Engeland en Argentinië spelen vanavond in Atlanta tegen elkaar voor een plek in de finale op het WK voetbal. Vanwege de geschiedenis is het een beladen duel, waarin de Engelsen hun hoop gevestigd hebben op een wonder.
"Dit is niet zomaar een potje", zegt oud-doelman Peter Shilton. "Je hebt de Falklands als politieke dimensie, je hebt de rode kaart van David Beckham in 1998, je hebt alle dubieuze momenten die dit toernooi in het voordeel van Argentinië zijn uitgepakt. Daar moet je als Engeland dan tegen strijden. Ik denk dat we iets heel bijzonders nodig hebben. Ik noem maar iets: een uittrap van Emiliano Martínez die tegen de kabel van een camera aankomt en zomaar uit de lucht valt, zodat Jude Bellingham kan scoren. De Kabel van God. Een mens mag dromen, toch?’’
De FIFA heeft laten weten dat de Engelsen nergens op moeten rekenen.
Maar, handen heeft-ie! En als de menselijke operators genoeg trainingsdata hebben gegenereerd om NEO autonoom te maken, krijg je deze autonome vingers er gratis bij. Snappen we verder allemaal niks van, maar NEO zelf beschrijft het handwerk als volgt:
"We zijn verheugd onze baanbrekende,door pezen aangestuurdehanden met 25 vrijheidsgraden voor het NEO-humanoïdeplatform te introduceren; ze bieden een behendigheid, kracht, veiligheid en betrouwbaarheid die bijna op menselijk niveau liggen. Deze handen zijn ontworpen met een fundamenteel doel: de hardwarematige beperkingen wegnemen die bepalen wat humanoïde robots kunnen doen, zodat data – en niet de hardware – de enige grens vormt voor hun capaciteiten. Doordat ze op alle relevante vlakken gelijkwaardig zijn aan of zelfs beter presteren dan menselijke handen, zorgen ze ervoor dat onze AI-modellen niet langer worden beperkt door een gebrek aan behendigheid. NEO kan nu vrijwel elke taak uitvoeren die een mens met de handen kan doen, en dat met de precisie, het aanpassingsvermogen en de voorzichtigheid die vereist zijn in praktijkomgevingen."
Rarely do artists conceive of work that is prescient and, decades on, more urgent than when it was created. One who has accomplished this is certainly Ana Mendieta (1948-1985), whose interdisciplinary practice merged photography, land art, sculpture, film, and more. And in a large-scale, immersive survey of her work that opens today at Tate Modern, more than 120 pieces revisit the groundbreaking artist’s key series and empathetic exchange with land and nature.
Mendieta is best known for her Silueta Series, in which she impressed the shape of the human body in water, mud, rock, and forests. These sometimes consisted of outlines “drawn” onto surfaces, such as a gunpowder tribute on a fallen tree, which exists eternally half-ablaze in a photograph. Others are impressed directly into the earth, as if a person had been lying there for millennia as the desert or stone formed around her.
In what she described as “earth-body” works, Mendieta explored vital relationships between humans and nature, absence and presence, experience and temporality, and place and identity. She often turned the lens on herself, building compositions that plumb the tensions between beauty, ruggedness, vulnerability, and strength. Her practice can easily be viewed through the lens of ecofeminism, a movement that emerged around the same time Mendieta was working, but it is also profoundly personal.
At 12 years old, Mendieta was separated from her parents and brother, who remained in her home country of Cuba, when she and her sister were exiled to the U.S. following the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Throughout her life and brief career, she grappled with themes of displacement and disconnection. “My art is the way I reestablish the bonds that unite me to the Universe,” Mendieta said. “It is a return to the maternal source.”
There is also humor in her approach to self-representation, such as her early series of self-portraits in which she documented her wet hair in wild, sculptural forms or produced a sequential series of images in which an arrangement of flowers gradually conceals her face. Within a few years, the work adopted a more solemn, enigmatic tone, characterized by voids, organic forms, gesture, and ephemerality.
Mendieta also drew on her fascination with archaeology to create multimedia works that delved into the relationship between humans and the land. “My work is basically in the tradition of a Neolithic art,” she said in 1984. “I’m not interested in the formal qualities of my materials, but their emotional and sensual ones.”
