Tape Delay

Yesterday, Pitchfork reported that a material shortage has thrown a roadblock into the production of cassette tapes.

Yes, you read that right: cassette tapes.

Gamma ferric oxide is the most common material used in the magnetic strips of tape that store audio on cassettes. Theres only one factory used to refine the substance and its been under renovation for nearly a year hurting a growing niche of the music industry.

While vinyl records have enjoyed a sales boom over the past decade, enjoying 30 year highs and threatening to outsell CDs, cassette tapes have also seen a significant resurgence in the past ten years.

Vinyl pressing plants have also had to work overtime producing greater numbers of records using refurbished presses, since there are no manufacturers making new ones. They often produce special editions that they ship to major retailers such as Target and Urban Outfitters, as well as independent record stores.

Headline acts such as Lana Del Rey, Twenty One Pilots and even Taylor Swift now issue their albums on cassette tape as well as vinyl. Sales of cassette tapes in 2018 were up 23 percent from the prior year, according to Billboard.

It appears that even in the era of streaming, when most consumers listen to music via services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, there exists a substantial number of listeners who still prefer to own a physical object even if they have to shell out 25 or 30 dollars to hold a physical copy of their favorite album.

READ MORE: Worldwide Material Shortage Delays Cassette Tape Production [Pitchfork]

More on tapes: Yes, Theres a Pee Tape and Its Unclear If Its a Deepfake

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Its Almost 2020 and There's a Cassette Tape Shortage - Futurism

Plane Resistance

Climate activists from the global environmental group Extinction Rebellion are bringing their protest strategies to new heights.

In an unusual stunt, former Paralympian James Brownreportedly smuggled a tube of glue throughLondons City Airportand then clambered onto the roof of a British Airways plane and stuck himself there using the glue. Video footage of the incident spread online like wildfire.

The visually impaired athlete can be seen clinging to the top of the aircraft that was originally bound for Amsterdam. A crowd of airline officials and firefighters latergot him down safely.

Here I am on top of a f****ing aeroplane at City Airport. I hate heights, Im s***ing myself, I managed to get on the roof, Taylor can be heard saying in a video uploaded to Facebook. I am so shaky.

In the video, he asks why the UK government sanctions the expansion of airports around the country, while at the same time declaring that there is a climate emergency.

Over 1,00 Extinction Rebellion arrests have been made this week alone, including 50 who were detained at the airport on Thursday, according to The Guardian.

The socio-political grassroots movement aims to use civil disobedience and zero violence to protest the breakdown of our climate, ecological collapse, and the loss of biodiversity.

READ MORE: Paralympian glues himself to the top of British Airways jet as Extinction Rebellion invades London City airport [ABC News]

More on Extinction Rebellion: Hackers Stole Old Radiohead Demos Then Got Owned

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A Climate Protester Just Glued Himself to the Top of an Airplane - Futurism

Sufficient

The U.K. government uses facial recognition AI to check travelers photos when they apply for passports. It works just fine for white people, but like so many algorithms out there, it doesnt work well when presented with dark skin.

Anti-black bias in tech is nothing new, unfortunately: algorithms trained on biased data have often resulted in software that perpetuates prejudice. Whats particularly troubling about this passport photo AI is that the British government knew about the problem, according to New Scientist but decided it was okay to deploy the system anyway.

Newly-released internal documents revealed that the same racial disparities occurred during testing, resulting in the system telling darker-skinned people that their pictures didnt comply with passport guidelines, New Scientist reports.

User research was carried out with a wide range of ethnic groups and did identify that people with very light or very dark skin found it difficult to provide an acceptable passport photograph, read the documents. However; the overall performance was judged sufficient to deploy.

If someone applying for a passport is told that their photo isnt acceptable, they can still circumvent the AI system and submit it anyway buttheyll face warnings that it could interfere with their application.

Even with the user being able to override the selection, it is still creating a largely racialized disparity in experience between users, University of Washington engineer Os Keyes told New Scientist.

