This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox’s newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions.It’s a stressful time to be a kid.Young people are watching environmental disasters, school shootings, and economic and political uncertainty, all with a level of media (or at least social media) coverage that would have been unimaginable for previous generations. Against this backdrop, they’re also expected to have their lives figured out by an early age, and rack up a laundry list of achievements to cite in an increasingly lengthy and comparison-filled college application process. “You almost have to start working on your college career in middle school,” Jennifer Rothman, director of youth and young adult initiatives at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told me.Given all this, it’s perhaps no surprise that kids need a break. Mental health days — a day off to deal with depression or anxiety, or simply to tend to mental well-being, gained currency among adults during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic — and they’ve taken off among young people as well, with at least 12 states passing laws allowing excused absences for mental health reasons. But as chronic absenteeism remains a problem around the country, some school officials are worried that giving kids mental health days could encourage an attitude that school attendance is optional. “There’s a lot of misconceptions about how important it is to be in school — if I didn’t come to school at all in the pandemic, why do I urgently have to keep coming to school now?” Kent Pekel, superintendent of Rochester Public Schools in Minnesota, said during a webinar last year, according to EdWeek.While concerns about mental health are far from gone, they’re also being joined by fears of learning loss and the acknowledgement that missing even a few days of school can be detrimental to kids’ education. There’s also a widespread worry that students are reaching college, the job market, and the ballot box without basic skills like reading.RelatedSome experts also caution that taking a day off for the wrong reasons could actually make matters worse. “When you get yourself in the trap or downward slide of school avoidance, that’s really hard, and it happens really quick,” Sarah Cain Spannagel, a clinical psychologist in Cleveland who works with children and families, told me.How can kids, families, and educators navigate all this? How do we support kids through a time that’s often scary even for adults, while also making sure they get an education? I posed these questions to experts this week, and the answers I got suggested that while a day off won’t cure a kid’s depression or anxiety (sadly, that doesn’t work for grown-ups, either), time for reset and recovery can help protect kids from getting to a crisis point in the first place. A day off could even show families and schools what’s missing from a kid’s life, leading to less stress and pressure in the future. A mental health crisis for teensDoctors and teens alike have been especially concerned with young people’s mental health in the last five years, with Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general under President Joe Biden, warning in 2021 of a mental health crisis among adolescents. More recent surveys have shown some improvement in the prevalence of teen sadness and depression, but clinicians are still seeing “alarming rates” of anxiety and depression, as well as suicidality and self-harm, Amber Childs, a psychiatry professor at Yale School of Medicine who works on youth mental health, told me.Allowing mental health days can also help destigmatize mental illness, and encourage young people to be open about any struggles they’re going through, rather than hiding them, kids and experts say. Among teens, mental health days have emerged as a popular coping strategy. Students began advocating for them even before Covid hit, and lawmakers in states from Oregon to Utah have agreed, giving kids a designated number of mental health days per year, or simply changing the definition of an excused absence to include psychological reasons.While hard numbers on how many days kids are actually taking are hard to come by, the practice seems to be increasing, perhaps driven by a growing awareness that psychological well-being is as important as physical health, Spannagel said.The concept of a mental health day might sound pretty foreign to previous generations. Growing up, “I never got any days off,” Rothman of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, who has three teenagers, told me. “Your parents were kind of like, you either have to have a fever or you’re throwing up, that’s the only way you’re staying home.”But adults today need to understand “how different the world is now for our kids than it was for us,” Rothman said.Because of social media, young people today don’t have much downtime from social interaction, news, or, well, anything really, Childs told me. Being able to unplug “not only from our digitally enabled lives, but also from the routine things that happen in the social and academic space” can be positive, “whether or not something bad is happening.”Allowing mental health days can also help destigmatize mental illness, and encourage young people to be open about any struggles they’re going through, rather than hiding them, kids and experts say. The right way to use mental health daysHowever, the way we often think about mental health days might not be the most helpful for kids. Rather than using them when a child is already in crisis — “taking the release valve off of the pressure cooker,” as Childs put it — families and schools should use them as “a preventative tool” to keep that pressure from building up in the first place.Ideally, parents can look ahead to a time when kids might have a lot of stressful events coming up, like big exams or performances, then schedule a day off ahead of time. They should also plan how to use the day well. “A mental health day doesn’t equate to chilling on a couch for eight hours straight binging TikTok and television,” Childs said.Instead, Rothman suggests getting outside, reading, drawing, or playing card games — “whatever is calming and helps them feel more like themselves.” For teenagers especially, a day off could be a time to just catch up on sleep, something they’re often lacking due to early high school start times.What kids feel the need to do on a mental health day can also give adults “clues about what might be crowded out during a typical school day or week,” and help build those activities back in on ordinary days so kids don’t get as stressed out and depleted, Childs said. (If kids keep taking days off to sleep, it might be time for the school to consider a later start time.)Taking a day off shouldn’t be a way for kids to avoid something they’re anxious about, like a class, a difficult friendship, or school in general, experts say. Childs suggests that parents look for patterns — if kids keep asking for a mental health day on a Monday, it’s an opportunity to delve deeper into what’s happening at school on Mondays that might be stressing them out.If requests for a day off are very frequent, or if feelings around them are intense, it could be a sign that “you’re getting avoidance of a problem that most likely is going to be there in two days” when the kid goes back to school, Spannagel said.Meanwhile, if symptoms like stress or sadness are going on for more than two weeks, or parents see major changes to behavior like eating or sleeping, it could be time to reach out to a child’s primary care doctor to have them evaluated for mental health conditions, Rothman said.Kids with ADHD, autism, or learning differences might need the reset of a mental health day more than the average kid, to help them recover from sensory overload or fatigue, Spannagel said. At the same time, a kid frequently feeling too exhausted or overwhelmed to go to school could mean they need additional help with executive functioning or social skills, or that the accommodations they have at school aren’t meeting their needs. When it comes to concerns about absenteeism and academics, families and teachers can have a conversation about making up any work a child misses on an occasional day out, Spannagel said. And while some fear that allowing mental health days could encourage kids to skip school, that concern is “giving me like, if we talk about sex with them, they’re going to want to have more sex,” Childs said. “I think the question is more complex, which is: What about the current environment has lent itself to kids not feeling engaged in school?” Mental health support goes beyond a single dayA few mental health days aren’t going to fix problems with the school environment, not least because giving a kid a day off in the middle of the school year just isn’t possible for every family. Experts don’t recommend leaving kids home alone if they’re struggling mentally, and many parents don’t have the job flexibility to take extra time off with their kids. But schools can help by building aspects of a mental health day into the school week, adding time to shift the focus “away from academics and performance into exploration of self,” Childs said.Having resources in the classroom, like a quiet corner where kids can take a moment to themselves, can also help support kids’ mental health day-to-day, Rothman said. (My older kid’s teacher brought this calming dog stuffie to their classroom in the fall, and I honestly would like one for myself.) Talking about mental health in school is also crucial, whether that’s part of a formal program or just a teacher “being open about the things that they’re feeling,” Rothman said. “It fights the stigma around it.”What I’m readingSeventy-four percent of teens say social media helps them feel more connected to their friends, but 48 percent also say the platforms harm people their age, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to eliminate Head Start, the federal program that provides early education to more than half a million kids from low-income families. One graduate calls the program “one of the few times in my early life where I felt truly loved, seen and supported in a place of learning.”Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s remarks about children with autism who “will never pay taxes” recall the dark history of eugenics, writes Jessica Grose at the New York Times.My older kid and I are reading the Aster series of graphic novels, about a little girl who moves to the countryside so her mom can pursue her career as a robot-bird scientist, leading to friendships with an 800-year-old woman, a sheep wearing a tie, and three chestnuts who are also knights, among other colorful characters.From my inboxTwo weeks ago, I wrote about how tariffs could drive up the cost of items like strollers and car seats, making it harder to have a kid in America. Reader Diana Braley responded, “As a mom in 2025, I’ve realized raising kids doesn’t have to be as expensive as society makes it seem.”“Raising children has always required commitment, support, and resilience — not consumerism,” Braley wrote. “Big companies sell us the idea that spending more makes us better parents. But the truth is, our instincts and community matter more than any fancy product.”Thanks to Braley, and a reminder that you can always reach me at anna.north@vox.com!See More:

Millions will be sold but pre-orders are still scarce (Nintendo) Analysts estimate that between 6 and 8 million Nintendo Switch 2 consoles will be available at launch, the most there’s ever been. On Wednesday, Nintendo had to apologise to fans, because it wasn’t able to make enough Switch 2 consoles to fulfil pre-order demands. 2.2 million people applied for a pre-order, which is a staggering number when you consider the launch record in Japan is less than 1 million for the PlayStation 2 – which is currently the most successful video game console of all time. It’s not clear how many consoles Nintendo will have available at launch in Japan but analysts suggest that there will be around six to eight million worldwide, for the June 5 launch. That will make it the biggest console launch in history. Nintendo has neither confirmed nor delayed the figures, but the current worldwide record is held jointly by the PlayStation 4 and 5, which both sold 4.5 million units in their first two months. The Bloomberg report featuring the figures comes as Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders are belatedly opened in the US and Canada, following uncertainty over Donald Trump’s constantly changing tariffs. Nintendo was trying to avoid the worst of the tariffs by having around a third of its consoles made in Vietnam, and others in Cambodia. The Vietnamese tariff was announced as 46% on the day of the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct but has since been lowered to 10%, for at least 90 days. Reports suggest Nintendo already imported large volumes of consoles before any tariffs came into effect and is now sending only Vietnamese consoles to the US, which results in a much lower tariff than if they had been made in China. More Trending As a result, Nintendo has not raised the price of pre-orders in the US, where the console will cost $450 (£338 before tax). Nintendo Switch 2 accessories, in the camera and optional controllers, have seen price a price increase though. How to pre-order Nintendo Switch 2 in the UK The situation in the UK hasn’t changed much since the Direct, as while Nintendo has opened pre-orders on their own site, it works similarly to Japan in that it’s invite only, to people that can prove they’re long-time fans (by having had Nintendo Switch Online for several months and other criteria). Other retailers do get stock occasionally, but it never lasts for very long; although we’ll try and keep you updated when they get new deliveries. At time of writing nobody in the UK has stock but one option is Currys, who are not taking pre-orders online but are in-store, although that may very depending on the shop’s size and location. New stock sells out almost instantly (Nintendo) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

