News Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Is Coming Just in Time for Holiday Viewing Jude Law stars in the next Star Wars series By Molly Templeton | Published on July 31, 2024 Image: Lucasfilm Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Lucasfilm Your next trip to a galaxy far, far away isn’t quite right around the corner—but it’s close. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, the Jude Law-starring, kid-friendly next Star Wars series, finally has a release date, and it’ll be here in time for the winter holiday season. Warm up the blue milk! Does it work as hot chocolate? People, of all places, has a first look at the upcoming Disney+ show, which includes a very brief official synopsis: When four kids make a mysterious discovery on their seemingly safe home planet, they get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy. Finding their way home, meeting unlikely allies and enemies will be a greater adventure than they ever imagined. Skeleton Crew stars Law as Jod Na Nawood, who the actor calls “someone who uses quick thinking, charm and conversation to get out of all sorts of scenarios.” He’s joined by four young newcomers: Ravi Cabot-Conyers as Wim, Kyriana Kratter as KB, Robert Timothy Smith as Neel, and Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Fern. The show also introduces a new droid, SM33, who is voiced by Nick Frost, and who co-creator Jon Watts calls “a rusty old, cranky droid that sort of reluctantly helps the kids along the way.” Previous reports on the series mentioned a whole host of intriguing directors, including Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Daniels, The Green Knight’s David Lowery, The Mandalorian’s Bryce Dallas Howard, Jake Schreier (Paper Towns), and Lee Isaac Chung (Twisters). People doesn’t get into that level of detail, though, focusing instead on Law and the “joyful” vibe of the series. Watts, who co-created the show with Christopher Ford, also says there are “a lot of easter eggs” in the series, which may delight or annoy you, depending. All the same, he says you don’t have to know anything about Star Wars to enjoy the show, which premieres December 3rd on Disney+. While you wait, head over to People to see the first images![end-mark] The post <i>Star Wars: Skeleton Crew</i> Is Coming Just in Time for Holiday Viewing appeared first on Reactor.

Books Reading the Weird I’ve Been Around the Block: Greg van Eekhout’s “Across the Street” Sometimes crossing the street can be an adventure… By Ruthanna Emrys, Anne M. Pillsworth | Published on July 31, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we cover Greg van Eekhout’s “Across the Street,” first published in July 2024 in Uncanny Magazine. Spoilers ahead! The story’s narrator likens himself to Moby Dick’s Ishmael: He too has endured “damp, drizzly Novembers” of the soul, during which he must fight the urge to step into the street and knock off people’s hats. Ishmael could shake his doldrums by returning to the sea, but narrator’s lunch break is too short to allow for whaling voyages to the south seas. He can only walk around the same old block, stopping at Starbucks and then pacing by the usual American medley of megastores and fast food chains before arriving back at his office and spreadsheets. This particular day, the narrator’s “very deep in a hat-knocking mood,” so he crosses the street. A few blocks along, he finds a turtle garden he’s never noticed before. Small turtles swim in a sparkling pond bordered by cobblestones. “Free from the cubicle where [his] sense of adventure atrophies,” he crosses another street. Here the pavement bears prints pressed into it when its cement was wet. They look like they were made by huge clawed human hands. The prints are stained red. Narrator does love a “touch of civic whimsy.” The street signs are in a language whose alphabet he doesn’t recognize. Maybe he’ll find a new ethnic restaurant! He’s not “self-destructive” enough to explore that creepy antique doll shop, but when a voice squawks “Enter” from a pet shop door, he must obey. Inside are the usual bettas in cups, parakeets, mice and rats and hamsters, but there’s also a four-inch dragon working its stubby wings and coughing smoke. “You’re doing great,” narrator encourages it. He’d never see a baby dragon in the company cafeteria. He crosses another street. He passes a record shop playing a song he vaguely remembers. He hums the tune, mutters some lyrics, then the complete song comes to him. His walk turns jaunty, his face relaxes. He stands on a corner among six other people tapping their feet and each singing a different song. When the light turns green, they go their separate ways. Across the street the alphabet changes again, and glyphs draw narrator along. Down a manhole, a head surfaces from dark water. Its face is human, its eyes alien, “ancient and dark as starless space.” Held by its gaze, narrator feels the patience necessary to “lay low until the new, boiling sea grows cool enough to support ocean prey.” The creature vanishes. Narrator next notices a meat shop displaying flayed human corpses. He doesn’t care for this “sketchy” neighborhood and wonders if he should head back. But he still feels like knocking off hats, so he crosses another street. Here the streets are named things like “The World is a Sphere but Time is Linear Avenue.” He enters a church so old its corners are weathered soft. Inside, figures holding paper cups sit on folding chairs before the altar. Each has six wings: a pair each crossing feet, back, and face. One says, “Hi. My name is Zerachiel, and I’m an alco–” Then the figures notice narrator and withdraw their face wings to reveal angels’ eyes. Narrator weeps with awe and rushes out, apologizing for his intrusion. Parking meters tell car owners how much longer they’ll live. Narrator would