ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will return to Earth on 28 September, with flight controllers guiding the spacecraft close to our home planet to alter its speed and direction en route to Jupiter.
[Image description: Infographic showing Juice's flight past Earth with a dotted orange line. Key timings are indicated, including the start of the flyby navigation campaign (17 August), the closest approach to Earth (28 September) and the farewell images of Earth (2 October). Some of the line is bold yellow, a key indicates that this means that Juice's science instruments are switched on.]
Credits: European Space Agency; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Acknowledgements: ATG Europe
Kijk u kunt wel denken dat iedereen die een video maakt vol rare tekeningen met allemaal pijltjes erop en 'JFK' en '911' een rare complotwappie is, maar dat is dus wat ze willen dat u denkt! En met 'ze' bedoelen 'we' de CIA, die juist bedacht heeft dat er complotdenkers zouden moeten zijn, zodat ze hun complotten geheim kunnen houden en iedereen die de waarheid wil achterhalen op een ondoordringbare ring van complotdenkers stuit. Dat is op zichzelf dan weer geen complot, nou ja, het is wel een complot, maar het is dus ook juist echt waar, dat het een complot is, maar dat weet u dus niet, vanwege al die complotdenkers die er voor moeten zorgen dat u de complotten niet doorziet. Of zoiets. Je gaat het pas zien als je het doorhebt. En George van Houts heeft het al heel erg lang door. Je zou haast zeggen: te lang. PS:Bindende luistertip
In tender paper collages featuring woodland creatures in relief, Kanako Abe imagines dreamlike scenes reminiscent of childhood narratives and folk tales. Giant wolves, diminutive bunnies, and curious deer wander through a Narnia-like realm that we glimpse through foliage-filled portals. In her practice, “the paper becomes a canvas for stories untold, where every cut is a deliberate step into a world where imagination and reality intertwine,” a statement says.
Paper-cutting has long been a central tenet of Abe’s practice, which she recently applied to an ambitious forthcoming book project in collaboration with young adult novelist Caryl Lewis. The Paper Girl, published by Frances Lincoln Ltd., follows the adventures of a young protagonist who folds herself into different forms in response to others’ comments and directives only to learn how to stand up for herself by summoning the power of “no.”
The Paper Girl is slated for release on October 6. Pre-order your copy on Bookshop, and if you provide proof of purchase via a form on Quarto, you’ll receive a signed bookplate by Abe. The artist is currently working toward a curatorial endeavor at Giant Robot Gallery scheduled to open in January, which will also include her work. And next April, she’ll participate in a group exhibition at Childhood’s End Gallery in Olympia, Washington. Keep an eye on updates on Instagram.
Masoud Pezeshkian says Tehran is ‘ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations but without the language of force’
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, turned the tables on Donald Trump, describing America as the true bully and terrorist in the Middle East while also insisting that Iran had always shown a commitment to the negotiating table.
In a defiant speech to the UN general assembly in New York, his first since the US and Israel launched an all-out war on Iran, Pezeshkian repeatedly vowed that Tehran would never bend the knee to America.
‘I love going to the Middle East,’ says Ferrari driver
Qatar and Abu Dhabi races could still be cancelled
Lewis Hamilton said he hopes the Formula One season can still end at the two scheduled rounds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, with the finale still in doubt because of the war in the Middle East.
Formula One is pressing ahead with its original plan, although a contingency is understood to be in place to host a final round in Imola if the volatile situation means both meetings have to be cancelled.
Andy Burnham has navigated his way through a first high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump at the UN general assembly in New York. The prime minister’s aides were delighted with how the meeting went, as Trump praised the US-UK relationship and described Burnham as a ‘natural businessman’. The anticipated sticking points – the Chagos Islands, West Bank settlement sanctions and Ireland – appear not to have derailed the talks nor cast a shadow over the future relationship. Lucy Hough speaks to policy editor Kiran Stacey – watch on YouTube
After more than six months of kicking the age verification can down the road due to community blowback, Discord is finally deploying its new system, albeit with several tweaks it hopes will assuage user frustration. Discord cofounder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy took to the company blog Tuesday to reveal the final shape of Discord’s age verification plans. The essence of the scheme, as initially revealed in February, is the same: The platform will now use algorithms to identify whether accounts belong to adults or kids. The promises made after users raised a stink, namely that more than 90 percent of users will never have to confirm their ages, are also unchanged. What’s new in Vishnevskiy’s announcement is primarily the level of technical detail we’re getting about how Discord’s new age verification model works, and several new methods of verifying a user’s age that don’t require handing over an ID scan or providing a selfie to a third party. One of the primary fears that surfaced among Discord users when the platform first announced it was going to verify user ages was the idea that Discord’s AI would start reviewing user posts and other content to determine their age. Discord took pains to mention that’s not the case in multiple places in Tuesday’s announcement and in related posts, like a technical review of the age verification algorithm. “Our model looks at patterns of account behavior on Discord,” the company explained. “It does not read, scan, or analyze the content of users’ messages or voice calls.” There are a number of factors that go into how Discord estimates user age groups without reviewing the content of their interactions on the platform, including account metadata, engagement metrics, community context, device information, and social-graph embeddings. The most heavily weighted factor, however, is what Discord calls Discord Entity-Relationship Embeddings, or DERE. That, as the company explained in the technical writeup, involves a “Discord social graph” that encodes relationships between users, servers, and the games users claim to play, and represents each user with a 32-dimensional numerical embedding based on their position in that graph. “DERE is highly predictive of age because users of similar ages tend to form organic social clusters,” Discord explained. “DERE captures this structure without ever being trained on age data.” More verification options Using DERE alongside those other factors, Discord’s age-estimation model outputs a probability between 0 and 1 that a user is an adult, but accounts in the middle ground, or those without enough activity for the model to classify confidently, may still have to verify their age to access age-restricted content, spaces, or settings. Thankfully, verifying one’s age isn’t nearly as intrusive as it used to be thanks to a few more options that Discord has provided. There’s still the age-verification-service route, which Discord said users could opt into through a service called AgeKey, which allows users to create an age verification passkey that’s stored locally on their own device and can be reused on a variety of supported sites. Alternatively, Discord can use a credit-card check as an adult-age signal, while Apple and Google can share age ranges already associated with supported accounts or digital IDs. As detailed in a post on age-assurance methods, Discord users can opt for a credit-card check processed through Stripe, which itself isn’t without criticism of its privacy practices. Alternatively, users of Google Wallet, Google Play, or Apple’s App Store can have those services share an age range with Discord as well. For users already comfortable entrusting Apple or Google with that information, this at least avoids introducing another age-verification provider into the process. Teen accounts will still get restrictions if they’re identified as such, with messages from non-friends dumped into a request inbox, friend requests being flagged if they come from someone without any mutual friends or servers, and a requirement that users be an adult in order to disable that. Teen accounts will also be blocked from age-restricted servers and channels, and sensitive images will be blurred or blocked as well. Profile data is also locked down. Vishnevskiy closed out his announcement by admitting that age verification is controversial, but trying to pass the buck on caving to governments demanding web providers add it by saying that the issue is bigger than Discord. “Any form of age assurance, and the possibility of sharing something biometric or an ID, is a controversial topic,” the Discord cofounder noted. “Rightfully so, because of what it represents and where internet legislation around the world is heading: toward a more gated internet.” He added that he hopes Discord users will hold the company accountable for its rollout and judge it not just based on what has begun rolling out today. “We'll get some things wrong, but you can judge us on how we respond: how accurate the age group estimation gets, how fast we fix bad calls, and whether we keep publishing the data so you don't have to take my word for it,” Vishnevskiy said. Discord age verification is rolling out beginning Wednesday and will reach more accounts as the week progresses. Users who’ve been added to the new system should see their age status, and be able to verify their age if needed, under User Settings > Account Status. ®
South Korean researchers have published details of how their four-legged robot completed a marathon on a single battery charge – nearly two years after it crossed the finish line. RAIBO2 covered the 42.195 km (26.2 mile) course of the Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon in November 2024 in 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 52 seconds. As The Register reported at the time, its developers described it as the first quadruped robot to complete a full marathon at an official event. The new paper published in Nature this week explains how the team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), led by associate professor Jemin Hwangbo, squeezed more than three times the range per battery charge from RAIBO2 than recent comparable quadrupeds. Humans remain quicker. Kenya's Sabastian Sawe set the official world record of 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds at the London Marathon in April, becoming the first person to break two hours in a competitive marathon. Wheels are more efficient on smooth ground, but legs allow robots to cross stairs, rubble, slopes, and other uneven terrain. That makes quadrupeds potentially useful in mountainous areas and disaster zones. Robot dogs have already been deployed to help with the nuclear clean-up at the UK's Sellafield facility, while military applications are considerably less cuddly. The trade-off is range. The researchers say recent quadrupeds generally manage about 20 km per charge because their joints expend energy supporting the machine's weight, while repeated contact between foot and ground introduces further losses. Hwangbo's team combined lightweight mechanical hardware, low-loss motor-driving circuitry, and an energy-optimized locomotion policy trained through reinforcement learning. RAIBO2 completed the course at an average speed of 2.64 metres per second, negotiating 286 m of elevation change and slopes reaching 18.4 degrees. RAIBO2 consumed 1,280 watt-hours from a battery with 2,016 Wh of capacity. Its total cost of transport – the energy required to move a given weight over a given distance – was 0.25, compared with the researchers' human benchmark of 0.37. They say it is the first quadruped robot to beat that figure. The researchers said: "Compared with existing quadrupeds, RAIBO2 offers more than three times the travel range per battery charge. This breakthrough in energy efficiency paves the way for extended outdoor applications in which prolonged battery life is critical." The efficiency record does not make RAIBO2 autonomous, however. Stairs or mountainous terrain might require variations in the energy loss models and constrained robot postures, and require a more environment-aware strategy. "In addition, our study assumes human operation, yet autonomous navigation requires planners that can identify energy-optimal paths based on global map understanding. The loss models developed in this study provide a valuable foundation for addressing these challenges," the paper said. The researchers believe their work could extend the range of future legged robots. Whether those machines spend the extra mileage inspecting disaster zones, carrying deliveries, or chasing humans is a matter for whoever buys them. ®
In Schiedam is een voetganger gewond geraakt bij een aanrijding met een bestelbus. Het ongeluk gebeurde op de Burgemeester Verveenstraat. De man raakte gewond aan zijn been.
De rechter heeft een voormalig bewindvoerder uit Rotterdam veroordeeld voor het stelen van geld bij haar cliënten. Zij krijgt anderhalf jaar cel, waarvan een half jaar voorwaardelijk. De vrouw was op vrije voeten en moet nu terug de cel in.
De rechter heeft een voormalig bewindvoerder uit Rotterdam veroordeeld voor het stelen van geld bij haar cliënten. Zij krijgt anderhalf jaar cel, waarvan een half jaar voorwaardelijk. De vrouw was op vrije voeten en moet nu terug de cel in.
OPHEUSDEN (ANP) - Voor de hele bebouwde kom van Opheusden is vanaf aankomende donderdagmiddag 17.00 uur een noodverordening afgekondigd. Burgemeester Jan Kottelenberg heeft een deel van het centrum als veiligheidsrisicogebied aangemerkt. De maatregelen zijn volgens de Gelderse gemeente nodig om rellen zoals die van afgelopen donderdag te voorkomen.
Bij het gemeentehuis gooiden relschoppers met vuurwerk en bekogelden zij de politie. Ze richtten vernielingen aan aan het gemeentehuis, terwijl in het gebouw werd vergaderd over de mogelijke komst van een asielzoekerscentrum (azc) in de plaats. De Mobiele Eenheid en een politiehelikopter werden ingezet en de burgemeester gaf een noodbevel af. Veertien jongens en mannen weigerden te vertrekken en werden aangehouden.
De aangekondigde maatregelen gelden tot 01.00 uur aankomende vrijdag en houden in dat alleen mensen met "een aantoonbaar doel" in het gebied mogen zijn. Gezichtsbedekkende kleding is verboden en er geldt een groepsverbod.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - Minister Pieter Heerma van Binnenlandse Zaken gaat onderzoek doen naar de werkwijze van organisaties die zijn ingehuurd om onderzoek te doen naar buitenlandse inmenging en manipulatie. De CDA-minister zegde dat toe tijdens een debat na vragen van BBB-leider Henk Vermeer.
