This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound Despite the geopolitical chaos and market collapses triggered by President Trump’s announcement of broad tariffs on international goods, some supporters still hope the strategy will produce a “golden age” of American industry. None of that is good for those planning to invest in US manufacturing. The longer-terms effects of the tariffs are, of course, unknown. And it’s that uncertainty, above all else, that could derail a reindustrialization still in the early stages for much of the country.Read the full story. —David Rotman AI is pushing the limits of the physical world Architecture often assumes a binary between built projects and theoretical ones. What physics allows in actual buildings, after all, is vastly different from what architects can imagine and design. That imagination has long been supported and enabled by design technology, but the latest advancements in artificial intelligence have prompted a surge in the theoretical. Read the full story. —Allison Arieff This story is from the most recent edition of our print magazine, which is all about how technology is changing creativity. Subscribe now to read it and to receive future print copies once they land. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump wants to make AI a national priority That’s in spite of his plans to axe the agency in charge of implementing the plan. (Ars Technica)+ The new executive action outlines plans for AI courses and programs. (Bloomberg $)+ But schools across the US are struggling with their existing curriculums. (Axios) 2 Driverless car makers won’t have to report as much crash data An overhaul of the US Department of Transport’s rules limits what companies need to declare. (Wired $)+ Unsurprisingly, the new framework benefits Tesla. (The Verge)+ Officials claim it will allow US automakers to compete better with China. (AP News)3 Apple plans to wind down US iPhone production in ChinaInstead, the handsets will be assembled in India. (FT $)+ It’s switching up its supply chains amid the tariff chaos. (Bloomberg $) + The change could come as soon as 2026. (The Guardian)4 Meta is finally cracking down on spam The days of multiple hashtags are over. (The Verge)5 How Elon Musk’s friends control access to his company shares Most people who hold stakes in SpaceX have no idea how much money it makes. (WSJ $)6 How Israel used the war in Gaza to deploy new military AI To a degree that’s never been seen before. (NYT $)+ Meanwhile, the US is preparing to offer Saudi Arabia a $100 billion arms package. (Reuters)+ Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military. (MIT Technology Review)That’s if falling vaccination rates continue. (7 The US is facing millions of measles cases in future decadesWP $)+ How measuring vaccine hesitancy could help health professionals tackle it. (MIT Technology Review) 8 Brazil’s AI welfare app is wrongly rejecting vulnerable applicationsDigitizing its complex systems has come at a cost. (Rest of World) + An algorithm intended to reduce poverty might disqualify people in need. (MIT Technology Review)9 How smart glasses can help people with hearing loss Real-time subtitles for the conversations around you may not be too far away. (New Yorker $)+ What’s next for smart glasses. (MIT Technology Review)10 What it’s like to read an AI-generated book about yourself 📖Extremely uncanny valley vibes. (Slate $)Quote of the day “While it is true that an AI has no feelings, my concern is that any sort of nastiness that starts to fill our interactions will not end well.” —Screenwriter Scott Z Burns reflects on the ethics of not saying please and thank you to chatbots, the New York Times reports. One more thing The quest to figure out farming on Mars Once upon a time, water flowed across the surface of Mars. Waves lapped against shorelines, strong winds gusted and howled, and driving rain fell from thick, cloudy skies. It wasn’t really so different from our own planet 4 billion years ago, except for one crucial detail—its size. Mars is about half the diameter of Earth, and that’s where things went wrong. The Martian core cooled quickly, soon leaving the planet without a magnetic field. This, in turn, left it vulnerable to the solar wind, which swept away much of its atmosphere. Without a critical shield from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, Mars could not retain its heat. Some of the oceans evaporated, and the subsurface absorbed the rest, with only a bit of water left behind and frozen at its poles. If ever a blade of grass grew on Mars, those days are over.  But could they begin again? And what would it take to grow plants to feed future astronauts on Mars? Read the full story. —David W. Brown We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Understanding the science behind stress can give us handy tools to cope with it.+ Rockalina the turtle is enjoying the great outdoors after spending close to 50 years indoors.+ If you don’t have the greenest of thumbs, don’t panic—these plants are super easy to take care of.+ Why TikTok wants you to live like a dinosaur. 🦕

