In January, Microsoft released a minute-long advert for its Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. It currently has 42,000 views on YouTube with 302 comments discussing the hardware — what the comments don’t mention, however, is the AI-generated shots used in the ad. Why? Because no one even realized AI was involved until Microsoft smugly revealed it this week. You can tell the company is proud of this little stunt it’s pulled off because the blog about it begins with a dramatic summary of the history of film and how it has evolved — implying generative AI tools are the next step in this grand evolution. The blog, written by Jay Tan, says the reason the Visual Design team used generative AI for this advert is because they only had one month to plan, film, and edit the entire thing. They used AI tools to draft the script, storyboards, and pitch deck within a couple of days — a process Tan claims would usually take weeks. Related The next part of the process sounds a little bit like torture, however — refining prompts to get the right output. Designers gave natural language descriptions to one AI tool which then transformed them into an effective “prompt format” to use with other AI tools. They went through thousands of different prompts to finally achieve what they wanted — and yet this was apparently quicker in the long run than the traditional methods. In the end, the team thinks it saved “90% of the time and cost it would typically take.” When the deadline is the most important aspect of your project, I suppose you have to do whatever it takes to save time. However, having tried and failed to use generative AI for work myself, I feel acutely sorry for whoever got stuck with the task of refining prompts thousands of times over. I can’t deny, however, that a Microsoft advert is the perfect place to hide AI-generated images. The overly clean, minimal, unlived-in look of the sets and backgrounds Microsoft uses are basically real-life versions of AI-generated images. Everything looks a little too perfect, a little too digitally adjusted, and overall just a little bit “off.” So when I watch the ad now, it’s no surprise to me that viewers just saw the AI content as more of Microsoft’s usual airbrushed imagery. When you look closely, however, you can spot things that look a little odd — a pair of very flat glasses, a suspicious-looking teddy bear, and a few innocuous objects that look okay at a distance but when you zoom in, you can’t really tell what they’re meant to be. But for the most part, it’s not very obvious at all. Naturally, the Design team still used real people for all of the close-up hand shots and used editing software to remove every weird AI artifact and hallucination-produced anomaly so there were no striking “uncanny valley” moments left for viewers to notice. Well done, Microsoft, you tricked us all! Editors’ Recommendations

Prompt engineering, a role aimed at crafting the perfect input to send to a large language model, was poised to become one of the hottest jobs in artificial intelligence. What happened?

Silent Spring In the age of AI, we must protect human creativity as a natural resource Op-ed: As AI outputs flood the Internet, diverse human perspectives are our most valuable resource. Benj Edwards – Apr 25, 2025 7:00 am | 11 Credit: Kenny McCartney via Getty Images Credit: Kenny McCartney via Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Ironically, our present AI age has shone a bright spotlight on the immense value of human creativity as breakthroughs in technology threaten to undermine it. As tech giants rush to build newer AI models, their web crawlers vacuum up creative content, and those same models spew floods of synthetic media, risking drowning out the human creative spark in an ocean of pablum. Given this trajectory, AI-generated content may soon exceed the entire corpus of historical human creative works, making the preservation of the human creative ecosystem not just an ethical concern but an urgent imperative. The alternative is nothing less than a gradual homogenization of our cultural landscape, where machine learning flattens the richness of human expression into a mediocre statistical average. A limited resource By ingesting billions of creations, chatbots learn to talk, and image synthesizers learn to draw. Along the way, the AI companies behind them treat our shared culture like an inexhaustible resource to be strip-mined, with little thought for the consequences. But human creativity isn't the product of an industrial process; it's inherently throttled precisely because we are finite biological beings who draw inspiration from real lived experiences while balancing creativity with the necessities of life—sleep, emotional recovery, and limited lifespans. Creativity comes from making connections, and it takes energy, time, and insight for those connections to be meaningful. Until recently, a human brain was a prerequisite for making those kinds of connections, and there's a reason why that is valuable. Every human brain isn't just a store of data—it's a knowledge engine that thinks in a unique way, creating novel combinations of ideas. Instead of having one "connection machine" (an AI model) duplicated a million times, we have seven billion neural networks, each with a unique perspective. Relying on the diversity of thought derived from human cognition helps us escape the monolithic thinking that may emerge if everyone were to draw from the same AI-generated sources. Today, the AI industry's business models unintentionally echo the ways in which early industrialists approached forests and fisheries—as free inputs to exploit without considering ecological limits. Just as pollution from early factories unexpectedly damaged the environment, AI systems risk polluting the digital environment by flooding the Internet with synthetic content. Like a forest that needs careful management to thrive or a fishery vulnerable to collapse from overexploitation, the creative ecosystem can be degraded even if the potential for imagination remains. Depleting our creative diversity may become one of the hidden costs of AI, but that diversity is worth preserving. If we let AI systems deplete or pollute the human outputs they depend on, what happens to AI models—and ultimately to human society—over the long term? AI’s creative debt Every AI chatbot or image generator exists only because of human works, and many traditional artists argue strongly against current AI training approaches, labeling them plagiarism. Tech companies tend to disagree, although their positions vary. For example, in 2023, imaging giant Adobe took an unusual step by training its Firefly AI models solely on licensed stock photos and public domain