like to help a sniffling man, but the meters won’t take his quarters. Again he crosses the street. The Starbucks here has a logo like the manhole creature, and its customers are on their knees, clutching their stomachs and choking. He decides against buying another latte. He starts to cross once more, but sees on the other side a spiraling vortex like a horizontal tornado. The pressure differential feels more than his brittle skull can endure. There’s a noise his “brain has not evolved to process.” A woman in jogging clothes and a pink baseball cap stands beside him. “Is that a portal?” narrator asks. Everything’s a portal, she replies. Every wound, every conversation, every passing second. More specifically, the one across the street leads to “what happens when you go too far. The great unraveling… Demolition and rebirth but no return.” When the light turns green, narrator asks if the woman’s going to cross. She was going to, but now she hears “the shriek of gods burning on their pyres.” Hell no. Narrator thinks the woman seems smart. But because he has an urge to smack off her baseball cap, he steps “into the howling.”  What’s Cyclopean: It’s amazing what you can find once you’re free of the cubicle where you’ve been “incarcerated inside spreadsheet cells.” Libronomicon: Moby Dick references! Everywhere! Weirdbuilding: Across the street, so many potential stories beckon. Perhaps you’d like to take a detour into the creepy doll shop? Anne’s Commentary When the woman in the pink baseball cap claims that everything’s a portal, she’s not exaggerating, at least as far as speculative lit genres are concerned. So much spec-lit contains portals—technological or magical openings into Other Places, Realities, Dimensions, Realms—that to list a fraction here would eat up my entire word allotment. Should you feel like making a to-read list, Goodreads provides one of 355 portal fantasies. Just last week, we encountered a tangle of downed trees portalling a real-world pet sematary and a burial ground for both humans and companion animals, not all of which necessarily remain buried. “Deadfall” is a good name for Stephen King’s barrier between realities. Besides a snarl of decaying vegetation, “deadfall” can refer to a trap designed to drop a crushing weight on prey. It’s this second definition that might apply to the seemingly innocuous crossings van Eekhout’s narrator (let’s call him neo-Ishmael) makes. We all cross streets, right? How else are we, like the chicken and Church the Cat, going to get to the other side? But not all crossings are advisable. Still, no crossing ventured, no turtle gardens or new ethnic restaurants, no baby dragons or angelic AA meetings discovered. When one’s spiritual November is the product of toxic ennui, one can either knock off some hats and then be bored in jail or one can ditch the too well-beaten path and take some risks. Sign up to hunt the great leviathans already! Or at least boldly go where no lunchtime stroll has led you before. Neo-Ishmael’s alternative is to meekly return to the cubicle where his “sense of adventure atrophies.” In his Uncanny Magazine interview with Caroline M. Yoachim, van Eekhout says that he’s “mostly just trying to make the ordinary seem strange and the strange seem ordinary.” This, he continues, is a paraphrase of something the poet Novalis wrote. The verbatim quote is: To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite. Novalis (1772-1801), who was influential in the German branch of the Romantic Movement, defines the aims of that reaction to the Industrial Revolution with admirable conciseness. And what better 21st century emblems of said Revolution than the cubicle in which Neo-Ishmael languishes, and the homogenized soullessness of his lunchtime perambulations? This boy needs to trash the iced grande vanilla latte and get some romanticization! Luckily, he exists in such close quarters to magic, mystery and wonder that all he has to do is cross a street to begin his journey into the extraordinary, strange, sacred and infinite. And all he has to do to hit portals on each crossing is to be in a deep enough November mood to reject the ordinary, familiar, mundane, and finite. To reject them once and for all, maybe. In the linked interview, Yoachim asks van Eekhout which of neo-Ishmael’s “streets” he’d cross himself. Van Eekhout opts for the turtle garden. As the weirdness and danger increase with each crossing, and “turtle garden” comes first, it’s the safest choice. It’d be hard to maintain a turtle pond in a busy urban setting, but it could happen. Next come the huge and clawed human footprints preserved in pavement cement. Such creature being impossible, Neo-Ishmael writes them off as a bit of “civic whimsy” and the red stains within them as paint or rust rather than, um, dried blood. Neo-Ishmael grows more habituated to wonder, more credulous, the farther he goes from his routine routes. A baby dragon in a pet store becomes an unusual rather than an impossible sighting. Six people performing impromptu street-corner a cappella, each singing a different song picked up in passing a record shop? That’s a soft drink ad, not real urban life, but why argue with such a feel-good moment? The next streets start getting scary weird, or so people not progressively numbed to weirdness would feel. There are more signs in unknown scripts and mandalas so compelling that Neo-Ishmael feels he’s been staring at them for ages, but his only worry is that he may be late returning to work. Down in the sewers swims not the flushed alligators of urban legend but a merperson with eyes as “ancient and dark as starless space.” A meat shop displays butchered human corpses. Neo-Ishmael neither thinks he’s stumbled on a slasher movie set nor recoils in horror; he merely supposes he’s wandered into a “sketchy” neighborhood and crosses