Premier League outfit had initially proposed full rebuild under plans first revealed nearly three years ago 1/9 show caption Grimshaw has revised its plans to expand capacity of the North Stand at Aston Villa’s Villa Park stadium to 50,000. The club, which has revealed new images of the proposals, unveiled plans for the redevelopment back in August 2022 when a full rebuild was initially planned at a cost of around £100m. But the club has since decided it wants to maintain Villa Park’s matchday capacity of just over 42,500 while the work is being carried out. It said: “Through a robust design process, Aston Villa has found a way to adapt and modernise the existing structure of the North Stand without losing any seats during the season. With disruption to current fans mitigated, Aston Villa is able to move forward with the planning process.” It added it would submit an updated planning application for the job with Birmingham city council next month. The scheme first got the green light in October 2023. And the Premier League club told Building: “The club has started the tendering process with contractors for the required enabling works as well as the main construction package for the project.” Work has been stalled because of issues around the redevelopment of a nearby railway station despite the plans. This year’s Champions League quarter finalists said: “The club has always been clear that increases to the capacity of the stadium must be done in tandem with improvements to the local transport network. Since the expansion plans were announced in 2022, Mayor Richard Parker has committed in his campaign manifesto to rebuild Witton station.” But Parker has pledged to make the required upgrades meaning the club is now pressing on with the redevelopment. It said the plans promised by the mayor, which include larger and safer queuing systems, would help the station double the current passenger handling capability of the station to 10,000 passengers per matchday. The wider project team for the Villa Park expansion includes cost consultant Core Five, town planning and transport consultant WSP, structural engineer David Smith Associates and MEP engineer ME Engineers. The club has said that it wants the work completed in the second half of 2027 ahead of Villa Park hosting Euro 2028 matches the following summer.

More on this topicAJ Small Projects 2025 shortlist: Part 2 This year we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of AJ Small Projects. To mark this milestone – and to reflect the quality and variety of the almost 170 entries we received – we have, for the first time in the award’s history, shortlisted 30 projects. The shortlist includes every typology of project from saunas and wellbeing spaces to new parks and outdoor classrooms – and all completed well within a tight budget of £399,000. The intention has remained the same throughout the award’s existence – to give well-deserved recognition to projects realised on more modest budgets. Our AJ Small Projects reader poll is now open, and you can vote for your favourite here.Advertisement More on this topicAJ Small Projects 2025 shortlist: Part 1 The award champions the idea that big budgets aren’t everything; that a project’s success comes from thought, collaboration, environmental and social considerations, and judicious material selection. But small projects have also always been crucial in the experimentation and testing of ideas. They also teach valuable lessons about prioritisation and prudent choices, which then feed into more established practice. Everyone starts small. This year’s winners will be announced at a free-to-attend event at Orms’ recently fitted-out offices in Old Street. The shortlisted practices will each present their projects to the jury in a crit-style, live judging session on the same day as the awards event. To attend the event click here.  Subscribers can read the Small Projects issue here. For information about subscription packages, please click here. AJ Small Projects is sponsored by Marley Pricegore Primary  £265,000 This is the first phase of a long-term campus strategy for Nottingham arts organisation Primary. Works included a light-touch refurbishment of a Grade II-listed former Victorian school to make it more welcoming and help strengthen the relationship between the organisation and surrounding city, visitors and residents. The latest piece to be completed includes a public entrance consisting of four new openings in the masonry walls that enclose the site, creating a direct connection with the street for the first time. New signage has been designed with Primary residents Joff + Ollie Studio. A new entrance to the former school is sheltered by an oversized galvanised steel canopy. To enliven the former playground, a dye garden has been abundantly planted and a new outdoor workshop sits against the blue timber façade of a 1960s annexe building. Steps between the two levels of playground now double as seating for outdoor p:erformances and talks. Inside the Victorian building, a studio/kitchen has been created, and the hallway and reception renovated. These lead onto the main exhibition spaces in the two naturally lit former school halls. Finally, a new staircase and platform lift link the upper and lower ground floors, alongside new bathrooms, making Primary more inclusive and accessible. FW Location Nottingham | Start on site May 2014 | Completion July 2024 | Gross internal floor area 1,570m2 | Client Private | Funding Architectural Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Primary | Structural engineer engineersHRW | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor Harry Richmond & Partner | Annual CO2 emissions 33.5 kgCO2/m2 | Embodied carbon 229 kgCO2/m2 | Whole-life carbon Not