works, demonstrating that alternative approaches are possible. Adobe's licensing model offers a contrast to companies like OpenAI, which rely heavily on scraping vast amounts of Internet content without always distinguishing between licensed and unlicensed works. Credit: drcooke via Getty Images OpenAI has argued that this type of scraping constitutes "fair use" and effectively claims that competitive AI models at current performance levels cannot be developed without relying on unlicensed training data, despite Adobe's alternative approach. The "fair use" argument often hinges on the legal concept of "transformative use," the idea that using works for a fundamentally different purpose from creative expression—such as identifying patterns for AI—does not violate copyright. Generative AI proponents often argue that their approach is how human artists learn from the world around them. Meanwhile, artists are expressing growing concern about losing their livelihoods as corporations turn to cheap, instantaneously generated AI content. They also call for clear boundaries and consent-driven models rather than allowing developers to extract value from their creations without acknowledgment or remuneration. Copyright as crop rotation This tension between artists and AI reveals a deeper ecological perspective on creativity itself. Copyright's time-limited nature was designed as a form of resource management, like crop rotation or regulated fishing seasons that allow for regeneration. Copyright expiration isn't a bug; its designers hoped it would ensure a steady replenishment of the public domain, feeding the ecosystem from which future creativity springs. On the other hand, purely AI-generated outputs cannot be copyrighted in the US, potentially brewing an unprecedented explosion in public domain content, although it's content that contains smoothed-over imitations of human perspectives. Treating human-generated content solely as raw material for AI training disrupts this ecological balance between "artist as consumer of creative ideas" and "artist as producer." Repeated legislative extensions of copyright terms have already significantly delayed the replenishment cycle, keeping works out of the public domain for much longer than originally envisioned. Now, AI's wholesale extraction approach further threatens this delicate balance. The resource under strain Our creative ecosystem is already showing measurable strain from AI's impact, from tangible present-day infrastructure burdens to concerning future possibilities. Aggressive AI crawlers already effectively function as denial-of-service attacks on certain sites, with Cloudflare documenting GPTBot's immediate impact on traffic patterns. Wikimedia's experience provides clear evidence of current costs: AI crawlers caused a documented 50 percent bandwidth surge, forcing the nonprofit to divert limited resources to defensive measures rather than to its core mission of knowledge sharing. As Wikimedia says, "Our content is free, our infrastructure is not.” Many of these crawlers demonstrably ignore established technical boundaries like robots.txt files. Beyond infrastructure strain, our information environment also shows signs of degradation. Google has publicly acknowledged rising volumes of "spammy, low-quality," often auto-generated content appearing in search results. A Wired investigation found concrete examples of AI-generated plagiarism sometimes outranking original reporting in search results. This kind of digital pollution led Ross Anderson of Cambridge University to compare it to filling oceans with plastic—it’s a contamination of our shared information spaces. Looking to the future, more risks may emerge. Ted Chiang's comparison of LLMs to lossy JPEGs offers a framework for understanding potential problems, as each AI generation summarizes web information into an increasingly "blurry" facsimile of human knowledge. The logical extension of this process—what some researchers term "model collapse"—presents a risk of degradation in our collective knowledge ecosystem if models are trained indiscriminately on their own outputs. (However, this differs from carefully designed synthetic data that can actually improve model efficiency.) This downward spiral of AI pollution may soon resemble a classic "tragedy of the commons," in which organizations act from self-interest at the expense of shared resources. If AI developers continue extracting data without limits or meaningful contributions, the shared resource of human creativity could eventually degrade for everyone. Protecting the human spark While AI models that simulate creativity in writing, coding, images, audio, or video can achieve remarkable imitations of human works, this sophisticated mimicry currently lacks the full depth of the human experience. For example, AI models lack a body that endures the pain and travails of human life. They don't grow over the course of a human lifespan in real time. When an AI-generated output happens to connect with us emotionally, it often does so by imitating patterns learned from a human artist who has actually lived that pain or joy. Credit: Thana Prasongsin via Getty Images Even if future AI systems develop more sophisticated simulations of emotional states or embodied experiences, they would still fundamentally differ from human creativity, which emerges organically from lived biological experience, cultural context, and social interaction. That's because the world constantly changes. New types of human experience emerge. If an ethically trained AI model is to remain useful, researchers must train it on recent human experiences, such as viral trends, evolving slang, and cultural shifts. Current AI solutions, like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), address this challenge somewhat by retrieving up-to-date, external information to supplement their static training data. Yet even RAG methods depend heavily on validated, high-quality human-generated content—the very kind of data at risk if our digital environment becomes overwhelmed with low-quality AI-produced output. This need for high-quality, human-generated data is a major reason why companies like OpenAI have pursued media deals (including a deal signed with Ars Technica parent Condé Nast last August). Yet paradoxically, the same models fed on valuable human data often produce the low-quality spam and slop that floods public areas of the Internet, degrading the very ecosystem they rely on. AI as creative support When used carelessly or excessively, generative AI is a threat to the creative ecosystem, but we can't wholly discount the tech as a tool in a human creative's arsenal. The history of art is full of technological changes (new pigments, brushes, typewriters, word