HANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 2023--

West Virginia University plans to eliminate its world languages department but is recommending letting students take some language elective courses as it faces a growing budget shortfall

Let’s meet the newest generation of nuclear activists. There’s a Brazilian model. Miss America. A nonprofit founder who

UPDATE: Nov. 1, 2023, 1:00 p.m. EDT This article has been has been updated with

Scientists have grown human kidneys in pigs, for the very first time. Researchers at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wuyi University created human-pig chimeric embryos containing a combination of human and pig cells. When they transferred into 13 surrogate pig mothers, they developed kidneys that contained mostly human cells at a rate of 50 to 60 per cent, giving hope for potential transplants in the future. “Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded,” said the senior author Liangxue Lai. “Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.” The kidneys were not entirely human as they included vasculature and nerves made mostly from pig cells, meaning they could not be used for transplantation in their current form, but it is still a pretty impressive step. And apart from the kidneys, the embryos were dominated by pig cells, with very few human cells in the brain or central nervous system. Making brains using human and pig cells is very controversial for ethical reasons, so there are tight regulations for this kind of research. Meanwhile, pig cells tend to outcompete human cells during development, so previous experiments have created embryos that are almost entirely pig. The latest work, published in Cell Stem Cell, overcame this by genetically engineering a single-cell pig embryo so that it lacked two genes needed for kidney development. This created a gap within the embryo that could be filled by human cells. “We found that if you create a niche in the pig embryo, then the human cells naturally go into these spaces,” said Prof Zhen Dai of Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, another senior author. The scientists said that being able to incubate a fully human kidney inside a pig would be likely to take many years. “We would probably need to engineer the pigs in a much more complex way and that also brings some additional challenges,” said Miguel Esteban, also of the Guangzhou institute and a senior author. A central challenge would be to allow human nerves and vasculature to develop within the target organ without nerve cells developing in the central nervous system that could lead to a humanised brain. “Even theoretically it’s not clear how you’d do that,” said Ilic. 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.

Elon Musk announced on Friday that X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, will dramatically limit the ability of users to block other accounts, a move that critics say will allow harassment to flourish on the platform. “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs [direct messages],” Mr Musk wrote in a post on X on Friday. “It makes no sense.” Critics quickly pounced on the move. “I thought the old Twitter was a pretty negative force for American society, I’m glad it was ‘disrupted’, but removing the ability to block will just encourage the kind of pile-ons that made it bad,” wrote journalist Nate Silver in an X post. Monica Lewinsky wrote a post of her own tagging Mr Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino, saying, “please rethink removing the block feature. as an anti-bullying activist (and target of harassment) i can assure you it’s a critical tool to keep people safe online. - that woman.” Even some X investors like Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao seemed sceptical. “X should really solve the bots & spam problems before removing blocks,” he wrote on X. “Just my 0.02.” As X users flagged in a community note, the removal of the blocking feature, which allows X users to block certain accounts from appearing in their feeds or being visible to others interacting with their content, could run afoul of the policies of the Apple and Google app stores. “It’s a downward spiral that cannot be good for the long term success of X,” Louis Jones of the Brand Safety Institute told CNBC. The potential change to the policy is the latest tweak Mr Musk has made to the service since taking it over last year. Earlier this week, users noticed the X logo had changed on Apple operating systems, appearing with a grunge-style effect over the company’s X symbol. “The cracks & scratches better represent this product that I love,” Mr Musk wrote of the new design. The concern over changing the block feature follows a report from The Washington Post that X has been throttling traffic to news sites and competitors. Read More Elon Musk says ability to block other X accounts may be removed in future Elon Musk’s X now sorts posts on accounts based on number of likes, not by chronology Elon Musk’s Twitter slows down access to rival websites X now sorts posts on accounts based on number of likes, not by chronology Musk’s Twitter takeover sparks mass exodus of climate experts Elon Musk’s Twitter slows down access to rival websites

Here's the full schedule for when each Fortnite Chapter 1 map is coming to Fortnite OG in November 2023, including the Fortnite Chapter 1 Season X map.

