Mountain permafrost is warming and thawing worldwide due to climate change, with ground temperature being a key control of its mechanical stability. Heat conduction is the dominant mode of heat transfer in frozen ground, and thermal diffusivity governs the rate at which temperature changes propagate…

A research team from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed an interpretable artificial intelligence (AI) framework named Convolutional Kolmogorov–Arnold Network (CKAN), which sheds new light on the properties of dark matter at galaxy-cluster sca…

A jury convicted a Milwaukee judge on one count of felony obstruction Thursday, the Associated Press reported, after she was accused of helping a man who was in the U.S. illegally evade federal immigration authorities.

Quote from: clongton on 12/18/2025 11:48 pmQuote from: spacenut on 12/18/2025 02:56 pmI do wonder who the 30 people were who didn't vote for him ...https://www.senate.gov...

arXiv:2512.15305v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The goal of the present work is to propose an agent-based model that originally combines classical Vicsek-like polarity alignments and contact forces, as implemented in the framework developed by Maury and Venel in [Maury, Venel, 2011]. The descriptio…

Are AI tools worth the money? After reviewing my 2025 spending, I've made one big change.

Producer Neal Moritz has spent the past 15 years trying to reboot “Cliffhanger,” the 1993 blockbuster starring Sylvester Stallone. The project is finally coming to the big screen next year — but Stallone won’t be in it. And in a new lawsuit against the film’s financiers, Moritz explains why. Moritz …

Before the trading day starts we bring you a digest of the key news and events that are likely to move markets. Today we look at:

Federal officials gave the clearest timeline yet for when a breakthrough could come in closed-door negotiations over the water supply of 40 million Americans.

Quote from: meekGee on 12/18/2025 03:49 pmQuote from: AmigaClone on 12/18/2025 09:06 amQuote from: meekGee on 12/18/2025 01:53 am[quote author=N...

Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Planning Date: Friday, Dec. 12, 2025 The weekend drive starting from the “Nevado Sajama” drill site brought Curiosity back into the “Monte Grande” boxwork hollow. We’ve been in this hollow before for the “Valle de l…

arXiv:2512.15206v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: In real-world IoT applications, sensor data is usually collected under diverse and dynamic contextual conditions where factors such as sensor placements or ambient environments can significantly affect data patterns and downstream performance. Traditi…

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arXiv:2511.05170v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Nucleus detection and classification (NDC) in histopathology analysis is a fundamental task that underpins a wide range of high-level pathology applications. However, existing methods heavily rely on labor-intensive nucleus-level annotations and s…

Pluribus Episode 8 Review: In the penultimate episode of Season 1, Carol stands at a crossroads even while Manousos' arrival is imminent.

Also in this newsletter: best of Buzzer Round

Britt, whose marriage to Davis in 1960 provoked threats due to racism and anti-miscegenation laws in the US, has died of natural causes in Los AngelesMay Britt, the Swedish actor whose marriage to Sammy Davis Jr in 1960 was the subject of controversy due to US attitudes towards interracial marriage,…

A new analysis of sewer drains from the Roman fort of Vindolanda, close to Hadrian's Wall, has shown that the occupants were infected by three types of intestinal parasite—roundworm, whipworm, and Giardia duodenalis.

Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) told Axios on Wednesday that he is "actively considering" forcing a vote to expel Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from Congress.Why it matters: The House has struggled this year to curb the use of tools like expulsion, censure and impeachment by renegade members as a cudgel agains…

India’s proceeds from initial public offerings in 2026 may hit a record for a third year, with a strong pipeline and buoyant investor demand supporting momentum, according to top investment bankers.

Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez and Democratic strategist Joel Payne join CBS News to discuss some of the biggest political stories of 2025.

arXiv:2504.05654v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: By analogy to the terminology of curved exponential families in statistics, we define curved Bregman divergences as Bregman divergences restricted to nonlinear parameter subspaces and sub-dimensional Bregman divergences when the restrictions are l…

Sounds like the flight mirror panels are in production as of June 2025.Cosmonauts Explore New Horizons at the Pushchino Observatory [June 9]Quote...

President Trump signed an executive order to reschedule marijuana to a lower drug classification, one of the most significant changes to drug policy in decades. Nancy Cordes has details.

arXiv:2509.25569v3 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Accurate prediction of wall-bounded flows remains central to advancing both theoretical understanding and computational methods in fluid mechanics. In this study, we perform a numerical simulation of channel flow using a complementary approa…

Under a law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump, the Justice Department has until Friday to release its files on the Jeffrey Epstein case. House Democrats released more photos from the estate of the convicted sex offender. Scott MacFarlane reports.

The games are piling up for Crystal Palace who face a two-legged play-off in the Conference League after failing to qualify automatically for the last 16.

Kathy Bates rose to prominence with her Oscar-winning breakout role in Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's "Misery" in 1990.

arXiv:2512.15701v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Evaluations of image compression performance which include human preferences have generally found that naive distortion functions such as MSE are insufficiently aligned to human perception. In order to align compression models to human perception, pri…

The president has a long record of making false or misleading statements. But the sheer density of them in his administration’s boat attacks and Venezuela pressure campaign is exceptional.

Netflix has greenlit a second season of “Last Samurai Standing,” the Japanese period-action series that has become a global streaming hit since its debut. Set during Japan’s Meiji period in the late 19th century, “Last Samurai Standing” follows 292 samurai warriors who gather at Kyoto’s Tenryuji Tem…

In Kubernetes v1.35, the ability to specify an external Job controller (through .spec.managedBy) graduates to General Availability.
This feature allows external controllers to take full responsibility for Job reconciliation, unlocking powerful scheduling patterns like multi-cluster dispatching with …

The suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University that killed two and injured nine others was found dead, officials announced on Thursday night. The big picture: The 48-year-old suspect, a Portuguese national and Brown student, "was found dead, with a satchel, with two firearms and evidence in th…

There are several ways to optimize your TV's operating system for faster performance. Here are my go-to changes.

Thursday Night Football returns with the Los Angeles Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks on Thursday (Dec. 18). Here's how to stream the game live.

The business jet erupted into a large fireball when it hit the ground at an airport in North Carolina.

President Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law Thursday, establishing spending at the Pentagon and other priorities for the coming year. The bill approves a record $901 billion in military spending for fiscal 2026, roughly $8 billion more than what the Trump administra…

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, disputed the White House’s claim that the vote was “unanimous” to rename the performing arts center to the Trump-Kennedy Center. In a short video post on the social platform X, the Ohio Democrat said she tried …

In a new paper, a team of researchers explores how non-human species (in this case, fireflies) could inform new approaches in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Google's latest addition to its NotebookLM artificial intelligence research platform is a feature called Data Tables. The tool can collect and synthesize information across multiple sources into a chart that can be exported to Google Sheets. All Pro and Ultra users will have access to the feature to…

arXiv:2512.15577v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: In this paper, we focus on online zero-shot monocular 3D instance segmentation, a novel practical setting where existing approaches fail to perform because they rely on posed RGB-D sequences. To overcome this limitation, we leverage CUT3R, a recent Re…

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In recent years, members of the Canadian public have witnessed the misrepresentation of Indigenous identities.

Launched in March, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope has completed its first infrared map of the entire sky in 102 colors. While not visible to the human eye, these 102 infrared wavelengths of light are prevalent in the cosmos, and observing the entire sky this way enables scientists to answer big ques…

"The skin of tanning bed users appeared decades older."

Holiday shopping is in full swing, which means it's about time for the Steam Winter Sale. This go-around, Valve’s sale runs from December 18, 2025 through January 5, 2026, and includes discounts on some of this year's hit games, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Silent Hill f and Assassin's Creed Sh…

A recently issued Executive Order revises how the government implements Space Policy Directive-3, removing the longstanding expectation that basic space situational awareness (SSA) services, including conjunction warnings, would be provided without charge. This decision marks a departure not only fr…

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said he wishes someone could have told President Trump “how math works” before touting his administration’s successes 11 months into his second term at the White House. “Somebody must have showed him some, like, abysmal poll numbers and said, ‘You better get out there in fr…

President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that launches a pilot program authorizing Medicare to cover cannabis products for seniors. Why it matters: Trump's embrace of marijuana could be a game-changer for older people who are seeking alternative treatments for common ailments.Driving th…

A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey demonstrates that measuring nitrogen in stream reaches can identify areas where decreasing nitrogen inputs may improve the water quality of downstream receiving waters.