calculated | Design life 100 years | Photography Tom Morley, Matthew Blunderfield, Sahej RahalAdvertisement See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library RKA Architectural Design Studio The Boiler House £222,000 As part of RKA’s masterplan for St Andrews Botanic Gardens, the Gardens’ gas boilers were decommissioned and the 1970s boilerhouse converted into this educational hub space for school pupils, students and visiting groups. Inside, the tall-ceilinged machine room forms a new entrance hall, while a wall between the boiler room and garages was removed to create a large, flexible space, which is lined with OSB and has an exposed steel and timber structure. In a second phase, the chimney will also be reemployed as an educational periscope looking out to sea. The building’s environmental upgrade includes high-performance insulation added to walls and roof, the installation of an air-source heat pump and underfloor heating and replacement of single- with double-glazed windows, while solar shading mitigates overheating and openable windows enable cross-ventilation. A render incorporating cork oak bark has been used on the façade and bricks from demolition either reused or crushed for landscaping. RGW Location St Andrews, Fife | Start on site August 2023 | Completion July 2024 | Gross internal floor area 110m2 | Client St Andrews Botanic Garden | Funding Undisclosed | Structural engineer Millards Consulting | Services engineer KDQ | Main contractor Chris Wands | Annual CO2 emissions Not calculated | Embodied carbon Not calculated | Whole-life carbon Not calculated | Design life 25 years | Photography Alison White Photography See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library Studio Bokeh Sky Room  £140,000 Replacing a dilapidated conservatory, this project involved refurbishment and extension, creating a kitchen, dining room and rear terrace to an upper floor flat in De Beauvoir Town, north London. The space has been conceived as a ‘room in the sky’ – a delicate timber-lined lantern perched high among trees and overlooking a rear garden. The concept of framing has been used throughout the project. Frames define views, space, light, structure and functional organisation, as well as forming a motif that has been carried through to an interwoven lattice coffered ceiling. This, in turn, delineates the rooflight, the rhythm of external vertical fins and the window to the terrace. The compact 20m2 project is essentially a single piece of bespoke joinery, through which the timber junctions, interfaces, datums and textures are all celebrated. FW Location London N1 | Start on site February 2023 | Completion October 2023 | Gross internal floor area 20m2 | Client Private | Funding Private | Structural engineer Studio Strukt | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor London Renovators | Annual CO2 emissions Not calculated | Embodied carbon Not calculated | Whole-life carbon Not calculated | Design life Not supplied | Photography Ståle Eriksen See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library Studio MASH La Grange £150,000 This low-tech barn-like building in rural Guernsey accommodates storage, a workshop and a gym. Its material and structural language is designed to be simple, familiar and legible: rusted corrugated metal and polycarbonate sheeting over sawn standard timber sections – but it exhibits a refined precision through careful detailing. Its distinctive barrel-vaulted roof is formed by bow-trusses resting on columns of paired-timbers, sitting on cast-concrete shoe supports, with a ‘tongue’ of concrete rising up between the timber uprights. Internally, exposed services, sliding internal partitions and the regular structural grid allow for flexibility and easy subdivision into different uses. Full-height doors open the interior up to the landscape, while the envelope of slender timber cladding over translucent polycarbonate sheets allows filtered daylight into the building during the day but glows warmly as you approach by night. RGW Location Guernsey | Start on site April 2022 | Completion July 2023 | Gross internal floor area 62m2 | Client Private | Funding Private | Structural engineer CAR | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor Island Build | Annual CO2 emissions Not calculated | Embodied carbon Not calculated | Whole-life carbon Not calculated | Design life 50 years | Photography Chris Lane See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library Studio ONB Hatch End Riverside Park Phase 1 £110,000 Studio ONB was appointed by Harrow Council to revitalise an underused green space adjacent to Harrow Arts Centre and the River Pinn. The initial brief was for an accessible path and, after collaborative engagement with local community groups, the project’s ambition was expanded to a new park that would enhance ecology and engage visitors through playful interventions and performance. The park’s design is centred on ecologies and includes new parkland trees, wildflower meadows and rotational coppicing to improve lighting along the Pinn. A series of objects, including a stage as part of Phase 1, serve as focal points. In collaboration with Public Works, waste stone and brick found on site were used in the fabrication of the tiles for the stage, and thus they reflect the materials and tones of the arts centre nearby. The process of creating these was tied to Studio ONB’s work at Harrow Arts Centre and in