By Ed Cara Published April 25, 2025 | Comments (0) | A blacktip shark (Carcharhinus limbatus). These sharks have only rarely been documented to bite people unprovoked. © Diego Grandi via Shutterstock Sharks might not be as responsible for rare human bites as we assumed. In a study released today, scientists argue that at least some shark bites should be considered a form of self-defense. Marine biologists from France led the research, published in Frontiers in Conservation Science. After analyzing shark bite data from throughout the world, they estimated that about 5% of shark-on-human bites are wholly defensive, rather than sharks trying to catch their next meal. The findings should help inform shark bite prevention efforts, the researchers say. “The results of this study show that sharks have as much right as any animal or human to defend themselves when their survival is at stake.” Lead researcher Eric Clua, a shark specialist at PSL University, was inspired to look into the topic by observations he had made during his field studies in French Polynesia. He often heard about fishermen who systematically slaughtered sharks that had unwittingly become trapped in fish pens. These sharks would sometimes bite the fishermen if they were initially unsuccessful in killing the animal. He also heard reports of accidental shark bites on underwater spearfishermen where the sharks appeared to only attack because they wanted the fisherman to stay away from their prey. “On closer examination, the opportunity arose to model this self-defense mechanism described in the study, which insists on human and not shark responsibility in this type of accident,” Clua told Gizmodo in an email. The researchers first analyzed data from recorded shark bites in French Polynesia—specifically, incidents that contained at least some information on the possible motivation behind the bites. Between 2009 and 2023, 74 such shark bites were documented in the area. Four of these bites, 5% of the total, were likely motivated by self-defense, the researchers found. Clua and his team then scoured through data from the Global Shark Attack Files, which has documented nearly 7,000 shark bites since 1863. They examined bites classified as provoked, involving people placed in close proximity to sharks. Once again, about 5% of the bites they studied—322 bites overall—seemed to meet the criteria for self-defense. These criteria include the sharks biting immediately after a human action that is, or could be perceived as, aggressive, and the bites being repeated but leaving superficial, non-lethal wounds. Paradoxically, a defensive shark bite might also be disproportionately violent compared to the human action that preceded it, such as a stranded shark aggressively biting a human trying to return it to the water. But this disproportionality might simply be a sign of the shark’s desperation to survive at any cost, according to Clua. “The results of this study show that sharks have as much right as any animal or human to defend themselves when their survival is at stake,” he said. “They also show that, counter-intuitively, it is advisable not to come to the aid of a shark in danger, as it will not necessarily perceive this human action positively and may react aggressively.” By uncovering the many motivations behind shark bites, the team hopes to prevent them from happening in the first place. People shouldn’t interact with or approach sharks, for instance, even if they seem harmless or appear to be in danger. And in general, you should be in groups of at least two people when swimming in places where sharks live, which can reduce the risk of a sustained predatory attack. Unlike some land predators, Clua adds, staying still will not dissuade a predatory shark from attacking, so you should always try to defend yourself if the worst-case scenario happens. At the same time, the researchers note that sharks are typically afraid of humans. As a result, shark bites are very uncommon, and even more rarely are they fatal compared to other animal-human interactions. There were only 88 shark bites recorded worldwide in 2024 and seven related deaths, for instance. By contrast, hippos are estimated to fatally attack at least 500 people a year, and the fatality numbers get even more skewed when you consider the diseases spread by certain animals (mosquito-borne malaria alone kills over a half million people each year). So while it’s important to practice good safety in waters that could contain sharks, people (reporters included) also shouldn’t over-inflate the risk of being bitten by them in the first place. “In addition to reducing the number of such bites in the field, we hope that one of the major effects of our study will be to modify the vision and attitude of journalists, by suggesting that they take a closer look at the conditions in which bites occur, without systematically blaming the animals, but rather making humans more responsible,” Clua said. The team plans to continue studying other types of shark bites, such as “exploration”-driven bites where the sharks might bite humans to test whether they’re suitable prey. Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Ed Cara Published March 20, 2025 By Margherita Bassi Published March 9, 2025 By Ed Cara Published February 28, 2025 By Ed Cara Published January 21, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published January 7, 2025 By Ed Cara Published January 3, 2025

