The third major card set has been released for Pokmon TCG Pocket, featuring Pokmon from Gen 4 in 207 unique cards. Space-Time Smackdown has a ton of new cards to shake up the meta, whether theyre from the Dialga or Palkia pack.If the 200+ cards are overwhelming for you, dont worry. Just like with the Mythical Island cards, some are okay while others are extraordinary. To make the best new decks possible, here are the greatest Space-Time Smackdown cards in Pokmon TCG Pocket.Recommended VideosDialga exThe Pokemon CompanyAs one of the two featured Pokmon in this set, Dialga ex shows how powerful it is through this new card. A Basic Pokmon with 150 HP is powerful in itself, but its Metallic Turbo move makes it stand out in a Steel deck.RelatedThis move not only deals 30 damage, but it also takes two Steel Energy from the Energy Zone and attaches it to one of your Benched Pokmon. While your Dialga slowly works its way up to its Heavy Impact move that deals 100 damage, it can help bring energy to other cards in the backline.Mismagius exThe Pokemon CompanyAnother great ex card is Mismagius ex. One stage above Misdreavus, this evolution has 140 HP and has one simple move thats unique to Mismagius. Magical Delusion will deal 70 damage and cause your opponents Active Pokmon to be Confused.During this status condition, the Confused opponent can attempt to attack you but they must first succeed a coin flip. If tails, they fail to attack and that ends their turn. Coin flips are always devious in Pokmon TCG Pocket, and it can win you the entire game if in your favor.GarchompThe Pokemon CompanyGarchomp is the second stage from Gabite and Gible, and youre going to want to pull this evolution line for your deck. Although its a Dragon type, its move Dragon Claw requires a Water and Fighter Energy to deal 100 damage.It also has the ability Reckless Shearing which you can perform once during any of your turns. It allows you to discard an unwanted card in your hand to draw a new card. If you hate fishing for cards at the bottom of your deck, this is a great ability to have.ManaphyThe Pokemon CompanyManaphy may seem like a forgettable card at first, but its much more useful than you realize. This Basic Pokmon has 50 HP and only has one non-damaging move called Oceanic Gift which allows it to give one Water energy to any two of your Benched Pokmon.Having Manaphy in the Active spot at the start of a game can help you prepare cards with energy on the bench. It also only requires one Energy to retreat, so its easy to pull it out of danger and swap it with a better Pokmon whos ready to perform a big move.CynthiaThe Pokemon CompanyCynthia is one of the new Supporter cards in Pokmon TCG Pocket, and shes extremely useful in specific situations. You can use your Cynthia card to deal 50 more damage as either a Garchomp or Togekiss.So this is a very situational card, but with the right deck, it can give you the advantage quickly. And if paired with Togekisss Overdrive Smash move, if used all together you can deal a total of 170 damage in a turn.Lickilicky exThe Pokemon CompanyThis Normal-type Pokmon has a pretty fun move if you like to rely on the luck of the draw with coin flips. Stage 1 from a Lickitung, Lickilicky has 160 HP and can use the move Licking Fury which deals a base damage of 100.With Licking Fury, you flip coins until you get trails. For every heads you get, the move deals 40 more damage. So even if you dont get any heads you still deal 100 damage, making Lickilicky a powerful card to have.CyrusThe Pokemon CompanyAnother great Supporter card from Space-Time Smackdown is Cyrus. This spiky-haired guy allows you to switch in any of your opponents Benched Pokmon that already has damage on it to the Active spot.You know when your opponent takes a bit of damage and switches that injured Pokmon into the backline to stay safe? Well, pull out Cyrus and itll prevent them from hiding on the Bench. Even just having one Cyrus in your deck can quickly turn the tides of battle.Infernape exThe Pokemon CompanyInfernape ex is a Stage 2 evolution from Monferno and Chimchar, but its worth building up to. This Pokmon has 170 HP and it only requires two Fire Energy to enact Flare Blitz, dealing 140 damage to the enemy Pokmon.The only downside to this powerful move is the fact that itll discard all the Fire Energy from the Pokmon after performing it. But within two turns you can deal another 140 damage, so its still a very powerful card to build a new Fire deck around.CombeeThe Pokemon CompanyWhile Combee may seem weak and useless like Manaphy, theres a reason why this little honeycomb Pokmon is sitting on this list. Combee is a Basic Pokmon with 50 HP that can use any Energy type to Call for Family. This move will put one random Basic Pokmon from your deck onto the Bench immediately.Although its the luck of the draw with Pokmon will be stuck on your Bench, having Combee in the Active spot can help you bring out your more powerful Pokmon faster. It also can use any Energy type so it can work with practically any deck.LucarioThe Pokemon CompanyWe finally have Lucario as one of the best cards in Space-Time Smackdown. This 100 HP Pokmon that evolves from Riolu has a decent move called Submarine Blow that dishes out 40 damage. This isnt how it stands out though, as it has an ability called Fighting Coach.This passive allows attacks used by all of your Fighting Pokmon to deal an extra 20 damage to your opponents Active Pokmon. So it wont work if the Pokmon deals damage to anyone on the Bench, but having Lucario either in the Active spot or on the Bench can slightly improve the damage youre dealing.Editors Recommendations