READ MORE: UK launched passport photo checker it knew would fail with dark skin [New Scientist]

More on facial recognition: Google Contractors Tricked Homeless Black People Into Face Scans

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The UK Knew Its Passport AI Was Racist and Used It Anyway - Futurism

Big Smoke

Watching a massive volcano erupt is truly jaw dropping but thats nothing compared to the incredible view astronauts get from the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts were treated to an amazing sight this past summer, according to Syfy Wire, when the Raikoke Volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Eastern Russia erupted into a massive cloud of dark smoke. Ash and volcanic gases created a giant plume above the 2,300 foot diameter crater as the International Space Station cruised by overhead.

The image above shows convection currents causing a vertical plume to rise above the volcano.

There are about 300 volcanoes in the surrounding areas according to NASA, roughly 29 of them active. The reason why there are so many is because the peninsula lies on top of a tectonic ridge where the Pacific plate is being pushed underneath the North American plate.

A second image shows the particlesgetting washed out across the peninsula by the wind.

Plumes that reach the stratosphere, around the altitude of cruising commercial airliners, stick around much longer than the plumes below, having a much greater effects on both aviation and climate, as NASA points out.

READ MORE: A volcano blows its top, seen from space [Syfy Wire]

More on volcanoes: Humans Produce 100x More CO2 Than All Volcanoes Combined

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Watching This Volcano Erupt From Space Is Absolutely Epic - Futurism

Gale Crater Mystery

Three billion years ago, Mars looked very different from how it does now. And ever since weve been able to land rovers on the planets surface, weve been trying to get peeks of its distant past.

The 100-mile Gale Crater, which is believed to be the result of a massive ancient impact, has scientists particularly fascinated. According to data collected by NASAs Curiosity rover, the crater was once dotted with small streams that created an oasis of shallow, salty pools of water.

At least, thats the theory sketched out in a new paper by NASA scientists published in the journal Nature Geoscience. They envision the crater to once have resembled the Altiplanos, the high altitude regions of South America that are dotted with briny lakes and streams.

During drier periods, the Altiplano lakes become shallower, and some can dry out completely, lead author William Rapin said in a statement. The fact that theyre vegetation-free even makes them look a little like Mars.

Since April, the rover has been testing samples from a region called the clay-bearing unit, near Mount Sharp, a peak in the center of the Gale Crater. Samples suggest the region was once a salty lake bed that dried up billions of years ago.

We cant say whether were seeing wind or river deposits yet in the clay-bearing unit, but were comfortable saying is its definitely not the same thing as what came before or what lies ahead, Curiosity team member Chris Fedo said.

READ MORE:NASAs Curiosity Rover Finds an Ancient Oasis on Mars [Jet Propulsion Lab]

More on Martian lakes: New Research: Mars Used To Be Covered In Huge Rivers

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NASA: Rover May Have Found Remnants of Ancient Martian Oasis - Futurism

Paul Bot, Mall Cop

Those Knightscope security robots may not be so great at their jobs.

When a woman in a park near Los Angeles saw people fighting and tried to summon help via a police robot patrolling nearby, the robot merely told her to step out of the way and continued along its pre-determined route, according to NBC News. No help came until the spectators called 911 directly, raising the question of what, if any, function these robots areactually supposed to serve.

It turns out that the robot, a K5 model named HP RoboCop,patrols the park on behalf of the police department but doesnt have any way of summoning human officers to the scene, Huntingdon Park police chief Cosme Lozano told NBC.

Instead, he said, calls go to Knightscope and will continue to do so until the police department develops protocols for handling calls made through the police bot. Its surprising news, given that the robot has been patrolling the park since June.

The fact that people assume the robot, which has the word police emblazoned on it in large letters, to connect them to the police department reveals just how nebulous these robots are. Especially when they pop up without any sort of public education to go alongside them.

Are we going to get in trouble if we touch it? park visitor Violete Alvaraz posed to NBC. Whos guiding it? I dont know how it works. Should I still call 911?