A Kansas Department of Revenue spokesperson says the initial online search of a state website that led a central Kansas police chief to raid a local weekly newspaper was legal

By Georgina Lee and Faith Hung HONG KONG/TAIPEI Investors are putting aside geopolitical tensions to pile in to

The company is burning through cash–it sold trucks at an average loss of $33,000 in the second quarter.

How do you follow the biggest game of the last decade? That’s the dilemma Rockstar games have to deal with as they prepare to release Grand Theft Auto 6. The fifth instalment of the hugely popular video game series was released in 2013 and went on to sell 185 million copies, bringing us one of the most immersive open worlds ever created. It’s been a mainstay for gamers over the last decade and now developers have put fans on high alert after announcing the release of a new trailer due later this year. Here’s everything we know so far about Grand Theft Auto VI. Trailer Rockstar Games delighted GTA fans recently by announcing that a forthcoming trailer for GTA 6 will be unveiled in December. Many have shared the theory that the trailer release has been designed to coincide with the company’s 25th anniversary. Rockstar Games President Sam Houser wrote via the developer’s official social media account: “We are very excited to let you know that in early December, we will release the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto. We look forward to many more years of sharing these experiences with all of you.” In fact, it’s made such a big impact in the gaming world that the post announcing the trailer has become the most-viewed gaming tweet in the social media site’s history with more than 143m views. It gives a small indication of the excitement out there for the upcoming instalment of the game. A date for the trailer drop has yet to be announced, but it’s thought that the new clip could arrive during the Game Awards on 7 December. Posting a message to fans, Rockstar Games wrote: “Next month marks the 25th anniversary of Rockstar Games. Thanks to the incredible support of our players worldwide, we have had the opportunity to create games we are truly passionate about. “Without you, none of this would be possible, and we are so grateful to all of you for sharing this journey with us. In 1998, Rockstar Games was founded on the idea that video games could come to be as essential to culture as any other form of entertainment, and we hope that we have created games you love in our efforts to be part of that evolution.” Release date We don’t know the release date yet, of course, but we do know that people have been speculating about a release by March 2025. Why? Well, Rockstar is hinting that major things are planned for the fiscal year of 2025. Strauss Zelnick is the CEO and chairman of Rockstar owners Take-Two. He previously said in a statement: “We remain confident that we are positioning our business for a significant inflection point in fiscal 2025, which we believe will include new record levels of operating performance. “We would like to thank all of our stakeholders for their continued support, and we look forward to delivering on this exciting next chapter.” If the theory is true, it means that the game would be released by March 2025 at the latest, but things are far from certain. The previous game could also give us some indication of when to expect the release. People are also looking back to the GTA 5 trailer, which was released in November 2011 - nearly two years before the game came out on 17 September 2013. A bizarre 'moon theory' is also being used by hopeful fans to predict a release date. Leaks A huge leak at Rockstar showcased a number of details about the game.Hints about the gameplay, setting and characters are focused on in the next section of this article, but some of the other leaks relate to the GTA 6 map. It'll likely be bigger than GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, way bigger.Fans also noticed 12 leaked details relating to GTA 6 that could be game changers involving NPC interactions and the weather details. Gameplay, features and setting According to a report in Bloomberg, the series will return to Vice City, the setting for iconic 00s game GTA Vice City based on Miami, for the new instalment. The report also claims that the new game will feature more interior locations than ever before. The report also claimed that the game is said to feature two bank robbers as playable main characters, a man and a woman, who have a Bonnie and Clyde-like relationship. It will mark the first time a woman would be a playable character in the game franchise since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. We're still in the dark about many of the features, but fans hope that more dynamic robberies and better NPC interactions are a part of the new game. They're also expecting better graphics. 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

This week’s new entertainment releases include an album from Foo Fighters and some lost songs by the late Kenny Rogers, a new gritty HBO series from “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson called “The Idol” starring Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd