Do you want to make the internet work better for millions of people?IFTTT helps everything work better together. With over 25M users, 160k Pro customers, and 1,000+ supported services, we are the established no-code standard for connecting anything in our growing digital world. We believe IFTTT can become the platform of choice for Digital Creators and DIYers looking to automate their businesses, grow their communities, and connect their homes.This working hours for this position would be 9:00am-5:00pm PST (Monday-Friday).As a Support Specialist, you will work directly with our Pro community. This role involves collaborating with a small team that works cross-functionally with every team at IFTTT. Youll have an opportunity to make a meaningful impact as we build the platform of the future. This position is fully remote.What have you done in the past?You have a passion for troubleshooting. Youre comfortable with digging through logs to find the root cause of an issue.You have a knack for trendspotting. Youre able to instinctively notice when similar reports are a cause for concern.Youre comfortable testing and re-creating unique issues users report to try to solve the problem or escalate to the relevant team.Youre positive and candid. When you see something that needs attention, you say something.What will you do at IFTTT?Efficiently triage questions and feedback from IFTTT Pro usersHelp IFTTT Pro users build Applets with filter code (JavaScript)Audit and improve IFTTT help documentationHelp to continuously improve the platform documentation and in-product explanationsBecome an IFTTT expert who can answer internal questions from fellow IFTTTersIdentify and reproduce technical issues, documenting product enhancements, and user experience improvementsQualificationsWhat key qualifications are we looking for?Expert in efficient troubleshooting and problem-solvingFluent in written and spoken EnglishExperience interacting with APIs and user authentication (OAuth 2)Experience with ZendeskExperience working remotelyExperience with email support or CRM toolsPlus: fluency in multiple written languagesPlus: Experience with JavaScriptAdditional InformationThe hourly rate for this position is $13-$25 USD. Starting pay for the successful applicant will depend on a variety of job-related factors, which may include skills, education, training, experience, or location.

Time zones: EST (UTC -5), CST (UTC -6), ART (UTC -3), UTC -4, UTC -4:30, UTC -3, UTC -2About RainforestRainforest QA is a team of smart, dedicated people who love working together to help our customers succeed. As a small startup, we value extreme ownership, problem solving and moving quickly.Rainforest provides Quality as a Service (QaaS): everything a software company might need including tooling, expertise, and a workforce to solve functional testing needs. Weve built our no-code test automation platform for engineering leaders who want to catch more bugs without slowing down the release process or burdening engineers.About the RoleWe are looking for an experienced, collaborative, passionate Customer Success Manager to join our Tribe! This CSM will guide customers through seamless implementation, advise them on inserting Rainforest into their software development lifecycle, keep them abreast of the latest product enhancements and best practices, and own the commercial relationship.Weve identified an ICP that gets genuinely excited when we introduce our one-of-a-kind solution. Our product is intuitive and innovative, and our fully-managed service is exceptional.The ideal candidate has a proven track record of success working in an early-stage startup and owing customer relationships from onboarding to adoption and expansion. They are comfortable and confident working with technical personas (CTO, VP Eng, Head of Product), familiar with the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and passionate about creating an exceptional customer experience. Youll serve as a customer advocate representing the voice of the customer internally and collaborating with cross-functional roles to consistently improve the customer experience.ResponsibilitiesOwn a book of 40+ accounts with ACV of $50k+ from onboarding to adoption and expansionAim for 100%+ net dollar retention of ICP customersAct as the trusted advisor, consultant and project manager to product and development teams looking to ensure quality software delivery to their customersBuild value-based relationships with customers ensuring alignment on key goals, from executive sponsor to individual contributorProvide coaching and training to improve adoption and usage of Rainforest within the customer organizationIdentify successful customers and turn them into advocates and promoters as measured by referrals, CSAT, and NPS scores, as well as participation in case studies, webinars and blogsSynthesize feedback and patterns to share with our Product teamAbout You3+ years as a Customer Success Manager within a early stage SaaS technology companyDesire to work in a customer-facing role and develop relationships with customers at multiple levelsConfidence managing the commercial components of customer relationships including renewals and upsellsExperience working with Product, Development, Engineering, and/or QA organizationsAbility to break down ambiguous problems into concrete, manageable components and think through optimal solutionsTrack record of deploying a consultative and solution-oriented approach for customersStrong listening skills; someone who really hears what the customer needs even if it means having to dig a level (or a few) deeperExperience working closely with C-level executives within customer organizationsHighly organized, with strong project management skills to help clients meet deadline-driven goalsHow we'll reward youCompetitive salaryEquityUnlimited paid-time offCompany off-sites to bond with your team and explore exciting destinations around the world100% medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage. 85% for dependentsVoluntary 401k programPaid parental leaveFully remote cultureAbout The CompanyRainforest QA is a Y Combinator company and has raised more than $50 million from top investors. Were fully remote, with our team distributed around the globe. We champion a belief that life is about more than work and that were all responsible for fostering a culture that supports a diverse set of lifestyles.A Note on Diversity and InclusionAt Rainforest we believe that diverse teams improve our business. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Within the first hours of his second term in office, President Donald Trump zeroed in on social media with an executive order focused on what he described as "government censorship."The executive order says that no federal department or employee may use government resources to abridge the free speech of US citizens.Notably, it is also backward-looking, directing the attorney general and the heads of federal agencies to investigate conduct that occurred during the four years of the Biden administration that ended on Monday. It alleges that the government infringed on citizens' free speech "under the guise of combatting 'misinformation,' 'disinformation,' and 'malinformation.'"The Biden administration, the order says, exerted "substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve."In July, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration in a case alleging that it had overreached in its contacts with social media companies.Concerns about misinformation and disinformation online ramped up during the 2016 election season and again during the COVID pandemic that began in 2020 as well as that year's election cycle, related to topics including voting processes, foreign interference in US affairs, hate speech and vaccinations. Social media companies implemented a number of policies trying to tamp down posts that potentially threatened public safety and public health.Trump himself was suspended for a period from social media sites including Twitter (now X) and Facebook following the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.The new order does not address the issue of misinformation and disinformation that can cause real-world harm or the potential risks they pose to the country. In addition, it remains unclear how the order might affect the US agencies tasked with monitoring online activity for potential threats to upcoming elections.Tech executives have increasingly aligned with claims of government overreach and pressure to moderate content on their platforms. Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the shutdown of the third-party fact-checking program on Instagram and Facebook, replacing it with a user-driven moderation system called Community Notes, similar to X.

