SAVE 49%: Unblock your Max subscription with a streaming-friendly VPN. A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN

Around half of the Twitter users who actively posted about climate and environmental issues have left the social media platform since Elon Musk took over, new research has found, raising concerns over the “troubling implications” of this mass exodus. The research, published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution on Tuesday, says that nearly half of Twitter users who identified as environmentally oriented had ceased being active on the platform. The authors of the study analysed the sample of 380,000 users who tweeted about climate and environment at least once in 15 days. The study found that within six months of take over by Mr Musk, around 47.5 per cent of these users became inactive. For comparison, the researchers also looked at a control group of 458,000 users who tweeted about US politics, and found that only 21 per cent of these users became inactive in the same period. The research took place between December 2022 and May 2023 and was led by Charlotte Chang, assistant professor of biology and environmental analysis at Pomona College. Researchers say this mass exodus shows the changes in Twitter’s ownership and how the platform is run has real-world impact. “Twitter has been the dominant social media platform for diverse environmental interests to communicate and organise around advocacy goals, exchange ideas and research and new opportunities for collaboration,” the authors wrote. “Currently there is nothing on the horizon to replace it, putting at risk robust idea-sharing on topics such as extreme weather disaster responses, preservation of biodiversity and climate change.” The social media giant, now called “X”, has gone through a series of shake-ups and changes since the Tesla founder bought the platform in October 2022. However, the platform has long stood as a vital source for real-time information and public mobilisation. Recent findings suggest that hate speech has increased substantially after the Twitter sale and that engagement increased much more markedly for contentious right-wing actors, the study notes. Researchers say changes since Twitter’s acquisition likely have ripple effects for other user segments as well, such as the climate policy sphere, or future disaster response after extreme weather events. Read More Google is profiting from climate misinformation on YouTube, report finds ‘Propaganda to infect children’s minds’: Climate misinformation textbook mailed to 8,000 US science teachers Fossil fuel lobby waged $4m disinformation campaign during climate summit, report finds

By Paul Lienert and Nick Carey New investments in the United States and Europe aim to challenge China’s

SEOUL, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 14, 2023--

PREORDER: The new Nintendo Switch OLED Model - Mario Red Edition will be released on

Controversial TikToker Mizzy has been in the headlines recently, and now it’s been claimed that he was behind the disruptions to last year’s Sidemen charity match. The Sidemen were forced to apologise to people with tickets who weren’t able to get into the stadium for the Sidemen Charity Match on September 24. “Unfortunately however due to a small minority attempting to break into the stadium, we were forced to lock the gates meaning a number of you weren’t able to get in despite having tickets,” they said at the time. They said the choice to lock the gates and block some fans “was a security and safety decision.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Now, Stuart Jones, who is the founder of Upload Agency and Sidemen's agent, has claimed that it was Mizzy who was responsible. Writing on Twitter, he said: “For those of you who were locked out of the @Sidemen charity match last year, this was the moron that caused it btw.” Jones also claimed that Mizzy, real name Bacari-Bronze O'Garro, stole Prime Hydration drinks from VIP suites and tried to break into the stadium. "Correct, and robbing the VIP suits of all the Prime, and running around outside, trying to break in, causing the stadium to lock down,” Jones wrote, replying to another user. Footage has also recirculated online which shows Mizzy run on the pitch during the game. Mizzy was recently arrested for filming himself walking into people's houses. He also branded Piers Morgan a 'moron' for challenging him over his behaviour on his show, which saw him intimidate members of the public, including stealing someone's dog in a park. Hours before this interview, O’Garro appeared at Thames Magistrates’ Court where he pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a community protection notice issued last May. As a result he was given a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) today for a period of two years that will expire in May 2025. This order means O’Garro must not publish social media content without the consent of the people included, nor trespass or go to the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford. 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.

If you're a big-picture sort of person, you need a laptop to match. You yearn

Apple Inc. is extending an agreement to get modem semiconductors from Qualcomm Inc. for three more years, a

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 5, 2023--

By Ian Ransom and Martin Quin Pollard HANGZHOU, China Asian Games poster-girl Zhang Yufei pipped Hong Kong's Siobhan

If there’s one thing the Covid pandemic taught us, it’s that viruses shouldn’t be underestimated. People are, therefore, taking note after scientists discovered a whole new range of giant virus-like particles (VLP) that have taken on “previously unimaginable shapes and forms.” The microscopic agents, resembling everything from stars to monsters, were found in just a few handfuls of forest soil. The sample was collected from Harvard Forest, near Boston in the US back in 2019, and flown over to Germany’s Max Planck Institute. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter There, its contents were carefully examined and, at the end of last month, the findings were finally released. The team of researchers behind the investigation said that their discoveries “question our current understanding of the virosphere” and “imply that giant viruses employ a much wider array of [...] structures and mechanisms to interact with their host cells than is currently known.” In other words, the results prove how little we actually know about the universe of viruses that exist here on Earth. They also noted that the origins and functions of the different viral structures they found remain unknown – so there’s still plenty of mystery left to solve. The team at the Max Planck Institute, led by Dr Matthias Fischer, were amazed to find “an astounding diversity of virus-like particles (VLP)," in such a small sample. "Amazingly, we found that a few hundred grams of forest soil contained a greater diversity [of the structures] than that of all hitherto isolated giant viruses combined," they wrote. These included one type that resembled a supernova: Another that the teamed named the “haircut”: Another called the “turtle” morphotype: Another christened the “Christmas star”: And another called the “Gorgon” – named after the sisters with snakes for hair from Greek mythology: To clarify, VLP are molecules that closely resemble viruses, but they differ from them in one crucial way: they are non-infectious. This is because they contain no viral genetic material. Still, as virus-host systems, they are key to better understanding their potentially noxious counterparts. “[Our] findings imply that giant viruses employ a much wider array of [...] structures and mechanisms to interact with their host cells than is currently known,” the authors wrote. They ended their paper: “This fascinating window into the complex world of soil viruses leaves little doubt that the high genetic diversity of giant viruses is matched by diverse and previously unimaginable particle structures, whose origins and functions remain to be studied.” Clearly, there’s still plenty of work to be done. 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.

Have you ever sat back and actually considered how many streaming platforms we have to