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Tom Gernon, a study author and a professor at the University of Southampton in the U.K., according to a press release.A Climate-Change CollapseThough the collapse of the Roman Empire can be tied to a variety of factors, recent research has suggested that an ice age began on Earth in the 500s C.E., at about the time of the decline of the Roman Empire. Generated by ash clouds from three separate volcanic eruptions around 540 C.E., this ice age — the Late Antique Little Ice Age — blocked out the sun and cooled the surface of Earth for some 200 to 300 years, potentially playing a part in the empire’s end. But just how severe was this Late Antique Little Ice Age? Pretty severe, the new Geology study finds. Showing that large, round rocks — or cobbles — on the coast of Iceland came all the way from the coast of Greenland in the 600s C.E., the study demonstrates that the Late Antique Little Ice Age had dramatic impacts on Earth’s geology, depositing rocks in unusual places by way of glacial ice and icebergs. “This is the first direct evidence of icebergs carrying large Greenlandic cobbles to Iceland,” said Christopher Spencer, a study author and a professor at Queen’s University in Canada, according to the release. Ultimately, the study provides insights into the impacts of the Late Antique Little Ice Age, highlighting its intensity and supporting the theory that it contributed to the death of an already dying empire. Revealing the Late Antique Little Ice Age Through RocksOf course, to the average observer, an assembly of rocks on Iceland’s western coast would’ve looked like nothing special. But to a researcher, the cobbles screamed of something unusual. “We knew these rocks seemed somewhat out of place because the rock types are unlike anything found in Iceland today, but we didn’t know where they came from,” Spencer said in the release. Representing a mix of basaltic and non-basaltic cobbles, the collection seemed strange, thanks, in part, to its composition. “On one hand, you’re surprised to see anything but basalt in Iceland; but having seen them for the first time, you instantly suspect they arrived by iceberg from Greenland,” said Ross Mitchell, another study author and a professor at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the release.Testing that assumption, the study authors smashed the rocks and examined the tiny crystals, called zircons, that were trapped inside. “Zircons are essentially time capsules that preserve vital information, including when they [crystallized] as well as their compositional characteristics,” Spencer said in the release. Assessing these characteristics, the study authors traced the zircons’ origins to Greenland and to time periods between 0.5 billion and 3 billion years ago.Importantly, the zircons indicated where in Greenland the rocks originated — an important clue for tracing their journey from Greenland to Iceland in the 700s C.E. “The fact that the rocks come from nearly all geological regions of Greenland provides evidence of their glacial origins,” Gernon said in the release. “As glaciers move, they erode the landscape, breaking up rocks from different areas and carrying them along.”According to the study authors, the cobbles may have traveled to Iceland when ice broke away from Greenland’s glaciers, then drifted across the ocean, then melted on Iceland’s shores, where it dropped its rocky debris. “What we’re seeing is a powerful example of how interconnected the climate system is. When glaciers grow, icebergs calve, ocean currents shift, and landscapes change,” Spencer said in the release. Testifying to the intensity of the era’s climate change, the rocks’ arrival in Iceland stresses that the Late Antique Little Ice Age was severe, with a wide variety of consequences around the time of the Roman Empire’s collapse. “Climate-driven iceberg activity may have been one of the many cascading effects of rapid cooling,” Spencer concluded in the release.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Savoring a tub of buttery popcorn while asking yourself how did they do that? can be half the fun of watching big cinematic films like Jurassic Park or Indiana Jones. Many of those burning behind-the-scenes questions and more were answered during the first season of the Lucasfilm docuseries Light & Magic on Disney+. Now returning for a second season, tech and movie buffs alike have the chance to get to know the very real visual effects artists who create magic at the movies and how they handled challenges during the dawn of digital filmmaking. One of those technical wizards is John Knoll, who began his career with George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic in 1986. You might not know his name, but if you have ever used Photoshop, you can thank John and his brother Thomas for it. The duo co-wrote the original software during the 1980s, which would subsequently be used on the groundbreaking 1989 James Cameron film The Abyss. In the years since, Knoll has won an Academy Award for his team’s work bringing a ship of sea creature-pirate hybrids to life in 2006’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, in addition to five other nominations.  