READ MORE: A RoboCop, a park and a fight: How expectations about robots are clashing with reality [NBC]

More on security bots: Robot Security Guards Will Constantly Nag Spectators at the Tokyo Olympics

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Police Robot Ignores Woman Trying to Call Police - Futurism

Space Meat

In 2018, Israeli-based food tech startup Aleph Farms made a breakthrough in the alt-meat industry by creating the worlds first lab-grown steak, a hunk of cell-cultured meat that mimicked the texture and structure of the beef youd find at the supermarket.

The company hopes to one day provide access to nutritious slaughter-free meat to everyone on Earth and maybe everyone in space, too, as astronauts have now used Alephs process to successfullygrowmeat on the International Space Station.

This first-of-its-kind experiment took place in the Russian segment of the International Space Station on September 26, according to an Aleph press release published Monday.

The astronauts used a 3D bioprinter developed by Russian company3D Bioprinting Solutions to coax bovine cells shipped from Earth into forming muscle tissue. In other words, they grew a tiny piece of beef in microgravity.

The proof-of-concept experiment not only illuminates a path to providing astronauts aboard the ISS or even further out in space with fresh meat, but it also demonstrates the ability of Alephs process to work under extremely hostile conditions.

We are proving that cultivated meat can be produced anytime, anywhere, in any condition, Aleph CEO Didier Toubia told The Guardian. We can potentially provide a powerful solution to produce the food closer to the population needing it, at the exact and right time it is needed.

READ MORE: First meat grown in space lab 248 miles from Earth [The Guardian]

More on lab-grown meat: For the First Time, a Startup Grew a Steak in a Lab

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Astronauts Just Grew Meat in Space for the First Time - Futurism

Pork Problems

A devastating outbreak of African swine fever has destroyed an estimated half of Chinas pig population over the past year or so.

Thats a huge deal given that China consumes more pork than any other nation, so Chinas government responded by urging farmers to increase pig production and some have taken that to mean they should breed the biggest pigs weve seen this side of Okja, according to a new Bloomberg story.

Bloomberg notes that some Chinese farmers have managed to increase the typical average weight of their pigs at slaughter from 110 kilograms (242 pounds) up to 140 kilograms (308 pounds).

In the province of Jilin, meanwhile, farmers are trying to raise the pigs as big as possible, farmer Zhao Hailin told Bloomberg, with the goal being an average weight of 175 to 200 kilograms (385 to 440 pounds) as opposed to the typical 125 kilograms (275 pounds).

Then theres the farmer in the Guangxi province who managed to breed a massive 500 kilogram (1,102 pound) porker, according to Bloombergs story.

Bloomberg doesnt note exactly how the farmers in China are managing to raise such massive pigs but most likely, theyre just breeding big pigs with more big pigs, thereby producing generation after generation of hefty animals.

However, in 2017, Chinese researchers showed they could use the gene-editing technology CRISPR to produce pigs with a lower fat content and if todays farmers are using similar means to breed their massive pigs, the animals should undergo stringent safety testing before they end up on anyones dinner plate, pork shortage be damned.

READ MORE: Chinas Breeding Giant Pigs That Are as Heavy as Polar Bears [Bloomberg]

More on pigs: Scientists Used Genetic Modification to Create Low-Fat Pigs

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China Is Breeding Massive Pigs That Weigh More than a Grand Piano - Futurism

Potty Mouth

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a weak spot for potty humor.

First, the carmaker introduced a fart app for its electric vehicles, which generates rude bathroom sounds.

Now, Musksays Teslas will soon be getting customized horn and movement sounds, including goats and farts, according to a emoji-laden Sunday tweet.

And for all the Monty Python fanatics out there, Musk is including an option for coconuts movement sounds as well a reference to the British 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The coconut sounds option has already shown up for Tesla owners as part of a new V10 software update.

Its not the first time Musk has referenced the film: in December 2018, Musks tunnel-digging company The Boring Company erected a tower of bricks in reference to a watchtower that appeared in the movie, knight and all.

Its not the first instance of Tesla buffing its sound design. Tesla added pedestrian warning sounds to its Model 3 last month as Electrek reports likely an effort to meet new electric car standards around the world, including the U.S.

Musk is also considering custom sounds uploaded by Tesla owners and the ability to honk or fart backwards by directing the sound behind the vehicle while backing up, Electrek reports.

