ActuGaming.net Où trouver du sable farine sur Arrakis ? | Dune Awakening Dune Awakening est un MMORPG axé sur la survie prenant place sur Arrakis, une planète […] L'article Où trouver du sable farine sur Arrakis ? | Dune Awakening est disponib

A coiled giant anaconda. They are the largest snake species in Brazil and play a major role in legends including the ‘Boiuna’ and the ‘Cobra Grande.’ CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. South America’s lush Amazon region is a biodiversity hotspot, which means that every living thing must find a way to co-exist. Even some of the most feared snakes on the planet–anacondas. In a paper published June 16 in the journal Frontiers in Amphibian and Reptile Science, conservation biologists Beatriz Cosendey and Juarez Carlos Brito Pezzuti from the Federal University of Pará’s Center for Amazonian Studies in Brazil, analyze the key points behind the interactions between humans and the local anaconda populations. Ahead of the paper’s publication, the team at Frontiers conducted this wide-ranging Q&A with Conesday. It has not been altered. Frontiers: What inspired you to become a researcher? Beatriz Cosendey: As a child, I was fascinated by reports and documentaries about field research and often wondered what it took to be there and what kind of knowledge was being produced. Later, as an ecologist, I felt the need for approaches that better connected scientific research with real-world contexts. I became especially interested in perspectives that viewed humans not as separate from nature, but as part of ecological systems. This led me to explore integrative methods that incorporate local and traditional knowledge, aiming to make research more relevant and accessible to the communities involved. F: Can you tell us about the research you’re currently working on? BC: My research focuses on ethnobiology, an interdisciplinary field intersecting ecology, conservation, and traditional knowledge. We investigate not only the biodiversity of an area but also the relationship local communities have with surrounding species, providing a better understanding of local dynamics and areas needing special attention for conservation. After all, no one knows a place better than those who have lived there for generations. This deep familiarity allows for early detection of changes or environmental shifts. Additionally, developing a collaborative project with residents generates greater engagement, as they recognize themselves as active contributors; and collective participation is essential for effective conservation. Local boating the Amazon River. CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. F: Could you tell us about one of the legends surrounding anacondas? BC: One of the greatest myths is about the Great Snake—a huge snake that is said to inhabit the Amazon River and sleep beneath the town. According to the dwellers, the Great Snake is an anaconda that has grown too large; its movements can shake the river’s waters, and its eyes look like fire in the darkness of night. People say anacondas can grow so big that they can swallow large animals—including humans or cattle—without difficulty. F: What could be the reasons why the traditional role of anacondas as a spiritual and mythological entity has changed? Do you think the fact that fewer anacondas have been seen in recent years contributes to their diminished importance as an mythological entity? BC: Not exactly. I believe the two are related, but not in a direct way. The mythology still exists, but among Aritapera dwellers, there’s a more practical, everyday concern—mainly the fear of losing their chickens. As a result, anacondas have come to be seen as stealthy thieves. These traits are mostly associated with smaller individuals (up to around 2–2.5 meters), while the larger ones—which may still carry the symbolic weight of the ‘Great Snake’—tend to retreat to more sheltered areas; because of the presence of houses, motorized boats, and general noise, they are now seen much less frequently. A giant anaconda is being measured. Credit: Pedro Calazans. F: Can you share some of the quotes you’ve collected in interviews that show the attitude of community members towards anacondas? How do chickens come into play? BC: When talking about anacondas, one thing always comes up: chickens. “Chicken is her [the anaconda’s] favorite dish. If one clucks, she comes,” said one dweller. This kind of remark helps explain why the conflict is often framed in economic terms. During the interviews and conversations with local dwellers, many emphasized the financial impact of losing their animals: “The biggest loss is that they keep taking chicks and chickens…” or “You raise the chicken—you can’t just let it be eaten for free, right?” For them, it’s a loss of investment, especially since corn, which is used as chicken feed, is expensive. As one person put it: “We spend time feeding and raising the birds, and then the snake comes and takes them.” One dweller shared that, in an attempt to prevent another loss, he killed the anaconda and removed the last chicken it had swallowed from its belly—”it was still fresh,” he said—and used it for his meal, cooking the chicken for lunch so it wouldn’t go to waste. One of the Amazonas communities where the researchers conducted their research. CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. Some interviewees reported that they had to rebuild their chicken coops and pigsties because too many anacondas were getting in. Participants would point out where the anaconda had entered and explained that they came in through gaps or cracks but couldn’t get out afterwards because they ‘tufavam’ — a local term referring to the snake’s body swelling after ingesting prey. We saw chicken coops made with mesh, with nylon, some that worked and some that didn’t. Guided by the locals’ insights, we concluded that the best solution to compensate for the gaps between the wooden slats is to line the coop with a fine nylon mesh (to block smaller animals), and on the outside, a layer of wire mesh, which protects the inner mesh and prevents the entry of larger animals. F: Are there any common misconceptions about this area of research? How would you address them? BC: Yes, very much. Although ethnobiology is an old science, it’s still underexplored and often misunderstood. In some fields, there are ongoing debates about the robustness and scientific validity of the field and related areas. This is largely because the findings don’t always rely only on hard statistical data. However, like any other scientific field, it follows standardized methodologies, and no result is accepted without proper grounding. What happens is that ethnobiology leans more toward the human sciences, placing human beings and traditional knowledge as key variables within its framework. To address these misconceptions, I believe it’s important to emphasize that ethnobiology produces solid and relevant knowledge—especially in the context of conservation and sustainable development. It offers insights that purely biological approaches might overlook and helps build bridges between science and society. The study focused on the várzea regions of the Lower Amazon River. CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. F: What are some of the areas of research you’d like to see tackled in the years ahead? BC: I’d like to see more conservation projects that include local communities as active participants rather than as passive observers. Incorporating their voices, perspectives, and needs not only makes initiatives more effective, but also more just. There is also great potential in recognizing and valuing traditional knowledge. Beyond its cultural significance, certain practices—such as the use of natural compounds—could become practical assets for other vulnerable regions. Once properly documented and understood, many of these approaches offer adaptable forms of environmental management and could help inform broader conservation strategies elsewhere. F: How has open science benefited the reach and impact of your research? BC: Open science is crucial for making research more accessible. By eliminating access barriers, it facilitates a broader exchange of knowledge—important especially for interdisciplinary research like mine which draws on multiple knowledge systems and gains value when shared widely. For scientific work, it ensures that knowledge reaches a wider audience, including practitioners and policymakers. This openness fosters dialogue across different sectors, making research more inclusive and encouraging greater collaboration among diverse groups. The Q&A can also be read here.

Perhaps the oldest, most pernicious form of human bias is that of men toward women. It often started at the moment of birth. In ancient Athens, at a public ceremony called the amphidromia, fathers would inspect a newborn and decide whether it would be part of the family, or be cast away. One often socially acceptable reason for abandoning the baby: It was a girl. Female infanticide has been distressingly common in many societies — and its practice is not just ancient history. In 1990, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen looked at birth ratios in Asia, North Africa, and China and calculated that more than 100 million women were essentially “missing” — meaning that, based on the normal ratio of boys to girls at birth and the longevity of both genders, there was a huge missing number of girls who should have been born, but weren’t. Sen’s estimate came before the truly widespread adoption of ultrasound tests that could determine the sex of a fetus in utero — which actually made the problem worse, leading to a wave of sex-selective abortions. These were especially common in countries like India and China; the latter’s one-child policy and old biases made families desperate for their one child to be a boy. The Economist has estimated that since 1980 alone, there have been approximately 50 million fewer girls born worldwide than would naturally be expected, which almost certainly means that roughly that nearly all of those girls were aborted for no other reason than their sex. The preference for boys was a bias that killed in mass numbers.But in one of the most important social shifts of our time, that bias is changing. In a great cover story earlier this month, The Economist reported that the number of annual excess male births has fallen from a peak of 1.7 million in 2000 to around 200,000, which puts it back within the biologically standard birth ratio of 105 boys for every 100 girls. Countries that once had highly skewed sex ratios — like South Korea, which saw almost 116 boys born for every 100 girls in 1990 — now have normal or near-normal ratios. Altogether, The Economist estimated that the decline in sex preference at birth in the past 25 years has saved the equivalent of 7 million girls. That’s comparable to the number of lives saved by anti-smoking efforts in the US. So how, exactly, have we overcome a prejudice that seemed so embedded in human society?Success in school and the workplaceFor one, we have relaxed discrimination against girls and women in other ways — in school and in the workplace. With fewer limits, girls are outperforming boys in the classroom. In the most recent international PISA tests, considered the gold standard for evaluating student performance around the world, 15-year-old girls beat their male counterparts in reading in 79 out of 81 participating countries or economies, while the historic male advantage in math scores has fallen to single digits. Girls are also dominating in higher education, with 113 female students at that level for every 100 male students. While women continue to earn less than men, the gender pay gap has been shrinking, and in a number of urban areas in the US, young women have actually been outearning young men. Government policies have helped accelerate that shift, in part because they have come to recognize the serious social problems that eventually result from decades of anti-girl discrimination. In countries like South Korea and China, which have long had some of the most skewed gender ratios at birth, governments have cracked down on technologies that enable sex-selective abortion. In India, where female infanticide and neglect have been particularly horrific, slogans like “Save the Daughter, Educate the Daughter” have helped change opinions. A changing preferenceThe shift is being seen not just in birth sex ratios, but in opinion polls — and in the actions of would-be parents.Between 1983 and 2003, The Economist reported, the proportion of South Korean women who said it was “necessary” to have a son fell from 48 percent to 6 percent, while nearly half of women now say they want daughters. In