shrinking Nemo Incredible shrinking clownfish beats the heat Shrinking down to size boosted clownfish survival rates up to 78 percent during heat waves. Jennifer Ouellette – May 21, 2025 2:00 pm | 7 Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Pixar's Finding Nemo immortalized the colorful clownfish, with its distinctive orange body and white stripes, in the popular imagination. Clownfish, like many other species, are feeling the stress of rising temperatures and other environmental stressors. Fortunately, they have a superpower to cope: They can shrink their body size during dangerous heat waves to substantially boost their odds of survival, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances. “This is not just about getting skinnier under stressful conditions; these fish are actually getting shorter," said co-author Melissa Versteeg, a graduate student at Newcastle University. "We don’t know yet exactly how they do it, but we do know that a few other animals can do this too." Many vertebrates have shown growth decline in response to environmental stressors, especially higher temperatures. Marine iguanas, for example, reabsorb some of their bone material to shrink when their watery habitat gets warmer, while young salmon have been known to shrink at winter's onset. This can also happen when there is less food available. And social factors can also influence growth. When female meerkats, for example, are dominant, they have growth spurts, while a disruption in their social status can cause stunted growth in male cichlids What has been lacking in prior research is an investigation into how environmental and social factors interact to influence growth rates, according to Versteeg et al. They thought clownfish were the best species to study to fill that gap, since they've been extensively studied and are well understood. The fish live on Indo-Pacific coral reefs where heat stress has been increasing and has become more severe—an environment that is close to the thermal tolerance limits of clownfish. Clownfish also live in social groups: They form breeding pairs with a dominant female and subdominant male, sometimes adding subordinate non-breeding fish. The dominants tend to grow to match the size of the host anemone, while the subordinates only grow to a size that ensures there are sufficient resources—otherwise they risk being evicted and likely dying. Let’s get small The team observed 67 breeding pairs of wild clownfish—briefly caught and photographed for distinctive markings and measured before being returned to the water—living on single anemones in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, between February and August 2023. This happened to coincide with the world's fourth global bleaching event. They measured the body size of the fish once a month and measured the temperature around the individual anemones every four to six days. Then the team analyzed the collected data. "Individual fish can shrink in response to heat stress." Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith The results: Over the course of those months, 101 of the 134 clownfish shrank at least once in response to heat stress, and doing so boosted their likelihood of survival up to 78 percent compared to the 33 fish that did not shrink. And between breeding pairs, there were distinctive growth ratios between the dominant and subordinate fish; those pairs that shrank together were also more likely to survive the heat waves. “We were so surprised to see shrinking in these fish that, to be sure, we measured each fish individual repeatedly over a period of five months," said Versteeg. "In the end, we discovered it was very common in this population. It was a surprise to see how rapidly clownfish can adapt to a changing environment, and we witnessed how flexibly they regulated their size, as individuals and as breeding pairs, in response to heat stress as a successful technique to help them survive.” Versteeg et al. have not yet identified a possible mechanism for the shrinkage, but suggest the triggering of neuroendocrine pathways via thyroid hormones might play a role, since those hormones regulate growth. The adaptive strategy could also be a means of adjusting to changing metabolic needs. But there are trade-offs: While shrinking in response to heat waves ensures greater survivability, there can also be a corresponding decrease in birth rates. "Our findings show that individual fish can shrink in response to heat stress, which is further impacted by social conflict, and that shrinking can lead to improving their chances of survival," said senior author Theresa Rueger, also of Newcastle University. "If individual shrinking were widespread and happening among different species of fish, it could provide a plausible alternative hypothesis for why the size of many fish species is declining, and further studies are needed in this area.” Science Advances, 2025. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt7079  (About DOIs). Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 7 Comments

Photographer Who Scales Buildings to Get the Perfect Shot Arrested at Opening Night of His First Solo Exhibition Isaac Wright was detained for climbing the Empire State Building’s spire in 2024. The photo he took during the climb was on display at the show in New York City Lillian Ali - Staff Contributor May 21, 2025 2:01 p.m. And When We Die It Will Feel Like This (2023), one of Wright's photographs on display at the exhibition Drift / Robert Mann Gallery At the opening for his first solo gallery exhibition, photographer Isaac Wright was speaking with the crowd when a woman tapped him on his shoulder. She revealed that she was a plainclothes officer and told him he was under arrest. “I really thought it was a joke,” Wright, who is known as Drift, tells the New York Times’ The incident occurred just after 8 p.m. on May 15, the opening of Wright’s show, titled “Coming Home,” at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City. After the plainclothes officer informed him of his arrest, uniformed officers entered the exhibition and led Wright to the back of a squad car. Wright’s lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, tells the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Cameron Knight that the artist has been charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing. The charges are linked to a photograph on display at the exhibition, which Wright shot after climbing to the top of the spire of the Empire State Building in 2024. “Ansel Adams probably trespassed in his day to get a great photo; plenty of photographers did,” gallery owner Robert Mann, who has exhibited works by renowned photographers including Adams and William Eggleston, tells the Times. “But in all my years, I have never seen an artist taken out of an opening in cuffs.”Urban explorer Vitaliy Raskolov expressed a similar disbelief to Now Media’s Matt Medved, saying that over 16 years of scaling buildings and photographing his escapades, he had “never seen anything like this