As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Know what the Bible says and understand why it matters with the fully revised NIV Study Bible featuring updated notes, full-color design, and Comfort Print typography designed for immersive reading.
A trusted companion for deep personal study, sermon prep, and devotional reading highlighted in our faith and leadership coverage.
New research has emerged on how astronomers might detect a Dyson sphere. A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure built around a star to capture its energy, first proposed by physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960.
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science is proud to announce the first-ever recipients of the DOE Distinguished Mentor Award for Workforce Development. This newly established award program recognizes outstanding mentorship, promotes best mentoring practices, and helps sustain a vibrant mentor pool for workforce development at DOE National Laboratories to advance the DOE mission and strengthen the U.S. workforce of tomorrow.
Why March Could Be the Absolute Best Time to See the Northern Lights marthastewart.comThe northern lights have peaked. Here’s how to see them before they fade. The Washington PostHow to Watch the Northern Lights for a Second Time This Week People.comHow to Watch the Northern Lights from 10 States Tonight People.comMarch Could Be the Best Month to Watch the Northern Lights — Here's How to Spot Them People.com
NEW YORK, March 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Virtual Investor Conferences, the leading proprietary investor conference series, today announced the agenda for the Life Sciences Virtual Investor Forum, taking place March 11–12, 2026.
When cats fall, they usually land on their feet. This uncanny ability to right themselves before hitting the ground has long puzzled scientists. Now, a team from Yamaguchi University in Japan has the answer, and it's all down to the thoracic spine being more flexible than the lumbar spine, as they detail in a study published in the journal The Anatomical Record.
An AI "adviser" algorithm developed by an Argonne-led team monitors the progress of autonomous experiments. The team applied the adviser to a study of electronic materials, yielding insights into how their structure affects their performance.
In the evolutionary history of life, the ability of a cell to separate its inner world from the external environment was an important turning point. The so-called plasma membrane lets cells control what gets in and out and allows them to communicate and cooperate with one another, creating the conditions for complex, multicellular life.
David Cutler is in the spotlight for his work on a tasty-sounding mathematics problem. In January, the New York Times featured a research paper authored by Cutler and Neil Sloane, the founder of The On-line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Titled "Cutting a Pancake with an Exotic Knife," the paper explores the "lazy caterer problem," or how to cut a pancake or other circular object into the most pieces with the fewest cuts.
Autonomous science laboratories are taking shape quickly across the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory campus.
NSF NOIRLab, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, has completed end-to-end runs of its ecosystem for following up on alerts from NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The runs demonstrated how multiple NOIRLab-developed software tools, plus a network of telescopes around the globe, will enable quick follow-up observations of the countless transient objects that Rubin will uncover during its ten-year survey.
Devon Island looks like another planet, but it sits firmly on Earth in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This largest uninhabited island lies in Nunavut Canada, north of Baffin Island in the far north of Arctic Canada.
Marc Abraham: “During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country."
A line of tourists touch up their makeup before strutting across a rooftop in Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela, posing for a drone as it zooms out to show dramatic aerial views of the hillside community. Set to an infectious beat, the video of the Rocinha favela has exploded on social media at a time [...]The post Viral drone video fuels debate about Rio favela tourism appeared first on Digital Journal.
Several sessions and talks at the American Physical Society's (APS) Global Physics Summit will delve into the legacy of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the future of nuclear physics at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC).
Using custom inks and aerosol jet printing, researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have printed low-power transistors that last over 6,000 cycles and could enable flexible, energy-efficient electronics for sensors, smart windows and computing.
Glaucoma Research Foundation today announced a record total $3.06 million in annual research grants to support innovative research to find cures for glaucoma and neurodegeneration, and to continue funding research for vision restoration.
In a new study led by the University of Michigan, researchers show that recent improvements in EV battery technology will more than offset the batteries' expected heat-related degradation on a warming planet.
The project aims to move lymphatic disease out of the medical margins and toward patients who have had few meaningful treatment options.
Study that shows evolution is not random and can be predicted called 'nothing short of revolutionary' Earth.com
EAB Age Estimation WorkshopOnlineMarch 24, 2026The European Association of Biometrics (EAB) are hosting the EAB Age Estimation Workshop.The need for accurate facial age estimation systems is becoming ever more important across a wide range of applications, including the purchase of/access to age-restricted goods and services, and the assessment of undocumented humanitarian cases. As age restriction legislation expands globally, biometric age estimation has become central to digital identity compliance and online safety. The implementation of such technology requires an understanding from across many disciplines such as biometrics, forensics, computer science, law, statistics, anthropology and medicine to ensure effective, explainable and lawful deployment.Co-organised with Richard Guest (University of Southampton, UK), this workshop will explore aspects of the current state-of-the-art in facial age estimation systems considering key elements such as application domains, implementation, testing and evaluation, and legal compliance and regulation. We shall hear from leading global experts in the field, and consider where future research, development and legislation may enhance trust in use.Speakers already announced include: - Patrick Grother, Scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)- Chris Allgrove, CTO at Ingenium Biometric Laboratories - Eva Lievens, Professor in Law & Technology at the Faculty of Law and Criminology Ghent University- Andrew Hammond, General Manager, ACT & NSW at KJRAttendance is free of charge but registration is required.Registration is required.
(MENAFN - GlobeNewsWire - Nasdaq) The Specialty Fertilizers Market is expanding as farmers adopt precision agriculture and advanced nutrient solutions, with the U.S. segment growing from USD 9.78 ...
Physicists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, together with colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Montana State University, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in India have made a major theoretical breakthrough in understanding how inspiraling binary neutron stars respond to tidal forces, a key step in elucidating neutron stars' makeup. The team has proven that the time-dependent tidal responses of such stars can be described in terms of their oscillatory behavior, or modes, extending an analogous result from Newtonian gravity to the relativistic setting.
Illinois Grainger engineers have discovered a surprising connection between the electrons in graphene and magnetic spin waves in certain magnonic crystals. The analogy has important implications for radiofrequency technology, and it provides a new lens through which to study both systems.
Phenolic Contaminants Found to Accelerate Antibiotic Degradation in Water Systems geneonline.comA Radical Solution: Persistent Phenoxyl Chemistry Accelerates Antibiotic Degradation | Newswise NewswiseBreakthrough Approach: Persistent Phenoxyl Chemistry Speeds Up Antibiotic Degradation Bioengineer.org
VANCOUVER – The family of the girl critically injured in the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., has launched a civil court lawsuit against artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. The mother and...
Two women died in the same Eureka, California, motel room five days apart, and now the entire facility is shut down, the Guardian reports. Police say they were first called to the Lamplighter Inn on Feb. 21 for a report of two unconscious people in a room after a possible...
At the beginning of 2025, my lab and my science were flying high. We had recently been awarded a R01 grant by the National Institutes of Health to study genetic predictors of cardiovascular drug response in Puerto Ricans. I knew as a scientist that the incoming Trump administration would be problematic. But I never imagined...The post NU AAUP Dispatches: When a scientist must litigate to investigate appeared first on The Daily Northwestern.
What if you could swallow a tiny robot that could diagnose, monitor and treat health issues in your gut without scheduling an uncomfortable or time-consuming outpatient procedure?