another street. Here his habituation has progressed so much that he can read the street signs, which are all about cosmology and quantum physics. In a time-weathered church, six-winged figures participate in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting complete with folding chairs and coffee. Noticing an intruder, they reveal the eyes of seraphim and burst into flame. Finally Neo-Ishmael screams with awe at the familiar gone strange, the mundane sacred. The next street’s Starbucks has replaced its logo with the sewer creature. All its customers are choking. This version has Neo-Ishmael ready to cross without further exploration, but a vortex blocks passage. Shifting pressure lances his ears. Fortunately, the jogger sharing his street corner knows what lies behind the vortex-portal. All things are portals according to her, but this one is the crossing too far, the ultimate beyond, reality unzipped, demolition, rebirth without return, pick your favorite metaphor. You can only know by going within. Going within sounds like passing from the finite to the infinite, Novalis’s last stage of world-romanticization. The jogger’s not crossing this street; that noise the vortex emits? It’s the “shriek of gods burning alive on their pyres.” Who needs that kind of routine-breaker? Neo-Ishmael does, because in spite of all he’s experienced, he still wants to knock off the jogger’s cap. Who needs that degree of world-weariness? Besides, portals exist to be entered. The Beyond, once broached, becomes an irresistible lure. Didn’t Last Exit teach us that? Okay, Neo-Ish. Say hi to the burning gods for me. Ruthanna’s Commentary Call me Ishmael! ‘Cause I mail people about Ish-ues? No, that doesn’t work at all. (I may be a bit punchy this week from dayjob deadlines.) Because I am pretty much always guaranteed to squee at a Moby Dick reference, though, that’s a good reason. I adore a long, rambling book about how god keeps trying to create new Jonah prophets until one actually follows commands instead of running away and getting eaten by a fish, and about whales (incorrect answers only), and about marrying a guy you just met and worshipping at his altar because Golden Rule. And about how to handle that feeling when the world wears so badly at your brain that you just want to knock people’s hats off. Ishmael, as van Eekhout’s narrator admits, has the advantage of being able to go to sea and let the overwhelming power of the ocean smooth out those rough edges. Hard to do on a 45-minute lunch break—and worse yet, a spreadsheet-heavy job with a 45-minute lunch break is likely to exacerbate that hat-knocking mood. Fortunately for Neo-Ish, awe-inspiring vastness can be found ashore. Sometimes, just by exploring a block you’ve never walked before. Maybe hat-knocking desires push you to turn in novel directions that aren’t otherwise available. Why not? If going to sea can put you in the thrall of a maltheistic ex-prophet, anything’s possible. The wild and awesome is wherever you need to find it. Unfortunately for Neo-Ish, this particular mood is such as to keep one turning and turning in widening gyres increasingly weird directions. Little pond full of teeny turtles, that’s great. My kid, at 3, encountered turtles for the first time at an aquarium and clearly thought that they were an unusual variety of beetle. Tiny dragon in a pet shop, I want to see it and so does my beetle-turtle-loving kid. You could bring it back to the office and point that smoking nose at your paperwork. Aeons-patient sewer Deep Ones seem worth a conversation, if they’re willing to take a shower first. Church-going angels without even the etiquette to say “FEAR NOT,” on the other hand, we can all do without. And it only gets worse from there: I personally am going back the way I came when I hit the extremely-not-kosher cannibalistic butcher shop window, no matter how many hats I need to knock in the course of retracing my steps. This is apparently part of an informal series of van Eekhout shorts about urban weirdness, and I hope to find more of them. In the meantime, it reminds me of Neil Gaiman’s Walking Tour of the Shambles, a strange little chapbook describing a self-guided tour of a somewhat unusual Chicago neighborhood. Some of the stores even have an online presence. It’s the matter-of-fact descriptions, the straightforward interactions, the willingness to move on from the current once-in-a-lifetime-and-beyond experience to the next one without pausing to stare, that seem familiar in this week’s selection. That and the risk of getting pulled into a portal and failing to return from whence you came, so make sure your parking meter’s topped off before you head out. Come to that, it’s a risk for the crew of the Pequod as well. Only I survive to tell, etc. Just because you’re god-hunting doesn’t mean you can forget to bring in the oil from the lesser demi-gods who populate these vasty deeps. Or to replace your melted shake. Not at the Temple of Dagon Starbucks, though. Pet Semetary’s been reminding us, these past weeks, that some barriers aren’t meant to be crossed. It’s also been reminding us that humans, being humans, are likely to find reasons to cross them anyway. And if that doesn’t jar us out of our doomscrolling, another barrier, and another, until any alternative is far behind. What happens after that?  Well, some stories start when you step off into the howling, and some end there. But Ishmael the First would warn you that hat-knocking humans is a slippery slope to hat-knocking deities. At that point, the shriek of gods burning alive on their pyres might be just what the doctor ordered. Next week, what happens in the burial ground doesn’t stay in the burial ground in Chapters 23-25 of Pet Sematary. The post I’ve Been Around the Block: Greg van Eekhout’s “Across the Street” appeared first on Reactor.

