Earth’s most durable creature gives us hope for finding extraterrestrial life

Why it matters to you

The study of Earth’s most durable creature sheds light on our chances of finding alien life on other planets.

When you consider the creature most likely to survive an apocalypse-level catastrophe on Earth, what do figure to be the top candidate? Cockroaches? Fleas? People from the YouTube comments section?

In fact, if you picked any of these you’d be wrong. Well, at least you may be, according to researchers from Harvard University and Oxford University. In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, Harvard and Oxford researchers concluded that the tardigrade, also known as the “water bear” or “moss piglet,” is likely to be the ultimate survivor when everything’s said and done for the rest of us Earth-dwellers. Less than 1 mm in size, tardigrades are nonetheless astonishingly hardy: capable of being starved for up to 30 years, dehydrated to ridiculous levels, shot into space, or any other assortment of horrible modes of, well, death.

The research suggests that tardigrades are likely to hang around for the next 10 billion years, until they’re wiped out by the death of the sun. Cheerful stuff!

“The main quality that makes things resilient from our perspective is the capacity to withstand heat,” Dr. David Sloan, a researcher in Oxford University’s Department of Physics, told Digital Trends. “To me [it] came as a huge shock [that tardigrades can live at] about 150C for a brief time.”

If you’re wondering why serious scientists would carry out this kind of work, however, have no fear: there’s a good reason for it — and it’s all to do with the ongoing search for extraterrestrial life.

“We have found thousands of exoplanets so far,” Rafael Alves Batista, another researcher on the project, told us. “Many of those are Earthlike and are located in the habitable zone. If the chemistry is right, these places may have the necessary conditions for life as we know it to sprout. Many astrophysical events are a potential threat to life: asteroid impacts, star-star collisions, supernova explosions, gamma-ray bursts, among many other. Therefore, if some of the planets that seem inhospitable today once hosted life, could this life withstand these catastrophic events? That was our motivation.”

In other words, if the tardigrades evolved on Earth, there might be other forms of life on different planets that are as resilient as, or even more resilient than they are. Hey, maybe the space-water bears are the ones sending the crazy alien radio bursts (FRBs) that have baffled astronomers for the last decade!

Fox hopes you’ll binge-watch at theaters like you do on Netflix

Let’s say you run a movie studio and notice that people would rather stay home and plow through the latest Marvel series on Netflix than pay through the nose for a trip to the theater. What do you do? If you’re Fox, the answer seems simple: offer a taste of that marathon viewing experience at the theater. Hollywood Reporter understands that Fox wants to release three film adaptations of RL Stine’s Fear Street books within three months — a given movie would still be fresh in your mind when its sequel is hitting theaters. You’d be “bingeing movies” (as one tipster puts it) just about as quickly as the big screen format allows.

Fox has reportedly asked Fear Street director Leigh Janiak to write (and potentially rewrite) scripts that she could shoot back-to-back and release in a similar format. Think Lord of the Rings, but on a dramatically condensed time scale.

It’d undoubtedly be a pricey experiment for Fox, but it’s easy to see why the company would try: if it pays off, it could lead to people watching every movie in a franchise instead of losing interest in the years they usually wait between releases. It might also reduce the temptation to wait for home releases if you know you can see everything over the course of a single summer.

There are a few potential problems with this strategy, of course. To start, there’s simple logistics: it’s still easier, quicker and cheaper to tap “next episode” at home than it is to venture to the theater multiple times. It’s also a big bet that the movies themselves are good enough to sustain interest. As the Guardian observes, Universal is likely regretting its commitment to nine Dark Universe movies after watching the first title (2017’s The Mummy) bomb critically and commercially. If a Netflix or Hulu show fails, it’s not a horrendous expense. If the first movie in a short-release trilogy fails, however, that’s a gigantic budget thrown out the window with no time to tweak the sequels before they arrive. Ironically, the Fear Street strategy could wind up underscoring online video’s advantages in low production costs and immediate gratification.

Via: Guardian

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Uber sued again for failing to accommodate disabled passengers

Despite Uber’s programs to serve the needs of people who use wheelchairs, the ride sharing company faces a long line of lawsuits and complaints about its ability to serve people with disabilities. The Equal Rights Center claims that the company is in violation of Title 3 of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the DC Human Rights Act in Washington, DC. Mississippi riders have filed a similar suit, alleging that “persons with disabilities in Jackson have no ability to call a wheelchair accessible vehicle or a specially trained driver through the Uber app.”

