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  • Is cheese secretly fueling your nightmares? Science weighs in

    Is cheese secretly fueling your nightmares? Science weighs in

    Scientists have found that eating too much dairy could ruin your sleep. Researchers questioned more than 1,000 students about the quality of their sleep, their eating habits, and any perceived link between the two, and found a strong association between nightmares and lactose intolerance — potentially because gas or stomach pain during the night affects people’s dreams.

    “Nightmare severity is robustly associated with lactose intolerance and other food allergies,” said Dr Tore Nielsen of Université de Montréal, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Psychology. “These new findings imply that changing eating habits for people with some food sensitivities could alleviate nightmares. They could also explain why people so often blame dairy for bad dreams!”

    Sweet dreams?

    Although folk beliefs have long held that what you eat affects how you sleep, there’s very little evidence to prove or disprove them. To investigate, researchers surveyed 1,082 students at MacEwan University. They asked about sleep time and quality, dreams and nightmares, and any perceived association between different kinds of dreams and different foods. They also asked about participants’ mental and physical health and their relationship with food.

    About a third of respondents reported regular nightmares. Women were more likely to remember their dreams and to report poor sleep and nightmares, and nearly twice as likely as men to report a food intolerance or allergy. About 40% of participants said that they thought eating late at night or specific foods affected their sleep; roughly 25% thought particular foods could make their sleep worse. People who ate less healthily were more likely to have negative dreams and less likely to remember dreams.

    “We are routinely asked whether food affects dreaming — especially by journalists on food-centric holidays,” said Nielsen. “Now we have some answers.”

    Cheesy culprits

    Most participants who blamed their bad sleep on food thought sweets, spicy foods, or dairy were responsible. Only a comparatively small proportion — 5.5% of respondents — felt that what they ate affected the tone of their dreams, but many of these people said they thought sweets or dairy made their dreams more disturbing or bizarre.

    When the authors compared reports of food intolerances to reports of bad dreams and poor sleep, they found that lactose intolerance was associated with gastrointestinal symptoms, nightmares, and low sleep quality. It’s possible that eating dairy activates gastrointestinal disturbance, and the resulting discomfort affects people’s dreams and the quality of their rest.

    “Nightmares are worse for lactose intolerant people who suffer severe gastrointestinal symptoms and whose sleep is disrupted,” said Nielsen. “This makes sense, because we know that other bodily sensations can affect dreaming. Nightmares can be very disruptive, especially if they occur often, because they tend to awaken people from sleep in a dysphoric state. They might also produce sleep avoidance behaviors. Both symptoms can rob you of restful sleep.”

    Eat well to sleep well?

    This could also explain why fewer participants reported a link between their food and their dreams than in a previous study by Nielsen and his colleague Dr Russell Powell of MacEwan University, conducted eleven years earlier on a similar population. Improved awareness of food intolerances could mean that the students in the present study ate fewer foods likely to activate their intolerances and affect their sleep. If this is the case, then simple dietary interventions could potentially help people improve their sleep and overall health.

    However, besides the robust link between lactose intolerance and nightmares, it’s not clear how the relationship between sleep and diet works. It’s possible that people sleep less well because they eat less well, but it’s also possible that people don’t eat well because they don’t sleep well, or that another factor influences both sleep and diet. Further research will be needed to confirm these links and identify the underlying mechanisms.

    “We need to study more people of different ages, from different walks of life, and with different dietary habits to determine if our results are truly generalizable to the larger population,” said Nielsen. “Experimental studies are also needed to determine if people can truly detect the effects of specific foods on dreams. We would like to run a study in which we ask people to ingest cheese products versus some control food before sleep to see if this alters their sleep or dreams.”

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  • Royal Box roll call: Day 2 – Wimbledon

    1. Royal Box roll call: Day 2  Wimbledon
    2. Who is in the Royal Box at Wimbledon 2025 today  Heart
    3. Complete happiness: David Beckham surprises by sharing news about his mother, Sandra Beckham  Catalunya Diari
    4. Rebel Wilson and Cate Blanchett among stars in Royal Box on another sweltering day at Wimbledon  PA Media
    5. Cate Blanchett Looks Effortlessly Cool in a Silk Armani Suit at Wimbledon  Yahoo

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  • The American Society of Cinematographers

    The American Society of Cinematographers

    Venus Optics has launched the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Lite Zero-D FF lens for mirrorless systems.

    The lens maintains Laowa’s “Zero-D” (zero-distortion) optical design and features a 122-degree angle of view. It also supports autofocus on Sony E and Nikon Z cameras. A built-in ⌀72mm front filter thread enhances its portability. It offers a close-focus distance of 5.5” inches.

    The lens is available in both five- and 16-blade versions. The five-blade version creates a 10-point sunstar effect when the aperture is stopped down.

    The Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Lite Zero-D FF lists for $699 for all mounts for both autofocus and manual-focus versions.

    Follow Venus Laowa on Facebook and Instagram.

    Follow American Cinematographer on Facebook and Instagram.


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  • K-pop band announce new album and tour

    K-pop band announce new album and tour

    The wait is over, K-pop fans – BTS are back. The South Korean band confirmed their highly-anticipated comeback on Tuesday, scheduling a new album and tour for next year.

    Announcing the news during their first live stream since all band members completed their mandatory military service, the seven-strong group said they would head to the US later this month to begin working on new music.

    “Hey guys, we are back,” Jimin said, with the group adding that their album would be released in spring 2026.

    “We’re also planning a world tour alongside the album. We’ll be visiting fans all around the world, so we hope you’re as excited as we are,” the band said.

    It will be BTS’s first world tour since the group’s Permission to Dance on Stage tour back in 2022.

    And the new album will be the band’s first full-length release since 2020.