before.” Wright began climbing buildings in 2018 to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his years of service in the Army. When he was stationed with a battalion in Louisiana, he started acting as an “ad hoc chaplain, filling in as needs dictated,” as the Cincinnati Enquirer reported in 2022. “Part of my job was helping our soldiers reintegrate into life at home after deployment,” Wright told the publication. “Without a chaplain in the unit, many soldiers came to me for counseling and to talk about their struggles with suicide.” At the end of his service, he was diagnosed with PTSD and depression. He decided to take up photography, and he found solace in the hobby. One day, he took the stairs to the roof of a skyscraper in Texas to get a more interesting shot. “[I] just ended up sitting there for two or three hours, all by myself, taking in the view,” he tells the Times. “And this wave of catharsis and peace came over me. I was so present and alive, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know what this is, but I have to keep doing it.’” The recent gallery opening wasn’t the first time Wright’s art has led to encounters with police. In late 2020, the artist, who is from Ohio, sneaked onto the rooftop of the Great American Tower, the tallest building in Cincinnati.Weeks later, police shut down an interstate to arrest him in Arizona. They had been told that he was a veteran with specialized military training and PTSD, and that he might be armed. “Five to ten officers approached my vehicle with handguns and assault rifles pointed at me,” he told the Cincinnati Enquirer After a judge set his bond at $400,000, Wright spent months in jail. He ultimately accepted a plea deal, agreeing to pay $5,500 in restitution and enroll in a treatment program. At that time, the artist had around 13,000 followers on Instagram. Today, he has about 225,000. Wright regularly posts and sells photos taken from the tall buildings he scales. In 2022, he donated $500,000 from his art sales to the Bail Project, which helps low-income Americans pay bail. Wright was released last week and is scheduled to return to court on June 4. The artist explains that this encounter with the law has been less harrowing than his previous arrests. “I had always been treated as some sort of dangerous weapon for what I do, even though I had never hurt anyone,” he tells the Times. “This time, the cops were very respectful. In the cop car, they even told me they liked the art.” “Coming Home” is on view at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City through June 28, 2025. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Imagine a chatbot using your PC for you. That’s one of many visions Microsoft showed off at its developer-focused Build 2025 conference on Monday. And the vision, it would seem, is already almost here. Microsoft’s concept revolves around the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which was created by Anthropic (the company behind the Claude chatbot) last year. That’s an open-source protocol that AI apps can use to talk to other apps and web services. Soon, Microsoft says, you’ll be able to let a chatbot — or “AI agent” — connect to apps running on your PC and manipulate them on your behalf. That’s not all for the future of Windows, either: Microsoft also announced it’s getting serious about local AI apps on Windows. They’re not just being used to push Copilot+ PCs anymore. Want more Windows PC knowledge? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. I’ll send you in-depth Windows Field Guides as an instant welcome bonus! The Windows chatbot basics So what might Microsoft’s bot-centric Windows vision actually look like? While using an AI chatbot like Copilot, ChatGPT, or Perplexity, you could say commands like “Open Photoshop and [perform whatever actions] for me,” “Generate a playlist and put it together for me on Spotify,” “Get information from [a particular app],” or “Search my PC for [a certain type of file].” The chatbot would request permission to connect to the app on your PC, and it could then connect and perform those actions for you. At least, it could — if the associated applications support it. I’m speculating about what would be possible in the future if, say, Adobe and Spotify actually chose to support this system in their respective Windows apps. If this all sounds extreme, keep these qualifying points from Microsoft’s demo in mind: The Settings app will have a page where you can turn the feature on and off for each app on your system. Your chatbot of choice will always request access to apps, even when they’ve made themselves available to AI experiences. You have to give permission. This will all only work with apps where the developer has actively chosen to support it. And none of this would happen automatically in the background — only when you explicitly ask a chatbot for something. Also worth noting is that this week’s demo was mostly aimed at developers. In Microsoft’s examples, they showed off using Copilot to install the Fedora Linux distribution in the Windows Subsystem for Linux and then install software inside it. In other words, here’s the pitch: AI can discover the right commands to run to install and configure a Linux system, and it can do that work for you. You don’t have to copy-paste the commands. Diving deeper into Microsoft’s AI agent approach Compared to what Microsoft is proposing, past “agentic” AI solutions that promised to use your computer for you aren’t quite as compelling. They’ve relied on looking at your computer’s screen and using that input to determine what to click and type. This new setup, in contrast, is neat — if it works as promised — because it lets an AI chatbot interact directly with any old traditional Windows PC app. But the Model Context Protocol solution is even more advanced and streamlined than that. Rather than a chatbot having to put together a Spotify playlist by dragging and dropping songs in the old-fashioned way, it would give the AI the ability to give instructions to the Spotify app in a more simplified form. On a more technical level, Microsoft will let application developers make their applications function as MCP servers — a fancy way of saying they’d act like a bridge between the AI models and the tasks they perform. There will be an MCP registry for Windows that apps like Copilot, ChatGPT, and Perplexity could use to discover available MCP servers running on your PC, then connect to them (with your permission) and run actions within them. MCP is already in use on the web, but Microsoft’s idea to open Windows applications up to this same sort of use case is a whole new kind of thinking. The AI-PC security factor It’s all well and good if an AI agent has to get permission before using apps on your PCs, but what happens after you give it that permission and it’s working on a particular request? Currently, if an agent responds by recommending you run commands or perform specific tasks, you’re still the one typing them. If the AI is doing the work, how can you