Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home. This week, Mickey 17, the science fiction comedy from Oscar-winning Parasite writer-director Bong Joon Ho, starring Robert Pattinson as an expendable clone, gets copied onto HBO Max following its March theatrical debut. Netflix has a full slate of releases, with the Academy Award-winning Brazilian drama I’m Still Here and Fear Street: Prom Queen, the fourth horror flick in the franchise based on the R.L. Stein books. Guy Ritchie fans can check out his adventure film Fountain of Youth on Apple TV Plus, and you can rent Wolfs to watch George Clooney and Brad Pitt team up again. Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend. New on Netflix Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds Genre: DocumentaryRun time: 1h 31mDirector: Matt Wilcox The documentary takes viewers inside the cockpit of the U.S. Air Force’s demonstration squadron, which has been touring the country since 1953 to perform feats of aerial acrobatics and family-friendly military propaganda. The Netflix original, produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, features interviews with the daredevil pilots, explaining how they train to show off the capabilities of the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets with complex synchronized maneuvers. Fear Street: Prom Queen Genre: HorrorRun time: 1h 30mDirector: Matt PalmerCast: India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza There’s just two days to go until senior prom 1988, and the most popular girls at Shadyside High are fighting over the title of prom queen. But the race gets shaken up as candidates start disappearing. Expect a lot of gory kills. Matt Palmer (Calibre) co-writes and directs the slasher film, which is the fourth in a series based on R.L. Stein’s Fear Street books. I’m Still Here Genre: Political dramaRun time: 2h 15m Director: Walter SallesCast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro As a military dictatorship takes over Brazil, congressman and father of five Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) is arrested and disappears. His wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres) spends decades searching for answers and justice. I’m Still Here won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, and Torres won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for her performance. New on Apple TV Plus Fountain of Youth Genre: Action adventureRun time: 2h 5mDirector: Guy RitchieCast: John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Stanley Tucci Guy Ritchie puts his spin on Indiana Jones in this Apple original, where estranged siblings Luke (John Krasinski) and Charlotte Purdue (Natalie Portman) go on a globe-trotting adventure to chase the legendary source of eternal life. The film was shot on location in London, Cairo, Vienna, and Bangkok, and is packed with chase scenes, gunfights, and puzzles. From our review: If Fountain of Youth kept up the simple fun of its first few scenes, it could have been a solid tribute to the adventure genre. But James Vanderbilt and Guy Ritchie’s attempt to find some profound meaning in the search for lost treasure never really works, because their characters are too thin to make their emotional catharsis meaningful. New on Hulu The Last Showgirl Genre: DramaRun time: 1h 25mDirector: Gia CoppolaCast: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista After three decades of donning a sparkly costume and feathered crown to perform in Le Razzle Dazzle on the Las Vegas strip, Shelly Gardner (Pamela Anderson) learns the show will be closing in two weeks, pushing her to reassess her life and try to figure out her future. Anderson was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in the melancholy film. New on HBO Max Mickey 17 Genre: Science fictionRun time: 2h 17mDirector: Bong Joon HoCast: Robert Pattinson, Naomie Ackie, Mark Ruffalo Desperate to get off Earth, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) volunteers to become an expendable, a crew member who is cloned over and over again to assist with space exploration in the latest science fiction film/vicious critique of capitalism from Oscar-winner Bong Joon Ho. Mark Ruffalo plays the buffoonish leader of a planned colony, whose ambitions come into conflict with the creatures living on the frozen planet. New on Shudder The Surrender Genre: HorrorRun time: 1h 35mDirector: Julia MaxCast: Colby Minifie, Kate Burton, Chelsea Alden The Surrender starts as a family drama with Megan (Colby Minifie of The Boys) returning home to help her mother Barbara (Kate Burton) care for her terminally