Shortly after the release of the Backyard Baseball '97 remaster in October 2024, Playground Productions and Mega Cat Studios revealed that Backyard Baseball '01 will be one of the next remastered titles. Now, the game has been set for a release date in early July, and Playground Productions has confirmed that 28 out of 31 MLB players from the original Backyard Baseball '01 will return for the remaster. The announcement didn't specify which of the three MLB players didn't lend their names and younger likenesses to Backyard Baseball '01's remaster. But some of the confirmed returning players include Cal Ripken, Jr., Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter.In partnership with Major League Baseball, Backyard Baseball '01 will feature logos from MLB's professional teams in addition to the players representing the league. Like the earlier Backyard sports remasters, Backyard Baseball '01 will recreate the classic gameplay for touch and modern PC controls.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Business leaders are weighing in on the Elon Musk and Donald Trump breakup. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images 2025-06-06T05:49:58Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? The friendship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump publicly unravelled on Thursday. It all started when Musk criticized Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill." Here's what business leaders like Mark Cuban and Bill Ackman have to say about the breakup. Amid a dramatic falling out between Donald Trump and his "first buddy," Elon Musk, some of the business world's most influential voices are weighing in.The relationship between the president and his once-close ally imploded on Thursday as they clashed publicly over Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill."Musk, who stepped down from his role at DOGE in May, took to X to criticize the bill, calling it the "Debt Slavery Bill" and the "Big Ugly Spending Bill."In response, Trump fired back at Musk during a White House event. He also defended the bill on Truth Social, while threatening to cancel Musk's government contracts.Musk saw his net worth fall by $34 billion on Thursday, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Tesla shares were also down by more than 14%.Here's what several business leaders have to say about the row.Mark Cuban Mark Cuban appeared to support Elon Musk's suggestion to start a new political party. Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images Amid his feud with Trump, Musk proposed creating a new political party for "the middle" in a poll on X.Mark Cuban appeared to endorse the idea, quoting Musk's post and replying with three check marks. The former "Shark Tank" star previously said he's "not a fan of either party," but would run as a Republican if he wanted to join politics.Bill Ackman Bill Ackman called on Musk and Trump to reconcile. Brian Snyder/Reuters Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman voiced his support for both Trump and Musk on X, calling on the two to put aside their differences and "make peace for the benefit of our country."Ackman, who had endorsed Trump for his 2024 presidential bid, wrote: "We are much stronger together than apart." "You're not wrong," Musk responded.Paul Graham Paul Graham also took to X to share his thoughts on the feud. Joe Corrigan/Getty Images for AOL Paul Graham, cofounder of the startup accelerator Y Combinator, also weighed in on the public feud between the president and the Tesla CEO. "A lot of people seem to be treating this as if it were just a beef. But the underlying allegation is a very serious one. If it's true, Trump is surely going to have to resign," he wrote in a post on X.Graham did not specify what allegation he was referring to.Hours before Graham made his post, Musk went on X and accused Trump of withholding information about Jeffrey Epstein."Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" Musk wrote on X.Graham told Musk in February that he should work with the government "carefully" because it's not "just a company."A representative for Graham did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

With reclaimed land previously allocated to cars, the Grijalva River boardwalk offers generous public spaces and reconnects the Mexican city of Villahermosa to its river In Villahermosa, nature reigns supreme. Surrounded by rivers, lagoons, wild vegetation and the scorching heat of a humid tropical climate, the city’s identity is shaped by intense and unpredictable natural forces. The capital of the Mexican state of Tabasco was founded in 1564 on the banks of the Grijalva River, a vital trade route that has significantly shaped the city’s development. For locals, the river has long been both blessing and threat; major floods have been recorded since the 17th century. A devastating flood in 2007 submerged what officials estimated to be 80 per cent of the city, damaging or destroying more than 120,000 homes. In the aftermath of the inundation, high concrete retaining walls were built along both banks of the Grijalva River to prevent further flooding. While this was an understandable measure at first glance, it consequently caused residents to lose both their visual and physical connection with the river. As a result, people moved, particularly from the western bank where the historical centre is located, to new areas further away from the Grijalva River. The riverfront was left to deteriorate into a troubled zone. On the eastern bank, the neighbourhood of Gaviotas was already considered unsafe before the flood, yet it maintained more of its residential character. In 2022, 15 years after the dramatic flood, then‑president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, more commonly known as AMLO, announced the construction of a new 6km‑long riverfront promenade in Villahermosa, the capital of his home state. The idea was to enable the population to once again take pride in and live with their river, looking to Paris and Rome as examples. The monumental task, with its large urban scale and the population’s psychological trauma, was entrusted to the Ministry of Agricultural, Territorial and Urban Development (SEDATU) as part of their Programa de Mejoramiento Urbano (Urban Improvement Programme, or PMU). This programme aimed to use architecture as an ‘instrument of social transformation’. High expectations were placed on these projects; architects were asked to create ‘places of national pride’ while improving everyday living conditions. The architectural trio of Alejandro Castro Jiménez Labora, Mauricio Rocha Iturbide, and Óscar Rodríguez Castañeda, along with their teams, were commissioned to design a linear park along both banks of the Grijalva. Each architect contributed their strength: Castro brought his expertise in poetic urban furniture; Rocha his sensitive and atmospheric architectural approach; and Rodríguez his thoughtful urban and traffic planning skills. The SEDATU team provided technical and participatory expertise, enabling contextual sensitivity by sharing essential information about the site’s topography, soil conditions and water flows. From the city’s existing observatory, the Torre del Caballero landmark, visitors enjoy an excellent view over the redesigned riverbanks. The historical centre and the Gaviotas neighbourhood now form a single ensemble, while the intervention carefully responds to the different conditions found along the length of the river. The project’s main objective is to reclaim some of the land previously allocated to cars and create a promenade for pedestrians and slower vehicles, punctuated with