Japan, the shift has gone even further — as far back as 2002, 75 percent of couples who wanted only one child said they hoped for a daughter.In the US, which allows sex selection for couples doing in-vitro fertilization, there is growing evidence that would-be parents prefer girls, as do potential adoptive parents. While in the past, parents who had a girl first were more likely to keep trying to have children in an effort to have a boy, the opposite is now true — couples who have a girl first are less likely to keep trying. A more equal futureThere’s still more progress to be made. In northwest of India, for instance, birth ratios that overly skew toward boys are still the norm. In regions of sub-Saharan Africa, birth sex ratios may be relatively normal, but post-birth discrimination in the form of poorer nutrition and worse medical care still lingers. And course, women around the world are still subject to unacceptable levels of violence and discrimination from men.And some of the reasons for this shift may not be as high-minded as we’d like to think. Boys around the world are struggling in the modern era. They increasingly underperform in education, are more likely to be involved in violent crime, and in general, are failing to launch into adulthood. In the US, 20 percent of American men between 25 and 34 still live with their parents, compared to 15 percent of similarly aged women. It also seems to be the case that at least some of the increasing preference for girls is rooted in sexist stereotypes. Parents around the world may now prefer girls partly because they see them as more likely to take care of them in their old age — meaning a different kind of bias against women, that they are more natural caretakers, may be paradoxically driving the decline in prejudice against girls at birth.But make no mistake — the decline of boy preference is a clear mark of social progress, one measured in millions of girls’ lives saved. And maybe one Father’s Day, not too long from now, we’ll reach the point where daughters and sons are simply children: equally loved and equally welcomed.A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!See More:

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here PlayStation’s annoying regional restrictions on PC games have proved infuriating for gamers all across the world. While most gamers were unaffected, those in some regions found themselves unable to play games like Helldivers 2 and other titles due to the restrictions.  Thankfully, after months of complaints, it appears that PlayStation is finally removing the regional restrictions of its PC releases for a large number of countries. However, not every title has been altered at the time of writing.  Regional restrictions removed from Helldivers 2 and more  As spotted by players online (thanks, Wario64), a number of Steam database updates have changed the regional restrictions of PlayStation games on PC.  Games such as Helldivers 2, Spider-Man 2, God of War: Ragnarok and The Last of Us: Part 2 are now available to purchase in a large number of additional countries. The change appears to be rolling out to PlayStation PC releases at the time of writing. It’s been a long time coming, and the introduction of the restrictions last year was a huge controversy for the company. Since the restrictions were put in place, players who previously purchased Helldivers 2 were unable to play the title online without a VPN.  Additionally, Ghost of Tsushima could be played in a number of countries, but its Legends multiplayer mode was inaccessible due to the regional issues.  Honestly, PlayStation should’ve removed these restrictions far quicker than they initially did. However, the phrase “better late than never” exists for a reason, and we’re happy that more gamers around the world are no longer punished for simply being born in a different country.  For more PlayStation news, read the company’s recent comments about the next generation PlayStation 6 console. Additionally, read about potential PS Plus price increases that could be on the way as the company aims to “maximise profitability”.  Helldivers 2 Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 5 Genre(s): Action, Shooter, Third Person 8 VideoGamer Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

Image by Andrew BrodheadResearchers have developed a novel device that literally spins away the clots that block blood flow to the brain and cause strokes.As Stanford explains in a blurb, the novel milli-spinner device may be able to save the lives of patients who experience "ischemic stroke" from brain stem clotting.Traditional clot removal, a process known as thrombectomy, generally uses a catheter that either vacuums up the blood blockage or uses a wire mesh to ensnare it — a procedure that's as rough and imprecise as it sounds. Conventional thrombectomy has a very low efficacy rate because of this imprecision, and the procedure can result in pieces of the clot breaking off and moving to more difficult-to-reach regions.Thrombectomy via milli-spinner also enters the brain with a catheter, but instead of using a normal vacuum device, it employs a spinning tube outfitted with fins and slits that can suck up the clot much more meticulously.Stanford neuroimaging expert Jeremy Heit, who also coauthored a new paper about the device in the journal Nature, explained in the school's press release that the efficacy of the milli-spinner is "unbelievable.""For most cases, we’re more than doubling the efficacy of current technology, and for the toughest clots — which we’re only removing about 11 percent of the time with current devices — we’re getting the artery open on the first try 90 percent of the time," Heit said. "This is a sea-change technology that will drastically improve our ability to help people."Renee Zhao, the senior author of the Nature paper who teaches mechanical engineering at Stanford and creates what she calls "millirobots," said that conventional thrombectomies just aren't cutting it."With existing technology, there’s no way to reduce the size of the clot," Zhao said. "They rely on deforming and rupturing the clot to remove it.""What’s unique about the milli-spinner is that it applies compression and shear forces to shrink the entire clot," she continued, "dramatically reducing the volume without causing rupture."Indeed, as the team discovered, the device can cut and vacuum up to five percent of its original size."It works so well, for a wide range of clot compositions and sizes," Zhao said. "Even for tough... clots, which are impossible to treat with current technologies, our milli-spinner can treat them using this simple yet powerful mechanics concept to densify the fibrin network and shrink the clot."Though its main experimental use case is brain clot removal, Zhao is excited about its other uses, too."We’re exploring other biomedical applications for the milli-spinner design, and even possibilities beyond medicine," the engineer said. "There are some very exciting opportunities ahead."More on brains: The Microplastics in Your Brain May Be Causing Mental Health IssuesShare This Article

This month, join forces to tackle the paranormal crises of a mysterious federal agency under siege in the cooperative first-person shooter FBC: Firebreak, lead your team to victory in the iconic all-out warfare of Battlefield 2042, test your skills as a new Fazbear employee managing and maintaining the eerie pizzeria of Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 or live for the thrill of the hunt in the realistic hunting open world theHunter: Call of the Wild. All of these titles and more are available in June’s PlayStation Plus Game Catalog lineup*.    Meanwhile, PS2’s Deus Ex: The Conspiracy merges action-RPG, stealth and FPS gameplay in PlayStation Plus Premium.    All titles will be available to play on June 17.   PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | Game Catalog  View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image FBC: Firebreak | PS5 Launching on the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog this month is FBC: Firebreak, a cooperative first-person shooter set within a mysterious federal agency under assault by otherworldly forces. Return to the strange and unexpected world of Control or venture in for the first time in this standalone, multiplayer experience. As a years-long siege on the agency’s headquarters reaches its boiling point, only Firebreak—the Bureau’s most versatile unit—has the gear and the guts to plunge into the building’s strangest crises, restore order, contain the chaos, and fight to reclaim control. Join forces with friends or strangers to tackle each job as a well-oiled crew. Survival in this three-player cooperative FPS hinges on quick thinking and seamless teamwork as you scramble to tame raging paranatural crises across a variety of unexpected locations.    View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Battlefield 2042 | PS4, PS5 Battlefield 2042 is a first-person shooter that marks the return to the iconic all-out warfare of the franchise. With the help of a cutting-edge arsenal, engage in intense, immersive multiplayer battles. Lead your team to victory in both large all-out warfare and close quarters combat on maps from the world of 2042 and classic Battlefield titles. Find your playstyle in class-based gameplay and take on several experiences comprising elevated versions of Conquest and Breakthrough. Explore Battlefield Portal, a platform where players can discover, create, and share unexpected battles from Battlefield’s past and present. View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 | PS5 Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 is the sequel to the terrifying VR experience that brought new life to the iconic horror franchise. As a brand new Fazbear employee you’ll have to prove you have what it takes to excel in all aspects of Pizzeria management and maintenance. Find out if you have what it takes to be a Fazbear Entertainment Superstar! View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image theHunter: Call of the Wild | PS4 Discover an atmospheric hunting game like no other in this realistic, stunning open world – regularly updated in collaboration with its community. Immerse yourself in the single player campaign, or share the ultimate hunting experience with friends. Roam freely across meticulously crafted environments and explore a diverse range of regions and biomes, each with its own unique flora and fauna. Experience the intricacies of complex animal behavior, dynamic weather events, full day and night cycles, simulated ballistics, highly realistic acoustics, and scents carried by the wind. Select from a variety of weapons, ammunition, and equipment to create the ultimate hunting experience. With a diverse range of wildlife, including Jackrabbits, Mallard Ducks, Black Bears, Elk, and Moose, you will need to strategically match prey to weaponry to successfully track, lure, and ambush animals based on their unique behavior and environment. View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie | PS4, PS5 We Love Katamari Damacy, the second title in the Katamari series released in 2005, has been remastered with redesigned graphics and a revamped in-game UI. The King of the Cosmos accidentally destroyed all the stars in the universe. He sent his son, the Prince, to Earth and ordered him to create a large katamari. Roll the katamari to make it bigger and bigger, rolling up all the things on the earth. You can roll up anything from paper clips and snacks in the house, to telephone poles and buildings in the town, to even living creatures such as people and animals. Once the katamari is complete, it will turn into a star that colors the night sky. You cannot roll up anything larger than the current size of your katamari, so the key is to think in advance about the order in which you roll things up around the stage. In Royal Reverie, roll up katamari as the King of All Cosmos in his boyhood! View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes | PS4, PS5 Directed and produced by the creator of treasured JRPG series Suikoden, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes provides a contemporary take on the classic JRPG experience. In the land of Allraan, two friends from different backgrounds are united by a war waged by the power-hungry Galdean Empire. Explore a diverse, magical world populated by humans, beastmen, elves and desert people. Meet and recruit over 100 unique characters, each with their own vivid voice acting and intricate backstories. Over four years in the making, and funded by the most successful Kickstarter videogame campaign of 2020, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes features turn-based battles, a staggering selection of heroes and a thrilling story to discover. View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Train Sim World 5 | PS4, PS5 The rails are yours in Train Sim World 5! Take on new challenges and new roles as you master the tracks and trains of iconic cities across 3 new routes. Immerse yourself in the ultimate rail hobby and embark on your next journey. Be swept off your feet with the commuter mayhem of the West Coast main line with the Northwestern Class 350, the twisting Kinzigtalbahn with the tilting DB BR 411 ICE-T, or the sun-soaked tracks of the San Bernardino line and its Metrolink movements, powered by the MP36 & F125.  View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Endless Dungeon | PS4, PS5 Endless Dungeon is a unique blend of roguelite, tactical action, and tower defense set in the award-winning Endless Universe. Plunge into an abandoned space station alone or with friends in co-op, recruit a team of shipwrecked heroes, and protect your crystal against never-ending waves of monsters… or die trying, get reloaded, and try again. You’re stranded on an abandoned space station chock-full of monsters and mysteries. To get out you’ll have to reach The Core, but you can’t do that without your crystal bot. That scuttling critter is your key to surviving the procedurally generated rooms of this space ruin. Sadly, it’s also a fragile soul, and every monster in the place wants a piece of it. You’re going to have to think quick, plan well, place your turrets, and then… fireworks! Bugs, bots and blobs will stop at nothing to turn you and that crystal into dust and debris. With a large choice of weapons and turrets, the right gear will be the difference between life and death. PlayStation Plus Premium  View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Deus Ex: The Conspiracy | PS4, PS5This is an emulation of the classic PS2 title, Deus Ex: The Conspiracy, playable on PS4 and PS5 for the first time. The year is 2052 and the world is a dangerous and chaotic place. Terrorists operate openly – killing thousands; drugs, disease and pollution kill even more. The world’s economies are close to collapse and the gap between the insanely wealthy and the desperately poor grows ever wider. Worst of all, an age- old conspiracy bent on world domination has decided that the time is right to emerge from the shadows and take control.  *PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and PlayStation Plus Premium/Deluxe lineups may differ by region. Please check PlayStation Store on release day. 

Sienna Net-Zero Home / billionBricksSave this picture!© Ron Mendoza , Mark Twain C , BB teamHouses, Sustainability•Quezon City, Philippines Architects: billionBricks Area Area of this architecture project Area:  45 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Ron Mendoza , Mark Twain C , BB teamMore SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. Built to address homelessness and climate change, the Sienna Net-Zero Home is a self-sustaining, solar-powered, cost-efficient, and compact housing solution. This climate-responsive and affordable home, located in Quezon City, Philippines, represents a revolutionary vision for social housing through its integration of thoughtful design, sustainability, and energy self-sufficiency.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Designed with the unique tropical climate of the Philippines in mind, the Sienna Home prioritizes natural ventilation, passive cooling, and rainwater management to enhance indoor comfort and reduce reliance on artificial cooling systems. The compact 4.5m x 5.1m floor plan has been meticulously optimized for functionality, offering a flexible layout that grows and adapts to the families living in them.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!A key architectural feature is BillionBricks' innovative Powershade technology - an advanced solar roofing system that serves multiple purposes. Beyond generating clean, renewable energy, it acts as a protective heat barrier, reducing indoor temperatures and improving thermal comfort. Unlike conventional solar panels, Powershade seamlessly integrates with the home's structure, providing reliable energy generation while doubling as a durable roof. This makes the Sienna Home energy-positive, meaning it produces more electricity than it consumes, lowering utility costs and promoting long-term energy independence. Excess power can also be stored or sold back to the grid, creating an additional financial benefit for homeowners.Save this picture!When multiple Sienna Homes are built together, the innovative PowerShade roofing solution transcends its role as an individual energy source and transforms into a utility-scale solar rooftop farm, capable of powering essential community facilities and generating additional income. This shared energy infrastructure fosters a sense of collective empowerment, enabling residents to actively participate in a sustainable and financially rewarding energy ecosystem.Save this picture!Save this picture!The Sienna Home is built using lightweight prefabricated components, allowing for rapid on-site assembly while maintaining durability and structural integrity. This modular approach enables scalability, making it an ideal prototype for large-scale, cost-effective housing developments. The design also allows for future expansions, giving homeowners the flexibility to adapt their living spaces over time.Save this picture!Adhering to BP 220 social housing regulations, the unit features a 3-meter front setback and a 2-meter rear setback, ensuring proper ventilation, safety, and community-friendly spaces. Additionally, corner units include a 1.5-meter offset, enhancing privacy and accessibility within neighborhood layouts. Beyond providing a single-family residence, the Sienna House is designed to function within a larger sustainable community model, integrating shared green spaces, pedestrian pathways, and decentralized utilities. By promoting energy independence and environmental resilience, the project sets a new precedent for affordable yet high-quality housing solutions in rapidly urbanizing regions.Save this picture!The Sienna Home in Quezon City serves as a blueprint for future developments, proving that low-cost housing can be both architecturally compelling and socially transformative. By rethinking traditional housing models, BillionBricks