A new effort to construct lunar infrastructure using 3D printing is underway in Italy, where the GLAMS Project (Geopolymers for Additive Manufacturing and Lunar Monitoring) is experimenting with cement binders derived from lunar regolith. Funded by ASI, the Italian Space Agency, this two-year initiative reduces costs and resource consumption by harnessing Moon-based materials rather than relying on terrestrial supplies. Researchers showcased the first 3D printed geopolymer samples at the 75th International Astronautical Congress in Milano, signaling a step forward in extraterrestrial building methods.Geopolymer 3D printing using WASP 40100 LDM Printer. Photo via WASP.University of Paduas Center for Space Studies and Activities Giuseppe Colombo (CISAS) coordinates GLAMS in partnership with the Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry and Energy Technologies of the CNR, an Italian research institution located in Genoa, and WASP, the Italian 3D printing technology specialists. The project team, led by Professors Luca Valentini, Carlo Bettanini, and Dr. Giorgia Franchin, has spent months refining geopolymer binders created through chemical activation of lunar soils. Foaming agents selected by the CNR research unit make it possible to achieve a macro-porous internal structure, and WASP has begun turning these formulations into larger-scale prototypes. Further development includes integrating sensor networks to detect micrometeoroid impacts, a hazard common in off-Earth environments.GLAMPS team at ASI. Photo via WASP.Researchers plan to adapt these geopolymer blends to withstand significant temperature swings, reduced gravity, and variable atmospheric pressure on the Moon. One of the key technologies is the WASP 40100 LDM printer, introduced here with a liquid deposition modeling process designed for ceramic and cement-like materials. This machine features a sizable build area that accommodates medium-scale structures, offering potential for in-situ fabrication of habitats or shielding components. Monitoring strategiessupervised by Bettaninis teaminclude embedded sensors, which could provide early warnings for damage and structural fatigue in hostile lunar conditions.WASPs Sustainable Innovations at Formnext 2024Last year, WASP unveiled at Formnext several sustainable technologies aimed at addressing environmental concerns in architecture, manufacturing, and design. WASP introduced innovations such as a circular recycling system for plastics, a dynamic multicolor extrusion process, and large-scale printing solutions using geopolymer materials. The company demonstrated 3D printed geopolymer modules developed with Eindhoven University that replace clay, reduce energy usage, and accommodate plant growth and wildlife habitats. These modules maintain chemical and mechanical durability while reducing CO emissions.WASP also highlighted its use of synchronized 3D printers to construct low-carbon buildings, such as the 100 m prototype built for the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in Barcelona. These projects use locally sourced soils and natural materials to lower construction-related CO emissions. Additionally, the companys work with rrreefs demonstrated coral reef modules printed with WASP 40100 Production systems, contributing to marine ecosystem regeneration through additive manufacturing.Coral reef 3D printing in alliance with rrreefs. Photo via WASP.Ready to discover who won the 20243D Printing Industry Awards?What will the future of 3D printing look like?Which recent trends are driving the 3D printing industry, as highlighted by experts?Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to stay updated with the latest news and insights.Stay connected with the latest in 3D printing by following us on Twitter and Facebook, and dont forget to subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry YouTube channel for more exclusive content.

An architecture contest is being held to regenerate a disused 1928 bathhouse in Luckenwalde, Germany (Deadline: 21 January)The competition will select a design team to refurbish and reactivate the 1928 Luckenwalde municipal baths which is located immediately next door to the E-Werk cultural and energy hub created by Pablo Wendel and Helen Turner.The Stadtbad Live project will transform the complex which recently hosted the Venice Golden Lion-winning beach opera Sun & Sea (Marina) by Lina Lapelyt into a new flexible cultural, event and production venue.Competition site: Stadtbad Live, LuckenwaldeCredit:Image by Stefan KorteAccording to the brief: The aim is to refurbish and reactivate the municipal baths as Stadtbad Live, a cultural, event and production venue with flexible utilisation options in line with its listed status.The Bauhaus Municipal pool is adjacent to the internationally regarded contemporary art centre and regenerative power station, E-Werk Luckenwalde, which is destined to power the pool with regenerative heat and electricity produced on site.The initial aim of this planning contract is to develop a refurbishment concept that shows how the available funds can be used to enable the (partial) commissioning of the municipal baths for flexible use.Luckenwalde is a small town of around 21, residents located about 50km south of Berlin. The settlement is home to E-Werk, a former power station which has been transformed into a new centre for artist residencies and sustainable energy generation in recent years.The latest project will restore and convert a former 1928 swimming pool which was originally heated using surplus power from the power station across the road. The building closed as a leisure centre in 1991 and has since hosted a range of high-profile art events including Pussy Riots Riot Days performance in 2024.Competition site: Stadtbad Live, LuckenwaldeCredit:Image by Stefan KorteKey aims of the latest project include creating a flexible art venue which respects the heritage of the building. Teams participating in the contest will required to draw up initial proposals that deal intensively with the possibilities of a reduced project realisation.Concepts which promote an ecosystemic or regenerative approach are also encouraged.How to applyDeadline: 21 JanuaryCompetition funding source: Deutsche BundProject funding source: Deutsche BundOwner of site(s): Stadt Luckenwalde+ LUBAContact details: vergabewesen@luckenwalde.deVisit the competition website for more information

Gorodenkoff - stock.adobe.comNewsUK government unveils AI-fuelled industrial strategyLabour plans to implement the 50 recommendations set out by entrepreneur Matt Clifford to boost the use of AI in the UKByCliff Saran,Managing EditorPublished: 13 Jan 2025 10:00 The Labour government has unveiled a 50-point plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help drive efficiency and growth across the UK economy.The AI Opportunities Action Plan introduces new measures to create what the government calls dedicated AI Growth Zones, which it said speeds up planning permission for AI-led initiatives.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that if AI is fully embraced it can boost productivity by as much as 1.5 percentage points a year. If fully realised, these gains could be worth up to an average 47bn to the UK each year over a decade.The government described its AI plan as an approach that revolutionises public services, which puts more money in peoples back pockets.Announcing the AI Opportunities Action Plan, prime minister Keir Starmer said: Artificial intelligence will drive incredible change in our country. But the AI industry needs a government that is on their side, one that wont sit back and let opportunities slip through its fingers. And in a world of fierce competition, we cannot stand by. We must move fast and take action to win the global race.Our plan will make Britain the world leader. It will give the industry the foundation it needs and will turbocharge the Plan for Change, he said. That means more jobs and investment in the UK, more money in peoples pockets, and transformed public services.Chancellor Rachel Reeves described the action plan as the governments modern industrial strategy in action.Read more government AI storiesUK Defence Committee urges MoD to embrace AI: Defence Committee outlines changes it thinks the Ministry of Defence should make to realise the battlefield advantages of artificial intelligence.UK government looks to rewrite copyright rules for AI training: Labour has begun a consultation looking at how creators of original content can be compensated for AI training that uses their work.Science, innovation and technology secretary Peter Kyle said:This government is determined that the UK is not left behind in the global race for AI, thats why the actions we commit to will ensure that the benefits are spread throughout the UK so all citizens will reap the rewards of the bet we make today. This is how were putting our Plan for Change in motion.The first of the AI Growth Zones is in Culham, Oxfordshire, which will host a new supercomputer, increasing the public compute capacity by twentyfold to support AI workloads. The government said that a new team is being established to develop the UKs sovereign AI capabilities. The supercomputer is part of a 10-year plan to develop the UKs computing and AI capabilities.Along with developing the UKs sovereign AI capabilities, the government plans to set up a digital centre of government in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, focused on revolutionising the use of AI in the public sector.Its also creating a National Data Library, to provide a mechanism for accessing public data safely and securelyto support AI development.A dedicated AI Energy Council chaired by the Science and Energy Secretaries will also be established, working with energy companies to understand the energy demands and challenges that will fuel the technologys development. This will directly support the governments mission to become a clean energy superpower by tapping into technologies such as small modular reactors.Alongside the plan, the government discussed a number of new private sector AI investments. These include Vantage Data Centres, Nscale and Kyndryl, which have committed to 14bn investment in the UK to build the AI infrastructure the UK needs to harness the potential of this technology and deliver 13,250 jobs across the UK.Vantage Data Centres plans to invest over 12bn in datacentres across the UK creating over 11,500 jobs in the process. Kyndryl said it plans to create up to 1,000 AI-related jobs in Liverpool over the next three years. Nscale has invested 2.5bn in building what it called the largest UK sovereign AI datacentre in Loughton, Essex by 2026.In The Current Issue:What do the home secretarys policing reforms mean for the future of the Police Digital Service?What are the security risks of bring your own AI?Download Current IssueData engineering - Nooks: Standardising & measuring data to run AI assistants CW Developer NetworkFear the technologists, not the technology? The rise of the tech baron Computer Weekly Editors BlogView All Blogs