If you were an early adopter of the Apple Watch, you might be eligible for cash compensation. Apple has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit filed five years ago. This lawsuit covers the first-generation Apple Watch, as well as the Series 1, Series 2, and Series 3 models, according to CNET. The lawsuit was initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and claimed that these early Apple Watches had batteries that swelled over time, which could potentially damage other essential components.Apple Watch Series 3 Digital TrendsApple will compensate affected customers between $20 and $50 for the settlement. The exact amount will depend on the number of claims submitted. To be eligible, you must have owned an affected Apple Watch and contacted Apple customer service about the issue between April 24, 2015, and February 6, 2024.Recommended VideosThe Apple Watch Series 3 launched in 2017 but was not discontinued until 2022, making it the longest-running Apple Watch model in the products history. Eligible customers will receive an email or letter from Apple. They have until April 10 to confirm their claim through the WatchSettlement.com website.Please enable Javascript to view this contentBy filing a claim and accepting a settlement payment, individuals waive their rights to pursue any further legal action against Apple regarding the battery issue. Apple has not revealed how many individuals qualify for a discount. If every eligible person received the maximum payout of $50, it would suggest that 400,000 individuals have reached out to Apple about the issue. However, this number is likely much lower, as attorney fees are probably included in the reported $20 million total.It is common for Apple and other companies to settle class action lawsuits without admitting any wrongdoing. While Apple did not formally acknowledge the early Apple Watch batteries swelled and caused problems, it did implement changes to the battery design, starting with the Series 4 model. Since then, Apple has released six additional versions of the Apple Watch, not including two Apple Watch SE and the Apple Watch Ultra models. The Apple Watch Series 10 is the current model.Editors Recommendations

Artificial-intelligence tools are starting to allow nonexperts to search for patterns across the globe.

Over the course of a little more than a decade, a pair of studio executives transformed how films were made.

It would take IMSA 700 years to drive to Mars Heres why the tech industry gets excited about sports car racing Racing has always been used to improve the breed, but now mostly with software. Jonathan M. Gitlin Jan 31, 2025 10:53 am | 0 Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | NASA Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | NASA Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAcura provided accommodation for Ars for the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.DAYTONA BEACHLast week, ahead of the annual Rolex 24 at Daytona and the start of the North American road racing season, IMSA (the sport's organizers) held a tech symposium across the road from the vast speedway at Embry-Riddle University. Last year, panelists, including Crowdstrike's CSO, explained the draw of racing to their employers; this time, organizations represented included NASA, Michelin, AMD, and Microsoft. And while they were all there to talk about racing, it seems everyone was also there to talk about simulation and AI.I've long maintained that endurance racing, where grids of prototypes and road car-based racers compete over long durations24 hours, for exampleis the most relevant form of motorsport, the one that makes road cars better. Formula 1 has budgets and an audience to dwarf all others, and there's no doubt about the level of talent and commitment required to triumph in that arena. The Indy 500 might have more history. And rallying looks like the hardest challenge for both humans and machines.But your car owes its disc brakes to endurance racing, plus its dual-clutch transmission, if it's one of the increasing number of cars fitted with such. But let's not overblow it. Over the years, budgets have had to be reined in for the health of the sport. Thatplus a desire for parity among the teams so that no one clever idea runs away with the seriesmeans there are plenty of spec or controlled components on a current endurance racer. Direct technology transfer, then, happens less and less oftenat least in terms of new mechanical bits or bobs you might find inside your next car.Software has become a new competitive advantage for the teams that race hybrid sports prototypes from Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Porsche, and Lamborghini, just as it is between teams in Formula E.But this year's symposium shone a light on a different area of tech transfer, where Microsoft or NASA can use the vast streams of data that pour out of a 60-car, 24-hour race to build more accurate simulations and AI toolsmaybe even ones that will babysit a crewed mission to Mars.Sorry, did you say Mars?"Critically, it takes light 20 minutes to make that trip, which has some really unfortunate operational impacts," said Ian Maddox of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centers