is pioneering a future where affordability and sustainability are seamlessly integrated. Project gallerySee allShow less About this officebillionBricksOffice••• Published on June 15, 2025Cite: "Sienna Net-Zero Home / billionBricks" 14 Jun 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1031072/sienna-billionbricks&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Nier: Automata creators deny characters "were problematic overseas" and blame mistranslated subtitle for censorship rumours Nier miss. Image credit: Square Enix News by Vikki Blake Contributor Published on June 14, 2025 Nier: Automata producer Yosuke Saito and director Yoko Taro have denied that any of their character designs were restricted for Western audiences. As spotted by Automaton, the developers were compelled to comment after a mistranslated Japanese-to-English subtitle intimated Nier: Automata had been subjected to censorship from Square Enix to meet global standards. GODDESS OF VICTORY: NIKKE | Producers' Creative Dialogue Special Livestream.Watch on YouTube In the interview above (skip to 28:12 for the segment concerned), Sony executive Yoshida Shuhei asked the developers about their design process. "Our concept is always to do something that's 'not like anything else'. What I mean is, if Nier: Replicant had a boy as the main character, Nier: Automata would have a girl protagonist. If Western sci-fi is filled with Marine-like soldiers, we might go in the opposite direction and use Gothic Lolita outfits, for example," Taro said. "We tend to take the contrarian route." "There are, of course, certain things that are ethically or morally inappropriate – even if they're just aspects of a character," Saito added, according to the subtitles. "We try to draw a line by establishing rules about what’s acceptable and what’s not. "While certain things might be acceptable in Japan, they could become problematic in certain overseas regions, and even characters could become problematic as well. These are the kind of situation[s] we usually try to avoid creating. As a result, there are actually countries where we couldn't officially release Nier: Automata." This immediately caused consternation with fans but as Automaton points out, this "could be a little tricky to translate, even for an advanced Japanese speaker". When asked directly about the claim, Taro denied it, saying on X/Twitter: "I've never heard of such a thing happening". Saito simply said he thought the things he'd mentioned had been mistranslated, and would clarify this in a future livestream. In the same interview, former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida called Nier: Automata the "game that changed everything", as it was responsible for reviving the Japanese games industry on its release. In a recent interview, Yoshida discussed how during the PS3 era, sales of Japanese games had declined, and increasingly studios there were chasing "overseas tastes". That changed with NieR: Automata in 2017, released for the PS4. "I think Yoko Taro created it without paying any mind at all to making it sell overseas, but it was a tremendous success," Yoshida said.

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more When DeepSeek released its R1 model this January, it wasn’t just another AI announcement. It was a watershed moment that sent shockwaves through the tech industry, forcing industry leaders to reconsider their fundamental approaches to AI development. What makes DeepSeek’s accomplishment remarkable isn’t that the company developed novel capabilities; rather, it was how it achieved comparable results to those delivered by tech heavyweights at a fraction of the cost. In reality, DeepSeek didn’t do anything that hadn’t been done before; its innovation stemmed from pursuing different priorities. As a result, we are now experiencing rapid-fire development along two parallel tracks: efficiency and compute.  As DeepSeek prepares to release its R2 model, and as it concurrently faces the potential of even greater chip restrictions from the U.S., it’s important to look at how it captured so much attention. Engineering around constraints DeepSeek’s arrival, as sudden and dramatic as it was, captivated us all because it showcased the capacity for innovation to thrive even under significant constraints. Faced with U.S. export controls limiting access to cutting-edge AI chips, DeepSeek was forced to find alternative pathways to AI advancement. While U.S. companies pursued performance gains through more powerful hardware, bigger models and better data, DeepSeek focused on optimizing what was available. It implemented known ideas with remarkable execution — and there is novelty in executing what’s known and doing it well. This efficiency-first mindset yielded incredibly impressive results. DeepSeek’s R1 model reportedly matches OpenAI’s capabilities at just 5 to 10% of the operating cost. According to reports, the final training run for DeepSeek’s V3 predecessor cost a mere $6 million — which was described by former Tesla AI scientist Andrej Karpathy as “a joke of a budget” compared to the tens or hundreds of millions spent by U.S. competitors. More strikingly, while OpenAI reportedly spent $500 million training its recent “Orion” model, DeepSeek achieved superior benchmark results for just $5.6 million — less than 1.2% of OpenAI’s investment. If you get starry eyed believing these incredible results were achieved even as DeepSeek was at a severe disadvantage based on its inability to access advanced AI chips, I hate to tell you, but that narrative isn’t entirely accurate (even though it makes a good story). Initial U.S. export controls focused primarily on compute capabilities, not on memory and networking — two crucial components for AI development. That means that the chips DeepSeek had access to were not poor quality chips; their networking and memory capabilities allowed DeepSeek to parallelize operations across many units, a key strategy for running their large model efficiently. This, combined with China’s national push toward controlling the entire vertical stack of AI infrastructure, resulted in accelerated innovation that many Western observers didn’t anticipate. DeepSeek’s advancements were an inevitable part of AI development, but they brought known advancements forward a few years earlier than would have been possible otherwise, and that’s pretty amazing. Pragmatism