Adam is joined by lifelong Avengers fan, Kevin Hellions to discuss the Wizard Avengers Special from 1999 that explores the decades long history of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The Wizard research staff went above and beyond CONTINUE READING... The post WIZARDS The Podcast Guide To Comics | Bonus: Avengers Special ’99 appeared first on The Retro Network.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The nonprofit that has been exposing radical gender ideology in California filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the public school district in Burbank, California, for failing to comply with state law by providing requested documents. Burbank Unified School District, in Los Angeles County, hasn’t responded to the Center for American Liberty’s repeated records requests, the organization says. This silence violates the California Public Records Act, which requires the state government to disclose records to the public upon request, notes the nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech and civil liberties. “The Center for American Liberty is actively exposing extreme plans and policies in California school districts through public records requests,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, the center’s CEO and founder, said in a written statement shared with The Daily Signal. “The Burbank Unified School District’s inadequate response to our lawful CPRA requests undermines parents’ right to access information about what’s happening behind closed doors at their children’s schools.” The Center for American Liberty requested materials May 23 from the Burbank school district related to compliance with state education laws, including recent legislation allowing schools to hide gender identity from parents; so-called Gender Support Plans, which school districts use to help children socially “transition” to another gender; and partnerships with organizations that seek to indoctrinate kids on LGTBQ issues, including The Trevor Project and Gender Spectrum. The Burbank district, which has 14,331 students enrolled in 21 schools, didn’t provide a “complete or satisfactory” disclosure of requested records, although state law requires a timely response, the center’s lawsuit contends. The Center for American Liberty determined that the Burbank school district didn’t search for and disclose many of the requested documents, since communications and documents related to the requests for information were missing. The district did release records showing it uses Gender Spectrum’s model for a Gender Support Plan, a document that establishes steps to hide a child’s new gender identity from his or her parents. The form asks whether “guardians” are aware of the child’s gender status, ranks the level of their support, then asks: “If [the] support level is low, what considerations must be accounted for in implementing this plan?” The district also uses a form called an Individual Transition Plan, which asks whether a student’s parents are aware of his or her transition to another gender. A parent’s signature on the plan is optional. Burbank Unified School District didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The school district’s website includes a hyperlink to the LGBT Center of Los Angeles, which offers so-called gender-affirming care. Many critics consider that term a misnomer for often irreversible and sterilizing transgender medical interventions. “Whether you’re considering transitioning, are in the process of transitioning, or have already transitioned,” the school district’s website says, “the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s medical providers specialize in the care of transgender people—and provide the expert treatment and consultation that you deserve.” Medical interventions offered by the LGBT Center include hormone treatments, preparation for transgender surgery, and free chest binders. The Center for American Liberty made numerous records requests exposing what it considers to be school districts’ plans to exclude parents from making decisions about how they raise their children, particularly when it comes to instruction about gender identity. The nonprofit exposed another California school district, Newport-Mesa, for forcing students to choose between rooming with a transgender-identifying student or missing out on an overnight school field trip, as The Daily Signal first reported. Capistrano Unified School District, in California’s southern Orange County, allows a student to change his or her name and gender in school records without parental permission, according to records obtained by the Center for American Liberty and shared with The Daily Signal. The center also reported that South Pasadena Unified School District paid $1,500 to an organization that wants a “more inclusive world for gender-diverse children and teens” for a three-hour workshop on so-called gender inclusion. The widespread disregard for parental rights in California, the center argues, follows the example of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who on July 15 signed legislation known as AB 1955 that allows public schools to hide a student’s gender identity from his or her parents. AB 1955 overrules any school board policies that require transparency with parents about their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity. “Gov. Newsom is pushing parents’ rights out of the picture,” the Center for American Liberty’s Dhillon said. “We are committed to holding [Burbank Unified School District] accountable and ensuring they fulfill their obligations under the law.” The post EXCLUSIVE: Organization Fighting Radical Gender Ideology in California Sues School District for Withholding Public Records appeared first on The Daily Signal.

'Ridiculous:' Local Law Enforcement in Butler Strike Back at Secret Service Director

Today’s mammals face all sorts of problems that their distant ancestors didn’t have to worry about. Alongside the dual threat of habitat loss and climate change, is a third factor at play: the illegal wildlife trade. This involves the removal of animals from their native homes and exploiting them for monetary gain, either as pets or for a valuable part of them. In the case of the world's most trafficked mammal, the pangolin, the reality is pretty extreme.The World’s Most Trafficked MammalThere are eight species of pangolin in total, four of which live in Asia and four in Africa. These animals are trafficked for their claws and scales for use in traditional medicines, as well as for meat. All eight species are protected by international laws and trade bans to combat this; however, poachers and trading groups are pretty good at shipping these animals under the radar. The David Shepard Wildlife Foundation estimates that a pangolin is taken from the wild every four minutes. One study explains that between August 2000 and July 2019, approximately 895,000 pangolins were trafficked, though the authors also write that this is likely an underestimation. What Actually Is A Pangolin?Pangolins are small, scale-covered mammals - they are the only known scaly mammals – that mostly eat termites or ants with their long sticky tongues. Due to this combination of scales and diet, they are sometimes known as “scaly anteaters”. Typically, pangolins live solitary lives and are quite shy, secretive creatures. When threatened, they roll up into a ball to protect themselves.Sharp claws and a sticky tongue help pangolins hoover up ants and termites.Image credit: Vladimir Turkenich/Shutterstock.comLaws and ProtectionThree of the eight species of pangolin – the Chinese, Sunda, and Philippine pangolins – are listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List, which has largely been attributed to persistent hunting. According to National Museums Liverpool, the exploitation of pangolins by humans has been happening since at least 480 CE, the point at which traditional medicine prescriptions for pangolin scales can be traced back. The highest levels of demand for pangolin parts come from China and Vietnam. However in June 2020, China increased protective legislation around the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla), stopping the consumption of the species in the country and preventing the use of pangolin scales in traditional medicine, explains the WWF. In 2023, the UK Government also awarded a total of £40 million (about $51 million) of funding to 80 different conservation projects, including supporting the work of the Wildlife Conservation Society, to reduce demand for pangolin scales. 

