'Harm endangered whales and polar bears'

'I do believe the Supreme Court should step in'

News Transformers Chris Hemsworth May Be Headed to a Big Action Crossover Knowing how to fight robots is half the battle? By Molly Templeton | Published on May 31, 2024 Screenshot: Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Warner Bros. Gods, warlords… robots? Earlier this year, we watched (or were subjected to, depending on your tastes) a trailer for Transformers One, a Transformers origin story which stars the voice of Chris Hemsworth (Furiosa, above) as Orion Pax, who will grow up to be called Optimus Prime. And Hemsworth may not be done with the Transformers franchise. Deadline reports that the Australian actor is in talks to star in the upcoming Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie that Paramount Pictures is putting together. Not much is known about the film, including who might be writing and/or directing it. It was “made official” earlier this year, and it does have a whole pile of producers and executive producers, including Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg, and Hasbro Entertainment. The toy crossover was teased at the end of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, in which (spoilers?) Anthony Ramos’s character, Noah, unknowingly interviews for a job with the G.I. Joe organization. But the two brands have been intermingling for decades, and an earlier Deadline piece noted that the idea for this film “is based on a storyline played out for the Hasbro brands in their 1980s Marvel-published comics.” No one knows just yet when this epic crossover will hit theaters—or whether Hemsworth will be voicing a robot or appearing in person.[end-mark] The post Chris Hemsworth May Be Headed to a Big Action Crossover appeared first on Reactor.

Rereads and Rewatches Terry Pratchett Book Club Terry Pratchett Book Club: Snuff, Part II Turns out the old Summoning Dark comes in handy By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on May 31, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share It’s a wonderful week to be talking about all our anatomical functions, yes? Summary Vimes plans to go visit the local police, but he arrives the next day: Chief Constable Feeney Upshot, who is green as they come, and tries to arrest Vimes on suspicion of murdering Jethro. Vimes heads with him to the jail, all the while giving him information on how real policing works; he’s horrified to learn that the boy swore his oath to the magistrates rather than the law. At the jail, he meets Stinky the goblin, who has a leg broken that was never set correctly; the goblin touches him on the arm that contains the mark left of him by the Summoning Dark. Vimes tells Upshot that he’ll help him with the investigation, and they follow Stinky. Colonel Makepeace is vaguely listening to his wife and her friends who are all the magistrates, as they hatch a plan to ruin Vimes’ career in order to appease Lord Rust’s son, Gravid, who is responsible for some form of smuggling that they’re all participating in (and something terrible with the goblins). The Colonel eventually tells them that they are wrong for doing this and heads down to the pub for a drink. Back in the city, Fred and Nobby go to a tobacco emporium to find the place doing a bit too well, and Fred discovers something in his complimentary cigar… Vimes heads underground with Upshot, but as their goblin guards prod them, the Summoning Dark comes to the surface and frightens them away. It also gives Vimes the night vision he needs to see in the dark. They make their way down below until they come upon a hundred armed goblins and a goblin corpse—Vimes has found his crime. Back in the city, Fred and Nobby come into forensics with the cigar because Fred heard it cry. Igor and Cherry open the thing up and find a goblin unggue pot, the sort goblins usually use to store their sacred bodily secretions, but in this case it’s the kind they call the soul of tears. Fred now has the soul of a living goblin child in that vial. Vimes and Feeney examine the dead goblin body, a woman who was married to possibly-the-chief, a goblin named Rain on the Hard Ground. He is pleased that Vimes believes goblins have names, and tells Vimes that the body was tossed underground with no blood left in it. Vimes knows she was drained of blood to make it look like he murdered Jethro (who sometimes trades with the goblins for iron). The Summoning Dark allows Vimes to speak the goblin language. They search the premises and find goblins growing fungus and making pots and the place where Jethro gets his iron. At that point, Vimes and Feeney encounter Miss Felicity Beedle, who comes down to teach goblins to read. Vimes meets one of her pupils, Tears of the Mushroom, and when he asks Miss Beedle if she’s teaching them to be better citizens, she slaps him and tells him that she’s helping them communicate with people who think they’re stupid and worthless. She then tells Vimes to ask Feeney what happened to the rest of the goblins three years ago and leaves. Feeney tells Vimes that when his father was the policeman three years back, the magistrates had a good portion of the goblins removed and put to work as slaves, insisting that they were just nuisances. As the goblins live on Ramkin land, Vimes elects to take this up with his wife immediately. He checks in with Sam and Willikins and thinks to take Young Sam to visit Miss Beedle as a pretense for getting more information. After a lively evening with Sybil, Vimes asks her about the Rust’s estate in the area and learns that the criminal son is the one who runs the place. The next day, he brings Young Sam to Miss Beedle’s house and learns why she’s