ill father and deal with the issues that drove them apart. But when Robert (Vaughn Armstrong) finally dies, Barbara plans a resurrection ritual instead of a funeral, and the horror really begins. New to digital The Legend of Ochi Genre: Fantasy adventureRun time: 1h 36mDirector: Isaiah SaxonCast: Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, Willem Dafoe A24’s family-friendly movie used complex puppetry to bring its titular adorable monkey-like creature to life. Set in a remote area of the Carpathian mountains, the film follows lonely 12-year-old Dasha (Emily Watson), who goes on a quest to return a baby ochi to its family, defying her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe), who thinks the mythological creatures are vicious beasts that should be hunted down. The Trouble with Jessica Genre: Dark comedyRun time: 1h 29mDirector: Matt WinnCast: Shirley Henderson, Alan Tudyk, Rufus Sewell Cash-strapped Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) are having one last dinner party for their old friends before selling their London home, but one of those friends, Jessica (Indira Varma) almost ruins everything when she hangs herself in the garden. Two couples band together to try to cover up the death and avoid spooking the buyer as things get increasingly out of hand. Until Dawn Genre: HorrorRun time: 1h 43mDirector: David F. SandbergCast: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion A teen investigating her sister’s disappearance leads a group of her friends to a mysterious mansion in an abandoned mining town, and they get stuck in a time loop where they’re brutally murdered in a different way each night. Reminiscent of The Cabin in the Woods, David F. Sandberg’s love letter to the horror genre (and only very lose adaptation of the 2015 video game Until Dawn) builds tension as the group puzzles together how to survive the night. The film is only available for digital purchase as of May 23, with no date set yet for digital rental. From our review: There’s way too much going on in Until Dawn. Director David F. Sandberg tried to make a faithful-ish adaptation of the popular 2015 video game, a Groundhog Day-style repeating-day movie, a comedy, a drama with something to say about trauma, and a love letter to every horror subgenre ever, all at the same time. But the byproduct of all this ambition is a movie that never quite finds an identity, and winds up feeling more generic than inspired. Wolfs Genre: Action comedyRun time: 1h 48mDirector: Jon WattsCast: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Amy Ryan Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts reunites George Clooney and Brad Pitt as a pair of lone-wolf fixers who both get called in to dispose of the same body. But when the job gets messier than expected, they’re forced to grudgingly work together to survive the night.

Don't duck out on our bird quiz! Do you have a bird brain or are you as sharp as a raptor?

First determine if the baby bird is a nestling or fledgling.   Image: jennifer m. ramos / Getty Images Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The arrival of spring brings many changes to our natural surroundings. Flowers bloom, barren trees fill with leaves, and occasionally, baby birds come tumbling out of those trees. If you’ve ever encountered one of these not-quite-flighted chicks and wondered how best to look after them, you’ve come to the right place.  Your first aim upon finding a chick out of its nest is to work out whether it has accidentally fallen or is simply taking its first steps out of the nest. Siân Denney, who has had six years of wildlife experience for the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds, says you should determine if the bird is a nestling or fledgling. “Nestlings are the tiny, tiny babies with no feathers, and they’re at very early stages and very vulnerable,” says Denney. In contrast, fledglings have feathers but may lack the flight feathers needed to take to the skies.  Helping a nestling If the bird you’ve found is a featherless nestling, it will be at risk if left out of the nest. “The amount of care that birds require is intense. It is unlikely that a very young bird that age that’s got no feathers will survive if it is out of the nest,” says George Bradley, who works for wildlife charity SongBird Survival. If you know which nest the bird has fallen from you should place it back in. Denney and Bradley advise that gloves should be worn for handling birds as a hygiene measure. Some people believe that if a well-meaning human handles a bird, its parents will cease to recognize its scent and reject it. This is a myth, says Denney. “Birds actually have a terrible sense of smell,” she says.  