Life on Earth is fragile. Through the many billions of years of our planet's history, countless species have gone extinct. Humanity has also contributed to that process in a variety of ways, the latest of them all being the climate crisis. Preserving a record of biodiversity on Earth is a complex but important task. Many vaults exist that contain specimens, kept safe for a just-in-case situation. An international team is now proposing to build one on the Moon.The proposal is led by Dr Mary Hagedorn of the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. The idea is to create a passive, long-lasting storage facility for Earth's most at-risk animal species. The samples will be cryopreserved and that’s why portions of the Moon have an advantage. There are craters at the poles whose bottoms never see sunlight. In those regions the temperature always remains below -196°C (-321°F).This is an extremely advantageous characteristic for the long-term stability of such a vault. The samples can be preserved without human intervention or power. Those are two requirements among the many that Earth repositories have. And a challenge to those here might put the whole system at risk.There is also the world itself. The Moon has an atmosphere so thin that it is basically a vacuum, so no weather to worry about. And its quakes are nothing like Earth’s own. Vaults on Earth are built in difficult-to-access and stable areas, but that only minimizes dangers and doesn’t remove them. The famous Svalbard Global Seed Vault had to undergo refurbishment after the unexpected thawing of the surrounding permafrost led to water leaking into the entrance tunnel.The idea has potential, but it is not simply a matter of sending a capsule to the Moon and being done with it. The team is looking at the various challenges that building such a repository would face. One is transportation. Another is how to protect the samples from radiation. A third one is the governance of such a facility.The team is going to develop a protocol using a single species, the starry goby (Asterropteryx semipunctata). The lunar biorepository would cryopreserve an animal skin sample with fibroblast cells; clones can be made from fibroblasts.The team hopes to build partnerships with space agencies and conduct tests on the International Space Station, to mimic some of the future challenges. The study is published in the journal BioScience.

Warfare and technology have a complicated and regrettable relationship. A casual glance at history shows that the former has often led to the advancement of the latter, usually at a significant cost to human life. This is as true today as it was in the past. Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine and that between Israel and Hamas have both seen new technologies being developed and deployed for both offensive and defensive purposes.In many ways, the war in Ukraine has become the world’s first full-scale drone war and the first AI war. Technology is playing a central role in this particular theatre; even Ukrainian citizens are using it to aid the armed forces by recording the position of Russian vehicles in apps. But in Israel, a different order of technology is now being developed – laser missile defense systems.It may sound like something from science fiction, but this new system is expected to become the first operational example in its class at a time when nations across the world are trying to develop their own versions for military purposes. As laser technologies advance, it is therefore worth understanding how these systems work and what they are used for.Iron BeamThe new defense system is officially known as “Shield of Light” but is often referred to as "Iron Beam". It is a 100-kilowatt class High Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) that was first unveiled by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli defense technology company, in 2014, and may be operationally deployed next year.According to the company's website, Iron Beam is designed to quickly and effectively engage and neutralize “a wide array of threats from a range of hundreds of meters to several kilometers.” It is essentially a missile defense laser, with a practically “unlimited” magazine. Although an infinite magazine is impossible, as parts and energy supplies will eventually run out, Iron Beam has an extremely deep magazine when compared to traditional systems that rely on missiles to intercept incoming attacks.         IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Iron Beam has been designed to work as part of Israel’s existing Iron Dome multilevel missile defense system.War is HEL, among other thingsIsrael’s new system is an example of a directed energy system, a type of weapon that uses directed beams of electromagnetic radiation to achieve some military objective (in this case, shooting missiles from the sky). Generally speaking, this can be achieved through a number of ways, including the use of particle beams, high-power microwaves, or high-energy lasers (HEL). The latter two are more often desired for their potential strategic use, while HEL systems (like Iron Beam) seem to be the most common type receiving military applications.HEL systems are based on solid-state lasers that use crystals to convert electrical energy into photons. These high-powered solid-state lasers produce photons that are in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, so they are invisible to human eyes.But how are they used in warfare? Well, it depends on the power of the laser’s photon wavelength, the beam’s power, and the surface it is striking. For instance, low-power lasers, like the ones used as pointers or as light displays at public events, create photons that are part of the visible spectrum. They are pretty weak, so they tend to bounce off surfaces without causing any harm.High-power lasers, on the other hand, are used to cut through flesh in medical procedures or can burn, melt, or vaporize materials in industrial settings. In a military context, such as with Iron Beam, the system could potentially blind, cut, or burn incoming missiles or drones in a way that disrupts their trajectories.But while HEL systems may well become a common feature of military systems in the future, they have their limitations. In particular, they require a significant power source to keep them in operation. To inflict damage on incoming targets that are at a distance requires tens of hundreds of kilowatts of power. In most existing system designs, the source for this power is deployed with the vehicle carrying the weapons, which means the laser can only be fired for a short period of time before it needs to be recharged.Lasers are also pretty sensitive to weather conditions. Rain, fog, and smoke can all limit the beam’s power as they can cause it to scatter.One among manyAcross the world, militaries are seeking to develop laser systems for their own purposes. Although directed energy weapons have long been sought after, there are few types of weapons that have had so many disappointments attached to them. However, advances in laser technologies in the last decade have made these systems more appealing.The US currently has 31 Laser programmes running, but so far it has struggled to make reliable systems that can operate in the field.       IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.For instance, in February this year, the US military deployed four truck-based HEL systems for battlefield testing in the Middle East. They use 50-kilowatt lasers that are mounted on Stryker armored fighting vehicles. The US Navy has also developed ship-based HEL systems that target drones, mortar shells, and missiles, as well as helicopters. The USS Preble was equipped with the High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance system (HELIOS) in 2022.The US Air Force is also interested in this technology to be deployed on their aircraft for both defensive and offensive purposes. At the same time, Russia is developing a ground-based HEL system that may be designed to target and “blind” enemy satellites.As such, if Iron Beam is successfully deployed by Israel next year, then it will likely soon be joined by other operational systems elsewhere, especially as more conflicts weaponize drones. Once it has been deployed, it will provide real-world data concerning its experiences in the field, which will inform future developments. On the one hand, such systems may be valuable tools for defending civilian populations from potential drone-based attacks, but on the other, as with all new weapons, they also highlight the evolving nature of warfare more generally.   

