The Orion spacecraft flying humanity’s next crewed mission to the moon has completed propellant loading and is headed to the next phase of launch preparations.
Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida, moved the newly-fueled Orion crew capsule from the Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) to the Launch Abort System Facility (LASF), where it will be outfitted with its emergency escape system. The move marks a major milestone in preparing the spacecraft for the first crewed flight of NASA’s Artemis program, Artemis 2, which will send four astronauts on a 10-day mission around the moon and back.
Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) February 2026, and no later than (NLT) April 2026. Orion will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen — they are set to become the first people to fly to lunar space since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.
Orion was moved to the MPPF in May, where it underwent processing and systems checks, and was loaded with propellants, high-pressure gases, coolant and other essential fuels for flight, according to a NASA statement.
While Orion was there, the Artemis 2 crew participated in their first onboard suits-on tests inside the space capsule. Donning their their Orion Crew Survival System spacesuits, the same ones they’ll wear on launch day, they connected to Orion’s life support and communications systems for a variety of simulated ground and flight conditions.
Now that Orion is inside the LASF, engineers will install its 44-foot (13.4-meter) launch abort system, designed to propel the crew capsule away from its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in the event of an emergency. The tower and fairing assembly, which fit over Orion like a protective shell, include thrusters for abort and jettison of the spacecraft, as well as attitude control (steering) for anomalies that require the spacecraft be quickly and safely separated from SLS.
Once Orion’s abort system installation is complete, the full Orion stack will be transported to KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where it will be placed atop SLS in High Bay 3, where the rocket is undergoing final assembly.
Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!
Artemis 2 will be Orion’s first mission with crew aboard, and a critical step in NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to establish a sustained, long term human presence on the moon. Artemis 1 successfully launched an uncrewed Orion to lunar orbit and back in late 2022, and NASA is targeting 2027 for the launch of Artemis 3, which will be the first mission of the program to land astronauts on the lunar surface.
For the upcoming mission, optimistic timelines place the Artemis 2 launch as early as February, but the astronauts flying the mission have voiced caution for that expectation.
“I think that, obviously, April is the official date. We are always, as a team, looking for opportunities to launch sooner, and some of those opportunities are as early as February,” Koch said during a July 30 press event at KSC.
Echoing his crewmate, Glover explained, “because the launch date is no later than April, the only way to actually make it ‘no later than’ is to have some options to pull that forward.”
United States President Donald Trump has unveiled his slate of picks for the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual awards show designed to honour actors, musicians, designers and creative professionals who have dedicated their lives to the performing arts.
On Wednesday, Trump appeared on stage at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, one of the premier stages in Washington, DC, in a show of power over the national cultural institution.
“We’ll make it better than it ever was, frankly,” he said of the awards show. “ It’ll be something that people are going to be very proud of.”
This year’s five honourees include disco singer Gloria Gaynor, country music performer George Strait, the rock band Kiss, British comedian Michael Crawford and actor Sylvester Stallone, star of the classic films Rocky and Rambo.
Trump, a former reality TV star, also revealed that he would host the award show himself. In his opening remarks, he suggested his allies strong-armed him into taking the hosting gig.
“I’ve been asked to host. I said, ‘I’m the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?’” Trump said. “ So I have agreed to host. Do you believe what I have to do?”
Wednesday’s announcement was Trump’s latest foray into the arts, as he seeks to reshape the US’s cultural institutions to reflect his agenda.
Presenters unveiled the nomination for country music artist George Strait at the Kennedy Center on August 13 [Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
Exerting power over the Kennedy Center
During Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, the Republican leader never attended the Kennedy Center Honors, breaking with a longtime presidential tradition.
Since the ceremony’s beginnings in 1978, presidents have been regular attendees, except in rare cases, including Cold War-era negotiations and the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
But since returning to the White House for a second term in January, Trump has not only sought to make his presence known at the Kennedy Center, but he has also sought to wield power over its programming.
