The Super Mario Galaxy Movie "is officially the year's highest-grossing film to date with $629 million at the global box office," reports Variety — and it will likely earn over $1 billion. Project Hail Mary now becomes the year's second highest-grossing movie, with four-week ticket sales over $510, notes The Hollywood Reporter:


The two films have helped propel year-to-date revenue to $2.113 billion — the best showing for the first part of the year since before the pandemic in 2019 ($2.619 billion), according to Comscore. And revenue is running 25% ahead of the same corridor last year.

Some context from ScreenRant:

Even though The Super Mario Galaxy Movie reviews were largely negative, earning it a disappointing 43% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave it a far superior score of 89% from audiences, making it Verified Hot on the platform's Popcornmeter. This indicates that the movie should continue to climb up the global box office chart thanks to strong word of mouth, even as it trails consistently behind the original 2023 movie in terms of commercial performance.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen called Project Hail Mary "an inspirational example.. We all thought that movie was really uplifting and inspiring." Before the Artemis astronauts launched their mission, Space.com points out "they were treated to a viewing of Amazon MGM Studios' Project Hail Maryto bolster their spirits ahead of their monumental 10-day lunar voyage. "
Marking the occasion and providing encouraging words to the three American astronauts and one Canadian astronaut, Ryan Gosling recorded a brief encouraging video for the moon-bound foursome.

Today NPR took a spoiler-filled look at the science in the film, asking: Would it be possible for humans to travel to a place as far away as the Tau Ceti star system?
It's not possible right now, says Lisa Carnell, division director for NASA'S Biological and Physical Sciences Division. "I don't think we are fully prepared to send humans to Mars, let alone light years away," she says. Given the leaps in technology that humanity has made in just the past century, however, she didn't want to rule it out.... "I believe it's possible [one day]"...

The hypothetical study of how humans and extraterrestrials might communicate is a real scientific field, called xenolinguistics, that includes researchers from linguistics, animal communication, and anthropology. Martin Hilpert, a professor of linguistics at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, says the film "gets a lot of things right" for how such an encounter might occur, though it also employs a lot of "happy coincidences" too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"RGB LED TVs have been the talk of the TV world this year," argues The Verge, with models coming from all the manufacturers."
And the first one of 2026 is here — the UR9 from China's Hisense — "the first look at the viability of the new backlight technology outside of demo rooms." They call it "a step above the traditional mini-LED TVs of years past." and "a great first shot against OLED's bow."
HDR is colorful and accurate, it has great brightness, and it is capable of showing colors beyond the P3 color space for movies and TV shows that have wider color. But at $3,500, the 65-inch model I reviewed is priced comparably to high-end OLEDs from LG and Samsung, which is tough competition... One of the touted benefits of RGB LED TVs is their ability to achieve 100 percent of the BT.2020 color space... [But] even if a TV is capable of extending beyond P3 and into BT.2020 colors (which the UR9 absolutely is), with most movies and TV shows it doesn't matter. It's also a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation — we need TVs that can accurately display BT.2020 before the color space is fully adopted by TV and movie creators, but if there's no content, why get a BT.2020 TV?

BGR points out this new mini LED TV also "includes a DisplayPort (DP) connection alongside HDMI."

"Well, technically, it's a USB-C port that delivers full DisplayPort functionality, but it's labeled as DisplayPort."

The TV also has three HDMI 2.1 ports, making it a great choice for game consoles and PCs. And while HDMI 2.1 supports 4K/120Hz, the Hisense UR9S will deliver 4K/170Hz or 4K/180Hz visuals [a higher refresh rate] when connected to a gaming PC via DisplayPort. Better yet, the TV is AMD FreeSync-compatible, and Hisense plans on adding Dolby Vision 2 HDR in future firmware.

The Hisense UR9S will be available in four sizes: 65, 75, 85, and 100 inches. It's worth mentioning that the two largest sizes will max out at 180Hz for the refresh rate, while the 65 and 75-inch screens come in at 170Hz. This is exciting news for serious gamers looking for the best gaming TVs and a huge step forward in the evolution of panel tech. RGB Mini LED TVs were showcased by a handful of manufacturers at CES 2026, including Samsung, Sony, and LG; so Hisense will certainly have some competition.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mississippi has one warehouse — run by a contractor — that sells all the liquor for the entire state of 2.9 million people. "If a restaurant or store anywhere in Mississippi wanted a bottle of Jim Beam, they had to order it from the wholesale warehouse," reports the Washington Post.

