Samsung's partnership with Google imbues its new Galaxy S25 phones with powerful AI and deep integration across its ecosystem. That's a major, major win.

INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 18: Kevin Holland prepares to face Reinier de Ridder of The ... [+] Netherlands in a middleweight fight during the UFC 311 event at Intuit Dome on January 18, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)Zuffa LLCKevin Holland isnt picking up a lot of wins lately, and hes also not making any new friends among his peers and legends of mixed martial arts.The 32-year-old UFC veteran has lost two fights in a row, most recently suffering a one-sided first-round submission defeat to Reinier de Ridder at UFC 311.RDR made it look really easy.INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 18: Reinier de Ridder of The Netherlands reacts after a victory ... [+] against Kevin Holland in a middleweight fight during the UFC 311 event at Intuit Dome on January 18, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)Zuffa LLCHolland has also dropped four of his last five fights and six of his last nine. Two days before his loss to RDR at UFC 311, Holland was a guest on the Jaxxon Podcast with Quinton Rampage Jackson and Bear Degidio. Several segments from the podcast went viral due to the tension between Holland and Jackson.Holland came on the podcast with what Rampage described as bad energy, rebuffing a bro hug and seemingly challenging the UFC legend and former world champion to a physical altercation, which included some awkward and misplaced gun references.MORE FOR YOUHolland was upset with Rampage over a joke the latter made on social media, which seemingly poked fun at Holland following his loss to Michael Venom Page.Throughout the first part of the interview, Holland kept challenging Jackson to fight and began asking him about the caliber of his firearms. Holland escalated the tensions further by telling the 46-year-old to shut the f### up.To Rampages credit, he remained professional. His poise diffused the situation and facilitated an entertaining interview. During a recap of the segment, Jackson, who was on with another former world champion, TJ Dillashaw, and Degidio, admitted he was angered by Hollands disrespect.At the end of the podcast, I wasnt mad at the kid, Rampage said on the recap episode. But right here at the time, when I got quiet; I had to think. I really had to think. This is one thing a lot of people didnt see on the podcast, he came in with bad energy. I tried to come in for the bro hug and he pushed me away.Degidio called out the disrespect from Holland and Dillashaw slammed his behavior on several levels.He cant talk s###, Dillashaw said. He cant come in her talk s### to a legend across the table. I text Bear, I was like homeboy needs to get slapped.Others chimed in with a similar sentiment. For Kevin, talking guns and start you know, telling him to shut the f### up, I didnt like that, Paul Felder said while on Michael Bispings Believe You Me Podcast.I remember being that age, being mid-fight career, you know, and you do have that chip on your shoulder, we dont feel that need to impress or prove ourselves anymore, so Rampage was really restrained and he was like Bro, what are you talking about?' Bisping said.Dude hes so average, former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker said on his MMArcade Podcast. What do you want me to say? He just time and time again keeps doing the same thing, and the same thing keeps happening. The same thing! Good on those guys, I dont know.The part of Hollands appearance that raised an eyebrow was his commitment to mediocrity in his sport. Most everyone believes hes talented. Lets be honest, youre not in the UFC if youre not among the best fighters in the world.However, Holland tries to sell us a bill of goods by claiming he doesnt want to be champion. He says he is more comfortable staying unranked and collecting fights. In fact, he said his goal is to have the most fights in UFC history, but he feels there are too many politics involved and expectations if youre ranked or the UFC champion.Dillashaw, who had some rough spots in his career, had a poignant take on Holland that cuts through what seems like a facade.Hes entertaining and hes fun, Dillashaw said. I heard him in here talking when he was saying he doesnt care about being champion. Theres too much politics. Im like, alright dude, thats just an excuse because youll never be a champion. Hell never be a champion, and I promise you that.Dillashaw called out some massive holes in his game and mindset.He sat here and said that he doesnt give a s###, Dillashaw added. Are you going to be a champion if you dont care? No. Hes talking about bringing training partners in and going home and smoking weed. Just sitting here and listening to him talk, he doesnt have the mindset for it, hes just happy being on TV. I think its too much work for him.Holland took to social media following the fight and acknowledged he has some work to do to improve.At some point, Holland is going to need to put some victories together, or the UFC will step in and stop his longevity goal with a release. I also agreed with Felder and Degidio. Both men credited Rampages maturity and poise during the interview.I left the situation with more respect for the legend than before.