On February 7, Trump announced he would purge the Kennedy Center’s governing board and declared his intention to lead the institution as its chair.
“I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” Trump wrote at the time. “We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”
By February 12, the new Kennedy Center board had made good on its promise to elect Trump as chair.
Since then, Trump has expanded his reach into the country’s arts and culture spheres. On Tuesday, for instance, his administration revealed it would undertake an “internal review” of several Smithsonian museums, to “ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism”.
Trump also teased his new vision for the Kennedy Center Honors — and appeared to troll critics who expressed outrage over Republican proposals to rename the performing arts centre after the Republican leader.
“GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” Trump wrote on social media in the lead-up to Wednesday’s announcement.
He pledged the revamped award show would reflect “the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment”.
Presenters unveil a portrait of the rock group KISS at the Kennedy Center on August 13 [Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
A crackdown on crime in the capital
The Kennedy Center Honors is expected to air on the TV channel CBS in December, and it broadcasts from its eponymous theatre.
In Wednesday’s speech, Trump tied the upcoming ceremony to his broader campaign to crack down on crime in Washington, DC.
“ In the coming months, we’ll fully renovate the dated and, really, the entire infrastructure of the building and make the Kennedy Center a crown jewel of American arts and culture once again,” he said.
“ We have the right location, and soon we will be a crime-free area.”
Earlier this week, Trump invoked the capital’s Home Rule Act to take control of the local police force, and he deployed members of the National Guard to patrol the city’s streets, despite the fact that violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low.
Trump, however, has denied the legitimacy of those statistics, a claim he made again at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday.
“ You’re gonna see a big change in Washington crime stats very soon — not the stats that they gave because they turned out to be a total fraud. The real stats,” he said.
Trump also faces legal limitations to his efforts: The capital’s police can only be federalised for a period of 30 days, barring congressional action.
When asked about that limit at Wednesday’s news conference, Trump indicated he would seek to retain control of Washington’s police for the long term.
“ If it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress,” Trump said, though he added that he would introduce a crime bill that would allow him to extend his control over the local police.
“ We’re going to do this very quickly, but we’re going to want extensions. I don’t want to call a national emergency. If I have to, I will, but I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously.”
Donald Trump stands in front of a portrait of Sylvester Stallone, a 2025 Kennedy Center honouree [Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
Trump ‘very involved’ in honouree selection
The Republican leader also hinted at a potential political bent to the reimagined Kennedy Center Honors.
He has previously denounced the Kennedy Center’s programming, pledging to nix artistic productions like drag shows and book classic Broadway hits instead.
In response, over the past year, the touring production of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton cancelled its scheduled stop at the Kennedy Center, as did comedian Issa Rae and the opera Fellow Travelers.
Performers in a touring production of Les Miserables also boycotted performances at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump’s changes.
Still, Trump doubled down on the programming changes, saying his ratings success on the reality TV show The Apprentice testified to his arts-industry smarts.
“I shouldn’t make this political because they made the Academy Awards political and they went down the tubes,” Trump said on Wednesday.
“They’ll say, ‘Trump made it political,’ but I think, if we make it our kind of political, we’ll go up, OK? Let’s see if I’m right about that.”
He also confirmed that he had played a large role in selecting this year’s Kennedy Center honourees.
“I would say I was about 98-percent involved. No, they all went through me,” Trump explained, adding that he turned down “plenty” of candidates, including “a couple of wokesters”.
Looking ahead, Trump said the Kennedy Center would feature heavily in his plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding in 2026.
“I’m going to be president for the Olympics. I’ll be president for the World Cup. And the 250th is going to be maybe more exciting than both,” Trump said. “It’s a great celebration of our country. We’re going to be using this building for a lot of the celebration.”
A royal expert has criticised Prince Harry’s opportunity to fix his Sentebale charity feud by claiming he was too busy “in court and going to showbiz and sporting events”. In March, The Duke of Sussex stepped down as a Sentebale patron in support of trustees who resigned in opposition to the board chairwoman, Dr Sophie Chandauka, who previously accused Harry of bullying and harassment.
In a report published last week, the Charity Commission criticised all sides for making the fallout public with interviews and statements. Now, royal author Phil Dampier has told The Sun the situation is a “total mess”. He explained: “His charity commission report has blamed both sides, both Harry and the former trustees, and the former chairwoman, mainly for airing their dirty linen in public. While it is a valid criticism, this doesn’t solve the problem.”
He further added: “The chairwoman didn’t think that polo matches and Harry playing polo in glamorous locations was a good idea. I don’t understand why Harry couldn’t talk to her more about it and deal with it. If he spent less time in court and going to showbiz and sporting events in California, he would have had the time to deal with it.”
Harry lost his lengthy legal battle against the Home Office in May 2025, over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to while in the UK, claiming he was “devastated” to lose his appeal, after stepping down from royal duties in 2020.
The royal expert also thinks Prince Harry is “not being hands-on enough” with his Senetable. He further added: “Here’s a bit of a pattern forming with Harry – when the going gets tough, he walks away. With Megxit, with the decision to leave the Royal Family, and now with a charity which is theoretically very close to his heart.”
Prince Harry’s gap year in Lesotho in 2004 led to him setting up the charity Sentebale in 2006 in memory of his mother, the late Princess Diana. Sentebale works to support the health and well-being of young people, especially those with HIV and AIDS, in Botswana and Lesotho. It was co-founded by Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for Harry said: “The duke remains absolutely committed to continuing the work he started, supporting the children and young people of Lesotho and Botswana, nearly 20 years ago.
“In what form that support takes – no decisions have been made. All options remain on the table; whether that be starting a new charity or working to support pre-existing charities operating in the same sector in the region.”
The charity regulator, which cannot investigate individual allegations of bullying, said it found no evidence of systemic bullying or harassment at Sentebale, including misogyny or misogynoir.
The trustees who resigned said in a statement they were “gravely concerned for the future of the charity” as they felt the commission had “chosen to ignore key concerns and irrefutable evidence raised with them regarding the leadership and oversight of Sentebale’s chair”.
In response to the recent findings, Sentebale said: “The Charity Commission is explicitly clear, including in its public guidance, that it is not the commission’s responsibility to adjudicate or mediate internal disputes. This would include individual allegations of bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir etc.
“As a result, the commission has not investigated any individual allegations and therefore has not made any findings in relation to individuals, including Prince Harry.
“The issues not investigated by the commission can and may be dealt with through avenues more appropriate than the commission.”
After three stressful years, Mark Sevillano Jr. felt like his life was falling into place. At the start of 2024, he began working out at the gym three days a week and eating healthier foods.
“I felt better and just when I started feeling better, I … couldn’t really swallow my food comfortably,” the 41-year-old from Santa Fe Springs, California, tells TODAY.com. “I felt like it almost would get stuck in my throat.”
He’d “chug” water, and that often helped the food move through his esophagus. After two months, his symptoms worsened, and he visited a doctor, who reluctantly ordered a swallow test for Sevillano. Before he could undergo the exam, he visited the emergency room, where he learned he had esophageal cancer.
“I would have never imagined that I had any cancer, let alone esophageal cancer,” he says. “I’ve never even said the word esophagus. It was not on my radar at all.”
Transformation Leads to Diagnosis
In 2021, Sevillano’s 11-year marriage ended in divorce, and the dad of two was stressed. At the same time, he was in college completing his teaching degree. By 2024, he had graduated from college and finally began to feel settled as he regularly attended the gym, ate healthy foods and ran a few 5Ks.
“’I’m healing,’” he recalls thinking. “I was losing a little bit of weight, but I thought it was because of my new lifestyle.”
Soon after, his swallowing problems began. At first, drinking a lot of water helped. But after two months, swallowing became even more difficult.
“I would have to literally pound my chest with my fist to help break down the pathway to allow my food to go down,” Sevillano explains. “That was so odd now that I think back on it. But at the time I thought, ‘Oh, I need a little extra help to digest my food.’”
Undergoing treatment for Stage 2 esophageal cancer felt tough at times, but Mark Sevillano Jr. did not experience too many side effects from chemotherapy. Courtesy Mark Sevillano Jr.
His parents urged him to visit his doctor, and after a couple of weeks, he did. But his primary care doctor “didn’t sound too concerned” because Sevillano was young and there was no family history of cancer. Still, Sevillano asked for a swallow test — which his mother, who is a nurse — told him to request.
“He was like, ‘We’ll schedule a swallow test in the future. I’m not too worried about it,’” Sevillano recalls. “Looking back on it, I was like, ‘Wow, there are so many red flags.’”
He scheduled the appointment for several months later. But his swallowing “got progressively worse.”
“I couldn’t even swallow liquid anymore,” he says. “It would sit in my throat, almost like a drain that is clogged up, and it’s filling up with water. You need to unplug the drain. It felt like that.”
Sevillano visited the emergency room and, at first, the doctors were “perplexed” by his swallowing difficulties. But they conducted bloodwork and even had him undergo a CT scan. At about 4 a.m., his blood test results returned.
“(The doctor) said, ‘Hey, to let you know your bloodwork came back great and the next thing we’re waiting on is your scan, and I’m sure that’s going to come back great as well,’” Sevillano recalls.
Less than an hour later, the doctor returned with a grim look on his face.
“He said, ‘Unfortunately, we got your scan back and we found a mass in the center of your chest, in your lower part of your esophagus,’” Sevillano says.
At the time, he didn’t realize doctors sometimes interchangeably use mass and tumor, so he wasn’t too worried.
“If he would have said, ‘You have a tumor,’ I would have freaked out a little more,’” Sevillano says.
He stayed in the hospital to undergo tests, including a biopsy. But when doctors attempted it, they struggled to pass the scope through all the inflammation in his throat. Though they tried a smaller scope, the sample they removed wasn’t enough to determine if it was cancerous. Still, they released Sevillano from the hospital, and he ran a 5K two days later.
Sevillano’s doctors scheduled a second biopsy. But before that happened, he became very ill.
“(This) is where I almost died,” he says.
As he waited for the new biopsy and maintained a liquid-only diet, Sevillano became tired.
“My body just didn’t feel right,” he says. “I started to feel light-headed, almost as if I’m going to faint.”
He rested on the couch and began “convulsing,” and “shaking and shivering.” After he put on a coat and a hat to warm himself up, his mom noticed he was too pale. They returned to the emergency room, where doctors diagnosed him with sepsis, a potentially fatal overreaction in the body to infection.
“My body was shutting down and they had to pump me with any type of antibiotics to fight the infection that was rapidly going through my bloodstream,” Sevillano says. “For the next four days, I was fighting and trying to get the infection out of my body.”
Mark Sevillano Jr.’s recovery from an esophagectomy felt gruelling.Courtesy Mark Sevillano Jr.
As he began to recover, doctors performed the biopsy, and they diagnosed him with Stage 2 esophageal cancer in June 2024.
“I got thrown into a world of ‘Now you have cancer,’” he says.
Doctors quickly came up with a treatment plan, which included four rounds of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor followed by surgery to remove the mass and most of his esophagus, what is known as an esophagectomy. For the most part, chemotherapy caused exhaustion, brain fog and some neuropathy, but after the fourth round, he “started actually vomiting black stuff.”
“It was still awful,” he says. “I took it like a champ. But I think it could have been worse.”
Surgery took place in October and was intense. Doctors removed six inches of his esophagus, which is about 10 inches long in total, and a strawberry-sized tumor. Doctors used his upper intestine to create a new esophagus connected to his remaining organ.