turn the centre’s work in performing arts to benefit young people’s mental health. The first phase of the scheme includes the new path, seating and stage, designed for both formal and informal performances. The park’s opening was celebrated with a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. FW Location London HA5 | Start on site October 2023 | Completion February 2024 | Gross internal floor area N/A | Client London Borough of Harrow | Funding London Borough of Harrow | Structural engineer Lewis Hubbard Engineering | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor Tilhill Landscapes | Annual CO2 emissions N/A | Embodied carbon Not calculated | Whole-life carbon N/A | Design life Not supplied | Photography Luke O’Donovan See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library Studio Partington 347 Crescent House Pilot Project £150,000 This is a pilot project for improvements across the entire block of 153 flats at the Grade II*-listed Crescent House on the Golden Lane Estate, designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon. The project aims to improve the aged and inefficient fabric, reduce carbon emissions, improve resident comfort and alleviate tenant fuel poverty (half the residents are City of London tenants). The protected sapele and glass façade, which accounted for 60 per cent of heating losses, has had its window frames refurbished. Rotten or damaged timber was repaired and replaced through resin repair and spliced-in or completely new timber sections. The single glazing has been replaced with vacuum glazing: two sheets of 4mm glass bonded together with a 0.3mm vacuum between. This results in an ultra-thin unit that has high thermal performance and minimal impact on the appearance of the building. The result has been a heat loss reduction of 56-59 per cent. RGW Location London EC1 | Start on site April 2023 | Completion November 2023 | Gross internal floor area 39m2 | Client City of London Corporation | Funding City of London Corporation | Structural engineer Stand Consulting Engineers | Services engineer CrEAM engineering services | Main contractor Abbott Property Solutions | Annual CO2 emissions 64.83 kgCO2/m2 (predicted) | Embodied carbon 404 kgCO2/m2 | Whole-life carbon 558 kgCO2/m2 | Design life 25 years | Photography Tim Crocker See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library Studio Propolis Bronwen’s Sanctuary £55,000 An unserviced wellbeing space commissioned by a local mental health charity, this 20m2 structure sits in a corner of Lakeside Primary School in Cardiff and is used for one-to-one support sessions, as well as group activities by children. Conceived as a shelter for encouraging imagination, the building references tree houses, enchanted folktale cabins, ornithological hides and dens. On the south side, a protruding high window gives views to the clouds and treetops, while sheltering an entrance and deck seat below. To the north, a bay window creates an intimate reading space with views to the hills. Locally sourced materials have been used throughout, including Port Orford cedar from the Forest of Dean for the structural frame, cypress columns and hand-cut cedar shakes for the cladding, which has been left untreated to grey naturally.  Internally, the space is tactile and sensory: Deodara cedar floorboards from an estate in Shropshire, along with hemp lime-plastered walls, help create a meditative atmosphere. Externally, stones to make the low walls were dug up on site and all the furniture was made from offcuts in Studio Propolis’s workshop. This is the first in a network of micro-spaces the charity plans to build across Cardiff. FW Location Cardiff | Start on site March 2023 | Completion December 2023 | Gross internal floor area 20.6m2 | Client Bronwen’s Wish | Funding Charitable foundation (Bronwen’s Wish) | Structural engineer Simon Bastone Associates | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor Griffinwood | Annual CO2 emissions Nil | Embodied carbon 85 kgCO2/m2 | Whole-life carbon 85 kgCO2/m2 | Design life 60 years | Photography Studio Propolis See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library Untitled Practice Rainham Riverside Belvedere £331,000 This structure containing sheltered seating is a place-making public realm improvement project providing new amenities beside the River Thames for workers at Easter Industrial Park and walkers from Rainham town centre to the nearby RSPB Nature Reserve. The brief was developed with the local community, and the belvedere forms a new riverside landmark with shelter, picnic seating and a fully accessible raised deck with views across the Thames flood defence wall. It also contains interpretative material on local historic and natural features, including the former Ferry Inn River crossing, the Murex ferroalloy metals foundry and surrounding open mosaic habitat grassland. The belvedere sits on an isolated site where three paths meet beside a large Tilda Rice processing plant, which is vulnerable to antisocial behaviour. In consequence, police security initiative Secured by Design required the structure to be non-combustible, so it is made entirely of low-maintenance steel, while its limestonefilled gabion plinth provides habitats for reptiles and invertebrates. RGW Location London RM13 | Start on site February 2024 | Completion October 2024 | Gross internal floor area 73.5m2 | Client London Riverside Business Improvement