Any business that sells products or services in the European Union (EU) that use artificial intelligence (AI) must comply with the EU AI Act, regardless of where they are based.The first phase of the act becomes law next month. This is Article 5, covering prohibited AI practices and unacceptable uses of AI. The text for Article 5 was finalised on 12 July 2024 and is taking effect six months later, which means from February, organisations building AI systems or using AI as part of their EU products and services will need to prove their systems comply with Article 5.Among the uses of AI that are banned under Article 5 are AI systems that deploy subliminal techniques beyond a persons consciousness or purposefully manipulative or deceptive techniques. Article 5 also prohibits the use of AI systems that exploit any of the vulnerabilities of a person or a specific group of people due to their age, disability, or a specific social or economic situation. Systems that analyse social behaviours and then use this information in a detrimental way are also prohibited under Article 5 if their use goes beyond the original intent of the data collection.Other areas covered by Article 5 include the use of AI systems in law enforcement and biometrics. Industry observers describe the act as a risk-based approach to regulating artificial intelligence.While Article 5 is due to be enforced from February, the next phase of the AI Act roll-out is the application of codes of practice for general-purpose AI systems. These are systems that can handle tasks they have not been specially trained to do. Such systems cover foundation AI, such as large language models (LLMs). This next phase of the EU AI Act will come into force in May 2025.Companies selling or using AI in the EU must comply with the AI Act, regardless of where they are based. According to Deloitte, the reach of the act presents multinational companies with three potential options: they can develop AI systems specifically for the EU market, adopt the AI Act as a global standard, or restrict their high-risk offerings within the EU.Bart Willemsen, vice-president analyst at Gartner, says he is fielding hundreds of conversations on the topic of the EU AI Act and what it means for IT leaders and chief information security officers. Before joining the analyst firm, Willemsen held chief privacy and security officer roles in a number of organisations. His experience and the takeaway from the conversation with Gartner clients is that the EU AI Act builds on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).Under the GDPR, data must be collected for a specific and legitimate purpose and should be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. Specifically, the data collection should be limited to what is strictly necessary, and the accuracy of the data must be maintained. Recently, with the introduction of the GDPR Certification Standard and Criteria BC 5701:2024, organisations are now able to show that they meet a level of competency in handling personally identifiable information (PII).There are plenty of lessons that can be learned from GDPR that should be applied to the EU AI Act. Although the text for GDPR was finalised in 2016, it did not come into effect until 2018.The lawmakers have learned a little bit from the GDPR experience, says Willemsen. Two years on from the grace period in May 2018, everybody started calling me up asking where do they start. In other words, organisations spent two years during the grace period doing nothing about GDPR.But it is not just GDPR. One of the things I find myself having to explain to organisations is to look at the AI Act in the context of the legislative framework, says Willemsen. It is flanked by things like the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, Data Governance Act, and even the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The growth of AI, along with increased cloud usage and rising volumes of data in traditional applications, is forecast to lead to significantly higher IT carbon emissions across industries For instance, while many organisations are confident they can report on greenhouse gas emissions to comply with the EU CSRD, management consulting firm Bain & Company has forecast that by 2030, the growth of AI, along with increased cloud usage and rising volumes of data in traditional applications will lead to significantly higher IT carbon emissions across industries.Organisations operating in the EU will need to take into account CSRD. Given the power-hungry nature of machine learning and AI inference, the extent to which AI is used may well be influenced by such regulations going forward.While it builds on existing regulations, as Mlanie Gornet and Winston Maxwell note in the Hal Open Science paper The European approach to regulating AI through technical standards, the AI Act takes a different route from these. Their observation is that the EU AI Act draws inspiration from European product safety rules.As Gornet and Maxwell explain: AI systems will require a conformity assessment that will be based on harmonised standards, i.e. technical specifications drawn up by European standardisation organisations (ESOs).The authors point out that these possess various legal properties, such as generating a presumption of conformity with the legislation. This conformity assessment results in European Conformity (CE) marking of the AI product to show compliance with EU regulations. Unlike other product safety regulations, Gornet and Maxwell note that the AI Act is not only intended to protect against risks to safety, but also against adverse effects on fundamental rights.What weve seen in the last decade is relevant now when preparing for the AI Act, says Willemsen, when asked what steps organisations should be taking to ensure they remain compliant with the act. He urges organisations embarking on an AI strategy not to underestimate the relevance of these legal requirements.In a blog looking at the significance of the EU AI Act, Martin Gill, vice-president research director at Forrester, describes the legislation as a minimum standard, not a best practice.He says: Building trust with consumers and users will be key to the development of AI experiences. For firms operating within the EU, and even those outside, following the risk categorisation and governance recommendations that the EU AI Act lays out is a robust, risk-oriented approach that, at a minimum, will help create safe, trustworthy and human-centric AI experiences that cause no harm, avoid costly or embarrassing missteps and, ideally, drive efficiency and differentiation.Willemsen does not believe organisations need to create a chief AI officer role. Its not a different discipline like security or privacy. Most of the time, AI is considered a new type of technology, he says.Nevertheless, privacy and security measures are required when considering how to deploy AI technology. This is why Willemsen feels GDPR is one of the regulations organisations need to use to frame their AI strategy.He urges organisations to put in place strategic, tactical and operational-level measures when deploying AI systems. This requires a multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary AI team, which Willemsen says needs to grow as the projects grow, building knowledge and experience. In this team, you will see security, privacy, legal, compliance and business stakeholders, he adds.While business leaders may feel that their own AI strategy is compliant with the EU AI Act, the same is not true of suppliers and AI-enabled enterprise systems. In the Gartner paper, Getting ready for the EU AI Act, phase 3, the analyst firm recommends that IT and business leaders accommodate the AI Act in any third-party risk assessment. This, says Gartner, should include contractual reviews and a push to amend existing contracts with new language to reinforce emerging regulatory requirements.As Gartner notes, there is a good chance that an organisations largest AI risk may have nothing to do with the AI it develops itself. Instead, it may still risk being non-compliant with the EU AI Act if its IT providers and suppliers use the organisations data to train their models.Most organisations say their vendor contracts dont allow their vendors to use their data, but most vendor contracts have a product enhancement clause, Gartner warns. Such a clause could be interpreted as giving the supplier the right to use the organisations data to help improve its own products.What is clear is that, irrespective of whether an organisation has EU offices, if it provides products and services to EU citizens, an assessment of the impact of the AI Act is essential. Non-compliance with the acts requirements could cost businesses up to 15m or 3% of global turnover. Violation of Article 5 covering banned uses of AI can result in fines of up to 35m or 7% of global turnover.Read more about the EU AI ActEU AI Act explained what AI developers need to know: A guide to help enterprises building and deploying artificial intelligence systems understand EU AI regulations.Everything you need to know about the new EU AI Act: The European Union defines AI regulations based on risk and outlines hefty fines for non-compliance. Explore the details of the AI Act and how it could apply to you.Navigating the practicalities of AI regulation and legislation: What CIOs need to know about the global patchwork of existing and upcoming laws governing AI and what they should be doing about them.