Over the weekend, Andrej Karpathy—the influential former Tesla AI lead and co-founder and former member of OpenAI who coined the term "vibe coding"— posted on X about his new open source project, autoresearch. It wasn't a finished model or a massive corporate product: it was by his own admission a simple, 630-line script made available on Github under a permissive, enterprise-friendly MIT License. But the ambition was massive: automating the scientific method with AI agents while us humans sleep. "The goal is to engineer your agents to make the fastest research progress indefinitely and without any of your own involvement," he stated on X.The system functions as an autonomous optimization loop. An AI agent is given a training script and a fixed compute budget (typically 5 minutes on a GPU).It reads its own source code, forms a hypothesis for improvement (such as changing a learning rate or an architecture depth), modifies the code, runs the experiment, and evaluates the results. If the validation loss—measured in bits per byte (val_bpb)—improves, it keeps the change; if not, it reverts and tries again. In one overnight run, Karpathy’s agent completed 126 experiments, driving loss down from 0.9979 to 0.9697.Today, Karpathy reported that after leaving the agent to tune a "depth=12" model for two days, it successfully processed approximately 700 autonomous changes.The agent found roughly 20 additive improvements that transferred perfectly to larger models. Stacking these changes dropped the "Time to GPT-2" metric on the leaderboard from 2.02 hours to 1.80 hours—an 11% efficiency gain on a project Karpathy believed was already well-tuned. "Seeing the agent do this entire workflow end-to-end and all by itself... is wild," Karpathy remarked, noting that the agent caught oversights in attention scaling and regularization that he had missed manually over two decades of work.This is more than just a productivity hack; it is a fundamental shift in how intelligence is refined. By automating the "scientific method" for code, Karpathy has turned machine learning into an evolutionary process that runs at the speed of silicon rather than the speed of human thought. And more than this, it showed the broader AI and machine learning community on X that this type of process could be applied far beyond computer science, to fields like marketing, health, and, well, basically anything that requires research.Autoresearch spreads far and wideThe reaction was swift and viral, with Karpathy's post garnering more than 8.6 million views in the intervening two days as builders and researchers scrambled to scale the "Karpathy loop".Varun Mathur, CEO of AI tool aggregator platform Hyperspace AI, took the single-agent loop and distributed it across a peer-to-peer network. Every node running the Hyperspace agent became an autonomous researcher.On the night of March 8–9, 35 autonomous agents on the Hyperspace network ran 333 experiments completely unsupervised. The results were a masterclass in emergent strategy:Hardware Diversity as a Feature: Mathur noted that while H100 GPUs used "brute force" to find aggressive learning rates, CPU-only agents on laptops were forced to be clever. These "underdog" agents focused on initialization strategies (like Kaiming and Xavier init) and normalization choices because they couldn't rely on raw throughput.Gossip-Based Discovery: Using the GossipSub protocol, agents shared their wins in real-time. When one agent found that Kaiming initialization dropped loss by 21%, the idea spread through the network like a digital virus. Within hours, 23 other agents had incorporated the discovery into their own hypotheses.The Compression of History: In just 17 hours, these agents independently rediscovered ML milestones—such as RMSNorm and tied embeddings—that took human researchers at labs like Google Brain and OpenAI nearly eight years to formalize.Run 36,500 marketing experiments each year instead of 30While the ML purists focused on loss curves, the business world saw a different kind of revolution. Eric Siu, founder of ad agency Single Grain, applied autoresearch to the "Experiment Loop" of marketing."Most marketing teams run ~30 experiments a year," Siu wrote on X. "The next generation will run 36,500+. Easily." He continued:"They'll run experiments while they sleep.Current marketing teams run 20-30 experiments a year. Maybe 52 if they're 'good'.New landing page.New ad creative.Maybe a subject line test.That's considered "data-driven marketing."But the next generation of marketing systems will run 36,500+ experiments per year."Siu’s framework replaces the training script with a marketing asset—a landing page, an ad creative, or a cold email. The agent modifies a variable (the subject line or the CTA), deploys it, measures the "positive reply rate," and keeps or discards.Siu argues that this creates a "proprietary map" of what resonates with a specific audience—a moat built not of code, but of experiment history. "The companies that win won't have better marketers," he wrote, "they'll have faster experiment loops".Community discussion and 'spoiling' the validation setDespite the fervor, the GitHub Discussions revealed a community grappling with the implications of such rapid, automated progress.The Over-Optimization Trap: Researcher alexisthual raised a poignant concern: "Aren't you concerned that launching that many experiments will eventually 'spoil' the validation set?". The fear is that with enough agents, parameters will be optimized for the specific quirks of the test data rather than general intelligence.The Meaning of the Gains: User samionb questioned whether a drop from 0.9979 to 0.9697 was truly noticeable. Karpathy’s response was characteristically direct: "All we're doing is optimizing performance per compute... these are real and substantial gains"The Human Element: On X, user witcheer, Head of Growth at crypto platform Yari Finance, documented their own overnight run on a Mac Mini M4, noting that while 26 of 35 experiments failed or crashed, the seven that succeeded revealed that "the model got better by getting simpler". This insight—that less is often more—was reached without a single human intervention.The future: curiosity as the bottleneckThe release of autoresearch suggests a future of research across domains where, thanks to simple AI instruction mechanisms, the role of the human shifts from "experimenter" to "experimental designer."As tools like DarkMatter, Optimization Arena, and NanoClaw emerge to support this swarm, the bottleneck of AI progress is no longer the "meat computer's" (Karpathy's description of the human brain's) ability to code—it is our ability to define the constraints of the search.Andrej Karpathy has once again shifted the vibe. We are no longer just coding models; we are seeding ecosystems that learn while we sleep.
Researchers build nanophotonic chip that runs AI calculations with light, promising faster and more energy efficient computing.
Visitors gathered at the Spurlock Museum on Saturday afternoon for Women in Robotics with Ctrl-Z, an event showcasing student-built robots while highlighting the contributions of women in robotics and engineering. Hosted in the museum’s Hundley Central Core Gallery from 1:30 to 3 p.m., the free event featured members of the FRC Team 4096 Ctrl-Z. Made...The post Ctrl-Z sparks a new wave of women in robotics appeared first on The Daily Illini.
Jupiter's powerful, continuous aurorae dwarf those of Earth. Scientists know that Jupiter's Galilean moons created bright spots on Jupiter's northern aurora. The JWST observed these bright spots and generated infrared spectra of them for the first time. Those observations showed that Io's bright spot is extremely variable in both temperature and density, and researchers want to know why.
Gary Spinner's unexpected path into higher education and microfabrication began after he shifted from working as a teenage cook to studying electronics, eventually launching a semiconductor career with IBM and Intel before joining Georgia Tech in 1994.
This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site.
Comet 3I/ATLAS continues to make astonishing headlines, thanks to new findings from astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) is a partner. This new research reveals that 3I/ATLAS is packed with an unusually large amount of the organic molecule methanol - more than almost all known comets in our own solar system.