But then Mississippi's warehouse-managing contractor implemented a new computer system that wasn't compatible with the state's delivery system (like they'd promised it would be back in 2023). And then things got even worse... "The problem, business owners allege, is that the company tore out the conveyor belts but didn't hire humans to replace them."

In February a state Revenue Department commissioner told lawmakers the state was hiring temporary replacement workers, but in the five weeks through March 29th they'd only managed to reduce "pending" orders by 21.7%, from 218,851 down to 171,190, according to stats from Mississippi Today. At least four Mississippi businesses are now suing the warehouse operator "claiming breach of contract and harm to their business."

So what's it like in a state suddenly running dry? The Washington Post reports:

Willie the one-eyed skeleton is dressed for Cinco de Mayo, but the liquor store where Willie sits ran out of Jose Cuervo months ago. Arrow Wine and Spirits is also out of Tito's and Burnett's vodka, Franzia boxed wine, Jack Daniels, and every kind of premixed margarita... Restaurants in Jackson had no wine on Valentine's Day, and bars on the Gulf Coast ran dry before Mardi Gras. At least five liquor shops have closed, and if cheap pints don't hit the corner stores soon, many of them will, too...

[A]s both the state and its businesses lose millions in revenue, many say they see no real end to the crisis. Nearly 174,000 cases of alcohol are sitting in a warehouse north of Jackson, but no one seems to know how to get them out the door... Even the shops that have received deliveries say they often get the wrong thing — Jell-O shots, for instance, that should have been small-batch Norwegian gin...
At Willie the one-eyed skeleton's liquor store they'd previously made 300 to 400 sales a day, according to the article, but last week had 34 customers. And Mississippi is one of 17 U.S. states requiring liquor stores to buy their liquor from distribution centers controlled by the state's Department of Revenue...

Mississippi Today points out that while some want the state to finally privatize liquor distribution, "The state collects around $120 million a year in taxes on alcohol." Plus the state has already authorized "borrowing $95 million to construct a new warehouse, set to begin operations in 2027..."

Thanks to Slashdot reader jrnvk for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The biotech industry's engineered cells could become an $8 trillion market by 2035, notes Phys.org. But how do you keep them from being stolen? Their article notes "an uptick in the theft and smuggling of high-value biological materials, including specially engineered cells."


In Science Advances, a team of U.S. researchers present a new approach to genetically securing precious biological material. They created a genetic combination lock in which the locking or encryption process scrambled the DNA of a cell so that its important instructions were non-functional and couldn't be easily read or used. The unlocking, or decryption, process involves adding a series of chemicals in a precise order over time — like entering a password — to activate recombinases, which then unscramble the DNA to their original, functional form...

They created a biological keypad with nine distinct chemicals, each acting as a one-digit input. By using the same chemicals in pairs to form two-digit inputs, where two chemicals must be present simultaneously to activate a sensor, they expanded the keypad to 45 possible chemical inputs without introducing any new chemicals. They also added safety penalties — if someone tampers with the system, toxins are released — making it extremely unlikely for an unauthorized person to access the cells.


"The researchers conducted an ethical hacking exercise on the test lock and found that random guessing yielded a 0.2% success rate, remarkably close to the theoretical target of 0.1%."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bloomberg describes him as a "former Harvard Medical School professor whose research has focused on the intersection of AI and neuroscience."
"For the past 20 years, I studied how the human brain stores and retrieves memories," Kreiman writes on LinkedIn. And now "My co-founder Spandan Madan and I built a new algorithm to endow humans with perfect and infinite memory."

Engramme connects to your **memorome**, i.e., entire digital life. Large Memory Models work in the same way that your brain encodes and retrieves information. Then memories are recalled automatically — no searching, no prompting, no hallucinations. [The startup's web site promises "omniscient AI to augment human cognition."]

We have built the memory layer for EVERY app. Read our manifesto about augmenting human cognition. ["We are not just building software; we are enabling a complete transformation of human cognition. When the friction disappears between needing a piece of information and recalling it, the nature of thought itself changes. This synergy between biological intuition and digital precision will be the most disruptive force in modern history, fundamentally reshaping every profession... We are dedicated to creating a world where everyone has the power to remember everything they have ever learned, seen, or felt "]

Welcome to a new future where you can remember everything. This is the MEMORY SINGULARITY: after 300,000 years, this is the moment that humans stop forgetting.