TikTok access has been restored in the US. The app was shut down for less than 24 hours, in anticipation of a ban upheld by the Supreme Court, before coming back online on Sunday.The ban could still take effect in early April, if no further government action is taken, and noUS buyersteps in to purchase TikTok. If you're one of the nearly150 million Americans who actively use TikTok, you may soon be wondering where else you can find your fix of short-form content. Could anotherChinese-owned appbe the answer?We've put together a list of eight other short-video creation apps you can check out. Xiaohongshu Xiaohongshu/RedNote Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, is a lifestyle app owned by Xingyin Information Technology, a private company based in Shanghai. It's been described as a cross between Pinterest and Instagram. It's also been described as the "Chinese version of TikTok," which makes it ironic that some US users are now considering it a possible TikTok alternative. See at Xiaohongshu Lemon8 Like Xiaohongshu,Lemon8is a Chinese-owned company. In fact, it's owned by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, and TikTok is now encouraging its US users tomigrate to Lemon8.Lemon8 has drawn comparisons to Pinterest, with videos focused on lifestyle topics such as food, home and wellness. It's hard to imagine that the US government's security concerns with TikTok won't eventually extend to its sister app. For now, though, Lemon8 is a viable alternative. See at Lemon8 Screenshots by Shelby Brown/CNET Instagram Reels Reels is a video feature on Instagram that lets you film, edit and post video clips in the app. Clips must be between three and 90 seconds long. To get started, make sure you've got the latest version of the Instagram app on iOS or Android. You can find Reels by swiping right to open the camera and tapping Reels. (Read our full Reels tutorial here.)If you've used Vine or TikTok, Reels should feel familiar to you. On the left side of the screen, there's a slew of filters, songs to add, timed text options and other effects.You can easily swap and post to your Instagram page or story as well. Plus you can save a Reel to your drafts to keep working on it later. See at Instagram Facebook Facebook Reels Much like its Instagram counterpart, Facebook Reels allows users to post video clips up to 90 seconds long. Since Facebook and Instagram are both owned by Meta, you can automatically share Reels you post on your Facebook account to your Instagram account and vice versa. The Facebook app is available on iOS and Android. See at Facebook YouTube YouTube Shorts YouTube offers a TikTok-style video feature called YouTube Shorts. Shorts allows creators to film quick, catchy videos at a maximum length of 60 seconds. YouTube also provides tools to edit multiple video clips together, as well as speed controls, timer and countdown options for recording hands-free. The YouTube app is available on iOS and Android. See at YouTube Snapchat Snapchat Spotlight Snapchat'sSpotlight feature, which delivers short-form video like TikTok, has grown in popularity since its introduction in 2020. Snapchat reported last month that the total time users spent watching Spotlight content increased more than 125% year-over-year. The company gives creators an extra incentive to use their platform: if their content gets enough views, Spotlight creators can get monthly rewards called Snap Crystals, which can be redeemed for cash.For more information on how to get rewarded on Spotlight, see the official guidelines. The Snapchat app is available on iOS and Android. Triller/Screenshot by Shelby Brown/CNET Triller Rival TikTok app Triller started gaining more attention whenmembers of the Trump family, including the former president, joined amid early TikTok negotiations. Similar to TikTok, Triller offers video and music features: Choose a song from the app's library or import their own song, film or upload a video, and edit and share on different social media platforms. You can also collaborate with friends on the app.Triller also offers a vlog feature that lets you edit your footage in a B-roll documentary style, or Make a Music Video, which lets you upload clips without adding audio.The app has social features like TikTok with the Community and Following feed. If you amass a large enough following, Triller's Wallet system can actually make you money. Triller has Gold, its in-app currency, which followers can gift to each other. Earning enough Gold can help you get Gems, which can be exchanged for real cash.Triller is available on iOS and Android. See at Triller Screenshots by Shelby Brown/CNET Byte Bytewas developed by Vine co-founder Dom Hoffman, and it's currently available onAndroidandiOS. The app's interface is similar to that of TikTok. You can either upload a video from your phone or film a new one. It probably has the fewest special effects features in terms of editing. When I made a clip, I was only able to add text and a song, and the app was rather limited in choices for both. One cool feature Byte does offer is Ghost Mode: If you tap the ghost icon while filming, it'll make your original image look faded, creating a dream-like or flashback effect.Until you start following other users, Byte will show a variety of videos in your home feed. If you tap the magnifying glass, you can start exploring. The app sorts videos into different categories like trending stuff, or genres like comedy, anime, weird things, pets, magic and more, instead of hashtags, like TikTok uses. See at Byte

January 21, 202514 min readCrushed Rocks Could Be the Next Climate SolutionSpreading crushed stone across farm fields could inexpensively pull CO2 from the air while also increasing yields. But it would require a mountain of miningBy Douglas Fox edited by Mark Fischetti Jared Unverzagt/Getty ImagesThe scene that unfolded on a cold November day in central Illinois might seem commonplace, but it was part of a bold plan to pull billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stuff it into the ocean.A few miles south of Urbana a dump truck trundled past bare fields of dirt before turning into an adjacent lot. It deposited a cottage-size mound of grayish-blue sand190 metric tons of a crushed volcanic rock called basalt. Farmers spread the pulverized basalt across several fields that they sowed with corn months later. This was the fourth year of an ambitious study to test whether the worlds farmlands can be harnessed to simultaneously address three global crises: the ever rising concentration of planet-warming CO2 in the atmosphere, the acidification of the oceans and the shortfall in humanitys food supply.The trial results, published in February 2024, were stunning. David Beerling, a biogeochemist at the University of Sheffield in England, and Evan DeLucia, a plant physiologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, led the study. They found that over four years, fields treated with crushed basalt and planted with alternating crops of corn and soy pulled 10 metric tons more CO2 per hectare out of the air than untreated plots. And crop yields were 12 to 16 percent higher. In other research, they found that adding crushed basalts to soils improved the harvest of miscanthus, a tall grass that is used to make biofuels, by 29 to 42 percent, and the fields captured an estimated 8.6 metric tons of CO2 per hectare of land each year, compared with untreated fields. It was exciting, Beerling says. We were pleasantly surprised.