Garden bird species will usually make their nests in hedges or trees. However, other species, like gulls or sparrows, make their homes on rooftops or the underside of eaves. By watching to see if its parents appear to try to help it, you may be able to work out where its nest is hidden and whether it is accessible. If you can’t identify which nest a nestling has fallen from, it will still need to be moved off the ground, where it will be helpless against predators. The best option is to elevate the nestling. Placing them in a bucket or empty flower pot can protect them while still making it easy for their parents to find them.  Fledging is a part of bird life. Image: Getty Images Joni Eskridge Helping a fledgling Denney has different advice if the bird you come across is a feathered fledgling. “They should just be left alone,” she says. “They’ve attempted to leave the nest because they’re ready to take to life outside and beyond,” she adds. Their parents will likely be surreptitiously monitoring them to check they have learned how to fly independently. Denney adds that fledglings can spend days or weeks on their ground as they learn to fly. If the bird is in obvious and immediate danger—your local cat is eyeing it up, for example—it can also be shooed somewhere more secure, like a bush or tree.  How to help an injured bird If a fallen bird is injured, it might be time to contact a local wildlife rehabilitator. These are experts who volunteer to care for sick or injured birds. These resources will vary by state. Humane World for Animals has a detailed list of rescuers and rehabilitators.  The overarching message is that baby birds eventually need to fly from their nest, and unless they are too young or in danger, leaving them alone to learn how to navigate the big, new world they find themselves in is the best course of action.  Humans can also proactively help by avoiding activities that put baby birds at risk of falling in the first place. Denney says that cutting trees or hedges aggressively or without checking for any nesting birds during the summer months can lead to disturbed or destroyed nests. Before you cut, says Denney, “check the area first for a couple of days. If you see signs of activity, it’s best just to postpone that cutting to let those birds nest in peace.”

The Famous, Feathered Dinosaur Archaeopteryx Could Fly, Suggests New Study of a ‘Beautifully Preserved’ Fossil The Chicago Archaeopteryx features more soft tissue and delicate skeletal details than any known fossil of its kind, and paleontologists discovered it has a set of feathers key to flight in modern birds The Chicago Archaeopteryx, seen under UV light, shows soft tissues alongside the skeleton. Delaney Drummond Archaeopteryx—a small, feathered dinosaur that lived around 150 million years ago—changed how humans understand the world, “maybe more than any other fossil,” as Jingmai O’Connor, a paleontologist at Chicago’s Field Museum, tells the New York Times’ Asher Elbein. That’s because fossils of Archaeopteryx, which are considered by many to be the oldest known birds, “proved Darwin right” by confirming that all birds are dinosaurs, according to a Field Museum statement. Thanks to an exceptionally preserved and prepared fossil named the Chicago Archaeopteryx recently acquired by the Field Museum, O’Connor and her colleagues have revealed more crucial insight into the species—including that it likely could fly. They detailed their work in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. As the Field Museum’s preparators worked on the pigeon-sized Chicago Archaeopteryx, they realized that the fossil included more soft tissues and delicate skeletal details than any other known Archaeopteryx specimen. From previous fossils, they already knew the dinosaur had asymmetric feathers, which are vital to creating thrust in modern, flying birds. But the hard slab of limestone around this specimen had also preserved a key layer of feathers called tertials that had never been documented before in Archaeopteryx. “It’s important that this is the first time these feathers have been seen,” John Nudds, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in England who didn’t participate in the study, tells the Guardian’s Hannah Devlin. “These new feathers seen in this beautifully preserved specimen—as well as the asymmetric feathers—confirms it could fly.” An illustration shows an Archaeopteryx with tertial feathers that might have helped it to fly. Michael Rothman In modern birds, tertial feathers are crucial to flight, because they cover the space between the bird’s body and its wings. Without them, wings can’t generate lift. In fact, flightless feathered dinosaurs closely related to birds, but not quite birds themselves, didn’t have tertial feathers, according to the statement. Their wing feathers ended at their elbows. While paleontologists don’t know exactly when feathered, landbound dinosaurs gained the ability to fly, most scholars agree that Archaeopteryx is the earliest known bird. “People hypothesized that [the animal] probably had tertials,” O’Connor tells Science News’ Carolyn Gramling. Not only does the Chicago Archaeopteryx finally confirm this hypothesis, but it also indicates that tertials could have played an important evolutionary role in the development of feathered flight, she adds. “Archaeopteryx isn’t the first dinosaur to have feathers, or the first dinosaur to have ‘wings.’ But we think it’s the earliest known dinosaur that was able to use its feathers to fly,” O’Connor says in the statement. That’s despite the fact that “by modern standards, it was a very poor flyer,” she adds to Science News. The Chicago Archaeopteryx is housed at the Field Museum. Delaney Drummond / Field Museum Other notable features the researchers documented include bones in the roof of the animal’s mouth, which provide insight into its skull; scales on the bottom of its toes, which suggest it still spent a lot of time on the ground; and soft tissue on its hands. This last feature indicates that “the third digit could move independently, supporting long abandoned claims from the ’90s that Archaeopteryx could use its hands to climb,” O’Connor explains to Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz. The team was able to reveal so many telling details thanks to their meticulous fossil preparation, which they conducted with the help of CT scanning and ultraviolet light to make sure they didn’t mistake any part of the fossil for rock and accidentally remove it. A fossil collector discovered the Chicago Archaeopteryx sometime before 1990 in limestone deposits near Solnhofen, Germany, where all known Archaeopteryx fossils originate. It was privately owned until the Field Museum’s purchase. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

May 15, 20255 min readThe Wonders of Bird-Watching without TechTechnology has made it easier than ever to quickly find, identify and record birds. But to truly appreciate feathered friends, consider unpluggingBy Derek Lovitch edited by Kate WongA Boreal Owl emerges from its roost to begin its evening of hunting activities in Northern Minnesota. The Boreal Owl is a tiny but fierce gnome of the deep boreal forest—the belt of cold, wet, largely coniferous forest that encircles the North Pole. Highly sought after by birders, this owl appeals less for its plumage than for its secrecy and its rarity in most places where people tend to live. This past winter, a huge movement of this species to regions south of its usual range occurred because of food scarcity—an event called an irruption. This put Boreal Owls within striking distance of birders—including me—who were looking to add the species to their “life list,” a record of all the species a person has seen. So in March, before the visiting owls returned home, some friends and I made a last-minute weekend trip to Duluth, Minn., to look for them. Although there’s always a frenetic energy to a rarity chase such as this, to me, the experience underscored the importance of taking time to pause and observe the birds we find.Deep birding. Slow birding. Holistic birding. There are a lot of things we can call it, but I prefer, simply, “bird-watching.” I’ve spent most of my career as a biologist introducing people to birding and getting them to engage in the natural world, from the backyard and beyond. The recent surge of interest in birding, which began during the peak of the COVID pandemic, has been wonderful to see. But the vast majority of recent birders, particularly those who began birding in the past five years, have found birding to be intimately tied to technology, especially cell phones.We have phone apps that can keep lists of birds we’ve seen, apps to help identify birds, apps that allow us to contribute data to scientific projects and messaging apps to alert others to rare bird sightings. We can also use our phones to document our birding discoveries with photographs, videos and audio recordings.