Social media has played an interesting role in the revival of Western cinema. I’ve compiled a list of social media accounts dedicated to Westerns. This article doesn’t include blogs, podcasts, websites, or magazines. I’m currently working on an article for each, so definitely let me know any of these that I need to know about in the comments section, or send me an email. The following list is by no means comprehensive. And at first glance, it may seem like a random assortment. The accounts vary in audience size, output, and content organization. They employ different media and delivery methods. Some are public; some require you to answer a questionnaire. Each of them is unique. What unites them is a frontier spirit, a liveliness. Official John Wayne - Instagram View this post on Instagram A post shared by John Wayne "The Duke" (@johnwayneofficial) It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of The Duke. The official John Wayne Instagram page is probably my favorite Western social media account. The X account is also solid. But the Instagram account is far better. It delivers the perfect number and flow of posts. And the descriptions, titles, and photos are all flawlessly assembled. I’d be shocked if it weren’t run by social media or marketing/PR professionals. This is the proper handling of the John Wayne legacy. The people in charge of maintaining it make sure that the Duke’s legacy is truly an experience. All of it is interconnected through John Wayne Enterprises: the John Wayne Museum, the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, the John Wayne Grit Series, among others. You can buy John Wayne cookbooks and a collection of cocktail recipes, coffee, ornamental cups and top-class clothing — all of which will appear in this series in exciting ways. View this post on Instagram A post shared by John Wayne "The Duke" (@johnwayneofficial) All of these converge at the Instagram account. It’s comforting to see a passionate group of people devoted to the upkeep of the Duke’s invaluable legacy. If all that weren’t good enough, they just launched a collaboration with Broken Bow Country, a friend of the Wednesday Western series, as captured in this profile. Broken Bow Country: Meet the 17-year-old behind a viral Western clothing brand www.theblaze.com In fact, during our interview, we connected on the Duke and our admiration for the official John Wayne account. Scrolling through this account, it feels like you’re reading a biography of the Duke, told in vignettes and accompanied by pictures, music, and video. Some of the posts are simply gorgeous. They provide a holistic view of the Duke, a man unlike any other. They offer great commentary on various Wayne films and media appearances. They help you understand who John Wayne was behind the legend, as in this post about his prolific love of chess. Other times, it’s playful, as with the incredibly creative inclusion of holidays, like this recent celebration of National Sunglasses Day. The posts hit every emotion as we navigate John Wayne’s love life and comforts and disappointments and truest victories. And America, you become closer to this great country. Just check out this 4th of July post. And, man, how about this one? Who else deserves to be the biggest movie star of all time? Just Westerns - YouTube Just Westerns is an entrepreneurial feat animated by one man’s love for Westerns. He has mastered the possibilities that YouTube offers. And that narrator’s voice: That’s Marc Reynard, the Englishman in charge of Just Westerns, the unofficial home of Westerns on YouTube. This dude is undoubtedly one of us. He examines the genre from creative and at times surprising angles, like this video about the fate of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 2.” You read that right: There was supposed to be a sequel. His videos are smooth, well produced, well crafted, well written, sharp, fun, lovely, informative. He also does something that I wish we had more of: He hypes upcoming and anticipated Westerns and compiles year-end lists and legitimizes the artistic merit of video games: “20 Best Western Video Games.” He also covers Wednesday Western favorite "Old Henry" (2021) We need more of all of this. Best of all, you can feel his passion. My only complaint is that the channel has only 30 videos. I went through them all at a steady clip. But even this turns out to be further proof that you’re getting content that is authentically wholesome. Marc addresses it in his YouTube bio: “Please bear with me, I am a solo creator without the resources or manpower that larger channels typically have, so I am unfortunately unable to upload as regularly as I like, especially as I am committed to prioritizing quality over quantity.” Take your time, brother. Personally, I think it's worth the wait. r/Westerns - Reddit Reddit can be a nasty place, especially if your politics are anything to the right of Bernie Sanders. And you can’t avoid the ideological slapfests, either. Leftist goons stir it up in every subreddit, constantly, and they’re almost always combative, even in the subreddits devoted to woodwork or kittens. The Westerns subreddit is a clear exception. It’s a community. It feels like the town square of a dust-ridden Western town. Check out this thread about “For a Few Dollars More.” The mixed-media format of Reddit allows for a variety of sources: pictures, movies, trailers, interviews, text-only, even gifs. It might be the most versatile resource on this list. It’s a great place for recommendations and commentary. Unlike much of the rest of Reddit, which is disproportionately loaded with young white liberal men, there’s an even spread of people of all ages. These Redditors routinely swap personal stories about the various movies and actors. Some of their stories are poignant and evocative. Back to the Old Western - Facebook Facebook is a great place for Western fans. Instagram is too image-centered to accommodate text, and it doesn’t support links. Meanwhile, the microblogging experience of X is limited in its scope and impatient in its daunting pace — the temperament and vibe of Westerns don’t do well in such a frantic environment. Facebook circumnavigates all of this, finally able to beat all the much lighter apps. For