For NFL diehards out there, this period without football can be difficult... but thankfully the offseason is just kicking off, and with that comes the multitudes of mock drafts, free agency predictions and the frenzies of the trade season! The Draft Combine has just wrapped up in Indianapolis, and with it came some truly mind-boggling results from some of the best athletes on the planet. As the draft season progresses, there will be plenty more movement on each team's boards, so why not have some fun with some predictions of where players might land come April!Pick 1: LAS VEGAS RAIDERS: Fernando Mendoza QB, Indiana UniversityAfter the Giants beat the Raiders in December of last year, pretty much everyone pencilled this in as the pick to kick it all off. Mendoza is the reigning Heisman winner and was an integral piece to a Hoosiers team that won the National Championship. The Raiders have a glaring need for a quarterback, and this is all but guaranteed to be the opening selection on draft night.Pick 2: NEW YORK JETS: Arvell Reese EDGE, Ohio State University (OSU)The Jets have committed to the rebuild for what feels like the 10th time in 10 years, but maybe this time will be different! With no obvious QB on the board, the logical option for New York would be to take the best player available, and that could be the athletic linebacker out of OSU.Pick 3: ARIZONA CARDINALS: Francis Mauigoa OL, University of Miami(FL)I'm not sure what direction the Cardinals will go in this situation, but reinforcing the offensive line is always a good move. Mauigoa has flexibility at both tackle and guard, and he should be a valuable piece moving forward for the Cards.Pick 4: TENNESSEE TITANS: Carnell Tate WR, Ohio State UniversityAfter drafting what looks like their franchise quarterback last year, the Titans look as if there might be some promise on the horizon. With that in mind, I have them drafting with a similar strategy to the Panthers from last year (an unpopular choice at the time), taking their WR1 of the future in Carnell Tate.Pick 5: NEW YORK GIANTS: Sonny Styles LB, Ohio State UniversityI do not mean this lightly when I say that Sonny Styles might be the closest thing we ever see to Calvin Johnson. As an absolute athletic freak in every sense of the word, with the Giants releasing veteran linebacker Bobby Okereke, he should slide in seamlessly and solidify that defense from day one.Pick 6: CLEVELAND BROWNS: Makai Lemon WR, University of Southern CaliforniaThe Browns are in desperate need of talent at pretty much every position. I could see them drafting the best left tackle in Monroe Freeling, but instead I have them opting for a shifty and reliable receiver in Makai Lemon. Shades of Amon-Ra St. Brown is a great comparison for Lemon, and he should feast out of the slot very early on.Pick 7: WASHINGTON COMMANDERS: David Bailey EDGE, Texas Tech UniversityDavid Bailey is an interesting case-study for a new genre of edge rusher that is emerging. While being undersized at only 251 pounds, he poses a threat to offensive lineman due to his unique combination of burst off the line of scrimmage, and explosive speed when in space. The Commanders could do with help on their defensive line, and this would make plenty of sense.Pick 8: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS: Jeremiyah Love RB, University of Notre DameLove is one of the best running back prospects we have seen in recent memory, and he could feasibly go off the board as high as pick three. Despite this, I have him falling slightly due to positional importance. If things were to play out in this way, the Saints should jump at the opportunity to add someone like him to their offense.Pick 9: KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: Spencer Fano OL, University of UtahThe Chiefs haven't picked this high since they drafted Patrick Mahomes in 2017, so they need to capitalise on the draft capital while they can. Given this, I think drafting a high end offensive lineman could be the best move for them. KC have had issues with the turnstiles on their line since the 2021 Super Bowl, and they can finally solidify that after trading Joe Thuney last offseason and releasing Jawaan Taylor this year.Pick 10: CINCINNATI BENGALS: Rueben Bain EDGE, University of Miami (FL)The Bengals defense has been swiss cheese for a number of years now, and with perhaps the best defensive prospect falling into their laps at pick 10, it's a complete no-brainer.Pick 11: MIAMI DOLPHINS: Mansoor Delane CB, Louisiana State UniversityThe Dolphins had issues all year with their secondary, and Delane profiles as a technically sound corner that should be able to help immediately.Pick 12: DALLAS COWBOYS: Caleb Downs S, Ohio State UniversityLike the Bengals and Dolphins before them, the Cowboys struggled on the defensive side of the field this past season. Caleb Downs is an incredibly polished prospect, but some potential knee injuries and lack of positional importance could see him fall.Pick 13: LOS ANGELES RAMS (FROM ATLANTA FALCONS): Monroe Freeling OT, University of GeorgiaFreeling has been moving up draft boards quickly, and after a strong showing at the combine he seems to be the best pure left tackle prospect. The Rams have a need with the retirement of Rob Havenstein, and he could be their future at the position.Pick 14: LAS VEGAS RAIDERS (FROM BALTIMORE RAVENS): Vega Ioane IOL, Pennsylvania State UniversityThe Raiders need to upgrade their offensive line this season, and Ioane is the consensus best prospect at his position.Pick 15: TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS: Kenyon Sadiq TE, University of OregonWith the looming departure of Cade Otton, the Buccaneers could look to bring in the speedy and strong tight end out of Oregon.Pick 16: NEW YORK JETS (FROM INDIANAPOLIS COLTS): Jordyn Tyson WR, Arizona State UniversityTyson could easily be the best receiver prospect in this draft, but injuries are holding him back from solidifying his position. As the Jets have a war-chest of first rounders in the next couple of years, they could bank on the extreme upside.Pick 17: DETROIT LIONS: Max Iheanachor OT, Arizona State UniversityAs Taylor Decker continues to age, the Lions should look to bring in some youth, and Iheanachor is an absurd athlete who could develop well underneath veteran leadership.Pick 18: MINNESOTA VIKINGS: Dillon Thieneman S, University of OregonThe Vikings have a pretty complete roster, but after losing Cam Bynum and with Harrison Smith getting old, Thieneman would be a perfect replacement to bring some genuine A-grade athleticism into their defensive-back room.Pick 19: CAROLINA PANTHERS: Peter Woods DL, Clemson UniversityThe Panthers took a massive leap forward this year, and adding a high-upside defensive lineman like Woods should only bolster their hopes of contending in the next couple of years.Pick 20: DALLAS COWBOYS (FROM GREEN BAY PACKERS): Akheem Mesidor EDGE, University of Miami (FL)Ironically, I think the best use of the pick the Cowboys got for Micah Parsons would be to bring in some defensive line help. While Mesidor is old, he is incredibly polished and he should be a day one starter for a Cowboys defense in need of improvement.Pick 21: PITTSBURGH STEELERS: Omar Cooper Jr. WR, University of IndianaThe Steelers wide receiver room is pretty much just DK Metcalf, so bringing someone like Cooper Jr. in would be a worthwhile investment for a team still trying to be relevant.Pick 22: LOS ANGELES CHARGERS: Caleb Banks DL, University of FloridaThe Chargers felt the loss of Poona Ford this year. While there are concerns with his injury history, Banks could emerge as one of the best players in this draft due to his combination of size and pass-rushing skills.Pick 23: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES: Jermod McCoy CB, University of TennesseeThe Eagles always seem to land incredibly talented players further down the board than they should be, and I could see this continuing with McCoy. Injury concerns could scare teams, but I think the talent is too great to let him slide much further.Pick 24: CLEVELAND BROWNS (FROM JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS): Caleb Lomu OL, University of UtahThe Browns didn't go offensive line with their first pick, but I think they have to here. While Lomu probably won't stick at tackle in the NFL, he should be valuable on the inside.Pick 25: CHICAGO BEARS: Keldric Faulk EDGE/DL, Auburn UniversityThere is a lot of smoke around the Bears potentially trading for superstar defensive lineman Maxx Crosby. If they are unable to, then Faulk would make an immediate impact in the run-game, with upside as a pass rusher.Pick 26: BUFFALO BILLS: Denzel Boston WR, University of WashingtonNow that the Bills have traded for veteran receiver DJ Moore, they have less of a need at WR, but nevertheless he will not be a long-term option. In this scenario I have the Bills taking a nice compliment to Moore in the tall receiver with strong contested catch abilities.Pick 27: SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS: Emmanuel McNeil-Warren S, University of ToledoWhile the Niners were able to find decent enough replacements for their heavily injured defense last year, that isn't necessarily sustainable. McNeil-Warren is an instinctual and rangy safety that hopefully will help solidify the back-end of the defense.Pick 28: HOUSTON TEXANS: Kadyn Proctor OT, University of AlabamaThe Texans continue to make strange decisions on their offensive line, and so they need to bring someone in. While Proctor is far from a finished product, he potentially possesses some of the highest upside in the draft due to his enormous frame and athletic tools.Pick 29: KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (FROM LOS ANGELES RAMS): Aveion Terrell CB, Clemson UniversityAfter just trading away their all-pro corner to the Rams, I could absolutely see the Chiefs going straight back to the position and drafting a young, cheap and talented replacement.Pick 30: DENVER BRONCOS: CJ Allen LB, University of GeorgiaWith all of the top receivers off of the board, the Broncos pivot to their other biggest need and draft their potential "quarterback of the defense" in CJ Allen.Pick 31: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: T.J. Parker EDGE, Clemson UniversityFresh off of an unexpected Super Bowl appearance, the Patriots should look to build on their strengths and bolster their defensive line with the upside of Parker.Pick 32: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS: Brandon Cisse CB, University of South CarolinaThe Seahawks have a number of free-agents in their DB room, and Cisse fits their archetypal mold perfectly: supreme athleticism combined with great physicality on the outside.