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.But I wonder whether, by relying on technology to this extent, we are losing out on the most important tool for birding—and perhaps life in general: the power of observation.Slow DownAt just 10 inches from head to tail, a Boreal Owl hidden in a dense conifer stand is the proverbial needle in a haystack. But on cold, sunny mornings, the owls come out to sun themselves at forest edges, using the meager winter rays rather than hard-earned calories to warm up. One famous “edge” is the length of the North Shore Scenic Drive heading north from Duluth. On our first morning of the trip, as we ventured onto this road, a text alerted us to a nearby Boreal Owl. After the longest 12-minute drive of my life, we saw the growing group of gawkers. We jumped out of the car, and there was our quarry, sitting in a sun-soaked spruce tree! We basked in the glory of a little predator that is so hard to find that people fly halfway across the country to spend a weekend shivering in hopes of seeing it. Mission accomplished!Birders were coming and going, some seeing the owl only for a moment before they hopped back into their car and raced off for the next tick mark in the never-ending collecting game of modern birding. My friends were getting cold, and they were antsy to find a Great Gray Owl that had been seen a few miles away. I couldn’t blame them—Great Grays are active during the day, so they can be seen flying, hunting or otherwise doing something. This Boreal was just sitting there. But I couldn’t leave. I handed my friends the car keys and said, “Give me a little longer.”When I was growing up as a young birder, I had a field guide, an inexpensive pair of binoculars, and a pen and notebook. I loved my time in the woods, with only the birds for company, eagerly learning the nuances of identification and watching their behavior. Without the instant gratification of an ID or listing app, I had to pay close attention to the details of birds. I learned from my many mistakes. Mentors shared their ethical practices with me, and I relished the personal connections I made in the birding community.Yet these days, I describe myself not as a birder but rather a bird-watcher. Sure, I make use of the latest tools. For example, my birding plans during migration are informed by the complex algorithms that underpin modern weather forecasting and advanced radar technology that allows me to gauge the movement of birds overnight. But once I am out in the field, all I want to do is disconnect, to absorb, to engage. I typically enter the trails with nothing more than a weatherproof notebook and my trusty binoculars. If I take a camera, it’s handy in case I need to document a rarity or capture a special moment, but it’s a distant second in my priorities.Instead I take copious notes. When traveling, I write down descriptions of unfamiliar birds, even new species pointed out to me by a local guide. Like many people, I retain information better from the simple act of writing it down. And my field notebook holds more memories than any checklist can accommodate.What fascinates me the most about birds is their behavior, which isn’t easy to understand when looking through a viewfinder or reviewing photographs at home. So when observing a bird, I also jot down what it is doing. What is it looking at? How is it interacting with its mate? How does it look when it flies (after all, flight is the most magical thing about birds)?Go DeepWhen my friends left me with the Boreal Owl, I settled in to give it my fullest attention. The bird acknowledged my presence for nearly a second as it opened one eye before turning its head and nestling its face into its fluffy back. When a Black-capped Chickadee called nearby, the owl awoke and made sure it wasn’t going to be harassed by the fearless chickadee before it went back to sleep. Later a pair of Red-breasted Nuthatches decided they weren’t too happy about the predator’s presence but only gave a half-hearted attempt to drive it away. This owl was apparently boring to them.It wasn’t to me. I was transfixed on my life bird. What would it do next? How old was it—could I tell based on the wear and molt patterns of its feathers? Would it be as tolerant of the nuthatches the next time? I was in deep.Only when my friends returned did I realize I had been staring at this barely moving bird for a full two hours. No wonder I could no longer feel my feet or hands. But I had seen—truly seen—a Boreal Owl. I could finally leave now.Birding is a chance to turn off our devices and use our senses, to breathe fresh air, to connect with the natural world and immerse ourselves in the now, the moment, the bird. The next time you see a bird, whether it’s a rare Boreal Owl or a common American Robin, maybe step back, stay a while and put the watching back in bird-watching.