processors) that transform the nature of artistic production while augmenting human creativity. Bear with me because there's a great deal of nuance here that is easy to miss among today's more impassioned reactions to people using AI as a blunt instrument of creating mediocrity. While many artists rightfully worry about AI's extractive tendencies, research published in Harvard Business Review indicates that AI tools can potentially amplify rather than merely extract creative capacity, suggesting that a symbiotic relationship is possible under the right conditions. Inherent in this argument is that the responsible use of AI is reflected in the skill of the user. You can use a paintbrush to paint a wall or paint the Mona Lisa. Similarly, generative AI can mindlessly fill a canvas with slop, or a human can utilize it to express their own ideas. Machine learning tools (such as those in Adobe Photoshop) already help human creatives prototype concepts faster, iterate on variations they wouldn't have considered, or handle some repetitive production tasks like object removal or audio transcription, freeing humans to focus on conceptual direction and emotional resonance. These potential positives, however, don't negate the need for responsible stewardship and respecting human creativity as a precious resource. Cultivating the future So what might a sustainable ecosystem for human creativity actually involve? Legal and economic approaches will likely be key. Governments could legislate that AI training must be opt-in, or at the very least, provide a collective opt-out registry (as the EU's “AI Act” does). Other potential mechanisms include robust licensing or royalty systems, such as creating a royalty clearinghouse (like the music industry's BMI or ASCAP) for efficient licensing and fair compensation. Those fees could help compensate human creatives and encourage them to keep creating well into the future. Deeper shifts may involve cultural values and governance. Inspired by models like Japan's "Living National Treasures"—where the government funds artisans to preserve vital skills and support their work. Could we establish programs that similarly support human creators while also designating certain works or practices as "creative reserves," funding the further creation of certain creative works even if the economic market for them dries up? Or a more radical shift might involve an "AI commons"—legally declaring that any AI model trained on publicly scraped data should be owned collectively as a shared public domain, ensuring that its benefits flow back to society and don’t just enrich corporations. Credit: Tom Werner via Getty Images Meanwhile, Internet platforms have already been experimenting with technical defenses against industrial-scale AI demands. Examples include proof-of-work challenges, slowdown "tarpits" (e.g., Nepenthes), shared crawler blocklists ("ai.robots.txt"), commercial tools (Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth), and Wikimedia's "WE5: Responsible Use of Infrastructure" initiative. These solutions aren't perfect, and implementing any of them would require overcoming significant practical hurdles. Strict regulations might slow beneficial AI development; opt-out systems burden creators, while opt-in models can be complex to track. Meanwhile, tech defenses often invite arms races. Finding a sustainable, equitable balance remains the core challenge. The issue won't be solved in a day. Invest in people While navigating these complex systemic challenges will take time and collective effort, there is a surprisingly direct strategy that organizations can adopt now: investing in people. Don't sacrifice human connection and insight to save money with mediocre AI outputs. Organizations that cultivate unique human perspectives and integrate them with thoughtful AI augmentation will likely outperform those that pursue cost-cutting through wholesale creative automation. Investing in people acknowledges that while AI can generate content at scale, the distinctiveness of human insight, experience, and connection remains priceless. Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 11 Comments

John Edwards, Technology Journalist & AuthorApril 25, 20255 Min ReadArtemisDiana via Alamy Stock PhotoPlatform engineering is a discipline that's designed to improve software developer productivity, application cycle time, and speed to market by providing common, reusable tools and capabilities via an internal developer platform. The platform creates a bridge between developers and infrastructure, speeding complex tasks that would normally be challenging, and perhaps even impossible, for individual developers to manage independently. Platform engineering is also the practice of building and maintaining an internal developer platform that provides a set of tools and services to help development teams build, test, and deploy software more efficiently, explains Brett Smith, a distinguished software developer with analytics software and services firm SAS, in an online interview. "Ideally, the platform is self-service, freeing the team to focus on updates and improvements." Platform engineering advocates the continuous application of practices that provide an improved, more productive developer experience by delivering tools and capabilities to standardize the software development process and make it more efficient, says Faruk Muratovic, engineering leader at Deloitte Consulting, in an online interview. A core platform engineering component is a cloud-native services catalog that allows development teams to seamlessly provision infrastructure, configure pipelines, and integrate DevOps tooling, Muratovic says. "With platform engineering, development teams are empowered to create a development environment that optimizes performance and drives successful deployment." Related:A Helping Hand Platform engineering significantly improves development team productivity by streamlining workflows, automating tasks, and removing infrastructure-related obstacles, observes Vinod Chavan, cloud platform engineering services leader at IBM Consulting. "By reducing manual effort in deploying and managing applications, developers can focus on writing code and innovating rather than managing infrastructure," he notes in an email interview. Process automation and standardization minimizes human error and enhances consistency and speed across the development lifecycle, Muratovic says. Additionally, by providing self-service development models, platform engineering significantly reduces dependency on traditional IT services teams since it allows full-stack product pods to deploy and manage their own environments, he adds. Embedded monitoring, security, and compliance policies ensure that enterprise policies are followed without adding overhead, Muratovic says. "Platform engineering also supports Infrastructure as a Code (IaC) capabilities, which provide development teams with pre-configured networking, storage, compute, and CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) pipelines." Related:An often-overlooked platform engineering benefit is regular tool updates, Smith notes. Enterprise Benefits Platform engineering gives enterprises the structure and automation needed to scale efficiently while lowering costs and strengthening operational resilience, Chavan says. "By eliminating inefficiencies and reducing manual labor, it optimizes resource usage and enables business growth without unnecessary complexity or costs." He adds that by providing a stable environment that can support the seamless integration of advanced tools, platform engineering can also play a key role in helping organizations leverage AI and other emerging technologies. Platform engineering can reduce operational friction, increase monitoring ability, and enhance flexibility when deploying workloads into hybrid cloud environments. "Overhead costs can be reduced by automating repetitive, manual tasks, and access controls and compliance protocols can be standardized," Muratovic says. Related:By taking advantage of reusable platform services, such as API gateways, monitoring, orchestration, and shared authentication, platform engineering can also build a strong foundation for application and systems scalability. "Additionally, organizations that develop product-oriented and cloud-first models can pre-define reference architectures and develop best practices to encourage adoption and enhance system reliability and security," Muratovic says. A centralized and structured platform also helps organizations strengthen security and compliance by providing better visibility into infrastructure, applications and workflows, Chavan says. "With real-time monitoring and automated governance, businesses can quickly detect risks, address security issues before they escalate, and stay up to date with evolving compliance regulations." Potential Pitfalls When building a platform, a common pitfall is creating a system that's too complex and doesn't address the specific problems facing development and operations teams, Chavan says. Additionally, failing to build strong governance and oversight can also lead to control issues, which can lead to security or compliance problems. Muratovic warns against over-engineering and failing to align with developer culture. "Over-engineering is simply creating systems that are too complex for the problems they were intended to solve, which increases maintenance costs and slows productivity -- both of which can erode value," he says. "Also, if the shift to platform engineering isn't aligned with developer needs, developers may become resistant to the effort, which can significantly delay adoption." Another pitfall is overly rigid implementation. "It's crucial to find a balance between standardization across the enterprise and providing too many choices for developers," Muratovic says. "Too much rigidity and developers won’t like the experience; too much flexibility leads to chaos and inefficiency." Final Thoughts Platform engineering isn't just about the technology, Chavan observes. It's also about creating a collaborative and continuously improving work culture. "By equipping developers and operators with the right tools and well-designed processes, organizations can streamline workflows and increase space for innovation." Platform engineering isn’t simply about technology; its value lies in creating a development operating model that empowers developers while aligning with business needs, Muratovic says. He believes that the discipline will constantly evolve as needs and goals change, so it's crucial to create a culture of openness and collaboration between platform engineers, operations teams, and developers. Muratovic notes that by focusing on the developer experience -- particularly self-service, automation, governance, compliance, and security -- platform engineering can provide organizations with a flexible, scalable, resilient ecosystem that fuels the agility and innovation that drives sustained growth. "Platform engineering is how you herd the cats, eliminate the unicorns, and eradicate the chaos from your software supply chain," Smith concludes. About the AuthorJohn EdwardsTechnology Journalist & AuthorJohn Edwards is a veteran business technology journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous business and technology publications, including Computerworld, CFO Magazine, IBM Data Management Magazine, RFID Journal, and Electronic Design. He has also written columns for The Economist's Business Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers' Communications Direct. John has authored several books on business technology topics. His work began appearing online as early as 1983. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, he wrote daily news and feature articles for both the CompuServe and Prodigy online services. His "Behind the Screens" commentaries made him the world's first known professional blogger.See more from John EdwardsReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

Optical fibre connected to a dilution refrigeratorHarsh Rathee/Department of Physics Photographs accompanying most scientific papers might politely be called “functional”. But this collection of images from Imperial College London’s research photography competition proves that research can be beautiful. The top image, by Harsh Rathee of the physics department, shows an optical fibre connected to a dilution refrigerator, a device that creates a temperature a thousandth that of the vacuum of space. By observing how light interacts with sound waves at this incredibly low temperature, researchers can explore the unique properties of matter at the quantum level. Liquid GoldAnna Curran/Department of Mathematics The above entry is from Anna Curran of the maths department, who won a judges’ choice prize in the PhD student category. Curran’s research focuses on mathematically modelling the effect of molecules called surfactants, which reduce surface tension in fluids. It is this phenomenon that allows bubbles to hold their shape within the ring. “Surfactants are all around us – in our soaps and detergents, they are responsible for breaking down dirt and bacteria, but their effects also underpin many biological, medical and engineering processes, from inkjet printing to self-cleaning surfaces to the treatment of premature babies’ lungs,” says Curran. Cerebral organoid, or “mini-brain”Alex Kingston/Department of Life Sciences Pictured above is an image from Alex Kingston of the life sciences department. It depicts part of a cerebral organoid, also known as a “mini-brain”. These lab-grown collections of cells are a microcosm of the earliest stages of human brain development. Topics:

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. 🦕

One of the top things that travelers love to do when they visit the United States is to embark on a great American road trip, filled with plenty of stunning national parks. From Yellowstone's thundering herds of bison to Yosemite's towering granite walls, there's no shortage of natural wonders inside the millions of acres of American parkland.Of course, with 63 different parks to visit, it's inevitable that some won't be a slam dunk for every single visitor. I spent the entirety of 2020 visiting all of the US national parks, and although most were absolutely spellbinding, there are several that I won't be rushing back to anytime soon.Below, I'll get into four of my all-time favorites — plus three let-downs that some travelers might want to skip. I truly love Grand Teton National Park. The landscapes in Grand Teton National Park are incredible. Emily Pennington Rising up from the Snake River Valley like a gaggle of shark's teeth, the Teton Range is one of the most impressive landscapes on the planet. Plus, the park is just a stone's throw from Jackson Hole, Wyoming's famed cowboy-town-turned-ski-haven. As such, there are loads of phenomenal restaurants nearby and chic lodges to bed down in when you're not hiking its hundreds of miles of trails.In summer, grab your bear spray and spend a day hiking to Trapper Lake. If you're visiting when it's snowy out, book a wildlife-viewing trip with Jackson Hole Eco Tours for a chance to photograph moose and wolves. Gates of the Arctic National Park is unlike any place I've ever been. Visitors can get to the Gates of the Arctic National Park via bush plane. Emily Pennington Yes, it's one of the most remote national parks of the bunch, but Alaska's massive Gates of the Arctic is one of the few places on earth that completely upended what I thought a wilderness area could be. Home to thousands-strong caribou migrations, wild rivers, and the imposing peaks of the Brooks Range, this far-north site is well worth the time it takes to get there.Alaska Alpine Adventures is one of the few tour operators that'll bring guests to this Arctic Circle expanse. Choose between a backpacking trip to the Arrigetch Peaks or a river-rafting tour — either way, you'll be privy to the park's otherworldly solitude and miles of verdant tundra. Big Bend National Park truly offers something for every kind of traveler. Big Bend is in Texas near the Mexico border. Emily Pennington Tucked away in remote West Texas, Big Bend offers a scenic escape from the state's mostly flat landscapes. It's also a fantastic park for those of us with short attention spans — choose between scenic drives (like the boulder- and cactus-strewn Ross Maxwell), riverside hikes (like Santa Elena Canyon), or rafting adventures along the Rio Grande. When you're not out adventuring, be sure to take a dip in the park's steamy Langford Hot Springs. There's a good reason Yosemite National Park is so popular. Lembert Dome is one of many peaks in Yosemite National Park. Emily Pennington Made even more famous by films like "Free Solo," Yosemite has always been renowned for its roaring waterfalls, stellar Sierra Nevada hiking, and sky-high cliffs of glacially-polished granite. Yosemite National Park is surrounded by striking, mountainous landscapes, forested hillsides, and quaint gateway towns.Sure, it's one of the more crowded national parks, but I've always found it easy enough to escape the throngs by trekking in the area's high country, road tripping over to Hetch Hetchy, or visiting in autumn (when most kids are back in school). On the other hand, Indiana Dunes National Park left me feeling underwhelmed. I didn't feel transported into nature in Indiana Dunes National Park. Emily Pennington It can be fun to spend half a day tottering around on Indiana's famed lakeside sand dunes — unfortunately, I found this site to be small and city-bound. While exploring Indiana Dunes National Park, hikers are routinely greeted by views of power plants and Chicago's copious skyline. Also, the dunefield used to be much larger than its current sprawl — sadly, much of its mass was carted away by glass companies and manufacturers in the early 1900s.I found the park itself to be a reminder of why we need to preserve important landscapes before they are overly developed by corporate interests. To me, this park is more of a symbol of Western industrialization than a pristine piece of nature. Gateway Arch National Park hardly feels like a real park. Gateway Arch National Park feels more like a monument than a park. Emily Pennington More glorified cityscape than nature preserve, Gateway Arch was established as a national park in 2018, after a Missouri senator sponsored a bill to redesignate the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The move followed a $380 million renovation of the site, refurbishing the arch and adding an underground history museum to the downtown St. Louis property.Although the space-age architecture of the arch itself is impressive, I found this to be the most surprising national park of my quest. With its manicured lawns and paved pathways, it doesn't feel like a typical national park. Even an acting deputy director of the National Park Service has said that the small site fits the department's definition of a national monument much more than a park. Unlike most public lands, Gateway Arch charges additional funds for important attractions once guests enter the premises, like going up inside the arch, which can feel like a Disneyland-style cash grab. I wasn't very impressed by Dry Tortugas National Park. Dry Tortugas National Park felt like more of a monument than an escape. Emily Pennington Maybe I just got a bout of bad weather on the choppy boat ride out to Florida's Dry Tortugas, but I found this to be the least impressive of America's beachy national parks.Its snorkeling areas felt small and relatively uninhabited by marine life during my visit. Although the park's Civil War-era fort is an impressive feat of engineering, it feels much more like a national monument dedicated to our country's history than a blissful island escape.Like most of my least-favorite national parks, access to Dry Tortugas is largely controlled by a private tour operator, meaning that most travelers will have to pay for a ferry ride from Key West to this small cluster of islands.In my opinion, you could visit nearby Biscayne National Park or jet set to the Virgin Islands for a more immersive tropical park experience.