public spaces and facilities. On both sides of the river, cars are now limited to just one or two grey asphalt lanes. Running alongside are generous cycle paths and pedestrian walkways made of earth‑coloured concrete. Speed bumps in the same material and colour connect the pavements on either side of the road while helping to limit traffic speed to 30km/h, further enhancing pedestrian safety. Several design elements are found along almost the entire promenade. A ribbon of light‑grey benches delineates the edge of the elevated riverfront; stone walls, steps and ramps are used to negotiate the slight changes in level; planters and lush vegetation soften the transition to the walkways, creating a welcome buffer from street traffic. The most visually striking components are the tall, red‑pigmented concrete light poles on the elevated path, adorned with elegant L‑shaped steel light fixtures, which establish a strong and cohesive visual rhythm. Only upon closer inspection you notice the 2007 retaining walls peeking through the dense tropical vegetation. Removing these unattractive concrete barriers was never an option; they stand as a symbol of successful flood protection for the local population. The architectural team ingeniously built the elevated promenade atop the existing wall – an effective concealment from the street side while simultaneously inviting residents to reconnect with the Grijalva.  At the foot of the observatory, directly below the retaining wall, the earth‑toned concrete platforms of the Carlos A Madrazo Becerra Park stretch towards the river. Visitors can access the park via a ramp from the promenade on the western bank or by ferry from the opposite side. In the park, concrete furnishings invite visitors to linger among tropical vegetation set against tall natural stone walls. Importantly, it is a space that is durable and requires minimal maintenance – a survival formula for public parks in the Mexican context. Small traces on the concrete benches reveal that the park weathered its baptism of fire last year: the design accommodates the river’s natural dynamics, adapting to fluctuating water levels without compromising public safety. Beyond providing much‑needed shade, the extensive planting of native, low‑maintenance plants on both riverbanks has improved soil stability. Above the park, on a broad extension of the elevated pathway, stand three long, elegant buildings with large cantilevered roofs supported by hefty beams resting on distinctive double columns. The tall glass walls that enclose the interiors are set back, creating a visual flow between interior and exterior spaces. While the beams evoke timber construction, they – like the columns – are made of the same pigmented concrete used for the promenade paving. Despite their refined composition, these structures have remained largely unused since their completion over a year ago, neither serving their intended function as restaurants nor hosting alternative uses. Even the beautifully designed park sees only limited public engagement. The ambitious goal of SEDATU with the PMU projects to ‘counteract violence and strengthen the social fabric’ appears, for now, to have fallen short in this area. According to national statistics, Villahermosa ranks first in perceived insecurity among Mexican cities. This sense of insecurity is tangible on the promenade by the city centre, where buildings that look abandoned contribute to an atmosphere of neglect. The situation is markedly different on the opposite riverbank, in the Gaviotas neighbourhood. Construction of the 3.5km promenade on this side began in 2021 with three open pavilions housing several small kiosks, which quickly evolved into popular taco stands. The Plaza Solidaridad, revitalised by the architectural trio, draws people from the surrounding vibrant neighbourhood. Further south, the final section that was built is a large sports area and children’s playground, which were embraced by the local community even before their official inauguration in February 2024. Especially after sunset, when the air cools, the well‑lit Gaviotas riverfront comes to life. During daylight hours, however, air‑conditioned shopping centres remain the preferred gathering places for the residents of Villahermosa. Rocha describes the city’s new promenade as a ‘jazz composition’, a striking metaphor that speaks of rhythmic complexity and the freedom to improvise. With just a few designed elements and carefully selected colours, the architects have harmoniously layered the river’s urban spaces. The project is earning international recognition but, in Mexico, it faced sharp criticism and was overshadowed by accusations of nepotism. Castro is a friend of AMLO’s son, and the fact that the intervention took place in the home state of the then‑president, coupled with its substantial budget by local standards, drew considerable attention. According to residents, this undermined public acceptance. When asked about the negative press, Rocha speaks of the need to develop a ‘crisis muscle’; he says architects working on public projects in Mexico must ‘let go of perfectionism’ as much lies beyond their control.  During AMLO’s six‑year term, which ended in 2024, SEDATU implemented 1,300 PMU projects in 193 highly marginalised municipalities across the country. While many of these interventions undoubtedly improved people’s quality of life, the Villahermosa riverside project also reveals architecture’s limitations, exposing some of the programme’s weaknesses: architectural interventions often act as sticking plasters on an extensively damaged urban fabric. They are handed over from a national ministry with comprehensive expertise and funding to local governments lacking the means to sustain them. Although SEDATU conducted participatory consultations during the project’s implementation, this engagement was absent once the project was completed. Public acceptance and appropriation can take time; what this project does is send an invitation out. 2025-06-05 Reuben J Brown Share AR June 2025RoadsBuy Now

Best of the rest Research roundup: 7 stories we almost missed Also: drumming chimpanzees, picking styles of two jazz greats, and an ancient underground city's soundscape Jennifer Ouellette – May 31, 2025 5:37 pm | 4 Time lapse photos show a new ping-pong-playing robot performing a top spin. Credit: David Nguyen, Kendrick Cancio and Sangbae Kim Time lapse photos show a new ping-pong-playing robot performing a top spin. Credit: David Nguyen, Kendrick Cancio and Sangbae Kim Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more It's a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection. May's list includes a nifty experiment to make a predicted effect of special relativity visible; a ping-pong playing robot that can return hits with 88 percent accuracy; and the discovery of the rare genetic mutation that makes orange cats orange, among other highlights. Special relativity made visible Credit: TU Wien Perhaps the most well-known feature of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity is time dilation and length contraction. In 1959, two physicists predicted another feature of relativistic motion: an object moving near the speed of light should also appear to be rotated. It's not been possible to demonstrate this experimentally, however—until now. Physicists at the Vienna University of Technology figured out how to reproduce this rotational effect in the lab using laser pulses and precision cameras, according to a paper published in the journal Communications Physics. They found their inspiration in art, specifically an earlier collaboration with an artist named Enar de Dios Rodriguez, who collaborated with VUT and the University of Vienna on a project involving ultra-fast photography and slow light. For this latest research, they used objects shaped like a cube and a sphere and moved them around the lab while zapping them with ultrashort laser pulses, recording the flashes with a high-speed camera. Getting the timing just right effectively yields similar results to a light speed of 2 m/s. After photographing the objects many times using this method, the team then combined the still images into a single image. The results: the cube looked twisted and the sphere's North Pole was in a different location—a demonstration of the rotational effect predicted back in 1959. DOI: Communications Physics, 2025. 