By Anton Bridge TOKYO Japan's SoftBank Group is likely to report a return to profit when it announces

Trading on Japan’s first carbon-credit exchange started Wednesday, as the nation looks to put a price on emissions

Tom Cruise's 'Mission Impossible 7' seemingly has set pieces inspired from the 'Uncharted 2' gameplay

CHESTERBROOK, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 1, 2023--

E-commerce behemoth Amazon increased its net sales 11% to $134.4 billion in the second quarter as analysts monitor consumer spending in both the cloud and retail markets.

When he’s not making radical, controversial changes to Twitter/X, Elon Musk is eyeing up plans to colonise Mars in the coming years with his company SpaceX – and now a team of researchers at the Virginia-based George Mason University claims it has found out the minimum number of people needed to successfully takeover the red planet. In the study – the results of which were published to the research platform Arxiv in August - the academics established a model to find out the ‘initial population size’ required on Mars to produce a “stable colony size”. They ran the model five times for 28 Earth years, and increased the population by 10 people each time - from 10 to 170 individuals. “Given that there are four critical tasks that are needed continuously (air, water, food production and waste removal) in addition to handling disasters, and two skills needed for each task, we chose a population size of 10 as the minimum needed for a ‘stable’ colony size. “The population is allowed to dip below 10 as long as it bounces back within 1.5 years, or the amount of time between Earth resupply shuttles.” The test found all initial population sizes over 50 were able to sustain a population of at least 10 people across the time period, and that the bare minimum number to meet that criteria is at least 22 people. There you go, Elon. You’re welcome. It’s certainly a decrease in the minimum number previously suspected by French researcher Jean-Marc Salotti in June 2020 – that was the rather astronomical figure (sorry) of at least 110 people. And the Virginia researchers didn’t stop there, either, as they also took a look at the personality types best placed to handle the highly stressful environment that is living on a completely different planet. There’s four: “agreeables”: low competitiveness and aggressiveness, and not fixated on “stringent routine “socials”: medium competitiveness, extroverted, require social interaction but not fixated on stringent routines “reactives”: medium competitiveness and fixed on stringent routines “neurotics”: high competitiveness, highly aggressive and a “challenged ability to adapt to boredom or a change in routine” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “agreeables” came out on top. The researchers added: “In all runs, the Agreeable personality type was the only one to survive the full duration of model runs. This is likely because it has the highest coping capability.” Their results found that while the “neurotic” was “most likely to fail”, and both “reactives” and “socials” fluctuated, the “agreeables” was the “most resilient”. “While this model assigns equal numbers of each personality type, future work could try adjusting the proportion of each to possibly lead to a lower required minimum initial population. For example, a crew of all Agreeable personalities may be more successful,” they suggest. Musk, meanwhile, said earlier this year that he was optimistic humans landing on Mars was "possible" in the next five years, and "highly likely" in a decade. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter 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.

An arrowhead believed to be 3,000 years old was made from the iron of a meteorite, according to scientists. The rare Bronze Age artefact was found near Lake Biel in Switzerland during a 19th-century excavation near a pile-dwelling station at a site in Mörigen (900-800 BC) before it was acquired by the Bern Historical Museum. In the new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the 39-millimeter-long (1.5-inch-long) arrowhead was evaluated along with other Swiss archaeological finds to see if any were created from meteorites. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter This arrowhead in particular - which weighs 2.9 grams - was believed to be made from a meteorite that landed in Estonia. “Among just three large European iron meteorites with fitting chemical composition, the Kaalijarv meteorite (Estonia) is the most likely source,” the study said. It is thought this "large craterforming fall event" occurred in 1500BC during the Bronze Age and produced many small fragments. At this time, humans used the iron from meteorites, before they later learned how to smelt iron from oxide ores. "Archaeological objects made of meteoritic iron are extremely rare," the Bern Historical Museum said in a press release. Only 55 objects are known from the whole of Eurasia and Africa, and these come from 22 sites. 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.

It’s one of the questions which has fascinated scientists for hundreds of years, but how did the dinosaurs really go extinct? Well, new research might have just solved the mystery once and for all. Of course, most people are familiar with the fact that an asteroid struck the Earth around 66 million years ago, but fewer people might know that the object measured a whopping 10 to 15 kilometres wide and landed in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Fewer people still might know that while it sparked all sorts of devastation, including earthquakes and megatsunamis, and now experts have revealed that what might have really proved fatal for the dinosaurs was the dust that it caused. We’re not talking a little bit of dust, either. Trillions of tons of the stuff was released into the atmosphere when then asteroid struck. The damage done by this dust is explored in the new report published by Nature Geoscience. So much was released, in fact, that it caused a “global winter”, with huge clouds of silicate dust and sulphur causing temperatures to drop by 15C. The lack of light would have caused entire ecosystems to collapse, causing 75 per cent of species to be rendered extinct. The effects of the dust could have blocked out sunlight for as long as two years, which according to the Belgium researchers who led the study is what would have killed off dinosaurs gradually – rather than being killed off straight away by the asteroid. It is, however, what eventually led to other life forms emerging and ultimately the development of the human race. "Dinos dominated Earth and were doing just fine when the meteorite hit," co-author of the study and planetary scientist Philippe Claeys said. "Without the impact, my guess is that mammals - including us - had little chance to become the dominant organisms on this planet." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel 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

Here's the Fortnite OG Season 7 countdown to see how much longer until the next Fortnite OG update drops on Nov. 16, 2023, at 9 a.m. ET.

Scientists have designed a new robot nicknamed “morphobot” that can travel on different terrains, including land and air by shapeshifting its parts into wheels, propellers, or legs as required. Researchers, including Alireza Ramezani from Northeastern University in the US, say the morphobot can transform its shape to navigate the environment by flying, rolling, crawling, crouching, balancing, and tumbling. Several animals have adapted the use of their limbs to allow them to tackle different terrains. Sea lions, for instance, walk on land using their flippers that they also use to swim, and meerkats use their hindlimbs to scout their surroundings. Chukar birds have also shown adaptations to use their wings to walk on all fours up steep inclines. Similarly, the morphobot, described this week in the journal Nature Communications, performs different modes of movement inspired by animals like birds, meerkats, and seals by mimicking the animals’ limb repurposing abilities. The robot, which weighs 6kg (13lb), has four legs each comprising two joints, along with ducted fans fixed at the leg ends. It spans 70cm in length and has a width and height of 35cm. The new study shows that the morphobot’s fans can shapeshift to function either as legs, propellor thrusters, or wheels as required. The robot has demonstrated the ability to alter its movements to walk on rough terrain, traverse steep slopes, tumble over large obstacles, fly to higher levels, and crawl under low-ceiling pathways. Based on the study, researchers say future mobile robots can be designed with multi-functional limbs to navigate complex terrains by adapting their movement strategies. The new innovation could help further improve the design of robots to traverse harsh environments, such as those used in search and rescue responses after natural disasters, space exploration, and automated package delivery. The findings, according to scientists, demonstrate the advantages of designing robots with multipurpose appendages that can be used to travel over varied and challenging terrains. Read More ‘Real-life’ Spider-Man captured swinging in the air at Disney park in California Scientists invent electronic skin that gives amputees sense of touch ‘Robot taxi’ with smiling face and ‘ghost driver’ interacts with pedestrians in new experiment Scientists create tiny robot that works like an animal and swims around your body Celebrity impersonators banned from Facebook protest outside Meta offices Elon Musk picks UFC legend to train him for Mark Zuckerberg fight

With the “Transformers” franchise clearly at a crossroads, its protectors have turned to their deep bench

Let's say you're building a house. It's a complex process and some tasks must be