Anji Creative & Design Center / Atelier DeshausSave this picture!© Fangfang Tian Architects: Atelier Deshaus Area Area of this architecture project Area:  7000 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2025 Photographs Photographs:Fangfang TianMore SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. Situated in Xilong Township of Anji County, Zhejiang Province—an area renowned as one of China's premier white tea-producing regions—the project occupies a previously unused plot on the edge of the tea fields near the town center. Originally, the site was designated for the construction of a White Tea Museum, as well as a museum for the nearby Paleolithic archaeological site of Shangmakan. In response, the building was conceived as two courtyard-based clusters extending between tea fields and a natural pond, with green roofs designed to merge the architecture seamlessly into the surrounding agricultural landscape.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!After its completion, the building underwent a shift in program—or rather, the idea of a rural agricultural product museum evolved into a new model that emphasizes engagement and participation. White tea remains the central theme of the project, but its role has been redefined—from passive exhibition to active promotion and creative reinterpretation. At the same time, the operating entity envisioned the site as a new type of creative hub, one that would attract young people away from the congested city and into the countryside. The aim was to offer a new model of remote work and rural living for travelers, digital nomads, and other contemporary users.Save this picture!Save this picture!The layout of ACDC benefits from the original architectural strategy of flexible spatial distribution. Exhibition halls of various sizes are dispersed across the undulating terrain and connected by covered walkways. This approach allows the scattered-yet-connected clusters of exhibition halls, workspace, educational space, retail spaces, and tea rooms to serve multiple purposes: accommodating diverse forms of creative work, addressing different user groups, and supporting a range of thematic cultural events through both independent and shared programs.Save this picture!The undulating tea fields of Anji represent a human-made abstraction of natural topography—a unique kind of cultivated landscape shaped by the rhythm of tea planting. The architecture adopts a similar strategy. On plan, it follows an orthogonal grid reminiscent of an urban extension; yet in section, it mirrors and amplifies the site's natural undulations. This dual gesture not only serves the building's functional needs but also resonates with the hidden order of the original terrain, becoming a re-formation of the landscape itself. Together with the meandering tea fields, the architecture helps generate a new hybrid landscape on this land.Save this picture!This landscape is not merely visual. While the design employs a traditional courtyard-and-corridor typology, it also renders the courtyards as walkable topographies. Whether the center is open or closed, visitors can roam freely along the upper surfaces of the courtyards and corridors, experiencing the architecture as if moving through the fields themselves.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less About this office MaterialsMaterials and TagsPublished on April 25, 2025Cite: "Anji Creative & Design Center / Atelier Deshaus" 25 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1029409/anji-creative-and-design-center-atelier-deshaus&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

In this clip, we dive into the process of adjusting sphere size and spawn rates for magic orbs using Niagara in Unreal Engine 5. Watch as we explore particle movement and attractor settings to enhance your game development skills!#UnrealEngine #Niagara #GameDevelopment #Tutorial #MagicOrbs

