Presidents Day always falls on the third Monday of February, which, this year, is February 17. At the federal government level, the holiday is called Washingtons Birthday, which was its original name and which used to be celebrated on February 22, George Washingtons actual birthday. But in 1971, Congress enacted the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, providing federal workers and others with three-day weekends, and Washingtons Bday observance got swept up with that. The idea behind the holidays new name was to create a day that paid tribute to the office of the presidency. For many Americans, Presidents Day is a long weekend and an opportunity for holiday shopping dealsthis year, however, massive nationwide demonstrations are scheduled under the rubric, Not My Presidents Day in protest of the Trump administrations alarming power grab and attempts to overhaul the federal government.The demonstrations are organized by the #50501 Movement50 protests, 50 states, 1 movementfighting to uphold the Constitutionandend executive overreach and protest the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies (Elon Musk, anyone?). The idea for the movements name came from the subreddit community, Redditr/50501,and spread rapidly across social media.So far, #50501 has already pulled off more than 80 peaceful protests in all 50 states since Trump took office, according to the movements website. Information about where the nationwide protests and street marches are planned can be found here upon entering your city or state.Now, heres a look at whats open and closed on Monday, from the stock market to banks, supermarkets, and stores.Are financial markets open on Presidents Day?TheNasdaq,New York Stock Exchange, andU.S. bond markets are all closed.Will mail be delivered on Presidents Day?TheU.S. Postal Service post offices will be closed and wont be delivering regular mailor packages, though USPS priority mail will.However, UPS will be open for business as usual, while FedEx has modified service, so check for availability in your area. Are banks open on Presidents Day?Banks will be closed, but you should still be able to access your banks service online and via your local ATMs.Are schools open on Presidents Day?Public schools and most private schools will be closed for the federal holiday.Are restaurants and fast-food chains open on Presidents Day?Most major casual-dining and fast-food chains are open plus most sit-down restaurantsits a great shopping day, after all. That said, their hours may be reduced, so its always a good idea to call ahead or check individual websites.Are grocery stores open on Presidents Day?Most regional supermarket chains should be open, though some with reduced hours; ditto, your local grocery stores. Trader Joes, Aldi, and Costco are all open.Are stores open on Presidents Day?This is a big day for retailers, with many having weekend-long sales. Looking for a little retail therapy? Walmart, Macys, West Elm, Nordstrom, Walmart, and Best Buy are having major sales, while Amazon has an entire section on its home page dedicated to its Presidents Day bargains.Are pharmacies open on Presidents Day?CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid are all open, although they may have reduced hours of operation. Check your pharmacys website for more information.

The retro design wave isnt just about reselling old products or making them fit for modern use. It has also sparked the spirit of designers to apply those old designs to other products, sometimes unrelated to gaming. Of course, its a lot easier to reimagine gadgets in those decades-old aesthetics, but that doesnt mean the process is any easier.This 3D printed keyboard, for example, takes its cues from the classic Nintendo Game Boy, known for its blocky beige body and shiny plastic buttons. Unlike other retro keyboard projects, however, this has one rather unique appeal in that it doesnt even require you to assemble your own keyboard. You can simply take an existing Logitech K380 and slap it into the chassis, instantly letting you relive the 90s in a slightly different way.Designer: The Lesser The BesserThe keyboards in the late 80s to early 90s definitely had their own peculiar charm, but one might always wonder what could have been if the same design language used for gaming handhelds and consoles were used for these computer peripherals. 8BitDo answered that question with the Retro Mechanical Keyboards that take their inspiration from the older Nintendo Entertainment System, more fondly remembered as the NES, also called Famicom in Japan.Key Boy follows the same train of thought but with two major differences. First, it uses a handheld gaming device for reference, the iconic OG Game Boy. More importantly, however, it isnt an independent keyboard itself but is simply a housing for a Logitech wireless keyboard. That means almost anyone can easily have their own Key Boy, presuming they get their hands on the 3D printed chassis.The story of this Game Boy keyboard is just as interesting as the design itself, including the decision to simplify the design by using an existing off-the-shelf keyboard. There are also a few interesting details about the keyboards design, such as the removable cartridge that exposes the keyboards battery cover. The power switch slider is also designed like a Tetris block, though you wouldnt be able to tell at a glance.The narrative also shares a few tricks to pull off an authentic appearance, like using UV glue to create the domed shape of otherwise flat keys. The printout also intentionally has a bit of rough texture along the sides, not exactly like the original Game Boys. Its definitely an interesting project that might become a retail product, presuming, of course, Nintendo doesnt set its lawyers on it.The post Game Boy-inspired keyboard is a 3D enclosure around a Logitech keyboard first appeared on Yanko Design.

New study shows who's beating who on social media.