This artists impression shows the red supergiant star Antares in the constellation of Scorpius. ... [+] Using ESOs Very Large Telescope Interferometer astronomers have constructed the most detailed image ever of this, or any star other than the Sun. Using the same data they have also made the first map of the velocities of material the atmosphere of a star other than the Sun.ESO/M. KornmesserRed supergiant stars such as Betelgeuse and Antares are the astrobiological fertilizers for our galaxy at large. These massive, evolved stars are largely responsible for the chemical enrichment of newly forming sunlike stars.Most of these short-lived stars cool and expand and eventually turn into so-called Type II Core Collapse supernovae. In the process, they throw off mountains of dust as well as massive amounts of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and iron, all of which make up the building blocks of life as we know it.These massive stars are so large that they could be centered around the Sun and their radii would reach out to the distance of Jupiter, Sarah Healy, a PhD candidate in astrophysics at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, told me via email. Yet we still fail to understand the complex mechanisms that drive their evolution, she said.Stellar theory predicts that all red supergiant stars can produce core-collapse supernovae; however, we have never observed a luminous red supergiant and its resulting explosion, said Healy.This missing population of supernova progenitors has led to what is known as the two-decade old red supergiant problem.The problem describes the apparent lack of high-luminosity progenitors detected in supernova pre-images, write the authors of a paper just submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. But in the paper, Healy and colleagues argue that the RSG problem is largely the result of observational bias.MORE FOR YOUMassive Clouds Of DustWe compared a population of pre-explosion imaged progenitor stars; a new RSG population within the Milky Way, and recent statistically complete RSG samples from other galaxies within the Local Group of Galaxies, said Healy, the papers lead author.And after careful comparison and analysis, Healy and colleagues now assert that they found no missing RSG progenitors.We now know how much light has been blocked by the dust in our previous observations and, therefore, how much light we had been missing, said Healy. So, what we previously had thought were less luminous RSGs, were actually luminous RSGs surrounded by excess dust, she said. This gives us a more correct measurement of luminosity, so we can now properly understand the characteristics of these evolved massive stars, said Healy.Stars That Live Fast And Die YoungRed Supergiants evolve from high-mass O and B spectral type stars which rapidly exhaust their hydrogen fuel within 30 million years, Edward Guinan, an astronomer at Villanova University in Pennsylvania who was not involved with the study, told me via email.After theyve exhausted their hydrogen, they start burning helium in their cores.During the helium core fusion stage, the star rapidly increases in size, expands, and cools becoming an RSG star, said Guinan. During this time, the stars shed copious amounts of nuclear-processed gas via massive stellar winds which enriches the interstellar medium with nuclear-processed nitrogen, carbon and nitrogen, he said.As one of the largest, most luminous stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, the variable star VY Canis Majoris is a likely candidates for the next naked-eye core-collapse supernova, said Guinan.VY Cma lies some 3800 light years away in the southern constellation of Canis Major and is already well above the theoretically required limit of at least 8 solar masses to collapse into a supernova.These Type II supernovae typically expel several solar masses of ionized gas into the interstellar medium, said Guinan. This results in an expanding shock wave which leads to enhanced star formation, he said.Why should we care?It all goes back to the birth and death of stars within our Milky Way Galaxy and in galaxies that lie well beyond our own. The more astrophysicists can glean from the evolution of RSGs, the better they can understand our own solar system and other solar systems like it.Healy and colleagues took their data mostly from observations made by NASAs Webb Space Telescope, NASAs Hubble Space Telescope, and the European Space Agencys Gaia spacecraft. They also used data from ground-based surveys made by the U.K. Infrared Telescope in Hawaii and the Two Micron All-Sky Survey in the U.S. and Chile.The Bottom Line?RSGs are important for astrobiology.Stars formed from chemically enriched environments are more likely to host earth-like habitable planets, said Healy. Observational evidence has shown that planet populations tend to be more diverse for more metal-rich stars, she said.The first direct image of a star other than our sun, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. ... [+] Betelgeuse is an enormous star in the constellation Orion. This ultraviolet image shows a bright spot on the star that is 2000 degrees centigrade hotter than the rest of the surface. The picture on the right shows the constellation Orion, with Betelgeuse marked by a yellow cross. The star's size relative to the earth's orbit is also shown. (Photo by CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)Corbis via Getty ImagesLessons In Observational AstronomyIt is likely that until the number of pre-explosion imaged progenitors gets closer to eighty, the RSG problem will not entirely disappear from discussion, said Healy.RSGs offer a hard-won lesson to astronomers; that is, the cosmos isnt always how it appears. Observations can often be biased due to the limitations of telescopic technology in the era in which the data was taken.What will be needed to finally solve this conundrum?We need to determine the main driver of red supergiant dust production and increase the sample size of pre-explosion imaging, said Healy.Future infrared telescopes will help.So, it now appears that these RSGs will soon give up more of their secrets. In turn, stellar theorists will be rewarded with a much better understanding of these massive stars end games and the role they play in cosmic evolution.