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Their findings added to positive results elsewhere. In 2020 researchers in Canada reported that adding the mineral wollastonite to fields growing lettuce, kale, potatoes and soy sequestered CO2 in the soil at rates as high as two metric tons per hectare per year. And last spring Kirstine Skov, a natural geographer at the start-up company UNDO Carbon in London, showed that crushed basalts improved the yields of spring oats by 9 to 20 percent while reducing soil acidity in several fields in England.Scientists, start-up companies and large corporations are experimenting with elaborate technologies to slow global warming: High-altitude planes that release sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to block some incoming sunlight. Machines on Earths surface that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. Iron sprinkled across the sea that enhances the growth of algae that absorb CO2. These deployments could buy humanity some extra time to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy while preventing the climate from crossing dangerous thresholds in a permanent way. But the exotic approaches require gobs of money and energy or could threaten ecosystems. Simply spreading crushed rock on fieldsas farmers have done for centuries with limeseems refreshingly low tech. Thats part of its elegance, Beerling says.The basalt in Illinois came from a quarry in southern Pennsylvania, where it is mined for roofing and building materials. Basalt is the most abundant rock in Earths crust. As it naturally weathersgradually dissolving in soil waterit captures CO2, converting it into bicarbonate ions in the water, which cannot easily reenter the atmosphere. The reaction also releases into the soil nutrients that are important for plant health, including calcium, magnesium and silicon. Grinding and spreading basaltan approach known as enhanced rock weathering (ERW)speeds up those processes greatly. It could help cash-strapped farmers around the world by increasing crop yields, reducing fertilizer use and potentially allowing them to sell carbon credits.Seeing how this landed with the public and press strengthened our belief that this was the right way to go. David Beerling, University of Sheffield If ERW were to be scaled up globally, it could remove up to two billion metric tons of CO2 from the air every year, according to Beerling. That would cover a significant share of the atmospheric carbon humanity must draw down to keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C, widely acknowledged as the necessary goal to prevent widespread catastrophe. But ERW would require mining and crushing billions of tons of rock every yearenough to build a mountainand transporting it to farms, all of which would release CO2. Still, calculations suggest that those emissions would pale in comparison to the amount of CO2 that the rock stores away for centuries or longersequestered more permanently than it could have been in a forest of trees.ERW is newer than the other so-called negative emissions strategies, and so far only a few trials have been fielded. Yet companies are already looking to sell carbon credits tied to the technique. Noah Planavsky, a biogeochemist studying enhanced weathering at Yale University, sees promise in these unsettled circumstances. But he worries that if ERW expands too quickly, before the technique is refined, it could produce disappointing results and generate a backlash. This has the potential to be something truly impactful, he says. And there are so many ways you can imagine it going poorly.The idea of ERW is based on a fundamental insight about how Earth naturally functions. Across geological time, lava eruptions spewed huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, heating the planet. Subsequent weathering of the erupted rock over millions of years pulled the gas out of the atmosphere, cooling the planet back down. Basalts are effective in capturing CO2 because they are high in calcium and magnesium from deep in the planet. Today vast swaths of North and South America, Africa, Asia, and other areas are covered in these solidified lavas.Scientists have long wondered whether humans could accelerate CO2 removal by speeding up rock weathering. In 1995 Klaus Lackner, a physicist then at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, proposed heating basalts to absorb CO2 more quickly. Over time this basic idea fermented into other forms: injecting concentrated CO2 into hot layers of basalt underground where they would form carbonate minerals, or spreading powdered basalt across the ocean, which would absorb CO2, sinking the carbon.A worker spreads pulverized basalt on a recently harvested cornfield in central Illinois.Jordan Goebig/University of IllinoisIn the late 2000s Phil Renforth, a Ph.D. candidate at Newcastle University in England, noticed that the demolished remnants of steel mills in his area accumulated white crusts of carbonate minerals on the ground. Fragments of steel slag and concrete, both high in calcium, were reacting with CO2. In 2013 he and Jens Hartmann, a geochemist then at the University of Hamburg in Germany, published a paper suggesting that calcium-rich rocks could be crushed and spread on farmland to capture CO2 while also improving soils.At about that time, Beerling was studying how grasslands influence the weathering of bedrock and the natural capture of CO2. When he read Renforth and Hartmanns paper, he realized he could use his model to predict how basalt weathering would unfold on farmlands. In 2016 Beerling published calculations predicting that a millimeter or two of basalt dust spread annually over the worlds tropical lands could reduce CO2 levels by 30 to 300 parts per million (ppm) by 2100. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is currently around 425 ppmup from 280 ppm before the industrial revolutionand is expected to hit 500 to 1,200 ppm by 2100. The modeling suggested that ERW could prevent 0.2 to 2.2 degrees C of warming by that date.Common climate scenarios predict that if humans are going to limit warming to two degrees C, we need to remove five to 10 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually by 2050. In 2018 Beerlings team published updated calculations predicting that if crushed basalt were spread yearly across 700,000 square kilometers of corn and soy croplands in the U.S., it could remove 0.2 to 1.1 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually.In 2020 Beerling and his collaborators, joined by Renforth, published a refined analysis in Nature. They estimated that if two gigatons of CO2 a year had to be captured worldwide through ERW, China, India, the U.S. and Brazil could cover 80 percent of that amount, even after accounting for the CO2 emitted while mining, crushing and transporting the rock. Obviously a combination of carbon capture methods would be needed to reach 10 gigatons a year. But, Beerling says, If you can do two [gigatons] of it with enhanced weathering and improve food security and soil health, thats 20 percent of the way there.The Illinois trial provided strong validation. Farming of corn and soy typically releases CO2 through the respiration of roots and soil microbes, but the basalt-treated corn-soy fields released 23 to 42 percent less CO2. Multiplied across the U.S., thats 260 million tons of CO2 potentially avoided each year.Unlike geoengineering approaches such as hoisting sulfur into the sky or scattering iron across the sea, which people often view as risky tinkering with nature, ERW was well received when papers were published, Beerling says. It was important to see how this landed with the public and the press, he says. The reactions strengthened our belief that this was the right way to go.ERW is fundamentally different from two other soil-based carbon strategies that have been around longer. In a method called biochar, farmers partially burn leftover plant matter, turning it to charcoalnearly pure carbonwhich is plowed into the dirt for long-term storage. In the second method, leftover plant material is plowed back into the soil without being charcoaled; this stores carbon as organic molecules that can nourish crops, although the molecules can also return to the atmosphere.ERW traps CO2 as dissolved bicarbonate in soil water, which eventually runs off farm fields into streams that ultimately lead to the sea, storing CO2 in the ocean water as bicarbonate or as solid carbonate minerals on the seafloor. Studies predict that ERW would reliably store bicarbonate in the ocean for 100 to 1,000 years, which could also help reduce climate-related ocean acidification. Whats more, ERW could alleviate another major problem, not addressed by the two other methods, that plagues farmers around the world.One of the most striking examples of how rock weathering has regulated atmospheric CO2 levels over the eons can be found along the western coast of Indiaone reason some of the earliest efforts to roll out ERW by start-up companies are happening in this country. Indias coastal plain, dotted with rice paddies and villages, abruptly rises 1,000 meters through a chaotic maze of sharp ridges, V-shaped canyons, rushing rivers and waterfalls to a high plateau. The canyon walls are striped in alternating layers of yellow and brown basalt, marking the edge of the Deccan basalts, formed from a massive series of lava flows that started around 66 million years ago. By 50 million years ago Earth was unusually warm, with CO2 levels nearly four times what they are today. Around that time, the Deccan basalts began altering the planets climate in a slow but potent way. Continental drift carried them into the equatorial belt, where abundant rainfall and warm temperatures caused the rocks to weather more quickly. The weathering minerals pulled CO2 from the air and washed it down rivers to the sea, trapping it there.Over the next 30 million years, estimates indicate, weathering basalts drew more than one million gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere, some of it becoming buried as carbonate on the seafloor. Atmospheric CO2 declined, temperatures cooled, and an ice sheet began growing across Antarctica.Ben Gilliland; Paul Nelson/James Cook University (scientific reviewer)The village of Sarekha Khurd, in central Indias Madhya Pradesh state, sits near the eastern, inland edge of the Deccan basalts. The people there have farmed rice for centuries, in a patchwork of paddies divided by rows of teak and red-blossomed gum trees. Many of the farmers live tenuously, working little plots the size of one to two soccer fields. They earn an average of $1,500 a year, spending up to 30 percent of that on fertilizers and other chemicals. And they face constant hazards. Heat waves as high as 48 degrees C (118 degrees Fahrenheit) can stunt crops and disrupt needed monsoon rains. Constant agriculture has slowly acidified the dark, rich soils, depleting their stores of calcium and magnesium, as farmers harvested plants rather than leaving them to decay and return their minerals to the soil. The average pH of soils in this area is slightly acidic, around 6.4 (7.0 is neutral), similar to saliva. This is not ideal for growing rice because acidification impairs the plants absorption of nutrients, such as phosphorus, and it may even alter the mix of soil microbes, allowing pathogenic bacteria or fungi to spawn disease outbreaks that can damage crops.Farmers worldwide have dealt with soil acidity since long before they understood it. Dozens of pits found in the forests north of Paris suggest that as early as 6,000 years ago, farmers dug into the limestone bedrock and scattered pieces of it on the fields where they grew wheat, barley and peas. Later on, Romans would scatter chalky calcium carbonate rocks onto croplands to reverse sour soil. For centuries farmers in Europe and North America neutralized acidity by sprinkling fields with crushed limestone, rich in carbonate.But people in many areas, including India, dont have easy access to limestone. And the process of neutralizing acidic soil with lime can potentially release CO2 into the air. In such places, ERW is appealing because it can reverse that dynamic, converting airborne CO2 into dissolved bicarbonate in soil.Last May farmers in Sarekha Khurd started trying ERW. Workers with Mati Carbon, an ERW start-up based in Houston, Tex., trucked in 1,250 metric tons of crushed rock from nearby quarries that mine the Deccan basalts for road construction materials. The company is currently providing basalt, free of charge, to more than 180 farm villages in Madhya Pradesh and its neighboring state of Chhattisgarh. They plan to add more basalt each year. Rice yields have increased by 15 to 20 percent on average, and in some cases by up to 70 percent.Imagine the farm of the future. Part of the farmers view of their mandate is carbon dioxide removal. Noah Planavsky, Yale University Mati Carbon recently expanded its operations to a handful of villages in Tanzania and Zambia. Our mission is the farmer, says Mati founder Shantanu Agarwal, especially these smaller, climate-vulnerable farmers. The company hopes to earn money by selling carbon credits. Agarwal and Jacob Jordan, Matis lead scientist, estimate that improved soils, increased crop yields and reduced spending on fertilizers could raise poor farmers income by 10 to 30 percent, making them less vulnerable.As promising as early trials have been, a large-scale rollout of ERW would have to overcome some stark realities, starting with the staggering amount of rock it would require. Beerlings calculations