    All South Korean men must do 18 months in the military, which forced the world’s most successful boy band in recent years to pause their careers at the height of their global fame in 2022.

    According to a statement, the band told fans on fan platform Weverse on Tuesday: “Starting in July, all seven of us will begin working closely together on new music.

    “Since it will be a group album, it will reflect each member’s thoughts and ideas. We’re approaching the album with the same mindset we had when we first started.”

    Fans – collectively known as the ARMY – have been desperate to see the boys back together again following their enforced hiatus.

    Suga was the final member of the band to complete military service last month.

    BTS are believed to have staggered their military service so that all seven members were unavailable for no more than six months. J-Hope, who was discharged last October, has since wrapped up a solo world tour and will headline Lollapalooza Berlin on 13 July.

    The band made their debut in 2013, having formed three years earlier, and have gone on to become the most successful K-pop band globally.

    They were the biggest-selling music artists in the world in 2020 and 2021, with six number one albums and the same number of chart-topping singles in the US.

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  • Hladun & Lazarenko in World Ranking top 10 for the first time!

    Former world’s number one team, reigning Olympic champions David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden, who finished fourth at the Warmia Mazury Challenge last week, reclaimed the second place in the World Ranking, which they had yielded to Argentina’s Nicolas Capogrosso & Tomas Capogrosso for the past three weeks. Ahman & Hellvig are running on a score of 6,980 points, 460 points above the Capogrossos and another 1,820 points below leaders Anders Mol & Christian Sorum of Norway.

    In another high-end development, another former number one duo, Paris 2024 Olympic silver medalists Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler of Germany made use of reaching the quarterfinals in Poland to regain their place among the top 10 teams in the men’s chart, climbing four spots up from last week’s number 14 and pushing England’s Joaquin Bello & Javier Bello down to number 11.

    Warmia Mazury Challenge gold medalists Marco Krattiger & Leo Dillier of Switzerland ascended from number 71 to a new team’s high number 48. Bronze medalists Paul Henning & Lui Wust of Germany also gained unchartered ground by rising seven positions to number 16.

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  • Trump Warns Musk To Not Play ‘Game’ (Live Updates)

    Trump Warns Musk To Not Play ‘Game’ (Live Updates)

    Topline

    The feud between President Donald Trump and his former ally, Elon Musk, escalated Tuesday as the president said he’ll look into potentially deporting the Tesla CEO and threatened probes into his companies, after Musk vowed to back primary challenges against GOP lawmakers voting for the president’s signature spending bill.

    Key Facts

    Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Tuesday, Trump was asked if he’ll deport the South African-born billionaire who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and said: “I don’t know. We’ll have to take a look.”

    According to the Daily Mail’s Emily Goodin, Trump said he might have to “put DOGE on Elon…DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon,” referring to the cost-cutting agency that was the brainchild of Musk.

    “I don’t think he should be playing that game with me,” Trump warned Musk in late morning comments to reporters, confirming he’ll order DOGE to “look at Musk.”

    Replying to a video of the Trump deportation threat, Musk wrote “so tempting to escalate this,” but he would “refrain for now,” though he ominously added, “Physics sees through all lies perfectly.”

    Musk attacked the spending bill in a series of posts on X on Monday night and early Tuesday morning, saying: “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending,” and backed the mega bill “will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

    The billionaire then tweeted, “If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day,” as he bashed what he described as the “Democrat-Republican uniparty.”

    What Has Trump Said In Response?

    In a post on his Truth Social platform, the president responded to Musk’s criticism of his signature spending bill by threatening to scrap government subsidies provided to the billionaire’s companies. Trump wrote: “Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign.” Trump then claimed: “Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE.” The president suggested the Department of Government Efficiency—which was previously led by Musk—should “take a good, hard, look” at the subsidies offered to companies like SpaceX and Tesla. Musk shot back on X, by daring Trump to slash the subsidies: “I am literally saying CUT IT ALL. Now.”

    Tangent

    Musk later said anyone who votes for the legislation after campaigning “on the PROMISE of REDUCING SPENDING” will see their face on a poster of Pinocchio with the caption “LIAR” followed by the text “Voted to increase America’s Debt by $5,000,000,000,000.” The X owner reshared the results of an unscientific poll he conducted on the platform last month during his public blow-up with the president and wrote “VOX POPULI VOX DEI 80% voted for a new party.” While criticizing the backers of the spending bill, Musk also boosted some of its prominent critics within the GOP, including some who have been the targets of Trump’s ire. Musk retweeted a post by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who Trump called a “Third Rate Congressman,” which said: “‘BBB’ = our credit rating if this bill becomes law.” Musk then vowed to support Massie’s reelection bid next year. Musk also reshared posts made by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., whom Trump threatened to primary before he announced his decision not to seek reelection. Tillis had reshared a Musk post which appeared to criticize the spending bill for targeting solar and battery tech, and wrote: “Folks, Elon Musk is 100% right, and he understands this issue better than anyone. We should take his warnings seriously.” Earlier on Monday, Musk had attacked the GOP and the spending bill, tweeting: “It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!”

    Big Number

    6%. That’s how much shares of Tesla dropped in premarket trading in response to the battle between its CEO and the U.S. president.

    Key Background

    Musk, who left his role as a Trump administration “special government employee” late in May, has since attacked the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” backed by the president and the House GOP. The billionaire previously described himself as Trump’s “first buddy,” but eventually directed his ire directly at the president by sharing older clips of the president bashing Republicans for raising the debt ceiling. The feud escalated after the president accused Musk of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a phrase he often uses to target his critics. This launched a social media war between them, during which Trump threatened to scrap Musk’s government contracts. The billionaire retorted with a now-deleted tweet alleging without evidence that Trump’s name was in the Epstein files. Both individuals appeared to have reached a detente until Monday, with Musk even tweeting he regretted some of his “posts about President Donald Trump,” which he said “went too far.”