Experts shined UV light on the Chicago Archaeopteryx to expose otherwise invisible soft tissues. Credit: Delaney Drummond / Field Museum Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Archaeopteryx represents a pivotal point in the grand evolutionary journey linking dinosaurs to their avian descendants. But paleontologists still have questions about the Jurassic era animal’s anatomy and behavior roughly 165 years after its discovery. One of the most pressing lingering mysteries is how Archaeopteryx managed to fly above its fellow feathered dinosaur relatives.  After more than two decades spent in a private collection, one of the most detailed and complete fossil sets arrived at the Chicago’s Field Museum in 2022. But before it made its public debut, experts spent a year preparing and analyzing the Chicago Archaeopteryx—and what they discovered is helping paleontologists understand what made the earliest avian dinosaur so special. The team explained their findings in a study published May 14 in the journal Nature. From the tip of its snout to the tip of its tail “When we first got our Archaeopteryx, I was like, this is very, very, very cool, and I was beyond excited,” Jingmai O’Connor, the Field Museum’s associate curator of fossil reptiles and paper lead author, said in an accompanying announcement. But despite his initial enthusiasm, O’Connor still had his doubts. “Archaeopteryx has been known for [so long], I wasn’t sure what new things we would be able to learn,” he explained. “But our specimen is so well-preserved and so well-prepared that we’re actually learning a ton of new information, from the tip of its snout to the tip of its tail.” The examinations and preparation weren’t without challenges, however. One particular problem was differentiating between the specimen’s fossilized remains and its surrounding, nearly identically colored rock matrix. This is where CT scanning came in handy. “CT scanning was very important for our preparation process—it let us know things like, the bone is exactly 3.2 millimeters below the surface of the rock, which let us know exactly how far we could go before we would hit the bone,” said Connor, noting that this project represents the first time paleontologists have completed a CT scan on a complete Archaeopteryx. Fluorescent feathers All known Archaeopteryx remains have been excavated from a region of limestone deposits located about 100 miles east of Stuttgart in Solnhofen, Germany. Previous studies revealed the Solnhofen limestone fossils possess a unique chemical composition that causes their soft tissues to fluoresce. Knowing this, the team often also turned to UV lighting for extra help in delineating between rock and soft tissues easily missed by the human eye. These even included details as subtle as scales on the bottoms of Archaeopteryx’s toes. It’s not only its toes that provided valuable insights into the ancient dino-bird—paleontologists are particularly interested in its feet, hands, head, and wing feathers. For example, bones in the roof of its mouth aids experts in understanding the evolution of cranial kinesis, the feature found in modern birds that allows them to move their beak independently of their brain case. “That might not sound exciting, but to people who study bird evolution, it’s really important, because it’s been hypothesized that being able to evolve specialized skulls for different ecological niches might have helped birds evolve into more than 11,000 species today,” said O’Connor. Test flights The Chicago specimen also offered scientists a never-before-seen physiological detail that appears to finally answer a longstanding question: How could Archaeopteryx (at least briefly) take to the air? “This is actually my favorite part of the paper,” said O’Connor. “[It] provides evidence that Archaeopteryx was using its feathered wings for flying.” The evidence comes in the form of tertials, a set of feathers located on Archaeopteryx’s very long upper arms. Without those tertials, it’s unlikely the animal could ever get airborne. “If you’re trying to fly, having a long upper arm bone can create a gap between the primary and secondary features of the wing and the rest of your body,” explained O’Connor. “If air passes through that gap, that disrupts the lift you’re generating, and you can’t fly.” Most modern birds solved this issue by evolving shorter appendages to accompany their tertial feathers. But even though Archaeopteryx possessed those long arm bones, it also had proportionately sized tertials. Many of its dinosaur relatives evolved feathers, but they stopped at the elbow and lacked the tertials necessary for flight. “That tells us that these non-avian dinosaurs couldn’t fly, but Archaeopteryx could,” said O’Connor. “Fly” is likely doing some heavy lifting there, however. Multiple studies suggest Archaeopteryx behaved less like a high-soaring falcon, and more like a chicken capable of gliding shorter distances. That said, the latest research also suggests these sizable feathers may have also served a role in “visual communication.” Regardless of Archaeopteryx’s aerial abilities, the Chicago specimen is continuing to reveal new details about present-day birds’ earliest origins. “Archaeopteryx isn’t the first dinosaur to have feathers, or the first dinosaur to have ‘wings,’” said O’Connor. “But we think it’s the earliest known dinosaur that was able to use its feathers to fly.”