suggest that if ERW were used to capture two gigatons of CO2 a year, it would consume 13 gigatons of basalt annuallyabout 4.5 cubic kilometers of rock, roughly equal to the volume of the Matterhorn. That would require 30 percent more mining than the 40 gigatons or so of sand, gravel and crushed rock that are now quarried worldwide annually for industry. Such an increase might not be possible for some kinds of rock, but the worlds reserves of basalt are truly vast, distributed widely across the planet.Crushed basalt thats already produced in quarries as an unused by-product could pick up some of that slack. So could calcium-rich industrial by-products, such as crushed concrete, mine tailings, ash from sugarcane milling and coal burning, and wastes from cement, aluminum and steel production. But many of these by-products contain chromium, nickel, cadmium, and other toxic elements, so they could maybe be used to capture CO2 in factory yards or tailings piles at mines but not on croplands. When additional basalt mining and crushing is needed, it will cost about $10 and emit around 30 kilograms of CO2 per ton. Beerlings team considered these factors when it estimated that ERW would cost $80 to $180 per ton of CO2 captured, after emissions are subtracted.Two farmers harvest rice from paddies in India that had been treated with ground-up rock. Rice yield was about 25 percent higher than in the past, when no rock was spread.Deepak Kushwaha/Mati CarbonBut there will be other costs. In China and Indiatwo countries with the most agricultural potential for ERWthe thriving rock-quarrying industries have been criticized for poor protection of human rights. Indias sandstone-quarrying industry, for example, employs more than three million people. A 2020 report published by the Washington, D.C.based Center for Human Rights found that many of them are bonded laborerspeople who work at low wages to repay loans with annual interest rates up to 20 percent, making it difficult to ever repay debts and trapping them in the job. Such workers may face dangerous temperatures, rock collapses and swirling mineral dust.A 2022 study found that quarry workers in northeastern India suffer poor lung and heart health, with low levels of blood oxygen, high pulses and poor lung airflow. If a quarry worker is injured, dies or falls ill, wives or children may be forced into work to repay the debt. These problems arent limited to India, says Bhoomika Choudhury, a lawyer and labor researcher with the Business & Human Rights Resource Center in Dubai, who wrote the 2020 sandstone report: We are seeing these patterns everywhere in countries across Asia, Africa and South America.Any large increase in quarrying would also translate into more landscapes being torn upsome of them in potentially sensitive areasalthough this is also true for other materials that will have to be mined to support the broader transition to renewable energy, such as lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements. It is also possible that even if mining challenges are surmounted, ERW wont work as well worldwide as it has in the small trials that have been done thus far. For example, many scientists assumed ERW would work best in the warm, wet tropics, where basalt weathers more quickly. But two recent studies complicate that picture.A 2022 trial that Beerlings group supported in Malaysia, where basalt dust was spread across parts of a palm oil plantation, produced inconclusive results. Beerling suspects that the benefits are being temporarily masked by local conditions. The dark, pungent soils contain more decaying organic matter and more clay than the soils in Illinois; those charged materials can latch on to the breakdown products of basalt, keeping them from converting CO2 into bicarbonate. Theres a delay in capturing carbon dioxide, Beerling says. It doesnt happen until the soils capacity to bind the dissolving minerals has been saturated, which may take a year or take five years, he says. This remains to be seen.Acidity is the other complicating factor, according to a trial on tropical sugarcane fields in northeastern Australia. The soil there is acidic, so it can potentially consume the basalt before it has a chance to react with CO2. Initial results, published last October, show that CO2 capture rates are only about 1 percent of those in Illinois. Paul Nelson, a soil scientist at James Cook University in Cairns who helped lead the study, says it may be hard to fix the problem just by neutralizing acidic soils before adding basalt because in wet tropical areas the acidity may extend many meters down, to the bedrock.Right now researchers are just trusting that wherever ERW is done, from Illinois to Australia, the CO2 that is captured as dissolved bicarbonate will seep into streams, flow through rivers and reach the ocean without encountering a highly acidic environment. If it does flow through an acidic environment, Nelson says, some of it could be converted into CO2 along the way, returning to the atmosphere.Despite the uncertainties, some two dozen companies have emerged to try to exploit ERW. Many are selling anticipated carbon-capture credits, in some cases to companies such as Microsoft and Stripe that hope to zero out their carbon footprint. This activity makes Planavsky, the Yale biogeochemist, uneasy. Hes aware of lessons learned in another carbon market that grew too quickly. In recent years companies have sold more and more voluntary carbon offsets for protecting forests, but some of the projects have subsequently been revealed as worthless. ERW is a potentially really valuable opportunity to remove CO2, Planavsky says, but its not going to work everywhere. If companies cut corners, he says, ERW could blow up on the launch pad.Yet for ERW to have a large impact by 2050, it will need to expand quickly, says Gregory Nemet, an energy scientist at the University of WisconsinMadison. Last May he and his colleagues published a study analyzing the combined potential of novel CO2 removal methods such as ERW, direct air-capture machines and the use of biofuels with CO2 captured from smokestacks. Between now and 2050 these methods need to grow by something like 40 percent per year, every year, Nemet says. That sounds extreme, although he says that electric cars and solar energy have expanded even more rapidly for 10 or 20 years. And if enhanced weathering ends up costing $80 to $180 per ton of CO2, as Beerlings group predicted, it may be cheaper than direct air capture ($400 to $1,000 per ton right now), and similar to biofuels with smokestack capture ($100 to $300 per ton today).If ERW does pan out on a large scale, Planavskywhose family farmssees potential societal benefits that go beyond CO2 removal. Building machines that capture CO2 from the air or from smokestacks will generate profits for big companies. But with a low-tech approach like ERW, even small farmers could sell carbon credits. Imagine the farm of the future, he says. Part of the farmers view of their mandate is carbon dioxide removal.