    Further Reading

    The Musk Vs. Trump Feud Timeline (Forbes)

    Musk Says He Regrets His Posts Bashing Trump Last Week—‘Went Too Far’ (Forbes)

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  • 15 Must-Hear Albums Arriving In July 2025: Kesha, BSB, Burna Boy & More

    15 Must-Hear Albums Arriving In July 2025: Kesha, BSB, Burna Boy & More

    From major comebacks to bold debuts, July is shaping up to be an exciting month in an already stellar 2025 in music. Two-time GRAMMY nominee Kesha kicks the month off with . (PERIOD), her first album after departing RCA and Kemosabe Records. Mid-month, Backstreet Boys will revisit their legacy on Millennium 2.0. and rising phenomenon Alex Warren will release his debut LP, You’ll Be Alright, Kid. The original Alice Cooper Group will round out July with their first album in 50 years, The Revenge of Alice Cooper. 

    Elsewhere in the month, several artists will bravely share deep, vulnerable feelings on new releases. Those include Jessie Murph’s Sex Hysteria, Jackson Wang’s MAGIC MAN II, Indigo De Souza’s Precipice, Dean Lewis’ The Epilogue, and FLETCHER’s poignant Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me?

    Others will embrace fantasy and fun, such as Wet Leg’s sophomore LP Moisturizer, GWAR’s chaotic The Return of Gor Gor, Laura Jane Grace in the Trauma Tropes’ Adventure Club, Paul Weller’s Find El Dorado, and Fitz and the Tantrums’ Man on the Moon. What’s more, July might be the month where rapper Roddy Ricch finally shares The Navy Album with the world.

    To guide you through these fruitful upcoming four weeks, GRAMMY.com put together a list with the 15 Must-Hear Albums of July.

    Kesha — . (Period) (July 4)

    This year, Independence Day will mark another celebration for pop icon Kesha. Her upcoming album, . (PERIOD), will arrive on July 4 through her own Kesha Records under exclusive licensing to ADA Warner Music. It also marks her first record since departing RCA and Kemosabe Records in 2023.

    The 11-song tracklist will include 2024’s hit “Joyride,” “Yippee Ki-Yay” with T-Pain, “Delusional,” “Boy Crazy,” and the recent Slayyyter and Rose Gray collaboration, “Attention!” In a press release, the album is described as “a defiant act of self-expression that refuses to adhere to expectations or play it safe.” Kesha is “at her most powerful best, turning her experiences into vibrant, audacious art with a spiked heel at the neck of pop culture,” the release continued.

    In support of the album, Kesha announced TITS OUT, a co-headline tour with Scissor Sisters starting on July 1. “I’m going TITS OUT this summer to bring as much safety, fun, acceptance, love, connection, and celebration to this country because we are just as much the fabric of this FREE nation as anyone else,” she shared in a statement. “We will not be quiet, and we will fight through joy!”

    Learn more: Kesha Reveals The 10 Most Important Songs Of Her Career, From “Tik Tok” To “Eat The Acid”

    Burna Boy — No Sign Of Weakness (July 11)

    Nigerian Afrobeats star Burna Boy is also making a return in July with No Sign of Weakness, has been teased since last year, and was preceded by singles “Bundle by Bundle,” “Update,” “Sweet Love,” and “TaTaTa” featuring Travis Scott.

    A follow-up to 2023’s I Told Them…., No Sign of Weakness promises a fresh take on the artist’s Afro-fusion sounds, solidifying his presence as one of the world’s most exciting and influential artists. In order to commemorate the release, Burna Boy has announced a historic 16-city North American headline run. Beginning on Nov. 12 at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Burna will become the first Nigerian artist to ever headline the venue, and will continue through cities like Seattle, Oakland, Houston, and Los Angeles. 

    With the exception of the Red Rocks show, all performances will feature a custom-designed 360-degree stage in the middle of the arena floor, creating an immersive and intimate experience for fans.

    Backstreet Boys — Millennium 2.0 (July 11)

    As unbelievable as it sounds, Backstreet Boys’ chart-topping, GRAMMY-nominated, and signature album Millennium has turned 25 this year. To celebrate this milestone in true “Larger Than Life” fashion, the eternal boy band announced a deluxe version titled Millennium 2.0.

    Read more: How Pop Ushered In Y2K: Revisiting Songs & Performances By Prince, Jennifer Lopez, Backstreet Boys & More

    Millennium 2.0 will fittingly comprise 25 tracks, including all 12 remastered originals, live recordings from their 1999-2000 tour, demos, B-sides, and their latest single, “HEY,” which can be heard upon pre-saving the album. “Thank you for still loving this album more than 25 years later and we can’t wait to make a ton of new Millennium Memories with you!” the band shared on Instagram. “It’s time for (us) to go to work y’all…”

    The album drops just as BSB kick off their Into The Millennium residency at Las Vegas’ The Sphere. Totalling 21 shows — with three extra dates due to overwhelming demand — they will become the first pop act to perform at the venue.

    Learn more: 25 Years Of Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way”: 10 Covers By Ed Sheeran, Lil Uzi Vert & More

    Wet Leg — Moisturizer (July 11)

    The Isle of Wight five-piece Wet Leg, founded by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, will heat up the summer with their sophomore record, Moisturizer. Following their GRAMMY-winning 2022 self-titled debut, the album was also produced by Dan Carey, and is spearheaded by singles “Catch These Fists,” “CPR,” and “Davina McCall.”

    The new LP was written while the band lived together in the remote English town of Southwold. There, they would work by day, and watch horror movies by night. “We were just kind of having fun and exploring,” Chambers said in press materials, while Teasdale concurred: “We focused on: Is this going to be fun to play live? It was very natural that we would write the second record together.”