“I went in with a smile on my face and said, ‘OK, let’s do this. Let’s take this tumor out,’” Sevillano says. “When I woke up, I had maybe eight tubes in my side, in my face. I was in severe pain.”
After recovering in the hospital for several days and undergoing more tests, Sevillano returned home. About a month later, he underwent one more round of chemotherapy. Doctors recommended that he have another three, but he felt overwhelmed by his prior chemotherapy and treatment and elected to stop. Since his surgery, there has been no evidence of disease. He will undergo regular scans for five years.
“I had my six-month check-up scan and that came out with no detection of cancer,” he says. “I went to the beach and celebrated six months of being cancer-free.”
An Increase in GI Cancers in Young People
Sevillano is part of a trend of young people being diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancers, which include colorectal, stomach, pancreatic and esophageal cancers. These diagnoses are increasing faster than any other type of cancer in adults under 50, according to a review published in the journal JAMA.
While colorectal cancer cases in young people have increased the most, pancreatic, stomach and esophageal cancer diagnoses are also on the rise, according to NBC News reporting. The latter three do not have a screening test like colorectal cancer does, making them harder to diagnose early.
While more research is needed, the cause of all gastrointestinal cancer in young adults could be the same. Researchers suspect causes include having a sedentary lifestyle, being obese, smoking, drinking alcohol and eating an unhealthy diet.
“It’s really what people were doing or exposed to when they were infants, children, adolescents that is probably contributing to their risk of developing cancer as an adult, Kimmie Ng, co-author of the paper and director of the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told NBC News.
While Mark Sevillano Jr. worked as a teacher, he is now a full-time wedding officiant.Courtesy Mark Sevillano Jr.
Genetic predispositions to cancer also contribute to about 15% to 30% of diagnoses of young-onset gastrointestinal cancers. Inherited conditions, such as Lynch syndrome, can contribute to early-onset colorectal cancer diagnoses, TODAY.com previously reported.
“We do recommend that all young patients diagnosed under the age of 50 undergo testing for hereditary conditions,” Ng said.
Yet young people diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancers face poorer outcomes than their peers. Much like Sevillano’s doctor dismissed his early concerns about swallowing, many young people find their doctors downplaying their concerns because they’re not considering gastrointestinal cancers in people under 50. That could contribute to diagnosis in later stages.
“My personal feeing is that it’s because we’re finding them at a more advanced stage because people don’t really think of colon or other GI cancers when they see a young person with these nonspecific complaints,” Dr. Howard Hochster, director of gastrointestinal oncology at Rutgers Cancer Institute and RWJBarnabas Health in New Jersey, told NBC News.
Though Ng said it’s possible that GI cancers in younger people “may be biologically different and more aggressive.”
‘My Spirit is Not Broken’
After so many months of not being able to eat normally, Sevillano still struggles with getting enough nutrition. He’s been eating “mini meals” throughout the day, which reduces the stress on his GI tract.
“I’m still underweight,” he says. “I was 195 at 5 feet 10 inches, nice and healthy and strong. Now I weigh 138 pounds. My arms are like twigs.”
Mark Sevillano Jr. enjoys spending time with his children and is glad that after undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer, he has no evidence of disease.Courtesy Mark Sevillano Jr.
The doctor told him complete recovery could take several years.
“It’s going to take some time for me to reach a healthy weight again and create some muscle and strength,” he says.
Sevillano says he hopes that others learn the importance of advocating for their health and urges them to get second opinions if they feel as if their doctor isn’t addressing their symptoms.
“Don’t wait like I did,” he says. “If something is wrong with your body, do not ignore it, but act on it right away.”
Despite all the difficulties he faced, Sevillano feels like he’s in a good place.
“My heart has been through a lot, and I learned that the human capacity for pain and tragedy (means) we can endure a lot and keep going forward. I’d like to be that example to other people,” he says. “I’m still a happy, positive person. I love life and my spirit is not broken.”
Premier League referees’ chief Howard Webb has suggested the video assistant referee system could be expanded to include yellow cards and corners.