READ MORE: Tesla is making customizable horn and other sounds, including farts and goats [Electrek]

More on Musks farts: Teslas Toilet Humor Mode Is Real and Its Called Emissions Testing

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Elon Musk: Teslas Will Soon Make "Fart" and "Goat" Noises - Futurism

Roughly 3.5 million years ago, the sky turned into a massive flare of bubbling gas shining out of the galaxys center a true spectacle for the early ancestors of modern humans. And theres a chance we could catch the next event with our own eyes.

The explosion, also known as a Fermi bubble, was essentially our galaxy discharging a huge quantity of nuclear energy, including deadly ionizing radiation emanating from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

And according to a new study published on the preprint site arXiv, the epic event took place about 3.5 million years ago.

The discovery is redefining how weve come to understand our galaxy which has been far more active than we thought.

Astronomers have been observing much smaller burps of the center of the galaxy for decades, but never something quite this violent.

Its an amazing thought that, when cave people walked the Earth, if theyd looked off in the direction of the galactic center, theyd have seen some kind of giant ball of heated gas, lead author and director of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy at the University of Sydney Bland-Hawthorn said in a video about the study.

It mustve been an extraordinary spectacle.

The flare must have been a bit like a lighthouse beam, Professor Bland-Hawthorn told Astro 3D. Imagine darkness, and then someone switches on a lighthouse beacon for a brief period of time.

And you didnt have to blink: the researchers estimate it couldve lasted for some 300,000 years an eternity to humans, but a short blip in galactic terms.

To find out when the explosion occurred, the researchers used data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The discovery could give us insight into the formation of celestial bodies.

We do think that [these events affect] how stars develop in the long-term evolution of our galaxy, but we just dont know exactly how, Bland-Hawthorn told ABC.

And it might happen again.

Everyone says give it time, it will explode again, Bland-Hawthorn added. Its the same with this galactic centre, give it time and it will blow up again.

READ MORE: Early Earthlings May Have Watched the Galaxys Center Explode 3.5 Million Years Ago [Live Science]

More on the milky way: Milky Ways Giant Black Hole Lets out Two Giant, Radioactive Burps

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3.5 Million Years Ago, Our Galaxy Was Rocked by an Explosion - Futurism

Black Eyed Peasand J Balvin joined forces to release Ritmo (Bad Boys for Life) on Friday (Oct. 11) from the Bad Boys for Lifesoundtrack.

Ritmo take us back to the '90s thanks to its sample of Corona's Rhythm of the Night and is a hybrid of hip-hop and pop withBalvins incendiary and infectious take on reggaeton. Lyrically, they mix Spanish and English verses with the sticky chorus of the original song. Toda la noche rompemos, a el otro dia volvemos (we break in all night, we come back next day), Balvin sings while BEP adds: Baby tonight is like fuego.

I wanted to reimagine Rhythm of the Night by Corona and give it a minimal, futurist, afro-fused reggaeton vibe, Black Eyed Peaswill.i.am says in a press release. The final song and video feel like the classic next level futurism that the Black Eyed Peas are all about.

The video, also released Friday, shows scenes of Bad Boys for Life with colorful images of BEP and Balvin singing and dancing on a stage with neon lights.

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Black Eyed Peas & J Balvin's 'Ritmo' Will Take You Back in Time - Billboard

Explosive publisher BOOM! Studios has announced a new original graphic novel to be published via explosive all-ages imprint KaBOOM! next August. Kudzu: Heart of the Mountain by Dustin Bolton is billed as a stunning new vision of sci-fi and fantasy fused together in an unforgettable story about discovering your future by first understanding your past.

More from the press release:

Years after a worldwide ecological disaster, a young boy named Kudzu uncovers his family historywhich is tied to the terrible event that destroyed the world! But as he learns the truth, Kudzu is drawn into a clash of worlds that threatens all of mankind, but may also be the key to giving the planet a new start.