Now there’s a suit against Uber in In New York City. Disability Rights Activists (DRA) just filed a class action by a “broad coalition of disability groups and disabled individuals in New York City,” saying that Uber is 99.9% inaccessible to people with mobility disabilities.

The suit was filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan on behalf of Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, the Taxis for All Campaign, Disabled in Action of Metropolitan New York and individuals who use wheelchairs. The suit claims that while Uber has “grown exponentially” in the city, the company has shown “total disregard for the rights of people with disabilities.” The DRA claims that Uber has a fleet of approximately 58,000 vehicles in the five boroughs of NYC, “fewer than 100 of them offer the lifts or ramps necessary” to accommodate those who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices.

The agency notes that other transportation options like taxis, subways and buses are mostly inaccessible, too. Even Access-A-Ride, the city’s paratransit service, is pretty awful, according to the press release. An accessible Uber would benefit people with mobility disabilities if the company were able and willing to provide it in usable quantities. The plaintiffs are not seeking damages, just equal access to Uber’s services.

“UberWAV makes up only .1% of the 58,000 vehicle fleet. It’s just window dressing designed to skirt anti-discrimination laws,” said DRA’s Michelle Caiola in a statement. “Uber must not be allowed to operate in New York City in a discriminatory manner. It must ensure its convenience and benefits are available to all people equally.”

Uber responded to our request for comment with the following statement: “Uber’s technology has expanded access to reliable transportation options for all riders, including those with disabilities and has enabled people with disabilities to earn income in new ways. While there is certainly more work to be done, we will continue advocating for a solution that offers affordable, reliable transportation to those who need a wheelchair accessible vehicle.” The spokesperson also pointed out that the company has been advocating for a 5-cent surcharge on all for-hire rides in the city, which would incentivize more drivers (not just ones that drive for Uber) to convert to wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

Source: DRA Legal

Some OnePlus 5 owners can’t dial 911 without the phone rebooting

Making an emergency phone call to 911 on your OnePlus 5 could wind up with your phone rebooting. A handful of owners have taken to Reddit to share videos of the glitch in action, and they suspect that it could have something to do with the phone’s GPS system. For its part, OnePlus says it’s contacted the customer and is looking into what could be the problem. Should your OnePlus be doing the same, the company asks that you contact its support inbox. It sounds like this might be fixable via firmware update — unlike that whole “jelly scrolling” thing last month.

Via: The Next Web

Source: Reddit

TBS to air four-part docuseries on ‘Dota 2’ tournament competitors

Turner Broadcasting announced today that TBS will air a four part documentary about players preparing for and competing in this year’s The International Dota 2 Championships. The series is produced by Turner’s eSports branch ELEAGUE, which started airing competitions on TBS last year.

The first episodes of ELEAGUE: Road to the International Dota 2 Championships will focus on teams as they train for the competition and later episodes will follow them as they compete in the tournament. The first tournament took place in 2011 with a prize pool of $1 million and last year it broke the record for having the largest eSports prize ever, which ended up totaling over $20 million. This year’s pool is already over $21 million and there’s still time before the prize crowdfunding ends. The tournament will take place August 7th-12th.

The first episode will air on August 4th at 10PM Eastern/Pacific and the remaining hour-long episodes will air over the following three weeks. TBS will also show Valve’s Dota 2 Free to Play documentary on July 28th at 10PM. You can catch a trailer for the series below, which features CompLexity team member Jimmy “DeMoN” Ho describing how he first got into Dota 2.

Via: The Flying Courier

Source: Turner Broadcasting

House Democrats adopt encrypted messaging after last year’s hack

In light of last year’s hacking troubles, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has begun using end-to-end encrypted software for a large chunk of its messaging. For communication both internally and between the DCCC and 20 of its House incumbent campaigns, the committee will use Wickr.

According to Communications Director Meredith Kelly, the DCCC has been primarily using the software since June and it’s the first to make such a move. Last summer, after Democratic National Committee emails were hacked and published on Wikileaks, the DCCC was also breached and thousands of its documents were stolen and publicly released. Along with the DCCC’s shift to Wickr, the DNC has hired ex-Uber engineer Raffi Krikorian as its chief technology officer and continues to use the services of security firm CrowdStrike.

Earlier this month, the DCCC proposed that it and the National Republican Congressional Committee should work together to fight hacking attempts, but the plan was dismissed as a “political stunt” by the republicans. In response, Kelly told the Washington Post, “This is a disturbingly flippant response to a simple request that we set partisan politics aside and work together to better protect our elections from foreign adversaries and their cyberattacks.” But while the Republican Party didn’t suffer as many cybersecurity blows as the democrats, they still appear to be concerned as GOP staff reportedly began using the encrypted messaging app Confide earlier this year.