Habitation office. A 40-minute delay between asking a question and getting an answer wouldn't work for a team trying to win the Rolex 24, and "it certainly isn't going to work for us," he said."And so we're placed inI'll be frankthe really uncomfortable position of having to figure out how to build AI tools to help the crew on board a Mars ship diagnose and respond to their own problems. So to be their own crew, to be their own engineering teams, at least for the subset of problems that can get really bad in the course of 45 minutes to an hour," Maddox said.Building those kinds of tools will require a "giant bucket of really good data," Maddox said, "and that's why we've come to IMSA."Individually, the hybrid prototypes and GT cars in an IMSA race are obviously far less complicated than a Mars-bound spacecraft. But when you get that data from all the cars in the race together, the size starts to become comparable."And fundamentally, you guys have things that roll and we have things that rotate, and you have things that get hot and cold, and so do we," Maddox said. "When you get down to the actual measurement level, there are a lot of similarities between the stuff that you guys use to understand vehicle performance and the stuff we use to understand vehicle performance."Not just MarsOther speakers pointed to areas of technology developmentlike tire developmentthat you may have read about recently here on Ars Technica. "[A tire is] a composite material made with more than 200 components with very non-linear behavior. It's pressure-sensitive, it's temperature-sensitive. It changes with wear... and actually, the ground interaction is also one of the worst mechanisms to try to anticipate and to understand," said Phillippe Tramond, head of research of motorsport at Michelin.For the past four years, Michelin has been crunching data gathered from cars racing on its rubber (and the other 199 components). "And eventually, we are able to build and develop a thermomechanical tire model able to mimic and simulate tire behavior, tire performance, whatever the specification is," Tramond said.That tool has been quite valuable to the teams racing in the GTP class of hybrid prototypes, as it means that their driver-in-the-loop simulators are now even more faithful to real life. But Michelin has also started using the tire model when developing road tires for specific cars with individual OEMs.For Sid Siddhartha, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, the data is again the draw. Siddhartha has been using AI to study human behavior, including in the game Rocket League. "We were able to actually show that we can really understand and home in on individual human behavior in a very granular way, to the point where if I just observe you for two or three seconds, or if I look at some of your games, I can tell you who played it," Siddhartha said.That led to a new approach by the Alpine F1 team, which wanted to use Siddhartha's AI to improve its simulation tools. F1 teams will run entirely virtual simulations on upgraded cars long before they fire those changes up in the big simulator and let their human drivers have a go (as described above). In Alpine's case, they wanted something more realistic than a lap time simulator that just assumed perfect behavior.The dreaded BoP"Eventually, we are connected to IMSA, and IMSA is interested in a whole host of questions that are very interesting to us at Microsoft Research," Siddhartha said. "They're interested in what are the limits of driver and car? How do you balance that performance across different classes? How do you anticipate what might happen when people make different strategic decisions during the race? And how do you communicate all of this to a fan base, which has really blown me away, as John was saying, who are interested in following the sport and understanding what's going on.""Sports car racing is inherently complex," said Matt Kurdock, IMSA's managing director of engineering. "We've got four different classes. We have, in each car, four different drivers. And IMSA's challenge is to extract from this race data that's being collected and figure out how to get an appropriate balance so that manufacturers stay engaged in the sport," Kurdock said.IMSA has the cars put through wind tunnels and runs CFD simulations on them as well. "We then plug all this information into one of Michelin's tools, which is their canopy vehicle dynamic simulation, which runs in the cloud, and from this, we start generating a picture of where we believe the optimized performance of each platform is," Kurdock said.That's something to think about the next time your favorite team gets the short end of the stick in the latest balance of performancebetter known as BoPupdate.Jonathan M. GitlinAutomotive EditorJonathan M. GitlinAutomotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 0 Comments