Dustin Alexander Bolton is an artist and writer from Memphis, TN. Bolton earned his Bachelor of Arts in Film and Animation from Rhode Island School of Design before beginning his professional career in Atlanta, GA. He forged his early career as an animator on several popular Adult Swim shows, including Harvey Birdman. Boltons professional roles have since evolved through various advertising roles for major brands, including Disney, Warner Media, and AT&T. His debut graphic novel emerges from the high tech-fantasy in 80s pop culture and sci-fi films, the magical worlds crafted by Studio Ghiblis Hayao Miyazaki, and the rich cultural heritage of African American families across the American south.

And Bolton says:

Im so excited to unveil the world of KUDZU with its mythic beasts, rusty mechs, and caverns full of a mysterious power called tama. I also cant wait for everyone to meet Kudzu, the boy who bonds with an ancient power to save his fragile homeland from the grips of a tyrant, and ultimately discovers the power that lies within himself.

Look for it in stores next August.

A prophecy says that in the comic book industry's darkest days, a hero will come to lead the people through a plague of overpriced floppies, incentive variant covers, #1 issue reboots, and super-mega-crossover events.

Scourge of Rich Johnston, maker of puns, and seeker of the Snyder Cut, Jude Terror, sadly, is not the hero comics needs right now... but he's the one the industry deserves.

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Dustin Bolton Brings Afro-Futurist Adventure Kudzu: Heart of the Mountain to KaBOOM! in 2020 - Bleeding Cool News

Century Club

If we want to colonize Mars, were going to need to figure out a way to feed ourselves there, and continuously sending food to the Red Planet isnt a sustainable plan.

But now, a team of researchers thinks its figured out a way to produce enough food on Mars to feed a million people and they say their plan to make Martian colonists self-sufficient would take just a hundred years to implement.

In an article published in New Space: The Journal of Space Entrepreneurship and Innovation, researchers from the University of Central Florida detail a modelthey created that takes into account the potential population growth on Mars, factoring in both people relocating to the planet and those born on it, as well as the colonists anticipated caloric needs.

The model also looked at how colonists might use the land on Mars and what sorts of foods humans could produce there.

Based on their research, the team determined that we could establish a system capable of feeding a million colonists within a century so long as theyre OK with a diet heavy on plants, insects, and food created from cells grown in petri dishes.

If that sounds like just the keto diet alternative youve been looking for, good news: the researchers have put together a website that tells you how to eat like a Martian right here on Earth.

READ MORE: How to Feed a Mars Colony of 1 Million People [Space.com]

More on Mars colonization: This Martian Greenhouse Concept Just Won a NASA Award

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Heres How We Could Feed a Million People on Mars - Futurism

Alien Spies

A physicist whos on the hunt for extraterrestrial life says theres a chance that an ancient alien civilization has been spying on Earth for millions of years.

Thats not to say that hes suggesting they walk among us, but physicist and independent SETI researcher James Benford suggests that aliens could have visited a rock orbiting the Sun in a path similar to that or Earth, according to Live Science. While such an extraterrestrial visit is extremely unlikely, its technically within the realm of possibility that alien tech is sitting on one of those so-called co-orbitals, waiting to be uncovered.

Every so often roughly twice every billion years another star will venture within a light-year of Earth, per Live Science. Since Earth is a couple billion years old, Benford argues in research published this month in The Astronomical Journal that its technically possible that an advanced civilization could have come close enough to launch an expedition to our solar system.

This is essentially extraterrestrial archaeology Im talking about, Benford told Live Science.

Of course, that relies on a whole bunch of assumptions that extraterrestrial life exists, developed advanced technology, lived near one of those nearby stars, and took interest in Earth.

How likely is it that alien probe would be on one of these co-orbitals, obviously extremely unlikely, Arizona State University physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies, who didnt contribute to Benfords research, told Live Science.

READ MORE: Could E.T. Have Bugged a Space Rock to Listen In on Earthlings? [Live Science]

More on SETI: Scientists Are Terrified of SETI Research

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SETI Scientist: Aliens May Have Left a Spy Probe Orbiting the Sun - Futurism

Self-Regulating

Amazon, the online-retailer-turned-tech-giant, is currently drafting a set of potential federal laws to regulate facial recognition.

