Experts have located a legendary lost city in Egypt that never appears on maps with the help of a mummy. Ancient Egyptians had an affinity for baboons thanks to their association with the God, Babi. Experts know that they were kept as pets in captivity and had their sharpest teeth removed to make them less harmful. And it is the Egyptians’ keeping of baboons that has led experts to the location of the mysterious Egyptian city of Punt thanks to their DNA. Gisela Kopp, a geneticist at the University of Konstanz, Germany who is studying baboon DNA explained to Live Science: “There were these stories that they got them from Punt, this fabled, mysterious land.” Punt has been mentioned in documentation from ancient Egypt, but experts have never been able to determine where it would actually lie on a map. But, in recent years, experts have been able to narrow down its exact location by looking at DNA from mummified baboons which have been discovered from the time period. Kopp and a group of colleagues were able to extract usable DNA from the remains of a mummified baboon believed to be from between 800 B.C. and 540 B.C. In their study, published in the journal eLife, they then compared that DNA to the genetic information of 14 baboons from known origins to compare specific information of geographic location. It revealed the baboon’s DNA was most closely related to populations from what are coastal areas of Eritrea today. Kopp explained, “It's close to this ancient port of Adulis”. Adulis is also mentioned in records dating from 300 B.C. onwards and is known as being a place that traders travelled to for wild animals. Kopp explained that there is now a working theory that Adulis and Punt may have been essentially the same place. “Maybe the earlier Punt was in a similar location to where Adulis was [later] established,” Kopp said. The study is based on the DNA of one mummified baboon, as the attempted extraction of fragile ancient DNA from nine other baboon mummies failed to yield usable samples. Experts hope to replicate their study with more DNA samples to gain more information from different time periods. How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel 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.

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“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room." So says Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus in sci-fi classic ‘The Matrix’ as he offers Keanu Reeves’s Neo the choice to find out just how “deep the rabbit hole goes”. Now, just as Neo discovered that the "life" he'd been living was little more than an algorithmic construct, scientists and philosophers are arguing that we could be stuck inside a simulation ourselves. In a paper published earlier this month, physicist Melvin Vopson, of the University of Portsmouth, offered scientific evidence for a philosophical theory known as the simulation hypothesis. This, in a nutshell, posits that the entire universe and our objective reality are just super-advanced virtual reality illusions. Elon Musk is among the well-known fans of the theory, which – as Dr Vopson notes in his paper – has been “gaining traction in scientific circles as well as in the entertainment industry”. The university lecturer also pointed out that recent developments in a branch of science known as information physics “appear to support this possibility”. Information physics suggests that physical reality is made up of bits of information. However, Dr Vopson has gone further and is working to prove that information has a physical mass and is a fundamental building block of the universe. He even claims that information could be the mysterious dark matter that makes up almost a third of the universe. In previous research, the physicist proposed that all elementary particles (the smallest known building blocks in the universe), store information about themselves, much like DNA in humans. Then, in 2022, he discovered a new law of physics, christened the second law of infodynamics, which states that entropy – the degree of randomness or disorder – within an isolated information system either remains constant or decreases over time. In other words, the system becomes less and less chaotic, implying that there is some kind of mechanism governing it rather than random chance. “I knew then that this revelation had far-reaching implications across various scientific disciplines,” Dr Vopson said in a statement released by the University of Portsmouth. “What I wanted to do next is put the law to the test and see if it could further support the simulation hypothesis by moving it on from the philosophical realm to mainstream science.” Is the Universe a Simulation? | Melvin Vopson www.youtube.com Dr Vopson employed the law in a range of different fields, including genetics, cosmology and even symmetry. Here, he found that the abundance of symmetry in the Universe (think snowflakes and facial structures) could be explained by the second law of infodynamics. "Symmetry principles play an important role with respect to the laws of nature, but until now there has been little explanation as to why that could be,” he said. “My findings demonstrate that high symmetry corresponds to the lowest information entropy state, potentially explaining nature's inclination towards it." Again, put simply, nature prefers things to be as well-ordered as possible. He continued: “This approach, where excess information is removed, resembles the process of a computer deleting or compressing waste code to save storage space and optimise power consumption.” As a result, this “supports the idea that we’re living in a simulation.” Dr Vopson is serious about this idea and, last year, even launched a crowdfunding campaign to test it. At the time, he announced that he had designed an experiment to determine whether we are all just characters in an advanced virtual world. “There is a growing community out there looking seriously at the possibility that information is more fundamental to everything than we think,” he said in a statement released back in December. “If information is a key component of everything in the universe, it would make sense that a vast computer somewhere is in control. “Assuming the universe is indeed a simulation, then it must contain a lot of information bits hidden everywhere around us. I’ve devised an experiment that proposes a way of extracting this information to prove it’s there.” His proposed experiment is based on his conclusion that information is physical and that elementary particles have a DNA of information about themselves. He posited that the information in an elementary particle could be detected and measured by using particle-antiparticle collision. “We can measure the information content of a particle by erasing it. If we delete the information from the particles, we can then look at what’s left,” he said in the December statement. “This experiment is highly achievable with our existing tools, and I’m hoping the crowdfunding site will help us achieve it.” And whilst the crowdfunder closed well before reaching its proposed £185,000 target, Dr Vopson still hopes to carry out the ambitious test. Following his most recent paper, he suggested the experiment had the power to confirm the “fifth state of matter in the universe” and “change physics as we know it.” Sign up for 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.

