Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have uncovered a new genus and five new species of millipedes in remote African jungles – and say the many-legged creatures could hold important clues to whether woody vines are choking or protecting the world’s forests.

University of the Sunshine Coast Professor Andy Marshall said they found the millipedes – with heads that look somewhat like Star Wars characters – among forest litter and loose soil while researching tree and vine growth in the Tanzania’s remote Udzungwa Mountains.

The new genus and species were officially described recently in the European Journal of Taxonomy in a paper titled “A mountain of millipedes,” with six international collaborators including lead author Professor Henrik Enghoff of the University of Copenhagen.

A 280-million-year-old fossil that has baffled researchers for decades has been shown to be—in part—a forgery, following new examination of the remnants.

The discovery has led the team, headed by Dr. Valentina Rossi of University College Cork, Ireland (UCC) to urge caution in how the fossil is used in future research.

Tridentinosaurus antiquus was discovered in the Italian Alps in 1931 and was thought to be an important specimen for understanding early reptile evolution. Its body outline, appearing dark against the surrounding rock, was initially interpreted as preserved soft tissues. This led to its classification as a member of the reptile group Protorosauria.

HONG KONG — Organizers of the Hugo Awards, one of the most prominent literary awards in science fiction, excluded multiple authors from shortlists last year over concerns their work or public comments could be offensive to China, leaked emails show.

Questions had been raised as to why writers including Neil Gaiman, R.F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao and Paul Weimer had been deemed ineligible as finalists despite earning enough votes according to information published last month by awards organizers. Emails released this week revealed that they were concerned about how some authors might be perceived in China, where the Hugo Awards were held last year for the first time.

Adding what seems like too many protons to a nucleus can increase one measure of its stability.

Understanding the causes of nuclear instability is essential for studies of the astrophysical processes that create new elements. The key determinant of a nucleus’s stability is the ratio of the number of neutrons to the number of protons it contains. For many heavy nuclei, if this ratio is far from 1.5, the nucleus is unstable. But even a nucleus with a ratio well below 1.5 (a “proton-rich” nucleus) can gain stability from another effect—having a “magic” number of protons or neutrons. Now researchers have shown that such stability can increase for a proton-rich nucleus as more protons are added in [1]. The results support the idea of an “island of stability”—potentially stable nuclei having combinations of proton and neutron numbers much different from those that are known.

According to experiments on proton-rich nuclei that contain around 126 neutrons, a magic number, the magic-number-induced stability fades as more protons are added. That’s because the higher proton number eventually renders the nucleus unstable. To see if the same behavior occurs for nuclei that contain around 82 neutrons, another magic number, Huabin Yang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues studied osmium-160. This nucleus contains 84 neutrons and 76 protons, more protons than any other 84-neutron nucleus.

Laser-generated nucleosynthesis remains out of reach of present-day technology—but more powerful lasers could eventually make it possible.

Scientists use attosecond X-ray pulses to freeze atomic motion. Discover the immediate electronic response to X-rays on matter.

Shared with Dropbox.

TikTok today announced that it has released an app for Apple’s Vision Pro headset. The app is optimized for visionOS’s spatial design style, with TikTok promising a more “immersive” viewing experience for its short-form videos.

“Experience your For You feed in an entirely new way through this immersive content view,” said TikTok, in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The app has a familiar layout on the Vision Pro, with a main “For You” video feed, along with profiles, comments, search, and more. TikTok is available now on the Vision Pro’s App Store, and additional images of the app can be found below.

Ford is open to partnering with the competition on affordable EVS to get a leg up on Chinese EV makers. Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, said if you cannot compete with the Chinese, “then 20% to 30%” of your revenue is at risk.

Speaking at a Wolfe Research conference Wednesday, Farley explained, “As the CEO of a company that had trouble competing with the Japanese and the South Koreans, we have to fix this problem.”

Ford’s leader explained that the company “decided pretty quickly to bet on smaller EV platform.” He said since the middle of 2023, “We have assumed that we have to basically sell an EV at a hybrid premium. There is no more money for customers than that.”