Vermeer haalde een artikel in EW aan waar uitgebreid wordt geschreven over de werkwijzen van Justice for Prosperity, Stichting Weerbare Democratie, Stichting Democratie Monitor en Voor Ons Nederland. Volgens het magazine voldoen de onderzoeken niet aan wetenschappelijke normen. Heerma noemde niet welke organisaties zijn ingehuurd door zijn ministerie en ook niet welke organisaties worden onderzocht.
De minister erkende dat de publicatie van EW een rol heeft gespeeld bij zijn besluit om een onderzoek in te stellen naar de werkwijze. "In het artikel staat dat het niet altijd van voldoende kwaliteit lijkt te zijn en daar gaan we wel degelijk naar kijken."
NEW YORK (ANP/AFP) - De voormalige machtige filmproducent Harvey Weinstein heeft bij de nieuwe behandeling van een zaak rond seksueel geweld vijftien jaar gevangenisstraf gekregen. Het gaat om het misbruik van zijn voormalige productieassistent Miriam Haley.
Weinstein dwong Haley in 2006 tot orale seks. Hij kreeg daar eerder al eens 23 jaar cel voor, maar die straf was na een hoger beroep in 2024 vervallen. De zaak kwam opnieuw voor de jury, die hem in 2025 alsnog schuldig bevond.
De 74-jarige Weinstein werd en wordt met veel meer gevallen van seksueel wangedrag in verband gebracht. In onderzoeken van The New Yorker en The New York Times hebben meer dan tachtig mensen hem beschuldigd. De aantijgingen waren het begin van de MeToo-beweging.
In Californië wordt nog een straf verwacht voor de verkrachting en het misbruik van een actrice in 2013. Hij is al schuldig bevonden. Een zaak rond de actrice Jessica Mann is na drie mislukte pogingen om hem te vervolgen door de aanklagers gestaakt.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - Een natte herfst en winter zijn waarschijnlijk nodig om in het komende voorjaar een goede uitgangspositie te hebben voor een volgend droogteseizoen. Dat zei Harold van Waveren, voorzitter van het landelijke crisisteam over de droogte, in een presentatie voor Tweede Kamerleden. "Herstel gaat maanden duren, met name voor het grondwater."
De rivieraanvoeren dalen op dit moment zelfs nog, aldus Van Waveren. Het zal weken of maanden duren voordat de rivieren weer op een normaal niveau zitten. Mogelijk wordt op de IJssel eenrichtingsverkeer ingevoerd, waardoor sommige binnenvaartschepen honderden kilometers zouden moeten omvaren.
Het ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat komt later met een evaluatie van de keuzes die overheden hebben gemaakt om met de gevolgen van de droogte om te gaan. Topambtenaar Liz van Duin gaf alvast een voorschot: "Zo'n lage rivierstand hadden we niet helemaal zien komen op deze termijn. Die was wel in beeld, maar toch vooral voor later."
BAKOE (ANP/RT) - Lewis Hamilton ziet niets in het toevoegen van een sprintrace bij de Grote Prijs van Monaco. "Het slaat nergens op", zei de zevenvoudig wereldkampioen in de Formule 1 op de persdag voorafgaand aan de Grote Prijs van Azerbeidzjan. "Een sprintrace is niet de oplossing voor een circuit als in Monaco. Daar moet iets anders voor worden bedacht om het spannend te maken."
De Formule 1 kondigde eerder deze maand aan het aantal sprintraces volgend seizoen uit te breiden van zes naar tien. Ook Monaco kreeg het format toegewezen, hetgeen bij veel coureurs de wenkbrauwen deed fronsen. Inhalen is op het smalle en bochtige circuit van het vorstendom vrijwel onmogelijk.
"Het positieve is dat we een extra kwalificatiesessie krijgen, wat best leuk is. Ik vind ook dat de sprintraces echt iets nieuws aan de sport hebben toegevoegd, maar ik denk dat we voor een locatie als deze iets nieuws moeten bedenken", zei Hamilton. "Monaco is een prachtige plek en er ligt een geweldig circuit om op te rijden, maar de race zelf is oersaai."