tell it isn’t doing anything dangerous — or making any mistakes? Microsoft’s answer comes in a detailed blog post about MCP security, taking a wide variety of security threats into account. For example, the AI has to be clear about what it did so you can audit it. That’s great, but it still requires you let the AI agent take actions on its own and then look back on those actions after the fact. A new permissions page will let you control which applications expose themselves as an options to AI apps.Microsoft While it’s good to know Microsoft is taking security into account, it’s tough to imagine what the security and data threats could be in the real world. Microsoft is providing an early preview of the software only to developers, so the company appears to be moving slowly rather than dropping a feature imminently. That’s a big change from last year: At Microsoft Build 2024, Microsoft announced the Windows Recall feature to much controversy, with numerous security experts excoriating it for data privacy and security risks. While Microsoft made lots of changes, the feature was delayed and didn’t make it onto Copilot+ PCs until nearly a year after its announcement. AI features beyond the NPU Last week at PCWorld, I called for Microsoft to stop limiting local Windows AI features to lightweight laptops with neural processing units (NPUs), noting that the company’s “Copilot+ PC” approach and the associated Copilot Runtime prevented Windows from taking advantage of powerful GPU hardware — and also CPUs, encouraging developers to ignore these AI features that only a handful of new laptops could run. At Build 2025, Microsoft did just that. I’m not taking credit: Restricting AI features to NPUs was obviously unsustainable if Microsoft wanted developers to build AI apps that could take advantage of a variety of hardware types. Microsoft made the smart move. Specifically, Microsoft announced Windows ML — a runtime designed to run AI software on a wide range of Windows PCs, whether that’s on a low-power NPU, a high-performance GPU, or a standard CPU. It’s a single framework developers can target so they don’t have to write to a wide variety of different hardware types from NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm separately — as is the case today. In other words, Windows will provide better ways for application developers to build AI features that run on your computer rather than in the cloud. That’s a win for privacy. Microsoft also announced the Windows AI Foundry, calling it “An evolution of the Windows Copilot Runtime.” And while Microsoft didn’t trumpet it by saying it directly during the keynote, it sounds like AI features designed for Copilot+ PCs may come to a wider variety of Windows PCs in the future. Windows will soon run AI applications on any hardware — not just an NPU on a new laptop. Microsoft So that’s the future of Windows Microsoft is selling right now: deep integration for AI agents to use apps on your PC, if you want, and more ways for app developers to create AI features that use your PC’s hardware rather than cloud servers. Now all that’s left is to see how it all shapes up in reality. Want to stay on top of Windows? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. I’ll send you three new things to know and try each Friday.

Announced back at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019, Havok Physics for Unity was initially distributed as an experimental package on the Unity Asset Store. Now, with the availability of ECS for Unity (Entity Component System) in the Unity 2022.2 Tech Stream, Havok Physics for Unity is officially supported for production. In fact, we’ve made this package available to all Unity Pro, Enterprise, and Industrial Collection subscribers for free.Havok Physics for Unity is built on the same foundation of technology that powers many of the world’s leading game franchises like Destiny and Assassin’s Creed, among others. When we first set out to define what the future of physics could look like with our Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS), we sought a partner that shared the same core concepts and values as us. Through our partnership with Havok, we were able to leverage DOTS to deliver the highly optimized, stateless, entirely C#, and performant Unity Physics we know today.We also prepared for more complex simulation requirements for users who might need a stateful physics system. We knew that Havok would be the perfect solution to integrate into Unity for those high-end simulation needs.The Havok Physics for Unity package is written using the same C# ECS framework as Unity Physics, and is backed by the closed-source, proprietary Havok Physics engine, written in native C++. Havok Physics for Unity is heavily optimized for many typical gaming use cases. For example, core algorithms have been refined over many years with various automatic caching strategies (including the sleeping of inactive objects), meaning that CPU resources are spent only as needed.Since the experimental package, Unity and Havok have been working together with early users of the plug-in to drive improvements and add new features.Here’s a breakdown of what’s new:Havok Physics for Unity is now available for free for all Unity Pro, Enterprise, and Unity Industrial Collection subscribers.Havok Physics for Unity is based on the 2021.2 version of the original Havok SDK, and brings more stability and performance to the Unity plug-in.As part of the full release, we’ve incorporated support for motorized joints (motors), such as linear position, as well as linear, rotational, and angular velocity.We’ve also added new methods to the HavokSimulation API, which enables granular stepping for your simulations, plus methods for accessing Havok simulations more efficiently with singletons.Check out the complete changelog of updates to Havok Physics for Unity.Havok Physics is a robust physics engine designed to handle the performance demands of the most dynamic games, often involving complex scenes with lots of physical interaction. By working with partners across the industry for over 20 years, Havok has encountered, solved, and continued to iterate on some of the toughest problems facing real-time physics simulation. This investment has led to the stable stacking of physics bodies, minimal artifacts for fast-moving bodies, and generally more controlled behavior, especially when it comes to non-optimized collision geometry.Of course, physics means action, so let’s see how these two creators are currently taking action with Havok Physics for Unity.Title:Hostile Mars Studio:Big Rook Games Studio size:Individual Platforms: Windows PC, console Genre: Open-world, base-building automation tower defense Players: Single playerFirst presented at PAX – East in 2022, Hostile Mars drew in quite an audience with its dedicated use of physics and unique blend of genres. The vast Martian landscape is brought to life in an open-world factory base-building and automation game. Players confront each other at the ground level in close combat