>Using the world's most advanced radio telescopes, astronomers have discovered a spinning dead star so rare, strange and unique that they have dubbed it a "cosmic unicorn." The unique properties of this object, CHIME J1634+44, challenge our current understanding of spinning dead stars and their environments. > >CHIME J1634+44, also known as ILT J163430+445010 (J1634+44), is part of a class of objects called Long Period Radio Transients (LPTs). LPTs are a newly found and mysterious type of celestial body that emits bursts of radio waves that repeat on timescales of minutes to hours. That's significantly longer than the emission of standard pulsars, or rapidly spinning neutron star stellar remains that sweep beams of radiation across the cosmos as they spin. > >But as strange as all LPTs are, CHIME J1634+44 still stands out. Not only is it the brightest LPT ever seen, but it is also the most polarized. Additionally, its pulses of radiation seem highly choreographed. And what really stands out about CHIME J1634+44 is the fact that it is the only LPT astronomers have ever seen whose spin is speeding up.

>Golden oyster mushrooms, with their sunny yellow caps and nutty flavor, have become wildly popular for being healthy, delicious and easy to grow at home from mushroom kits. > >But this food craze has also unleashed an invasive species into the wild, and new research shows it’s pushing out native fungi. > >In a study we believe is the first of its kind, fellow mycologists and I demonstrate that an invasive fungus can cause environmental harm, just as invasive plants and animals can when they take over ecosystems.

>One of the last wild zones on the planet, the sea floor is a coveted frontier for companies and countries eager to access minerals that are in high demand for emerging technologies such as electric cars. > >Particularly coveted are potato-sized nodules containing cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese, that are found in abundance on the seabed in the central Pacific Ocean. > >Companies eager to vacuum up these polymetallic nodules say they can do it with minimal risk to the deep-sea environment. > >But ocean defenders have battled against what they see as the advent of an industry that will threaten isolated ecosystems that are not yet well understood. > >That threat was underscored by European scientists who presented findings this week on the sidelines of a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica of the International Seabed Authority, which is trying to finalize future rules for seabed mining.

>The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, is due to challenge the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) in the High Court of Justice in London on July 22 and 23. It wants to challenge the categorization regulations that would classify Wikipedia as a Category 1 service, which was designed for large, commercial social media platforms in mind, not volunteer, non-profit encyclopedias.

>Yongjin is a struggling orphan–a blunt realist with no time or money to spare on superstitious nonsense. But on his 16th birthday, he finds his life taking a dramatic turn when his classmate Huisu, whom he had never interacted with before, suddenly asks to be his girlfriend. For the first time, Yongjin isn’t alone–but his new company isn’t exactly the kind he had always wished for, as he finds himself being chased by spirits instead! Though this wasn’t quite the sweet sixteen he had in mind, Yongjin must now navigate through a new world he never thought existed.

tags : Fantasy, Supernatural, Horror, Ghost, Thriller, Action, Martial Arts, School Life, Romance

Episode 45

>Gastrointestinal cancers, which include colorectal, stomach and pancreatic cancer, are rising dramatically in younger adults, though doctors aren’t fully sure why. Even some of the possible causes require more research, they say. > >According to a review published Thursday in JAMA, gastrointestinal cancers have become the fastest-growing type of cancers diagnosed in adults younger than 50 in the U.S. > >The review, one of the most comprehensive looks at gastrointestinal cancer trends, summarized the findings of major international and U.S. cancer databases, plus 115 papers on gastrointestinal cancers published from January 2014 to March 2025.

>CBS says its decision to end Stephen Colbert’s late-night comedy show is financial, not political. Yet even with the ample skepticism about that explanation, there’s no denying the economics were not working in Colbert’s favor. > >Trump, who has called in the past for CBS to terminate Colbert’s contract, celebrated the show’s upcoming demise. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “His talent was even less than his ratings". > >As recently as 2018, broadcast networks took in an estimated $439 million in advertising revenue for its late-night programs, according to the advertising firm Guidelines. Last year, that number dwindled to $220 million. > >Late-night TV was a particular draw for young men, considered the hardest-to-get and most valuable demographic for advertisers. Increasingly, these viewers are turning to streaming services, either to watch something else entirely or catch highlights of the late-night shows, which are more difficult for the networks to monetize.