10.1038/s42005-025-02003-6  (About DOIs). Drumming chimpanzees A chimpanzee feeling the rhythm. Credit: Current Biology/Eleuteri et al., 2025. Chimpanzees are known to "drum" on the roots of trees as a means of communication, often combining that action with what are known as "pant-hoot" vocalizations (see above video). Scientists have found that the chimps' drumming exhibits key elements of musical rhythm much like humans, according to  a paper published in the journal Current Biology—specifically non-random timing and isochrony. And chimps from different geographical regions have different drumming rhythms. Back in 2022, the same team observed that individual chimps had unique styles of "buttress drumming," which served as a kind of communication, letting others in the same group know their identity, location, and activity. This time around they wanted to know if this was also true of chimps living in different groups and whether their drumming was rhythmic in nature. So they collected video footage of the drumming behavior among 11 chimpanzee communities across six populations in East Africa (Uganda) and West Africa (Ivory Coast), amounting to 371 drumming bouts. Their analysis of the drum patterns confirmed their hypothesis. The western chimps drummed in regularly spaced hits, used faster tempos, and started drumming earlier during their pant-hoot vocalizations. Eastern chimps would alternate between shorter and longer spaced hits. Since this kind of rhythmic percussion is one of the earliest evolved forms of human musical expression and is ubiquitous across cultures, findings such as this could shed light on how our love of rhythm evolved. DOI: Current Biology, 2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.019  (About DOIs). Distinctive styles of two jazz greats Jazz lovers likely need no introduction to Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery, 20th century guitarists who influenced generations of jazz musicians with their innovative techniques. Montgomery, for instance, didn't use a pick, preferring to pluck the strings with his thumb—a method he developed because he practiced at night after working all day as a machinist and didn't want to wake his children or neighbors. Pass developed his own range of picking techniques, including fingerpicking, hybrid picking, and "flat picking." Chirag Gokani and Preston Wilson, both with Applied Research Laboratories and the University of Texas, Austin, greatly admired both Pass and Montgomery and decided to explore the underlying the acoustics of their distinctive playing, modeling the interactions of the thumb, fingers, and pick with a guitar string. They described their research during a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans, LA. Among their findings: Montgomery achieved his warm tone by playing closer to the bridge and mostly plucking at the string. Pass's rich tone arose from a combination of using a pick and playing closer to the guitar neck. There were also differences in how much a thumb, finger, and pick slip off the string:  use of the thumb (Montgomery) produced more of a "pluck" compared to the pick (Pass), which produced more of a "strike." Gokani and Wilson think their model could be used to synthesize digital guitars with a more realistic sound, as well as helping guitarists better emulate Pass and Montgomery. Sounds of an ancient underground city Credit: Sezin Nas Turkey is home to the underground city Derinkuyu, originally carved out inside soft volcanic rock around the 8th century BCE. It was later expanded to include four main ventilation channels (and some 50,000 smaller shafts) serving seven levels, which could be closed off from the inside with a large rolling stone. The city could hold up to 20,000 people and it  was connected to another underground city, Kaymakli, via tunnels. Derinkuyu helped protect Arab Muslims during the Arab-Byzantine wars, served as a refuge from the Ottomans in the 14th century, and as a haven for Armenians escaping persecution in the early 20th century, among other functions. The tunnels were rediscovered in the 1960s and about half of the city has been open to visitors since 2016. The site is naturally of great archaeological interest, but there has been little to no research on the acoustics of the site, particularly the ventilation channels—one of Derinkuyu's most unique features, according to Sezin Nas, an architectural acoustician at Istanbul Galata University in Turkey.  She gave a talk at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans, LA, about her work on the site's acoustic environment. Nas analyzed a church, a living area, and a kitchen, measuring sound sources and reverberation patterns, among other factors, to create a 3D virtual soundscape. The hope is that a better understanding of this aspect of Derinkuyu could improve the design of future underground urban spaces—as well as one day using her virtual soundscape to enable visitors to experience the sounds of the city themselves. MIT's latest ping-pong robot Robots playing ping-pong have been a thing since the 1980s, of particular interest to scientists because it requires the robot to combine the slow, precise ability to grasp and pick up objects with dynamic, adaptable locomotion. Such robots need high-speed machine vision, fast motors and actuators, precise control, and the ability to make accurate predictions in real time, not to mention being able to develop a game strategy. More recent designs use AI techniques to allow the robots to "learn" from prior data to improve their performance. MIT researchers have built their own version of a ping-pong playing robot, incorporating a lightweight design and the ability to precisely return shots. They built on prior work developing the Humanoid, a small bipedal two-armed robot—specifically, modifying the Humanoid's arm by adding an extra degree of freedom to the wrist so the robot could control a ping-pong paddle. They tested their robot by mounting it on a ping-pong table and lobbing 150 balls at it from the other side of the table, capturing the action with high-speed cameras. The new bot can execute three different swing types (loop, drive, and chip) and during the trial runs it returned the ball with impressive accuracy across all three types: 88.4 percent, 89.2 percent, and 87.5 percent, respectively. Subsequent tweaks to theirrystem brought the robot's strike speed up to 19 meters per second (about 42 MPH), close to the 12 to 25 meters per second of advanced human players. The addition of control algorithms gave the robot the ability to aim. The robot still has limited mobility and reach because it has to be fixed to the ping-pong table but the MIT researchers plan to rig it to a gantry or wheeled platform in the future to address that shortcoming. Why orange cats are orange Credit: Astropulse/CC BY-SA 3.0 Cat lovers know orange cats are special for more than their unique coloring, but that's the quality