Samsung Galaxy S25 UltraEwan SpenceFollowing a successful Galaxy Unpacked, which saw the launch of the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra smartphones (alongside a one more thing preview of the Galaxy S25 Edge), Samsung has confirmed its special offers for customers who order one of the new Galaxy handsets directly from Samsung.Those placing a pre-order on Samsung can look forward to more storage, more colors and more trade-in value.Galaxy S25 Ultra Storage OfferSamsung has continued its traditional offer of doubling the storage. That means for the retail price of the 128 GB Galaxy S25, youll get the 256 GB model. Thats true throughout the range, so at the very top of the range, the price of the Galaxy S25 Ultra 512 GB model now matches that of the 1 TB model.Its worth noting that in previous years, some of the lowest-tier models shipped with 8 GB of memory compared to 12 GB at the high end. Samsung has unified the memory across the range, and every handset ships with 12 GB; no doubt to ensure Galaxy AI runs smoothly on every model.Galaxy S25 Ultra Trade-In OffersIf you choose to trade a handset at the same time as the pre-order, Samsung is offering you up to $900 credit for the trade-in and an additional $300 of Samsung Credit that is split between a discount on the qualifying product and a discount on an additional peripheral.MORE FOR YOUNot every trade-in will reach that high level. Youll need to trade in last years Galaxy S24 Ultra with 1 TB of storage to get top dollar. Theres a sliding scale on products from Samsung and its closest competitors, Apple and Google.The reservation period, which closed on Jan 21, also offered a $50 Samsung Credit, which sweetens the offer with just a little more sugar.Galaxy S25 Ultra Exclusive ColorsSamsung is also supporting pre-orders through the Samsung website with exclusive online colors, the key color here being the Titanium Jetblack option for those looking for a classic shade.Titanium Jadegreen and Titanium pinkgold are also on offer for the S25 Ultra, with the S25 and S25+ models offering Blueblack, Coralred and Pinkgold as their exclusive colors.Galaxy S25 Ultra And Google Gemini AdvancedThe final offer is open to every Galaxy S25 order, but its worth noting that Google is offering a free six-month subscription to its Gemini Advanced suite of AI tools. This top tier of Googles AI suite includes 2 TB of Google storage. Its also not limited to the Galaxy S25 handsets; it will be available across all your devices that use Google services on mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop.Now look at AT&Ts Galaxy S25 Ultra offers available for its customers...

Editor's take: After years of half-filled promises and underwhelming realities, it looks like Samsung has finally succeeded in bringing the kind of seamless experience that we all hoped AI, digital assistants, and agents would or could bring to our mobile devices. Well, to be fair, it's Samsung in conjunction with Google (along with some help from Qualcomm) that's making the magic happen inside the just-launched Galaxy S25. From the outside, Samsung's new S25 mobile phone is simply the latest iteration of the company's long-running line of premium Android smartphones powered by Qualcomm's latest generation Snapdragon processor. It's also got a pleasant, rounded-edge design, better cameras, a fresh set of color options, and a few cool new features all the things you'd expect from a next-generation device.But what really stands out on the Galaxy S25 based on some of the demos and brief hands-on time we've had with the device is the fact that it has digital assistant capabilities that actually work. Plus, it offers options for learning individual preferences that go well beyond what's been available on other devices.In other words, it brings the remarkable breadth, impressive accuracy, and highly individualized personalization promises of modern LLM-enabled AI to life in an always-on, always-connected, always-with-us mobile device.Part of this is due to the new level of partnership between Samsung and Google that suggests a deeper level of cooperation and co-design than has existed before. For example, in the past, it often felt like Samsung tried to replicate the software functionality that Google already offered in Android. With the Galaxy S25, however, the companies are working to bring the best of both worlds together to enable the best possible user experience.The most notable example is the default action of automatically launching Google's Gemini personal assistant with a long push on the S25. Yes, you can enable that option on Google's latest Pixel phones, but it's not on by default, and Samsung sells a significantly larger number of phones than Google. That means most people will experience this for the first time on a new S25 or previous generations of Galaxy smartphones when Samsung provides upgrades to them.Our experience with Gemini both voice-based and text input-based so far has been extremely impressive, offering a huge range of options for requesting information, getting suggestions, and even participating in long conversations on virtually any topic