District (BID) | Funding GLA Good Growth Fund, London Riverside BID, London Borough of Havering S106 and CIL | Structural engineer Flow Structures | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor Borras Construction | Annual CO2 emissions Nil | Embodied carbon Not calculated | Whole-life carbon Not calculated | Design life 25 years | Photography Barry Willis See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library WonKy The Clearing £180,000 This is a multifunctional education space supporting woodland management and volunteers. It hosts events teaching the importance of sustainable woodland management and nature conservation, demonstrates traditional forestry and woodworking skills to volunteers and local schools, and gives children access to space for outdoor recreation and learning. The 88ha public park and ancient woodland, Lesnes Abbey Woods, sits at the end of the Elizabeth Line. Bexley Council appointed WonKy to co-design the outdoor space with users, employing a former goods yard as the project’s site. The scheme consists of a large parachute forming an all-weather outdoor classroom with covered dappled lighting. This is supported by a circle of wooden posts carved by local volunteers with woodland motifs. Inspired by the fishing net lofts of Hastings, a small square tower, lined with plywood internally and clad in Cor-ten steel with a translucent GRP lantern, stores and dries the parachute and houses environmental monitoring equipment. A treadle-operated pole lathe and shave horse are brought into the scheme when needed from a sheltered store clad in sawtooth-profiled Cor-ten. This is surrounded by a low concrete bench. All materials were specified to get the maximum from the budget and include a reclaimed shipping container, decommissioned military parachute and chestnut and oak coppiced timber from the surrounding woodland. FW Location Lesnes Abbey Woods, London SE2 | Start on site August 2023 | Completion February 2024 | Gross internal floor area 76m2 | Client London Borough of Bexley | Funding Parks for People National Lottery Heritage Fund | Structural engineer engineersHRW | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor Gransden Construction | Annual CO2 emissions Not calculated | Embodied carbon Not calculated | Whole-life carbon Not calculated | Design life 60 years | Photography Jim Stephenson See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library YAA Projects Solar £35,000 This exhibition installation for the Design Museum and Future Observatory, curated by George Kafka,  showcased the work of four design researchers on the theme of solar. Staged in four sections, a continuous plinth of diagonally stacked Kenoteq recycled bricks, containing just 5 per cent of the embodied carbon of traditional bricks, provided display space for objects. Each researcher’s section was marked with a graphic totem and plinth indentation, emphasising the exploration of solar shade and shadow. Complementing this, natural linen fabric lined the walls, offering a neutral background for drawings and framed works. The design celebrated temporality and impermanence, its elemental language focused on disassembly and reuse. The stacked bricks, on loan for the exhibition’s duration, were returned to the supplier for reuse, while Celcon blocks and timber from the studwall construction as well as the linen are all being reused in other projects. The Xanita fibre board used for graphic elements was donated to architecture students for model-making. RGW Location London W8 | Start on site June 2024 | Completion June 2024 | Gross internal floor area 115m2 | Client Design Museum and Future Observatory | Funding Design Museum and Future Observatory | Structural engineer N/A | Services engineer N/A | Main contractor 345 Interiors | Annual CO2 emissions N/A | Embodied carbon Not calculated | Whole-life carbon Not calculated | Design life Four months | Photography Henry Mills See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library AJ Small Projects is sponsored by AJ Small Projects 2025 2025-04-25 Fran Williams comment and share TagsAJ Small Projects 2025

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April 25, 20255 min readCan There Be Sound in Space?It seems contrary to common knowledge, but sound can travel through some parts of space quite wellBy Phil Plait edited by Lee BillingsSound—in the form of shock waves—helps sculpt the beautiful, delicate structures of some supernova remnants, such as those seen here in a Hubble Space Telescope image of the Veil Nebula. NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Project“In space no one can hear you scream.”That now classic tagline (from Alien, one of the greatest science-fiction horror movies ever made) hinges on a big assumption that most of us broadly make: space is empty. And it is—mostly. But there is stuff out there between the stars, and in some cases there’s enough of it to make a little noise over.So maybe we should amend that line. In space no one can hear you scream—unless, that is, you scream loudly enough and in the right place.