Its strikingly ironic that Amazon which develops oft-criticized facial recognition software currently in use by police is now attempting to write the federal laws that would dictate how its own tech can be deployed. But CEO Jeff Bezos says thats essentially the plan, according to Recode. Its a troubling sign of just how much influence one megacorporation could have over the safeguards meant to keep it in check.

Amazon has previously called for the government to impose regulations over facial recognition, possibly as a means to stave off criticism of its own Rekognition software and its numerous eyebrow-raising problem areas. But now Bezos is upping the ante.

Our public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations, Bezos said at Wednesdays Alexa gadget event, per Recode. It makes a lot of sense to regulate that.

In August, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders vowed to ban law enforcement agencies from using facial recognition software. That may be why Amazon is drafting some potential regulations: self-imposed rules would be preferable to losing all its police contracts.

Its a perfect example of something that has really positive uses, so you dont want to put the brakes on it, Bezos said at the event. But, at the same time, theres also potential for abuses of that kind of technology, so you do want regulations. Its a classic dual-use kind of technology.

READ MORE: Jeff Bezos says Amazon is writing its own facial recognition laws to pitch to lawmakers [Recode]

More on Amazon: Cops Are Using Amazons Facial Recognition Software Wrong

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Amazon Is Writing Its Own Facial Recognition Bills - Futurism

Cosmic Mailbag

If scientists wantto find aliens, they may need to scour the Moon for evidence.

If any signs of extraterrestrial life, biological or mechanical, ever smacked into the Moon, theres a good chance that theyre still sitting there, waiting to be discovered. Thats according to Abraham Loeb, chair of astronomy at Harvard, who penned an op-ed in Scientific American to argue that lunar missions could be crucial for the field of astrobiology.

With a lunar research station, or at least regular missions, Loeb argues that we would have a real shot at detecting evidence of faraway alien civilizations if they ever actually existed in the first place.

With no atmosphere or geological activity to destroy ancient artifacts, anything that crashed into the Moon would still be there, waiting to be found.

Loeb, by the way, is the Harvard professor who made waves last year claiming that the interstellar object Oumuamua could be an alien probe.

It would be tantalizing to find microfossils of extraterrestrial forms of life on the moon, Loeb writes in SciAm. Even more exciting would be to find traces of technological equipment that crashed on the lunar surface a billion years ago, amounting to a letter from an alien civilization saying, We exist.'

READ MORE: The Moon as a Fishing Net for Extraterrestrial Life [Scientific American]

More on space: Crashed Moon Lander Splattered Live Organisms Onto Lunar Surface

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Harvard Prof: The Moon Could Have Caught Alien Organisms, Tech - Futurism

Baby on Board

Theres nothing worse than getting stuck next to a crying baby on board an airplane.

Fortunately, Japan Airlines has a new tool thatll allow you to get as far away as possible from crying infants on your next flight. Children between the ages of 8 days and two years who are booked on your flight will show up as adorable baby icons on the seat selection map while booking on the airlines website according to Japan Airlineswhich, venture capitalist Rahat Ahmed pointed out on Twitter, will give other passengers a much-needed heads up.

There are some limitations to the new feature. It only works when booking through Japan Airlines website. Infants booked through other sites wont show up as infants. And once youve booked your flight, theres no guarantee that the parent of a crying infant wont snag a seat near you anyway.

As for the parents, theyll be treated to hot water bottles, rental strollers, as well as diaper changing facilities on board.

Galaxy-brain approach: suck it upor get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Babies dont know theyre being annoying.

READ MORE: Airline introduces baby seat map to allow passengers to avoid infants [CNN]

More on airlines: These Futuristic Airplane Seats Could Make Flying Economy Better

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Airline Tells You Where Crying Babies Are so You Can Avoid Them - Futurism

PeeFake

There have long been rumors of a tape that shows Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, directing sex workers to urinate on each other, or possibly a mattress where predecessor Barack Obama once slept, in the presidential suite of Moscows Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Its slowly emerging that a video claiming to be the legendary pee tape surfaced in January. In it, a shadowy Trump-like figure sits in a chair as nude women cavort on the bed. After a torturous nine months of investigation, Slates Ashley Feinberg concluded that the tape is almost certainly a fake leaving fascinating questions, both political and technological, about how the video was created and why.