that has intrigued scientists for almost a century. Sure, lots of animals have orange, ginger, or yellow hues, like tigers, orangutans, and golden retrievers. But in domestic cats that color is specifically linked to sex. Almost all orange cats are male. Scientists have now identified the genetic mutation responsible and it appears to be unique to cats, according to a paper published in the journal Current Biology. Prior work had narrowed down the region on the X chromosome most likely to contain the relevant mutation. The scientists knew that females usually have just one copy of the mutation and in that case have tortoiseshell (partially orange) coloring, although in rare cases, a female cat will be orange if both X chromosomes have the mutation. Over the last five to ten years, there has been an explosion in genome resources (including complete sequenced genomes) for cats which greatly aided the team's research, along with taking additional DNA samples from cats at spay and neuter clinics. From an initial pool of 51 candidate variants, the scientists narrowed it down to three genes, only one of which was likely to play any role in gene regulation: Arhgap36. It wasn't known to play any role in pigment cells in humans, mice, or non-orange cats. But orange cats are special; their mutation (sex-linked orange) turns on Arhgap36 expression in pigment cells (and only pigment cells), thereby interfering with the molecular pathway that controls coat color in other orange-shaded mammals. The scientists suggest that this is an example of how genes can acquire new functions, thereby enabling species to better adapt and evolve. DOI: Current Biology, 2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2025.03.075  (About DOIs). Not a Roman "massacre" after all Credit: Martin Smith In 1936, archaeologists excavating the Iron Age hill fort Maiden Castle in the UK unearthed dozens of human skeletons, all showing signs of lethal injuries to the head and upper body—likely inflicted with weaponry. At the time, this was interpreted as evidence of a pitched battle between the Britons of the local Durotriges tribe and invading Romans. The Romans slaughtered the native inhabitants, thereby bringing a sudden violent end to the Iron Age. At least that's the popular narrative that has prevailed ever since in countless popular articles, books, and documentaries. But a paper published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology calls that narrative into question. Archaeologists at Bournemouth University have re-analyzed those burials, incorporating radiocarbon dating into their efforts. They concluded that those individuals didn't die in a single brutal battle. Rather, it was Britons killing other Britons over multiple generations between the first century BCE and the first century CE—most likely in periodic localized outbursts of violence in the lead-up to the Roman conquest of Britain. It's possible there are still many human remains waiting to be discovered at the site, which could shed further light on what happened at Maiden Castle. DOI: Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2025. 10.1111/ojoa.12324  (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. 4 Comments

May 30, 20255 min readWhy This Hurricane Season Has Experts on EdgePredictions for an above-average number of storms, communities that are still recovering and cuts to the National Weather Service have meteorologists and other experts worried about this hurricane seasonBy Andrea Thompson edited by Dean VisserCategory 4 Hurricane Florence as seen from the International Space Station in 2018. ESA/NASA–A. GerstJune 1 marks the official start of the hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean—and once again, the season looks like it will be busy.Though it is impossible to tell this far in advance exactly when storms will form and where they might hit, the presence of hurricane-friendly environmental conditions this season—along with the federal government cuts and policy chaos—have experts worried about the accuracy of forecasts and the resulting safety of communities. Scientific American asked several forecasters and hurricane researchers what they were most concerned about this year.Warm oceans may mean a busy hurricane seasonOn 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.Seasonal forecasts—including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s—put the odds in favor of having more storms than average this season, which will last until November 30. NOAA predicts 13 to 19 named storms, meaning those of tropical storm strength (with winds of 39 to 74 miles per hour) or higher. Of those, six to 10 are expected to become hurricanes (with winds of more than 74 mph). And among those hurricanes, three to five are expected to reach major hurricane status—meaning they will have winds that will fall within Category 3 (those of 111 to 129 mph) or a stronger category on the Saffir-Simpson scale.The expectations of an active season arise from a combination of a favorable atmospheric environment and abundant ocean heat to fuel storms. For one thing, there’s no El Niño in place right now to influence winds in a way that tends to shred storms apart, says Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, whose team releases its own seasonal forecast each year.And waters in the Gulf of Mexico are extremely warm right now, providing ample fuel for the convection that drives tropical cyclones. “Over 60 percent of the Gulf is at record or near-record warmth for the time of year, and waters east of Florida and around the Bahamas are as warm as we’ve seen them for the start of any hurricane season in the satellite era,” says Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist at WPLG Local 10 News in Miami. Warm ocean water in these areas can cause storms to rapidly intensify right before landfall, giving communities less time to prepare for the onslaught. This is a major concern for Jill Trepanier, a hurricane researcher at Louisiana State University. “That is just a devastating situation when it occurs,” she says.It’s a situation that has played out many times in recent years, including with Hurricanes Beryl and Milton last season. “The sticky heat of the Gulf is a worrisome trend that’s undoubtedly fueling the spate of big hurricane hits along the Gulf Coast over the past decade or so,” Lowry says. “This is consistent with recent research that suggests the Gulf has seen a significant increase over the past 42 years in the number of days where it can support high-end hurricanes.”Because of that abundant hurricane fuel, “I would not be surprised if we see early-season activity well ahead of the peak” of activity in September, says Marshall Shepherd, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Georgia.Several experts noted that this year’s conditions have some slight differences from the most recent seasons. For one, “the waters of the deep tropical Atlantic east of the Caribbean—often a bellwether for overall hurricane season activity—are the coolest we’ve seen them to start a hurricane season since 2021,” Lowry says. But, he adds, they are “still plenty warm ... and forecast to remain so, which should favor above-average activity.”Though the overall message is that this will be a busier-than-normal season, it is not predicted to be quite as busy as those of the past few years. Klotzbach is worried that could lead to complacency. “My biggest concern is that, because the seasonal forecasts are a bit less aggressive than last year..., people may tend to let their guard down,” he says.Communities are still recoveringInevitably, each time a new hurricane season begins, some communities are still reeling from storms from the previous year—and often even further back in time. This year “places in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas are still recovering from Helene, Milton and Debby,” Shepherd says, citing three of the worst storms of the 2024 season.An aerial view of destroyed houses in Port St Lucie, Fla., after a tornado hit the area and caused severe damage as Hurricane Milton swept through on October 11, 2024.Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty ImagesA National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report released last year warned that the Gulf Coast in particular risked being in “perpetual disaster recovery” mode. The report noted that seven hurricanes struck the region in 2020 and 2021 alone.It’s entirely possible that some of the communities pummeled in recent years could face hurricane peril again this year. “With projections of average to above-average activity, all it takes is one storm to compound an already bad situation for many people,” Marshall says.NWS and FEMA cutsPiled atop these concerns is the situation within the federal government, with substantial budget and staffing cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). “It remains to be seen what the impacts of reduced staffing across relevant NOAA offices and agencies will be,” says Brian McNoldy, a tropical storm researcher at the University of Miami. “But any loss of expertise, data collection capabilities and around-the-clock monitoring is troubling during critical, high-impact situations.”Though the National Hurricane Center (NHC) monitors the development of tropical storms and hurricanes and produces the main forecasts, local NWS offices still play a crucial role in providing more localized warnings about storm surge, flooding and winds. Many offices in hurricane-prone areas are understaffed, says Jeff Masters, a writer at Yale Climate Connections and a former Hurricane Hunter at NOAA. Among those, the NWS’s Houston and Miami offices are suffering the largest staff shortages. The NWS has asked staff from other offices to move into some of these open slots.Lowry and Masters also point out that the cuts have reduced the number of weather balloons launches. Balloon data are crucial for understanding the larger atmospheric patterns that determine where a hurricane will go—and who might need to evacuate or take other precautions.There is one positive note: “I was very pleased to see the Hurricane Hunters reinstated,” Trepanier says, referring to three of the meteorologists who fly specialized, equipment-laden planes directly into storms to gather data that significantly improve forecasts. “Though it isn't enough to offset the concern, it is a move in a good direction.”James Franklin, former chief of the NHC’s Hurricane Specialist Unit, says he is concerned about trainings for emergency managers that were canceled earlier this year Their absence could leave areas less prepared and less able to know what decisions to make based on forecasts. “When training has to be cut down…, it just makes those kinds of mistakes on the emergency management side more likely to occur,” he says.Finally, another big worry is simply the government’s ability to respond with help for victims when a storm hits. Masters’ biggest worry is that FEMA won't “be capable of managing a major disaster right now.”Reports by CNN and other news outlets have cited internal FEMA memos that report the loss of 30 percent of full-time staff. “I wrote the plan FEMA uses to respond to hurricanes,” says Lowry, a former employee of both the NHC and FEMA, “and it’s hard to imagine the agency will be able to meet its mission-critical functions this season with such depleted staffing and without a fully revised plan.”

Designing human-centered AI products can be arduous.Keeping up with the overall pace of change isn’t easy. But here’s a bigger challenge:The wildly different paces of change attached to the key elements of AI product strategy, design, and development can make managing those elements — and even thinking about them — overwhelming.Yesterday’s design processes and frameworks offer priceless guidance that still holds. But in many spots, they just don’t fit today’s environment.For instance, designers used to map out and user-test precise, predictable end-to-end screen flows. But flows are no longer precisely predictable. AI generates dynamic dialogues and custom-tailored flows on the fly, rendering much of the old practice unhelpful and infeasible.It’s easy for product teams to feel adrift nowadays — we can hoist the sails, but we’re missing a map and a rudder. We need frameworks tailored to the traits that fundamentally set AI apart from traditional software, including:its capabilities for autonomy and collaboration,its probabilistic nature,its early need for quality data, andits predictable unpredictability. Humans tend to be perpetually surprised by its abilities — and its inabilities.AI pace layers: design for resilienceHere’s a framework to address these challenges.Building on Stewart Brand’s “Shearing Layers” framework, AI Pace Layers helps teams grow thriving AI products by framing them as layered systems with components that function and evolve at different timescales.It helps anticipate points of friction and create resilient and humane products.Each layer represents a specific domain of activity and responsibility, with a distinct pace of change.* Unlike the other layers, Services cuts across multiple layers rather than sitting between them, and its pace of change fluctuates erratically.Boundaries between layers call for special attention and care — friction at these points can produce destructive shearing and constructive turbulence.I’ll dive deeper into this framework with some practical examples showing how it works. But first, a brief review of the precursors that inspired this framework will help you put it to good use.The foundationsThis model builds on the insights of several influential design frameworks from the professions of building architecture and traditional software design.Shearing layers (Duffy and Brand)In his 1994 book How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand expanded on architect Frank Duffy’s concept of shearing layers. The core insight: buildings consist of components that change at different rates.Shell, Services, Scenery, and Sets. (Frank Duffy, 1992).“…there isn’t any such thing as a building. A building properly conceived is several layers of longevity of built components.” — Frank DuffyShearing Layers of Change, from How Buildings Learn: What Happens after they’re built (Stewart Brand, 1994).Expanding on Duffy’s work, Brand identified six layers, from the slow-changing “Site” to the rapidly evolving “Stuff.”As the layers move at different speeds, friction forms where they meet. Buildings designed without mindful consideration of these different velocities tear themselves apart at these “shearing” points. Before long, they tend to be demolished and replaced.Buildings designed for resiliency allow for “slippage” between the moving layers — flexibility for the different rates of change to unfold with minimal conflict. Such buildings can thrive and remain useful for hundreds of years.Pace layers (Brand)In 1999, Brand drew insights from ecologists to expand this concept beyond buildings and encompass human society. In The Clock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility, he proposed “Pace Layers” — six levels ranging from rapid fashion to glacially-slow nature.Brand’s Pace Layers (1999) as sketched by Jono Hey.Brand again pointed out the boundaries, where the most intriguing and consequential changes emerge. Friction at the tension points can tear a building apart — or spur a civilization’s collapse–when we try to bind the layers too tightly together. But with mindful design and planning for slippage, activity along these boundary zones can also generate “constructive turbulence” that keeps systems balanced and resilient.The most successful systems survive and thrive through times of change through resiliency, by absorbing and incorporating shocks.