>Around the beginning of last year, Matthew Prince started receiving worried calls from the bosses of big media companies. They told Mr Prince, whose firm, Cloudflare, provides security infrastructure to about a fifth of the web, that they faced a grave new online threat. “I said, ‘What, is it the North Koreans?’,” he recalls. “And they said, ‘No. It’s AI’.” > >Those executives had spotted the early signs of a trend that has since become clear: artificial intelligence is transforming the way that people navigate the web. As users pose their queries to chatbots rather than conventional search engines, they are given answers, rather than links to follow. The result is that “content” publishers, from news providers and online forums to reference sites such as Wikipedia, are seeing alarming drops in their traffic. > >As AI changes how people browse, it is altering the economic bargain at the heart of the internet. Human traffic has long been monetised using online advertising; now that traffic is drying up. Content producers are urgently trying to find new ways to make AI companies pay them for information. If they cannot, the open web may evolve into something very different.

Archive : https://archive.ph/nhrYS

>Hyeseong, a boy living on a remote island, and Yunhae, a mysterious mermaid, become each other's only friend. But soon after they meet, they're separated after Hyeseong moves away. Six years later, Yunhae develops a mysterious power and finds Hyeseong again. Unfortunately, too much has changed, and Hyeseong can no longer dedicate all his time to her as he did in their childhood. He tells her they are too different, but Yunhae's attachment to Hyeseong slowly transforms into an obsession.

Warning the story may contains depictions of self harm, murder, child abuse that may be upsetting to some readers

tags : Fantasy, School life, Thriller, Romance, Monster Girls

Episode 47

>The border wall between the US and Mexico is, of course, a barrier meant to prevent human migrants from crossing into America as they seek work, family, or refuge from violence. > >It’s also a significant barrier to ranging wildlife. > >The border wall, a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s agenda, cuts through a rugged, unique ecosystem home to hundreds of native species, from jaguars and pumas to black bears and deer. These animals often need to move to survive, whether to find a source of water or a mate. > >We know the wall is impassable for many species, potentially lowering their chance of survival. How exactly the border affects this rich ecosystem, however, has largely been a mystery. > >A new study, among the first of its kind, finally offers some answers — by essentially spying on animals near the border. For the research, ecologist and lead author Ganesh Marín, then a doctoral researcher at the University of Arizona, set up 85 motion-sensing cameras in northeastern Sonora, Mexico, along and south of the US border in Arizona and New Mexico. Throughout the course of the research, when animals walked by, the cameras began recording.

>Beneath the epic tales of heroes and gods, Troy’s true story is written in something far less glamorous – its rubbish. > >When we think of Troy, we imagine epic battles, valiant deeds, cunning tricks and the wrath of gods. Thanks to Homer’s Iliad, the city is remembered as a stage for romance and heroism. > >But long before Paris stole Helen and Achilles raged on the battlefield, the people of bronze age Troy lived ordinary lives – with extraordinary consequences. They built, cooked, stored, traded and, crucially, threw things away. And they did it right where they lived. > >Today, waste is whisked away quickly – out of sight, out of mind. But in bronze age Troy (3000–1000BC), trash stayed close, often accumulating in domestic dumping grounds for generations. > >Far from a nuisance, Troy’s waste is an archaeologist’s treasure trove. > >Over nearly 2,000 years, Troy ended up with 15 meters of built-up debris. Archaeologists can see nine major building phases in it, each made up of hundreds of thin layers, which formed as people lived their everyday lives. These layers act like snapshots, quietly recording how the city changed over time. Some capture hearth cleanings, others record the rebuilding of entire city quarters.

>A first-of-its-kind video showing the ground cracking during a major earthquake is even more remarkable than previously thought. It not only captures a ground motion never caught on video before but also shows the crack curving as it moves. > >This curvy movement has been inferred from the geological record and from "slickenlines" — scrape marks on the sides of faults — but it had never been seen in action, geophysicist Jesse Kearse, a postdoctoral researcher currently at Kyoto University in Japan, said in a statement. > >"Instead of things moving straight across the video screen, they moved along a curved path that has a convexity downwards, which instantly started bells ringing in my head," Kearse said, "because some of my previous research has been specifically on curvature of fault slip, but from the geological record."