Security researchers warn of YouTibe being used to spread malware.NurPhoto via Getty ImagesWith 2.5 billion users worldwide, Googles YouTube is undoubtedly the most popular video platform on the planet. And not just with legitimate users. I recently reported how hackers were going after YouTube creator accounts as part of an ongoing credential-stealing attack. Now, according to newly published security research, it appears that the threat has evolved with attackers using YouTube to distribute fake installers by way of trusted hosting services that stealthily evade detection and ultimately steal sensitive browser data, including user credentials. Heres what you need to know.YouTube Users Warned As Attackers StrikeWhile the problem of YouTube accounts being targeted by attackers is not a new one, and YouTube itself has even introduced a new AI bot to help impacted account holders get their access back, this latest research comes with a far more dangerous warning: all 2.5 billion YouTube users are at risk.In the Jan. 10 report, Trend Micro incident response analyst Ryan Maglaque, threats analyst Jay Nebre, and associate security analyst Allixon Kristoffer Francisco, revealed how attackers are using YouTube and other social media platforms as part of their campaigns that are spreading download links for fake software installers by leveraging the trust users have in such sites in order to drive the clicks that end up with credential-stealing malware installed on their devices. Those links, for pirated movies or cracked software, are the key to these hack attacks.Victims are lured into piracy by individuals posing as guides on popular video-sharing platforms like YouTube, the analysts explained, these deceitful actors create a pretense of offering legitimate software installation tutorials to entice viewers to click on malicious links in the video descriptions or comments.The YouTube Hack Attack FlowThe report highlighted how an attacker lures victims in with a YouTube video posing as a tutorial, in this case for how to get a free download of cracked Adobe Lightroom software. The first comment to the video contains a link, which, in turn, opens yet another YouTube post that contains the actual malicious link for the fake installer download. This link is found on a legitimate large file-hosting site as another layer to obscure its download further and evade detection, the report stated.Read More: Apple iPhone USB-C HackedWhat You Need To KnowThese hack attacks that begin on YouTube are particularly dangerous as they employ a number of methods to maintain their stealthiness and evade detection. These include, the analysts said:Utilization of large file size in order to bypass defensive sandbox capabilities.Password-protected zip files impede content scanning, and these also serve to make investigations more complicated if the password is not available.By uploading the files to known media-sharing sites, antivirus protections will often only detect if the exact link is discovered before the download.The hacking campaign also employs legitimate files using dynamic link library side loading or process injection in order to execute the malicious credential-stealing payload.I have reached out to YouTube for a statement. In the meantime, I recommend checking out Googles malware protection advice and, of course, not searching for ways to crack legitimate software and get it for free.

Lanterns and light installations are illuminated during Yuyuan Garden Lantern Festival on January 9, ... [+] 2025 in Shanghai, China. Opening on New Year's Day, the 42-day event at Yuyuan Garden, a major downtown tourism destination, will run until February 12. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)VCG via Getty ImagesAs today's full moonthe Wolf Moonrises in the east during dusk, it will begin a countdown to one of our planet's most culturally significant new moons.Januarys new moon, which will occur on Wednesday, Jan. 29, will signal the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year (also called Chinese New Year), the Year of the Snake. This 15-day celebration, celebrated by billions of people, is based on the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, which uses the moon's phases and the Earth's orbit around the sun.Along with the full moon, sky-watchers can enjoy a spectacular Mars occultation by the Wolf Moon this week and, a few nights later on Saturday, Jan. 18, a dazzling conjunction of Venus and Saturn.Heres everything you need to know about the Wolf Moon and Chinese Lunar New Year 2025:What Is Chinese Lunar New Year?Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, is one of the most significant cultural celebrations observed by millions worldwide. The 15-day festival begins with the first new moon of the Chinese lunisolar calendar and culminates in the Lantern Festival on the next full moon.MORE FOR YOUWhen Is Chinese Lunar New Year 2025?The moons phases determine the festivals timing. In 2025, Chinese New Year begins on Wednesday, Jan. 29, with the Year of the Wood Snake lasting until Feb. 16, 2026. The celebration ends on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, as Februarys full moon, the Snow Moon, rises.The Full Wolf Moon and the Occultation of MarsJanuarys full moon, the Wolf Moon, will glow orange just after sunset on Monday, Jan. 13, as it peeks above the eastern horizon. Later on, Mars will disappear behind the Wolf Moon in an event known as an occultation. From North America, the red planet will vanish and reappear for a specific time between 8:44 p.m. EST and 12:52 a.m. EST (In-the-sky.org has a map and location-specific timings). As a bonus, Mars is this week at oppositionthe biggest and brightest it gets in Earth's sky. It's a once-every-26-month event.What Is the Year of the Wood Snake?The Chinese zodiac operates on a 12-year cycle of animals combined with one of five elementswood, fire, Earth, metal, or watercreating a unique 60-year cycle. This years Wood Snake last occurred in 1965. The snake is associated with wisdom, intuition, and transformation, while the wood element signifies growth and renewal.Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

Two generations of gamers have vastly different memories of the Nintendo Game Boy. While it may not technically be the first handheld console depending on how you define "console" it was the first portable device capable of playing games comparable to those on contemporary home systems.For those who grew up in the 1980s, the Game Boy was a bulky but powerful device with a battery life that could last for days. In contrast, '90s kids remember it as a simple yet iconic gadget not a replacement for home consoles, but the go-to platform for the one game everyone was talking about.Before phones could download games, the Game Boy dominated handheld gaming for well over a decade. Its success laid the foundation for Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market by combining simplicity with groundbreaking games. This clever design philosophy established the blueprint for future handheld consoles, including the Nintendo Switch.TechSpot's Legends of Tech SeriesThe iconic tech gadgets that shaped our world. From groundbreaking gaming consoles to revolutionary mobile devices and music players, discover the legends of technology.Not Black and WhiteThroughout the 1980s, Nintendo found success with its handheld Game & Watch devices, each dedicated to a single game. These used calculator-like displays with pre-drawn shapes rather than pixels. By the late 1980s, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) had become synonymous with home consoles in the U.S., after doing the same in Japan under the name Famicom.The Game Boy was the brainchild of Gunpei Yokoi, a legendary Nintendo R&D director and engineer who believed in "lateral thinking with withered technology." This philosophy emphasized using simple, proven technology in innovative ways to keep costs low and reliability high.The technology that made the Game Boy possible was the dot-matrix LCD, which enabled flat displays for laptops, personal digital assistants, and later TVs and desktop monitors. Nintendo's R&D1 division began developing a new device under the codename "Dot Matrix Game" (DMG).Yokoi initially envisioned the device as a multi-game successor to the Game & Watch series he had previously designed (pictured above), but assistant director Satoru Okada eventually persuaded him to create a portable NES-like system with swappable cartridges.The idea for the pocket devices came when Yokoi noticed a fellow commuter on a train passing time with a pocket calculator. This sparked the vision of a portable gaming system that could entertain people on the go.The team agreed on one crucial feature: the display had to be monochrome. An RGB display with three sub-pixels per pixel would have drastically reduced battery life.Image credit: Lander DenysWhen the prototype was presented to Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, he was disappointed by the Sharp TN display's (twisted nematic) poor viewing angles and canceled the entire project. Refusing to give up, Yokoi secured a new super-TN display with superior angles, which won Yamauchi's approval. The blue pixels appeared black against the screen's reflective yellow-green background.To this day, DJs around the world use modified Game Boys to create music.The Game Boy featured a mono speaker but could output stereo sound through its headphone jack. Its audio quality bridged the gap between the beep-heavy sounds of the 8-bit era and the more advanced