    Joined by musicians Ellis Durand, Henry Holmes, and Joshua Mobaraki, Wet Leg spent the greater part of the past few years touring, “evolving into a feral, electrifying live force.” Moisturizer is said to capture that energy, “delivering a sound that’s tighter, bolder, and more self-assured, yet still brimming with the same quick wit and raw, unrefined energy.” The band will kick off a 19-stop North American tour starting Sept. 1 in Seattle.

    Jackson Wang — MAGIC MAN II (July 18)

    “I created MAGIC MAN to figure out my pain, as a mask representing my darkest emotions, my internal emotions,” said Hong Kong-born musician Jackson Wang in a statement. That 2022 sophomore record plunged him into experiencing “nothing but the crucial reality of what humanity is.”

    “I was in a very dark place mentally and physically. I thought I could never recover,” he added, explaining that this was the reason he took a year-long break to figure himself out. The result of his time off is MAGIC MAN II, an album about “being true to myself, listening to my heart and accepting all the good and the bad.”

    The album is structured in four chapters that explore different stages of grief — from manic highs, to losing one’s identity, to ultimately finding acceptance. For a preview of those sounds, Wang has released a handful of singles, including “High Alone,” “GBAD,” and “BUCK” featuring Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh. 

    Jessie Murph — Sex Hysteria (July 18)

    Jessie Murph is set to give this summer some Sex Hysteria. According to a statement, the 20-year-old singer goes through “a bold departure” from her first record, 2024’s That Ain’t No Man That’s The Devil, and opens up for the first time about “themes of sexuality, generational trauma and self-discovery with a vulnerability and honesty that marks a new chapter in her artistic evolution.”

    The 15-track LP is said to be “both a provocation and a reclamation,” with Murph confronting family wounds and reclaiming her body and her desires. The sophomore record pushes back “against the shame and stigma that often silence women who dare to be loud, sexual, or emotionally honest.”

    Sex Hysteria will include Murph’s trap country hit “Blue Strips,” as well as “Gucci Mane” and “Touch Me Like a Gangster.” Starting July 27, she will embark on a worldwide tour, crossing North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand throughout the rest of the year.

    Laura Jane Grace in the Trauma Tropes — Adventure Club (July 18)

    The upcoming album by Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace and her new band, Laura Jane Grace in the Trauma Tropes, is a retelling of the quartet’s experiences in a life-changing songwriting retreat in Greece. Made possible by a grant through the Onassis Air Program, Adventure Club was recorded in Athens, and features Grace’s wife Paris Campbell Grace on vocals, as well as Athens-based musicians Jacopo “Jack” Fokas (bass) and Orestis Lagadinos (drums).

    Read more: For Laura Jane Grace, Record Cycles Can Be A ‘Hole In My Head’ — And She’s OK With That

    The 12-song collection is “a record about learning to take up space, about feeling free to be yourself as the bullshit of our ahistoric moment mounts,” per a release. “Protest songs and personal tunes have never been a binary for Grace, and she delivers some of her most profound — and, yes, playful — work ever at that particular intersection here. But the most prominent thread through Adventure Club’s dozen tracks is one of evolution, of letting yourself become something new.”

    Adventure Club follows Grace’s 2024 Hole in My Head. In August, she and the Trauma Tropes will hit the road for a string of concerts across North America alongside Trapper Schoepp, Team Nonexistent, and Murder by Death.

    FLETCHER — Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me? (July 18)

    Queer icon FLETCHER poses a poignant question on her new album: Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me? The LP is her most intimate and honest work so far, as she shared on a handwritten note: “this is my heart split open on record” and is “both an open wound and an act of liberation.”

    The singer born Cari Elise Fletcher built her career on sexual fluidity and singing about relationships had exclusively with women. However, things took a turn in her personal life last year, when she found herself falling for a man instead. The result was the single “Boy,” one of the biggest, rawest revelations she makes on Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me? “I kissed a boy,” she sings. “And I know it’s not what you wanted to hear/ And it wasn’t on your bingo card this year/ Well it wasn’t on mine/ I fell in love.”

    Learn more: FLETCHER Is “F—ing Unhinged” & Proud Of It On ‘In Search Of The Antidote’

    In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, FLETCHER acknowledged that “There will be people that feel disappointed and feel confused and have questions. Girl, I had questions and I was confused too. It shocked me just as much as anybody else.” But by staying true to her feelings and fully sharing her journey, FLETCHER welcomes a stronger, truer version of herself to the world.

    Alex Warren — You’ll Be Alright, Kid (July 18)

    Alex Warren’s much-anticipated debut studio album is just around the corner. You’ll Be Alright, Kid arrives via Atlantic Records, and adds 10 new tracks to his 2024 EP of the same name.

    The 21-song record will also include Warren’s recent viral hits “Ordinary” and “Bloodline” with Jelly Roll, as well as new single “On My Mind” featuring BLACKPINK’s Rosé. And while You’ll Be Alright, Kid (Chapter 1) focused on dealing with grief, the LP expands upon themes of healing and resilience. Most of the album was co-written by Warren in partnership with Cal Shapiro and Mags Duval, and produced by Adam Yaron.

    Throughout the summer, Warren will play sets at several festivals around the world, including Lollapalooza Paris and Chicago, Norway’s Slottsfjell, and Canada’s Osheaga. The singer will also perform live in a string of North American cities during September and October.

    Roddy Ricch — The Navy Album (July 18)

    After several delays, Roddy Ricch was set to drop his much-awaited third LP, The Navy Album, on April 25, but the release was postponed once again. Two months later and it finally seems like the album will come out on July 18, as pre-save links on his Instagram note.