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.What we think of as “sound” is really just a vibration that travels through some sort of material (what scientists call a medium). The music I’m listening to right now as I write these words is just such a vibration, created by electricity pulsing through magnets inside my computer’s speakers. The magnets drive a membrane that rapidly wiggles back and forth, pushing on the surrounding air. This creates waves—usually called sound waves but more technically known as acoustic waves—of slightly compressed and decompressed air that travel to my ears. And finally, within my inner ear, another membrane vibrates in response and sends signals to my brain, which interprets them as music.Acoustic waves travel through a medium by causing the atoms or molecules in it to successively bump into each other. For my music, that medium is air, but you can also hear sounds underwater—or through solid matter if you put your ear to it. The waves travel through these materials a bit differently than they do through air because of differences in composition and density, but the principle is the same.If space were truly empty—an utter vacuum, devoid of any matter—then yes, the Alien slogan would be unquestionably correct. And in general it’s true; by human standards, space pretty much lives up to its reputation.Human standards are not a great basis for comparison, though. Understanding why requires some basic order-of-magnitude numerical thinking about the varying amounts of sound-sustaining stuff in space. Let’s just use the word “particle” as a generic term for this material; it can refer to any sort of individual unit of matter—an atom, a molecule, a subatomic particle, whatever.With that in mind, let’s ask: How empty is empty? A laboratory vacuum chamber, for example, might contain a trillion particles per cubic centimeter, or cm3 (a volume of about one fourth of a typical six-sided die). That may seem like a lot, but it’s a particle density tens of millions of times less than that of the air you’re breathing, which has tens of quintillions of molecules per cm3.Yet as relatively empty as that lab vacuum may be, space makes it look like soup. Interplanetary space is far more rarefied, with just a few dozen particles in each cubic centimeter. That thin gruel can reach up to more than a million particles per cm3 if the sun blasts out a solar storm, but even then it’s less substantial than all but a handful of ultrahigh vacuums achieved on Earth.And the space between stars—the interstellar medium—is even thinner, with as little as 100 particles per cubic meter (m3), or, on average, 0.0001 per cm3. Intergalactic space, the truly deep space between galaxies, has an average of one—one!—particle per m3. Scream all you want; no one will hear you through that.By now you probably appreciate that not all space is evacuated equal. In nebulas and other celestial regions, matter is thicker. A typical density for a brilliantly illuminated gas cloud like the Orion Nebula is around 10,000 particles per cm3. The density in other locations can be quite a bit higher, however. Barnard 68, for example, is a small, cold, dense molecular cloud that has roughly a million particles per cm3. That’s much lower than in a lab-grade vacuum, yet across vast expanses of space, even very low particle densities can add up, so Barnard 68’s tenuous material is still enough to absorb essentially all the light that would otherwise just pass through. Some giant molecular clouds can have dense cores that can spike to a billion particles per cm3.Even then, your shout wouldn’t get far. There just aren’t enough particles to bump into each other to transport the acoustic wave. If you want sound to move through space, you need a much louder source that operates over vast volumes.An exploding star, for example, blasts out huge quantities of material into space at exceedingly high speed. That ejecta slams into so much of the interstellar medium so hard that sufficient numbers of particles strike each other to make an acoustic wave.The speed of that wave depends on the density of the medium, but in a typical nebula, it’s about 10 kilometers per second (km/s). That’s much faster than the less than 1 km/s speed of sound in Earth’s air, so it’s speedy for us Earthlings. But the material from an exploding star leaves that in the dust (so to speak)—it plows into the surrounding gas at literally supersonic speeds. This generates shock waves, much like a fighter jet emitting a sonic boom. The ambient material around the exploding star is compressed by the shock waves, creating the lovely filaments and ribbons of gas commonly seen in a supernova’s expanding cloud of debris.Somewhat surprisingly, the speed of sound in a nebula isn’t just a matter of arcane astrophysics—it turns out to be important to our very existence here on Earth. When a dense clump of gas and dust in a molecular cloud collapses, it flattens and shapes itself into a disk around the newly forming star. A very rough estimate of a typical density for such a disk is tens to hundreds of trillions of particles per cm3, denser than a lab vacuum but extremely diluted compared with, say, air. I’d say that qualifies as “space,” but it’s still enough to sustain sound waves, which is critical. If the material is dense enough, it becomes viscous and even turbulent, allowing clumps of material to gradually grow into planets. Those conditions depend on the speed of sound within the disk, and without them, the particles there would tend to orbit the star without giving rise to planets at all.In other words, without sound in space, we probably wouldn’t be here to talk about sound in space. That may go against conventional wisdom, but I’m willing to shout loudly enough to make my voice heard about it.