Bloomberg reports that the startup (spun out of a lab at Harvard) is "in talks with investors to raise about $100 million, according to people familiar with the matter."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Een ontzettend belangrijke dag voor alle door Wierd Duk geportretteerde Nederlanders die afhaakten, en naar Hongarije emigreerden omdat het daar zo leuk is: moeten zij straks weer aanhaken, en terugverhuizen naar datzelfde, verschrikkelijke Nederland? Ja. Vandaag stemden de Hongaren namelijk en klaarblijkelijk zijn ze daar helemaal klaar met reusachtige vleermuis Viktor Orban, die 16 jaar minister-president was, en deze campagne nog warme steun ontving van Rubio, Trump, Vance, Wilders en natuurlijk die Nederlandse diaspora. Heeft allemaal: niet mogen baten, winnaar is Peter Magyar, op wie van alles aan te merken is (zo beschuldigt zijn ex hem van een nogal gewelddadige liefdesstijl), maar daar staat dan weer tegenover dat hij niet al 16 jaar een corrupt en autocratisch regime bestiert, dat bovendien hard bezig is een tweede Paraguay van het land te maken. Afijn, in weerwil van ideegenoten Wilders en Trump blijkt Orban eigenlijk een hele nette kerel, die zijn tegenstander meteen gefeliciteerd heeft. Mooi en goed!

GeenStijl Café Mega Mix 311

Social

Feyenoord leek tegen NEC een goede slag te slaan in de strijd om plek twee, totdat ex-Feyenoorder Danilo in de 97ste minuut de gelijkmaker tegen de touwen werkte. In een nieuwe aflevering van podcast Feyenoord: De Verlenging blikt Leon Mastik samen met Dennis van Eersel en Philip van Es terug op deze teleurstellend verlopen wedstrijd.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide August 1966

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

SergioQ79 - Osanpo Photographer - posted a photo:

Nagoya, giorno di pioggia.
Uno shotengai pieno, persone che passano, si fermano, aspettano.
Ombrelli, luci accese anche di giorno, il suono costante dell’acqua fuori.
Niente di straordinario, solo la città che continua a muoversi senza fermarsi.
La pioggia non cambia il ritmo, lo accompagna.

名古屋、雨の日。
人であふれる商店街、歩く人、立ち止まる人、待つ人。
傘、昼間でも灯る明かり、外に続く雨の音。
特別なことはない。ただ街がいつも通り動いているだけ。
雨は流れを変えない、その中に溶け込む。

Nagoya, a rainy day.
A crowded shotengai, people walking, stopping, waiting.
Umbrellas, lights still on during the day, the steady sound of rain outside.
Nothing remarkable, just the city moving as always.
The rain doesn’t change the rhythm, it follows it.

Greg Adams Photography posted a photo:

Thames Barrier sits waiting to protect London from flooding.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier

SergioQ79 - Osanpo Photographer - has added a photo to the pool:

Nagoya, giorno di pioggia.
Uno shotengai pieno, persone che passano, si fermano, aspettano.
Ombrelli, luci accese anche di giorno, il suono costante dell’acqua fuori.
Niente di straordinario, solo la città che continua a muoversi senza fermarsi.
La pioggia non cambia il ritmo, lo accompagna.

名古屋、雨の日。
人であふれる商店街、歩く人、立ち止まる人、待つ人。
傘、昼間でも灯る明かり、外に続く雨の音。
特別なことはない。ただ街がいつも通り動いているだけ。
雨は流れを変えない、その中に溶け込む。

Nagoya, a rainy day.
A crowded shotengai, people walking, stopping, waiting.
Umbrellas, lights still on during the day, the steady sound of rain outside.
Nothing remarkable, just the city moving as always.
The rain doesn’t change the rhythm, it follows it.

lynddion has added a photo to the pool:

Tokyo. March 2026

HILVERSUM (ANP) - BNNVARA komt zondag met twee extra uitzendingen ter ere van Sonja Barend, heeft de omroep laten weten. Eerder op de dag werd bekendgemaakt dat de televisiepersoonlijkheid op 86-jarige leeftijd is overleden.

Zondagavond is er om 21.00 uur een extra uitzending Pauw & De Wit over het leven en de nalatenschap van Barend. De presentatie ligt in handen van Tim de Wit en Roos Moggré. Te gast zijn onder anderen documentairemaker Coen Verbraak, presentator Cornald Maas en columnist Angela de Jong. Ook presentator Hanneke Groenteman, die bevriend was met Barend, presentator Fidan Ekiz en Herman Meijer, voormalig eindredacteur van Barend & Witteman, schuiven aan.