January 21, 20256 min readJWST Photos Reveal Bizarre Physics of Supernova ExplosionsThe best view yet of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant reveals new secretsBy Clara Moskowitz NASA/CXC/SAO (x-ray); NASA/ESA/STScI (optical); NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/D. Milisavljevic et al., NASA/JPL/Caltech (infrared); NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and K. Arcand (image processing)As soon as a star is born, it starts fighting a battle with gravity. A burning star constantly releases enough energy to counteract gravitys inward pressure. But once its fuel runs out, gravity wins: the star implodes, and most of its mass becomes either a neutron staran ultradense object about the size of a cityor a black hole. The rest explodes outward, flying into space like bullets.Astronomers recently captured new images of the aftermath of this violence by training the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on the young supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A. The light from its explosion reached Earth about 350 years ago, around the time of Isaac Newton. This particular object is very important because its relatively nearby and its young, so what you see is a frozen-in-time picture of how the star blew up, says Dartmouth College astronomer Robert A. Fesen.Astronomers have studied this nearby spectacle for decades, but JWST got a closer look than any past observatory. The Webb images are really amazing, says Fesen, who led the first team that studied Cassiopeia A with the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble observes in primarily optical lightthe wavelength range human eyes can see whereas JWST captures longer-wavelength infrared light, and it does so with a larger mirror that captures images in higher resolution.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The recent photographs are helping scientists answer some of their most pressing questions about supernovae, such as which types of stars explode in which ways and how exactly those outbursts unfold. There is a lot of complicated but beautiful physics in understanding how this explosion takes place, says Purdue University astronomer Danny Milisavljevic, who led the team behind the JWST images.Stars start off burning hydrogen into helium inside their fusion furnaces. When the hydrogen is used up, they fuse helium to make carbon, then carbon to make neon, and so on, until they reach iron, which costs more energy to fuse than it releases. At this point the star begins to collapse under gravity, and its matter falls in until most of the protons and electrons inside its atoms have been smushed together to form neutrons. Eventually the neutrons cant collapse any furtherthey become a neutron star, where particles experience such extreme pressure that they trigger a repelling shock wave. (Only the most massive stars end their lives in supernovae. The sun, for instance, will fade to become a white dwarf.)Astronomers still cant entirely account for the explosive power of a supernova. It was thought that this rebounding shock thats produced when the neutron star forms could explode the star, Milisavljevic says. But decades of simulations on the worlds fastest computers showed that the rebounding shock isnt strong enough to overcome the massive layers on top that want to fall in. For now the core driver of supernova explosions remains a mystery. Researchers suspect the answer involves neutrinos, nearly massless particles that tend to pass through matter unimpeded. Perhaps at the intense temperatures and densities at the core of a star, some of the neutrinos energy goes into reviving the shock. But more observations are needed to verify this idea.Among JWSTs revelations about Cassiopeia A is a layer of gas that escaped its star during the blast. These JWST images show the gas before it interacted with material outside the star and before it was heated by a reflection of the shock wave the star expelled during its eruption. This pristine ejecta from the supernova displays a weblike structure that offers clues about the star before it exploded. JWST gave us basically a map of the structure of that material, says Tea Temim, a Princeton University astronomer who collaborated on the JWST images. This tells us what the distribution of the material was before it was ejected in the supernova. We havent been able to see something like this before.The investigation also exposed an unexpected feature of Cassiopeia A that scientists have named the Green Monster. Astronomers think this layer of gas was expelled by the star before it exploded. The Green Monster was an exciting surprise, Temim says. Scientists are interested in what happens when the supernova debris flies into the material in the Green Monster. This is important, Temim says, because when we observe extragalactic supernovae, their light is very much influenced by the surrounding material.Deciphering the details of supernovae could even help us understand how Earth and its life came to be. Stars create the elements heavier than hydrogen and helium that life requires. Their end-of-life eruptions spew these elements into space, seeding galaxies with the raw materials to form new stars and planets. As citizens of the universe, its important we understand this fundamental process that makes our place in the universe possible, Milisavljevic says.Astronomers will keep studying Cassiopeia A, although their success makes them eager to turn JWSTs eyes toward some of the other roughly 400 identified supernova remnants in our galaxy. Getting a larger sample will help researchers connect differences in how remnants look and evolve to differences among the stars that produced them.Celestial FirecrackerNASA/CXC/SAO (x-ray); NASA/ESA/STScI (optical); NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/D. Milisavljevic et al., NASA/JPL/Caltech (infrared); NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and K. Arcand (image processing)Cassiopeia A is the aftermath of the closest known young supernova to Earth, a blast that occurred some 350 years ago. Recent data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) combine in this image with earlier observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope to reveal a clearer picture of Cassiopeia A than ever before.HUBBLES BIG STEPNASA, ESA and Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgment: Robert A. Fesen/Dartmouth College and James Long/ESA/HubbleBefore the JWST images, Hubbles observations of Cassiopeia A were revolutionary. In photographs taken in 2006, Hubble improved on the resolution of ground-based observations by a factor of 10. In the process, it was able to resolve clumps of material ejected during the supernova that were traveling shockingly fast, between 8,000 and 10,000 kilometers per second. The explosion is ridiculously violent, Fesen says. The outer layers of the star appear to fragment into clumps of gas, almost like the star shattered into thousands and thousands of pieces. Scientists hadnt realized that the blast would produce such clumps, Fesen says. Nature had to show us that stars actually do that.JWSTS VIEWNASA, ESA, CSA, Danny Milisavljevic/Purdue University, Tea Temim/Princeton University, Ilse De Looze/University of Ghent; Joseph DePasquale/STScI (image processing)JWST is the most powerful telescope of all time, and its portrait of Cassiopeia A shows never-before-seen details. The observatorys Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) captures various bands of infrared light, which have each been converted into respective visible-light colors in this picture. Orange and red flows on the top and left of the image show spots where material from the exploding star is smashing into gas and dust in the surrounding area. Inside this shell are bright pink strands released during the explosion. The dark red web toward the center left represents pristine structure from the blast that could hold clues about the star before it blew up.THE GREEN MONSTERNASA/ESA JWST, Danny Milisavljevic/Purdue University, Tea Temim/Princeton University, Ilse De Looze/University of Ghent and HST, R. Fesen/Dartmouth College; J. Schmidt (image processing)Zooming in on the JWST image reveals a surprisea green bubble scientists are calling the