garbage collection Bogus research is undermining good science, slowing lifesaving research There may be several hundred thousand fake scientific papers in circulation. Frederik Joelving, Cyril Labb, and Guillaume Cabanac, The Conversation Jan 31, 2025 10:23 am | 13 Credit: Getty | BSIP Credit: Getty | BSIP Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOver the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale, and dissemination of bogus scholarly research. These paper mills are profiting by undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human lives.It is exceedingly difficult to get a handle on exactly how big the problem is. About 55,000 scholarly papers have been retracted to date, for a variety of reasons, but scientists and companies who screen the scientific literature for telltale signs of fraud estimate that there are many more fake papers circulatingpossibly as many as several hundred thousand. This fake research can confound legitimate researchers who must wade through dense equations, evidence, images, and methodologies, only to find that they were made up.Even when bogus papers are spottedusually by amateur sleuths on their own timeacademic journals are often slow to retract the papers, allowing the articles to taint what many consider sacrosanct: the vast global library of scholarly work that introduces new ideas, reviews, and other research and discusses findings.These fake papers are slowing research that has helped millions of people with lifesaving medicine and therapies, from cancer to COVID-19. Analysts data shows that fields related to cancer and medicine are particularly hard-hit, while areas such as philosophy and art are less affected.To better understand the scope, ramifications and potential solutions of this metastasizing assault on science, wea contributing editor at Retraction Watch, a website that reports on retractions of scientific papers and related topics, and two computer scientists at Frances Universit Toulouse IIIPaul Sabatier and Universit Grenoble Alpes who specialize in detecting bogus publicationsspent six months investigating paper mills.Co-author Guillaume Cabanac also developed the Problematic Paper Screener, which filters 130 million new and old scholarly papers every week looking for nine types of clues that a paper might be fake or contain errors.An obscure moleculeFrank Cackowski at Detroits Wayne State University was confused.The oncologist was studying a sequence of chemical reactions in cells to see whether they could be a target for drugs against prostate cancer. A paper from 2018 in the American Journal of Cancer Research piqued his interest when he read that a little-known molecule called SNHG1 might interact with the chemical reactions he was exploring. He and fellow Wayne State researcher Steven Zielske began experiments but found no link.Meanwhile, Zielske had grown suspicious of the paper. Two graphs showing results for different cell lines were identical, he noticed, which would be like pouring water into two glasses with your eyes closed and the levels coming out exactly the same. Another graph and a table in the article also inexplicably contained identical data.Zielske described his misgivings in an anonymous post in 2020 at PubPeer, an online forum where many scientists report potential research misconduct, and also contacted the journals editor. The journal pulled the paper, citing falsified materials and/or data.Science is hard enough as it is if people are actually being genuine and trying to do real work, said Cackowski, who also works at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Michigan.Legitimate academic journals evaluate papers before publication by having other researchers in the field carefully read them over. But this peer review process is far from perfect. Reviewers volunteer their time, typically assume research is real, and so dont look for fraud.Some publishers may try to pick reviewers they deem more likely to accept papers, because rejecting a manuscript can mean losing out on thousands of dollars in publication fees.Worse, some corrupt scientists form peer review rings. Paper mills may create fake peer reviewers. Others may bribe editors or plant agents on journal editorial boards.An absolutely huge problemIts unclear when paper mills began to operate at scale. The earliest suspected paper mill article retracted was published in 2004, according to the Retraction Watch database, which details retractions and is operated by The Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent nonprofit of Retraction Watch.An analysis of 53,000 papers submitted to six publishersbut not necessarily publishedfound 2 percent to 46 percent suspect submissions across journals. The American publisher Wiley, which has retracted more than 11,300 articles and closed 19 heavily affected journals in its erstwhile Hindawi division, said its new paper mill detection tool flags up to 1 in 7 submissions.As many as 2 percent of the several million scientific works published in 2022 were milled, according to Adam Day, who directs Clear Skies, a company in London that develops tools to spot fake papers. Some fields are worse than others: biology and medicine are closer to 3 percent, and some subfields, such as cancer, may be much larger, Day said.The paper mill problem is absolutely huge, said Sabina Alam, director of Publishing Ethics and Integrity at Taylor & Francis, a major academic publisher. In 2019, none of the 175 ethics cases escalated to her team was about paper mills, Alam said. Ethics cases include submissions and already published papers. We had almost 4,000 cases in 2023, she said. And half of those were paper mills.Jennifer Byrne, an Australian scientist who now heads up a research group to improve the reliability of medical research, testified at a July 2022 US House of Representatives hearing that nearly 6 percent of 12,000 cancer research papers screened had errors that could signal paper mill involvement. Byrne shuttered her cancer