Skate won't be playable offline to offer a "massively multiplayer" sandbox that's "always online and always evolving" It's the grind. Image credit: EA/Eurogamer News by Victoria Kennedy News Reporter Published on April 25, 2025 Skate developer Full Circle has stated its upcoming reboot won't have an offline mode. This is because "the game and city [known as San Vansterdam] are designed to be a living, breathing massively multiplayer skateboarding sandbox", and both are "always online and always evolving". To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Does Anyone Really Want Long Games Anymore? Watch on YouTube According to a recent column by the developer, Skate players will notice changes to San Vansterdam itself as time goes on, as well as "smaller things, like live events and other in-game activities". And, so the studio can deliver on its vision, Skate will "always require a live connection". Full Circle says this may not be a surprise to anyone who has been part of Skate's playtest, but it may still be a surprise to those who haven't been partaking. After all, the original games were offline. Then again, the Skate revival will be a free-to-play title on its release, so perhaps some were already expecting an online connection as standard. In addition to chatting about the lack of an offline mode, the Skate team also addressed the playtest's microtransactions. As reported in March, microtransactions were added during the game's closed alpha test. "We know that using real money during a playtest is a little unusual, but we think it’s the best way to properly assess and adjust the system before launch," Full Circle said today. "If you see prices or other things changing over time, please understand that this is normal. And of course, you will receive the amount you spent during playtesting in San Van Bucks (SVB) when we reset for Early Access launch." As to when we will all be able to get our hands on Skate, Full Circle remains committed to its 2025 early access release window, although it hasn't shared a more specific date as yet. This revival of EA's Skate games was first announced back in 2020. On its eventual release, it will have cross-play and cross-progression support.

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 Capcom has officially teased Resident Evil 9, the next entry in the long-running horror-action series. In a video released on social media, the next mainline entry in the series was teased while celebrating 10 million players of the awesome Resident Evil 4 Remake. Resident Evil 9 officially teased To celebrate 10 million players of the 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4 across all platforms, Capcom released a short video on social media. In the video, Ada Wong sets off the church bell in the game’s opening village, causing Los Plagas villagers to walk around with party hats on. At the end of the video, Capcom teases the next entry in the series, Resident Evil 9. As the video ends, the camera lingers on wooden fences aligned in the shape of the Roman numeral “IX”. For those who don’t understand Roman numerals for some reason, that means 9. Resident Evil 9 is expected to be the next entry in the series set after the awesome Resident Evil Village. While little has been discussed about the upcoming sequel, it’s expected to be another first-person take on the franchise with online leaks claiming vampires will play a prominent role in the game. Alongside the next mainline game, Capcom is also said to be working on a remake of Resident Evil 5, the series’ controversial co-op entry. It’s not known what changes will be made to the remake, if the remake will remain a co-op game, or when it will release. Capcom has been on one hell of a roll over the past decade, not just with Resident Evil but also its other projects. The studio’s recent release of Monster Hunter Wilds was so popular that it quickly became the company’s biggest release in its 40-year history. Additionally, Resident Evil is now more popular than ever, as evidenced by the 10 million player celebration of Resident Evil 4 Remake, and we’re always excited to see what Capcom cooks up with the series. Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

Randall Mays, businessman, investor, and philanthropist, knows how to throw a good party—if your idea of a party involves meditating on grass under open skies (the kind you sit on, not smoke). Interior designer Christina Simon of her eponymous Austin studio can attest to Mays’s definition, having had a hand in transforming his circa-1915 bungalow in Travis Heights, Austin, into a space that’s grandpa-chic by day and trippy by night. “It serves as a lively venue for hosting parties during SXSW and the Austin City Limits Music Festival,” says Simon, whom Mays found through artist friends and enlisted with a brief of exactly four words: Austin eclectic hippie vibe, please—five, if you’re being precise.As Simon recalls, the brief was, fortuitously, easier done than said. “The home was lovely, but it was really disjointed and everything was white. It was a blank canvas,” adds the designer. She worked with Daniel Ward of Mark Richardson Architects and Dustin Minium of Red Tail Construction for the architecture and execution.The living room—awash in Farrow and Ball’s Inchyra Blue—is a curated library of vintage finds, featuring an original Rex Ray rug, Dunbar glass coffee tables, and Knoll’s Wassily chairs (right). Simon designed the sofa to fit perfectly into the window alcove and framed the adjacent wall with a grid of small-scale paintings by Texas artist Matt Kleberg. Overhead, an Il Sol flushmount light by Paul Ferrante casts a warm glow, while a CB2 chair to the left provides a cozy