DALLAS & FORT WORTH, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 7, 2023--

'Assassin's Creed: Codename Jade' will launch its first closed beta next month.

Energy drinks could be the secret to a long life - here's why. The drinks contain a substance called taurine, a naturally occurring amino acid that scientists have been testing on mice and worms and working out that it is increasing their life spans. The study saw some mice at around middle-age given taurine, whereas others weren’t. Mice of both sexes saw increased life span by around 10 to 12 per cent, whereas life expectancy at 28 months was 18 to 25 per cent higher. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter They also had healthier bone, muscle, immune system, fat, pancreas, brain, and gut functioning. In the journal Science, the team wrote: "Taurine abundance decreases during aging. "A reversal of this decline through taurine supplementation increases health span and life span in mice and worms and health span in monkeys. “This identifies taurine deficiency as a driver of aging in these species." They added: "Given that taurine has no known toxic effects in humans (though rarely used in concentrations used here), can be administered orally, and affects all the major hallmarks of aging, human trials are warranted to examine whether taurine supplementation increases healthy life span in humans." However, scientists aren’t advising anyone to change their taurine intake, as research is still in its early days, and energy drinks have other ingredients that may not be as positive. Prof Henning Wackerhage, from the University of Munich, said: "What we really need now is a human intervention study. “We are raring to go." 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.

A number of huge tunnels that were discovered in South America at the turn of the century may have been made by giant sloths. At the turn of the century, professor of geology, Heinrich Frank, spotted a strange hole on a highway in Brazil, and crawled inside. There, he realised the tunnel was 4.5 meters (15 feet) long. He also found a collection of giant claw marks on the ceiling. “There’s no geological process in the world that produces long tunnels with a circular or elliptical cross-section, which branch and rise and fall, with claw marks on the walls,” Frank told Discover, adding he's "seen dozens of caves that have inorganic origins, and in these cases, it’s very clear that digging animals had no role in their creation.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The tunnel, along with many others that he and others discovered in Brazil and Argentina, are thought to be made by extinct giant sloths 8-10,000 years ago that were around the size of an African elephant. In the Rio Grande do Sul area, Frank and his team found over 1,500 tunnels made by these sloths beasts, with the longest stretching for 609 meters (2,000 feet) and standing at 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall. Goodness. 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 arrival of Meta Platforms Inc.’s Twitter challenger further complicates the investment case for social media firms Snap

JetBlue Airways Corp. orchestrated a campaign to flood the government with thousands of online comments in favor of

Equifax Inc. said a key financial regulator is investigating how the company handles disputes and data accuracy within

Alaskan officials recently canceled the Bering Sea snow crab season for the second year in a row —

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 25, 2023--

Scientists have been left baffled by the discovery of the wreck of a 2,000-year-old “computer” that is amazingly complex. The Antikythera mechanism – an astronomical calendar – has been dubbed “‘the first computer” and has baffled scientists for generations after it was first discovered inside a Greek shipwreck in 1901. The device is a hand-powered time-keeping instrument that used a wing-up system to track the sun, moon and planets’ celestial time. It also worked as a calendar, tracking the phases of the Moon and the timing of eclipses. Despite sounding relatively simple, the mechanism was actually ahead of its time, being more technically sophisticated than any other tool that was invented over the next 1,000 years. In its current condition, the mechanism is in 82 separate fragments with only a third of its original structure remaining, including 30 corroded bronze gearwheels. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Research into the device from experts at University College London involved 3D computer modelling and helped them solve the mystery of how the device worked, revealing a “creation of genius”. Adam Wojcik, a materials scientist at UCL said at the time: “We believe that our reconstruction fits all the evidence that scientists have gleaned from the extant remains to date.” They theorised that the device tracked the movement of the sun, moon and planets on concentric rings, as the ancient Greeks believed that the sun and planets revolved around Earth, rather than the sun. The researchers explained in Scientific Reports: “Solving this complex 3D puzzle reveals a creation of genius—combining cycles from Babylonian astronomy, mathematics from Plato’s Academy and ancient Greek astronomical theories.” 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.

Apple will stop using leather, it has announced. It will offer no new products using materials taken from animals, it said. That includes iPhone cases and Watch bands, both of which make heavy use of leather. Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, noted that leather is a popular material for accessories. But it has considerable environmental impact, she noted, especially at the scale that Apple uses it. As such, it has committed to phasing out those materials. Instead, it will rely on new materials that have been especially developed. For the Apple Watch’s sport loop, for instance, it has changed the material to use 82 per cent recycled yarn. For the straps that are currently made out of leather, it will rely on a new seemingly custom developed material called “FineWoven”. That will presumably also be used for the cases made for the new iPhone 15. And Apple has developed new straps with Nike and Hermès. The latter collaboration has relied heavily on leather – but recently Apple has been rumoured to be selling off those products cheaply. The new materials will help make the new Apple Watch Series 9 the first carbon neutral product the company has made. Read More Here’s the brand new Apple Watch Apple is about to reveal the new iPhone – and a lot more Here’s when you will actually be able to get the new iPhone

U.S. colleges are searching for solutions as they see alarming numbers of students arrive with gaps in their math skills