    In December 2024, after announcing another postponement, the Compton rapper shared second single “Lonely Road,” featuring Terrace Martin on the saxophone. The track joins 2024’s “Survivor’s Remorse” — which samples Kelly Clarkson’s 2023 song, “Me” — as the sole previews of the album so far. According to Apple Music, Ricch’s other 2024 single, “911,” didn’t make the final tracklist.

    Following 2021’s Live Life Fast and 2022’s mixtape Feed Tha Streets III, the upcoming album was produced by Terrace Martin, Turbo, Omar Grand, Evrgrn, and others, and will be released via Atlantic Records and Bird Vision Entertainment. Most recently, Ricch shared “Underdog” as a part of the star-studded F1: The Movie soundtrack.

    Bush — I Beat Loneliness (July 18)

    Rock band Bush are gearing up to release their tenth studio album, I Beat Loneliness. In advance, they shared “60 Ways to Forget People,” an impactful track that explores  “the complexities of heartbreak, personal transformation, and the painful process of letting go,” per the band’s press release.

    “What I feel about this record is it addresses the common struggles we all have,” said frontman Gavin Rossdale. “‘60 Ways to Forget People’ is an ode to sacrifice and a dedication to the focus it takes to be better. All the time and in all things.” Produced by Rossdale and Erik Ron, the record includes 12 tracks that deepen the band’s post-grunge sound into more mature, sleek productions, as can heard on lead single “The Land Of Milk And Honey.”

    Following the release, Bush will tour North America until the end of August, and then head over to Europe for a series of shows from September through November.

    Indigo De Souza — Precipice (July 25)

    In 2024, Hurricane Helene flooded Indigo De Souza’s home and destroyed many of her belongings. Forced to cancel events and launch a fundraiser to help with the costs, it was a liminal experience in her life  — one of the many that shaped her upcoming fourth studio album, Precipice.

    “I feel constantly on the precipice, of something horrible, or something beautiful — something that will change my life for better or for worse,” De Souza said in a statement. “Music gives me ways to harness that feeling. Ways to push forward in new directions.” To harness that spirit, she tried blind studio sessions in Los Angeles and found a seamless connection with producer Elliott Kozel.

    “I’d been wanting to work on more pop-leaning music for a while, so when I came out to L.A. I made sure to meet with people that could help bring that to life,” she said. “I wanted to make music that could fill your heart with euphoria while you dance along.” A preview of those sounds can be heard on pre-releases “Crying Over Nothing” and “Heartthrob.” De Souza will also tour 10 U.S. cities in October, with support from alt artist mothé.

    GWAR — The Return of Gor Gor (July 25)

    Legendary shock rockers GWAR are celebrating their 40th anniversary with The Return of Gor Gor. The multi-format album and 32-page comic book chronicles the comeback of Gor Gor, GWAR’s long-lost Tyrannosaurus Rex pet, who mysteriously disappeared following the death of their former frontman, Oderus Urungus.

    Current vocalist Blöthar The Berserker commented on the album: “The last time I saw Gor Gor, he was just a wee fart dragon. He had crawled on the hood of my Kia Soul and was holding on for dear life while I drove to the store to buy Clamato. I bathed him in wiper fluid and used my wipers to knock him off my sweet ride. Next thing I know, he’s a 20-foot tall trans-species prostitute working a pickle park. Apparently, he’s all grown up and looking for revenge. This record chronicles his struggles as a young Dino-American trying to make his way in a cruel world.”

    In support of Gor Gor and the new release, GWAR will headline a North American tour kicking off Oct. 18 in Salt Lake City and wrapping up Nov. 22 in Norfolk, Virginia.

    Fitz and the Tantrums — Man On The Moon (July 25)

    Pop-rock group Fitz and the Tantrums’ sixth studio album, Man On The Moon, arrives July 25. The follow-up to 2022’s Let Yourself Free is described as the band’s “most daring” yet in press materials, a “no-nonsense collection of soulful, pop-inflected masterpieces” that reflect “a band that’s confident in their signature style, yet unafraid to venture into bold new territory.”

    “I decided I was simply going to write for my heart and for my soul and nobody else,” explained frontman Michael “Fitz” Fitzpatrick. “At this point in our career, myself and the band feel we have complete creative license. Because, c’mon, nobody knows what the rules are anymore. So I’m not going to chase some vapor in the wind. I’m going to just do what I want.”

    “We’ve never wanted to be stuck in a box. We refused to do that,” added co-lead vocalist Noelle Scaggs. “With this project, we’re daring to be different.” A taste of this new sound can be heard on the title track and lead single, as well as March’s “Ruin the Night.”

    Fitz and The Tantrums will embark on a summer tour right before the album drops and hitting 31 North American cities. The tour will feature Aloe Blacc and Neal Francis as special guests on select dates, and Ax and the Hatchetman, SNACKTIME and Gable Price and Friends as openers.

    Alice Cooper — The Revenge of Alice Cooper (July 25)

    It’s not every band that has the luxury of reuniting five decades after their rise to fame. The original Alice Cooper Group understands this privilege, and is making sure to come back in the most chaotic, boisterous way. The Revenge of Alice Cooper channels “a high-voltage journey into vintage horror and classic ’70s shock rock, capturing the sound, energy, and mischief” that made the band legendary, according to a press statement.

    Comprising 14 tracks, including singles “Black Mamba” and “Wild Ones,” the LP also features a posthumous appearance by Glen Buxton, the band’s original guitarist who passed away in 1997, on “What Happened To You.” Furthermore, the box set and limited smart formats of the album include two exclusive new tracks: a long-lost 1970 version of “Return of The Spiders,” and the vintage blend “Titanic Overunderture.”