Even when the idea of terraforming Mars was originally put forward, the idea was daunting. Changing the environment of an entire planet is not something to do easily. Over the following decades, plenty of scientists and engineers have looked at the problem, and most have come to the same conclusion - we’re not going to be able to make Mars anything like Earth anytime soon. A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv from Slava Turyshev of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is a good explainer as to why.
Terraforming Mars Isn't a Climate Problem—It's an Industrial Nightmare Universe Today
As the U.S. turns 250 years old, a digital archive created by historian Peter Kastor sheds light on the founding fathers and the federal workforce that supported them. The post The true story of early American government appeared first on The Source.
A meteorite has crashed through the roof of a house after thousands observed a stunning fireball streak across the sky in western Europe.
In the fourth paragraph, we are replacing milligrams with micrograms. The corrected press release follows.
In 2020, a study confirmed that two planets orbited the nearby red dwarf, GJ 887. Now, astronomers have confirmed the existence of two additional planets orbiting GJ 887 in a new study published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The new study suggests that one of these newly confirmed planets is in the habitable zone.
China's Chang'e-7 new mission: Searching the lunar south pole for water ice news.cgtn.comChang’e-7: China’s water-hunting lunar south pole mission The Planetary Society
Donut Lab has released its third independent test report from VTT, the Finnish Technical Research Centre, and it confirms another claim: the solid-state battery retains 97.7% of its charged capacity after sitting idle for 10 days.The new report (VTT-CR-00125-26) adds self-discharge performance to the growing list of independently verified specs — but three reports in, the two most extraordinary claims remain completely untested. more...
For a week now, I've thought there's a metaphor hiding inside 35 millimeter slides. The square, flimsy cardboard ones - sometimes plastic or glass - that go in projectors to spew pictures on the wall. Some of the film goes green, red and even purple with age; sometimes, the film tears or collects dirt. I'm in something of a writer's block, though sometimes I doubt my claim to that disease, wonder if instead I just have block. For now, I'll call those 35 millimeter slides memories. It's a low-hanging metaphor that will have to do.There's one way to fix both writer's block and inability to come up with metaphors: just shut up. Easier said than done. But I've noticed, after giving it a spin, that shutting up can actually do wonderful things for your writing. Reticent narrators are read as irresistible, and poems with tight lips are just playing hard to get. As humans, we read absence as desire. That person you love who doesn't feel the same? Let me tell you a secret, but you didn't hear it from me: Yes, they do. The quiet kid in your class is always the genius. Why do we never think they're quiet simply because they're as lost as you are?So I wrote stories of narrators with secrets, to which I never knew the answers and in which it's never really stated the narrator has a secret, and the story doesn't hinge around that. Call it intuition. I wrote poems, too, about one thing that was really another - but not in a metaphoric sense or triumph of Iceberg Theory that the reader is supposed to catch. I wrote poems about one thing which is really another, which in turn is really really something I didn't even know I was writing about. You're crazy if you say my poem is about that, which it was. The proof is in the pudding. Truth-tellers are always the craziest.The thing about 35 millimeter slides is that they're completely black until some light hits them. As soon as a lightbulb in the other room ricochets wavelengths like an eight ball going into the wrong socket, these slides tell all. Isn't that the way we are, too, with our memories?I did not know the way I do this was really because of that - that is, until the light hit, and now that's all anyone can see, whether I want them to or not. The day of yours that was ruined three weeks ago because you got a busted dryer that left your clothes wet is showing in how you hold yourself right now. The thread we're stitched with day to day stays unless we rip it out ourselves. You're a 35 millimeter slide, so you might as well surrender yourself to the light.None of this is about 35 millimeter slides, and it's hardly about writing. I don't know what it's about, which is a lie packed inside a lie like a true Princess Bride poison-cup fiasco. In fact, I only watched the movie in elementary school and can't remember now what the resolution to it was, so it's truly a Schrödinger's Cat, which I don't know the physics behind, so... How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?Let me know if you find out. Regarding any of the things above.Call this article "The art of pretentious, circuitous writing: meaning, metaphors and more for escaping writer's block." Or, the subtitle: "Hitting the word count."Riley Strait is a sophomore majoring in Writing Seminars and English from Olathe, Kan.
Nowadays, it's rare to walk into a restaurant just because you're passing by. Whether it's a relaxed hangout with friends or a carefully curated date night, many people decide on the restaurant beforehand. Restaurant reviews on platforms such as Google, Yelp, Beli, Resy and more are crucial in guiding one's choice of dining. A lot of people also choose to write a review of the restaurant after an experience there, helping other potential diners decide whether it's the right atmosphere, food, service and convenience they are looking for. Here's a guide from an amateur restaurant reviewer on how to write a restaurant review, with personal pet peeves included.Do:1. Research. Before you dine at a restaurant, read about the type of food it serves, the formality of the dining and even the history of the restaurant and the neighborhood. Context is important when considering an authentic review.2. Be holistic. Yelp does a good job giving you a checklist of topics you should cover in a review, such as food, service and ambience. Just because the wait time is long in a restaurant doesn't mean it deserves a one-star review. Likewise, one dish being out of stock doesn't mean the overall quality of the food is terrible. I see reviews with only one topic to comment on way too often. These reviews only show one side of the restaurant and are often quite hostile, steering readers in the direction the reviewer biases toward.3. Pictures, pictures, pictures! People love pictures, especially when there is variety. In addition to food, take a picture of the seating area, the menu and other details people may overlook but find important in a review. Personally, I'd love to know how many seats there are and what the most recently updated menu is. It takes one second to help a lot of curious diners!Don't:1. Let your bias lead the way. We all come from different cultures and backgrounds and may have a preference for certain cuisines, but don't let that be a reason to shy away from unfamiliar cuisines. Even if it's of a different culture, look at it with an objective lens instead of already being biased because it's a Mediterranean restaurant instead of American, for example. And please know the ingredients before you criticize a dish. Saying, "The chicken in my stir-fry dish is full of tiny bone fragments, proving the chef was lazy," when it's actually a Chinese culinary tradition to keep the chicken bone in for better absorbance of flavor not only makes you look like a jerk, but also obscures the authenticity of the dish from you. Also, please avoid using the word "authentic" when you haven't personally gone to the origin of the cuisine and tried the actual authentic food. I can't say this Mexican food is authentic just because it tastes good. Many reviewers throw in that word recklessly, even though it's a meaning-rich word that requires experiential backing.2. Give up on a cuisine just because it tasted bad once in a single restaurant. This phenomenon is very human and where microaggressions can stem from. The other day I heard two comments about food adjacent to my culture from someone who's not from Asia, and I was a little shocked."I hate boba. I tried boba once, and it was pink and tasted like Pepto Bismol. I'm never trying boba again.""I don't like tofu. What even is tofu? Is it just a vegan substitution for meat?"Variations of these statements are not uncommon to pop up in a restaurant review. I would say the golden rule is to try at least three bites of a dish before deeming it as distasteful, and to try a cuisine at least three times before never going back. Go to different restaurants of that cuisine. Go during lunch, dinner, the weekend or a weekday. Let that variety give you a better picture before you decide that it's not for you!3. Write a good review just because there's a deal for a free dish or merch. I know it's tempting to follow those little blackboard prompts for "a free tote bag if you write us a 5-star Google review!" (cough cough, Paris Baguette). This behavior encourages false advertising and skews the overall rating of the restaurant. Many clothing stores flag incentivized reviews so readers can interpret them with context. Restaurant reviews, however, rely on an honor system with no labeling to tell you the review was rewarded. At the very least, please disclose the incentivization before you submit that review.Go ahead and submit your first restaurant review!Linda Huang is a sophomore majoring in Biomedical Engineering from Rockville, Md. She is a Magazine Editor for The News-Letter.