music of later consoles. To this day, DJs around the world use modified Game Boys to create music.The name "Game Boy" may have been inspired by a Japanese magazine of the same name that was never trademarked, but the true rationale likely lies elsewhere. In a world where everyone had a Sony Walkman or one of its clones, the name Game Boy clearly defined the device's purpose and target audience. The Game Boy aimed to change gaming the way the Walkman changed listening to music.Short-Lasting CompetitionThe Game Boy debuted in Japan in April 1989 alongside four games, the most successful of which was Super Mario Land. The idea of playing a Mario game on a handheld device was so novel that players forgave its short length and its rough adaptation to the Game Boy's 160 x 144 resolution, where Mario appeared just 12 pixels tall.This was later fixed in later platformers like Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, which adopted a zoomed-in perspective compared to their NES equivalents. That game was the first to showcase Wario, Mario's arch-nemesis. Another popular character that debuted on the Game Boy was Kirby.Retro Gaming Nostalgia: A colorful glimpse into the Super Mario Land Game Boy manual. Click for a video gameplay walkthrough of the 1989 title.When the Game Boy arrived in the U.S. the following July for $90 (about $230 today), it was bundled with one of the first and most popular versions of Tetris. The inclusion of the game was a stroke of genius. Nintendo managed to secure the rights to the game in a dramatic series of negotiations with the Soviet Union, where Tetris was created by Alexey Pajitnov. Henk Rogers, a Dutch entrepreneur, played a key role in helping Nintendo win the rights over competitors like Atari.With no story or playable characters, Tetris appealed to all ages, and expanded the console-playing demographics like Wii Sports did for Nintendo in the late 2000s. It even became the first video game played in space in 1993, thanks to cosmonaut Aleksandr Serebrov.First Lady Hillary Clinton would play on her daughter Chelsea's Game Boy before getting her own device.Nintendo's marketing for the Game Boy targeted not just kids but also teenagers and adults. Commercials often showed people of all ages playing the Game Boy in different settings, such as airports, offices, and even on dates. This clever strategy broke down stereotypes that gaming was only for children and made the console a cultural phenomenon.The Game Boy's first competitor was the Atari Lynx, featuring a backlit color screen, pseudo-3D capabilities and an ambidextrous design. The original model cost twice as much as the Game Boy at launch, and had a pocket-unfriendly, bone-like shape. Worst, it could only provide about four hours of gameplay with six AA batteries, compared to 30 hours with four batteries on the Game Boy. The Lynx's lack of popularity and games were feeding each other, and only 73 games were ever released for it.The closest competitor the Game Boy ever had was the Sega Game Gear, which shared most of its game library with the Master System, the most popular home console in Europe at the time.The Game Gear was slightly cheaper than the Lynx at $150 and had a more compact shape, but with the same battery issues it remained a niche product, selling about 11 million units. The NEC TurboExpress, known in Japan as the PC Engine GT, played the same cartridges as the TurboGrafx-16 at a 400 x 270 resolution. It cost $250, had a three-hour battery life and only sold 1.5 million units.One of the most famous anecdotes about the Game Boy's durability involves a U.S. medic who brought his Game Boy to the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The handheld device survived a tent fire and was left charred and melted. Amazingly, the Game Boy still worked and continued to function despite its disfigured exterior. This incident became a testament to the console's toughness and was even showcased in Nintendo's World Store in New York for many years.By the mid-1990s, the Game Boy had transcended gaming to become a cultural icon. Celebrities like Madonna and Michael Jackson were seen playing Game Boy, and it made appearances in movies and music videos. Its distinctive shape and simplicity also inspired artists and designers, becoming a symbol of 1990s pop culture.With no real competition, Nintendo didn't need to release a complete successor to its console. The Super Game Boy, launched in 1994 for $60, was a screen-less Game Boy that used the Super NES to connect to the TV.While the Game Boy could only show four shades of green, the Super Game Boy could replace them with any four colors the SNES could show. Games created with the Super Game Boy in mind could also use different 4-color palettes for different objects.Monster in a PocketThe Game Boy Pocket was released in 1996, using just two AAA batteries for 10 hours of gameplay. The screen had the same 2.5-inch size, but used a film-compensated STN panel to display true grey. In the U.S., it sold well by default. In Japan, it was for a different reason.That same year, Pocket Monsters Red and Green launched in Japan, followed by the enhanced Blue version. These RPGs combined surprising depth with 151 collectible creatures, and utilized a Game Boy feature rarely used before: moving data between cartridges with the same Game Link Cable used for local multiplayer.An original Nintendo Game Boy Pocket modded with a RetroSix semi transparent shell.Each version of the game had several missing monsters, so in order to "catch 'em all," you'd need to physically meet someone with the other version and trade. By early 1998, the Game Boy surpassed the NES as the best-selling console of all time with 64 million units.The Game Boy's popularity spawned numerous accessories, from magnifying glasses with built-in lights to stereo speaker attachments. Standing above the rest was the Game Boy Camera, one of the first consumer digital cameras, which attached to the Game Boy like a game cartridge and could rotate 180 degrees to take selfies.The Game Boy could take selfies, and print them too. Image credit: GlaucaaIn 1998, Pokmon Red and Blue were released in the U.S., sparking an unprecedented commercial phenomenon known as Pokmania. By then, Japan had already got the Yellow version, based on the anime series following the games. Combined, all versions sold 46 million copies.Pokmon became a global phenomenon, extending the Game Boy's lifecycle and ensuring it remained relevant even as newer consoles entered the market.Nine years after its original launch, the Game Boy Color debuted in 1998. It had a marginally smaller 2.3-inch screen and the same battery life as the Pocket with two AA batteries. The new model packed more video memory to support the extra colors, and could overclock its CPU to twice its speed when playing Color-exclusive games.It was hard-coded with 4-color palettes for the most popular monochrome games, and players could set one of 12 palettes by pressing a button or two at startup.Not surprisingly, the most popular games created with the Color model in mind were Pokmon Gold, Silver, and the Color-exclusive Crystal, selling 29 million units. With Pokmania in full swing, the SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color had no chance to gain a significant market share, despite its 40-hour battery life and quality selection of fighting games.Boys at HeartAt the height of its success, the Game Boy was succeeded in 2001 by the Game Boy Advance, with much more powerful hardware, a wider screen and shoulder buttons. The original Game Boy series was discontinued two years later, having sold nearly 119 million units.The Game Boy Advance was eventually replaced by the Nintendo DS in 2004. Featuring a second touchscreen, the DS drew a vast audience of casual gamers and became Nintendo's best-selling console with 154 million units.Image credit: ayrtonallenBy the time the Nintendo 3DS launched in 2011, casual gamers had shifted to smartphones and it became clear that the second screen was no longer needed. The most popular games on the 3DS were the same type of games that found success on the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance.The Nintendo Switch was released with a single screen in 2017 as a "hybrid" console that could do both portable and TV gaming, and the cheaper Switch Lite dropped the TV-connected dock two years later. With its continued success, the Game Boy's influence lives on, and the Nintendo Switch 2 promises to carry on its legacy.Masthead credit: Arwen_7

Hold Hold Hold An icy vent line may have caused Blue Origin to scrub debut launch of New Glenn Such issues are totally expected and normal with large, new rockets. Eric Berger Jan 13, 2025 3:45 am | 15 New Glenn rocket undergoes a hot-fire test in Florida in late December. Credit: Blue Origin New Glenn rocket undergoes a hot-fire test in Florida in late December. Credit: Blue Origin Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreCOCOA BEACH, Fla.With 45 minutes left in a three-hour launch window, Blue Origin scrubbed its first attempt to launch the massive New Glenn rocket early on Monday morningThroughout the window, which opened at 1 am ET (06:00 UTC), the company continued to reset the countdown clock as launch engineers worked technical issues with the rocket.Officially, both on its live webcast as well as on social media following the scrub, Blue Origin was vague about the cause of the delayed launch attempt."Were standing down on todays launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window," the company said. "Were reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt."According to sources, the primary problem was likely ice clogging one of the vent lines that carry pressurized gas away from the vehicle. Several attempts were made to melt the ice, but these efforts were not successful, necessitating the scrub. Hopefully Blue Origin will provide more information about the cause of the scrub in the coming days.To land, or not to land?Additionally there appears to have been a problem with at least one of the auxiliary power units that provide power to the rocket after the engines shut off. One of the primary purposes of these APUs is to power the deployment of landing legs needed to make a soft touchdown on the company's droneship, Jacklyn. It was not immediately clear early Monday whether Blue Origin would have pressed ahead with the launch, should they have had to land the first stage in the ocean, rather than attempting a barge landing.In its statement, Blue Origin did not set another launch date. Because the company got deep into the countdown on Monday morning, it is likely that there will be at least a 48-hour turnaround time. This is due to the need to resupply propellant at Launch Complex-36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.However, there are other factors at play as well. The company has been watching sea states all week for the droneship landing in the Atlantic Ocean, and some forecasts indicate they start to worsen a couple of days from now. How long it takes to address the technical problems with the rocket will also depend on how accessible they are on the launch pad. Finally, the current launch period for New Glenn closes on January 16.Although it may be disappointing that New Glenn did not lift off on Monday morning, technical issues are totally expected and normal with large, new rockets. It's not a slight on Blue Origin. The company certainly got some great data during the several hours of countdown, and will now correct a couple of minor problems with the rocket before trying again soon.Eric BergerSenior Space EditorEric BergerSenior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 15 Comments

Lisa Holligan already had two children when she decided to try for another baby. Her first two pregnancies had come easily. But for some unknown reason, the third didnt. Holligan and her husband experienced miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage. Like many other people struggling to conceive, Holligan turned to in vitro fertilization, or IVF. The technology allows embryologists to take sperm and eggs and fuse them outside the body, creating embryos that can then be transferred into a persons uterus. The fertility clinic treating Holligan was able to create six embryos using her eggs and her husbands sperm. Genetic tests revealed that only three of these were genetically normal. After the first was transferred, Holligan got pregnant. Then she experienced yet another miscarriage. I felt numb, she recalls. But the second transfer, which took place several months later, stuck. And little Quinn, who turns four in February, was the eventual happy result. She is the light in our lives, says Holligan. Holligan, who lives in the UK, opted to donate her genetically abnormal embryos for scientific research. But she still has one healthy embryo frozen in storage. And she doesnt know what to do with it. Should she and her husband donate it to another family? Destroy it? Its almost four years down the line, and we still havent done anything with [the embryo], she says. The clinic hasnt been helpfulHolligan doesnt remember talking about what to do with leftover embryos at the time, and no one there has been in touch with her for years, she says. Holligans embryo is far from the only one in this peculiar limbo. Millionsor potentially tens of millionsof embryos created through IVF sit frozen in time, stored in cryopreservation tanks around the world. The number is only growing thanks to advances in technology, the rising popularity of IVF, and improvements in its success rates. At a basic level, an embryo is simply a tiny ball of a hundred or so cells. But unlike other types of body tissue, it holds the potential for life. Many argue that this endows embryos with a special moral status, one that requires special protections. The problem is that no one can really agree on what that status is. To some, theyre human cells and nothing else. To others, theyre morally equivalent to children. Many feel they exist somewhere between those two extremes. There are debates, too, over how we should classify embryos in law. Are they property? Do they have a legal status? These questions are important: There have been multiple legal disputes over who gets to use embryos, who is responsible if they are damaged, and who gets the final say over their fate. And the answers will depend not only on scientific factors, but also on ethical, cultural, and religious ones. The options currently available to people with leftover IVF embryos mirror this confusion. As a UK resident, Holligan can choose to discard her embryos, make them available to other prospective parents, or donate them for research. People in the US can also opt for adoption, placing their embryos with families they get to choose. In Germany, people are not typically allowed to freeze embryos at all. And in Italy, embryos that are not used by the intended parents cannot be discarded or donated. They must remain frozen, ostensibly forever. While these embryos persist in suspended animation, patients, clinicians, embryologists, and legislators must grapple with the essential question of what we should do with them. What do these embryos mean to us? Who should be responsible for them? Meanwhile, many of these same people are trying to find ways to bring down the total number of embryos in storage. Maintenance costs are high. Some clinics are running out of space. And with a greater number of embryos in storage, there are more opportunities for human error. They are grappling with how to get a handle on the growing number of embryos stuck in storage with nowhere to go. The embryo boom There are a few reasons why this has become such a conundrum. And they largely come down to an increasing demand for IVF and improvements in the way it is practiced. Its a problem of our own creation, says Pietro Bortoletto, a reproductive endocrinologist at Boston IVF in Massachusetts. IVF has only become as successful as it is today by generating lots of excess eggs and embryos along the way, he says. To have the best chance of creating healthy embryos that will attach to the uterus and grow in a successful pregnancy, clinics will try to collect multiple eggs. People who undergo IVF will typically take a course of hormone injections to stimulate their ovaries. Instead of releasing a single egg that month, they can expect to produce somewhere between seven and 20 eggs. These eggs can be collected via a needle that passes through the vagina and into the ovaries. The eggs are then taken to a lab, where they are introduced to sperm. Around 70% to 80% of IVF eggs are successfully fertilized to create embryos. The embryos are then grown in the lab. After around five to seven days an embryo reaches a stage of development at which it is called a blastocyst, and it is ready to be transferred to a uterus. Not all IVF embryos reach this stage, howeveronly around 30% to 50% of them make it to day five. This process might leave a person with no viable embryos. It could also result in more than 10, only one of which is typically transferred in each pregnancy attempt. In a typical IVF cycle, one embryo might be transferred to the persons uterus fresh, while any others that were created are frozen and stored. IVF success rates have increased over time, in large part thanks to improvements in this storage technology. A little over a decade ago, embryologists tended to use a slow freeze technique, says Bortoletto, and many embryos didnt survive the process. Embryos are now vitrified instead, using liquid nitrogen to rapidly cool them from room temperature to -196 C in less than two seconds. Vitrification essentially turns all the water in the embryos into a glasslike state, avoiding the formation of damaging ice crystals. Now, clinics increasingly take a freeze all approach, in which they cryopreserve all the viable embryos and dont start transferring them until later. In some cases, this is so that the clinic has a chance to perform genetic tests on the embryo they plan to transfer. An assortment of sperm and embryos, preserved in liquid nitrogen.ALAMY Once a lab-grown embryo is around seven days old, embryologists can remove a few cells for preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), which screens for genetic factors that might make healthy development less likely or predispose any resulting children to genetic diseases. PGT is increasingly popular in the USin 2014, it was used in 13% of IVF cycles, but by 2016, that figure had increased to 27%. Embryos that undergo PGT have to be frozen while the tests are run, which typically takes a week or two, says Bortoletto: You cant continue to grow them until you get those results back. And there doesnt seem to be a limit to how long an embryo can stay in storage. In 2022, a couple in Oregon had twins who developed from embryos that had been frozen for 30 years. Put this all together, and its easy to see how the number of embryos in storage is rocketing. Were making and storing more embryos than ever before. When you combine that with the growing demand for IVF, which is increasing