The (extremely not-safe-for-work) video has been posted and scrubbed from the internet several times since January, but as of this articles publication you can see it here. There are numerous problems with the video the dcor in the video doesnt match that of the hotel, for instance.

But one of the biggest remaining questions is whether the grainy videos elusive creator hired a Trump lookalike or used deepfake technology to edit his face onto someone elses body.

Deepfakes are getting pretty good, but theyre still not totally convincing. But its still unclear how this video was created, because the video itself appears to be a phone recording of a screen playing the actual video a sneaky trick that one forensics expert told Slate would be a clever way to make it harder to spot flaws in the clip.

With that much blur and the already inscrutable, uh, mood lighting, its all-but-impossible to tell whether were actually peering at Trumps face or that of an unfortunate actor.

READ MORE: The Pee Tape Is Real, but Its Fake [Slate]

More on Trump: Trump Tweet Accidentally Reveals Secrets About US Spy Satellites

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Yes, There's a "Pee Tape" and It's Unclear If It's a Deepfake - Futurism

Trust Machine

Theoretical math tends to be so complicated that even the researchers pushing the fieldforward cant quite grasp it all.

It turns out that a great deal of mathematicians simply trust that the foundations of a new discovery are sound, Motherboard reports. If a prominent researcher cites a mathematical proof in their work, others may assume its true without actually checking for themselves. And that has Imperial College London mathematician Kevin Buzzard concerned that the whole field is about to go up in flames.

Buzzard is worried that many mathematical proofs are incorrect butthat errors fly under the radar because so many prominent figures simply assume that they hold water.

Im suddenly concerned that all of published math is wrong because mathematicians are not checking the details, he told Motherboard, and Ive seen them wrong before.

To help mathematicians reach sound conclusions without making them dive into thousands of pages of inscrutable operations, Buzzard suggested in his opening talk at a math conference that the field turn to artificial intelligence tools that can do the grunt work for them.

I think there is a non-zero chance that some of our great castles are built on sand, read his presentation, per Motherboard. But I think its small.

READ MORE: Number Theorist Fears All Published Math Is Wrong [Motherboard]

More on math: Googles Best AI Just Flunked a High School Math Test

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Mathematician: Everything We Know About Math Could Be Wrong - Futurism

Best-Laid Plans

On its surface, the plan was simple: gene-hack mosquitoes so their offspring immediately die, mix them with disease-spreading bugs in the wild, and watch the population drop off. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite pan out.

The genetically-altered mosquitoes did mix with the wild population, and for a brief period the number of mosquitoes in Jacobino, Brazil did plummet, according to research published in Nature Scientific Reports last week. But 18 months later the population bounced right back up, New Atlas reports — and even worse, the new genetic hybrids may be even more resilient to future attempts to quell their numbers.

Desperate Times

Mosquitoes capable of transmitting dangerous diseases like Zika, dengue, and malaria are spreading farther than ever, thanks to global climate change. To combat them, scientists have sometimes tried to alter the bugs’ genetics so that they couldn’t reproduce.

“The claim was that genes from the release strain would not get into the general population because offspring would die,” Yale researcher Jeffrey Powell, one of the researchers behind the new paper, told New Atlas. “That obviously was not what happened.”

Playing God

In Brazil, the wild mosquitoes mated with the gene-hacked population and created a new sort of genetic hybrid that’s more robust than the wild bugs were. While the new variant isn’t inherently dangerous — or at least not additionally so — the scientists behind the project say they don’t fully understand how things will change for future generations.

“It is the unanticipated outcome that is concerning,” Powell told New Atlas.

READ MORE: Failed GM mosquito control experiment may have strengthened wild bugs [New Atlas]

More on mosquitoes: Mosquito “Birth Control” Could Prevent Millions of Deaths

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Gene-Hacking Mosquitoes to Be Infertile Backfired Spectacularly