The condition that causes people to get lost in their own home. Some estimates suggest up to one in 30 people may be affected by Developmental Topographical Disorientation, a condition that has been described as a lifelong inability to orient oneself — even in extremely familiar surroundings.

The Climate Fiction Prize recognises and celebrates the emergence of a sub-genre of fiction about futures affected by the climate crisis. While that one is for full novels, the Imagine 2200 contest from Grist (previously) is for short stories, a number of which can be read on the site. Obviously cli-fi can be dystopian but some stories recapture a sort of optimism which I feel has been largely missing from science fiction since the sixties/seventies, when we all assumed that technology was making the world better in an uncomplicated way.

A couple of further resources.

The Jesus Trip is a 1971 BBC Documentary following Christian evangelical groups in the US at the time (review). Some of the dialogue was sampled in Father and Son (official), from the Boards of Canada album Inferno (Simpson's parody).

We're immersed in a permanent stream of images, a fluid outpouring that can go on forever without plot, sequence, or development; we're still being trained on the old televisual cues but without stable relations between what we encounter. The result is not distraction but congestion: too many competing emotional prompts without hierarchy of resolution.

Tim Post dacht aanvankelijk dat dromen iets zweverigs waren, maar ontdekte een wetenschappelijke wereld erachter.

Onderzoekers zien dat de democratie onder grote druk staat. Ze waarschuwen voor ”de mogelijkheid van beginnende autocratisering in Nederland” en pleiten er bijvoorbeeld voor om politieke benoemingen in de rechterlijke macht onmogelijk te maken. „Politici moeten zich bewuster zijn van hun signaalfunctie richting burgers.”

Voor deze rubriek sturen lezers een foto van hun ouders. Mike Meeles (1949) stuurde een foto van zijn moeder Gertrud Meeles-Rissman (1920-2021) en zijn vader Johannes Meeles (1919- 2008), op de Havel in Berlijn rond 1943.

Boterhammen, burgers, bao’s en buns: het broodje kent vele gezichten. NRC vraagt kookboekschrijvers naar hun favorieten en gooit het picknickkleedje uit op een plek die voor hen bijzonder is. Deze week: walnoot-vijgenbroodje met Gruyère d’Alpage van bakker Issa Niemeijer-Brown.

Op je negentiende drie maanden naar Canada klinkt als een mooi avontuur. Tot je terechtkomt in een totaal verknipt gezin waar de ouders emotioneel minder zelfredzaam zijn dan jij.

Bijna alle bosbranden beginnen door menselijk gedrag. Soms per ongeluk, soms opzettelijk. „Dé bosbrandstichter bestaat eigenlijk niet.”

Astronomers have directly detected helium in the atmosphere of LHS 1140 b, a rocky exoplanet 48 light-years away that sits in its star's habitable zone. The finding marks the first confirmed atmosphere around a rocky, Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, strengthening the case that some planets orbiting red dwarfs can retain atmospheres and potentially support liquid water. "We have actually detected directly the helium present in the atmosphere itself, and that's the first direct detection for any rocky exoplanet, which is really exciting ... and then there's this added bonus that it's in the habitable zone, which is super exciting for astrobiology and habitability and searching for life," lead author Collin Cherubim, who recently earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University, told Space.com. "It feels kind of surreal." From the report: This exoplanet, or planet outside of our solar system, was first discovered in 2017 by a team led by astronomer Jason Dittmann who is now a co-author on this new discovery. "This planet was found like 10 years ago, and we're just now saying, okay, that's an atmosphere," Dittman told Space.com. "We're slowly narrowing the gap and checking these boxes ... we're finding a planet that's rocky, a planet that's of the right temperature and now ... it's like okay, we finally found one that has an atmosphere."

And being a rocky planet, "there's definitely a surface ... it's made of rocks," Dittman said. What does the planet's surface look like? We can't say yet, but the researchers who found this planet's atmosphere think there's a good chance it could have water. While it orbits a red dwarf star, which is smaller and cooler than the sun, it orbits closer than we do to our star, maintaining a temperature that keeps the planet in the "Goldilocks zone" where liquid water could exist on its surface. "It probably also has a lot of water," Cherubim said. "If it has some amount of atmosphere that can provide a bit of a greenhouse effect, which we know that it does now ... it will very likely be what we consider to be habitable conditions on Earth, and conditions that would likely support liquid water."

So is it Earth-like? While it's certainly not an Earth copy, this planet can be considered Earth-like in two main ways, Cherubim shared. One: its overall composition. The planet is rocky, likely with an iron core and (now we know) it has an atmosphere. And two: the planet's temperature is just right for liquid water, which is necessary for life at least as far as we understand it on our planet. [...] "I'm not claiming this planet has life," Cherubim made clear. With further investigation, scientists could better understand what else might be in this planet's atmosphere, and they could confirm if it has water. Further observations might not be able to confirm habitability or identify any life on the planet, but they could at least help us to better understand planets like this. The findings have been published in the journal Science.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide September 1963

Fabio Bruna posted a photo:

Werken van Pierre Bonnard in het Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Udine. Die mevrouw is niet aan het bellen, op de telefoon staat de audiotour.

Fabio Bruna posted a photo:

Prachtig werk van Mirko Basaldella in het Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Udine.

mikeleonardvisualarts posted a photo:

Picture this. Someone gets hold of your Android phone and, despite not knowing your PIN, they can use Gemini from the lock screen to send SMS or WhatsApp messages as you. This is a real bug and Google says a fix is coming as soon as this week. Since May, The Register has received multiple reports of users bypassing device authentication on Android 16 devices that enable Gemini access from the lock screen. These are distinct from the similar Gemini-based Android lock screen bypass bugs that have made the rounds since September 2025. One of the bugs reported to us allowed unauthenticated users with physical access to an Android device to enable functionality such as phone, texts, and WhatsApp via Gemini on the lock screen using a specific multi-touch gesture. When device owners revoke Gemini’s access to certain apps, like Messages, and someone later tries to send an SMS via Gemini on the lock screen, the chatbot will prompt the user to open the relevant app. Selecting "Continue" prompts the user to enter the correct PIN to access messages. However, when “Continue” is pressed simultaneously with Gemini’s “Add attachment” button, the device will then allow unauthenticated users to send that SMS via Gemini, without needing to enter a PIN. From there, users can enable Gemini’s access to other apps, which were previously disconnected from Gemini in the user’s Settings, by invoking the relevant prompt. For example, to allow Gemini access to WhatsApp, users can enter “@WhatsApp” in the Gemini text window. No PIN needed. You can then check this has worked by going back into user Settings, after entering a correct PIN, and it will show that WhatsApp is connected to Gemini without completing the expected authentication step. Exploiting the flaw requires physical access to a device. In most circumstances, we steer clear of giving this type of vulnerability too much airtime since it is often difficult to pull off in real-world scenarios. If Windows, for example, had a make-me-admin bug that required the attacker, for whatever reason, to have physical access to the keyboard connected to the Windows machine, then the owner of said machine has bigger problems than the vulnerability itself. However, given the state of phone theft crime, especially in the UK, and the potential to send convincing SMS messages as part of fake kidnapping scams, to name one possibility, we think this one deserves some attention. A Google spokesperson told us this is a known bug and it has already implemented a fix that was scheduled for a full deployment this week. They also said the bug is not Pixel-specific, after some claimed that they could not reproduce it on Samsung devices, but fell short of specifying which manufacturers, models, or versions are vulnerable. ®