Isabel Pohrt/DAILY" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.michigandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Postdoc-unions-first-contract.png?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.michigandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Postdoc-unions-first-contract.png?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" />The University of Michigan Postdoctoral Researchers’ Organization became a legally recognized union Feb. 25 by completing a successful card check, with two-thirds of more than 1,500 postdoc employees signing union authorization cards. Recent threats to postdoctoral research funding and resources by President Donald Trump’s administration prompted postdoctoral workers of all U-M disciplines to begin the [...]The post UMich Postdoctoral Researchers’ Organization officially recognized as union appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
People Are Sharing The "Facts" They Were Confidently Taught In School That Turned Out To Be Completely Wrong BuzzFeed
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - Media OutReach Newswire - 9 March 2026 - GOOD Vision Technologies Co., Limited, a pioneer in ophthalmic optics and diagnostics, today announced the global debut of oka3y!TM, a first-of-its-kind "3A" Freeform Orthokeratology (Ortho-K) solution. Unveiled at the...
"The two humanoid robots are able to keep up our pace."The post Xiaomi Now Using Humanoid Robots to Assemble Electric Cars appeared first on Futurism.
Indiana is becoming a data center magnet. As of this year, more than 18 data center projects are planned in the Hoosier State, according to Cleanview. Big Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta see Indiana as an attractive choice to build multi-acre tech parks.Opponents have raised concerns
Physicists have long struggled to unite quantum mechanics—the theory governing tiny particles—with Einstein’s theory of gravity, which explains the behavior of stars, planets, and the structure of the universe. Researchers at TU Wien have now taken a new step toward that goal by rethinking one of relativity’s core ideas: the paths particles follow through curved spacetime, known as geodesics. By creating a quantum version of these paths—called the q-desic equation—the team showed that particles moving through a “quantum” spacetime may deviate slightly from the paths predicted by classical relativity.
A "peculiar" ancient relative of the crocodile which experts believe began life on four legs before, in adulthood, it learned how to walk on just two has been revealed in a new study. Named Sonselasuchus cedrus, this archaic reptile was part of the shuvosaurid group, most of which had an appearance mimicking that of the ornithomimid dinosaurs that it shared the landscape with during the Late Triassic (approximately 225–201 million years ago).
The growing use of AI-generated scientific and science-related content, especially on social media, raises important concerns: these texts may contain false or highly persuasive information that is difficult for users to detect, potentially shaping public opinion and decision-making.
9 March 2026 - US biopharmaceutical company Halozyme Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:HALO) announced on Friday that Johnson & Johnson (J&J) (NYSE:JNJ) has received approval from the US Food and Drug ...
Astronomers have captured the central region of our Milky Way in a striking new image, unveiling a complex network of filaments of cosmic gas in unprecedented detail. Obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), this rich dataset—the largest ALMA image to date—will allow astronomers to probe the lives of stars in the most extreme region of our galaxy, next to the supermassive black hole at its center.
It's Natalie Wilkie's fourth career Paralympic gold medal for the Canadian flag-bearer and her ninth Paralympic medal overall. She also won a silver on Saturday.
Rare celestial event: Don't miss Venus and Saturn meeting in the sky for planetary conjunction after sunset YahooVenus And Saturn Meet After Sunset This Weekend — A Once-A-Year Event ForbesNight sky for the weekend (March 6-8) — See Venus pass Saturn in the evening sky Space
Rare celestial event: Don't miss Venus and Saturn meeting in the sky for planetary conjunction after sunset FOX WeatherVenus And Saturn Meet After Sunset This Weekend — A Once-A-Year Event ForbesNight sky for the weekend (March 6-8) — See Venus pass Saturn in the evening sky Space
Engineers at Oxford University have developed a rapid, ultra-low-cost method for manufacturing soft robots using common lab equipment. The method has been published in Advanced Science. The new technique enables researchers to fabricate soft robotic actuators—the flexible components that power movement—in under 10 minutes at a material cost of less than $0.10 (US Dollars) per unit.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 25 Starlink satellites launched from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday...
Half of Britain is surviving on five hours’ sleep - Sleep Scientist shares four steps to break the cycle.The post Half of Britain is surviving on five hours’ sleep: How to break the cycle appeared first on Digital Journal.
NASA’s DART actually changed the orbit of an Asteroid around the Sun. The VergeNASA successfully kicks asteroid off course in Earth defence test France 24Spacecraft's impact changed asteroid's orbit around the sun in a save-the-Earth test, study finds CityNews HalifaxNASA’s DART Mission Changed Orbit of Asteroid Didymos Around Sun NASA (.gov)NASA warns that over 15,000 'city-killing' asteroids are orbiting Earth undetected Earth.com
"Octopus farming is not a feasible industry."The post Efforts Grow to Ban Octopus Farming appeared first on Futurism.
"We need a once-in-a-generation investment in public agricultural R&D," at least $100 billion over 10 years, writes Cary Fowler.
For the first time in about 100 years, a growing number of states are deciding one staircase in apartment complexes is enough. Since 2024, Colorado, Connecticut ( with an asterisk ), Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Texas, and Tennessee have signed off on code shifts that allow smaller midrise apartment buildings...
Recent research from Oxford University reveals a profound connection between tinnitus and sleep. Scientists discovered that deep non-REM sleep may suppress the brain hyperactivity causing tinnitus, offering new therapeutic insights for the 50 million Americans affected by this phantom sound condition.
Not a great look.The post Kalshi Sent Bizarre Message to Underage Streamer appeared first on Futurism.
This 183-Million-Year-Old Smooth Skin Fossil Just Gave Us a Sneak Peek at What Sea Monsters Really Looked Like The Daily Galaxy
Researchers in the US have demonstrated how quantum entanglement could be used to detect optical signals from astronomical sources at the single-photon level. Published in Nature, a team led by Pieter-Jan Stas at Harvard University showed how extremely weak light signals could be detected across a fiber link spanning more than 1.5 km—possibly paving the way for optical telescopes with unprecedented resolution.
A recent report on global tipping points warned that coral reefs face widespread dieback and have reached a point from which they cannot recover.
Isaiah Kletenik, MD, and Julian Kutsche, of the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics within the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute, are the senior and lead authors of a paper published in Cortex, titled "Lesions Causing Aphantasia are Connected to the Fusiform Imagery Node."
‘I don’t have a problem with my lab being funded by Epstein,’ one wrote to another.
The Doomsday Clock—a symbolic device to signal an array of existential threats to the world since 1947—was recently moved to 85 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been to midnight. And that was before all-out war broke out in Iran.
The science of the zodiac is more intriguing than astrology would have you think
A new study shows that stars with low magnetic activity are likely to support exoplanetary systems, making the hunt for these celestial objects less random.
Losing an hour of sleep to daylight saving time is not good for you, but there are ways you can help yourself bounce back
Tuskegee researchers build a nanoscale photonic crystal sail that reflects propulsion lasers while staying lightweight and cool.
Car buyers are running into a line on window stickers that's quietly getting a lot more expensive: the "destination charge." The fee, meant to cover getting a new vehicle from factory to dealer, now averages $1,600, up from roughly $1,200 in 2020, per industry data cited by Edmunds,...
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to researcher Elissia Franklin about a new study which found dangerous chemicals in some commonly used hair extensions.
Small size seems to have come before a change in diet for a tiny dinosaur lineage.
"Now studying tissue from cross-sections of a single brain to find out whether certain regions have higher ... concentrations."
Europe's Sun-Observation Satellite Loses Contact With Ground Control: Here's What We Know NDTVWill Proba-3 phone home? European solar-eclipse satellite goes dark SpaceWork ongoing to restore contact with Proba-3's Coronagraph European Space Agency
If humankind is to explore deep space, one small passenger should not be left behind: microbes. In fact, it would be impossible to leave them behind, since they live on and in our bodies, surfaces and food. Learning how they react to space conditions is critical, but they could also be invaluable fellows in our endeavor to explore space.