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Apple is working to fix for a mysterious and significant battery problem in the latest version of the operating system for its Watch, a report has claimed. Across a variety of forums including Apple’s own support pages, users have reported that their Watches are rapidly losing their charge. Some users report that even the Apple Watch Ultra – which is intended to run for up to 36 hours thanks to its larger case and battery – can fully use all its charge in three hours. The issue appears specific to be the latest update, numbered WatchOS 10.1. That arrived in late October and brought changes including the addition of the new Apple Watch’s headline feature. Now the company is reportedly working on an update that should fix those problems, according to an internal memo seen by Macrumors. Apple has not publicly confirmed that it is working on the update or when it might arrive. Apple has seemingly looked to fix at least some of the problems already. In the recently released iOS 17.1 update for the iPhone, it said that it had addressed “increased power consumption” when the two devices are paired, but that appears not to have fully fixed the issue. Apple is currently testing WatchOS 10.2, which might not be released for months. But the company sometimes pushes out smaller and less substantial updates to address bugs and other problems such as the the phantom battery drain. The issue might also be related to specific apps. Some users reported that uninstalling the app “MobyFace” – which allows people to customise their watch faces – helped stop the battery draining. Specific apps have caused problems for Apple devices in the past, presumably as a result of a conflict between the software and the devices operating system. Amid widespread reports that new iPhone 15s were getting hotter than expect last month, for instance, Apple suggested that at least part of the problem was with Instagram, though it was also able to fix some of those issues with a software update. Read More The Apple Watch has a major issue but Apple is working on a fix Something is happening with Apple’s Mac and iPads Apple just revealed a new MacBook Pro – with a new colour

Apple has revealed a 15-inch version of the MacBook Air, a big version of its smallest laptop. The new MacBook Air is the smallest 15-inch laptop ever, at just over 11mm, Apple said. It is the first time Apple has made a version of its most powerful computer at such a size. Recently, Apple has only sold it in 13-inches, requiring users to pay up for a much more expensive MacBook Pro for a larger display – though it once offered the MacBook Air at 11-inches, too. Follow The Independent’s live coverage for all the latest updates Read More Apple is about to update all its products – and release a very big new one Apple is about to launch its biggest product in years. Here’s what you need to know Apple is about to hold one of its biggest ever launches. Follow everything live here

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Pokémon has raised eyebrows and left people in hysterics with the design of the new Wiglett soft toy and it’s easy to see why. In the Pokémon world, Wiglett was announced as a new convergent species related to Diglett for the 2022 Pokémon Scarlet and Violet role-playing video games. It is a type of Garden Eel Pokémon that, with its long cylindrical length, has led to some unfortunate comparisons with the release of a new plushie toy. The Wiglett plushie is sold online by the Pokémon Center, but the long toy has caught the eye for all the wrong reasons as people have suggested it looks like a phallus. The website explains, “this long Poké Plush version of the Garden Eel Pokémon is ready to stand tall as part of your plush collection, perched on your couch, coffee table, or bookshelf”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It boasts a “bendable body” that is 10 ¼ inches in length and has drawn some hilarious feedback online. One person wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter): “Ok but who thought this was a good idea.” Many others made similar points. Someone else wrote: “So this Wiglett plush... It's certainly something!” Others were much more NSFW with their commentary. The hilarious plushie may have sparked some rather interesting comments, but despite that, it does seem to resemble the Pokémon character quite closely. 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.