perch. Art: Matt Kleberg/Josh Pazda Hiram Butler GalleryA canvas this blank would typically take time to fill—but time was a luxury Simon didn’t have. “The renovation happened in two stages—paint, wallpaper, countertops, and surface areas before Randall moved in, and then the full bath and kitchen remodel after. We had about two months for the ‘before’ bit, so everything we ordered had to be in stock—it was very tight, a little unnerving, and a small miracle,” she says. Lucky for her, she knew where to start. “Randall is an artist, an art collector, and a true bon vivant. His homes are always open, whether he’s there or not, so I designed a space as fun as his legendary parties—full of conversation nooks that spark dialogue and the laid-back hospitality his gatherings are known for, from season to season, day to night.”She designed the home in bold layers, enlivening some walls with grasscloth, moiré silk, and walnut veneer wallpaper, and others in deep, brooding blues and purples. “Wherever we could build texture and warmth, we did,” adds Simon, who opted for characterful textured window coverings and warmed the sunroom in Clé’s black terra-cotta tiles. As for the decor, she leaned vintage. “That’s how I started getting the look and feel down for the house,” Simon adds.Mays’s office is anything but traditional. “It turned into an explosion of creativity and psychedelic references—the whole space transforms under black light,” says Simon, who brought in vibrant cushions, a mural by Austin artist Michelle Marchesseault, and a surround sofa and ottoman of her own design, upholstering the former in Opuzen’s Furocious fabric. “Oranges and pinks glow against iridescent mushrooms, third eyes, and hidden Easter eggs—nods to the client’s family, their love for dancing bears à la the Grateful Dead, and inside jokes only they would recognize.” Art: Michelle Marchesseault/Northern-Southern

Here's an overview of the most recent Blender jobs on Blender Artists, ArtStation and 3djobs.xyz: KitBash3D | Community Marketing Specialist Paid work for two clips totalling 13 seconds. Modelling house flies and animating Experienced 3D modeller for indie game: Creating quality characters and environments Looking for experienced artist in product visualization Blender Animation Trainer & [...] Source

By AJ Dellinger Published April 24, 2025 | Comments (28) | A sign reads "Enforcement Zone Ahead" on a street in New York City where congestion pricing is enforced. © Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Sean Duffy, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, would like to kill New York City’s congestion pricing. Donald Trump’s Department of Justice doesn’t think he has much of a case. We know that thanks to an apparent error on the part of the DOJ’s legal team, which uploaded and then removed an internal memo offering its opinion that the effort to kill the tolls is “unlikely” to win over the court. The 11-page document—uploaded Wednesday night to the docket for the ongoing lawsuit between New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Duffy’s DOT before being taken down—was originally sent on April 11 to DOT’s senior trial attorney Erin Hendrixson, advising her and her team to change their approach or risk losing their case. The DOT is defending Duffy’s decision to declare the project illegal. Yet the DOJ warned Duffy’s actions to dismantle the project “was contrary to law, pretextual, procedurally arbitrary and capricious, and violated due process”—none of which seems all that good if you’re tasked with defending the validity of the actions in court. As such, the DOJ’s attorneys concluded “It is very unlikely that Judge Liman or further courts of review will uphold the Secretary’s decision on the legal grounds.” Given that the current position seems to be a loser, the Justice Department attorneys recommended DOT change tact and argue the toll doesn’t align with the agency’s goals and was canceled “as a matter of changed agency priorities”—a position that is more legally defensible under regulations set by the Office of Management and Budget. According to Bloomberg, that argument fell flat in DOT offices. Normally, all of that would happen behind the scenes, and the parties would grit their teeth and move forward with a unified front. But then the DOJ went ahead and uploaded the document by accident—a fact it confirmed Thursday morning in a letter filed with the court that acknowledged it had inadvertently uploaded a privileged document to the public docket and asked the court to permanently seal the document. “Although the contents of the document have been made public in news reporting, the document was filed in error and should not be considered part of the court docket,” they wrote. The court has instead opted to temporarily seal it, though it seems a little silly given how widely available the document is at this point. The DOJ copping to accidentally uploading the document is a bit surprising. Luckily, the DOT’s behavior is much more on brand. In a statement to Courthouse News, a spokesperson for the agency rhetorically asked “Are SDNY lawyers on this case incompetent or was this their attempt to RESIST?” That same unnamed spokesperson called the mistake “legal malpractice,” and said, “It’s sad to see a premier legal organization continue to fall into such disgrace.” At least someone is on the ball in this mess! Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Lucas Ropek Published April 23, 2025 By AJ Dellinger Published April 21, 2025 By Matt Novak Published April 18, 2025 By AJ Dellinger Published April 16, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published April 11, 2025 Joseph Winters, Grist Published April 10, 2025