“…a few scientists (such as R. V. O’Neill and C. S. Holling) have been probing the same issue in ecological systems: how do they manage change, how do they absorb and incorporate shocks? The answer appears to lie in the relationship between components in a system that have different change-rates and different scales of size. Instead of breaking under stress like something brittle, these systems yield as if they were soft. Some parts respond quickly to the shock, allowing slower parts to ignore the shock and maintain their steady duties of system continuity.” — Stewart BrandRoles and tendencies of the fast (upper) and slow (lower) layers. (Brand).Slower layers provide constraints and underpinnings for the faster layers, while faster layers induce adaptations in the slower layers that evolve the system.Elements of UX (Garrett)Jesse James Garrett’s classic The Elements of User Experience (2002) presents a five-layer model for digital design:Surface (visual design)Skeleton (interface design, navigation design, information design)Structure (interaction design, information architecture)Scope (functional specs, content requirements)Strategy (user needs, site objectives)Structure, Scope, and Strategy. Each layer answers a different set of questions, with the questions answered at each level setting constraints for the levels above. Lower layers set boundaries and underpinnings that help define the more concrete layers.Jesse James Garrett’s 5 layers from The Elements of User Experience Design (2002)This framework doesn’t focus on time, or on tension points resulting from conflicting velocities. But it provides a comprehensive structure for shaping different aspects of digital product design, from abstract strategy to concrete surface elements.AI Pace Layers: diving deeperBuilding on these foundations, the AI Pace Layers framework adapts these concepts specifically for AI systems design.Let’s explore each layer and understand how design expertise contributes across the framework.SessionsPace of change: Very fast (milliseconds to minutes)Focus: Performance of real-time interactions.This layer encompasses real-time dialogue, reasoning, and processing. These interplays happen between the user and AI, and between AI agents and other services and people, on behalf of the user. Sessions draw on lower-layer capabilities and components to deliver the “moments of truth” where product experiences succeed or fail. Feedback from the Sessions layer is crucial for improving and evolving the lower layers.Key contributors: Users and AI agents — usually with zero direct human involvement backstage.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: User/AI dialogue. Audio, video, text, images, and widgets are rendered on the fly (using building blocks provided by lower levels). Real-time adaptations to context.SkinPace of change: Moderately fast (days to months)Focus: Design patterns, guidelines, and assetsSkin encompasses visual, interaction, and content design.Key contributors: Designers, content strategists, front-end developers, and user researchers.Design’s role: This is where designers’ traditional expertise shines. They craft the interface elements, establish visual language, define interaction patterns, and create the design systems that represent the product’s capabilities to users.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: UI component libraries, brand guidelines, prompt templates, tone of voice guidelines, navigation systems, visual design systems, patterns (UI, interaction, and conversation), content style guides.ServicesPace of change: Wildly variable (slow to moderately fast)Focus: AI computation capabilities, data systems orchestration, and operational intelligenceThe Services layer provides probabilistic AI capabilities that sometimes feel like superpowers — and like superpowers, they can be difficult to manage. It encompasses foundation models, algorithms, data pipelines, evaluation frameworks, business logic, and computing resources.Services is an outlier that behaves differently from the other layers:• It’s more prone to “shocks” and surprises that can ripple across the rest of the system.• It varies wildly in pace of change. (But its components rarely change faster than Skin, or slower than Skeleton.)• It cuts across multiple layers rather than sitting between two of them. That produces more cross-layer boundaries, more tension points, more risks of destructive friction, and more opportunities for constructive turbulence.Key contributors: Data scientists, engineers, service designers, ethicists, product teamsDesign’s role: Designers partner with technical teams on evaluation frameworks, helping define what “good” looks like from a human experience perspective. They contribute to guardrails, monitoring systems, and multi-agent collaboration patterns, ensuring technical capabilities translate to meaningful human experiences. Service design expertise helps orchestrate complex, multi-touchpoint AI capabilities.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Foundation model selection, changes, and fine-tuning. Evals, monitoring systems, guardrails, performance metrics. Business rules, workflow orchestration. Multiagent collaboration and use of external tools (APIs, A2A, MCP, etc.) Continual appraisal and adoption of new tools, protocols, and capabilities.SkeletonPace of change: Moderately slow (months) Focus: Fundamental structure and organizationThis layer establishes the foundational architecture — the core interaction models, information architecture and organizing principles.Key contributors: Information architects, information designers, user researchers, system architects, engineersDesign’s role: Designers with information architecture expertise are important in this layer. They design taxonomies, knowledge graphs, and classification systems that make complex AI capabilities comprehensible and usable. UX researchers help ensure these structures fit the audience’s mental models, contexts, and expectations.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Taxonomies, knowledge graphs, data models, system architecture, classification systems.ScopePace of change: Slow (months to years)Focus: Product requirementsThis layer defines core functional, content, and data requirements, accounting for the probabilistic nature of AI and defining acceptable levels of performance and variance.Key contributors: Product managers, design strategists, design researchers, business stakeholders, data scientists, trust & safety specialistsDesign’s role: Design researchers and strategists contribute to requirements through generative and exploratory research. They help define error taxonomies and acceptable failure modes from a user perspective, informing metrics that capture technical performance and human experience quality. Design strategists balance technical possibilities with human needs and ethical considerations.