Eske Willerslev was on a tour of Montreals Redpath Museum, a Victorian-era natural history collection of 700,000 objects, many displayed in wood and glass cabinets. The collectionvery, very eclectic, a curator explainedreflects the taste in souvenirs of 19th-century travelers and geology buffs. A visitor can see a leg bone from an extinct Stellers sea cow, a suit of samurai armor, a stuffed cougar, and two human mummies.Willerslev, a well-known specialist in obtaining DNA from old bones and objects, saw potential biological samples throughout this hodgepodge of artifacts. Glancing at a small Egyptian cooking pot, he asked the tour leader, Do you ever find any grain in these? After studying a dinosaur skeleton that proved to be a cast, not actual bone, he said: Too bad. There can be proteins on the teeth.I am always thinking, Is there something interesting to take DNA from? he said, glancing at the curators. But they dont like it, because Willerslev, who until recently traveled with a small power saw, made a back-and-forth slicing motion with his hand.Willerslev was visiting Montreal to receive a science prize from the World Cultural Councilone previously given to the string theorist Edward Witten and the astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge, for her work on quasars. Willerslev won it for numerous breakthroughs in evolutionary genetics. These include recovering the first more or less complete genome of an ancient man, in 2010, and setting a record for the oldest genetic material ever retrieved: 2.4-million-year-old genes from a frozen mound in Greenland, which revealed that the Arctic desert was once a forest, complete with poplar, birch, and roaming mastodons.These findings are only part of a wave of discoveries from whats being called an ancient-DNA revolution, in which the same high-speed equipment used to study the DNA of living things is being turned on specimens from the past. At the Globe Institute, part of the University of Copenhagen, where Willerslev works, theres a freezer full of human molars and ear bones cut from skeletons previously unearthed by archaeologists. Another holds sediment cores drilled from lake bottoms, in which his group is finding traces of entire ecosystems that no longer exist. Were literally walking on DNA, both from the present and from the past.Eske WillerslevThanks to a few well-funded labs like the one in Copenhagen, the gene time machine has never been so busy. There are genetic maps of saber-toothed cats, cave bears, and thousands of ancient humans, including Vikings, Polynesian navigators, and numerous Neanderthals. The total number of ancient humans studied is more than 10,000 and rising fast, according to a December 2024 tally that appeared in Nature. The sources of DNA are increasing too. Researchers managed to retrieve an Ice Age womans genome from a carved reindeer tooth, whose surface had absorbed her DNA. Others are digging at cave floors and coming up with records of people and animals that lived there.Were literally walking on DNA, both from the present and from the past, Willerslev says.Eske Willerslev leads one of a handful of laboratories pioneering the extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA from humans, animals, and the environment. His groups main competition is at Harvard University and at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.JONAS PRYNER ANDERSENThe old genes have already revealed remarkable stories of human migrations around the globe. But researchers are hoping ancient DNA will be more than a telescope on the pastthey hope it will have concrete practical use in the present. Some have already started mining the DNA of our ancestors for clues to the origin of modern diseases, like diabetes and autoimmune conditions. Others aspire to use the old genetic data to modify organisms that exist today.At Willerslevs center, for example, a grant of 500 million kroner ($69 million) from the foundation that owns the Danish drug company Novo Nordisk is underwriting a project whose aims include incorporating DNA variation from plants that lived in ancient climates into the genomes of food crops like barley, wheat, and rice. The plan is to redesign crops and even entire ecosystems to resist rising temperatures or unpredictable weather, and it is already underwaylast year, barley shoots bearing genetic information from plants that lived in Greenland 2 million years ago, when temperatures there were far higher than today, started springing up in experimental greenhouses.Willerslev, who started out looking for genetic material in ice cores, is leaning into this possibility as the next frontier of ancient-DNA research, a way to turn it from historical curiosity to potential planet-saver. If nothing is done to help food crops adapt to climate change, people will starve, he says. But if we go back into the past in different climate regimes around the world, then we should be able to find genetic adaptations that are useful. Its natures own response to a climate event. And can we get that? Yes, I believe we can.Shreds and tracesIn 1993, just a day before the release of the blockbuster Steven Spielberg film Jurassic Park, scientists claimed in a paper that they had extracted DNA from a 120-million-year-old weevil preserved in amber. The discovery seemed to bring the films premise of a cloned T. rex closer to reality. Sooner or later, a scientist said at the time, were going to find amber containing some biting insect that filled its stomach with blood from a dinosaur.But those results turned out to be falselikely the result of contamination by modern DNA. The problem is that modern DNA is much more abundant than whats left in an old tooth or sample of dirt. Thats because the genetic molecule is constantly chomped on by microbes and broken up by water and radiation. Over time, the fragments get smaller and smaller, until most are so short that no one can tell whether they belonged to a person or a saber-toothed cat.Imagine an ancient genome as a big old book, and that all the pages have been torn out, put through a shredder, and tossed into the air to be lost with the wind. Only a few shreds of paper remain. Even worse, they are mixed with shreds of paper from other books, old and new, says Elizabeth Jones, a science historian. Her 2022 book, Ancient DNA: The Making of a Celebrity Science, details researchers overwhelming fear of contaminationboth literal, from modern DNA, and of the more figurative sort that can occur when scientists are so tempted by the prospect of fame and being first that they risk spinning sparse data into far-fetched stories.When I entered the field, my supervisor said this is a very, very dodgy path to take, says Willerslev.But the problem of mixed-up and fragmented old genes was largely solved beginning in 2005, when US companies first introduced ultra-fast next-generation machinery for analyzing genomes. These machines, meant for medical research, required short fragments for fast performance. And ancient-DNA researchers found they could use them to brute-force their way through even poorly preserved samples. Almost immediately, they started recovering large parts of the genomes of cave bears and woolly mammoths.Ancient humans were not far behind. Willerslev, who was not yet famous, didnt have access to human bones, and definitely not the bones of Neanderthals (the best ones had been corralled by the scientist Svante Pbo, who was already analyzing them with next-gen sequencers in Germany). But Willerslev did learn about a six-inch-long tuft of hair collected from a 4,000-year-old midden, or trash heap, on Greenlands coast. The hair had been stored in a plastic bag in Denmarks National Museum for years. When he asked about it, curators told him they thought it was human but couldnt be sure.Well, I mean, do you know any other animal in Greenland with straight black hair? he says. Not really, right?The hair turned out to contain well-preserved DNA, and in 2010, Willerslev published a paper in Nature describing the genome of an extinct Paleo-Eskimo. It was the first more or less complete human genome from the deep past. What it showed was a man with type A+ blood, probably brown eyes and thick dark hair, andmost tellinglyno descendants. His DNA code had unique patterns not found in the Inuit who occupy Greenland today.Give the archaeologists credit because they have the hypothesis. But we can nail it and say, Yes, this is what happened.Lasse VinnerThe hair had come from a site once occupied by a group called the Saqqaq, who first reached Greenland around 4,500 years ago. Archaeologists already knew that the Saqqaqs particular style of making