171 years ago today, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe, was first published in the abolitionist periodical The National Era. In the United States, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century following the Bible. A landmark in protest literature, its influence […] The post Good News in History, June 5 appeared first on Good News Network.

As part of a criminal investigation, the FBI raided the offices of Cortland, a property management company operating in Arizona to find out if it was involved in an illegal price-fixing scheme centered around AI-driven rent control software. In February, the Arizona Attorney General announced a lawsuit against nine major rental companies for alleged price […] The post FBI, Arizona Charge Rental Firms in Price-fixing Scheme Centered Around AI-Driven Rent Control Software appeared first on Good News Network.

The Lonely Guy A writer for a greeting card company discovers the struggles and tribulations of living alone after breaking up with his unfaithful girlfriend. Cast: 1984 viewing Steve Martin was banned in my house, CONTINUE READING... The post 84 From ’84: The Lonely Guy appeared first on The Retro Network.

Another star is born! This year's recipient of the 77th Cannes Film Festival's Palm Dog Award is Kodi, a Griffon mix from the movie "Dog On Trial".

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Fears of the death of the Hubble Space Telescope have turned out to be greatly exaggerated, with plans announced for it to go on, operating on a single gyroscope. Practical observing time will be reduced, as it will take Hubble longer to move from one target to another, but there are no plans to shut it down. On May 31, Hubble was placed in safe mode because of faulty readings from one of its gyroscopes. When this was followed by the announcement of a press conference Tuesday afternoon, American time, fears were high that its closure would be announced. After all, Hubble has been operating for 34 years, the last 15 of these without the capacity to service it.Instead, the conference described a plan to keep the space telescope operating, quite possibly until the mid-2030s when its decaying orbit will see Hubble burn up in the atmosphere, unless intervention occurs. Hubble needs its gyroscopes to shift its orientation from one part of the sky to another, as well as to maintain focus on a target once it’s there. It’s designed to operate with three at a time. The 2009 repair mission left it with six – but three of these failed within a decade, so since 2018 it has had no redundancies for full operations. The latest failure means the end of peak performance for the foreseeable future.However, while three gyroscopes are ideal, in 2008 Hubble demonstrated the capacity to operate on just one, albeit with longer downtime as it reorients. The process relies on using Hubble’s magnetometers and sun sensors to combine with a single gyroscope to get Hubble pointing in the general vicinity of the target. From there, fixed head star trackers and eventually fine guidance sensors slowly bring it to the precise spot in the sky. Once it has found its target, a single gyroscope keeps Hubble pointing almost as precisely as all three.Schematic of Hubble's multiple guidance systems.Image Credit: NASA/STSciThe new plan will rely on one of the remaining working gyros, with the other gyro placed in spare mode, to take over when this one fails,Even the malfunctioning gyro may not be completely dead. It‘s suffering what is known as “saturation”, where it reports the telescope is slewing at the maximum rate when it moves between targets, irrespective of the actual speed of movement. Hubble’s operators have found they can fix the problem temporarily, but saturation always returns. However, with more time, a permanent fix may be found.The gyroscopes are Hubble’s weak link because they rely on wires thinner than a human hair to carry power in and data out. Passage through the fluid inside the gyroscope can lead to corrosion. The limitations may encourage NASA to spend more time on a few targets where extended observations are particularly valuable, such as the famous Hubble deep field, rather than shifting as often. They will also prevent viewing objects closer to us than Mars, given the rate of movement required to track them. However, NASA noted in a statement; “These are rare targets for Hubble.”When operating, a wheel within the gyroscopes spins at 320 revolutions per second. The considerable angular momentum this provides makes it easy to measure the force produced by any turning of the telescope, allowing that change to be tracked precisely.After the closure of the space shuttle program, NASA lacks the capacity to perform maintenance on Hubble, let alone boost it into an orbit safe from atmospheric drag. Billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman has offered to cover the costs to revamp Dragon to extend Hubble’s life beyond that date, but questions of safety have kept NASA undecided on the idea. Even without such a mission, however, if Hubble can squeeze four years’ worth of operation out of each remaining gyroscope, it could be operating after the JWST, branded as its successor, runs out of fuel.Hubble has had plenty of near-death experiences before. However, like the hero in an action movie who saves the day operating on one leg (read: gyroscope), one of the greatest scientific instruments in humanity’s history just doesn’t quit.

Many scientists believe that sperm counts across the world are on a general decline, with potentially serious ramifications for fertility and male health – but what if they’re wrong? A new study from researchers in the UK, Canada, and Denmark suggests the true situation may not be so straightforward, and that sperm quality, rather than quantity, should be the focus.Data suggesting that sperm counts are dropping has attracted a lot of attention in recent years, with some going to far as to call it a looming “spermageddon”. Over the last 30-plus years, a string of studies have raised the alarm about declining sperm quantities in industrialized nations, with exposure to everyday chemicals, cannabis use, and recently microplastics coming under fire as potential causes. But now, a new study has come to a rather different conclusion.The team analyzed data from 6,758 men aged 18-45 from four cities in Denmark who had applied to become sperm donors at the world’s largest sperm bank, Cryos International. The data covered the period between 2017 and 2022, and all samples were assessed in the same way.“It is commonly believed [that] sperm counts in men are falling,” said co-author Professor Allan Pacey of the University of Manchester, in a statement emailed to IFLScience.“We did not see such a change and that suggests that in this population of sperm donor applicants, in these four Danish cities, sperm concentrations have not changed between 2017 and 2022.”Digging deeper into their findings, the team did observe a small decrease in sperm concentration and total sperm count between 2019 and 2022 of around 0.1-5 percent year-on-year. This change, however, was not statistically significant.There was one result that surprised the team. “The decline in measures of sperm motility between 2019 and 2022 was an unexpected finding,” commented co-author Professor Robert Montgomerie.Motile sperm concentration and total motile sperm count – both measures of sperm quality rather than absolute quantity – decreased by 16 and 22 percent, respectively, from 2019-2022.“This decline roughly corresponds to the onset of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic,” Montgomerie noted. “While there is no evidence to suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is directly affecting sperm, we speculate whether the widespread lockdowns may have led to changes in working patterns, diet, and levels of physical activity which we already know can impact sperm motility.”It's an intriguing suggestion, but one the authors stress in their paper cannot be directly determined from their data.It’s also not clear how well this population of volunteer sperm donors can be generalized to men across Denmark as a whole, noted co-author Anne-Bine Skytte, Medical Director of Cryos International.Any new research that calls into question a well-established idea is bound to come under scrutiny. But Professor of Reproductive Medicine Dr Chris Barratt, who is based at the University of Dundee and was not directly involved in the study, praised the authors’ approach in a comment to the Science Media Centre:“Studies to date have poorly investigated sperm motility but this study has done a good job. This data is important as it shows, on a large sample set with high quality methods, that we should be focussed on sperm quality, rather than sperm quantity.”The altruism of those who are willing to donate their sperm to assist people experiencing fertility issues can also help advance scientific discovery – as Skytte put it, “This is an unexpected benefit of their generosity.”The authors suggest that collecting more lifestyle data from donors could help us pinpoint the potential causes behind declining sperm quality at a population level, which could then also be used to develop personalized interventions for donors wishing to improve their own sperm quality, making it a win-win.In short, this study would suggest that the old adage of “quality, not quantity” is bang on the money.The study is published in the journal Human Reproduction.