over process Beyond hardware optimization, DeepSeek’s approach to training data represents another departure from conventional Western practices. Rather than relying solely on web-scraped content, DeepSeek reportedly leveraged significant amounts of synthetic data and outputs from other proprietary models. This is a classic example of model distillation, or the ability to learn from really powerful models. Such an approach, however, raises questions about data privacy and governance that might concern Western enterprise customers. Still, it underscores DeepSeek’s overall pragmatic focus on results over process. The effective use of synthetic data is a key differentiator. Synthetic data can be very effective when it comes to training large models, but you have to be careful; some model architectures handle synthetic data better than others. For instance, transformer-based models with mixture of experts (MoE) architectures like DeepSeek’s tend to be more robust when incorporating synthetic data, while more traditional dense architectures like those used in early Llama models can experience performance degradation or even “model collapse” when trained on too much synthetic content. This architectural sensitivity matters because synthetic data introduces different patterns and distributions compared to real-world data. When a model architecture doesn’t handle synthetic data well, it may learn shortcuts or biases present in the synthetic data generation process rather than generalizable knowledge. This can lead to reduced performance on real-world tasks, increased hallucinations or brittleness when facing novel situations.  Still, DeepSeek’s engineering teams reportedly designed their model architecture specifically with synthetic data integration in mind from the earliest planning stages. This allowed the company to leverage the cost benefits of synthetic data without sacrificing performance. Market reverberations Why does all of this matter? Stock market aside, DeepSeek’s emergence has triggered substantive strategic shifts among industry leaders. Case in point: OpenAI. Sam Altman recently announced plans to release the company’s first “open-weight” language model since 2019. This is a pretty notable pivot for a company that built its business on proprietary systems. It seems DeepSeek’s rise, on top of Llama’s success, has hit OpenAI’s leader hard. Just a month after DeepSeek arrived on the scene, Altman admitted that OpenAI had been “on the wrong side of history” regarding open-source AI.  With OpenAI reportedly spending $7 to 8 billion annually on operations, the economic pressure from efficient alternatives like DeepSeek has become impossible to ignore. As AI scholar Kai-Fu Lee bluntly put it: “You’re spending $7 billion or $8 billion a year, making a massive loss, and here you have a competitor coming in with an open-source model that’s for free.” This necessitates change. This economic reality prompted OpenAI to pursue a massive $40 billion funding round that valued the company at an unprecedented $300 billion. But even with a war chest of funds at its disposal, the fundamental challenge remains: OpenAI’s approach is dramatically more resource-intensive than DeepSeek’s. Beyond model training Another significant trend accelerated by DeepSeek is the shift toward “test-time compute” (TTC). As major AI labs have now trained their models on much of the available public data on the internet, data scarcity is slowing further improvements in pre-training. To get around this, DeepSeek announced a collaboration with Tsinghua University to enable “self-principled critique tuning” (SPCT). This approach trains AI to develop its own rules for judging content and then uses those rules to provide detailed critiques. The system includes a built-in “judge” that evaluates the AI’s answers in real-time, comparing responses against core rules and quality standards. The development is part of a movement towards autonomous self-evaluation and improvement in AI systems in which models use inference time to improve results, rather than simply making models larger during training. DeepSeek calls its system “DeepSeek-GRM” (generalist reward modeling). But, as with its model distillation approach, this could be considered a mix of promise and risk. For example, if the AI develops its own judging criteria, there’s a risk those principles diverge from human values, ethics or context. The rules could end up being overly rigid or biased, optimizing for style over substance, and/or reinforce incorrect assumptions or hallucinations. Additionally, without a human in the loop, issues could arise if the “judge” is flawed or misaligned. It’s a kind of AI talking to itself, without robust external grounding. On top of this, users and developers may not understand why the AI reached a certain conclusion — which feeds into a bigger concern: Should an AI be allowed to decide what is “good” or “correct” based solely on its own logic? These risks shouldn’t be discounted. At the same time, this approach is gaining traction, as again DeepSeek builds on the body of work of others (think OpenAI’s “critique and revise” methods, Anthropic’s constitutional AI or research on self-rewarding agents) to create what is likely the first full-stack application of SPCT in a commercial effort. This could mark a powerful shift in AI autonomy, but there still is a need for rigorous auditing, transparency and safeguards. It’s not just about models getting smarter, but that they remain aligned, interpretable, and trustworthy as they begin critiquing themselves without human guardrails. Moving into the future So, taking all of this into account, the rise of DeepSeek signals a broader shift in the AI industry toward parallel innovation tracks. While companies continue building more powerful compute clusters for next-generation capabilities, there will also be intense focus on finding efficiency gains through software engineering and model architecture improvements to offset the challenges of AI energy consumption, which far outpaces power generation capacity.  