bird darts and spears had vanished suddenly, but perhaps that was because theyd merged with another group or moved away. Now the mans genome, with specific features pointing to a genetic dead end, suggested they really had died out, very possibly because extreme isolation, and inbreeding, had left them vulnerable. Maybe there was a bad year when the migrating reindeer did not appear.Give the archaeologists credit because they have the hypothesis. But we can nail it and say, Yes, this is what happened, says Lasse Vinner, who oversees daily operations at the Copenhagen ancient-DNA lab. Weve substantiated or falsified a number of archaeological hypotheses.In November, Vinner, zipped into head-to-toe white coveralls, led a tour through the Copenhagen labs, located in the basement of the citys Natural History Museum. Samples are processed there in a series of cleanrooms under positive air pressure. In one, the floors were still wet with bleachjust one of the elaborate measures taken to prevent modern DNA from getting in, whether from a researchers shoes or from floating pollen. Its partly because of the costly technologies, cleanrooms, and analytical expertise required for the work that research on ancient human DNA is dominated by a few powerful labsin Copenhagen, at Harvard University, and in Leipzig, Germanythat engage in fierce competition for valuable samples and discoveries. A 2019 New York Times Magazine investigation described the field as an oligopoly, rife with perverse incentives and a smash-and-grab culturein other words, artifact chasing straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark.To get his share, Willerslev has relied on his growing celebrity, projecting the image of a modern-day explorer who is always ready to trade his tweeds for muck boots and venture to some frozen landscape or Native American cave. Add to that a tale of redemption. Willerslev often recounts his struggles in school and as a would-be mink hunter in Siberia (Im not only a bad studentIm also a tremendously bad trapper, he says) before his luck changed once he found science.This narrative has made him a favorite on television programs like Nova and secured lavish funding from Danish corporations. His first autobiography was titled From Fur Hunter to Professor. A more recent one is called simply Its a Fucking Adventure.Peering into the pastThe scramble for old bones has produced a parade of headlines about the peopling of the planet, and especially of western Eurasiafrom Iceland to Tehran, roughly. Thats where most ancient DNA samples originate, thanks to colder weather, centuries of archaeology, and active research programs. At the National Museum in Copenhagen, some skeletons on display to the public have missing teethteeth that ended up in the Globe Institutes ancient-DNA lab as part of a project to analyze 5,000 sets of remains from Eurasia, touted as the largest single trove of old genomes yet. What ancient DNA uncovered in Europe is a broad-brush story of three population waves of modern humans. First to come out of Africa were hunter-gatherers who dispersed around the continent, followed by farmers who spread out of Anatolia starting 11,000 years ago. That wave saw the establishment of agriculture and ceramics and brought new stone tools. Last came a sweeping incursion of people (and genes) from the plains of modern Ukraine and Russiaanimal herders known as the Yamnaya, who surged into Western Europe spreading the roots of the Indo-European languages now spoken from Dublin to Bombay.Mixed historyThe DNA in ancient human skeletons reveals prehistoric migrations.The genetic background of Europeans was shaped by three major migrations starting about 45,000 years ago. First came hunter-gatherers. Next came farmers from Anatolia, bringing crops and new ways of living. Lastly, mobile herders called the Yamnaya spread from the steppes of modern Russia and Ukraine. The DNA in ancient skeletons holds a record of these dramatic population changes.Adapted from 100 ancient genomes show repeated population turnovers in Neolithic Denmark, Nature, January 10, 2024, and Tracing the peopling of the world through genomics, Nature, January 18, 2017Archaeologists had already pieced together an outline of this history through material culture, examining shifts in pottery styles and burial methods, the switch from stone axes to metal ones. Some attributed those changes to cultural transmission of knowledge rather than population movements, a view encapsulated in the phrase pots, not people. However, ancient DNA showed that much of the change was, in fact, the result of large-scale migration, not all of which looks peaceful. Indeed, in Denmark, the hunter-gatherer DNA signature all but vanishes within just two generations after the arrival of farmers during the late Stone Age. To Willerslev, the rapid population replacement looks like some kind of genocide, to be honest. Its a guess, of course, but how else to explain the limited genetic contribution to subsequent generations of the blue-eyed, dark-haired locals whod fished and hunted around Denmarks islands for nearly 5,000 years? Certainly, the bodies in Copenhagens museums suggest violencesome have head injuries, and one still has arrows in it.In other cases, its obvious that populations met and mixed; the average ethnic European today shares some genetic contribution from all three founding groupshunter, farmer, and herderand a little bit from Neanderthals, too.We had the idea that people stay put, and if things change, its because people learned to do something new, through movements of ideas, says Willerslev. Ancient DNA showed that is not the casethat the transitions from hunter-gatherers to farming, from bronze to iron, from iron to Viking, [are] actually due to people coming and going, mixing up and bringing new knowledge. It means the world that we observe today, with Poles in Poland and Greeks in Greece, is very, very young.With an increasing number of old bodies giving up their DNA secrets, researchers have started to search for evidence of genetic adaptation that has occurred in humans since the last ice age (which ended about 12,000 years ago), a period that the Copenhagen group noted, in a January 2024 report, involved some of the most dramatic changes in diet, health, and social organization experienced during recent human evolution.Every human gene typically comes in a few different possible versions, and by studying old bodies, its possible to see which of these versions became more common or less so with timepotentially an indicator that theyre under selection, meaning they influenced the odds that a person stayed alive to reproduce. These pressures are often closely tied to the environment. One clear signal that pops out of ancient European genes is a trend toward lighter skinwhich makes it easier to produce vitamin D in the face of diminished sunlight and a diet based on grains.DNA from ancient human skeletons could help us understand the origins of modern diseases, like multiple sclerosis.MIKAL SCHLOSSER/UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGENNew technology and changing lifestyleslike agriculture and living in proximity to herd animals (and their diseases)were also potent forces. Last fall, when Harvard University scientists scanned DNA from skeletons, they said theyd detected rampant evidence of evolutionary action. The shifts appeared especially in immune system genes and in a definite trend toward less body fat, the genetic markers of which they found had decreased significantly over ten millennia. That finding, they said, was consistent with the thrifty gene hypothesis, a feast-or-famine theory developed in the 1960s, which states that before the development of farming, people needed to store up more food energy, but doing so became less of an advantage as food became more abundant.Many of the same genes that put people at risk for multiple sclerosis today almost certainly had some benefit in the past.Such discoveries could start to explain some modern disease mysteries, such as why multiple sclerosis is unusually common in Nordic countries, a pattern that has perplexed doctors.The condition seems to be a latitudinal disease, becoming more prevalent the farther north you go; theories have pointed to factors including the relative lack of sunlight. In January of last year, the Copenhagen team, along with colleagues, claimed that ancient DNA had solved the riddle, saying the increased risk could be explained in part by the very high amount of Yamnaya ancestry among people in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.When they looked at modern people, they found that mutations