Green Monster after a green wall at Fenway Park in Boston. This blob is made of gas layers the star cast off before it burst apart. It looks weird and has this bizarre distribution of rings and filaments, Milisavljevic says. Encoded in this puzzle is information about how the star was releasing mass before the explosion.Holes apparent in the Green Monster seem to provide evidence of the clumps of ejecta Fesen and his team observed with Hubble. The images from JWST show little holes, almost like bullet holes, that are almost perfectly round, he says. Scientists think the fast-moving clumps of supernova material are punching through the surrounding sheet of gas like shrapnel to create the holes. The size of the holes betrays the clumps gigantic sizeroughly 500 astronomical units (the distance between Earth and the sun). As these clumps have been sailing through space, theyve expanded to become bigger than the solar system, Fesen says.CRYSTAL CLEARNASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Danny Milisavljevic (Purdue University), Ilse De Looze (UGent), Tea Temim (Princeton University)Another JWST instrument, the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), showcases Cassiopeia A in shorter-wavelength light than MIRI. The benefit of NIRCam is resolution, Milisavljevic says. When you zoom in like this, its astounding. Im going to spend the rest of my career trying to understand the supernova at these scales. He hopes to use these data to understand how the shock wave of the explosion has shaped the gas it encountered, as well as how dense the supernova material can get, to garner clues about how the cataclysm unfolded.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 movie gets a release date, but it's still a few years awayRing it in your diary.Image credit: Sega/Paramount News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 21, 2025 We already knew it was coming, thanks to Paramount's announcement at the end of last year, but the Sonic the Hedgehog 4 movie now has a release date. It is, however, still a fair way out - with Sonic's next big screen undertaking currently not due until 2027.More specifically, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is - as reported by Variety - currently expected to hit cinemas on 19th March, 2027. No further specifics have been revealed, but we do, of course, have a pretty good idea of who'll be joining the Sonic crew in instalment four.Over the course of its three previous entries, the Sonic movie series has established a tradition of including a big character reveal during its credits. Sonic 1 suggested Tails would be along for the second Sonic movie, while Shadow the Hedgehog emerged from his slumber in a mid-credits sequence for Sonic 2. And as for the recently released Sonic 3, that made it pretty clear [SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS] Amy Rose will be entering the fray - oversized hammer in hand - for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 [END OF SPOILERS].Sonic the Hedgehog 3 trailer.Watch on YouTubeRegardless of where the story heads next, it seems unlikely Sega and Paramount will be ready to wrap up the series when Sonic the Hedgehog 4 arrives in 2027. As noted by Variety, Sonic 3 proved to be a huge success when it released in December, generating $422m at the box office globally so far - a figure officially making it the movie series' highest grossing entry so far.Eurogamer's Ed Nightingale was also won over by last year's movie, calling it an "authentic Sonic romp with added Keanu cool" in his four star review. "Sonic 3 is a resounding success and fitting finale to the Year of Shadow," he wrote. "It's quippy and self-aware... while its flashy action thrills alongside an unbridled sense of cool that's only enhanced by Reeves as Shadow."

GDC's State of the Games Industry survey says one in ten respondents laid off in 20248 percent of devs creating for Switch 2.Image credit: Adobe Stock / Shopping King Louie News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 21, 2025 Game Developer Conference organisers have shared the results of this year's State of the Game Industry survey - intended to provide a snapshot of current trends and sentiments among developers - revealing, among other things, that one in ten respondents lost their jobs in 2024, following the devastating wave of layoffs seen across the industry.This year's State of Games Industry report surveyed over 3000 developers across a range of topics, but layoffs were once again front of mind as the widespread industry job cuts of 2023 continued into 2024 - with figures suggesting 13000 employees lost their jobs last year. According to GDC's survey, not only did one in ten developers report having been laid off directly, 41 percent of respondents said they'd felt the impact of layoffs in some way. The area reportedly most affected by layoffs was game narrative at 19 percent.Respondents cited restructuring, declining revenue, and marketing shifts as the main reason for job cuts, with many blaming "specific issues like Covid-era over-expansion, rising production costs, declining player interest, unrealistic expectations for the 'next big hit', poor leadership and mismanagement" as the reason why layoffs have continued to impact the games industry.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Newscast: Switch 2 and Mario Kart 9 revealed - but questions remain.Watch on YouTubeElsewhere, unionisation remains a talking point, with one-fifth of respondents saying they'd discussed unionising over the past 12 months. 29 percent said their companies were supportive of the discussions, while 19 percent were mixed and 12 percent opposed unionisation.GDC also questioned respondents on average working hours, with 57 percent saying they worked 40 hours or less a week. 13 percent of those survey worked more than 51 hours per week - up from 8 percent last year - with two-third attributing their hours to self-pressure.As for the platforms developers are currently focusing their attention on, PC once again leads the charge by a significant margin, with 80 percent of those surveyed saying they were currently developing PC games - up from 66 percent last year. While GDC wasn't able to confidently state a reason for this increase, it speculated a link to the popularity of Steam Deck - with 44 percent expressing an interest in Valve's platform.Over on console, 38 percent of developers reported they're currently making games for PS5, compared to 34 percent for Xbox Series X/S, while 20 percent are developing for Switch. As for Nintendo's recently unveiled Switch 2, eight percent of developers said they're developing for the platform - the same figure reported in last year's GDC survey.Respondents also shared their thoughts on live service gaming - another area generating headlines right now, as studios continue to pull the plug on floundering or still-in-development titles. 42 percent of those surveyed said they weren't interested in working on live service games, but those who saw value in them did so for various reasons: "not only on the financial side, but also in player experience and community building".Those with less enthusiasm blamed "declining player interest, creative stagnation, predatory practices and micro-transactions, and the risk of developer burnout", as well as concerns around market saturation and the difficulty of building a sustainable player base.And as for AI, 30 percent of respondents said they believed AI is having a negative impact on the industry - a 12 percent increase from last year - with many sharing concerns around "intellectual property theft, energy consumption, a decrease in quality from AI-generated content, potential biases within AI programs and regulation issues". Despite these reservations, 52 percent said their companies have implemented generative AI - with respondents in business and finance most likely to use AI tools (51 percent), followed by production and team leadership (41 percent), and community, marketing, and PR (39 percent).GDC's full State of the Game Industry report can be downloaded from its website (registration is required) and is well worth a read, offering a fascinating snapshot of current developer sentiment and trends following an extremely challenging year for the industry.

