The name placard for Dr. Ralph de la Torre, founder and chief executive officer of Steward Health Care System, in front of an empty seat during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on Thursday, September 12, 2024. . In comments to the Associated Press Wednesday, Sanders said there were plenty of topics he could have safely discussed.

Your brain doesn't make it easy.

Annapurna Interactive, the game company famous for publishing indie hits like Stray, Outer Wilds, Gorogoa, Neon White, What Remains of Edith Finch, and many more, may not be the same company anymore. Bloomberg reports that the entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the gaming division of Megan Ellison’s Annapurna, has resigned after failing to convince Ellison to let them spin off its games division into a new company. IGN is corroborating the report. “All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned,’’ former president Nathan Gary and staffers told Bloomberg. “This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly.” An Annapurna spokesperson told Bloomberg that...

Saber Interactive’s Space Marine 2 may make you feel like a walking tank, but it's Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader that epitomizes the silliness and the satire.

Google is testing a new feature for Android tablets that will let you resize apps freely and arrange them on your screen at will, making it easier to juggle multiple tasks. The “desktop windowing” feature is now available as a developer preview, and for apps that support it, you could even have more than one instance open. Currently, apps on Android tablets open in full-screen by default. When the new mode is enabled, each app will appear in a window with controls that allow you to reposition, maximize, or close the app. You’ll also see a taskbar at the bottom of your screen with your running apps. It sounds a lot like the iPad’s Stage Manager feature that similarly lets you resize and move windows around your screen or pretty much any...

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor "achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." Curiosity is the driving force behind all science, which may explain why so many scientists sometimes find themselves going in some decidedly eccentric research directions. Did you hear about the WWII plan to train pigeons as missile guidance systems? How about experiments on the swimming ability of a dead rainbow trout or that time biologists tried to startle cows by popping paper bags by their heads? These and other unusual research endeavors were honored tonight in a virtual ceremony to announce the 2024 recipients of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes. Yes, it's that time of year again, when the serious and the silly converge—for science. Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes; they honor "achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." The unapologetically campy awards ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures whereby experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds and the second in just seven words. Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds. And as the motto implies, the research being honored might seem ridiculous at first glance, but that doesn't mean it's devoid of scientific merit. Viewers can tune in for the usual 24/7 lectures, as well as the premiere of a "non-opera" featuring various songs about water, in keeping with the evening's theme. In the weeks following the ceremony, the winners will also give free public talks, which will be posted on the Improbable Research website.

Against a budget that exceeded $100 million, the video game adaptation earned just over $30 million at the global box office.

Harvard Business School was targeted by a faculty member's lawsuit. Earlier this year, we got a look at something unusual: the results of an internal investigation conducted by Harvard Business School that concluded one of its star faculty members had committed research misconduct. Normally, these reports are kept confidential, leaving questions regarding the methods and extent of data manipulations. But in this case, the report became public because the researcher had filed a lawsuit that alleged defamation on the part of the team of data detectives that had first identified potential cases of fabricated data, as well as Harvard Business School itself. Now, the court has ruled on motions to dismiss the case. While the suit against Harvard will go on, the court has ruled that evidence-backed conclusions regarding fabricated data cannot constitute defamation—which is probably a very good thing for science. The researchers who had been sued, Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons, run a blog called Data Colada where, among other things, they note cases of suspicious-looking data in the behavioral sciences. As we detailed in our earlier coverage, they published a series of blog posts describing an apparent case of fabricated data in four different papers published by the high-profile researcher Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School.

It's open to pre-orders for $300 and becomes available on September 24.

Meta, Snap, and TikTok have founded a new program called Thrive to help stop the spread of graphic content depicting or encouraging self-harm and suicide. Thrive enables participating companies to share “signals” to alert each other of violating content on their platforms. Thrive is built in conjunction with the Mental Health Coalition, a charitable organization that says it works to remove the stigma around mental health discussions. Meta says it provides the technical infrastructure behind Thrive that enables “signals to be shared securely.” It uses the same cross-platform signal sharing tech used in the Lantern program, which is designed to help fight child abuse online. Participating companies can share hashes that match the...

Huawei has revealed the cost of replacement parts for the world’s first dual-hinged, triple-screen folding phone, and it’s another round of sticker shock. The Mate XT Ultimate Design starts at around $2,809, but should you damage its folding screen enough to need repairs, you’ll be potentially paying an additional 7,999 yuan, or around $1,123, for a replacement OLED panel. That’s assuming you agree to let Huawei recycle the damaged screen for free. Should you turn down that offer, a new screen for the Mate XT will instead cost you 9,799 yuan, or over $1,376. Ouch. Huawei does offer some ways to save money on screen repairs for its new trifold phone....

Five BlueBird satellites have launched as part of AST SpaceMobile's growing constellation, with even larger ones ahead that may pose a threat to clear night skies.