known to increase the risk of multiple sclerosis were far more likely to occur in stretches of DNA people had inherited from these Yamnaya ancestors than in parts of their genomes originating elsewhere.Theres a twist to the story: Many of the same genes that put people at risk for multiple sclerosis today almost certainly had some benefit in the past. In fact, theres a clear signal these gene versions were once strongly favored and on the increase. Will Barrie, a postdoc at Cambridge University who collaborated on the research, says the benefit could have been related to germs and infections that these pastoralists were getting from animals. But if modern people dont face the same exposures, their immune system might still try to box at shadows, resulting in autoimmune disease. That aligns with evidence that children who arent exposed to enough pathogens may be more likely to develop allergies and other problems later in life.I think the whole sort of lesson of this work is, like, we are living with immune systems that we have inherited from our past, says Barrie. And weve plunged it into a completely new, modern environment, which is often, you know, sanitary.Telling stories about human evolution often involves substantial guessworkfindings are frequently reversed. But the researchers in Copenhagen say they will be trying to more systematically scan the past for health clues. In addition to the DNA of ancient peoples, theyre adding genetic information on what pathogens these people were infected with (germs based on DNA, like plague bacteria, can also get picked up by the sequencers), as well as environmental data, such as average temperatures at points in the past, or the amount of tree cover, which can give an idea of how much animal herding was going on. The resulting panelsof people, pathogens, and environmentscould help scientists reach stronger conclusions about cause and effect.Some see in this research the promise of a new kind of evolutionary medicinedrugs tailored to your ancestry. However, the research is not far enough along to propose a solution for multiple sclerosis.For now, its just interesting. Barrie says several multiple sclerosis patients have written him and said they were comforted to think their affliction had an explanation. We know that [the genetic variants] were helpful in the past. Theyre there for a reason, a good reasonthey really did help your ancestors survive, he says. I hope thats helpful to people in some sense.Bringing things backIn Jurassic Park, which was the highest-grossing movie of all time until Titanic came out in 1997, scientists dont just get hold of old DNA. They also use it to bring dinosaurs back to life, a development that leads to action-packed and deadly consequences.The idea seemed like fantasy when the film debuted. But Jurassic Park presaged current ambitions to bring past genes into the present. Some of these efforts are small in scale. In 2021, for instance, researchers added a Neanderthal gene to human cells and turned those into brain organoids, which they reported were smaller and lumpier than expected. Others are aiming for living animals. Texas-based Colossal Biosciences, which calls itself the first de-extinction company, says it will be trying to use a combination of gene editing, cloning, and artificial wombs to re-create extinct species such as mammoths and the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine.Colossal recently recruited a well-known paleogenomics expert, Beth Shapiro, to be its chief scientist. In 2022, Shapiro, previously an advisor to the company, said that she had sequenced the genome of an extinct dodo bird from a skull kept in a museum. The past, by its nature, is different from anything that exists today, says Shapiro, explaining that Colossal is reaching into the past to discoverevolutionary innovations that we might use to help species and ecosystems thrive today and into the future.The idea of bringing extinct animals back to life seemed like fantasy when Jurassic Park debuted. But the film presaged current ambitions to bring past genes into the present.Its not yet clear how realistic the companys plan to reintroduce missing species and restore natures balance really is, although the public would likely buy tickets to see even a poor copy of an extinct animal. Some similar practical questions surround the large grant Willerslev won last year from the philanthropic foundation of Novo Nordisk, whose anti-obesity drugs have turned it into Denmarks most valuable company.The projects concept is to read the blueprints of long-gone ecosystems and look for geneticinformation that might help major food crops succeed in shorter or hotter growing seasons. Willerslev says hes concerned that climate change will be unpredictableits hard to say if it will be too wet in any particular area or too dry. But the past could offer a data bank of plausible solutions, which he thinks needs to be prepared now.The prototype project is already underway using unusual mutations in plant DNA found in the 2-million-year-old dirt samples from Greenland. Some of these have been introduced into modern barley plants by the Carlsberg Group, a brewer that is among the worlds largest beer companies and operates an extensive crop lab in Copenhagen.Eske Willerslev collects samples in the Canadian Arctic during a summer 2024 field trip. DNA preserved in soil could help determine how megafauna, like the woolly mammoth, went extinct.RYAN WILKES/UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGENOne gene being studied is for a blue-light receptor, a protein that helps plants decide when to flowera trait also of interest to modern breeders. Two and a half million years ago, the world was warm, and parts of Greenland particularly somore than 10 C hotter than today. That is why vegetation could grow there. But Greenland hasnt moved, so the plants must have also been specially adapted to the stress of a months-long dusk followed by weeks of 24-hour sunlight. Willerslev says barley plants with the mutation are already being grown under different artificial light conditions, to see the effects.Our hypothesis is that you could use ancient DNA to identify new traits and as a blueprint for modern crop breeding, says Birgitte Skadhauge, who leads the Carlsberg Research Laboratory. The immediate question is whether barley can grow in the high northsay, in Greenland or upper Norway, something that could be important on a warming planet. The research is considered exploratory and separate from Carlsbergs usual commercial efforts to discover useful traits that cut costsof interest since it brews 10 billion liters of beer a year, or enough to fill the Empire State Building nine times.Scientists often try hit-or-miss strategies to change plant traits. But Skadhauge says plants from unusual environments, like a warm Greenland during the Pleistocene era, will have incorporated the DNA changes that are important already. Nature, you know, actually adapted the plants, she says. It already picked the mutation that was useful to it. And if nature has adapted to climate change over so many thousands of years, why not reuse some of that genetic information?Many of the lake cores being tapped by the Copenhagen researchers cover more recent times, only 3,000 to 10,000 years ago. But the researchers can also use those to search for ideassay, by tracing the genetic changes humans imposed on barley as they bred it to become one of humanitys founder crops. Among the earliest changes people chose were those leading to naked seeds, since seeds with a sticky husk, while good for making beer, tend to be less edible. Skadhauge says the team may be able to reconstruct barleys domestication, step by step.There isnt much precedent for causing genetic information to time-travel forward. To avoid any Jurassic Parktype mishaps, Willerslev says, hes building a substantial ethics team for dealing with questions about what does it mean if youre introducing ancient traits into the world. The team will have to think about the possibility that those plants could outcompete todays varieties, or that the benefits would be unevenly distributedhelping northern countries, for example, and not those closer to the equator.Willerslev says his labs evolution away from human bones toward much older DNA is intentional. He strongly hints that the team has already beat its own record for the oldest genes, going back even more than 2.4 million years. And as the first to look further back in time, hes certain to make big discoveriesand more headlines. Its a blue ocean, he saysone that no one has ever seen.A new adventure, he says, is practically guaranteed.