imaginable via Gemini Live. In addition, Google announced that future extensions of Gemini Screen Share and Live Video, which add new multimodal intelligence capabilities that can understand what's currently on your phone's screen and what the phone's camera is seeing will be coming to S25 first.But it's not just the Gemini integration that makes the S25 impressive. Samsung has also integrated Bixby as well as several other custom AI models it created for on-device data personalization options. Samsung smartly recognized that Gemini can offer a much more comprehensive set of cloud-based personal assistant features than Bixby, but Bixby has the advantage of running directly on the device and having access to both the actions we perform on devices as well as things like device settings. // Related StoriesAs a result, Bixby and these other on-device models can start to learn the types of actions we regularly perform, data we search for, etc., and it can store all that information securely on the device through the use of Samsung's Knox device security framework.Best of all, Gemini and Samsung's onboard models can work together in some pretty compelling ways. For example, we can ask Gemini for information about an upcoming event and have it put on our personal calendar.This public information to private calendar integration is possible because Samsung worked with Google to allow data to be passed from Gemini to several of Samsung's own apps, which have access to the data stored on the phone. While this might seem like a small step, it's hugely important because it's one of the first times the ability to combine these two "data worlds" has been enabled. More importantly, it means the experience is as completely seamless and intuitive as it needs to be for regular people to actually use these kinds of capabilities.At present, these integrations are limited to Samsung native apps, Google's suite of apps, as well as Spotify and WhatsApp, but apparently, a number of integrations with popular third-party apps are in the works.In addition, eventually, we'll be able to do things like push the side button to call up Gemini, request a change to the phone's settings, and have Bixby perform the operation. In the meantime, the two can work side-by-side, and we can launch either of them by voice using the appropriate keyword if we don't want to use the hardware button. Regardless, hiding the workings of multiple models behind a simple, unified user interface of Samsung's OneUI 7 is exactly what makes the combined design efforts on the S25 so intriguing.One of the other important advantages of having Bixby run on the device with help from the NPU on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform is the ability to discover and store information about our personal preferences and routines on the phone. The new Snapdragon SoC, by the way, will now be built into every S25 worldwide the sign of increased collaboration between Samsung and Qualcomm as well and instead of just offering slightly higher speeds, includes new custom circuitry to help with the camera processing and other AI features on the S25.Leveraging what Samsung is calling the Personal Data Engine, the onboard Samsung models are able to see what activities occur on our phone screen regardless of the app we're running and then train the onboard model to learn the kinds of information we're requesting, the types of activities we do on a regular basis, etc.From that, using what the company referred to as knowledge graph technology, it can eventually start to make recommendations or automatically program routines and perform them on our behalf (all with our permission, that is). Importantly, all of this knowledge graph data stays on the device and never goes to the cloud. The Personal Data Engine (PDE) is also what powers the new Now Brief and Now Bar functions, which serve up information based on our preferences and the information gleaned from the knowledge graph.It's this level of customization that has the potential to turn on-device AI into something that evolves from a clever parlor trick into an indispensable personal digital assistant. Of course, it also has the potential to create an incredible privacy and security nightmare. Data of this type could provide the most detailed dossier about what any individual does online that we've probably ever seen a huge magnet ("honeypot") for the bad guys.Thankfully, Samsung recognized that and embedded the PDE data into its hardware-based, on-device Knox Vault security solution, which has now been upgraded to offer post-quantum levels of cryptography. Because of these potential security concerns, Samsung allows us, of course, to turn off the data tracking features if we don't want to leverage them. It's an issue that any kind of AI-powered personalization device or service is going to face.Collectively, Samsung is calling all of these various AI-related capabilities Galaxy AI a phrase that has expanded to cover the company's own AI models, the extensions that integrate Gemini with Bixby, the AI features built into several of its apps, and the personalization enabled by the Personal Data Engine. Trying to make sense of it all isn't particularly easy, nor is it anything that the vast majority of consumers will ever really care to understand. But it's the combination of these Galaxy AI features along with the clean integration of Google's Gemini in the S25 that makes this such a compelling offering.To be clear, there's still a great deal more work to be done at a model integration and app ecosystem level, but at last, it seems the promise of AI on devices is finally coming to life.Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech

Table of ContentsTable of ContentsWhat is a VPN meant to do?How to test if your VPN worksAlternatives to BrowserLeaksWhat to do if your VPN isnt workingOnce youve picked up the best VPN for your home, its likely you also want to check that its working well for your needs. Its a sensible idea to check whether VPN is working correctly. No one wants to pay for something that theyre not actually using, plus if it turns out its not working, your data and browsing activity isnt as safe as you thought it was. Fortunately, there are a few different ways of doing this. With different methods available, read on while we guide you through how to see if your VPN is working and what to look for. Dont worry its fairly simple stuff once you know how.The Surfshark extension is running in the Edge browser on a PC monitor. Digital TrendsKnowing what a VPN is used for is always a good starting point when it comes to understanding why you need it to be working properly. To cut to the chase, you really need one to stay secure online, especially if you travel frequently and use public Wi-Fi.Recommended VideosA VPN protects your privacy by hiding your IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol and websites need an address to know where to send the web content you want to view. When you use a VPN, the IP address of the server you choose is supplied instead of yours. The VPN service then encrypts and relays that content to you, keeping your activity private.RelatedIts important to use a VPN at home and while away connecting to a public Wi-Fi network. There are many benefits so you want to make sure its working properly.BrowserLeaks is free, open-source software thats available for online privacy tests. BrowserLeaksYou might be tempted to use the tests your VPN provides, but the fact youre testing implies you have some skepticism about its effectiveness.We recommend using the tests on BrowserLeak, a free, open-source tool with no ads that you can use online to identify vulnerabilities your VPN might overlook. There are several tests, some valuable for testing a VPN and others that test your browser.The most basic test is to check your IP address. Run the test without the VPN and note the IP address and location. The city shown could be nearby or quite distant, depending on your ISP ( internet service provider). Then connect the VPN and make sure the IP address is different. The location should match your chosen VPN server region. Top VPNs like Proton VPN and NordVPN have thousands of worldwide servers to select from, allowing you to browse like a local.Your VPN should supply an IP address that matches the chosen country, so international websites and streaming services will work as expected. Your location is hidden from hackers, spammers, and unscrupulous advertisers who could be seeking information to build a profile for targeting you with malware or intrusive ads.BrowserLeaks also has a DNS Leak Test near the bottom of the page. BrowserLeaksIf your VPN passed the IP address test, run BrowserLeaks WebRTC leak test, which checks that your data remains private when using WebRTC, a feature that helps web apps handle video chat and file transfer. Your VPN should be able to support those features securely. If you see a WebRTC leak, your VPN isnt fully protecting you.Finally, scroll to the bottom of BrowserLeaks and select the DNS Leak Test. Your VPN app could be sending domain name lookup requests to your ISPs DNS, potentially revealing your approximate location and browsing activity. You should see the IP address and location of the VPN server you selected, not your own.If BrowserLeaks is down or you just want to use another third-party service, there are several ad-free alternatives that work just as well. Here are our top picks:IPadr.is provides a free online tool that reports the public IP address that websites see when you visit. Its a quick, single-purpose website thats as simple as possible, showing an IP address and nothing else.VoidSec.com offers a free IP address checker and WebRTC leak test that runs as soon as the page loads. If any IP addresses match your actual location, your VPN isnt working correctly.DNS leak test is a free online tool that checks for leaks during domain name lookups. You can run a short or extended test.If your VPN failed any of the tests above, make sure its connected. If your VPN lacks a kill switch or if you have that feature switched off, your VPN connection could have dropped without your knowledge. If it is connected, contact your VPNs support to report the problem and ask for assistance.If you dont get a satisfactory answer, it might be time for a switch. There are plenty of great VPN services to choose from.If your VPN has a temporary problem, a free VPN can help protect your privacy until the issue is resolved. The best free VPNs offer good speeds without ads and few restrictions.Editors Recommendations