Webb revealed football’s law-makers, the International Football Association Board, are reviewing the use of VAR, which has been in place in the Premier League since the 2019-20 season, and that he would be “open” to an extension of its current remit if those involved in the game wanted it.
The technology is currently used to review potentially match-changing decisions such as goals, straight red cards, penalties and mistaken identity, but could be implemented on a wider basis.
– VAR in 2024-25: Winners and losers, referee stats – Why Mac Allister didn’t concede a penalty for handball – Fired referee Coote given two-month ban by FA
Webb told BBC Sport: “If you are talking about yellow cards that are delivered incorrectly which could be impactful on the game, then you also have to think about wrongly not-issued yellow cards.
“I understand the impact of a wrongly awarded corner that’s clearly wrong — easy to see on video — and the impact of a wrongly issued yellow card. But equally there’s also a feeling that VAR already exists to rectify clear errors in big situations, so we’ll have those discussions and make sure to consult with the English game as well.”
Webb also addressed the abuse received by match officials — Michael Oliver received death threats online and Anthony Taylor was confronted by angry Roma fans in Budapest after their club’s Europa League final defeat by Sevilla — and described the situation as “a little bit of a reflection of society today”.
He said: “Disagreement with an outcome doesn’t give a license to abuse officials on certain platforms, including threats to the safety of officials and their families. That is wholly unacceptable.”
Webb also admitted David Coote is unlikely to return to top-level refereeing after his dismissal for misconduct last year.
Coote was sacked by referees’ body Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) in December after a video emerged online of him making derogatory remarks about Liverpool and then manager Jurgen Klopp, and he was this week suspended for eight weeks and ordered to undergo mandatory face-to-face education over the incident by the Football Association.
Asked if he could ever return, Webb said: “Under the circumstances, it’s difficult. We stay in contact and care about him, but it would be tough.”
The analytical company NewZoo published a report “Unlocking games revenue: player behavior and payment trends in the west.” It shows that the average annual spending of players in Eastern Europe lags significantly behind other regions: only $51.6 per year, while in North America this figure reaches $324.9, and in Western Europe – $170, writes Gamedev DOU.
Europe’s gaming revenue is forecast to exceed $33 billion by 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 3.6%. Together with North America, they account for almost half (46%) of global gaming spending. European gamers number 462 million, representing 13% of the global audience.
The demographics of European gamers are as follows: average age 32.8, 59% male, 40% female, 57% full-time. Among the genres in Europe, sports games are the most popular, followed by shooters, role-playing games, puzzles and adventure games.
Analysts report that almost half of PC gaming revenue comes from microtransactions. On consoles, this category accounts for a third of all revenue. The largest spending is on in-game currencies (21%), content packs (21%), battle passes (20%), and gear and characters (18% each).
NewZoo notes that Eastern European players are more frugal, prefer promotions and bargains, and demonstrate a strong aversion to advertising.
Research from scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have shed new light on an age-old question: what makes the human brain unique?
The team’s discovery comes from their investigation of human-accelerated regions (HARs) – sections of the human genome that have accumulated an unusually high level of mutations as humans have evolved. There is a lot of scientific interest in HARs, as they are hypothesized to play an essential role in conferring human-specific traits, and also have links to neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism.
One reason why scientists think that HARs confer human-specific traits is because they have undergone rapid changes in their genetic sequences since we split from our closest living relative-the chimpanzee-approximately 5 million years ago.
Now, UC San Diego researchers have identified one particular HAR-called HAR123-that appears to be instrumental in shaping the human brain.
The researchers found:
HAR123 itself is not a gene, but is instead a type of molecular “volume control” known as a transcriptional enhancer. Transcriptional enhancers control which genes are activated, how much they are activated, and at what times they are activated during an organism’s development.
Through its role as a transcriptional enhancer, HAR123 promotes the development of neural progenitor cells, the cells that give rise to the two main types of brain cells – neurons and glial cells.