This 540-square-foot apartment is on the fifth floor of its building in the 10th arrondissementin other words, this means unobstructed views and lots of light. Light is the key word for this small space, says interior designer Lauranne lise Schmitt. But it was partitioned into many small spaces. We had to reimagine the plan and figure out a way to improve the circulation.After Schmitts intervention, the space is now divided between a large living room (measuring roughly 345 square feet) and a bedroom (of around 215 square feet) that includes paired dressing rooms that also serve to separate the toilet from both the bedroom and the bathroom. In the end, every function has its place and no square inch is wasted. From the entrance, you can access the dressing room and the toilet, to the left of the kitchen. The bedroom is past the kitchen and to its right. This beautiful, natural symmetry is typical of Schmitts work. The apartment also takes advantage of a row of three sloping windows and a translucent pocket door to the bedroom to create a space that is filled with light. Facing the kitchen, which is rather small but it has everything anyone would need, a extra long and thin table creates a visual separation between the kitchen and the living room without taking up too much space. It can be used as a console, island, office, or dining table and can accommodate up to six people seated around it.The three niches in the apartments living area have reflective brushed stainless-steel backs. In front of two 1970 vintage armchairs by Adriano Piazzesi (Galerie Paradis), three small glazed stoneware coffee tables. In the niches, aluminum vases, pieces from Anna Zimmermans Vessels of Imperfection series, and glass vases Momentum 14, 16, 17, and 18 by Rinke Joosten (Galerie Scne Ouverte). On the wall, Melting Summer by Jade Marra (Amlie, Maison d'art). Walls and ceilings painted in Calcaire (Argile).The owner grew up in Andalusia and the colors of Southern Spain were the inspiration for the ochre, caramel, and earth-colored palette that Schmitt chose. The kitchen, the center of life in the apartment, is in a rustic red that complements the large custom table and the Alicante marble credenza. The same hue continues in the two dressing rooms and down the legs of the large table. The brushed stainless-steel base and wall units, on the other hand, contrast with this warm, Mediterranean color to create a modern look as well as reflecting light throughout the apartment. The same stainless steel is also found lining the back of three mahogany oak niches on one wall in the living area. Illuminated by LED lights at night and by sunlight during the day, the reflective niches help to create a cozy yet contemporary living area. The arches of two of the niches introduce curves into the apartment while providing a contrast with the straight lines that the interior designer is also fond of. This curved shape is found in the arched bathroom door and the bathroom mirror, Schmitt says. They are subtle touches that are integrated with the rest of the apartment, never overshadowing other elements.

One of the most iconic homes in cinema is finally off the market. The Home Alone houseas seen in the 1990 Christmas classic starring Macaulay Culkinhas officially sold for $5.5 million, per People.Located in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Illinois, the five-bedroom, six-bathroom dwelling first hit the market in May 2024 with an asking price of $5.25 million. An offer was made a week after it was listed. The famous pad then went under contingency, meaning an agreement would be reached once certain conditions (like inspections and financing) were finalized. The sale was reportedly marked as pending in December 2024, the houses listing agents, Dawn McKenna and Katie Moor of Coldwell Banker Realty, tell People.Home Alone follows the hijinks of 8-year-old Kevin McCallister, who was mistakenly left home alone after his family went on Christmas vacation abroad. Since its debut over three decades ago, the property has become a beloved landmark.The residence was built in 1921 and still sports the same red brick exteriors and wrought-iron gate fans will remember, though it has undergone a slew of renovations over the years. However, the dwellings previous longtime owners, Tim and Trisha Johnson, were careful not to alter aspects featured in the movie. The couple purchased the property in 2012 for $1.58 million and opted to maintain the foyer staircase, living room, and dining room over the years to preserve its movie magic.An additional 5,100 square feet of space have been tacked onto the home since its turn on screen, bringing it to a total of 9,126 square feet. Its new features include a revamped gourmet kitchen, a basement, and an enclosed porch with a dual-sided fireplace. It also comes packed with luxury amenities, among them, a fully-equipped gym and a seven-seat home theater with a bar. Other highlights include a junior primary bedroom in the former attic space, an indoor sports court, two laundry rooms, a second living room, and a heated three-car garage.Join NowNew Year's Sale: Become an AD PRO member for only $20 $12 per monthArrowWere thrilled with the way this home captured everyones attention and hearts due to its well-deserved place in cinematic history and the timeless holiday memories it evokes, the homes listing agents told People in a statement.While the identity of the new owner has yet to be revealed, Culkin previously admitted that he considered purchasing the fictional home just for giggles. While he never planned to move in himself, Culkin says he considered transforming the home into a movie fun house where fans could reenact scenes from the film.