to defend their factories through both third-person shooting and programmable defenses.Jake Jameson, founder of Big Rook Games, began by blending genres across multiplayer and single-player games – adding elements from puzzlers along with first-person shooters (FPS) and wave-based shooters. The more he evolved this idea, the more he narrowed his focus on creating a single-player base builder. He soon discovered the ideal balance between building, strategy, and combat, finally leading up to the one and only Hostile Mars.When completing that final iteration of Hostile Mars, it was clear the game needed to use some sort of data-oriented programming model. Jake wanted to have large enemy waves while still achieving high-end visuals. In order to provide the players with the best possible experience, the game had to run performantly on a massive scale, supporting thousands of enemies simultaneously onscreen.To meet these demands, Jake turned to Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack. In leveraging ECS for Unity, every enemy in Hostile Mars could run real-time Mesh Physics/Collisions, A* Pathfinding, and Local Avoidance, in addition to robust state systems, animations, weapon and projectile systems, high-quality VFX, particle systems, and more.“Without DOTS, I wouldn’t have been able to provide the experience that I imagined in my original design. It just wouldn’t have been possible without implementing my own ECS framework, and as a solo dev, this isn’t viable given my timeline and budget.” – Jake Jameson, founder of Big Rook GamesAlthough Jake is not a game developer by trade, he is an avid gamer and was already familiar with the original Havok Physics engine. Knowing how trusted Havok’s technology has been among AAA studios, Jake felt confident implementing it as soon as it became available in Unity via the experimental package.Hostile Mars is a physics-intensive experience. The player uses physics-based traps and turrets to manipulate the physics properties of enemies. By applying different physical properties to enemies, the goal is to stop them in their tracks or drive them toward more dangerous traps.Not to mention that Hostile Mars involves an incredible number of enemies. More specifically, there are up to 5,000 individual physics-based enemies that can flood the player’s Martian factories, which leads to hundreds of collisions and projectiles onscreen at once.All of the physics in Hostile Mars utilizes Havok Physics for Unity; from the collisions between projectiles and enemies, players and enemies, even enemies and other enemies, to enemies and the landscape itself, and hovering enemies who require a constant state of force to stay afloat. These distinct physics interactions take place in real-time, with physical simulation that allows for believable hovering, gravity, and mesh point collisions. So when players strike their enemies at a particular point, they will see them spin away just as Havok Physics for Unity intended them to.Not only are the enemies entirely physics-based, but the traps that are necessary for gameplay are physics-based too. There are gravity traps that push and pull enemies, which in turn, slow down or speed up traps that smash enemies. There are even traps that spring spikes up into an enemy’s path, not just pushing them aside, but realistically simulating the force and velocity of the spikes so that the enemy reaction appears authentic.Once the players advance, the enemy waves become varied and increasingly complex, which requires players to build traps more strategically, combining their different physics-based interactions to herd enemies with different weaknesses toward stronger traps and turrets that can impact them most. For example, while a frost trap might slow some enemies down, an explosive trap can deal the most damage possible against a highly concentrated wave.Plans for releasing Hostile Mars on consoles are still in the works, but in the meantime, you can add Hostile Mars for Windows PC to your Wishlist on Steam today.Title: Robocraft 2 Studio:Freejam Games Studio size:25 Platforms:Windows PC, console Genre: Online vehicular combat Players: 5v5 online multiplayerRobocraft 2 is the free-to-play sequel to 2017’s award-winning Robocraft, where players build customizable robot battle vehicles that drive, hover, walk, and fly in an open-world multiplayer environment. Since this initial success, the team at Freejam Games has refined a fully customizable experience for Robocraft 2, so that players can bring their own creations to competitive multiplayer gameplay.As Freejam Games experimented with projects following the success of Robocraft, they focused on providing exciting new building tools. This way, players could enjoy more freedom to design complex, physics-simulated creations.The team evaluated how moving the physics from the client side to dedicated multiplayer game servers could enhance the physical interactions between the vehicles and robots created by the players. They discovered that relegating the physics to the server created a range of fun gameplay moments, wherein weight, inertia, momentum, friction, mass, and bounciness were all accurately simulated. In other words, the heavy vehicles could easily push lighter ones, or be combined with joints like pistons, servos, and rotating platforms. Even weapons and explosions applied realistic kickback and force when they hit. All of these experiments, alongside community testing and feedback, culminated in Robocraft 2.In Robocraft 2, players now get to create complex vehicles, take them into battle, and destroy them in 5v5 team battles online. From their experience with the first Robocraft game, the Freejam team knew how competitive and creative their players could be, finding new ways to optimize the provided building tools in order to win battles.This meant that the team had to rely on three key features from their physics engine in order to provide a fair experience for all:Fast performanceRobust, non-glitchy physics simulationAccess to low-level areas of the physics engine to make modifications in the gamePrior to the 2017 announcement of DOTS and ECS for Unity, Freejam Games explored the possibility of building their ECS framework in-house. They then quickly adopted ECS for Unity in its experimental release, starting with Unity Physics. For experiments with server-side tech, they used determinism as a solution for keeping the player clients and simulation on the server in sync, while Unity Physics (which is deterministic) provided the performance.As the game evolved, they moved away from a stateless approach and became early adopters of Havok Physics for Unity. As a stateful system, Havok Physics for Unity ultimately powered the performance of the simulation within the gameplay requirements for Robocraft 2.