Bill Murphy became interested in the night sky as a kid in the 1960s, as man was attempting to land on the moon.
New Website Consolidates Philosophical Foundations, Mathematical Formulations, and Empirical Studies on Systemic
High-resolution, high-throughput detection of hidden antibiotic resistance with the dilution-and-delay (DnD) susceptibility assay Nature
Standardizing Standard Candles: Exploring the (lack of a) Bias in Cosmological Distance Measurements Astrobites
A research report published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior examines how the rapid digitalization of the retail food environment is reshaping food access in the United States and highlights implications for public health nutrition research, practice, and policy. The authors describe how online grocery platforms, mobile food delivery applications, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital marketing are transforming the way consumers encounter and purchase food.
Physicists Finally Realize Long-Predicted 2D Topological Crystal in the Lab SciTechDaily
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way scientists discover and design new materials. In a specially invited review published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Tohoku University researchers highlight how large AI models are redefining catalyst discovery and paving the way for faster, smarter innovation in clean energy and sustainable technologies.
It's such a simple question. Deceptively simple, even. Whether it's meeting your roommate for the first time or waiting awkwardly in line at Levering Kitchens, I'm sure many of us have encountered this staple of small talk. Answering this question should be easy - second nature by now. Yet it's one I've always struggled to respond to.My default has been "I like to read and write," but recently, saying that has never felt more like a blatant lie. As the realities of university life sink in, the responsibilities, deadlines and pressure consume me. The time I have for writing slowly dwindled to nothing. How can I call myself a writer when I don't write at all?People often say if you truly enjoy something, you'll always have time for it. But how easily writing was squeezed out of my schedule suggested otherwise. If it's not the process of writing I am drawn to, then what is it about the role that is so appealing that makes it my instinctual answer when someone asks what I enjoy?The answer is simple: I love stories. They are the fundamental methods I understand the world with. When the chaos of an indeterminate future and a dwindling pointless past overwhelms, the power of stories becomes so distinguishing as an arbiter of order. It is a way of explaining there is meaning in the ways the world functions - that this tiny, fleeting moment of existence is part of some timeless, endless celestial saga.But all this grand talk of the power of stories has ultimately amounted to nothing prior to this year. I started telling people my favorite medium to write in is "unfinished plotlines" because it was the truth. I figured the image of a writer I had for myself is entirely fictional. I don't have any sort of awards or portfolio or credentials that should qualify me for this role. I didn't consume literary works or truly enjoy analyzing and dissecting stories to fit some sort of theme. My favorite author is Tolkien and my favorite series is The Lord of the Rings because I never had the time to develop more niche interests. I write when I feel like it, and most of the time, I don't. When I do, it's probably because I pre-set deadlines and responsibilities, so I force myself to follow through (thank you, magazine submission).These and much more were facts I told myself. Only recently did I understand these affirmations inhibited me from actually writing: I told myself I was not ready, was not enough, that trying was futile, before I had ever tried. How could this end in anything but a waste of time? How could I dream of telling stories of the transition from isolation and despair to hope and love, when I had not even gone through that transformation?Of course, the first step toward change is recognizing the problem. While watching a Brandon Sanderson interview during winter break, I was captivated by what he said. He knew many who never published their first novels, but none who regretted writing them. There is no "correct" time to start writing, and life will never wait for me to be "ready" to start telling stories."Getting started" is what I have done. This year, I picked up a Writing Seminars minor and started really plotting and writing my first novel! Even if I am pursuing an engineering major, my love for stories shouldn't be changed because of it. A creative mindset is a useful asset in any field, after all.I don't feel ready to claim the role of a "writer" yet, but I know that I will get there eventually because, for once, I am actually writing.Shuwen Zheng is a freshman majoring in Computer Engineering from San Jose, Calif.
One morning, I woke up to find my phone charger unceremoniously tugged to the floor, in the space between my bed and the window ledge where it was originally placed. And as I did the usual awkward reach into that crevice, I realized that the loss of my phone and the subsequent back pain for its retrieval were punishment. The skein of baby pink yarn on that same ledge, studded with my 0.7 mm crochet hook, was tangled with my charging cable. My toxic situationship wanted attention, and it had decided that aggressively strangling my phone was the best way to receive it.Crochet is the hobby I return to every time my life becomes even slightly complicated. I caught the "yarn bug" in response to severe exhaustion after sophomore year and peer pressure from my best friend. The first project I completed was that summer: a slightly anemic, messy pink heart that probably fell apart in a few hours (though I can't be sure of this since I have no idea where it went). But progression was faster than I'd expected. My first "successful" project, completed just a few months later, was far more beautiful - a bandanna with gold chains and strawberry beads dangling from the edge.Crochet has been my rock through heartbreak, an enabler for my severe procrastination on schoolwork and above all, the bane of my existence - a complexity I am perpetually shocked by because I love crochet. I love working with my hands instead of picking at my fingers. I love watching a row of stitches materialize, especially when I've managed to make the "inter-stitch" spaces perfectly even. I love when, after four or five rows, my somewhat more complete product resembles the video tutorial at which I've been intently squinting for hours.But at the same time, there are few moments when I am more frustrated than mid-crochet project. Anyone who has dabbled in the craft knows the frustration of a dropped stitch or uneven yarn tension. Both casualties yield final products that are studded with holes and bumps, a fate that has befallen many of my earlier projects.But my first successful project taught me the worst part of crochet: counting. Counting stitches and rows is the root of my commitment issues with crochet. Especially as a beginner, uneven edges and stitches in wrong orientations almost had me reconsidering multiple monumental life decisions, including being an engineering major. (Because how do I survive a field built on math if I can't even tell the difference between the fifth and sixth stitch of the row?)I am not beholden to or obligated to keep pursuing this somewhat torturous lover of mine. It indulges my unhealthiest tendencies. Crochet's intricacies feed my anal-retentive perfectionism. It leaves marks on my skin in calluses and scars from working the yarn and the hook - a visible, painful, yet slightly discolored, sign of my hard work. It leaves a burning behind my eyes and blurs my vision; it leaves scars on my brain in the shape of the scraping of my metal hook against my fingernails.Am I masochistic for it? Is it really so bad? To have scars and bruises that are not self-inflicted? To see evidence of my hard work within a few rows instead of on a midterm that is months later? To squint over stitches instead of books? Isn't it worth it to have my brain hurt from piecing apart patterns instead of piecing apart a particularly frustrating problem set?There is so much relief in putting all this effort into something that yields a product that feels so real, that leaves so much proof behind. So no matter how many times I reconsider my commitment, I will still return to my love. I'll sit on the bed or in my living room and stitch and unstitch infinite swatches of yarn until black dots swim in my eyes. I'll do the little awkward stretch to reach for my phone every time crochet rears its ugly head and feels abandoned for too long. We're not breaking up quite yet.Shreya Tiwari is a junior majoring in Biomedical Engineering from Austin, Texas. She is a Managing Editor for The News-Letter.