>Up until a disastrous day earlier this month, more than 150 trucks crossed daily over a border bridge between Nepal and China. Known by locals as the Miteri Pul (Friendship Bridge), the Rasuwagadhi crossing served as the main trade route between the two countries, with over $50m of goods passing over it last year alone. > >But on the 8 July, floodwaters tore through northern Nepal’s Rasuwa district, sweeping away parts of this critical border highway. According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction & Management Authority, seven people lost their lives, and 20 were missing, including six Chinese nationals. > >The Chinese nationals were working on a 200 megawatt hydro project in the Tirsuli River, which was also damaged by the floods. Initial estimates suggest Nepal has sustained losses of over $100m in the incident as a whole. > >Scientists have determined that the cause was an outburst from a glacial lake. According to Jakob Steiner, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Graz (Austria), and Amrit Thapa, a PhD student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the glacial lake had formed in March, approximately 35km upstream from the border inside Chinese territory. > >Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have become increasingly common in Nepal, driven by rapid warming in the Himalayas. Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology reports that temperatures in the Himalayan region have increased by 0.42C per decade between 2008 and 2018 – nearly double the global average. > >Nepal lost 24 per cent of its glaciers due to global warming between 1977 and 2010, the most recent data available, contributing to a substantial decline in freshwater reserves in the Himalayas. In the Himalayan region, the number of glacial lakes and their area are rapidly increasing.

>LibreOffice has been on the offensive lately, taking the time to call out Microsoft and its practices whenever it can. Now, it is at it again, accusing Microsoft of "intentionally" using "unnecessarily complex" file formats to achieve user lock-in with its Microsoft 365 (Office) documents. > >For those who don't know, XML is a markup language that programs like Microsoft 365 and LibreOffice use to structure and define documents. > >As LibreOffice puts it: > >An XML schema comprises the structure, data types and rules of an XML document and is described in an XML Schema Definition (XSD) file. This tells the PC what to expect and checks that the data follows the rules. In theory, XML and XSD together form the basis of the concept of interoperability. > >The two office suites take very different paths here. LibreOffice uses the OpenDocument Format (ODF), an open standard meant to be controlled by no single company. This format gives us files like .odt for text and .ods for spreadsheets. > >Microsoft, on the other hand, created its own Office Open XML (OOXML) to support every feature in its own software, giving us the familiar .docx and .xlsx. What's interesting is that both formats are really just ZIP archives. The easiest way to verify this is to take a .docx file, rename it to .zip, and decompress it. This will show you the guts of a Microsoft 365 document. > >As LibreOffice notes, XML is supposed to function as "a bridge," but Microsoft is weaponizing its own schema by making it so "complex that it becomes a barrier rather than a bridge." LibreOffice compares it to a railway system where the tracks are public, but one company's control system is so convoluted that no one else can build a compatible train, making it almost impossible for others to compete. Passengers don't realise they are being held hostage by these technical hurdles.

>In the 19th century, the golden age of medicine was ushered in by the introduction of anesthesia. An ambitious doctor named Hutson began practicing medicine at a rural hospital called Canbury at the recommendation of a professor. One day, Hutson found a patient in the forest whose entire body was burned. However, as he examined the patient, strange situations began to unfold that he could not explain with his medical knowledge.

Warning this series contains horror themes related to the depiction of dismembered bodies. Some readers will find these disturbing and those who want to read will need to tread carefully.

tags : Mature, Medical, Mystery, Thriller, Supernatural, Zombie, Horror, Gore

Chapter 10 Part 2

>While some creators are happy to see the growing capabilities of generative AI products like ChatGPT and Gemini, others are opposed to using AI tech, afraid that the AI could replace them. The movie industry is the best example of that. There’s concern that AI might take over jobs or alter performances, especially now that it’s more sophisticated than ever. > >Products like Google’s Veo 3 can create lifelike video sequences that include dialogue and sound. With enough money and time, you could use such tools to make a full movie without hiring real actors or a production team. > >Veo 3 isn’t the only advanced AI video generation tool out there, but it’s a good example of what’s possible today. And Google’s AI tech has already been used in at least one movie. Google said so a few months ago. > >Fast-forward to mid-July, and Netflix confirmed that it used unnamed generative AI tools to create special effects for a widely acclaimed new TV show that became a monster hit earlier this year. The revelation came during Netflix’s quarterly earnings report, where the streamer reported a 16% rise in revenue for the June quarter.

>Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos sees generative artificial intelligence tools expanding creativity during the making of movies and TV series and not just being a cost-cutting option for studios. > >“We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper,” Sarandos told financial analysts on Thursday after his company delivered its second quarter financial results. > >“So this is real people doing real work with better tools. Our creators are already seeing the benefits in production through pre-visualization and shot planning work, and certainly visual effects,” he added. > >And not just on bigger budget projects. Sarandos pointed to El Eternauta (The Eternaut), an Argentine sci-fi series that follows survivors of a sudden and devastating toxic snowfall and which made use of virtual production and AI-powered visual effects tools. > >In the first-ever generative AI footage to stream as part of a Netflix original series or film, Sarandos said Netflix and Argentinian VFX artists collaborated to show a building collapsing in Buenos Aires.