    The Revenge of Alice Cooper is said to be “a celebration of friendship, nostalgia, and the timeless sound that solidified Alice Cooper as a rock icon,” and fan can expect a “powerful and nostalgic experience that bridges the gap between the band’s storied past and their vibrant present.”

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  • Next-gen coating mimics clouds to manage heat, evade detection

    Next-gen coating mimics clouds to manage heat, evade detection

    Researchers at Finland’s Aalto University have engineered a wafer-thin “cloud” metasurface that can flip between bright white and deep grey, shifting a surface from powerful daytime cooling to rapid solar heating while remaining almost invisible to infrared cameras. The invention, achieved without dedicated project funding, could reshape how buildings, vehicles, and textiles manage heat and hide from thermal sensors.

    Unlike conventional white paints that scatter sunlight but glow hot in thermal imaging, the new white state of the plasmonic metasurface bounces sunlight back into space while keeping mid-infrared emissivity so low that heat cameras see almost nothing. 

    Switch the same film to its grey state, and the material absorbs sunlight more efficiently than matte black, yet still refuses to radiate tell-tale warmth. Inspired by how cumulus clouds brighten or darken as they evolve, the dual behavior answers a growing demand for passive, energy-free solutions that can cool, heat, or camouflage on command.

    Cloud physics on a chip

    The metasurface owes its versatility to an ensemble of disordered metallic nanostructures that manipulate light through multiple scattering, strong absorption, and what the team calls “polarizonic reflection.” In the white state, solar photons ricochet through the labyrinth of nanoscale features and back into the sky, providing radiative cooling under full sun. 

    In the grey state, those same nanostructures trap visible light and convert it to heat. Crucially, both modes keep emissivity in the 8–13 micron range, where most thermal cameras peer, well below the threshold that would reveal the material.

    “We’ve engineered a nanoscale cloud on every surface. It can tune its colour and temperature like a real cloud, between cooling white and heating grey, while staying hidden from thermal cameras,” Professor Mady Elbahri from Aalto University said.

    Traditional coatings face a trade-off, Elbahri’s group notes. White titanium dioxide paints cool reasonably well in shade but lose their edge under direct sun and glow brightly in thermal imaging. Black surfaces absorb but radiate heat as efficiently, lighting up infrared sensors. The new metasurface sidesteps both problems.

    Cooling white, heating grey, and both are invisible

    Graduate student Adel Assad, who helped fabricate the coatings, contrasted the approach with today’s best “cool white” paints. “This new white plasmonic metasurface scatters sunlight through disordered metallic nanostructures while minimising thermal emission, cooling surfaces in full sunlight and remaining thermally camouflaged. This feature makes the innovation groundbreaking,” he said.

    In tests, the grey mode reached temperatures higher than conventional black coatings but still emitted little infrared. “This grey surface gets hotter than black, but without sending out heat that heat sensors can see. This could be a game-changer for smart textiles, building materials, and camouflage,” added post-doctoral researcher Moheb Abdelaziz in an article on the university website.

    Potential applications span zero-energy façades that swap from cooling to heating with the seasons, garments that keep wearers comfortable without electronics, and low-visibility drones or sensors that need to evade infrared detection. Because the metasurface is only a few hundred nanometres thick, it could be deposited on steel panels, polymer films, or even fibres without adding weight.

    Next steps and a lesson in persistence

    The team aims to integrate electrochromic or phase-change layers so users can trigger the white-to-grey transformation in real time, perhaps through a small voltage or environmental cue. The researchers also plan durability studies under UV exposure, humidity, and mechanical stress to qualify the coating for outdoor use.

    Elbahri said the breakthrough rarely happened. “With no dedicated funding after initial setbacks, we relied on shared vision and collaboration, especially with our partners in Germany, to turn doubt into discovery. It’s proof that science, like clouds, can rise against the odds,” he reflected.

    If the technology moves from lab benches to factory lines, surfaces could soon act like programmable skies, reflecting, absorbing, or concealing heat as effortlessly as a passing cloud.

    The findings were published in the journal Advanced Materials in June 2025.

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  • Cambodia, South Korea record new avian flu cases in poultry

    Since mid-June, Cambodia’s veterinary authority has confirmed six further highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks in poultry flocks.

    Based on official notifications to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), these bring the nation’s total outbreaks over the past 12 months to 16. Directly impacted have been close to 8,000 domestic birds.

    In the recent outbreaks, village flocks affected ranged in size from 25 to more than 650 birds. Two were in Pursat — the first infections in this western province. There were also two outbreaks in each of Takeo and Siem Reap, which are located in the far south and northwest of the country, respectively.

    Detection of the H5N1 serotype of the HPAI virus at one of the Takeo province outbreaks was confirmed after an infection was suspected in a resident of the village. Sick or dead poultry at the other locations raised suspicions of HPAI in the other village flocks. 

    2 more outbreaks in South Korean poultry

    Over the past two weeks, HPAI outbreaks linked to the same virus variant have been confirmed in two poultry flocks. The first ended a near two-month hiatus in South Korea.

    Testing positive for the virus in mid-June was a flock of around 28,000 birds at a farm in the central province of North Chungcheong, according to the latest WOAH notification. 

    According to the agriculture ministry, the infection was revealed in ducks as a result of routine pre-shipment testing.

    Just last week, a flock of around 1,000 native chickens tested positive for the same virus at a premises in the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang.

    The ministry reports that the farm was not authorized to keep livestock, and numerous biosecurity-related deficiencies emerged during the follow-up inspection there.

    Following this latest development, the authorities have increased surveillance of native chicken flocks, as well as dealers and traditional markets that handle these birds. Furthermore, for a period of 14 days, the proportion of birds subject to pre-shipment testing will be raised from 10% to 30%.