Popular Science recently spoke with Knoll about his work and career. Answers have been condensed for clarity. Laura Baisas: How did your upbringing among scientists influence your career? John Knoll: Growing up in a family of scientists, engineers, and medical professionals, I got a good strong dose of the scientific method and logical analysis. Things like how to analyze problems, break them down, and solve them. My dad modeled a lot of behavior that really influenced me a lot. Seeing him take up an interest in something, practicing, and getting to be good at it, and then applying that to a whole bunch of different fields. I kind of copied the same thing.  It was also a household that valued art as well. Even with this strong tech emphasis, the arts were valuable. I was probably heading for some kind of engineering field, but when Star Wars came out, I’m suddenly like, “Oh man, there’s, there’s some really exciting new stuff happening in filmmaking.” But if there is a field in filmmaking that is kind of engineering for film, that’s really what visual effects is. The mixture of almost equal parts of art and technology is a fusion that I find really very enjoyable. It allows me to exercise the engineer and scientist part of my brain, along with my love of art and expression. John Knoll accepting a 2016 Critics’ Choice Award next to BB-8. CREDIT: Michael Buckner/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images. Michael Buckner/Variety LB: What is one part of working in visual effects people might find surprising?  JK: The scientific method is super useful and it applies to almost anything. Obviously, it applies to tech and engineering fields, but it also applies to art in ways that I don’t think people really appreciate. I am exercising that all the time by looking at some kind of problem that we’re facing and determining whether it’s an art problem or an aesthetic issue. Then, it is narrowing down where the problem is. Is this a motion problem, or is this a look problem? And then do I still see the problem if I stop it? You apply some of the same things you do to software debugging too. So, I’m applying all those same engineering principles to the art that I do, and it serves me really well. [ Related: How ‘Rogue One’ resurrected the Death Star. ] LB: Could you pinpoint a particularly memorable technical or artistic challenge and how you worked to overcome it? JK: Onset motion capture is a big one. During the Star Wars prequels, the general methodology we were using for CG creatures was that we would cast an actor to play that role on set. We would do rehearsals, shoot a reference take with the actor in the frame. Then, we would have them step out and have the camera operator remember to frame it as they did the actors that were still in the shot and we’d put the CG character in. I appreciate that’s a really hard thing to ask, to act to nothing, and remember what you were doing. And they did their best.  On the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, I started with that methodology. But I had a whole bunch of shots where we started with an actor in their picture costume [for the scene where the cursed crew of the Black Pearlturn into skeletons in moonlight] and we had to transition them into these CG skeletons. The only methodology that really made sense for those sequences was to just shoot the actors in their picture costumes, and when they went into the moonlight, we would match their motion and render them. We could then paint out any part that the CG skeleton didn’t cover up.  That methodology turned out to be better for everyone. It was much easier for the other actors in the scene, because they weren’t trying to remember where they were looking, and the eye lines were all right. And when the camera operators were framing up shots, they had all the elements they were composing with were present in frame, so it was better operation.  Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Jar-Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) in a scene from Lucasfilm’s LIGHT & MAGIC, Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. CREDIT: © 2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved. Keith Hamshere LB: What are your thoughts on AI’s role in visual effects? JK: I think AI is going to be like an artist’s tools. I think the visions that people have of somebody just typing in a prompt and getting a finished shot are pretty unrealistic. The best way to overcome fear of that stuff is to actually use these tools and see how limited they are, because I think that right now, the tools that take simple prompts are gimmicks. With what we have available to us right now, a skilled artist with a good eye and talent can make something amazing with those tools. And somebody who does not have that skill and talent makes terrible looking stuff for those tools. I already see that with the AI diffusion image generators. I see people who don’t have good taste make terrible looking stuff with them, and I see people with better taste making better looking stuff. So I think that’s only going to become more extreme when the level of control that is needed appears. People with good taste are going to make good looking compelling work. I don’t fear a future where skill and talent are not valued. LB: Very serious question to wrap things up. Who is your favorite fictional scientist? JK: I grew up with the original Star Trek TV show and I love Commander Scotty. I love when the clock is ticking and everything depends on him, he’s got to get the warp engines back online, and he’s in there splicing wires and all that stuff. He’s the hero of the show many times. I think that scientists and engineers are super important to the world and they should get the respect they deserve. Lucasfilm’s Light & Magic season 2 debuts on Disney+ on April 17th.