HAR123 also influences the ratio of neurons and glial cells that form from neural progenitor cells.
Ultimately, HAR123 promotes a particularly advanced human trait called cognitive flexibility, or the ability to unlearn and replace previous knowledge.
In addition to providing new insights into the biology of the human brain, the results also offer a molecular explanation for some of the radical changes that have occurred in the human brain over the course of our evolution. This is supported, for example, by the authors’ finding that the human version of HAR123 exerts different molecular and cellular effects than the chimpanzee version in both stem cells and neuron precursor cells in a petri dish.
Further research is needed to more fully understand the molecular action of HAR123 and whether the human version of HAR123 does indeed confer human-specific neural traits. This line of research could lead us to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying many neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism.
The study, published online in Science Advances, was led by Miles Wilkinson, Ph.D., distinguished professor, and Kun Tan, Ph.D., assistant professor, both within the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, & Reproductive Sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Wilkinson is also affiliate faculty of the UC San Diego Institute for Genomic Medicine. The study was funded, in part, by grants from the National Institutes of Health and 10x Genomics.
Source:
University of California – San Diego
Journal reference:
Tan, K., et al. (2025) An ancient enhancer rapidly evolving in the human lineage promotes neural development and cognitive flexibility. Science Advances. doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adt0534.
Perplexity just made a move no one saw coming. The AI-powered search startup has formally offered $34.5 billion to acquire Chrome, Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) market-dominating browser. The timing? Not a coincidence. A U.S. judge is days away from ruling on remedies for Google’s alleged monopoly in searchand one possible outcome is a forced Chrome spinoff. Perplexity’s unsolicited bid was sent Tuesday morning and, according to the company, is fully backed by unnamed institutional investors. That claim raised eyebrows, given the company’s most recent valuation was $18 billion. But Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko says the deal is already fully financed.
This isn’t the first time Perplexity has tried to get ahead of regulatory pressure. The company also submitted a proposal to merge with TikTok’s U.S. operations earlier this year, as ByteDance faced a looming ban. The broader strategy seems clear: stake a claim in major internet assets before regulators force a breakup. If the Chrome deal were to go through, Perplexity says it would invest $3 billion over the next two years, retain key Chrome personnel, and roll out no hidden changes to the productaiming to signal stability to users and advertisers alike. The company also teased its own browser, Comet, powered by an integrated AI agent.
Still, not everyone’s buying it. Colin Sebastian of Baird called the $34.5 billion figure far too lowestimating Chrome’s true value closer to $100 billion. He also doubts a breakup will even happen, citing risks of degraded product quality and the technical mess of detangling Chrome from Google’s ecosystem. Google, for its part, hasn’t commented on the offer, but it’s preparing to appeal any forced divestment and has floated a softer fix: changing default search settings across Apple, Mozilla, and Android. Whether the court agreesor whether Perplexity’s bold play becomes anything more than a headlineremains to be seen.
Newswise — Astronomers have discovered what may be a massive star exploding while trying to swallow a black hole companion, offering an explanation for one of the strangest stellar explosions ever seen.
The discovery was made by a team led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as part of the Young Supernova Experiment.
The blast, named SN 2023zkd, was first discovered in July 2023 by the Zwicky Transient Facility. A new artificial intelligence algorithm designed to scan for unusual explosions in real time first detected the explosion, and that early alert allowed astronomers to begin follow-up observations immediately — an essential step in capturing the full story of the explosion. By the time the explosion was over, it had been observed by a large set of telescopes, both on the ground and from space.
The scientists think the most likely interpretation is that the massive star was locked in a deadly orbit with the black hole. As energy was lost from the orbit, their separation decreased until the supernova was triggered by the star’s gravitational stress as it partially swallowed the black hole.
“Our analysis shows that the blast was sparked by a catastrophic encounter with a black hole companion, and is the strongest evidence to date that such close interactions can actually detonate a star,” said Alexander Gagliano, lead author of the study and fellow at the NSF Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions. “Our machine learning system flagged SN 2023zkd months before its most unusual behavior, which gave us ample time to secure the critical observations needed to unravel this extraordinary explosion.”