    The risk of further spread of HPAI in South Korea is not considered by the ministry to be high. This is based on experience from 2024, when just four outbreaks were reported in the country during the months of July and August. 

    These latest outbreaks bring South Korea’s total since October of 2024 to 49.

    HPAI developments elsewhere in Asia-Pacific birds

    Animal health agencies of Australia and Japan have recently declared to WOAH that earlier HPAI outbreak series in their respective countries have been “resolved.”

    In Australia, a total of more than 596,000 poultry were directly impacted by the disease at four farms in the state of Victoria earlier this year. All these outbreaks started during the month of February, with birds testing positive for the H7N8 serotype of HPAI.

    The H5N1 HPAI virus was detected at a total of 51 poultry farms in Japan between October of 2024 and January of this year. As a result, more than 9.2 million birds died or were culled and destroyed to prevent the further spread of the virus.

    Among Japan’s wild birds, however, the HPAI situation is ongoing.

    After a hiatus of more than two years, the H5N2 variant of HPAI was detected in a wild bird in April, according to a retrospective report to WOAH.

    More than 100 wild birds have also tested positive for the H5N1 virus serotype in Japan over recent months, according to a separate notification.

    Furthermore, the same virus variant was detected after three sea otters were found dead around the island of Hokkaido in early May.  

    Most recent disease update from the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Industry (dated June 26) in the Philippines indicates no new HPAI cases in poultry since the end of April.

    As of June 16, nine HPAI outbreaks had occurred in Vietnamese poultry so far this year, reported DanViet, citing agriculture ministry data. Across six provinces, more than 21,300 birds had died, and 25,200 had been culled in 2025 up to that point.

    Compared with 2024, the number of provinces affected this year is lower, but more than twice as many poultry have been lost to the disease, according to this source.   

    Further human infections reported in Cambodia, China

    Cambodia has been experiencing a recent spike in human infections with the avian influenza A(H5N1) virus.

    A recent update by Avian Flu Diary puts the country’s total cases so far this year at seven. Of these, four have been confirmed during the month of June. This was the situation on June 24, based on data from the country’s health ministry.

    As in previous cases in Cambodia, the latest patient is known to have had contact with sick and dead poultry. 

    The source notes that several of those people infected there have died. This is linked to the greater virulence of the virus circulating in the country — recently designated as clade 2.3.2.1e — than the clade 2.3.4.4b variant circulating elsewhere, including in the U.S. and Europe.

    In recent weeks, four human infections with flu viruses of avian origin have been confirmed in China. These are covered in recent updates on the situation in the Western Pacific Region from the World Health Organization (WHO).

    Three of these involved the H9N2 virus — one in each of the provinces of Henan, Hunan, and Sichuan. All started in mid-May following contact with poultry. Two adult patients required hospital treatment, but they and a six-year-old boy are reported to have recovered.

    The fourth Chinese patient was a farmer from Shaanxi province who may have contracted an H10N3 infection while traveling in Inner Mongolia. While still under treatment in hospital, her condition was reported to be improving. This is the sixth confirmed human infection with this virus in the world.

    View our continuing coverage of the global avian influenza situation in poultry, and on disease developments in the U.S. dairy sector.

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  • ‘I have a lot of sympathy for Elon Musk’: Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on his tech bros AI satire Mountainhead | Mountainhead

    ‘I have a lot of sympathy for Elon Musk’: Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on his tech bros AI satire Mountainhead | Mountainhead

    When he gets to his London office on the morning this piece is published, Jesse Armstrong will read it in print, or not at all. Though the building has wifi, he doesn’t use it. “If you’re a procrastinator, which most writers are, it’s just a killer.” Online rabbit holes swallow whole days. “In the end, it’s better to be left with the inadequacies of your thoughts.” He gives himself a mock pep talk. “‘It’s just you and me now, brain.’”

    Today, the showrunner of Succession and co-creator of Peep Show is back at home, in walking distance of his workspace. He could be any London dad: 54, salt-and-pepper beard, summer striped T-shirt. But staying offline could feel like a statement too, given Armstrong is also the writer-director of Mountainhead, a film about tech bros. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Open AI’s Sam Altman, guru financiers Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen: all these and more are mixed up in the movie’s characters, sharing a comic hang in a ski mansion. Outside, an AI launched by one of the group has sparked global chaos. Inside, there is snippy friction about the intra-billionaire pecking order.

    Mountainhead feels like a pulled-back curtain. But Armstrong also resisted another rabbit hole: spending time in Silicon Valley for research. He tried that kind of thing before. Contrary to rumour, Succession never did involve backdoor chats with the children of Rupert Murdoch. Once the show became a phenomenon, though, he did meet with masters of finance and corporate media, picking their brains for insights at luxe New York restaurants. “And they’d be charismatic, and namedrop the 20 most famous people in the world, and I’d feel this buzz of excitement by association. Then later I’d look at my notes, and what they’d actually said read like complete inane bullshit. ‘Make the move!’ ‘Be the balls!’”

    Ski mansion schemers … from left, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman in Mountainhead. Photograph: HBO/2025 Home Box Office, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

    So Armstrong returned to his office and, more generally, his kind. “I’m a writer,” he says, “and a writer type. And I’m happy with other writer types.” In America, when Succession exploded, you could sense an assumption the mind behind it must be an English Aaron Sorkin: a slick character as glamorous as the world he wrote about. Instead, here was the dry figure who compares making Mountainhead to an early job at budget supermarket Kwik Save. (Both, he says, boiled down to managing workload.)

    Rather than stalk Sam Altman, he read biographies and hoovered up podcasts. Amid the oligarchs’ tales of favourite Roman emperors, he kept finding a common thread: a wilful positivity about their own effect on the world. “And it must be delightful to really believe, ‘You know what? It’s going to be fine. AI’s going to cure cancer, and don’t worry about burning up the planet powering the AI to do it, because we’ll just fix that too.’”

