Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. was temporarily blocked by a federal judge in California,

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2023--

Dramatic explosions on the surface of one of Saturn's moons have been observed, and it could change the way scientists approach the search for life in the universe. Saturn's ice-covered moon Enceladus has been the subject of attention from astronomers for decades after plumes of water vapor were observed erupting from its surface 20 years ago by the Cassini spacecraft. Now, the biggest plume yet has been spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope and it measures a massive 10,000 kilometers in length. Incredibly, the plume emitting from the geyser on the surface measures 20 times the size of the moon itself, and it indicates that there’s more to Enceladus than previously thought. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Planetary scientist Geronimo Villanueva of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said: "When I was looking at the data, at first, I was thinking I had to be wrong, it was just so shocking to map a plume more than 20 times the diameter of the moon. "The plume extends far beyond what we could have imagined." Instead of solid ice, the size of the plume shows us that there’s a liquid ocean under the surface. It’s kept warm enough to avoid freezing due to the movement that results from the gravitational pull of Saturn. As ever, the existence of liquid water suggests that there’s the possibility of life existing there, and it's encouraging news for authors of the study accepted in Nature Astronomy. "The orbit of Enceladus around Saturn is relatively quick, just 33 hours. As it whips around Saturn, the moon and its jets are basically spitting off water, leaving a halo, almost like a donut, in its wake," Villanueva said. "In the Webb observations, not only was the plume huge, but there was just water absolutely everywhere." It remains one of the most interesting bodies being studied in the solar system, as geochemist Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute. “Enceladus is one of the most dynamic objects in the Solar System and is a prime target in humanity's search for life beyond Earth," geochemist Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute said. "In the years since NASA's Cassini spacecraft first looked at Enceladus, we never cease to be amazed by what we find is happening on this extraordinary moon." 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.

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Scientists have invented a type of electronic skin that can “talk directly to the brain”, allowing amputees to feel a human-like sense of touch through prosthetic limbs. The ground-breaking artificial skin is embedded with sensors for temperature, pressure and strain, which are converted into electrical signals – similar to how nerve impulses communicate with the brain. The wearable electronic circuit, known as a monolithic e-skin, was developed by a team from Stanford University, who detailed their breakthrough in a study published in the journal Science. Stanford University’s Zhenan Bao, who was a senior author of the study, told The Independent that the next-generation technology could also be used to feel objects and sensations while controlling a robotic limb remotely. “We’ve been working on a monolithic e-skin for some time,” Professor Bao said. “The hurdle was not so much finding mechanisms to mimic the remarkable sensory abilities of human touch, but bringing them together using only skin-like materials.” Weichen Wang, a doctoral candidate in Bao’s lab, added: “Much of that challenge came down to advancing the skin-like electronic materials so that they can be incorporated into integrated circuits with sufficient complexity to generate nerve-like pulse trains and low enough operating voltage to be used safely on the human body.” A prototype of the e-skin, which is about the thickness of a piece of paper, is the first to combine all the desired electrical and mechanical features of human skin in a soft and durable form. The team now plans to increase the scalability of the technology and develop an implantable chip to allow wireless communication through the body’s peripheral nerve. Other recent research into electronic skin has focussed on robotics, aiming to provide robots with sensory feedback and physical self-awareness. A team from the University of Edinburgh unveiled a device earlier this year that offered perceptive senses “similar to those of people and animals”. A separate study in 2023 from engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) outlined a type of artificial skin capable of sensing toxic chemicals, which could allow robots to detect anything from pollution in rivers to nerve agents and biohazards. Read More AI robots figure out how to play football in shambolic footage Scientists develop device that allows amputees to feel warmth in phantom hand Charting the controversial rise of the world’s most popular app Montana TikTok ban ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘impossible to enforce’

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Meta has responded to Elon Musk’s lawsuit threat against its new platform Threads saying that none of the staff working on the app are former Twitter employees. On Thursday, Twitter threatened Meta with legal action over its new social media app Threads, claiming it is a “copycat” platform it built by hiring former Twitter staff. Since its roll out, Meta’s text-based platform built in partnership with Instagram, has racked up tens of millions signups, seemingly becoming the most rapidly downloaded app ever and the most popular Twitter alternative yet. Just hours after its launch, however, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg arguing that his company was guilty of “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property”, according to Semafor. “Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Mr Spiro said in the letter. “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta,” the attorney added. Mr Spiro alleged that Meta hired dozens of former Twitter staff who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information”. He said “Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app” was built with the “specific intent” that they use “Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property “in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app”. The attorney argued that this was “in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter”. Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, responded to the claims on Friday saying that the Threads engineering team does not have any former Twitter employee. “To be clear: No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing,” Mr Stone wrote on Threads. Mr Musk reponded to Twitter threatening Meta with a lawsuit saying: “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” Read More What is Threads? All your questions about Meta's new Twitter rival, answered. Threads is already more than three times bigger than every Twitter rival combined I tried Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival, Threads – I’m not impressed Mark Zuckerberg accused of hypocrisy for shielding children’s faces in Instagram post Kim Kardashian, Rylan Clark and Dalai Lama among those joining new app Threads Twitter threatens legal action against Meta over new ‘Threads’ app