“The high performance of Havok [Physics for Unity] allows us to have accurate server-side physics in our online game. In turn, that provides several significant benefits including giving all clients an equal representation of the physics for a better quality experience. The fact that the server is authoritative over the simulation also has the added benefit of reducing the opportunity for cheaters.” – Ed Fowler, principal programmer and cofounder of FreejamHavok Physics for Unity helped Freejam Games solve complicated issues. For example, as players defeat opponents, the robots and vehicles fall apart block by block, which can create hundreds of Rigidbodies in the environment. To free up CPU and maintain high frame rates, those inactive Rigidbodies can be put to sleep via Deactivation, a feature that effectively removes the physics from broken pieces temporarily.Player creations in Robocraft 2 consist of many Rigidbodies with Compound Colliders constrained together by joints, which can be smashed or stacked on top of one another. Further improvements to overall performance of the physics simulation can be gained with Collision Caching, which additionally allows for refined simulation of joints/constraints, such as in those stacking situations.Lastly, the Havok Visual Debugger was used to visualize the collision in the game world in real-time. It enabled Freejam Games to identify glitches, snags, and efficiently spot instances where rogue contacts arise. This accelerated their workflow and prompted fast fixes.Want to see Robocraft 2 in action? Add it to your Wishlist on Steam.To help you get started, check out the ECS Physics Samples on GitHub.If you need more guidance, we created a tutorial to help you learn more about Unity’s physics options, including Havok Physics for Unity.By the end of the tutorial, you will be able to do the following:Describe the key benefits of Havok Physics for Unity and Unity PhysicsExplain the relationship between Unity Physics and Havok Physics for UnityIdentify situations where physics solutions for ECS are the right fit for a projectThis tutorial is an introduction to physics solutions in ECS for Unity, tailored to users with an intermediate or advanced level of experience with the Unity Editor. As mentioned earlier, DOTS is Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack, a suite of data-oriented technologies for users looking to make complex projects with highly optimized performance. If you want to learn more about DOTS, we recommend the newly-released DOTS Guide on GitHub.We are also actively engaging with many of you on the DOTS channel, part of the Unity Discord, and in the forums. We look forward to learning more about the projects you’re building with Havok Physics for Unity.

The fuse has been lit and the mission has been accepted. That’s right folks, it’s time for a new Mission: Impossible film. Final Reckoning, the latest entry in the popular action franchise, arrives in theaters this week. But if this new film has you all excited about the series again and you want to play a Mission: Impossible video game, well, bad news: It’s been over 20 years since the last one. That’s not cool. It’s time for a new MI game!Suggested ReadingNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go Higher Share SubtitlesOffEnglishSuggested ReadingNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go Higher Share SubtitlesOffEnglishNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go HigherThis article was originally published on July 13, 2023. It has been updated as part of Kotaku’s Mission: Impossible Week. The Mission: Impossible franchise technically started as a spy-themed television series from the 1960s, which got a sequel series in the ‘80s. But when most people talk about the Mission Impossible franchise in 2025, they are likely referring to the long-running action film franchise starring Tom Cruise that has grown into something much larger and over-the-top than the old TV shows. These films, which began in 1996, typically showcase Cruise risking his life in at least three or four large stunts and also, bizarrely, have only gotten better with each release. A globe-trotting action-adventure franchise that makes tons of money, is loved by critics, and has a massive fanbase seems like ideal material for a video game adaptation. Oddly, that’s not been the case.Since the beginning of the franchise, only five Mission: Impossible video games have been released. (Confusingly, four of them are just named Mission: Impossible.) The first game launched in 1990 for the NES. The second game was released the following year for DOS. These two were based on the 1980s sequel series that aired on ABC.Then in 1998, two years after the first Tom Cruise film, another Mission: Impossible game launched on the Nintendo 64. This one has some fans, and played a lot like a third-person spin on Rare’s popular GoldenEye 007 game. Two years after that, right before the second film hit theaters, a very short and not-good Mission: Impossible game landed on Game Boy Color. However, this game did include a neat feature that let players use the Game Boy as a remote control. Atari / PlayscopeTimeline Finally, in 2003, Mission: Impossible — Operation Surma launched on PlayStation 2 and later GameCube. This third-person action-adventure spy-thriller takes place between the events of Mission: Impossible II and the third film, but is also never directly referenced in the films and doesn’t even feature the likeness of Tom Cruise. It was essentially a Metal Gear Solid/Splinter Cell clone and in 2025 has been mostly forgotten, like the rest of the M:I video games.It’s time for a new Mission: Impossible video gameAnd…that’s it! After 2003, we stopped getting new Mission: Impossible games. I understand that the film series hit a six-year lull between the second and third, but afterGhost Protocol, the franchise kept getting bigger and better with each entry. 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout is probably the best film in the series. (Dead Reckoning, sadly, couldn’t keep the trend going.)And yet, even as the franchise grows bigger and bigger, no new video games are on the horizon. What a shame! So many moments in recent MI films feel almost like setpieces from AAA video games of the last decade. It makes sense to me that this series would translate well into a modern video game.I understand that over the last decade or so, we’ve stopped getting crappy games based on popular films. And I’ve been mostly fine with that, as the vast majority of games based on films were awful and not worth playing. Then again, Hitman devs, and a new Avatar one from Ubisoft, so it’s not like games based on movies are impossible to make these days.And I think a Mission: Impossible game—if done right and given enough time and resources—could be amazing. Honestly, a game where you just recreate all the famous and dangerous stunts from the films would be great, like a new Stuntman but based entirely on Mission: Impossible scenes. Actually, it’s been a long time since we got a good Stuntman game, too.Okay, new plan: Someone convince the right people to fund the development of a new Stuntman-like game based on Tom Cruise’s wildest Mission: Impossible stunts. That’s the game I want. Thank you.