The artist’s interest in the ancient past ultimately lends a timelessness to themes that resonate through her personal narrative but also, incidentally, the ills of the present. One might think of our screen-fueled social discord and the accelerating climate crisis, both also defined by a sense of alienation and disjointedness. Though Mendieta couldn’t have conceived of these things as we experience them today, she nevertheless tapped into a kind of visceral biophilia that’s more critical than ever. The exhibition at Tate highlights not only the artist’s the desire to connect with nature but also casts a light on how far removed from it most of us have become.
Ana Mendieta continues through January 17, 2027, in London. Plan your visit on Tate’s website.
At Flickr, we’re committed to maintaining a platform that’s secure, trustworthy, and built for photographers who are passionate about sharing their work. As part of that ongoing commitment, we’re introducing a policy to remove inactive accounts that have never been used. These are free accounts that have been inactive for at least 90 days and contain no photos, no comments, no favorites, and no group activity – but they do represent real security risk, including potential for account takeover, spam, and abuse.
Why this matters
Dormant, empty accounts are a target for bad actors. Keeping millions of unused accounts in our system creates unnecessary exposure for our platform and, by extension, for the active community members who depend on Flickr. Cleaning up these accounts helps us run a safer, healthier platform.
What happens next
Starting July 15th, 2026, we will:
Publish this blog post as public notice of the policy
After 30 days from the go-live date, we will begin locking affected accounts
14 days after locking, permanently delete accounts where no reclaim has been made
If you think your account might be affected
Simply log in to your Flickr account at flickr.com before August 31st, 2026. Logging in is all it takes to keep your account active. If your account has been locked and you’d like to reclaim it, contact our support team at flickrhelp.com – we’re happy to help.
What gets deleted
For accounts that are removed, all associated data – including profile information and account credentials – will be permanently deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Because these accounts contain no photos, no comments, no groups, and no social connections, the data involved is minimal: essentially an email address, a username, and authentication credentials.
De regeringscoalitie van premier Benjamin Netanyahu dacht een nieuwe manier gevonden te hebben om de dienstplicht voor ultraorthodoxen te omzeilen: ze mogen niet meer gearresteerd worden als ze weigeren. Het Hooggerechtshof houdt de wet voorlopig tegen.
De Hogeschool Utrecht probeert het beeld te kantelen dat ICT studeren geen nut meer heeft omdat programmeurs vervangen worden door AI. Studenten leren hoe ze met software echte problemen oplossen, die worden aangedragen door opdrachtgevers.
Astronauts on SpaceX's Fram2 mission successfully captured diagnostic X-ray images in orbit for the first time. The milestone gives space medicine a second imaging option beyond ultrasound and could help future crews diagnose injuries, inspect equipment, and support longer missions to the moon or beyond. Popular Science reports: Commercial off-the-shelf X-ray machines like the ice cooler-sized MinXray TR90BH now allow users to perform scans on subjects far away from traditional facilities. In 2022, [Mayo Clinic researcher Sheyna Gifford] assisted in preparing a crew to successfully generate digital X-rays while experiencing microgravity during a parabolic flight. Gifford's team then spent years collaborating with SpaceX to plan another feasibility study. This time, they didn't want to operate an X-ray machine aboard an aircraft simulating the conditions in space -- they intended to use the equipment during an orbital mission.
The process was detailed in a recently published study in the journal Radiology, and focuses on last year's Fram2 mission. Instead of days of medical training, astronauts spent only four hours learning how to use their portable radiography device. They then took preflight X-rays of a hand, forearm, chest, abdomen, and pelvis ahead of their SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch on March 31, 2025. Once in orbit, the team calibrated the system before testing their MinXray on the same body parts as well as a smartwatch.
Once the crew returned, a trio of independent radiologists reviewed the orbital X-ray images based on their positioning, spatial and contrast resolutions, and general scan quality. Although positioning scores were slightly decreased for the central body images, every other scan held up to similar examples created on Earth. Meanwhile, the astronauts reported that using the machine was easy despite minimal prior coaching. Looking ahead, researchers hope to conduct further X-ray tests during orbital missions, while continuing to reduce the overall size of equipment.