in use by the year, perhaps its not surprising that the number of embryos sitting in storage tanks is estimated to be in the millions. I say estimated, because no one really knows how many there are. In 2003, the results of a survey of fertility clinics in the US suggested that there were around 400,000 in storage. Ten years later, in 2013, another pair of researchers estimated that, in total, around 1.4 million embryos had been cryopreserved in the US. But Alana Cattapan, now a political scientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and her colleagues found flaws in the study and wrote in 2015 that the number could be closer to 4 million. That was a decade ago. When I asked embryologists what they thought the number might be in the US today, I got responses between 1 million and 10 million. Bortoletto puts it somewhere around 5 million. Globally, the figure is much higher. There could be tens of millions of embryos, invisible to the naked eye, kept in a form of suspended animation. Some for months, years, or decades. Others indefinitely. Stuck in limbo In theory, people who have embryos left over from IVF have a few options for what to do with them. They could donate the embryos for someone else to use. Often this can be done anonymously (although genetic tests might later reveal the biological parents of any children that result). They could also donate the embryos for research purposes. Or they could choose to discard them. One way to do this is to expose the embryos to air, causing the cells to die. Studies suggest that around 40% of people with cryopreserved embryos struggle to make this decision, and that many put it off for five years or more. For some people, none of the options are appealing. In practice, too, the available options vary greatly depending on where you are. And many of them lead to limbo. Take Spain, for example, which is a European fertility hub, partly because IVF there is a lot cheaper than in other Western European countries, says Giuliana Baccino, managing director of New Life Bank, a storage facility for eggs and sperm in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and vice chair of the European Fertility Society. Operating costs are low, and theres healthy competitionthere are around 330 IVF clinics operating in Spain. (For comparison, there are around 500 IVF clinics in the US, which has a population almost seven times greater.) Baccino, who is based in Madrid, says she often hears of foreign patients in their late 40s who create eight or nine embryos for IVF in Spain but end up using only one or two of them. They go back to their home countries to have their babies, and the embryos stay in Spain, she says. These individuals often dont come back for their remaining embryos, either because they have completed their families or because they age out of IVF eligibility (Spanish clinics tend not to offer the treatment to people over 50). An embryo sample is removed from cryogenic storage.GETTY IMAGES In 2023, the Spanish Fertility Society estimated that there were 668,082 embryos in storage in Spain, and that around 60,000 of them were in a situation of abandonment. In these cases the clinics might not be able to reach the intended parents, or might not have a clear directive from them, and might not want to destroy any embryos in case the patients ask for them later. But Spanish clinics are wary of discarding embryos even when they have permission to do so, says Baccino. We always try to avoid trouble, she says. And we end up with embryos in this black hole. This happens to embryos in the US, too. Clinics can lose touch with their patients, who may move away or forget about their remaining embryos once they have completed their families. Other people may put off making decisions about those embryos and stop communicating with the clinic. In cases like these, clinics tend to hold onto the embryos, covering the storage fees themselves. Nowadays clinics ask their patients to sign contracts that cover long-term storage of embryosand the conditions of their disposal. But even with those in hand, it can be easier for clinics to leave the embryos in place indefinitely. Clinics are wary of disposing of them without explicit consent, because of potential liability, says Cattapan, who has researched the issue. People put so much time, energy, money into creating these embryos. What if they come back? Bortolettos clinic has been in business for 35 years, and the handful of sites it operates in the US have a total of over 47,000 embryos in storage, he says. Our oldest embryo in storage was frozen in 1989, he adds. Some people may not even know where their embryos are. Sam Everingham, who founded and directs Growing Families, an organization offering advice on surrogacy and cross-border donations, traveled with his partner from their home in Melbourne, Australia, to India to find an egg donor and surrogate back in 2009. It was a Wild West back then, he recalls. Everingham and his partner used donor eggs to create eight embryos with their sperm. Everingham found the experience of trying to bring those embryos to birth traumatic. Baby Zac was stillborn. Baby Ben died at seven weeks. We picked ourselves up and went again, he recalls. Two embryo transfers were successful, and the pair have two daughters today. But the fate of the rest of their embryos is unclear. Indias government decided to ban commercial surrogacy for foreigners in 2015, and Everingham lost track of where they are. He says hes okay with that. As far as hes concerned, those embryos are just cells. He knows not everyone feels the same way. A few days before we spoke, Everingham had hosted a couple for dinner. They had embryos in storage and couldnt agree on what to do with them. The mother wanted them donated to somebody, says Everingham. Her husband was very uncomfortable with the idea. [They have] paid storage fees for 14 years for those embryos because neither can agree on what to do with them, says Everingham. And this is a very typical scenario. Lisa Holligans experience is similar. Holligan thought shed like to donate her last embryo to another personsomeone else who might have been struggling to conceive. But my husband and I had very different views on it, she recalls. He saw the embryo as their child and said he wouldnt feel comfortable with giving it up to another family. I started having these thoughts about a child coming to me when theyre older, saying theyve had a terrible life, and [asking] Why didnt you have me? she says. After all, her daughter Quinn began as an embryo that was in storage for months. She was frozen in time. She could have been frozen for five years like [the leftover] embryo and still be her, she says. I know it sounds a bit strange, but this embryo could be a child in 20 years time. The science is just mind-blowing, and I think I just block it out. Its far too much to think about. No choice at all Choosing the fate of your embryos can be difficult. But some people have no options at all. This is the case in Italy, where the laws surrounding assisted reproductive technology have grown increasingly restrictive. Since 2004, IVF has been accessible only to heterosexual couples who are either married or cohabiting. Surrogacy has also been prohibited in the country for the last 20 years, and in 2024, it was made a universal crime. The move means Italians can be prosecuted for engaging in surrogacy anywhere in the world, a position Italy has also taken on the crimes of genocide and torture, says Sara Dalla Costa, a lawyer specializing in assisted reproduction and an IVF clinic manager at Instituto Bernabeu on the outskirts of Venice. The law surrounding leftover embryos is similarly inflexible. Dalla Costa says there are around 900,000 embryos in storage in Italy, basing the estimate on figures published in 2021 and the number of IVF cycles performed since then. By law, these embryos cannot be discarded. They cannot be donated to other people, and they cannot be used for research. Even when genetic tests show that the embryo has genetic features making it incompatible with life, it must remain in storage, forever, says Dalla Costa. There are a lot of patients that want to destroy embryos, she says. For that, they must transfer their embryos to Spain or other countries where it is allowed. Even people who want to use their embryos may age out of using them. Dalla Costa gives the example of a 48-year-old woman who undergoes IVF and creates five embryos. If the first embryo transfer happens to result in a successful pregnancy, the other four will end up in storage. Once she turns 50, this woman wont be eligible for IVF in Italy. Her remaining embryos become stuck in limbo. They will be stored in our biobanks forever, says Dalla Costa. Dalla Costa says she has a lot of examples of couples who separate after creating embryos together. For many of them, the stored embryos become a psychological burden. With no way of discarding them, these couples are forever connected through their cryopreserved cells. A lot of our patients are stressed for this reason, she says. Earlier this year, one of Dalla Costas clients passed away, leaving behind the embryos shed created with her husband. He asked the clinic to destroy them. In cases like these, Dalla Costa will contact the Italian Ministry of Health. She has never been granted permission to discard an embryo, but she hopes that highlighting cases like these might at least raise awareness about the dilemmas the countrys policies are creating for some people. Snowflakes and embabies In Italy, embryos