Glitter gets everywhere: It clings to carpet fibers, hides in your hairline, and shows up weeks later in unexpected places. But what if this famously clingy, sparkly nuisance could actually help save a species?That’s the idea behind a new conservation initiative in Wales. The Initiative for Nature Conservation Cymru (INCC) is feeding edible cake glitter to water voles to help track their movements (literally) and better understand how to protect them. And surprisingly, it’s already showing promise.Important Ecosystem EngineersWater voles (Arvicola amphibius), often mistaken for rats, are shy little mammals that scientists call "ecosystem engineers." That means they don’t just live in their environment — they actively shape it.For example, by digging burrows and disturbing soil, water voles help create the perfect conditions for wildflowers and grasses to thrive. In turn, that attracts all kinds of pollinators like bees, butterflies, and moths. The ripple effects of their underground handiwork help boost biodiversity in a big way.But water voles, once common in England, Scotland, and Wales, are now one of the UK’s fastest-declining mammals. Habitat loss (by draining wetlands) and predation by invasive American mink have led to a staggering 90 percent decline in their numbers. Conservationists urgently need to understand where these animals are, how they move, and what they need to survive. Glitter may be able to provide such insights — with sparkling clarity.How to Get Glittery PoopINCC researchers wanted a way to trace individual voles’ movements without disturbing them or relying on expensive tracking tech. According to the BBC, the glitter they used is biodegradable, animal-safe glitter vetted by veterinarians to make sure it’s harmless to both the voles and their environment.Before releasing the idea into the wild, they tested it on captive-bred voles involved in a larger Natural Resources Wales (NRW) reintroduction project. These voles were offered apple slices dusted with the shiny stuff. Thankfully, they didn’t seem fazed at all. They munched away happily, and before long, the voles began producing glittery poop.This sparkly evidence is a potential goldmine of data. By analyzing where glitter-marked droppings turn up, conservationists can figure out where voles are hanging out, areas they’re avoiding, and how they’re navigating the landscape.Involving the PublicFollowing the successful trial of glitter in captive populations, the next phase involves applying this technique to wild water voles. The team of conservationists is also considering the use of different colors of glitter to distinguish between separate vole family groups, allowing for more detailed tracking and analysis of their movements.Once researchers can map out the territories and travel habits of wild voles, they’ll be better equipped to take targeted conservation actions. That might mean removing invasive trees like conifers from wetlands, fencing off riverbanks to keep grazing livestock at bay, or restoring habitats in ways that support safe vole dispersal.And this isn't just a job for scientists. INCC emphasizes the importance of getting local communities involved. By educating and empowering people to play a role in protecting water voles, they hope to create a sustainable, long-term conservation model that offers a glittering future for both the animals and the people living alongside them.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Greenlight: The Role of Water Voles as Ecosystem EngineersInitiative for Nature Conservation Cymru: Saving Wales's Upland Water VolesHaving worked as a biomedical research assistant in labs across three countries, Jenny excels at translating complex scientific concepts – ranging from medical breakthroughs and pharmacological discoveries to the latest in nutrition – into engaging, accessible content. Her interests extend to topics such as human evolution, psychology, and quirky animal stories. When she’s not immersed in a popular science book, you’ll find her catching waves or cruising around Vancouver Island on her longboard.