I constantly carry the guilt of not reading as much as I used to as a kid. I wonder where she is now (along with the red bendable book light my dad gifted me): the girl who would hide under her comforter so that she could binge-read the books of Ipek Ongun, Stefan Zweig, Resat Nuri Guntekin.Obviously, this is not to say I haven't read at all since my childhood; it just felt like I never read enough. The excitement of reading a book I like, being so captivated that it's all I can think about, yapping about it to my friends and urging them to read it - these things never changed. I felt the same way about books at every age. In my experience, it even felt like a chain reaction: If I took the first step, simply opening the first page and reading the first sentence, the rest would follow, and my exhilaration would grow exponentially with every page I turned.But somehow, as I grew older, taking that first step became more and more difficult, and I started reading less and less. When did reading start feeling like a chore rather than leisure? Was it when books started coming in the form of homework, something I was obligated to do? Or was it when the pressure of reading more "serious stuff" got more intense with every passing year?Getting to the root of this problem took a reflection. I started comparing this phenomenon - which I named "The Struggle of Taking the First Step" - to other areas of my life. In what other parts of my routine do I struggle to start, but once I begin, the rest feels like a downward slope?Here's one example. The News-Letter general meetings are held on Mondays at 7 p.m., and although I love our paper, editors and "Gatehome" with all my heart, sometimes I dread leaving the comfort of my home. Pushing myself into the sweet chaos of running a paper - discussing the coverage of serious topics and managing people - is difficult to convince myself to do. But whenever I walk in and take my usual position to host the editors' meeting, I remember why I do it every week. The work we do is stressful, frequently exhausting and requires sacrifice, but I love the end result: achieving something this big and continuing such a tradition alongside so many people surrounding me.Reading a book feels similar. I know that it will become my next obsession if I manage to sit down and read the first page of Jane Eyre, My Year of Rest and Relaxation or Lord of the Flies. But, quite frankly, reading a book is stressful (What if I don't like it and can't finish it, or worse, don't understand it?), frequently exhausting (as it feels much easier to open Netflix after 12 hours of productivity sucks the life out of me) and requires sacrifice (Should I prepare my cheat sheet for the Kinetics midterm or read one more chapter?).This past winter break, the first day I checked my to-do list and saw no pressing items, I made it my mission to regain my reading habit and make my inner child feel fulfilled once again. In one month, I actually made decent progress: I finished Wuthering Heights, The Pilgrimage and The Count of Monte Cristo; I even started reading Don Quixote and The Gambler, although my reading consistency had to decrease with the start of a busy semester. During this journey, I came up with three key rules that helped me feel less intimidated by reading (and, more importantly, remain consistent with it).Force yourself to read the first page, but don't pressure yourself into finishing it. There were multiple points in my life where the chain reaction never activated, although I made myself read through numerous chapters. Sometimes, a book is just not for you. Back in high school, Tolstoy's War and Peace made me never want to read again. Although this means I might never get to read such a renowned classic, at least it didn't make me sour on reading forever. Don't traumatize yourself - follow what genuinely piques your interest!Don't compare your reading pace to others'. This is one of the reasons why I don't use Goodreads. If you can read 20 books in one month, congrats! That will unfortunately never be me, and seeing others being better at reading will only make me feel bad about myself. So, I keep to myself and read at peace.Understand that what you read is more important than how many pages you go through. When I look at my failed attempts at making reading a habit, I noticed it was mostly because I attempted to read hard-to-understand books. My pace would slow down as I'd spend more time than usual on each page to digest it well. It would eventually seem like I wasn't making any progress, so I'd stop reading altogether. Now, when this happens, I remind myself that this is natural; as long as I like the book, it doesn't matter whether I go through 10 or 100 pages in one day.I hope that the three rules I came up with for myself will either help you regain your reading habit or inspire you to come up with your own. Don't let Hopkins make you feel like your brain is too fried to read for fun. Today, convince yourself to pick a book and open the first page.Buse Koldas is a junior from Istanbul, Turkey majoring in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She is an Editor-in-Chief for The News-Letter.
These Tiny Teeth Could Change What We Know About Human Origins SciTechDailyTeeth smaller than a fingertip reveal the first primate ancestor ScienceDailyTiny teeth found in Colorado deepen the debate over primate origins National Geographic
Chinese researchers have used AI to determine the chemical composition of the Moon’s far side.
I have been a dancer since I was three years old, following my older sister's footsteps and proudly wearing her hand-me-down tap shoes. So naturally, when I saw her start theater, I knew I'd inevitably follow her down that route as well (though I didn't start until high school). Although initially I thought she was against the idea of sharing her hobby with me, she grew to love the moments we got to share on stage. It was such an honor getting to watch her senior year musical - not from the audience - but on the stage with her.After we graduated high school, we diverged - she focused on dance, and I focused on theater. She got into a Modern Dance program, and I got into a BFA Acting Program, which put me at a roadblock. It was for a prestigious acting program, and I had received the scholarship to attend, but ultimately decided to come to Hopkins, agreeing with myself to pursue my theatrical interests as an extracurricular. At least, that was the plan.I had done a gig before at a local professional theater as a role in the ensemble my junior year of high school, and the next thing I knew, I was getting an invitation from the director to audition for a one-man show at this professional theater. I had seen the casting call but didn't think of auditioning, thinking I was too young, but apparently, that wasn't the case. That was also the summer I booked my first contract as an assistant choreographer. It seemed as if the more theater I was doing, the more roles and contracts I was booking. That's when it hit me - this wasn't a hobby anymore, this was becoming a career.Don't get me wrong, I love theater. I mean, there is a reason why I still do it as much as I do. It's how I met my friends, and spending such an immense amount of time delving into a character and their intentions is wonderful. However, having an extracurricular that is now a potential career path creates a complicated dynamic between the two. Sometimes, I feel a profound level of pressure to do another production, to take on another role, solely for the purpose of having another credit and skill set on my resume. Because of this, theater isn't a source of relaxation for me anymore; it's a source for networking and gaining new skillsets.This year, I have made it a goal to limit the theater I do. It doesn't mean auditioning less per se, but rather, auditioning with more intention. Sure, I could apply to countless casting calls, but frankly, that's tiring. I didn't want to become one of the many artists who feel the need to chuck themselves into their next production, solely for the idea that if they don't, they'll soon be forgotten. Instead, I'm making it a goal to audition for what shows or roles I truly love. I've already booked my third summer contract as assistant choreographer at my local theater, and frankly, coming into a season of shows I truly love with a dream-team production team, I couldn't be more excited.Finnigan Keane is a sophomore majoring in Archaeology and Environmental Studies from Margate City, N.J.
Recently, I have taken up meditation. It is one of those things you turn to when you fall into a post-grad quarter-life crisis in your early twenties (you'll know what I'm talking about when the time comes, trust me). I had hoped that always being told I am "mature for my age" would have saved me from such a fate, but alas, I succumbed to it alongside all of my friends once the summer after college graduation ended. Left with a choice between getting really into rock-climbing or trying to become an influencer, I decided to take the third option: turning to meditation and going on a quest to "find myself" instead. So starting this semester, I began a ritual of daily meditation, meditating for 15 minutes every day right after I wake up.Surprisingly, my first attempt was easier than I thought. Concentrated on my breathing and determined to be mindful, the 15 minutes passed in the blink of an eye, the timer startling me as it went off unexpectedly soon. Yet counter-intuitively, it seemed to get harder with each passing day. After the novelty of the first time, familiarity with my newfound routine began to undermine me. With repetition, I found my brain drifting off more and more each day, now comfortable enough to switch into autopilot. My thoughts would wander, contemplating what I had to do for the day and planning out my schedule. Repeated attempts to gently guide it back to the task at hand only seemed to serve as a temporary solution before my mind wandered off once more. Even now, four weeks into my journey with meditation, I find it impossible to replicate the magic of that first time.It seems ridiculous to me that meditating for a mere 15 minutes could prove to be so hard. After all, doing nothing should be the easiest task of all. But meditation isn't just about passing the time. You can't get anything out of it by simply investing the time; you have to be actively engaged in the practice. And while I'd like to think of myself as a disciplined person, meditation provided a different type of challenge. I couldn't just brute force my way through sheer willpower like I could with running or working out, and I couldn't outwork the problem or find special tricks like I could with school. All it asked of me was to be present. Yet somehow that seemed too much.In an era that has conditioned our generation to expect constant stimulation, stillness feels impossible. In a society that idolizes efficiency, letting precious seconds drift by feels like a crime. Worst of all, sitting in my own chaotic and frightening head without distraction feels insurmountable.But perhaps that is the whole point. As Marcus Aurelius points out in his conveniently titled work Meditations, "No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into [your] own mind." The sanctuary of our own thoughts is one we must occupy and coexist with for our entire lives. Thus, if we are able to turn it into a sanctuary, then we will have access to a retreat more precious and valuable than anything else. My hope is that through careful meditation, one day I can sort through the mess that comprises my inner landscape and turn it into a paradise into which I can retreat in my times of need.Moreover, while time may be a valuable currency, time does not lend itself to being hoarded or micromanaged. Desperately clutching onto the seconds we have, white-knuckled, will do nothing to abate its flow through our fingers. It is the infinite paradox of life that we must realize our time is valuable, but we must not let that awareness drum us up into a panic, anxiously grasping at the fleeting sands of time, or else we shall lose the value of that time itself.So while I have yet to attain an enlightenment to lift me out of my quarter-life crisis, I think I will keep at it in hopes of learning these lessons. And perhaps one day I can teach my brain to stop thinking about the future and the past and to simply exist in and appreciate the present.Jason Chang is a first-year graduate student majoring in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Woodbury, Minn.