    Part of the trick, he says, is perspective. At a certain level, money and power give life the feel of an eternal view from a private plane. “Whereas reality is standing in the road, dodging cars, thinking ‘Oh God! This is fucking terrifying!’”

    Success and Succession have not made Armstrong an optimist. But they did give him the professional heft to direct Mountainhead as well as write it, and to do so at unprecedented pace. Film and TV move achingly slowly; it was last November that he decided he wanted to make a movie about the junction of AI, crypto and libertarian politics. By May, he was preparing for it to come out.

    He says now he wanted Mountainhead to be “a bobsleigh run. Short, and slightly bitter, and once you’re on, you’re on.” His voice quickens recalling a first meeting with Steve Carell, who he wanted to play Randall, “the group’s dark money Gandalf”. This was January. Without a script, Armstrong could only tell the actor the story he’d loosely planned. Carell sat in silence. “I thought, ‘Well, this has gone very badly.’” Then he said yes. “At which point it was like, ‘Fuck. This is actually going to happen. Now I have to write it.’”

    Cocooned world … Succession. Photograph: Home Box Office/Graeme Hunter

    By March, the film was being shot in a 21,000 sq ft mansion in Deer Valley, Utah, then on the market for $65m. Carell aside, the cast included Cory Michael Smith, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman. For Armstrong, directing his first feature on a berserk turnaround was made easier by a deep fondness for actors. Standing in front of a camera, he says, paralyses him with self-consciousness. “So I honestly find what they do magical.”

    His own lack of talent as a performer proved important to the younger Armstrong. Between 1995 and 1997, he worked as an assistant to Labour MP Doug Henderson. It was an interesting time to have the job, with Tony Blair about to enter Downing Street. Is there a Sliding Doors world where a rising star assistant becomes an MP himself? One where, by now, Jesse Armstrong is home secretary?

    He shakes his head for several seconds. “I just wasn’t good at the job. Fundamentally, I didn’t understand politics.” He knows it sounds odd, having later written for insidery Westminster comedy The Thick of It. “But I couldn’t do the acting. I didn’t get it. I always thought like a writer, so in meetings where I should have been building my career, I’d just be thinking, ‘That’s weird. That’s funny. Why did you say that?’” (Armstrong once wrote for the Guardian about a meeting with then Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe, in which she sat under two posters: one a lurid anti-abortion message, the other Garfield.)

    Instead, he segued into comedy, and soon after Peep Show, the beloved squirm of a sitcom co-written with Sam Bain. At first glance, Succession is the obvious prequel to Mountainhead, a former newspaper empire giving way to tech superpower. But Armstrong sees a closer link between his new film and Peep Show: “Because it’s about men, and male hierarchies, and the pathos of men trying to connect.”

    He is tickled by the thought of his own story world, in which characters from different projects collide. “You can see Super Hans arriving at Mountainhead on a scooter, delivering the ketamine.” Then he pauses, suddenly anxious. Could he make sure I’ll mention Bain if I talk about Peep Show? “Because it was always Sam’s show as well.” And Hans owed so much to actor Matt King too, he says, “and then, of course, there’s David Mitchell and Robert Webb.”

    Should Armstrong ever make an Oscar acceptance speech, we will be there a while. Making sure due credit is given is of a piece with his near-pathological modesty. (He is a keen footballer. Which position? “Terrible.”) Being fair-minded matters too. He adds a postscript to his memory of leaving Westminster. “I’d also say I don’t in any way feel superior to people who do make a career in politics. I still believe we need good, professional politicians.”

    Turning back to Mountainhead, his even-handedness reaches a kind of event horizon. Armstrong , it transpires, feels sorry for Elon Musk. “Musk has done huge damage in the world, particularly with Doge, but I have a lot of sympathy for him.” The owner of X was brutally bullied as a schoolboy and according to a 2023 biography, had a difficult relationship with his father. “This is a traumatised human being,” says Armstrong. Still, not every bullied child ends up making apparent Nazi salutes onstage. “Yeah. That wasn’t great.”

    Ivory tower … with Steve Carell on the Mountainhead shoot. Photograph: Macall Polay/PR

    But there are other sides to Armstrong. For all the hints of bumble and awkwardness, he has also had the discipline to build a stellar career. And the more measured he is in person, the more Mountainhead feels like the work of a grinning Id, rising up to take a scalpel to his subjects, with their pretensions to philosophy, and dark indifference to life. (“I’m so excited about these atrocities,” a character beams as the world goes violently awry.) But his sympathy has its limits. “I do think the cocoon they’re in makes it hard for them to remember other people are actually real. But they’ve also been quick to give up trying. And some definitely feel the superior person shouldn’t have to try anyway.”

    More to the point, though, Armstrong finds the tech moguls funny. Much of the grimness of a Musk or Thiel is also brilliantly ridiculous: the epic lack of self-knowledge, the thinness of skin. Having studied them as he has, would he expect his real-life models to be enraged by the film? “Oh no. They’d instantly dismantle it in a way that would be 50% completely fair, and 50% totally facile. But they wouldn’t see any truth to it.”

    Still, Mountainhead is something very rare: a movie that feels as contemporary as TikTok. For Armstrong, after Succession and now this, you might think stories about the moment had become addictive. He frowns. Is a period piece next, in fact? Victorian bonnets? “Maybe. Genuinely maybe. Because I’m not actually that drawn to ripped-from-the-headlines ideas.” The frown deepens. “Am I not? I don’t know. I’m losing faith in my own answer, because I evidently am. I mean, I’m not going to claim I don’t like writing about right now. But honestly, at the same time – I’d be pleased to get out of it.”

    Mountainhead is available to own digitally now

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