Many artists worry about the encroachment of artificial intelligence on artistic creation. But Sougwen Chung, a nonbinary Canadian-Chinese artist, instead sees AI as an opportunity for artists to embrace uncertainty and challenge people to think about technology and creativity in unexpected ways.Chungs exhibitions are driven by technology; theyre also live and kinetic, with the artwork emerging in real time. Audiences watch as the artist works alongside or surrounded by one or more robots, human and machine drawing simultaneously. These works are at the frontier of what it means to make art in an age of fast-accelerating artificial intelligence and robotics. I consistently question the idea of technology as just a utilitarian instrument, says Chung.[Chung] comes from drawing, and then they start to work with AI, but not like weve seen in this generative AI movement where its all about generating images on screen, says Sofian Audry, an artist and scholar at the University of Quebec in Montreal, who studies the relationships that artists establish with machines in their work. [Chung is] really into this idea of performance. So theyre turning their drawing approach into a performative approach where things happen live.Audiences watch as Chung works alongside or surrounded by robots, human and machine drawing simultaneously.The artwork, Chung says, emerges not just in the finished piece but in all the messy in-betweens. My goal, they explain, isnt to replace traditional methods but to deepen and expand them, allowing art to arise from a genuine meeting of human and machine perspectives. Such a meeting took place in January 2025 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Chung presented Spectral, a performative art installation featuring painting by robotic arms whose motions are guided by AI that combines data from earlier works with real-time input from an electroencephalogram. My alpha state drives the robots behavior, translating an internal experience into tangible, spatial gestures, says Chung, referring to brain activity associated with being quiet and relaxed. Works like Spectral, they say, show how AI can move beyond being just an artistic toolor threatto become a collaborator.Spectral, a performative art installation presented in January, featured robotic arms whose drawing motions were guided by real-time input from an EEG worn by the artist.COURTESY OF THE ARTISTThrough AI, says Chung, robots can perform in unexpected ways. Creating art in real time allows these surprises to become part of the process: Live performance is a crucial component of my work. It creates a real-time relationship between me, the machine, and an audience, allowing everyone to witness the systems unpredictabilities and creative possibilities.Chung grew up in Canada, the child of immigrants from Hong Kong. Their father was a trained opera singer, their mom a computer programmer. Growing up, Chung played multiple musical instruments, and the family was among the first on the block to have a computer. I was raised speaking both the language of music and the language of code, they say. The internet offered unlimited possibilities: I was captivated by what I saw as a nascent, optimistic frontier. Their early works, mostly ink drawings on paper, tended to be sprawling, abstract explosions of form and line. But increasingly, Chung began to embrace performance. Then in 2015, at 29, after studying visual and interactive art in college and graduate school, they joined the MIT Media Lab as a research fellow. I was inspired by the idea that the robotic form could be anythinga sculptural embodied interaction, they say.Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1 (DOUG 1) was the first of Chungs collaborative robots.COURTESY OF THE ARTISTChung found open-source plans online and assembled a robotic arm that could hold its own pencil or paintbrush. They added an overhead camera and computer vision software that could analyze the video stream of Chung drawing and then tell the arm where to make its marks to copy Chungs work. The robot was named Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1, or DOUG 1.The goal was mimicry: As the artist drew, the arm copied. Except it didnt work out that way. The arm, unpredictably, made small errant movements, creating sketches that were similar to Chungsbut not identical. These mistakes became part of the creative process. One of the most transformative lessons Ive learned is to poeticize error, Chung says. That mindset has given me a real sense of resilience, because Im no longer afraid of failing; I trust that the failures themselves can be generative.DOUG 3COURTESY OF THE ARTISTFor the next iteration of the robot, DOUG 2, which launched in 2017, Chung spent weeks training a recurrent neural network using their earlier work as the training data. The resulting robot used a mechanical arm to generate new drawings during live performances. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired the DOUG 2 model as part of a sculptural exhibit of Chungs work in 2022.DOUG 2DOUG 4For a third iteration of DOUG, Chung assembled a small swarm of painting robots, their movements dictated by data streaming into the studio from surveillance cameras that tracked people and cars on the streets of New York City. The robots paths around the canvas followed the citys flow. DOUG 4, the version behind Spectral, connects to an EEG headset that transmits electrical signal data from Chungs brain to the robotic arms, which then generate drawings based on those signals. The spatiality of performance and the tactility of instrumentsrobotics, painting, paintbrushes, sculpturehas a grounding effect for me, Chung says.Artistic practices like drawing, painting, performance, and sculpture have their own creative language, Chung adds. So too does technology. I find it fascinating to [study the] material histories of all these mediums and [find] my place within it, and without it, they say. It feels like contributing to something that is my own and somehow much larger than myself.The rise of faster, better AI models has brought a flood of concern about