About nine years ago, a new organization called Canary Mission released a YouTube video describing their mission: maintaining a blacklist of anti-Israel college students.American campuses, the video warns, had become hotbeds of anti-Israel extremism: safe spaces for students to attend “Jew-hating conferences and anti-American rallies.” To fight this, Canary Mission would build an extensive database of students and professors who engaged in anti-Israel activity. The primary intent, per the video, is to ensure that anti-Israel students cannot find gainful employment after graduation.“These individuals are applying for jobs within your company,” the Canary Mission video warns. “It is your duty to ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees.”Over the course of the next decade, Canary Mission — which takes its name from the expression “canary in the coal mine” — delivered on its promise. Its database now contains mini-profiles of thousands of students and professors, and has expanded to include professionals like doctors and nurses. People listed in the database have been harassed, disciplined, and even fired. Israeli intelligence has used Canary Mission profiles as justification for detaining listed visitors at the border.And since the second Trump administration began, Canary Mission’s targets have started to be deported from the United States.After plainclothes officers arrested Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk on the streets of Boston in late March, Öztürk’s attorneys claimed the sole reason for her arrest was her Canary Mission profile. While the Trump administration claims she had engaged in activity “in support of Hamas,” the private Homeland Security memo justifying her detention only cited an op-ed she had written in support of boycotting Israel, using language very similar to her Canary Mission page. The organization, for its part, is happy to take the credit (though it did not respond to my request for comment). After Öztürk’s arrest, Canary Mission’s X account posted a celebratory tweet claiming “sources point to her Canary Mission profile as the primary cause.” It currently maintains a list of seven other students and professors who it believes should be targeted for deportation. Two of these, Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, are currently in ICE custody. Mahdawi was arrested after his name appeared on this list (Khalil was arrested before it was published).Canary Mission’s rise is not really a story about one organization, or even the toxic climate of America’s Israel-Palestine debate. Rather, it is a case study in how civil society organizations — normally seen as pillars of liberal democratic life — can become agents of illiberalism. And when such groups can align themselves with a friendly government, the danger rises exponentially.RelatedThe mysterious rise of the Canary MissionThere are many pro-Israel activist in groups in the United States, and many that focus on college campuses specifically. But Canary Mission is unusual in two respects: its opaque structure and extremely aggressive tactics.Canary Mission’s website does not list a president, board, or a staff directory. On paper, its headquarters are in Israel — specifically Beit Shemesh, a medium-sized city near Jerusalem. Yet the address listed on its paperwork is in a padlocked, seemingly abandoned building.Over the years, reporters have identified some of the Canary Mission’s revenue streams — including significant donations from some prominent American Jewish philanthropies. But much of the Canary Mission’s funding remains anonymous due to its use of a pass-through group, called Central Fund of Israel (CFI). Canary Mission represents a different, and more aggressive, strain of campus pro-Israel activism, one that aims not to debate pro-Palestinian students and scholars but to silence them.American donors can give to CFI without having to disclose whether the money is earmarked for Canary Mission, and CFI can disburse funds to Canary without noting their original source. It’s an unusual setup that effectively allows Canary Mission to keep its funding sources fully anonymous.“It really stands out when you look at other similar organizations in the same ecosystem,” says Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Israel-Palestine program at the Arab Center think tank in DC. “I can’t think of another one that hides their funding like this.”The obvious irony — that an organization dedicated to naming and shaming is itself so opaque — is palpable. But it is necessary, in part, because Canary Mission has been a lightning rod for controversy even within the pro-Israel community.No matter what you think about pro-Israel groups’ views of American college campuses, they clearly have the right to express their views and organize around them. And many of these groups engage in political activity — like documenting Jewish students’ concerns about campus antisemitism or creating new right-leaning Middle East studies journals — that are within the confines of legitimate debate and activism in a democratic society.But Canary Mission represents a different, and more aggressive, strain of campus pro-Israel activism, one that aims not to debate pro-Palestinian students and scholars but to silence them. Lila Corwin Berman, a historian of Jewish philanthropy at New York University, dates this approach to roughly the early 2000s. During that time, pro-Israel organizations like Campus Watch and the David Project began publicly targeting professors and students that they believed had engaged in unacceptable speech. These efforts were haphazard at the outset, publishing specific attacks on allegedly problematic scholars rather than maintaining a full-on blacklist. Canary Mission’s database, first unveiled in 2014, represented a qualitative escalation — one explicitly aimed at creating professional problems for anti-Israel activists.This was highly controversial. In 2018, pro-Israel campus groups at five major universities published a joint op-ed calling on the movement to repudiate Canary Mission.“We are compelled to speak out against this website because it uses intimidation tactics, is antithetical to our democratic and Jewish values, is counterproductive to our efforts and is morally reprehensible,” they wrote.This internal criticism did not do much to stop the Canary Mission’s growth, fueled as it was by unaccountable backers. Today, Canary Mission’s searchable database is vast — containing entries for over 2,000 individuals across 38 states, DC, and five Canadian provinces. How the Canary Mission worksTo understand why Canary Mission is so controversial, start by looking at how its blacklist works.Each individual listing contains both a dossier documenting the target’s alleged offenses and their contact information, including direct links to their social media accounts that can facilitate targeted harassment campaigns. The only official way to get an entry deleted is to release a public apology with evidence of new pro-Israel beliefs; these testimonials are then posted on the “ex-Canary” segment of the Mission’s website.Some Canary Mission targets have said or done something that many would find offensive, such as endorsing the October 7, 2023, massacre. But the vast majority of profiles I could find were individuals who either attended a pro-Palestinian rally or wrote something critical about Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians.Canary Mission will describe this banal activity in threatening terms, like “attending a pro-Hamas rally.” But the speech in question is more than just legally protected: It is exactly the sort of political activity that people in a democracy are supposed to use as a vehicle for expressing their opinion. The Mission’s database isn’t primarily about identifying examples of extreme anti-Israel speech or political violence — it is about trying to silence any criticism of Israel by labeling it antisemitic or pro-terrorist.Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts graduate student facing deportation, is a case in point.The Canary Mission profile that reportedly led to her ICE arrest listed a single offense — an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper calling on the university to (among other things) “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.” Agree or disagree with these positions, advocating for them is clearly legitimate political speech. There is no plausible case that people like Öztürk constitute any kind of threat to Jews on campus. That she is listed by Canary Mission — and that the organization publicly cheered her arrest — reveals its primary interest in policing speech critical of Israel by any means necessary.This can also be seen by the sheer number of Jewish students and professors on the Canary Mission’s database.The American Jewish community is fairly left-wing; roughly two-thirds disapprove of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government. While a strong majority supports Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state, large numbers of American Jews believe its occupation of Palestinian territory is both strategically unwise and morally indefensible. There is also a minority of anti-Zionist American Jews, more prominent in younger generations, who support the dissolution of Israel and its replacement with a binational state.If you scan the Canary Mission database, Jewish students and scholars make up many of the entries. Reading their dossiers, like the profile of eminent Holocaust historian Omer Bartov, their alleged offenses include everything from criticizing the Netanyahu government’s approach to judicial reform to attending a pro-Palestinian demonstration.If Canary Mission were truly about protecting Jews’ rights to participate freely in campus life, then it wouldn’t include them on a database explicitly designed to hurt their career prospects.From the campus to ICEWe don’t know for a fact that the Trump administration is using Canary Mission’s database to identify deportation targets. There is suggestive evidence: The wording in the State Department memo justifying Öztürk’s deportation, for example, is very similar to what appeared on her Canary profile). But so far, there is no direct proof of a link.The depressing thing is that it makes all the sense in the world.Yet regardless of whether Canary Mission entries are currently directing policy, it’s clear they wish to be seen as doing so. They do this not only by maintaining their list of seven people they wish were deported, but also posting messages in support for actual deportations with slogans like “pro-Hamas extremism has consequences” and “no more safe havens for terror supporters.”These messages demonstrate an undeniable hostility to basic liberal values. Canary Mission has graduated from “merely” advocating professional consequences for pro-Palestinian voices to endorsing outright state repression against them. They are sliding down a slippery slope at a rapid clip.The depressing thing is that it makes all the sense in the world. The idea of trying to silence political opponents rather than debate them is dangerous. There are certainly cases where speech merits consequences: If a professor says discriminatory things about Jewish students, for example, or an activist advocates violence against her peers. But these are generally seen as exceptions rather than rules in free societies: the “boundary cases” where toleration for political expression runs up against other important values.Canary Mission was founded on the opposite principle: that an entire category of speech, pro-Palestinian advocacy, should be treated as presumptively illegitimate. They believe the cause of defending Israel is best served not by engaging in rigorous debate and advocacy, but by making a giant list of people who believe the “wrong” things and ensuring they suffer consequences for those beliefs. This is illiberalism as practiced by civil society — and is, necessarily, less dangerous than illiberalism enforced by the state. But when illiberalism takes root in an influential sector of society, such as pro-Israel activism, it becomes a potential ally for an illiberal regime. No elected leader can turn a democracy into an authoritarian regime on their own. They need partners, influential people and organizations that can operate to weaken resistance to democratic backsliding and help create a climate of fear in which anti-government activity is perceived as costly.The go-to examples are usually people with physical power and money — generals, police chiefs, and the wealthy elite. But there’s a growing recognition that other social groups, even ones that seemingly lack soldiers or billions, can assist in undermining democracy’s foundations.In 2001, the political theorists Simone Chambers and Jeffrey Kopstein warned of a phenomenon they termed “bad civil society.” This is a phenomenon that they describe as “civic participation that weakens liberal democracy” — weaponizing the tools of organizing and activism to oppose the very democratic principles that allow them in the first place. At the time, it appeared that “illiberal forces are small, marginalized, and contained” in the United States. However, Chambers and Kopstein warned, this doesn’t mean they’ll always be irrelevant. Even if “illiberal forces cannot destabilize the state,” the authors write, “they can still “contribute to an insidious erosion of values that leaves liberalism vulnerable to all sorts of threat.”Canary Mission’s behavior in the past 10 years shows that this warning was prescient. The organization isn’t just cheering Trump on from the sidelines; they have put together a public list of potential deportation targets. They are gleefully reveling in the fact that their longtime mission of suppressing speech is now backed by force of law.See More:

The Nintendo Switch 2 is just weeks away, and we've rounded up the best places to preorder the console, its games, and even its peripherals – may the odds be ever in your favourTech13:47, 25 Apr 2025Updated 13:48, 25 Apr 2025This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn moreSwitch 2 upgrades are pricier than expected(Image: AFP via Getty Images)The Nintendo Switch 2 is tipped to be one of the biggest game console releases of all time, let alone one of the most important gaming releases of 2025. While Trump's tariffs have caused major issues for US gamers, UK gamers have been able to pre-order in the last few weeks, but that's not to say it's been easy to do so.The Switch 2's expected popularity has certainly meant pre-ordering is likely to be the only way you can play on June 5, but thankfully, Nintendo is offering a bundle with its major new game, Mario Kart World.Below, we've rounded up the best ways you can still get your hands on the console, although with things shifting in and out of stock, we'd recommend bookmarking this page and coming back later.The Nintendo Switch 2 can be purchased with Mario Kart World (Image: (Image: NINTENDO))Naturally, you'll want a console, but most of the options we've found are the Mario Kart World bundle. It's a limited-time deal, though, so it might not be around forever.The JoyCon's can be used as mice on the Switch 2(Image: Amazon)The Joy-Con controllers are getting a big revamp with Switch 2, and can now be used as mice - but there's no Hall Effect sticks, sadly.Still, the clever magnetic controllers come in the box with your Switch 2, but you can pick up another pair below for multiplayer sessions.Buy them now for £74.99Desperate for a second charger? This one is Nintendo's own(Image: Nintendo)You can also grab a Switch 2 power adapter for heading out on the go, but we'd imagine any USB-C charger will work just fine.Buy it now for £24.99The Switch 2 camera has featured prominently in promoting the console(Image: Nintendo)Nintendo has also made a lot of fuss about its new camera peripheral, which allows you to stream yourself playing, and put yourself into games like Super Mario Party Jamboree.It's not cheap, but if you want the full Switch 2 experience, you can grab it below.Buy it now for £49.99Hori's camera is adorable, but has a much lower resolution(Image: Hori/Nintendo)There's also a Piranha Plant that comes from Hori, with an emphasis on being used portably. Sadly, the resolution takes a hit, but it looks great!Buy it now for £49.99The Pro controller is also an option(Image: AP)This generation's Pro Controller is likely to win out over Joy-Cons once again for "serious" gamers, and it has improved rumble, additional buttons, and the new GameChat feature.Buy it now for £74.85Expect to buy new storage for your Switch 2(Image: Samsung/Nintendo)Finally, your old SD cards aren't going to cut it with Switch 2, since the console needs faster storage. You'll need MicroSD Express cards, like this Mario-branded one from Samsung which will double you Switch 2's storage.Buy it now for £49.99Mario Kart World is Nintendo's big Switch 2 launch title(Image: Nintendo)One of the biggest titles for the Switch 2 is Mario Kart World. In fact, the 24-player racer is likely to be the must-have for the system – but it'll cost you.Much has been made about the new racer's price, and sadly there aren't any discounts just yet.Buy it now for £74.99Tears of the Kingdom is one of the first games we'll be playing on Switch 2(Image: Nintendo)Another killer piece of the new console's launch lineup are Switch 2 versions of games from the original Switch, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, might just be the best of a very good bunch.If you own it already, the upgrade will cost you £7.99 (although it's included in the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack price), or you can spend £64.99.We know, it's steep, but as we're talking preorder pricing there just aren't any discounts yet.Buy it now for £64.99Street Fighter 6 looks slick on Switch 2(Image: Capcom)One game that is more affordable and is absolutely fantastic, Street Fighter 6's Years 1 and 2 Fighters Edition comes with all the DLC from the excellent fighting game so far.That means it includes the usual suspects of Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li, but also adds M. Bison and Akuma as well as plenty of others.Buy it now for £49.99Bananza is visually impressive, with plenty of chaos on screen at once(Image: Nintendo)Looking a smidge down the road, the next big-hitter for the new console is likely to be Donkey Kong Bananza, a game we thoroughly enjoyed in our recent hands-on.It's slated for July 17, 2025, so it won't be around when the console arrives, but it is slightly cheaper than Mario Kart World.Article continues belowBuy it now for £66.99For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌

A big win for Leon (Capcom) Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 remake has become the fastest selling entry in the entire franchise, as attention turns towards the whereabouts of the next entry. Monster Hunter: World might be Capcom’s highest-selling game ever (likely to be overtaken by the more recent Monster Hunter Wilds) but the Resident Evil franchise is still its best-selling IP overall. This has been reinforced in updated sales numbers from Capcom and it’s particularly good news for 2023’s Resident Evil 4. The remake has officially sold over 10 million units worldwide since it launched, which is a one million increase from January this year. According to Capcom, this is the fastest any title in the series has hit this milestone, so it’s very possible it could become the best-selling entry ever down the line. Currently, the highest-selling entries are Resident Evil 2 remake and Resident Evil 7, which have now both sold more than 15 million units each. Resident Evil Village, meanwhile, has surpassed 11 million sales, while Resident Evil 3 remake has sold over 10 million, after five years. As of December 31, 2024, the Resident Evil series has sold more than 167 million units in total, with Monster Hunter, which only became popular in the West relatively recently, on 108 million. Capcom has already confirmed more remakes are on the way, with rumours suggesting the next one will be Resident Evil Zero. While the company has only announced ports of Street Fighter 6 and Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess for the Switch 2 so far, it feels inevitable that Resident Evil 4 remake will eventually make its way to the system – which will likely spike sales even further. More Trending The previous remakes, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, along with Resident Evil 7 and Village, were all released on the original Switch in cloud versions, while many of the original games, including the OG Resident Evil 4, are available on the Nintendo eShop. When will the first Resident Evil 9 trailer be released? Capcom officially announced Resident Evil 9 last year, to be led by Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi, but nothing has been said or shown of the game so far. There are rumours it will be open world, to some degree, using technology from Dragon’s Dogma 2, and will mark a ‘big reinvention’ for the series akin to Resident Evil 7 – which shifted the horror to a first person perspective for the first time. While Capcom has given no indication of when it could be revealed, many fans suspect the first trailer will be shown at some point this year – with the most likely venue being Summer Game Fest on June 6. Or perhaps one of the standalone not-E3 showcases from either Xbox or PlayStation. Resident Evil 4 and Zero were both originally Nintendo exclusives (Capcom) 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