Lenovo often has some great desktop computer deals, but this one is a little special its on a mini PC. Designed to pack as much as possible into a tiny amount of space, its perfect if your work space is super limited but you still need a competent PC. Right now, you can buy the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90q for $1,086 at Lenovo. According to Lenovos overly optimistic estimated value system, the PC normally costs $2,129, which means youre saving 49% off the original price. In reality, the estimated value system can be a little unrealistic, but what we do know is that $1,086 is a good price for this setup. Heres all you need to know about it.Buying one of the best desktop computers is great if you have plenty of space, but what do you do if youre lacking the room? Thats where the best mini PCs are essential. The Lenovo ThinkCentre M90q isnt on that list, but it has the essentials youll love.That includes a 14th-generation Intel Core i7-14700vPro CPU teamed up with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. You may end up needing more storage in the long run, but its simple enough to add on one of the best external hard drives if it comes to that.RelatedImpressively, the PC comes with a basic USB mouse and keyboard, so youre all set from the moment it arrives. Just hook it up to your existing monitor or TV, or opt to snap up one of the best monitors. Dont worry about anything too high-end, as this PC wont be a gaming PC so you dont need anything higher than full HD or 1080p.The tiny PC is reminiscent of many external hard drives from over the years, but it offers a hub of ports so you can easily connect it via VGA, DisplayPort, or HDMI. It also has Ethernet and USB-C, so youre all set with all your plans. It supports up to four displays, so its ideal for multitasking needs.Normally $2,129 according to Lenovos estimated value system, the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90q is now down to $1,086 for a limited time. The 49% discount wont be around for very long, so if youre keen to grab a mini PC for much less than usual, buy now before you miss out.Editors Recommendations

DEI is DOA NASA moves swiftly to end DEI programs, ask employees to report violations "Failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences." Eric Berger Jan 22, 2025 6:04 pm | 148 Kennedy Space Center director Janet Petro, who is currently NASA's acting administrator, speaks in 2022. Credit: HUM Images/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images Kennedy Space Center director Janet Petro, who is currently NASA's acting administrator, speaks in 2022. Credit: HUM Images/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreNASA's acting administrator is moving swiftly to remove diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibilityor DEIAprograms from the space agency.In an email sent to agency employees on Wednesday afternoon, acting administrator Janet Petro wrote, "We are taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts in accordance with President Trumps executive orders titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions."During his run for a second term as president, Trump campaigned on ending programs in the federal government that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. He signed executive orders to that effect shortly after his inauguration on Monday.Programs seen as divisiveThese programs had their roots in affirmative action but exploded in popularity half a decade ago amid Trump's first presidency and the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. DEI programs and officers became commonplace in academia and major US corporations. However, even before the election of Trump, the DEI movement appeared to have crested. For example, last year the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ended the use of diversity statements for faculty hiring.In explaining NASA's position, Petro said of the agency's existing DEIA activities, "These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination."Petro's email is notable for its suggestion that some civil servants at NASA may have sought to shroud DEIA programs from the Trump administration since the presidential election in early November."We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language," she wrote. "If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances."Petro's message includes an email address to report such activities and asks NASA employees to do so within 10 days."There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information," Petro wrote. "However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences."NIH and NSF affectedNASA is not the only federal agency where this is happening. Several other agencies received similarly worded messages from their acting directors on Wednesday.Due to the poor representation