have a legal status. They have protected rights and are viewed almost as children. This sentiment isnt specific to Italy. It is shared by plenty of individuals who have been through IVF. Some people call them embabies or freezer babies, says Cattapan. It is also shared by embryo adoption agencies in the US. Beth Button is executive director of one such program, called Snowflakesa division of Nightlight Christian Adoptions agency, which considers cryopreserved embryos to be children, frozen in time, waiting to be born. Snowflakes matches embryo donors, or placing families, with recipients, termed adopting families. Both parties share their information and essentially get to choose who they donate to or receive from. By the end of 2024, 1,316 babies had been born through the Snowflakes embryo adoption program, says Button. Button thinks that far too many embryos are being created in IVF labs around the US. Around 10 years ago, her agency received a donation from a couple that had around 38 leftover embryos to donate. We really encourage [people with leftover embryos in storage] to make a decision [about their fate], even though its an emotional, difficult decision, she says. Obviously, we just try to keep [that discussion] focused on the child, she says. Is it better for these children to be sitting in a freezer, even though that might be easier for you, or is it better for them to have a chance to be born into a loving family? That kind of pushes them to the point where theyre ready to make that decision. Button and her colleagues feel especially strongly about embryos that have been in storage for a long time. These embryos are usually difficult to place, because they are thought to be of poorer quality, or less likely to successfully thaw and result in a healthy birth. The agency runs a program called Open Hearts specifically to place them, along with others that are harder to match for various reasons. People who accept one but fail to conceive are given a shot with another embryo, free of charge. These nitrogen tanks at New Hope Fertility Center in New York hold tens of thousands of frozen embryos and eggs.GETTY IMAGES We have seen perfectly healthy children born from very old embryos, [as well as] embryos that were considered such poor quality that doctors didnt even want to transfer them, says Button. Right now, we have a couple who is pregnant with [an embryo] that was frozen for 30 and a half years. If that pregnancy is successful, that will be a record for us, and I think it will be a worldwide record as well. Many embryologists bristle at the idea of calling an embryo a child, though. Embryos are property. They are not unborn children, says Bortoletto. In the best case, embryos create pregnancies around 65% of the time, he says. They are not unborn children, he repeats. Person or property? In 2020, an unauthorized person allegedly entered an IVF clinic in Alabama and pulled frozen embryos from storage, destroying them. Three sets of intended parents filed suit over their wrongful death. A trial court dismissed the claims, but the Alabama Supreme Court disagreed, essentially determining that those embryos were people. The ruling shocked many and was expected to have a chilling effect on IVF in the state, although within a few weeks, the state legislature granted criminal and civil immunity to IVF clinics. But the Alabama decision is the exception. While there are active efforts in some states to endow embryos with the same legal rights as people, a move that could potentially limit access to abortion, most of the [legal] rulings in this area have made it very clear that embryos are not people, says Rich Vaughn, an attorney specializing in fertility law and the founder of the US-based International Fertility Law Group. At the same time, embryos are not just property. Theyre something in between, says Vaughn. Theyre sort of a special type of property. UK law takes a similar approach: The language surrounding embryos and IVF was drafted with the idea that the embryo has some kind of special status, although it was never made entirely clear exactly what that special status is, says James Lawford Davies, a solicitor and partner at LDMH Partners, a law firm based in York, England, that specializes in life sciences. Over the years, the language has been tweaked to encompass embryos that might arise from IVF, cloning, or other means; it is a bit of a fudge, says Lawford Davies. Today, the officialif somewhat circularlegal definition in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act reads: embryo means a live human embryo. And while people who use their eggs or sperm to create embryos might view these embryos as theirs, according to UK law, embryos are more like a stateless bundle of cells, says Lawford Davies. Theyre not quite propertypeople dont own embryos. They just have control over how they are used. Many legal disputes revolve around who has control. This was the experience of Natallie Evans, who created embryos with her then partner Howard Johnston in the UK in 2001. The couple separated in 2002. Johnston wrote to the clinic to ask that their embryos be destroyed. But Evans, who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2001,argued that Johnston had already consented to their creation, storage, and use and should not be allowed to change his mind. The case eventually made it to the European Court of Human Rights, and Evans lost. The case set a precedent that consent was key and could be withdrawn at any time. In Italy, on the other hand, withdrawing consent isnt always possible. In 2021, a case like Natallie Evanss unfolded in the Italian courts: A woman who wanted to proceed with implantation after separating from her partner went to court for authorization. She said that it was her last chance to be a mother, says Dalla Costa. The judge ruled in her favor. Dalla Costas clinics in Italy are now changing their policies to align with this decision. Male partners must sign a form acknowledging that they cannot prevent embryos from being used once theyve been created. The US situation is even more complicated, because each state has its own approach to fertility regulation. When I looked through a series of published legal disputes over embryos, I found little consistencysometimes courts ruled to allow a woman to use an embryo without the consent of her former partner, and sometimes they didnt. Some states have comprehensive legislation; some do not, says Vaughn. Some have piecemeal legislation, some have only case law, some have all of the above, some have none of the above. The meaning of an embryo So how should we define an embryo? Its the million-dollar question, says Heidi Mertes, a bioethicist at Ghent University in Belgium. Some bioethicists and legal scholars, including Vaughn, think wed all stand to benefit from clear legal definitions. Risa Cromer, a cultural anthropologist at Purdue University in Indiana, who has spent years researching the field, is less convinced. Embryos exist in a murky, in-between state, she argues. You can (usually) discard them, or transfer them, but you cant sell them. You can make claims against damages to them, but an embryo is never viewed in the same way as a car, for example. It doesnt fit really neatly into that property category, says Cromer. But, very clearly, it doesnt fit neatly into the personhood category either. And there are benefits to keeping the definition vague, she adds: There is, I think, a human need for there to be a wide range of interpretive space for what IVF embryos are or could be. Thats because we dont have a fixed moral definition of what an embryo is. Embryos hold special value even for people who dont view them as children. They hold potential as human life. They can come to represent a fertility journeyone that might have been expensive, exhausting, and traumatizing. Even for people who feel like theyre just cells, it still cost a lot of time, money, [and effort] to get those [cells], says Cattapan. I think its an illusion that we might all agree on what the moral status of an embryo is, Mertes says. In the meantime, a growing number of embryologists, ethicists, and researchers are working to persuade fertility clinics and their patients not to create or freeze so many embryos in the first place. Early signs arent promising, says Baccino. The patients she has encountered arent particularly receptive to the idea. They think, If I will pay this amount for a cycle, I want to optimize my chances, so in my case, no, she says. She expects the number of embryos in storage to continue to grow. Holligans embryo has been in storage for almost five years. And she still doesnt know what to do with it. She tears up as she talks through her options. Would discarding the embryo feel like a miscarriage? Would it be a sad thing? If she donated the embryo, would she spend the rest of her life wondering what had become of her biological child, and whether it was having a good life? Should she hold on to the embryo for another decade in case her own daughter needs to use it at some point? The question [of what to do with the embryo] does pop into my head, but I quickly try to move past it and just say Oh, thats something Ill deal with at a later time, says Holligan. Im sure [my husband] does the same. The accumulation of frozen embryos is going to continue this way for some time until we come up with something that fully addresses everyones concerns, says Vaughn. But will we ever be able to do that? Im an optimist, so Im gonna say yes, he says with a hopeful smile. But I dont know at the moment.