so close to the goblins: Her mother was raised by another group of them as a child, then taken from them while they were slaughtered and beaten to learn how to be a good human girl again. Vimes tells Miss Beedle that he needs to know where her secret entrance to the goblin caves are so he can ask them more questions without being observed. Back in the city, Cherry reports to Carrot that Fred Colon is now feverish and speaking like a goblin since coming into possession of the unggue. They try to think of who could tell them something about goblins and A. E. Pessimal suggests Harry King, since he employs a large number of them. Vimes and Young Sam and Miss Beedle and Tears of the Mushroom head back underground. Miss Beedle distributes vegetables amongst them to balance their diet so they don’t starve eating only rabbit. Vimes asks if the dead goblin is missing one of her unggue pots, and Miss Beedle is shocked to discover that one is missing. Vimes asks if he can take one of them to show people what he’s looking for, and Miss Beedle suggests that he asks Tears of the Mushroom to lend one of hers. She asks for something equally precious in return to hold its place; Vimes gives her a picture of Young Sam that he carries with him. He goes to the pub to give Jiminy a talking to, showing him that pot; the man finally gives up two names. Vimes goes to tell Miss Beedle that he’s got a lead, and hears gorgeous music inside: Tears of the Mushroom is playing the harp. He rushes home to tell Sybil to comes listen, interrupting the end of a tea party. Once Sybil learns how enamored Vimes is of the music, she agrees they must go hear it immediately. Commentary I’m thinking a lot about the choice to make Miss Beedle a part of this, not due to her personal connections to the goblins, but due to her role as a children’s book author. Because they are an unsung class of writer in many ways, aren’t they? When you think of all the basic concepts and core empathies children build off their first books, if those books happen to be quality, children’s books are invaluable. And in Miss Beedle’s case, the content of her books are pointedly pretty nasty—but that’s good! Kids are still in love with all the weird squishy icky things about being alive because they haven’t had the chance to grow ashamed of them yet. This in turn plays into the general theme this book has around bodily bits and excretions, the ways in which we encourage shame and disgust around those things, and the ways in which they are used to make others seem inferior. Being obsessed with farts and shit and snot is a childish activity, don’t you know? Thus the goblins are considered subhuman for collecting these discarded parts of themselves—and this then plays into the fact that most cultures across the world consider children to be subhuman as well when you pay attention. That sounds harsh, I grant you, but tell an adult to give a child complete bodily autonomy and see the reaction you get. Some parents care to offer it, but that concept is relatively new in the zeitgeist and still met with a great deal of hostility. And it’s important because it is gross, but it’s also fascinating. Being interested in these messy parts of having a body opens the door to so much knowledge and curiosity, which is what we see in Young Sam. Those pieces of the story are intimately connected, though Vimes isn’t entirely putting that together. The point has been made in the Watch books before, but again, it’s made much more clearly here. It was a dangerous habit: Once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers. And it’s clearer than ever to make the point that no police force should ever consider themselves soldiers. Which is important because there are many places where soldiers do think of this as a one-to-one. They depart the service and dive directly into police work as though the shift should be minimal—and the fact that this is not a terrifying thought to everyone is baffling. The narrative here is telling us in no uncertain terms that equating these things is the reason we have problems. A few other thoughts… When Cherry points out that she asked the wizards for help with information around goblin culture and she informs Carrot that they had nothing, we get this: Captain Carrot raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? I know for a fact that they have a Professor of Dust, Miscellaneous Particles, and Filaments, and you tell me that there’s no expert on an entire species of talking humanoids?” Which is a scathing indictment of Western academia, if I’ve ever heard one. I was also tickled by the detail that Miss Beedle’s plan to change goblin society to aid in human approval starts with teaching the women (as they’ll learn fast and pass things on to their kids), because this is a historical tactic that has been used elsewhere in cultural “conversion” plans—specifically with Christianity. The reason why Christianity took hold in Rome is partly because the first evangelists targeted young women who might marry Roman soldiers, expressly for the fact that they would be the ones to pass religion on to their kids. And the rabbit diet thing is also true! Rabbit starvation is also known as protein poisoning. Basically, there’s not enough fat on rabbit to give you all the essential nutrients that you need, and without that fat, you die. A fun and horrifying thing to know. (Which was a thing that killed Roman soldiers in Appian’s Roman History, so it’s possible that Pratchett was pulling from a couple favored books that that point? I wonder…) Asides and little thoughts Miss Pickings is a lesbian from Colonel Makepeace’s (rather unflattering) depiction of her partner, the horse trainer. Another