creativity, especially given that generative technology is trained on existing art. I think theres a huge problem with some of the generative AI technologies, and theres a big threat to creativity, says Audry, who worries that people may be tempted to disengage from creating new kinds of art. If people get their work stolen by the system and get nothing out of it, why would they go and do it in the first place?Chung agrees that the rights and work of artists should be celebrated and protected, not poached to fuel generative models, but firmly believes that AI can empower creative pursuits. Training your own models and exploring how your own data work within the feedback loop of an AI system can offer a creative catalyst for art-making, they say.And they are not alone in thinking that the technology threatening creative art also presents extraordinary opportunities. Theres this expansion and mixing of disciplines, and people are breaking lines and creating mixes, says Audry, who is thrilled with the approaches taken by artists like Chung. Deep learning is supporting that because its so powerful, and robotics, too, is supporting that. So thats great.Zihao Zhang, an architect at the City College of New York who has studied the ways that humans and machines influence each others actions and behaviors, sees Chungs work as offering a different story about human-machine interactions. Were still kind of trapped in this idea of AI versus human, and which ones better, he says. AI is often characterized in the media and movies as antagonistic to humanitysomething that can replace our workers or, even worse, go rogue and become destructive. He believes Chung challenges such simplistic ideas: Its no longer about competition, but about co-production.Though people have valid reasons to worry, Zhang says, in that many developers and large companies are indeed racing to create technologies that may supplant human workers, works like Chungs subvert the idea of either-or.Chung believes that artificial intelligence is still human at its core. It relies on human data, shaped by human biases, and it impacts human experiences in turn, they say. These technologies dont emerge in a vacuumtheres real human effort and material extraction behind them. For me, art remains a space to explore and affirm human agency.Stephen Ornes is a science writer based in Nashville.

Capcoms Monster Hunter Wilds is less than two weeks away, and fans eagerly await everything it offers, especially in the end-game. However, for those expecting a Siege-style raid quest like Monster Hunter Worlds Safijiiva or Kulve Taroth off the bat, there are currently no plans for the same.Speaking to MP1st, producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yuya Tokuda said, Currently, for Monster Hunters Wilds, the general gameplay is planned for four-player multiplayer. Like we had for Monster Hunter World, which was the Kulve Taroth, which was a 16-player raid, we dont have something like that planned for the end-game of Monster Hunter Wilds right now.As for whether this was due to a technical reason, they replied, So similar to Monster Hunter World, the raid quest wasnt available in the game, it was added as an update after the game launched. Similar to Monster Hunter World, we want users in Monster Hunter Wilds to generally get used to the gameplay first and enjoy it, then move on to the more challenging part, more enjoyable content after they finish.So in the game itself, when we launch it, we dont have plans for raid quests. Its similar to how we ran Monster Hunter World. Its an intention that we didnt add it, and its not a technical one.This doesnt necessarily mean that the development team wont ever add something similar only that its absent at launch and not currently planned. Plans could always change, though.Monster Hunter Wilds launches on February 28th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Post-launch, fans can look forward to Mizutsune as the first free post-launch monster, arriving in Title Update 1 alongside event quests and other updates. Another monster will join the roster this Summer with even more event quests, so stay tuned for more details.

Rebel Wolves The Blood of Dawnwalker was finally revealed last month with a storyline focused on vampiric powers. Its gameplay will be showcased this Summer, but there is a confirmed 30-day and 30-night time limit, which wont rush the player (somehow). Regardless of how that works, you can expect a roughly 30 to 40-hour campaign quite the contrast to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which the studios developers are veterans of.Creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz also spoke to GamesRadar about the level of quality the studio aims for. In terms of quality, we definitely look at AAA, because this is where we are coming from, the quality level of The Witcher 3. Definitely, our games are not as huge in terms of the amount of content and gameplay hours. We are a smaller studio, and this is our first project, so we definitely are building something smaller. But we want to build something as robust in terms of quality, maybe a bit shorter.Comparing something to a behemoth like The Witcher, which we aimed for 100+ hours, but I think a lot of people played 200, 300 hours, is insane, Tomaszkiewicz added. If size is your measure, then yes, its not the size of a AAA like The Witcher. But I dont know if the size is the measure, to be honest because there are AAA games like Call of Duty that arent 100+ hours gameplay campaigns. And I dont know if anyone would call them AA or indie.Set in Vale Sangora within the Carpathian Mountains, The Blood of Dawnwalker is about Coen, who transforms into a vampire and seeks to save his family. He runs afoul of Brencis, who controls the region, but Coen isnt positioned as an overpowered protagonist. Theres also no over-the-top magic, though you can still utilize some powerful vampiric skills to tear enemies apart.The Blood of Dawnwalker doesnt have a release date, but it is in development for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Stay tuned for more details and updates.