research lab in 2017 because genes she had spent two decades researching and writing about became the target of fake papers.In 2022, Byrne and colleagues, including two of us, found that suspect genetics research, despite not immediately affecting patient care, informs scientists work, including clinical trials. But publishers are often slow to retract tainted papers, even when alerted to obvious fraud. We found that 97 percent of the 712 problematic genetics research articles we identified remained uncorrected.Potential solutionsThe Cochrane Collaboration has a policy excluding suspect studies from its analyses of medical evidence and is developing a tool to spot problematic medical trials. And publishers have begun to share data and technologies among themselves to combat fraud, including image fraud.Technology startups are also offering help. The website Argos, launched in September 2024 by Scitility, an alert service based in Sparks, Nevada, allows authors to check collaborators for retractions or misconduct. Morressier, a scientific conference and communications company in Berlin, offers research integrity tools. Paper-checking tools include Signals, by London-based Research Signals, and Clear Skies Papermill Alarm.But Alam acknowledges that the fight against paper mills wont be won as long as the booming demand for papers remains.Todays commercial publishing is part of the problem, Byrne said. Cleaning up the literature is a vast and expensive undertaking. Either we have to monetize corrections such that publishers are paid for their work, or forget the publishers and do it ourselves, she said.Theres a fundamental bias in for-profit publishing: We pay them for accepting papers, said Bodo Stern, a former editor of the journal Cell and chief of Strategic Initiatives at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit research organization and funder in Chevy Chase, Maryland. With more than 50,000 journals on the market, bad papers shopped around long enough eventually find a home, Stern said.To prevent this, we could stop paying journals for accepting papers and look at them as public utilities that serve a greater good. We should pay for transparent and rigorous quality-control mechanisms, he said.Peer review, meanwhile, should be recognized as a true scholarly product, just like the original article, Stern said. And journals should make all peer-review reports publicly available, even for manuscripts they turn down.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. This is a condensed version. To learn more about how fraudsters around the globe use paper mills to enrich themselves and harm scientific research, read the full version.Frederik Joelving is a contributing editor at Retraction Watch; Cyril Labb is a professor of computer science at the Universit Grenoble Alpes (UGA); and Guillaume Cabanac is a professor of computer science at Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse.Frederik Joelving, Cyril Labb, and Guillaume Cabanac, The Conversation The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community. Our team of editors work with these experts to share their knowledge with the wider public. Our aim is to allow for better understanding of current affairs and complex issues, and hopefully improve the quality of public discourse on them. 13 Comments

A dark moon is the location for Adrian Tchaikovskys new sci-fi novel ShroudLaperruque / AlamyHumanoid mosquitoes, alien contact on deadly moons, implants that let you know everything your partner is thinking the science fiction novels on offer in February feel especially interesting, and Im looking forward to transporting myself to worlds other than these during this cold, dark time of the year. Whether youre after classic science fiction from the likes of Gareth L. Powell and Adrian Tchaikovsky, high-concept thrillers or flooded future Earths, youll find it here. Enjoy!Shroud by Adrian TchaikovskyAfter reading Tchaikovskys excellent sci-fi novel Alien Clay for the New Scientist Book Club were in the middle of it right now, so please do sign up and join us; its free and well be talking to Adrian next month! Im definitely in the mood for more from this brilliant writer. This latest is a tale of survival and first contact on a deadly pitch-black moon, buzzing with radio activity. When two humans are forced to make a landing on the hostile moon, they start to learn more about the strange species that lives there. Our sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson really enjoyed this watch out for her review next week. AdvertisementAlways On My Mind by Carys GreenElijah convinces Anna to go to OneMind to celebrate their 10th anniversary; this high-tech company will give them implants that will enable them to hear each others thoughts. But Anna may have something to hide from her partner I love a good high-concept thriller, and this is a fun (and terrifying) idea.Futures Edge by Gareth L. PowellPowell is the British Science Fiction Award-winning author of Stars and Bones and Embers of War, and his latest novel sounds like another great slice of hard science fiction. It follows the story of archaeologist Ursula Morrow, who becomes infected with an alien parasite. Her worries about jeopardising her career come to nothing, however, as Earth is subsequently destroyed, and no one really needs archaeologists anymore. Two years on, shes in a refugee camp on a backwater world when shes tasked with