once, it finds an advantage to its cluttered user interface. This bulk allows users to upload and share every type of content. No limitations. It’s the only platform capable of this, besides Reddit, but I’m not about to equate the megalith Facebook with the niche subreddit. Besides, Facebook outperforms Reddit anyway. Its Pages function allows for an immersive blogging experience, run by moderators and admins who are passionate about their content and free to run their operation without much interference, right down to the parameters of the group’s privacy. Back to the old western | Charles Bronson as Chino in classic western film 'The Valdez Horses' in 1973 | Facebook www.facebook.com Back to the Old Western is the perfect example of these principles. It is active, with a constant flow of posts, often aggregated from fan pages — the Duke and Sam Elliot, mostly. The comments sections are fairly quiet, but most of the time people add substance or passion to the movie or actor being celebrated. Chatter isn’t as important as it is on Reddit. The admins really know their stuff, offering a healthy range of mainstream Westerns, cult classics, and oddities, like this post celebrating Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale for their roles in “The Legend of Frenchie King” (1971), a wild little movie that will get its Wednesday Western spotlight in due time. A Word on Westerns - YouTube BLAZING SADDLES! The fart scene changed my life, says Burton Gilliam A WORD ON WESTERNS www.youtube.com I made a point to place Just Westerns higher up than A Word on Westerns, because Just Westerns is the passion project of an ordinary guy who loves Westerns, while A Word on Westerns is a proper television series. An exceedingly good one, with just as much passion and gusto. It’s a fantastic channel. A Word on Westerns is sort of like a Western-only version of TMC, which is a thrilling reality. That’s the dream. The channel features entire movies, each with a brief but thorough introduction by Rob Word, a double feature as part of the segment Word’s Wayback. These are mostly 1930s and 1940s Westerns. YouTube is an oddity on this list, because so many of the major Western channels exclusively post full movies. What a joy it is to find a rare Western on YouTube. But these channels lack the commentary and artistry that characterize the two YouTube channels I’ve included on this list. A Word on Westerns blends the rustic ease of the Old West with the hypersonic immediacy of our infinite now. You can also access lectures, speeches, and clever projects like this "Gunsmoke" mash-up. Smartest of all, it makes good use of the Shorts function on YouTube, will brief clips about various topics, from Robert Mitchum to stories of mutilation. Western Podcast - X The Western Podcast X page is small but mighty, with some impressive followers and praise from True West magazine. Have you seen #HorizonAmericanSaga yet? If so, share your thoughts with us! We'll record a full podcast episode about the film in two weeks when Andrew is back from his vacation in Europe. In the meantime, here's Matt's highly positive take on Kevin Costner's latest Western epic. https://t.co/baVzZE4vPK — @WesternPodcast (@WesternPodcast) June 28, 2024 It’s an offshoot of the marvelous podcast hosted by our friend Western apostle Andrew Patrick Nelson and the excellent Matthew Chernov, a screenwriter and a journalist with bylines in Variety, Entertainment Weekly, IMBd.com. Yahoo News, and about a hundred other outlets. His insight thrives with the joy of curiosity. Andrew's Instagram account will keep you up to date with his media appearances and projects, with the occasional infusion of Hair Metal. These boys are the real deal. Andrew just began his new job as chief curator of Western Spirit, Scottsdale's Museum of the West. Before that, he taught film history. As a professor at the University of Utah, Andrew guided his students through the badlands full of robbers and coyotes, only to unmask the villains hiding behind all their props and plywood scenery. Why Millennials & Zoomers Should Watch Westerns | Andrew Patrick Nelson | Align www.youtube.com Both of them are impressively smart with a tenderness for beauty, but not at the cost of a good story or a complicated hero. They take their time with content, even tweets, but this adds to the reverence of their decision-making process. If you haven't taken the dive into their work already, do it.They have a gift for revealing the beautiful, intricate paradoxes of Western movies. They speak with screenwriters, historians, authors, journalists, musicians, directors, costume designers, and more. They tell stories. They examine personal reactions to various films. They navigate themes of universality and timelessness within the motion of transcendence, while also exposing the flimsiness of any given cultural era. Is Stagecoach the best movie ever made? Interview with Andrew Patrick Nelson www.youtube.com They have a gift for discerning the role of Western movies in relation to our unexplained world, differentiating these fictions from their context and influence. But also, more impressively, they succeed in witnessing the presence of our entire universe in one tiny section of cinema history. Kevin Costner and Modern West - X Kevin Costner & MW (@modernwest) on X Kevin Costner & MW (@modernwest) on X x.com Kevin Costner is this era’s Clint Eastwood. He fights to keep the Western in public view, devoting himself to projects animated by passion, even if his wallet takes a hit. The victory is worth the risk. He has ushered in a new era for the genre. His success with "Yellowstone" and its Western universe of shows has accelerated the Western’s resurgence. But it’s more than that. We're also witnessing a flourishing of the Western as an ethos, a style, a mode of thought, an approach to life. So did you realize that Kevin Costner has a country band? Founded in 2007, Kevin Costner and Modern West deliver rowdy songs written for the culturally forgotten people of America. The band's history is tinged with tragedy. The Kevin Costner and Modern West account is technically the band’s, but it posts tons of Costner content, all hand-picked and polished by a team of social media professionals. Best