not enough Paris Agreement target won’t protect polar ice sheets, scientists warn Calls for a more ambitious climate goal are rising as Earth hits several tipping points. Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News – May 21, 2025 11:35 am | 21 A slurry mix of sand and seawater is pumped via barge onto the main public beach during a sand replenishment project along eroding shoreline on November 21, 2024, in San Clemente, California. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images A slurry mix of sand and seawater is pumped via barge onto the main public beach during a sand replenishment project along eroding shoreline on November 21, 2024, in San Clemente, California. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Sea levels in some parts of the world could be rising by as much as 8 to 12 inches per decade within the lifetime of today’s youngest generations, outpacing the ability of many coastal communities to adapt, scientists warned in a new study published this week. The research by an international team of sea level and polar ice experts suggests that limiting warming to 2.7° Fahrenheit (1.5° Celsius) above the pre-industrial temperature—the Paris Climate Agreement’s target—isn’t low enough to prevent a worst-case meltdown of Earth’s polar ice sheets. A better target for maintaining a safe climate, at least for the long term, might be closer to 1.8° Fahrenheit, said Durham University geographer and glacier expert Chris Stokes, a co-author of the new paper. “There have been a couple of quite high-profile papers recently, including a synthesis in Nature looking at safe planetary boundaries,” he said. “They made the argument that 1° Celsius is a better goal. And a couple of other papers have come out suggesting that we need a stricter temperature limit or a long-term goal. And I think the evidence is building towards that.” It’s not a new argument, he said, noting that climate research predating the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 1990 already highlighted the high risks of more than 1° C of warming. “Those studies were saying, ‘We’re warming. We really don’t want to go past 1°. We really don’t want to exceed 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide,’” he said. “Because we know what could happen looking at past warm periods and at simple calculations of ice sheet mass balance. And, you know, 30 years later, 40 years later, here we are seeing the problem.” Scientific calls for a more ambitious long-term climate goal are rising just as Earth’s average global temperature has breached the Paris Agreement target of 1.5° C of warming over the pre-industrial level nearly every consecutive month for the past two years. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached a concentration of 430 ppm, a 50 percent increase over pre-industrial levels. But missing those goals doesn’t diminish the importance of potentially revising the target, for which the Paris Agreement includes a review mechanism, Stokes said. Even if the global temperature overshoots the 1.5° mark, it’s important to know for the long term how much it would have to be lowered to return to a safe climate range. The new study focused on how melting polar ice masses drives sea level rise by combining evidence from past warm periods that were similar to the present, measurements of how much ice is being lost under the present level of warming, and projections of how much ice would be lost at different warming levels over the next few centuries. Sea level rise of several inches per decade would likely overwhelm adaptation efforts by many coastal communities in the US, said co-author Andrea Dutton, a geoscientist and sea level expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Coastal communities that are adapting to and preparing for future sea level rise are largely adapting to the amount of sea level rise that has already occurred,” she said. In a best-case scenario, she added, they are preparing for sea level rise at the current rate of a few millimeters per year, while the research suggests that rate will double within decades. The last time atmospheric carbon dioxide was at a concentration similar to now was in the mid-Pliocene warm period, just over 3 million years ago, when average global sea level rose 35 to 70 feet higher than today over the course of thousands of years. But the current rate of warming is far faster than any other time identified in the geological record. How the ice sheets will respond to warming at that speed is not clear, but nearly every new study in the past few decades has shown changes in the Arctic happening faster than expected. The United States’ ability to prepare for sea level rise is also profoundly threatened by the cuts to federal science agencies and staffing, Dutton said. The current cuts to science research, the retraction of funds already promised to communities through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the abandonment of the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, and changes to federal rules on air pollution “collectively threaten our ability to project future sea level rise, to prepare our communities, and to mitigate climate change and stem the rate at which sea-level is rising,” she said via email. Many researchers are working closely with coastal communities, but as federal grants continue to get cut, these collaborations will founder, she added. “The ice sheets won’t care what different political parties ‘believe’ about climate change,” she said. “Like it or not, they are simply at the mercy of rising temperatures.” The mass of ice lost from the polar ice sheets has quadrupled since the 1990s, and they are currently losing around 370 billion metric tons of ice per year, said co-author Jonathan Bamber, a physicist at the University of Bristol who focuses on studying how Earth’s frozen regions interact with the rest of the climate system. “We switched on some new technology 30 years ago, and we discovered that the ice sheets are responding with a large amplitude and rather rapidly,” he said. The extent of the changes to the ice sheet are much greater than models had ever suggested they would be, he noted. “That was a bit of a shock for the whole community.” Most of the climate models of the past three decades projected only about half as much melting as has actually been observed during that time, he said. That suggests the “safe operating zone for humanity is about 350 ppm” of atmospheric carbon dioxide, corresponding to about 1° C of warming. “I think we’ve known for a long time that we’re interfering with the climate system in a very dangerous way,” he said. “And one of the points of our paper is to demonstrate that one part of the climate system, the ice sheets, are showing some very disturbing signals right now.” Some of the most vulnerable places are far from any melting ice sheets, including Belize City, home to about 65,000 people, where just 3 feet of sea level rise would swamp 500 square miles of land. In some low-lying tropical regions around the equator, sea level is rising three times as fast as the global average. That’s because the water is expanding as it warms, and as the ice sheets melt, their gravitational pull is reduced, allowing more water to flow away from the poles toward the equator. “At low latitudes, it goes up more than the average,” Bamber said. “It’s bad news for places like Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, and the Nile Delta.” Global policymakers need to be more aware of the effects of a 1.5° C temperature increase, Ambassador Carlos Fuller, long-time climate negotiator for Belize, said of the new study. Belize already moved its capital inland, but its largest city will be inundated at just 1 meter of sea-level rise, he said. “Findings such as these only sharpen the need to remain within the 1.5° Paris Agreement limit, or as close as possible, so we can return to lower temperatures and protect our coastal cities,” Fuller said. While the new study is focused on ice sheets, Durham University’s Stokes notes that recent research shows other parts of the Earth system are already at, or very near, tipping points that are irreversible on a timescale relevant to human civilizations. That includes changes to freshwater systems and ocean acidification. “I think somebody used the analogy that it’s like you’re wandering around in a dark room,” he said. “You know there’s a monster there, but you don’t know when you’re going to encounter it. It’s a little bit like that with these tipping points. We don’t know exactly where they are. We may have even crossed them, and we do know that we will hit them if we keep warming.” Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News 21 Comments