rare glimpse of overt queerness in the Discworld books. I’ve mentioned before that Pratchett talked about the lack of sex scenes in anything he wrote, mostly to a “I suppose I should get around to that one day” tune. It seems fitting that one of the few times he did, we get this: Then Vimes floated again in the warm steamy atmosphere and was only just aware of the swish of cloth hitting the floor. Lady Sybil slid in beside him. The water rose, and so, in accordance with the psychics of this business, did the spirits of Sam Vimes. Which is just right, really. Evocative, glib, and somehow still very cute. Despite the fact that there is a lot of fatphobia in how many Discworld villains are portrayed, the description of Sybil as “a woman happily rich in gravitational attraction” is such a great way to paint her size as something beautiful and desirable. The joke here of Vimes hearing that writers spend all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne and the footnote being This is, of course, absolutely true. is devastating. Sir. Rude. Where’s my dressing gown? Completely agreed that the clocks with the animal eyes that swing back and forth while they tick could drive you to madness and should be destroyed with fireplace pokers. Young Sam tells his father he won’t be scared following him into the dark because “I’ll let Mr. Whistle do the being scared” for him, which is a legitimate child psychology thing. I know because a doctor did this to help me stop being terrified that Chucky might be in my closet waiting to kill me (thanks to a very irresponsible adult who showed me Child’s Play at the age of four), by telling me to put my worry into my favorite stuffed animals. It worked great, in all honesty. Pratchettisms There was a twang, and seventeen yards away a geranium was decapitated. “That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we’ll never know.” The goblin turned it this way and that, inspecting it like a man thinking of buying a horse from somebody called Honest Harry. To Vimes’s surprise Willikins tapped him on the shoulder in a kindly way (you’d know it instantly if Willikins tapped you in an unfriendly way). It was also, in all probability, the only bath that had taps mark hot, cold, brandy. Instinctively he looked at Young Sam, and suddenly the biggest raisin in his cake of apprehension was: what will Young Sam do? Next week we read up to: “Okay, Mr. Feeney, let’s get them in, shall we? Find Stinky, he’s the brains of the outfit.” The post Terry Pratchett Book Club: <i>Snuff</i>, Part II appeared first on Reactor.

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May 2024 was a hard act to follow, so June certainly has its work cut out. However, an old friend is returning to help keep the party going, with the potential to trigger a repeat of the historic aurorae that lit up the night skies across the world last month.That old chum is, of course, none other than AR 3664: the huge sunspot responsible for May’s incredible light shows. Like a resurrected Tolkienesque wizard, the solar behemoth has taken on a new title as it returns from the abyss, and shall henceforth be known as AR 3697.After spending two weeks traversing the far side of the sun, the moody region reappeared on Monday, May 27. Entering like a true diva, the sunspot immediately let off an X-class solar flare - "X" denoting the most intense category of flare - before firing off a second two days later.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center, a coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with the more recent flare “is likely to enhance the Earth's magnetic field” tonight (May 31) and early tomorrow morning. This is expected to result in a minor to moderate geomagnetic storm -  with a rating of G1 to G2 - that could produce stronger-than-average aurorae, though these are unlikely to be visible at low latitudes.Coronal mass ejections are eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s corona that, when correctly oriented, can collide with the Earth’s magnetosphere and trigger intensely colorful displays in the night sky. Last month, AR 3664 battered the planet with a barrage of at least five consecutive CMEs, resulting in the first G5 geomagnetic storm in over 20 years.Whether or not we’ll get anything approaching that level of intensity in June remains to be seen, although our best chance will be from June 4-6, when AR 3697 will sit just to the right of the Sun’s center. Once in this position, the sunspot will be magnetically connected to Earth, meaning any eruptions are likely to be fired straight at us.Luckily, this window also coincides with June’s new moon, which means skies will be at their darkest at this point so any solar storms that do reach us should be extra visible. However, there is currently no forecast for this period, so it’s impossible to say exactly what sort of aurorae we’re going to get this month.What we do know, however, is that the sunspot has been less active since it gave us a G5 level storm a few weeks ago, and is currently producing fewer X-class flares than it did in mid-May. It’s therefore pretty unlikely that we’ll get anything as strong or as widespread as we did then, although the fact that AR 3697 is clearly still capable of generating X-class flares means we can’t rule anything out.If there is to be a repeat of last month’s incredible celestial performance, then, it’ll almost certainly take place between next Tuesday and Thursday. Any major eruptions that occur during this window could result in strong aurorae visible at low latitudes, although your chances of seeing anything will also depend on cloud cover and how far you are from major sources of light pollution.