Cowboy Movies Forever - Facebook Best cowboy movies forever | Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, and Van Heflin in "Shane" (1953) | Facebook www.facebook.com There are several variations on the “Western” + “Forever” title, but I’m going with Best Cowboy Movies Forever. I enjoy the way the account profiles various actors, like this post about Lee Van Cleef. It also includes Westerns from every different era. This is important. It’s good to hop around in this way. I’m partial to the 1939-1960 era of the genre, so I can plant myself in that time exclusively if I’m not careful. The page rarely ventures into the current scene. But this isn’t a problem. It’s important to offer due reverence to the originators. Old West - Actors, Films, and Legends - Facebook www.facebook.com Old West zooms in so that we get a portrait view of an incredible variety of Western actors, films, and legends, like this post devoted to Myron Halle or this homage to Elsa Martinelli. I value any source that prioritizes the lesser-known figures in the genre. Because, as we all know, the Western genre is overflowing with stories, entire generations of actors, producers, directors, screenwriters — you name it — whose fascinating tales deserve to be recounted. As much as I love the giants of the genre, I derive incredible joy from learning about these forgotten figures. Passion for Western Movies - Instagram View this profile on Instagram Passion for western movies (@western_movies) • Instagram photos and videos Passion for Western Movies makes great use of Instagram’s Reels format. The account does a lot of this kind of multi-movie post, offering a list of movies connected by timeframe or theme. Passion for Western Movies lives up to its name, able to glide around the history of the Western genre, seemingly without partiality. It also features lesser-known movies, like this post about "The Hunting Party," which features Gene Hackman. Broken Bow Country - Instagram I’m a bit biased on this one, because I think Colton is an absolute legend, but Broken Bow Country is perfect for this list. The Western experience you get is fairly rough around the edges, in a distinctly modern way. But modernity never wins against Broken Bow Country. It’s unique for many reasons but primarily because, in addition to its Western ethos, it is a clothing retailer and printmaker. No other creator on our list offers this level of art and style. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kevin Ryan (@kevin_yerp_ryan) Then you’ve got the lore, the storytelling that comes with his posts, the war hymns of country-Western rebels and the toll their rebellion often took on their lives. The past month has been wild for Colton. Early in July, he landed a collaboration with John Wayne Enterprises. The T-shirts are fantastic. In fact, I’m wearing one of them in the cover photo for Wednesday Western. Then, a gunman on a sloped roof tried to murder former President Donald Trump, who was days away from officially accepting his party’s nomination. In the panicky hours that followed, many people succumbed to their emotions, others to their resolve. I won’t pretend to have remained cool. But Colton did. Following the Trump assassination attempt, he designed a T-shirt honoring one of the most American moments in human history, as Trump rose with his fist in the air. And he donated all of the money to a charity for Corey Comperatore, the man who died shielding his family from one of the gunman’s bullets. This was a controversial move. He even faced the nasty comments about how the shooter shouldn’t have missed or that the deaths of the victims were “completely deserved.” He lost a few thousand followers, but he describes it as “inconsequential when you think about the people that it's helping to support.” In a press release, he said, “This has nothing to do with politics, I was incredibly moved by what happened and I wanted to use my platform to do something that extended beyond the controversy and the arguing.” Lancer TV Blog - Facebook Last and certainly not least, Lancer TV Blog on Facebook. It is run by a friend of mine, an avid supporter of Wednesday Western. Unlike every other entry included on this list, Lancer TV Blog focuses entirely on one show, a show that hardly anyone knows. This reversal in focus is good for a movie lover’s mental sharpness. I’m working on a deep dive into "Lancer," so I won’t say too much. Beyond the merits of the show and its cast, "Lancer" is an underdog story still in the middle stages, badgered by uncertainty. Because the show hasn’t had a reboot, despite success throughout its two (long) seasons on CBS. So it’s not an issue of merit; the show deserves a second wind. It would very likely expand its audience. But none of that matters for the art trapped in the murk of a waiting area, a zone of uncertainty. And the gifted athlete eventually starts to wobble. Filmstock degrades. All technology collapses. Call it the inevitable disintegration of a lively body, in this case a body of art. Even the most perfect masterpieces eventually crumble. But what if that happens to be your masterpiece? What if it’s your tiny heaven, all tangled up in red tape? Life has enough of this disintegration as it is. Our entertainment needs to be clean, enjoyable, and easily accessible. Or so claims the majority. Well, thank God for the passionate workers of cultural excavation. They dig and fight. They protect, sustain, and preserve. Without them, life would be less beautiful. Without them, our society would be weaker and tamer and less able to see a way out. "Lancer" episodes run an hour. This extended run time fundamentally changes the character and depth of a TV show. It’s amazing what an episode can accomplish in one hour that it simply can’t in 30 minutes. What you’ll find, as you scroll through the posts on the Lancer Facebook page, is purity. This fandom rewards people with a tiny kingdom, a crafted world they can always turn to. That experience should rile up every single person. There’s a fidelity to their affection that is heartwarming. The Lancer TV Blog connects you to this incredibly pure relation. It’s just there, like sand across the winds of time.

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