Editor's Note: This article was originally published in 2021. After thoroughly reassessing the 8K landscape

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 12, 2023--

Keri Williams wouldn't have her business without TikTok. She launched The Branded Pinto, her custom hat shop, about two years ago after a video she shared of one of her creations "blew up" on TikTok. Nearly all of her business still comes from the platform.

Earth was once hit by an extreme solar storm that would devastate human civilisation if it happened today, tree rings show. Scientists were able to piece together the solar storm from ancient tree rings that were found in the French alps, and showed evidence of a dramatic spike in radiocarbon levels some 14,300 years ago. That spike was the result of a massive solar storm, the biggest ever found by scientists. If a similar event happened today, it could knock the power grid offline for months and destroy the infrastructure we rely on for communications, scientists have warned. The researchers behind the new study have urged that the extreme nature of the newly discovered event should be a warning for the future. “Extreme solar storms could have huge impacts on Earth. Such super storms could permanently damage the transformers in our electricity grids, resulting in huge and widespread blackouts lasting months,” said Tim Heaton, professor of applied statistics in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds. “They could also result in permanent damage to the satellites that we all rely on for navigation and telecommunication, leaving them unusable. They would also create severe radiation risks to astronauts.” Further work is needed to ensure that the world is protected from similar events happening again, scientists said. And more research is required to actually understand how and why they might happen. Scientists have found nine extreme solar storms, or Miayake Events, that happened in the last 15,000 years. The most recent of them happened in the years 993 AD and 774 AD, but the newly found one was twice as powerful as those. Researchers do not know exactly what happened during those Miyake Events, and studying them is difficult because they can only be understood indirectly. That makes it difficult for scientists to know how and when they might happen again, or if it is even possible to predict them. “Direct instrumental measurements of solar activity only began in the 17th century with the counting of sunspots,” said Edouard Bard, professor of climate and ocean evolution at the Collège de France and CEREGE. “Nowadays, we also obtain detailed records using ground-based observatories, space probes, and satellites. “However, all these short-term instrumental records are insufficient for a complete understanding of the Sun. Radiocarbon measured in tree-rings, used alongside beryllium in polar ice cores, provide the best way to understand the Sun’s behaviour further back into the past.”  The largest solar storm that scientists were able to actually observe and study happened in 1859, and is known as the Carrington Event. It caused vast disruption to society, destroying telegraph machines and creating a bright aurora so bright that birds behaved as if the Sun was rising. The Miayake Events like the newly found storm would have been vastly more powerful, however. They were discovered by slicing ancient trees that are becoming fossils into tiny rings, and then analysing the radiocarbon that was present in them. Their work is published in a new article, ‘A radiocarbon spike at 14,300 cal yr BP in subfossil trees provides the impulse response function of the global carbon cycle during the Late Glacial’, in the journal The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

Scientists who were attempting to map an abandoned ant hill didn't expect to find a mega-city when they shot the hill full of cement, but that's exactly what they discovered. Over three days, scientists pumped 10 tons of cement into the empty ant hill to map its networks. After the cement dried, they dug for weeks around it. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The excavation revealed an incredibly impressive, intricate, and bizarre ant mega-city. The mega-city was a truly colossal undertaking. A video revealed that the ants created the structure by displacing 40 tons of dirt. And it really is a mega-city. The ants networked to disposal pits and fungus gardens. Each tunnel was designed to ensure thorough ventilation and reduce transport time. The narrator disclosed the truth. That despite the complex nature of the mega-city, there was no single architect of any - but it was down to the collective will of the colony. "Everything looks like it has been designed by an architect a single mind but of course, that isn’t true," they said. "This colossal and complex city was created by the collective will of the ant colony, the super organism." The short resurfaced clip is from a much longer piece called Ants! Nature’s Secret Power. You can watch the full documentary here. Our city designers should take a few notes. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Lachmann-556 and SO-14 are the two most broken guns in Warzone Season 4 that will win almost any long range gunfight if you hit your shots.

Is bomb Rush Cryberfunk Jet Set Radio-inspired or a Jet Set Radio sequel?

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 12, 2023--

Microsoft and the video game giant Activision Blizzard will face off Thursday against the US government in a high-stakes battle over one of the largest technology acquisitions in history.

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 13, 2023--

Microsoft has completed its deal to buy Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard in the biggest deal in gaming history. The $68.7 billion acquisition means the Xbox maker now owns games such as World of Warcraft and Diablo, as well as the Call of Duty series. Microsoft first announced the deal at the start of 2022. Since then it has faced intense scrutiny from regulators around the world – but the final of those investigations, from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, closed earlier on Friday. The process has forced Microsoft to make public commitments that its games will still be available on other platforms, such as PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch. “As one team, we’ll learn, innovate, and continue to deliver on our promise to bring the joy and community of gaming to more people,” said Xbox boss Phil Spencer. “We’ll do this in a culture that strives to empower everyone to do their best work, where all people are welcome, and is centered on our ongoing commitment of Gaming for Everyone. “We are intentional about inclusion in everything we do at Xbox – from our team to the products we make and the stories we tell, to the way our players interact and engage as a wider gaming community.” Microsoft has said that the deal will bring Activision’s games alongside its first-party offerings, including adding its titles to Xbox’s Game Pass subscription service. “Together, we’ll create new worlds and stories, bring your favourite games to more places so more players can join in, and we’ll engage with and delight players in new, innovative ways in the places they love to play including mobile, cloud streaming and more,” Mr Spencer said in the announcement. Read More Microsoft gets go-ahead to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Google is about to ditch passwords forever EU to investigate X’s handling of disinformation over Hamas attack on Israel

SAVE $249.01: Grab the M1 MacBook Air with 256GB of built-in storage for just $749.99