Congress may stop California from implementing its first-in-the nation rule banning the sale of new gas powered cars by 2035.A Senate vote expected as soon as this week could end the nation’s most aggressive effort to transition toward electric vehicles as President Donald Trump’s administration doubles down on fossil fuels.California makes up roughly 11% of the U.S. car market, giving it significant power to shape purchasing trends. Vehicles are one of the largest sources of planet-warming emissions.The Republican-controlled Congress is targeting three California waivers that set stricter emissions rules than the federal government. The House voted to block them first blocked them several weeks ago, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune said his chamber would take up a similar effort this week, even though the Senate Parliamentarian and the U.S. Government Accountability Office say California’s policies are not subject to the review mechanism used by the House.Thune said California’s “are an improper expansion of a limited Clean Air Act authority and would endanger consumers, our economy, and our nation’s energy supply.”California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state air regulators say what lawmakers are doing is illegal and they will likely sue if the measure advances.Here’s what to know: Why can California set its own standards? The Environmental Protection Agency has let the state adopt stricter emissions for decades, and other states can sign on to those rules.California has some of the nation’s worst air pollution, and the waivers date back to efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to fight smog in Los Angeles.President Donald Trump rescinded California’s ability to enforce its standards during his first term, but President Joe Biden’s administration restored it in 2022. What do the standards do? Newsom, a Democrat, announced plans in 2020 to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. State air regulators formalized the rules in 2022, and the federal government allowed them to move forward last year.The rule requires automakers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission cars, pickup trucks and SUVs over the next decade. Electric vehicles would have to make up 43% of new sales by 2027, 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. People would still be able to buy used gas-powered cars, plug-in hybrids or hydrogen-powered vehicles.California passed another rule in 2020 to phase out the sale of medium- and heavy-duty diesel vehicles, including box trucks, semitrailers and large pickups. Depending on class, zero-emission trucks will have to make up 40% to 75% of sales by 2035. The Biden administration approved that policy in 2023.The third regulation targeted by Congress would reduce smog-forming emissions from trucks. The rule revamped a testing program to ensure heavy-duty vehicles comply with emissions standards and set stricter standards to limit pollution from nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, which pose public health risks.New York, Colorado and New Mexico are among the states that announced plans to follow all three of the policies. What do the auto and trucking industries say? Several automakers, including Honda, Ford and Volkswagen, signed deals with California to follow some of the state’s tailpipe emission standards. But the companies have not committed to complying with the 2035 mandate on gas-powered cars and did not respond to requests for comment on the Senate’s upcoming vote.The National Automobile Dealers Association urged the Senate to pass the measure.“Banning gas and hybrid cars is a national issue that should be decided by Congress, not an unelected state agency,” Mike Stanton, the group’s president and CEO, wrote in a letter.The Safe Roads Coalition, which represents towing and truck companies, said the medium- and heavy-duty truck rule is unfeasible and should be blocked.“While transitioning combustion engines to electric is well-intended, unworkable regulations threaten roadside services for millions of American motorists,” said Josh Lovelace, the group’s national director. Can the grid handle more electric vehicless? Thune, the Senate majority leader, said the nation’s grid can’t handle California’s plans. It is a concern shared by other critics, who point to California’s struggle several summers ago to maintain consistent power during a heat wave.“Our already shaky electric grid would quickly face huge new burdens from a surge in electric vehicles,” he said in a statement announcing the vote.Newsom’s administration argues the state is on its way to building out an electric grid and charging infrastructure that can support many more electric vehicles. Broadly, California has a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by 2045.But the state remains far short of what is eventually needed. California has about 84,000 public electric vehicle chargers in the state but needs 1.2 million by 2030 to support the EV transition, according to the California Energy Commission. The Trump administration directed states earlier this year to stop spending money approved under Biden to help build electric vehicle charges across the U.S. More than a dozen states are suing the federal government over the effort.Newsom has also recently touted the state’s growing battery storage capacity. Neither the commission nor the California Air Resources Board responded to questions about how much the state’s electric grid must grow to support the power demand expected from the state’s transition. But the state has said it needs at least four times more wind and solar power to meet 2045 energy demands and that the grid must grow at an “unprecedented rate.”Timothy Johnson, a professor of energy and the environment at Duke University, said most regions of the U.S. can generate enough power or add enough to meet EV charging demand, but local power lines and transformers could be overloaded. How are other states responding? Eleven other states, plus Washington, D.C., have adopted California’s plan to phase out new gas-powered cars, according to the air board. Several more have adopted the state’s previous zero-emission vehicle standards.But some of those states are already backing away.Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott last week paused enforcement of electric vehicle sales targets that follow California’s, saying the pace wasn’t realistic. In Delaware, Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer has said he wants to rescind the state’s EV mandate. Other states still appear to be moving ahead. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Matthew Daly and Alexa St. John in Washington contributed. Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna —Sophie Austin, Associated Press/Report for America

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