An alternative interpretation considered by the team is that the black hole completely tore the star apart before it could explode on its own. In that case, the black hole quickly pulled in the star’s debris and supernova emission was generated when the debris crashed into the gas surrounding it. In both cases, a single, heavier black hole is left behind.
Located about 730 million light-years from Earth, SN 2023zkd initially looked like a typical supernova, with a single burst of light. But as the scientists tracked its decline over several months, it did something unexpected: it brightened again. To understand this unusual behavior, the scientists analyzed archival data, which showed something even more unusual: the system had been slowly brightening for more than four years before the explosion. That kind of long-term activity before the explosion is rarely seen in supernovae.
Detailed analysis revealed that the explosion’s light was shaped by material the star had shed in the years before it died. The early brightening came from the supernova’s blast wave hitting low-density gas. The second, delayed peak was caused by a slower but sustained collision with a thick, disk-like cloud. This structure—and the star’s erratic pre-explosion behavior—suggest that the dying star was under extreme gravitational stress, likely from a nearby, compact companion such as a black hole.
“2023zkd shows some of the clearest signs we’ve seen of a massive star interacting with a companion in the years before explosion,” said V. Ashley Villar, a CfA assistant professor of astronomy in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and a co-author on the study. “We think this might be part of a whole class of hidden explosions that AI will help us discover.”
“This discovery shows how important it is to study how massive stars interact with companions as they approach the end of their lives,” said Gagliano. “We’ve known for some time that most massive stars are in binaries, but catching one in the act of exchanging mass shortly before it explodes is incredibly rare.”
With the Vera C. Rubin Observatory recently unveiling its first images and preparing to survey the entire sky every few nights, this discovery marks a glimpse of what’s to come. Powerful new observatories, combined with real-time AI systems, will soon allow astronomers to uncover many more rare and complex explosions and begin to map how massive stars live and die in binary systems.
The Young Supernova Experiment will continue to complement Rubin by using the Pan-STARRS1 and Pan-STARRS2 telescopes to identify supernovae shortly after explosion. This approach offers a cost-effective way to study the dynamic nearby universe.
“We’re now entering an era where we can automatically catch these rare events as they happen, not just after the fact,” said Gagliano. “That means we can finally start connecting the dots between how a star lives and how it dies, and that’s incredibly exciting.”
The authors used data from a large number of telescopes including NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, and a suite of telescopes across the Magellan, MMT, and Las Cumbres Observatories. The Young Supernova Experiment is a collaboration among University of California Santa Cruz, DARK Cosmology Centre, University of Illinois, and principal investigators Vivienne Baldassare (Washington State University), Maria Drout (University of Toronto), Kaisey Mandel (Cambridge University), and V. Ashley Villar (Harvard).
These results are being published in the latest issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian is a collaboration between Harvard and the Smithsonian designed to ask—and ultimately answer—humanity’s greatest unresolved questions about the nature of the universe. The Center for Astrophysics is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with research facilities across the U.S. and around the world.
Media Contact:
Peter Edmonds Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian [email protected]
Contact information for lead scientists:
Alexander Gagliano: [email protected] 703-994-2890 V. Ashley Villar: [email protected] 772-643-8132
The published report provides the most accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date examination of the participation trends among female Olympic and Paralympic athletes and the hiring trends of Olympic and Paralympic governing bodies with respect to the number of women who hold leadership positions in these organizations. It is intended to provide governing bodies, athletes, and policymakers at the national and international level with new and accurate information with an eye toward making the Olympic and Paralympic movement equitable for all.
Here we provide an evidence-based look at what is known about women’s leadership and participation in the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games, along with an examination of media coverage and the impact of Title IX. This is the ninth report in the series that follows the progress of women in the Olympic and Paralympic movement.