Source: BuzzFeed

China blocks WhatsApp users from sending photos and video

Many WhatsApp users in China aren’t able to send photos and videos to one another, and in at least a few cases, people aren’t able to send text messages either. Exactly why this partial ban is happening at the moment isn’t clear, but the New York Times reports that Facebook’s other messaging application might soon be fully blocked in the region thanks to strict censorship laws.

The Great Firewall has gotten even more harsh recently, with China dictating that all foreign firms must store their data locally. Apple kowtowed and built a data center there, but expecting Facebook to do so might be a bit of a stretch. In addition to Zuckerberg’s main social network being fully blocked, Instagram is as well. As NYT notes, WhatsApp was Facebook’s last stand in China and now it looks to be going away.

It doesn’t seem like many in the country will notice it missing considering that Tencent’s WeChat is native to China and apparently has a more active user base in the region.

Source: New York Times

‘Splatoon 2’ is a cautious but excellent evolution of the original

The Wii U was far from the most popular console of its generation — but fans who took a chance on Nintendo’s first HD machine were rewarded with a tightly curated library of modern-day classics. Exclusives like Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3 and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze showed that the value of the Wii U wasn’t in its hardware but in Nintendo’s creative library of games. Among them was Splatoon, the company’s first online competitive shooter. The game’s quirky squirt gun multiplayer battles were a genuine, delightful surprise — and its Nintendo Switch sequel takes everything that was great about the original and makes it just a little bit better.

That’s mostly a good thing. The original Splatoon was something of an experiment, a Nintendo game that focused on online play as the primary selling point. The game succeeded by being something unique: a frantic, multiplayer shooter that dripped with personality and cultivated a ravenous community of loyal fans. Splatoon 2 basically picks up where the original left off, starting with the same core game mechanic that incentivized teamwork over individual victory: Turf War.

To understand Turf War — and Splatoon 2’s primary multiplayer modes — you need to know a few things. First, there are no bullets in Splatoon. Instead, players use a mix of squirt guns, paintbrushes and buckets to spray, fling and slosh colored ink across the battlefield. Battles aren’t won by how many enemies the player defeats but by how much of her team’s color covers the ground at the end of a match.

Sure, you can take out other players in these matches, and you’ll need to to win, but it’s not the end goal. By rewarding players based on how much ground they cover, the game passively changes the focus from being the best fighter to contributing the most to the team victory. It also takes the pressure off casual players. No good in a firefight? You can still contribute by focusing on keeping the ground your team’s color.

The paint mechanic is more than just a gimmick to promote teamwork — it also changes how you can move. If the ink on the ground belongs to the player’s team, she can turn into a squid and swim through it to replenish ammo and move faster. If it’s the enemy team’s color, she’ll be slowed down and take damage. There are a few more rules, of course, but the long and short of it is that Splatoon 2 offers a multiplayer experience unlike anything in other games. Its unique twist on movement, weapons and ink-based victory helps keep game modes like tower defense, control point and capture-the-flag feeling fresh.

So what’s new about Splatoon 2? Well, a few things. For one, the entire experience just looks better: Colors are more vibrant and bright; player characters, weapons and clothing are far more detailed; and best of all, the entire game runs at a noticeably higher frame rate. There are also new levels, weapon upgrades and special moves that change the way the game is played. The new Splat Dualie pistols, for instance, open up player movement by adding a dodge roll to the game, which drastically changes how close-range combat unfolds. Other weapons have been tweaked to give them more balance, adding a long-range attack for roller weapons, for instance, or allowing long-range weapons to hold a charge while players swim through ink.

Nintendo’s decision to stick close to the original mostly works: Splatoon 2 strengthens the series’ core gameplay, gives players more tools to use in battle and retains the spirit of fun that made the first entry a hit. Unfortunately, it also retains a handful of the first game’s awkward flaws.

Multiplayer modes and maps are still limited to a two-at-a-time rotation that changes every few hours, for instance. Players still can’t change weapon and gear loadouts without quitting multiplayer and jumping back in either. (Being able to switch weapons between matches would have been a huge quality-of-life improvement.) These aren’t deal breakers, but it would have been nice to see some more of the game’s rough edges ironed out in the sequel.