Monday, February 17th, 2025Posted by Jim Thacker5 key features in Blender 4.4html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"The splash screen artwork for Blender 4.4: a still from Oscar-nominated animated feature FlowThe Blender Foundation has released the first beta builds of Blender 4.4, the next version of the open-source 3D software for VFX, animation, game development and visualization.Compared to its predecessors, its a workflow-and-bugfix-focused release, with no new features of the scale of Eevee Next in Blender 4.2 or Grease Pencil 3 in Blender 4.3.However, there are significant changes, so below, weve picked out five, from the way animation works to a major rewrite of the compositor and yes, the bugfixes themselves.At the end of the story, you can find a summary of whats new in other key toolsets, including sculpting, Geometry Nodes, the Cycles and Eevee renderers, and the Video Sequencer.Well update this story once Blender 4.4 is officially released in March, but no major new features should be added between now and the stable release.Blender 4.4 changes the structure of the Action data-blocks used to store animation data. The Action above has two Slots, one for the Camera Object and one for the Camera Data.1. Animation: slotted Actions simplify animation workflowMany of the key changes in Blender 4.4 are under the hood. One of the most significant is that the structure of Actions the data-blocks used to store animation data has changed.Actions now have Slots, making it possible for a single Action to store multiple kinds of data.As a result, a single Action can store more complex animation: for example, an object that changes color as it moves can be represented using separate slots for its position and material.The change should simplify workflow when animating cameras, as shown in the image above, and materials, where the material and its shader node tree can have separate slots.It is also now possible to merge the animations of multiple objects into one Action, or split slots of one Action into many, increasing flexibility.Changing the way that Blender stores animation data was one of the first major proposals for the Animation 2025 Project, the ongoing overhaul of Blenders character rigging and animation tools, although the original idea was to replace Actions with a new Animation data-block type.The change introduces a new Python API, and is not fully backwards-compatible, although existing .blend files should be updated automatically on import.Although the new Vulkan backend, used for real-time rendering, remains an experimental feature in Blender 4.4, its performance relative to the default OpenGL backend has improved.2. Viewport rendering: a big update to the new Vulkan backendThe Vulkan backend introduced in Blender 4.1 for rendering the UI and viewport gets a big update in performance, stability and compatibility.Startup times, from loading a scene to the final viewport appearing on screen, are now around 5x faster than the OpenGL backend for a cold start, and 2x faster for a warm start.Vulkan is also now used to display the rendered output of Cycles, Blenders production renderer although not to run Cycles, which is still described in the online documentation as not viable.The Vulkan backend is supported on relatively old GPUs: NVIDIAs 10-year-old GeForce GTX 900 Series and AMDs eight-year-old Radeon 400 Series are supported on Windows and Linux.However, it remains an experimental feature: it lacks support for key features like OpenXR and OpenSubdiv, and animation performance still needs to be improved.The CPU Compositor has been rewritten in Blender 4.4, improving the performance of key nodes, and revamping the Glare node used to add glows and lens flares to images.3. Compositing: faster CPU compositing and a revamped Glare nodeAnother under-the-hood change in Blender 4.4 is that the CPU compositor the original compositor, not the new Viewport Compositor introduced in Blender 3.5 has been rewritten.The work was done in preparation for future development, but it does bring significant speed improvements: key nodes, including blur, filter and mask nodes, are now 2-10x faster.The Glare node, used to add lens flares and glows to images, has also been made more usable: VFX artist Rob Dickinson has a good overview of the changes on his Decoded YouTube channel.Blender 4.4 updates key libraries, including OpenColorIO, OpenEXR and OpenVDB, to match the new CY2025 specification for the VFX Reference Platform.4. Pipeline integration: CY2025 support for VFX Reference PlatformFor visual effects and animation studios, another key feature of Blender 4.4 is that it has been updated to match the CY2025 specification for the VFX Reference Platform.Overseen by the Visual Effects Society, the annually updated spec is intended to ensure that tools used in VFX production pipelines all use the same versions of key software libraries.The Blender Foundation had previously considered moving away from the platform, but reversed the decision in 2022, with full compliance returning in Blender 4.0.A key focus during the development of Blender 4.4 has simply been to fix bugs, with more than 500 reported issues fixed during January 2025 alone.5. And bugfixes: lots and lots of bugfixesHowever, a key objective Blender 4.4 was simply to fix bugs, not to introduce major new toolsets so much so that weve chosen the bugfixes as one of our five key changes.According to a recent post on the Blender Developer blog, more than 500 reported issues were fixed during January alone, as part of the Winter of Quality initiative.The part of the software to get the most fixes was Grease Pencil, Blenders 2D animation and storyboarding toolset, following its major overhaul in Blender 4.3.The user interface, viewport and Geometry Nodes framework also each got over 70 fixes.Changes to Blenders other key toolsets in Blender 4.4 include an update to the OptiX denoiser used in the Cycles render engine, improving consistency of denoising on NVIDIA GPUs.Other changes: whats new in the other key toolsets?Blenders user interface gets a lot of small improvements in Blender 4.4, including updates to UI fonts, tooltips, common UI panels and dialogs, and the Status Bar, which now shows warnings for more common issues, like negative scale values on objects.The 3D modeling toolset gets improvements to topology, including options to select all three- and five-pole vertices in a mesh, and to join tris to quads in a way that favors an even quad grid.In the sculpting toolset, the existing Flatten, Fill and Scrape brush types have been consolidated into a single new brush type, the Plane brush.The Geometry Nodes and physics framework gets new Collection and Object input nodes, although most of the changes are workflow improvements.In the character rigging toolset, membership of bone collections is now mirrored when symmetrizing an armature.For character animation, the Pose Library can now export pose assets as external libraries, making them easier to reuse between projects.Cycles, Blenders main production renderer, has been updated to use a newer version of NVIDIAs OptiX denoiser, resulting in more consistent denoising for users with older GPU drivers.The Grease Pencil 2D animation toolset has been updated to restore features removed by the major overhaul it received in Blender 4.3. The Video Sequencer gets workflow improvements, particularly to text strips, but the key change is probably support for the industry-standard H.265/HEVC video codec.In addition, the sequencer now supports 10- and 12-bits-per-channel video formats there is currently no handling of HDR video, but proxies for HDR image strips should now work properly and videos