finding the alien artefact that infected her, in the hopes that it might help humanity to survive.Dengue Boy by Michel NievaI absolutely love how wonderfully weird this novel sounds. In 2272, New York and Buenos Aires have been underwater for years, and the Patagonian archipelagos are Earths only habitable lands. Our protagonist is a humanoid mosquito whose horrendous appearance repulses everyone. As the world collapses around him, Dengue Boy searches for the truth about his origins and the meaning of his life. This is translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery, and I think it sounds amazing!Much of Earth is underwater in Dengue BoyVicnt/iStockphoto/Getty ImagesSwindon Mountain by Harriet HitchenI like the sound of this blend of archaeology and science fiction, in which a mountain unexpectedly arrives in the Marlborough Downs, looming over the city of Swindon. Clare Holworth is part of an archaeological investigation into its origins, in an attempt to manage the site before public pressure to get to the summit grows out of control.The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ KluneThis blend of sci-fi and thriller follows Nate Cartwright, lonely and jobless, as he returns to his familys summer cabin in Oregon to start again. In the cabin, he discovers a man named Alex and a 10-year-old girl, Artemis Darth Vader, who is a lot more than she seems and who is in danger from forces who want to control her.Old Soul by Susan BarkerI cant promise that this is science fiction, because I havent read it yet, but its being compared to works by speculative fiction authors like Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and Kaliane Bradley (The Ministry of Time author), and it sounds very intriguing. It centres on a woman who never ages or dies, but through the centuries and across the continents, those around her do in terrifying and similar ways. Can she be stopped? It could be that this shades more into horror than sci-fi; Ill report back either way.Listen to Your Sister by Neena VielMore speculative horror here, this time compared to the films of Jordan Peele and Stranger Things a comparison Im very much here for. Calla is 25, and a reluctant guardian to her 16-year-old brother Jamie. All the while shes haunted by The Nightmare, in which Jamie and their middle brother Dre keep dying. When Jamies actions spiral out of control, the siblings go on the run, finding themselves facing a threat in which their lives, and reality, hang in the balance.Octavia E. ButlerMalcolm Ali/WireImage/GettyOctavia E. Butler: H is for Horse by Chi-Ming YangThis is for my fellow Octavia E. Butler fans, and you completists out there: the book looks at little-known manuscripts in Butlers collection and at her childhood influences and writings, and explores animals, science fiction, Black girlhood, and racial and environmental justice, says its publisher.Death of the Author by by Nnedi OkoraforI mentioned this one last month, but the hardback is actually out in February, so Im reminding you of it as it does sound great. As I said before, its been tipped by our sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson as one to watch for, and follows sci-fi author Zelu as she decides to write a novel about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. But as she writes, the lines between what shes writing and reality begin to blurTopics:

A male Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) urinating into the airClaryana Araujo-WangMale Amazon river dolphins have been documented rolling upside down and firing a stream of urine into the air. As if that isnt bizarre enough, other males will usually seek out the urine as it arcs back down to the water, possibly to receive social cues in a similar way to how land mammals use scent marking.Claryana Arajo-Wang at CetAsia Research Group in Ontario, Canada, and her colleagues documented the unusual behaviour while studying Amazon river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis), or botos, in the

The backlash against "Emilia Prez" has turned to its star Karla Sofa Gascn after old tweets were resurfaced.Fans highlighted negative tweets that appear to have been posted by Gascn as recently as 2021."Emilia Prez," the Oscars frontrunner, has faced criticism for its portrayals of Mexico and trans people.Karla Sofa Gascn, the star of "Emilia Prez," is under fire for comments and past tweets following claims the most-nominated film this award season has problematic portrayals of Mexico and transgender people.Critics and fans of "Emilia Prez," which won 4 Golden Globes and received 13 Oscar nominations, have voiced their opinions about the film on social media. Some say it's boring, and others say it portrays transphobic stereotypes.Gascn, who became the first out trans woman to be nominated for an Oscar for her role in "Emilia Prez," has been one of the film's main defenders.On Tuesday, the Brazilian publication Folha de S.Paulo published a video interview in which Gascn criticized people who were tearing her down to support Fernanda Torres, one of her competitors for the best-actress Oscar.In response, some sought to have Gascn disqualified from the Oscars, accusing her of breaking an Academy rule prohibiting those involved with a film from sharing public communication that casts a competing movie in a "negative or derogatory light." Zoe Saldana stars alongside Karla Sofa Gascon in "Emilia Perez." Netflix Variety