The sameness of Splatoon 2 falls flat in the single player campaign, however. The game’s Hero Mode very much follows the vein of the original, serving as training for the main event: multiplayer. It’s basically a set of linear levels that introduces the game’s core concepts. Here’s a level that teaches you how to swim through ink to make longer jumps. Here’s one designed to teach you how charge weapons work.

As a basic gameplay tutorial, Splatoon 2’s single-player mode is a good introduction for folks new to the series, but players who have sharpened their teeth on multiplayer (or just played the first game) might find it a bit tedious — and that’s a shame, because it’s framed around a light and fun story that revisits characters from the first game.

The entire time I played Hero Mode, I felt like it could have been something great. It almost was too: Every now and then, the campaign will throw an incredible boss fight at you or a complex, joyously fun level that calls back to the best of games like Super Mario Galaxy. Instead, the single-player campaign is merely an OK experience with a few great moments.

Despite this, Splatoon 2 is still a fantastic experience for Nintendo Switch owners looking for a fun, addictive multiplayer game. It didn’t learn every lesson it could have from its predecessor, but it delivers on the core gameplay mechanics that made the original an unexpected hit. Better still, it retains the original game’s cultural identity by building a community around Splatoon’s in-game hosts and by showcasing artwork made by players in a Miiverse-like drawing app.

Splatoon 2 is everything it needs to be and nothing more. If you’re OK with that, you’ll love it. Just don’t buy it for the single-player campaign alone.

Amazon Spark curates an Instagram-like shopping feed

If you’ve ever found yourself wishing that Amazon would just advertise its products in a social media-like format that looks and functions a lot like Instagram with maybe a touch of Pinterest, then oh boy are you in luck. Amazon just launched a new feature called Spark and it’s exactly that.

With Amazon Spark, users can select five or more interests, such as “Books,” “Recipes” and “TV Bingewatching,” and then be provided with a feed that includes product reviews and photos. Anytime one of those photos has a product that can be purchased through Amazon, a shopping bag icon will sit in the bottom right corner of the image. Click it and you’ll be sent to the product’s page.

If you choose to contribute your own content to Spark, you’ll be considered an “Enthusiast” and will get a badge once you post or write a product review. Spark users can also comment on others’ posts and give it a “smile” if they so choose — the Spark version of a Like or Favorite.

To start using Amazon Spark, click the “Programs & Features” option in the navigation menu. You’ll then have to choose at least five interests, enter your name and decide if you want to receive notifications. There are a few limitations though. First, you have to be an Amazon Prime member in order to contribute to Spark or interact with posts. Non-Prime members can create a feed, but they won’t be able to post or comment. Additionally, as of now, Spark is only available on iOS and to US customers only. If you meet those criteria, Amazon Spark is available to you today.

[Image: TechCrunch / Amazon]

Source: TechCrunch

Panic Releases Transmit 5 With Major Improvements, but No Mac App Store Version

Panic today announced the launch of Transmit 5, the newest version of its popular Mac-based file transfer app. Transmit 5 is a massive update, introducing an improved UI, new features, additional servers, and a Panic Sync feature.

According to Panic, everything from the core file transfer engine to the “Get Info” experience was entirely rethought, overhauled, and improved, for an even better file management experience.

For those unfamiliar with Transmit, it’s designed to allow users to upload, download, and manage files on local and remote servers, turning file management into a simple drag-and-drop affair with a clean easy-to-use interface. Transmit 5 works with FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and S3, and it connects to Backblaze B2, Box, Google Drive, DreamObjects, Dropbox, Microsoft Azure, and Rackspace.

The new version of Transmit also features Panic Sync, designed to offer a quick and safe way to sync sites and keep Panic data up to date across all apps and devices. Panic Sync is part of another major change – Transmit 5’s absence from the Mac App Store.

Panic will not be releasing Transmit 5 in the Mac App Store, which, the company explains, is due to its inability to offer a demo through Apple’s storefront. “This allows us to distribute a demo which we think is extremely helpful for people considering Transmit,” reads an FAQ on the blog post announcing the release.

Panic says the company plans to “constantly re-evaluate” the Mac App Store and hopes to return at some point, presumably if Apple introduces a wider range of features for developers, such as free trials and demos.

Transmit 5 is priced at $35 for the next week, and after that, the price will go up to $45. There is no upgrade discount for customers who have purchased an earlier version of Transmit, but those who purchased Transmit 4 after June 1 can get a free update.

A free trial is available from the Transmit 5 website for those who would like to try Transmit before making a purchase.

Tag: Panic
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