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Product requirements documents specifying reliability thresholds, data requirements (volume, diversity, quality standards), error taxonomies and acceptable failure modes, performance metrics frameworks, responsible AI requirements, risk assessment, core user stories and journeys, documentation of expected model variance and handling approaches.StrategyPace of change: Very slow (years)Focus: Long-term vision and business goalsThis foundation layer defines audience needs, core problems to solve, and business goals. In AI products, data strategy is central.Key contributors: Executive leadership, design leaders, product leadership, business strategists, ethics boardsDesign’s role: Design leaders define problem spaces, identify opportunities, and plan roadmaps. They deliver a balance of business needs with human values in strategy development. Designers with expertise in responsible AI help establish ethical frameworks and guiding principles that shape all other layers.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Problem space and opportunity assessments, market positioning documents, long-term product roadmaps, comprehensive data strategy planning, user research findings on core needs, ethical frameworks and guiding principles, business model documentation, competitive/cooperative AI ecosystem mapping.Practical examples: tension points between layersTension point example 1: Bookmuse’s timeline troubles(Friction between Sessions and Skin)Bookmuse is a promising new AI tool for novelists. Samantha, a writer, tries it out while hashing out the underpinnings of her latest time-travel historical fiction thriller. The Bookmuse team planned for plenty of Samantha’s needs. At first, she considers Bookmuse a handy assistant. It supplements chats with tailored interactive visualizations that efficiently track character personalities, histories, relationships, and dramatic arcs.But Samantha is writing a story about time travelers interfering with World War I events, so she’s constantly juggling dates and timelines. Bookmuse falls short. It’s a tiny startup, and Luke, the harried cofounder who serves as a combination designer/researcher/product manager, hasn’t carved out any date-specific timeline tools or date calculators. He forgot to provide even a basic date picker in the design system.Problem: Bookmuse does its best to help Samantha with her story timeline (Sessions layer). But it lacks effective tools for the job (Skin layer). Its date and time interactions feel confusing, clumsy, and out of step with the rest of its tone, look, and feel. Whenever Samantha consults the timeline, it breaks her out of her creative flow.Constructive turbulence opportunities:a) Present feedback mechanisms that ensure this sort of “missing piece” event results in the product team learning about the type of interaction pothole that appeared — without revealing details or content that compromise Samantha’ privacy and her work. (For instance, a session tagging system can flag all interaction dead-ends during date choice interactions.)b) Improve timeline/date UI and interaction patterns. Table stakes: Standard industry-best-practice date picker components that suit Bookmuse’s style, tone, and voice. Game changers: Widgets, visualizations, and patterns tailored to the special time-tracking/exploration challenges that fiction writers often wrestle with.c) Update the core usability heuristics and universal interaction design patterns baked into the evaluation frameworks (in the Services layer), as part of regular eval reviews and updates. Result: When the team learns about a friction moment like this, they can prevent a host of future similar issues before they emerge.These improvements will make Bookmuse more resilient and useful.Tension point example 2: MedicalMind’s diagnostic dilemma(Friction between Services and Skeleton)Thousands of healthcare providers use MedicalMind, an AI-powered clinical decision support tool. Dr. Rina Patel, an internal medicine physician at a busy community hospital, relies on it to stay current with rapidly evolving medical research while managing her patient load.Thanks to a groundbreaking update, a MedicalMind AI model (Services layer) is familiar with new medical research data and can recognize newly discovered connections between previously unrelated symptoms across different medical specialties. For example, it identified patterns linking certain dermatological symptoms to early indicators of cardiovascular issues — connections not yet widely recognized in standard medical taxonomies.But MedicalMind’s information architecture (Skeleton layer) was tailored to traditional medical classification systems, so it’s organized by body system, conditions by specialty, and treatments by mechanism of action. The MedicalMind team constructed this structure based on how doctors were traditionally trained to approach medical knowledge.Problem: When Dr. Patel enters a patient’s constellation of symptoms (Sessions layer), MedicalMind’s AI can recognize potentially valuable cross-specialty patterns (Services layer). But these insights can’t be optimally organized and presented because the underlying information architecture (Skeleton layer) doesn’t easily accommodate the new findings and relationships. The AI either forces the insights into ill-fitting categories or presents them as disconnected “additional notes” that tend to be overlooked. That reduces their clinical utility and Dr. Patel’s trust in the system.Constructive turbulence opportunities:a) Create an “emerging patterns” framework within the information architecture (Skeleton layer) that can accommodate new AI-identified patterns in ways that augment, rather than disrupt, the familiar classification systems that doctors rely on.b) Design flexible visualization components and interaction patterns and styles (in the Skin layer) specifically for exploring, discussing, and documenting cross-category relationships. Let doctors toggle between traditional taxonomies and newer, AI-generated knowledge maps depending on their needs and comfort level.c) Implement a clinician feedback loop where specialists can validate and discuss new AI-surfaced relationships, gradually promoting validated patterns into the main classification system.These improvements will make MedicalMind more adaptive to emerging medical knowledge while maintaining the structural integrity that healthcare professionals rely on for critical decisions. This provides more efficient assistants for clinicians and better health for patients.Tension point example 3: ScienceSeeker’s hypothesis bottleneck(Friction between Skin and Services)ScienceSeeker is an AI research assistant used by scientists worldwide. Dr. Elena Rodriguez, a molecular biologist, uses it to investigate protein interactions for targeted cancer drug delivery.The AI engine (Services layer) recently gained the ability to generate sophisticated hypothesis trees with multiple competing explanations, track confidence levels for each branch, and identify which experiments would most efficiently disambiguate between theories. It can reason across scientific domains, connecting molecular biology with physics, chemistry, and computational modeling.But the interface (Skin layer) remains locked in a traditional chatbot paradigm — a single-threaded exchange with responses appearing sequentially in a scrolling window.Problem: The AI engine and the problem space are natively multithreaded and multimodal, but the UI is limited to single-threaded conversation. When Dr. Rodriguez inputs her experimental results (Sessions layer), the AI generates a rich, multidimensional analysis (Services layer), but must flatten this complex reasoning into linear text (Skin layer). Critical relationships between hypotheses become buried in paragraphs, probability comparisons are difficult, and the holistic picture of how variables influence multiple hypotheses is lost. Dr. Rodriguez resorts to