Companies are taking note. Microsoft, for example, has halted data center development in multiple regions globally, recalibrating toward a more distributed, efficient infrastructure approach. While still planning to invest approximately $80 billion in AI infrastructure this fiscal year, the company is reallocating resources in response to the efficiency gains DeepSeek introduced to the market. Meta has also responded, With so much movement in such a short time, it becomes somewhat ironic that the U.S. sanctions designed to maintain American AI dominance may have instead accelerated the very innovation they sought to contain. By constraining access to materials, DeepSeek was forced to blaze a new trail. Moving forward, as the industry continues to evolve globally, adaptability for all players will be key. Policies, people and market reactions will continue to shift the ground rules — whether it’s eliminating the AI diffusion rule, a new ban on technology purchases or something else entirely. It’s what we learn from one another and how we respond that will be worth watching. Jae Lee is CEO and co-founder of TwelveLabs. 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Graduate Student Develops an A.I.-Based Approach to Restore Time-Damaged Artwork to Its Former Glory The method could help bring countless old paintings, currently stored in the back rooms of galleries with limited conservation budgets, to light Scans of the painting retouched with a new technique during various stages in the process. On the right is the restored painting with the applied laminate mask. Courtesy of the researchers via MIT In a contest for jobs requiring the most patience, art restoration might take first place. Traditionally, conservators restore paintings by recreating the artwork’s exact colors to fill in the damage, one spot at a time. Even with the help of X-ray imaging and pigment analyses, several parts of the expensive process, such as the cleaning and retouching, are done by hand, as noted by Artnet’s Jo Lawson-Tancred. Now, a mechanical engineering graduate student at MIT has developed an artificial intelligence-based approach that can achieve a faithful restoration in just hours—instead of months of work. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, Alex Kachkine describes a new method that applies digital restorations to paintings by placing a thin film on top. If the approach becomes widespread, it could make art restoration more accessible and help bring countless damaged paintings, currently stored in the back rooms of galleries with limited conservation budgets, back to light. The new technique “is a restoration process that saves a lot of time and money, while also being reversible, which some people feel is really important to preserving the underlying character of a piece,” Kachkine tells Nature’s Amanda Heidt. Meet the engineer who invented an AI-powered way to restore art Watch on While filling in damaged areas of a painting would seem like a logical solution to many people, direct retouching raises ethical concerns for modern conservators. That’s because an artwork’s damage is part of its history, and retouching might detract from the painter’s original vision. “For example, instead of removing flaking paint and retouching the painting, a conservator might try to fix the loose paint particles to their original places,” writes Hartmut Kutzke, a chemist at the University of Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History, for Nature News and Views. If retouching is absolutely necessary, he adds, it should be reversible. As such, some institutions have started restoring artwork virtually and presenting the restoration next to the untouched, physical version. Many art lovers might argue, however, that a digital restoration printed out or displayed on a screen doesn’t quite compare to seeing the original painting in its full glory. That’s where Kachkine, who is also an art collector and amateur conservator, comes in. The MIT student has developed a way to apply digital restorations onto a damaged painting. In short, the approach involves using pre-existing A.I. tools to create a digital version of what the freshly painted artwork would have looked like. Based on this reconstruction, Kachkine’s new software assembles a map of the retouches, and their exact colors, necessary to fill the gaps present in the painting today. The map is then printed onto two layers of thin, transparent polymer film—one with colored retouches and one with the same pattern in white—that attach to the painting with conventional varnish. This “mask” aligns the retouches with the gaps while leaving the rest of the artwork visible. “In order to fully reproduce color, you need both white and color ink to get the full spectrum,” Kachkine explains in an MIT statement. “If those two layers are misaligned, that’s very easy to see. So, I also developed a few computational tools, based on what we know of human color perception, to determine how small of a region we can practically align and restore.” The method’s magic lies in the fact that the mask is removable, and the digital file provides a record of the modifications for future conservators to study. Kachkine demonstrated the approach on a 15th-century oil painting in dire need of restoration, by a Dutch artist whose name is now unknown. The retouches were generated by matching the surrounding color, replicating similar patterns visible elsewhere in the painting or copying the artist’s style in other paintings, per Nature News and Views. Overall, the painting’s 5,612 damaged regions were filled with 57,314 different colors in 3.5 hours—66 hours faster than traditional methods would have likely taken. Overview of Physically-Applied Digital Restoration Watch on “It followed years of effort to try to get the method working,” Kachkine tells the Guardian’s Ian Sample. “There was a fair bit of relief that finally this method was able to reconstruct and stitch together the surviving parts of the painting.” The new process still poses ethical considerations, such as whether the applied film disrupts the viewing experience or whether A.I.-generated corrections to the painting are accurate. Additionally, Kutzke writes for Nature News and Views that the effect of the varnish on the painting should be studied more deeply. Still, Kachkine says this technique could help address the large number of damaged artworks that live in storage rooms. “This approach grants greatly increased foresight and flexibility to conservators,” per the study, “enabling the restoration of countless damaged paintings deemed unworthy of high conservation budgets.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.