Scientists have discovered that the removal of Earth's magnetic field influences the lifespans of fruit flies in complex ways, a finding that sheds light on the aging process as well as the risks of future human space travel, according to a study published in the journal Aging on Wednesday.
All life on Earth has evolved under the planet’s geomagnetic field, a vast bubble lined with electrical currents that is generated in the core and extends out into space. This protective magnetic shield is a major factor in Earth’s habitability, as it wards off harmful radiation from space, allowing life to flourish on the surface.
Many migratory animals—including fish, birds, and insects—can clearly sense Earth’s magnetism and use it for navigation. But much less is known about how the field interacts with living cells and their components, such as mitochondria, the famous “powerhouses” that generate most of the energy that fuels life.
To better understand this mystery, scientists observed two populations of fruit flies in a “hypomagnetic” shield system, a cylindrical benchtop apparatus that essentially blocks the influence of Earth’s magnetic field. One group contained “wild-type” healthy flies, while the other was made up of “mutant” flies carrying a gene defect called Pink1, which is associated with early-onset Parkinson’s disease in humans and specifically involves mitochondrial dysfunction.
The removal of the magnetic field’s effect extended the lifespan of the Pink1 group by 20 percent but reduced their mobility, whereas the healthy flies experienced just the opposite—reduced lifespan, but improved mobility.
“We had an idea that there would be a difference just based on the fact that we know that every organism has developed under a magnetic field,” said Jacob Reed, a PhD student in bioscience at the University of Nottingham who co-led the study, in a call with 404 Media. “But we didn't really plan that there would be this difference in the experiment.”
“I think we're the first to show that there's an effect in an organism that has a disease phenotype,” added co-lead Lisa Chakrabarti, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Nottingham, in the same call. “We're really drilling into what the differences are between having that applied pressure or relieving it.”
Diagram illustrating the experiment. Image: University of Nottingham
While there is a lot of research into the effects of hypermagnetic fields on life—meaning magnetic fields that are stronger than Earth’s—the “biological consequences of hypomagnetic fields remain poorly understood,” according to the new study.
To fill in this research gap, Reed developed an initial pilot study of diseased and healthy flies using the magnetic shielding apparatus, and was surprised to find that the Pink1 population of flies seemed to live longer.
“I was really confused at first,” Reed recalled. “I was thinking: ‘Why are these Parkinson's flies living longer than some of the wild-type flies?’ I had to double-check all of my data. From that, we realized that was what's happening and developed the experiment.”
The team observed dozens of diseased and healthy flies living in these hypomagnetic spaces over the course of their lives, which normally last about two months. In particular, they monitored shifts in the energy metabolisms and chemical outputs of mitochondria using quantum diamond sensors.
The experiment showed that the absence of Earth’s magnetic field changes how cells age and produce energy, producing clear and measurable effects on longevity. The researchers also saw shifts in locomotion by tracking how far flies climbed upward against gravity in their containers. However, it will take more research to unravel the complex mechanisms that underlie these observable changes.
“This is the early stage, where we can say there is a very real effect,” Chakrabarti said. “As soon as you take off the geomagnetic field, there are physiological effects that we can measure in the mitochondria, in the cellular physiology, and in big things like lifespan and climbing as well. It's a definite interaction between Earth's magnetic field and physiology.”
The researchers plan to build on their work by studying different organisms in hypomagnetic fields to see if they experience similar mitochondrial and behavioral changes. This work could eventually inspire therapeutic treatments for humans with various conditions, and could also help prepare astronauts for deep space missions beyond Earth’s magnetic field. It is already well-known that astronauts are exposed to harmful radiation outside of the magnetic field, but little is known about the specific impact of the absence of the field itself on human physiology.
“The link with interplanetary space travel is absolutely key,” said Chakrabarti. “There could be subtle differences that we don't really notice while we're on Earth. Unless we know what those parameters are to measure, we're going to be sending astronauts up there that are potentially going to really suffer over the short, or even or the longer, term.”
“All of this is out there at the moment, but what we're saying is that we definitely see a really reproducible and startling effect of removing the geomagnetic field,” she concluded.