There seems to be a growing debate about whether you should feed your dog raw meat or not. It is a popular trend that is all over TikTok with pet influencers and is encouraged by some holistic veterinarians, but is it all it's cracked up to be?What is the "Bones And Raw Food" diet?In the past few decades, it has become more common to feed dogs heat-treated processed food. Now, some pet owners are bucking the more popular tinned dog food trend and going for the raw meat-based diet also known as “Bones And Raw Food”, which gives the delightful acronym of BARF and is marketed as more “Biologically Appropriate Raw Food”.This diet includes uncooked ingredients that can come from wild animals or livestock and people can either purchase these commercially or prepare them at home. In one 2016 survey, it was found that 3 percent of dog owners in the United States purchased raw pet food and 17 percent of dog owners purchased raw or cooked human food for their beloved furbabies.While a raw meat diet can meet the nutritional needs of the pet if it is balanced, there is not really any clear evidence that it is better for their health. There are also some potential risks to feeding the animals raw meat.What do the experts say?There are many different associations that discourage a raw meat diet for pets. These include the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which opposes feeding this diet to cats and dogs because of the risk to human and animal health. They recommend cooking or pasteurization of the product until it reaches a safe minimum internal temperature which will reduce or eliminate any pathogenic organisms.   Even the Delta Society’s Pet Partners Program excludes animals that eat a raw meat-based diet from participating in their therapy animal program. The reason is that the diet could pose a risk to humans, pets, and other animals.What are the risks?Transmission of pathogens to petsThe whole world is full of microbes and some are more harmful than others. Many scientific papers have shown that any animal-sourced protein can be contaminated with different pathogenic organisms, including; Enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp, Campylobacter spp, and Clostridium spp. This can result in the animals developing foodborne illnesses.Transmission of pathogens to humansIf we are feeding our beloved companions with the food then there is also a risk of us getting illnesses as well.This could either be from the actual handling of the meat itself, as some of the pathogens could be transferred over to humans, or it could be from the dog. There has been evidence that has shown that seemingly healthy dogs can develop subclinical infections that could be passed on to people, especially elderly, pregnant, young, and immunocompromised people.  Antibiotic resistanceOne study found that feeding your dog raw food could also contribute to antibiotic resistance. Scientists looked at poop samples from over 600 healthy pet dogs and found that there was a high association between feeding dogs uncooked meat and them having E.coli that was resistant to one specific antibiotic (fluoroquinolone).Why do some people like the BARF diet so much?There are some purported benefits that people who favor this diet for their pets tout, but despite this, many claims are largely unproven, not based on scientific evidence, and are anecdotal.Their claims include:Cleaner teeth: there is limited evidence that raw feeding reduces tooth disease.A more natural diet: One thought process that is used by people who tout the need for a raw food diet is that wolves need raw meat as they have a limited capacity to digest dog food, which often has a large component made of carbohydrates. The domestic dog is genetically altered from its wild ancestors so can eat an increased starch diet.Avoids potential contaminants that commercial food may contain: In the past, there have been recalls due to contaminants in processed dog food.Better taste:  As with human food this can depend on the brand that the dogs are fed and the animal's taste. However, this cute pooch seems to enjoy it:             IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Further research is probably needed before it is decided whether raw dog food is better or worse than cooked alternatives. But if the advice of the AVMA is anything to go by, it might be best to stick to cooked food for now.