reported on Wednesday that Gascn didn't break the rule because she didn't comment on Torres' performance in "I'm Still Here."On Thursday, the Canadian journalist Sarah Hagi shared screenshots on X of posts that appeared to have been made by Gascn. Business Insider couldn't verify all the screenshots, and some posts seem to have been deleted.The screenshots contained disparaging remarks about Muslims and Islam.The posts were written in Spanish but translated through Google by Hagi. This sparked more social media users to search for and share screenshots of other posts that appear to be from Gascn.Gascn wrote in other posts, seen by BI, that all religions should be banned. In a post from 2020, the actor referred to the COVID-19 vaccine as "the Chinese vaccine" and said it had a chip inside it.Variety reported that in a post shared in 2021, Gascn referred to the Oscars ceremony that year as an "Afro-Korean festival" and "ugly, ugly gala." That year Daniel Kaluuya, a Black British actor, and Yuh-jung Youn, a South Korean actor, both won Oscars.On Thursday, Gascn shared a statement with several outlets after the posts resurfaced: "I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness."Some are still calling on the Academy to retract Gascn's Oscar nomination despite the apology.Representatives for Netflix, Gascn, and the Academy didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

To celebrate my kids' graduations, my family and I went on our first cruise.Although we had a great time, I wish we had known a few things before getting on board.For example, turning our phones on airplane mode would have saved us a lot of money.2024 was a big year in our household. All three kids were graduating our oldest from high school and our twins from junior high.When it came time to celebrate these achievements, we gave them an option. We could throw a party or use the money for an awesome family vacation instead.So, before our oldest left for college, we came together one last time for a seven-day trip to Alaska on our first-ever cruise.We were all excited about the idea, and honestly, everyone had a fantastic time. However, I don't think any of us were completely prepared our first cruising experience.Here are four things I wish we had known before boarding the Celebrity Cruise ship.Turning our phones on airplane mode would have saved us a lot of moneyOur phones are such an important part of our lives that it's almost unheard of to go without them for minutes, let alone days. However, we purposely didn't purchase the ship's WiFi package because we wanted a chance to disconnect and enjoy Alaska's beauty.What we were unaware of, however, is that once we got away from land, we should have put our phones on airplane mode. Since we didn't, they switched to a service called Cellular at Sea, which uses satellites to keep the phones connected. However, this can be expensive.Luckily, after racking up $100 in charges within hours of setting sail, AT&T cut my device off until I contacted them. However, this was a costly lesson. Next time, we'll be sure to turn on airplane mode and call our cellular provider to talk about cruise packages.I wish we would have known about the formal night We didn't come dressed for formal night. Chris Thomas Typically, we're a jeans and T-shirt family. It's not that we don't clean up well; it's just that we don't do it often, so a formal night wasn't even on our radar.We knew we needed nicer clothing for our dinner reservations on the ship, but we didn't know that one night, everyone would go all out.We skipped dinner that night and hit the buffet instead (which, honestly, we did more often than not anyway), and we certainly weren't the only ones not dressed up.However, I wish we had known about this in advance, as it would have been exciting to join in on the fun.Excursions through the cruise line can be expensive Luckily, we found a cheaper excursion to visit a dog-sled team. Chris Thomas It's no secret that cruising isn't cheap. So, when it came time to book excursions, we knew they would be pricey. However, we still weren't prepared for just how pricey they would be.Luckily, almost every port we stopped at had third-party companies who would pick passengers up at the dock and take them to do fun and exciting things.For example, being in Alaska, we wanted to learn about and visit a dog-sled team. Although the cruise line offered this experience, we saved more than 50% by booking with an outside party.However, it's important to know your schedule and check to make sure the third party will guarantee you'll be back on time because if you're not, the ship won't wait for you.Getting a good space on the deck on cruising days can be hardOn the days the ship doesn't stop at a port, finding space to call your own on the boat can be a battle. Tables at breakfast, couches by the windows, and lounge chairs by the pool all become valuable real estate.Instead of waking up early to claim a space near the pool, we chose to sleep in instead. However, because of this, we should've been prepared to settle for a less-than-prime space to sit and relax.Instead of a view of the ocean and the mountains, we got stuck in the middle of the ship near the bathrooms.Even with these small missteps, none of it was enough to put even the slightest damper on what was a fabulous time aboard our first cruise. The next time we take to the seas, though, we'll be better prepared for what's to come.