rendered from Blender now explicitly use BT.709 color space used for HDTV.Other pipeline integration changes include support for the AAC audio format, and updates to USD workflows, including better export of animated volumes and instanced non-mesh objects like point clouds and curves, and support for displacement in UsdPreviewSurface.System requirementsBlender 4.4 is currently in beta, with the stable release due in March 2025. Blender is compatible with Windows 8.1+, macOS 11.2+ and glibc 2.28+ Linux.Read a longer list of new features in the Blender 4.4 release notesDownload daily beta builds of Blender 4.4Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest News5 key features in Blender 4.4Check out the key changes due in the next version of the open-source 3D app, including important updates to animation and viewport rendering.Monday, February 17th, 2025SuperSplat 2.0 lets you create flythroughs of 3D Gaussian SplatsFree, open-source online tool for viewing and editing 3DGS data can now add camera animations to existing scans.Monday, February 17th, 2025KeenTools releases KeenTools 2025.1 for Blender and NukeCheck out the changes to tracking plugins FaceTracker and GeoTracker, including new wireframe rendering and start frame selection options.Friday, February 14th, 2025Maxon releases Red Giant 2025.3 and Universe 2025.2Check out the new features in the suite of motion graphics and VFX plugins and the online library of effects and transitions.Thursday, February 13th, 2025Maxon releases Redshift 2025.3Renderer gets better multiscattering in volumes, USD procedural support in Maya, and initial support for GeForce 50 Series GPUs.Thursday, February 13th, 2025Chaos releases Vantage 2.7Real-time ray tracing renderer for exploring large V-Ray scenes gets OCIO color management, DLSS 4, and new lens distortion system.Thursday, February 13th, 2025More NewsAdobe launches the Firefly Video Model in public betaWacom launches redesigned Intuos Pro pen tabletsFree add-on Paint System 'turns Blender into Photoshop'Free tools: Render Manager and Light Editor for BlenderRichard Rosenman releases IK Studio for After EffectsTopaz Labs releases Gigapixel 8.2See CG benchmarks for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUsChaos releases Beta 2 of the new V-Ray for BlenderReview: Huion Kamvas 22 Plus pen displayCETA Software launches Artist AccessTutorials: Creating a Character for Games - Vol. 1 and Vol. 2LightWave Digital previews LightWave 2025Older Posts

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"PlayCanvas developer Will Eastcott has released SuperSplat 2.0, the latest version of his free browser-based tool for loading, visualizing and editing 3D Gaussian Splats.The update adds new controls to the timeline editor, making it possible to create flythroughs of 3D scans in 3DGS format, and to publish them to a new SuperSplat gallery website.View and edit 3DGS data for free in a standard web browserFirst released last year, SuperSplat makes it possible to import and edit 3D scans captured as 3D Gaussian Splats (3DGS) in a standard web browser.Users can import data in PLY format, and hide, remove or re-orient individual splats, or select and crop out larger parts of the scan using volume selection tools.You can read more about how it works in our story on the SuperSpat 1.0.SuperSplat 2.0: create camera flythroughs and share them in the new SuperSplat gallerySuperSplat 2.0 builds on the new animation timeline added in SuperSplat 1.13 earlier this year for playing back 4D Gaussian Splats (4DGS) time sequences of 3DGS scans in PLY format.The latest update makes it possible to add animations to static scans, with new timeline controls enabling users to record and export camera flythroughs.Scenes can now be published to a new SuperSplat gallery website, where they can be viewed on desktop monitors, or using virtual reality or augmented reality headsets.Licensing and system requirementsSuperSplat can be used for free in a web browser. It should work with current desktop browsers. The source code is available under an open-source MIT license.Use the free online SuperSplat 3D Gaussian Splat editorRead more about SuperSplat in the projects GitHub repositoryHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.

The one type of creativity only humans can doPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Its Presidents Day in the U.S., a holiday with no universally agreed upon name. Its officially George Washingtons Birthday though few call it that, and it does not fall on Washingtons actual birthday, which is this Friday.Issue #269: the first-ever Medium story + who to forgetBy Harris SockelLast September, we asked you: Can AI create art? Your responses were varied and wide-ranging: some of you said yes, with the caveat that an AI can only create art after intense collaboration with a human. Just as many of you said no, arguing instead that creativity is an experience, and only humans can experience things.Since then, as new chatbots continue to imitate human creativity, Ive been thinking a lot about that conversation because I think it points toward a deeper (and even thornier) question. What is creativity? And: What type of creativity is uniquely human?Medium writers through the ages have attempted to tackle the first question. A decade ago, cartoonist Jessica Hagy defined creativity as humanitys coping mechanism and chief survival strategy. Creative director James Bareham believes creativity = making mistakes. And Erica Verrillo implies that creativity is essentially a product of the unconscious mind.Yesterday, though, I was reading through Alex Kantrowitzs interview with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and found a more technical definition. Hassabis is a Nobel laureate who developed an AI model that predicts a proteins structure based on its chemical composition (important for testing new drugs). His AI research lab, DeepMind, was acquired by Google a decade ago.Any AIs most important capability? Creativity, or generating an output based on inputs. Hassabis breaks this down into three categories:Basic: Interpolation, or spitting out the average of what youve seen. For example, Midjourney producing an image of a cat based on thousands of cats its seen.Intermediate: Extrapolation. Take whats already been done and move it forward a step. For example, AlphaGos 37th move, which it came up with on its own after playing millions of games. (AlphaGo is a computer program Hassabis team trained to play the ancient board game Go.)Advanced (only humans can do this): Invention. Instead of extrapolating a new move, design the game itself. Somehow the systems got to come up with a game thats as elegant and as beautiful and perfect as [the ancient board game] Go, he explains and it cant do that yet.Maybe AI will get there eventually, but for now this is where humans excel: envisioning systems that are beautiful, complex, yet somehow elegant and simply understood.These three levels of creativity made me think about the whole can AI be creative? conversation in a new way. It also made me wonder when am I interpolating, extrapolating, or inventing? What do you think? From the archive: the first-ever Medium storyIn the summer of 2012, weeks before Mediums founder, Ev Williams, explained what this platform even is, early product lead Jason Stirman published historys first-ever Medium story. Its a visceral account about the time he was held up at gunpoint and dove into a ditch, narrowly escaping death.I learned fear is a quick adhesive but can take a lifetime to remove, he writes. From literally the very beginning, Medium was a place for personal storytelling. Practical wisdomForget who forgets you.