of minorities in science and engineering fields, both of the major federal funding agenciesthe National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundationhave programs designed to encourage participation by underrepresented communities. These include educational programs, funding to enable research done by undergraduates support for students in graduate school, all directed toward members of underrepresented groups. As of 5 pm ET, webpages for most of these programs are still available, though one entitled Broadening Participation in Training Programs at the NIH was no longer available.For the medical research community, however, the termination of these programs might be the least of its concerns. As of Tuesday, all external communication from agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the NIH, Centers for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration, were put on hold. This will include things like alerts regarding the spread of emerging diseases, such as the H5N1 bird flu thats currently widespread in agricultural animals.But today, it became clear that this policy extended well beyond external communications. One researcher said that an NIH workshop was canceled mid-presentation. Others have reported that all evaluations of grant proposals by the NIH are now on hold indefinitely. Should the hold last for any significant amount of time, it will have severe ripple effects, as arranging the peer review panels that evaluate grants involves complicated scheduling and travel, so the delays may persist for considerably longer.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. 148 Comments

Dong QiuIt is no secret that sleeping is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Mountains of research over the past decade demonstrate, time and again, that a decent nights rest is essential for everything from cognitive function to heart health, mood and more. Not getting good sleep or enough of it is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and hypertension, not to mention the hit to your cognitive function.For many of us, however, getting good sleep is often easier said than done. And much of the advice out there is probably familiar by now, if a little too generic: sleep for 8 hours, avoid bright light and anything stressful before bed, and so on.In reality, life is messier. For a start, we dont all need the same amount of sleep our age, sex, personal habits and tolerances all influence what we individually need. We also all have different lifestyles, including work and travel, which might see us needing to adjust our sleep schedules on a regular basis. Getting good sleep is about more than just clocking up time spent in bed but we also arent great judges of the quality of the sleep we, a consequence of being unconscious when doing the thing we are trying to assess.AdvertisementAll of this means that following prescriptive messages about sleeping more can feel frustrating. The good news, as we explore in this special issue devoted to the subject, is that new research is revealing the benefits of a more holistic approach some of the most important things you can do to improve your sleep dont happen in bed, no matter how comfortable that bed might be.Your sleep is affected by what happens during the rest of the day, such as what and when you eat, as well as your gut microbiome and hormonal production. Your personal chronotype not only when you prefer to sleep, but also when youre most active during the day plays a role in the quality and quantity of the sleep you get, too.What we need, then, is a 24-hour perspective on sleep. None of this changes how crucial our unconscious hours are, but it does give us fresh opportunities to improve them well before we lay down our heads.Explore key questions about sleep in our latest special series:Sleep in numbers3The number of days it took for otherwise healthy people to become pre-diabetic during a sleep-restriction studySource: DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.10.011207,000The number of workdays lost in the UK per year due to insufficient sleepSource: RAND Europe35%Percentage of people in the US who have used a sleep tracking appSource: American Academy of Sleep Medicine15 to 20Minutes taken for most adults with healthy sleep patterns to nod offSource: The Sleep Foundation1/5Maximum reduction in heart disease risk, if you are sleep deprived, from sleeping later at the weekendSource:British Heart Foundation1/3The proportion of adults in the US who report not getting enough rest or sleepSource: US Centers for Disease Control300%Maximum increase in heart disease risk in adults who sleep no more than 5 hours a nightSource: University of Chicago Medicine34%Percentage of those aged 7 to 16 in England who had a problem sleeping on three nights out of sevenSource: NHS EnglandTopics:

Strange continent-sized structures (in red) lurk beneath the surface of the planetEdward Garnero; S. W. French, B. A. Romanowicz, Geophys. J. Int. 199, 1303, 2014.Two huge masses deep within Earth may have remained stable for billions of years, surviving the powerful churn of the interior, according to an analysis of seismic waves ringing throughout the planet.When there is a big earthquake, the whole Earth will expand and contract like a bell, says Arwen Deuss at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Earth becomes a musical instrument. AdvertisementDecades ago, measurements of such seismic waves identified two strange continent-sized structures, one beneath the Pacific Ocean and one beneath Africa. They extend nearly 1000 kilometres up from the outer core into the lower mantle, a slowly-moving layer between Earths crust and core.Because seismic waves pass more slowly through these objects, they are called large low-shear-velocity provinces, or LLSVPs. But not much else about their composition or origin is known.To gain more information, Deuss and her colleagues analysed how these regions dampened the energy of seismic waves, in addition to changing the velocity of the waves. Such measurements can reveal information about the temperature and makeup of the LLSVPs, as well as their shape and size. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month.Sign up to newsletterThe researchers expected to find that the structures which are thought to be hot relative to surrounding areas would significantly dampen seismic waves. Lo and behold, we found the opposite, says Deuss.To explain the lack of dampening, even at high temperatures, the researchers propose the LLSVPs must be made up of minerals with large crystals that could remain stable in the heat. This would also suggest the provinces are highly viscous and could maintain stability even as the mantle moves around them.That stability may also mean these objects are extremely old, with origins going back at least half a billion years and possibly even to the formation of the planet more than 4 billion years ago, says Deuss. They may serve as reservoirs for primordial material unchanged since Earth took shape that sometimes reaches the surface via volcanoes.Journal referenceNature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08322-yTopics:

Netflix gained a record number of new subscribers in the fourth quarter.The ads plan, launched in 2022, reached 70 million worldwide users in November.Netflix is counting on ads to fuel its growth in 2025 and beyond.Netflix added a record number of new subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2024, as couch potatoes flocked to the streamer for popular programming like Christmas Day NFL games and season 2 of "Squid Game."But such massive growth in new subscribers can't continue forever (especially as Netflix pushed through another price increase this week). That's part of the reason many investors and analysts have been turning their focus to advertising, which they expect to fuel Netflix's next wave of growth.Netflix launched the ads plan which costs $8 a month after a $1 price increase this week in November 2022. The company said in November that the ad tier had reached 70 million global users. It said in its earnings release Tuesday that the ad plan makes up over 55% of new sign-ups in countries where it's available.When the ad plan first launched, the company cautioned investors that growth would be slow. Those days are over. Netflix told analysts it doubled its ad revenue in 2024 and expects to double it again in 2025, as it adopts tech that will make it easier for advertisers to buy ads."2025 is the year we transition from crawl to walk," co-CEO Greg Peters said on an analyst call.The ads era is still a relatively new one for Netflix. For most of its history, it eschewed advertising. That changed after it reported a subscription loss in 2022 that rattled investors. The ads plan has helped the company return to growth and cement its place as the king of the streamers, with more than 300 million global subscribers. It's also why Netflix has introduced more live programming like comedy and sports, which are popular with advertisers.The ads plan does more than add to Netflix's subscriber numbers. It can improve Netflix's average revenue per subscriber. The company has said it expected that figure to grow as it builds out its ads business.The ad plan can also sometimes keep subscribers from canceling by offering a lower-priced alternative. Netflix's standard plan is now $18 a month $10 more than its ad-supported one.Netflix's overall monthly churn rate, at 1.8% in December, was the lowest of the premium streamers, according to Antenna, a subscription data firm. Churn for the ads plan itself was higher, at 2.9% in December, though that is still well below the industry average.Netflix's ads tier can also serve as an on-ramp to a higher-priced subscription. A Wedbush Securities survey of about 1,000 people in December found that 10% of those with ad plans said they planned to trade up to an ad-free one.Of respondents who were not current Netflix users, slightly more indicated that they would definitely or likely consider subscribing to an ad plan (51%) compared with an ad-free one (38%). Wedbush Securities "Over the past year, our survey has consistently shown that new and returning users increasingly value the ad tier at least on par with the premium tiers," the firm wrote.