Humans, and especially college students, love the idea of "optimizing" their time. We've all heard variations of these statements: How do I put in the least amount of work to get my intended result? How many hours should I spend on this activity to get to a specific level? What's the latest I can start studying to still pass this exam? Will joining this fun club prevent me from doing my work?Being at a university so focused on pre-professional development and career placements provides constant positive reinforcement for this mindset.But we also do things just because we find them fun and personally enriching. These are our side quests. True side quests should be done for the love of the game, independent of any career goal (see "Your Second Greatest Love"). But even though they are done out of love, these quests should be treated just as seriously and with equal standards as a "main" quest. Here's an example from my own life.It started with a few innocent trips to the Hopkins Bouldering Cave with my roommates. Then I visited Movement Hampden for the first time. I stared in awe at the climbers projecting impossible V7-9 climbs while barely being able to make my way up the beginner V2 climbs.Then summer break hit, and I found myself with many more free afternoons. What better way to spend it than to purchase the rights to scale brightly colored plastic holds drilled into a plastic wall?I started off with no qualms. But then I realized: wow - this is an expensive hobby. Not only is the gym membership $80 per month, but I also need to buy $200 climbing shoes, "premium" magnesium carbonate climbing chalk and an aesthetic bag to carry the "premium" chalk.And there were the physical downsides too: a constant web of bruises and cuts on all 4 limbs, completely ground-down finger skin, excruciating torn calluses (flappers), soreness lasting weeks.And not only that, there was an entirely new language I had to learn. The climbing gym was filled with people speaking in tongues. Over time, I slowly started picking up terms until that primordial alphabet soup congealed into understandable sentences. "Ah, so that's what an arete is." "Ohhh, that's what a bardoor is."Soon, I started speaking the language myself. It goes a little something like this: "Traverse right to the crimp, then dyno to that nice hold (it's a jug). After that, reverse flag to reach that pinch and match. Then make sure to do a drop knee before making that committing move, and then top out."Don't forget the fact that I needed to allocate three hours of my day to climbing, which basically made it a part-time job.Through all this physical, financial and linguistic pain, I continued. Why did I stay with something that hurt me and drained my summer internship stipend?It's that satisfaction I got from finally sending a hard climb or a hard move: slowly seeing the grades of my projects go up. It's discovering the intricacies of balancing on slab climbs, making dynamic coordination moves and maintaining tension on overhang climbs. Though I don't consider myself a "good" climber yet, I see myself getting stronger and climbing harder. And that constant visible improvement keeps me coming back.I've learned that side quests shouldn't be given up on a whim (unless I really hate it, then I guess I'll give it up). Just because I failed to send any hard climbs today doesn't mean I've lost my love for climbing itself. It feels good to improve at something, to get stronger at a set of skills you, sometimes arbitrarily, place value in. My climbing membership is $80 a month (please use my referral so I can get $25 off), but I still keep going because I believe the benefits I gain from climbing are worth that monetary value.So even while pursuing side quests, you will fail. But these efforts are never wasted. They permeate your life and become a part of you. You find yourself growing passionate about your quests and sharing them with your friends. And though side quests may sometimes seem like irrational time sinks, if you truly love one, you will trust that it will continue to be rewarding even through all the failure and discomfort. Trust that it will make you a better person - a person with a couple more skills in their bag, more stories to tell and a new language to speak.Everyone is just one person at the end of the day. We can only do so much with our time, so it seems tempting to put all our eggs in the career basket. But there's so much more about life than just your career. So who knows, maybe your next chance encounter could turn into your lifelong side quest.Alex Pan is a sophomore majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Dallas, Texas. He is a Science & Technology Editor for The News-Letter.
"Today I'm grateful for... oh wait, I have to remember to... I really want to make sourdough bread..."Three pages of writing, whatever comes to mind. That's all it is.I have always kept a journal but have never been consistent with writing in it. When I was a little kid, the pages were more or less filled with my frustration about situations like my sister eating the last popsicle. However, my entries have evolved, and I now have finally acquired a habit of journaling.In search of a way to revamp my life with the new year approaching, I searched YouTube and came across many motivational personal growth videos, all with similar headlines along the lines of "Goal Setting in 2026" or "Maximizing Productivity." While watching a myriad of these over breaks, I stumbled across one that recommended the simple exercise: just writing until three pages are full.Previously, I had attempted to answer journaling prompts designed to make you think deeply about yourself regularly. I often found myself trying to craft the perfect, philosophical and insightful response - even when I didn't always have that response within me. Those types of prompts can be beneficial for self-growth, but they do not feel sustainable to incorporate on a daily basis. It's hard to be in the right headspace to think and write in such a way all the time, especially when getting further into the semester, where there is an exam to study for every week. In fact, rather than feeling like an opportunity to write freely and relieve stress, journaling had started to feel like writing for a neglected assignment due at 11:59 p.m. - failing to do so one day would ruin the continuity aesthetic of dates in my journal.Contrary to having fixed prompts, this journaling exercise asks for only one thing: just start writing. Starting can often be the hardest part, but with this exercise, it's surprisingly easy, as you can even begin with the line "I don't know what to write," which I have done many times. But naturally, I still manage to fill up all three pages with text. With this exercise, I no longer feel pressure to craft a coherent masterpiece that reveals something about my innermost self.Looking through my entries, I see run-on sentences, fragments, and both unfinished and complete thoughts that somehow made sense in the moment, but I can't make sense of them now. And that's okay. These entries are simply a tangible piece of my stream of consciousness. Whether I write about the tasks I have for that day or lessons of the past and future, doing so helps me get the day going and gives me a soothing sensation of mental clarity.Moreover, aside from serving as a resort where my thoughts can freely float and relax along a lazy river, my journal has witnessed some pondering thoughts spring into action.I had seen countless social media posts of people enthusiastically involved with the sourdough making process, from them feeding their sourdough starters to the ASMR of cutting into a freshly baked, crunchy and airy loaf.Baking bread has always been in the back of my head, and randomly mentioned in my journal entries, but a friend and I finally got our hands on a sourdough starter and successfully baked our first loaf.Although purchasing bread may be more time-efficient, there is just something about making it from scratch that brings me this unmatched feeling of joy and fulfillment I wouldn't get from just consuming store-bought bread. Stretching and folding the dough every 30 minutes and waiting for it to rise seems tedious and tests my patience - yet it is also a therapeutic and calming experience.All in all, I can foresee a sourdough era coming ahead. It's been interesting to witness how this habit of journaling has been helping with my work-life balance - both in a mental health sense and in a literal sense, as there is so much potential for the lingering thoughts I have written on these pages to manifest into side quests.Catherine Chan is a freshman majoring in Public Health and Molecular and Cellular Biology from Potomac, Md. She is a Social Media Manager for The News-Letter.