taking screenshots and manually drawing diagrams to reconstruct the reasoning that the AI possesses but cannot visually express.Constructive turbulence opportunities:a) Develop an expandable, interactive, infinite-canvas “hypothesis tree” visualization (Skin) that helps the AI dynamically represent multiple competing explanations and their relationships. Scientists can interact with this to explore different branches spatially rather than sequentially.b) Create a dual-pane interface that maintains the chat for simple queries but provides the infinite canvas for complex reasoning, transitioning seamlessly based on response complexity.c) Implement collaborative, interactive node-based diagrams for multi-contributor experiment planning, where potential experiments appear as nodes showing how they would affect confidence in different hypothesis branches.This would transform ScienceSeeker’s limited text assistant into a scientific reasoning partner. It would help researchers visualize and interact with complex possibilities in ways that better fit how they tackle multidimensional problems.Navigating the future with AI Pace LayersAI Pace Layers offers product teams a new framework for seeing and shaping the bewildering structures and dynamics that power AI products.By recognizing the evolving layers and heeding and designing for their boundaries, AI design teams can:Transform tension points into constructive innovationAnticipate friction before it damages the product experienceGrow resilient and humane AI systems that absorb and integrate rapid technological change without losing sight of human needs.The framework’s value isn’t in rigid categorization, but in recognizing how components interact across timescales. For AI product teams, this awareness enables more thoughtful design choices that prevent destructive shearing that can tear apart an AI system.This framework is a work in progress, evolving alongside the AI landscape it describes.I’d love to hear from you, especially if you’ve built successful AI products and have insights on how this model could better reflect your experience. Please drop me a line or add a comment. Let’s develop more effective approaches to creating AI systems that enhance human potential while respecting human agency.Part of the Mindful AI Design series. Also see:The effort paradox in AI design: Why making things too easy can backfireBlack Mirror: “Override”. Dystopian storytelling for humane AI designStay updatedSubscribe to be notified when new articles in the series are published. Join our community of designers, product managers, founders and ethicists as we shape the future of mindful AI design.AI Pace Layers: a framework for resilient product design was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Two Evangelical Christian leaders sent an open letter to President Trump on Wednesday, warning of the dangers of out-of-control artificial intelligence and of automating human labor.The letter comes just weeks after the new Pope, Leo XIV, declared he was concerned with the “defense of human dignity, justice and labor” amid what he described as the “new industrial revolution” spurred by advances in AI.“As people of faith, we believe we should rapidly develop powerful AI tools that help cure diseases and solve practical problems, but not autonomous smarter-than-human machines that nobody knows how to control,” reads the open letter, signed by the Reverends Johnnie Moore and Samuel Rodriguez. “The world is grappling with a new reality because of the pace of the development of this technology, which represents an opportunity of great promise but also of potential peril especially as we approach artificial general intelligence.”Rodriguez, the President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, spoke at Trump’s first presidential inauguration in 2017. Moore, who is also the founder of the public relations firm Kairos, served on Trump’s Evangelical executive board during his first presidential candidacy.The letter is a sign of growing ties between religious and AI safety groups, which share some of the same worries. It was shared with journalists by representatives of the Future of Life Institute—an AI safety organization that campaigns to reduce what it sees as the existential risk posed by advanced AI systems.The world’s biggest tech companies now all believe that it is possible to create so-called “artificial general intelligence”—a form of AI that can do any task better than a human expert. Some researchers have even invoked this technology in religious terms—for example, OpenAI’s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, a mystical figure who famously encouraged colleagues to chant “feel the AGI” at company gatherings. The emerging possibility of AGI presents, in one sense, a profound challenge to many theologies. If we are in a universe where a God-like machine is possible, what space does that leave for God himself?“The spiritual implications of creating intelligence that may one day surpass human capabilities raises profound theological and ethical questions that must be thoughtfully considered with wisdom,” the two Reverends wrote in their open letter to President Trump. “Virtually all religious traditions warn against a world where work is no longer necessary or where human beings can live their lives without any guardrails.”Though couched in adulatory language, the letter presents a vision of AI governance that differs from Trump’s current approach. The president has embraced the framing of the U.S. as in a race with China to get to AGI first, and his AI czar, David Sacks, has warned that regulating the technology would threaten the U.S.’s position in that race. The White House AI team is stacked with advisors who take a dismissive view of alignment risks—or the idea that a smarter-than-human AI might be hostile to humans, escape their control, and cause some kind of catastrophe.“We believe you are the world’s leader now by Divine Providence to also guide AI,” the letter says, addressing Trump, before urging him to consider convening an ethical council to consider not only “what AI can do but also what it should do.”“To be clear: we are not encouraging the United States, and our friends, to do anything but win the AI race,” the letter says. “There is no alternative. We must win. However, we are advising that this victory simply must not be a victory at any cost.”The letter echoes some themes that have increasingly been explored inside the Vatican, not just by Pope Leo XIV but also his predecessor, Pope Francis. Last year, in remarks at an event held at the Vatican about AI, Francis argued that AI must be used to improve, not degrade, human dignity.“Does it serve to satisfy the needs of humanity, to improve the well-being and integral development of people?” he asked. Or does it “serve to enrich and increase the already high power of the few technological giants despite the dangers to humanity?”To some Catholic theologians, AGI is simply the newest incarnation of a long-standing threat to the Church: false idols. “The presumption of substituting God for an artifact of human making is idolatry, a practice Scripture explicitly warns against,” reads a lengthy missive on AI published by the Vatican in January. “AI may prove even more seductive than traditional idols for, unlike idols that ‘have mouths but do not speak; eyes, but do not see; ears, but do not hear’, AI can ‘speak,’ or at least gives the illusion of doing so. Yet, it is vital to remember that AI is but a pale reflection of humanity—it is crafted by human minds, trained on human-generated material, responsive to human input, and sustained through human labor.”