Meteorites carry clues that are pivotal in exploring the history of our Solar System, yet they don’t all look the same after impact. Colliding with a planetary surface sends shockwaves through meteorites, changing their configuration in various ways. Scientists noticed, though, that meteorites containing carbon often appear as if they experienced less intense impacts and look less “shocked” than meteorites without carbon. A new study has discovered that this is because evidence from these meteorites blasts back into space after impact. The study, published in Nature Communications, solves a long-standing mystery that changes how meteorites are viewed. This improved understanding could even prove useful for future space missions to obtain samples from other planetary bodies like Ceres, a dwarf planet that may have supported life in the past.Evaluating Meteorite Shock Effects Stony meteorites called chondrites, formed over 4 billion years ago, have given scientists a glimpse of the early Solar System. They are separated into multiple classes based on their chemical composition and mineral makeup; Carbonaceous chondrites (C chondrites), for example, tend to contain carbon compounds and water.The appearance of chondrites that crash into a larger planetary body like Earth is measured through a shock classification system, with stages ranging from S1 (unshocked) to S6 (very strongly shocked). The shock effects become increasingly glaring with each successive stage, seen in the condition of minerals within the chondrites: lower stages usually have minor fracturing, while higher stages start to display more evidence of melting.Blasting Meteorites into SpaceThe researchers involved with the new study aimed to find out why carbonaceous chondrites don’t show significant shock effects, making it seem like they collided at lower speeds. A previous theory suggested that an impact would create degassed vapor from water-containing minerals in the meteorite, sending evidence of shock flying into space. However, this process was never tested to see if it could produce enough water vapor to trigger such an effect. In addition, there are some chondrites without water-containing minerals that still appear less shocked.The researchers suspected there was a different explanation behind this meteorite mystery. To find answers, they used a two-stage light gas gun connected to a sample chamber. This allowed them to launch small pellets that would hit samples modeled after meteorites with and without carbon. The gases produced by the impact were then collected and analyzed. This experiment revealed that impacts on carbon-containing meteorites cause chemical reactions that “produce extremely hot carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gases,” according to a statement on the study. This chemical reaction would be able to expel a meteorite's shock evidence into space.“We found that the momentum of the ensuing explosion is enough to eject the surrounding highly-shocked rock material into space. Such explosions occur on carbon-rich meteorites, but not on carbon-poor ones,” said author Kosuke Kurosawa, an astrophysicist at Kobe University in Japan, in a press release. Chondrites Beyond EarthCarbonaceous chondrites are rare on Earth (only making up 4 percent of all meteorite finds), but they reach other planetary bodies in the inner Solar System as well. One such location is Ceres, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The researchers say that Ceres’ gravity may be strong enough to pull material ejected from chondrite impacts back to its surface. As a result, the dwarf planet likely has an abundance of highly shocked material, which could be an important target for future sampling missions there. Since carbonaceous chondrites represent remnants of the early Solar System and possess various organic compounds, they may provide key information about life in space.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:Nature Communications. Impact-driven oxidation of organics explains chondrite shock metamorphism dichotomyMeteoritics & Planetary Science. Revising the shock classification of meteoritesScience Direct. Carbonaceous ChondriteJack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.

Browse Facebook Marketplace and you’ll encounter an assortment of odd finds: vintage lamps, used socks, a car engulfed in flames. Dom Robinson found a 3,300-ton, 330ft long cargo ship that sank off the Cornish coast during World War I. And it was a bargain: only £300 ($400 USD). Robinson purchased the wreck of the SS Almond Branch from someone who bought the wreckage from the British government in the 1970s. He told BBC Radio Cornwall that the original owner hoped to uncover something of value, but found it to just be a “big pile of rusting iron.” That didn’t bother Robinson, who is an hobbyist diver and had already done a dive visit to the site before acquiring the sunken pile of rusty iron. The SS Almond Branch. Screenshot: Dom Robinson/YouTube The SS Almond Branch was a British defense-armed merchant ship built in 1896 that a German submarine torpedo took down on November 27, 1917. The ship came to a rest in the waters near Dodman Point off South Cornwall. In the UK, private individuals can purchase shipwrecks. Thousands of wrecks sit in the waters around the UK, and owners need to follow a set of guidelines set by the government to ensure safety and historical preservation. Robinson took cameras along for his first dive of the wreck since finalizing his purchase. You can watch his dive, which took place in January 2025, in the video above. Happy exploring, Dom. Screenshot: Dom Robinson/YouTube The post Man buys WWI shipwreck for $400 on Facebook Marketplace appeared first on Popular Science.

Nature, Published online: 24 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01289-4Scientists have little information as the US government freezes and cancels their funding.

Ingrida Domarkienė, a geneticist at Vilnius University in Lithuania, discusses the exciting developments made possible by studying ancient and modern DNA.

I tried particles but my pc couldn't handle even a fraction of what I needed, so I just used botaniq grass 4-5x on the same mesh (I know, that's probably not the right way of doing it), but this still didn't give me enough grass. I thought about repeating it like 15 more times, but yeah, my pc wouldn't handle it. I tried using procedural materials, but couldn't make it realistic enough. For a reference of what I wanted: the same amount of grass you see on the roundabout. Also, if you guys can tell me how much this is worth charging, I'd appreciate it. Since I'm starting now and really don't have any idea if I'm charging more or less than it's worth. submitted by /u/mytinywhoopfcbrakes [link] [comments]