Later op de avond, om 23.30 uur, wordt de documentaire Sonja Barend - Vragen zonder antwoord van Coen Verbraak uitgezonden. De documentaire uit 2012 verschijnt later ook op NPO Start.

Barend overleed zaterdag thuis in het bijzijn van haar familie. De doodsoorzaak is niet bekendgemaakt.

TEL AVIV (ANP/DPA) - De Israëlische premier Benjamin Netanyahu heeft een bezoek gebracht aan Zuid-Libanon en een voortzetting van de strijd tegen de Libanese beweging Hezbollah aangekondigd. "De oorlog gaat door, ook binnen de veiligheidszone in Libanon," verklaarde Netanyahu volgens zijn kantoor. Hij werd tijdens het bezoek vergezeld door minister van Defensie Israel Katz en legerchef Eyal Zamir.

Het Israëlische leger heeft "de dreiging van een invasie vanuit Libanon verijdeld, dankzij deze veiligheidszone," aldus de premier. Hij sprak van "grote successen," onder meer in de strijd tegen raketbeschietingen vanuit Libanon gericht op Noord-Israël, maar voegde eraan toe dat "het werk nog niet af is".

Vorige maand kondigde minister van Defensie Katz aan dat Israël voornemens is tot nader order de controle te behouden over het gebied dat zich uitstrekt tot aan de rivier de Litani in Zuid-Libanon.

Israël voert sinds begin maart aanvallen uit op Libanon waarbij volgens Libanese autoriteiten al meer dan 2000 doden zijn gevallen.

HILVERSUM (ANP) - Sonja Barend heeft "ontzettend veel" betekend voor het televisie-interview, zegt Nieuwsuur-presentator Marielle Tweebeeke naar aanleiding van het overlijden van de talkshowpresentatrice. Zondag werd bekend dat Barend zaterdag op 86-jarige leeftijd is overleden.

"Ze is de grondlegger van het tv-interview in allerlei vormen", zegt Tweebeeke. "Aan de ene kant was daar het scherpe interview met de politicus, tot de zeer geïnteresseerde gesprekken met gewone mensen of artiesten aan de andere kant. Altijd veelzijdig, met als rode draad oprechte interesse. Dat zag je in haar hele houding; ze zat als het ware helemaal ín haar gast."

Tweebeeke won tweemaal de Sonja Barend Award, de naar Barend vernoemde interviewprijs. Ze herinnert zich nog goed dat ze Barend in 2012, toen ze de prijs voor het eerst won, ontmoette achter de schermen. "Ik vond haar altijd al scherp in haar interviews. En tegelijkertijd charmant; ze durfde alles te vragen. En naast haar interesse in mensen en wat er in de wereld gebeurt, ook iemand met een mening. Ze was uitgesproken, maar toen ik haar ontmoette ook zacht en lief."

VARA

Tweebeeke vond Barend "een innemende vrouw en heel geïnteresseerd in wat er in de wereld gebeurde". Om die reden was de journaliste zondag dan ook verrast toen ze hoorde dat Barend was overleden. "Ik kreeg een appje van iemand en dacht: Sonja Barend dood? En ook nog 86? Dat bedenk je niet, juist omdat ze er nog zo bij was, alles wist en alles las."

Talkshowpresentator Jeroen Pauw herinnert zich "de vrolijke lach" van Barend. "Zij staat voor iets. Ze staat ook voor een tijdperk", zegt Pauw tegen RTL Boulevard over Barend. Beide presentatoren maakten meerdere programma's voor de VARA, nu BNNVARA. "Ze staat ook voor het engagement en tegelijkertijd de vrolijke lach. Je realiseert je toch nu dat dat niet meer zo is. Er zal geen Sonja Barend meer zijn."

Het laatste televisieoptreden van Barend was in oktober 2025 aan de talkshowtafel bij Pauw. In Pauw & De Wit reikte ze de naar haar vernoemde interviewprijs uit aan Coen Verbraak.

"I don't understand," said the man. "That is my guitar. Why doesn't it sound like that when I play it?" Jimi smiled. "Man, don't you know? There's a big difference between owning something, and having it."

Hockeyclub Hurley beleeft een dramatisch seizoen. Het zocht zondag met één punt de laatste strohalm. De situatie is vergelijkbaar met die van voetbalclub RBC, twintig jaar geleden. Wat doet permanent verlies met een topsporter? ‘Snel vergeten en doorgaan – dat moet je juist níet doen.’

Johann Sebastian Bach