Find out how to watch 'Now You See Me,' 'Now You See Me 2,' and 'Now You See Me: Now You Don't' online — including where each movie is streaming.

arXiv:2512.15661v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Demonstrating quantum advantage in machine learning tasks requires navigating a complex landscape of proposed models and algorithms. To bring clarity to this search, we introduce a framework that connects the structure of parametrized quantum circui…

In a package of confirmations, the U.S. Senate approved Mike Selig to lead the CFTC and Travis Hill to run the FDIC, both with major potential reach into crypto.

https://twitter.com/wvmattz/status/2001821438647693598QuoteMattZ@wvmattz·Earlier this afternoon, Booster 19’s forward section was seen rolling across the ring yard headed into Mega Bay 1.  Crews are making incredible progress on the Starship Fli...

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It is the largest scheme since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, which prompted massive gun law reform.

The long-running case had been on hold for nearly a year because of higher court appeals and the retirement of the military judge.

arXiv:2512.14990v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Despite their wide adoption in various domains (e.g., healthcare, finance, software engineering), Deep Learning (DL)-based applications suffer from many bugs, failures, and vulnerabilities. Reproducing these bugs is essential for their resolution, but…

For people living in the EU, the price of their next car, home renovation and even local produce may soon reflect a climate policy that many have never even heard of. This new regulation, which comes fully into force on New Year's Day, does not just target heavy industry—it affects everyday goods wh…

Labour's violence against women strategy and a royal Christmas family portrait dominate Friday's papers.

Swiss artificial intelligence startup Neural Concept SA said today it has raised $100 million in funding to try and rethink how products are designed and engineered with computer-aided design software tools. The Series C round was led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives and saw participat…

The outdoors can be challenging for portable batteries, but this one by Nitecore is built to withstand the elements.

https://twitter.com/esa/status/1989277822343664014?s=20 [Nov. 14]Quote#3IATLAS update: we've just pinpointed the comet's path with 10 times more accuracy, using data from our @ESA_Ex...

Trafalgar theatre, London Arriving from Broadway with much fanfare, Cole Escola’s play about Mary Todd Lincoln is loaded with obvious jokes and squanders the talents of its cast Oh, my! Mary Todd Lincoln is a drunken wannabe cabaret star! Her husband Abraham, the 16th US president, is a closet homos…

OpenZFS 2.4 is out as stable in time for the holidays! The big OpenZFS 2.4 feature release is now available for FreeBSD and Linux systems to continue advancing the open-source ZFS file-system support...

Alexa works well out of the box, but these lesser-known features improve it further.

We need you to understand why we need you to join the fight to keep this manga going.

CBS has ordered the pilot “Regency,” from “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon” alum Tara Hernandez, to be put into consideration for the 2026-2027 TV season. The multi-camera sitcom, from Warner Bros. TV, is a period piece described as a “historical spin” on the typical family comedy. Here’s th…

https://x.com/TrackingTheSB/status/2001811659837354491QuoteStarbaseTracking@TrackingTheSB2 of the 3 barrel sections for Booster 19's CH4 tank have been rolled out.Tony -  Stacking chart updated.

From puzzles with secret endings to a 3D puzzle of Thor’s hammer, find something fun to piece together from our list of the best puzzles for adults.

arXiv:2501.06074v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: We study shallow neural networks with monomial activations and output dimension one. The function space for these models can be identified with a set of symmetric tensors with bounded rank. We describe general features of these networks, focusing …

Stennis

Ford is killing the F-150 Lightning and US E-Transit models. No mention was made of the Mustang Mach E, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much. The market responded by increasing its share price. While it is discouraging to those of us supporting clean technology, the move made ... [continued]
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TikTok’s long-running saga of a U.S. ban may be coming to an end after the company signed a deal to sell its American operations to a new joint venture.

Seven people on a business jet that crashed at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina have died, the State Highway Patrol said. NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, 55, his wife Cristina and their two children were among those on the plane. Cristian Benavides reports.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said on Thursday that he has seen “no evidence of war crimes” committed during the U.S. military’s Sept. 2 strikes against an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, and he indicated that his panel does not plan to further probe th…

Card providers can decide whether to offer unlimited payments on contactless cards.

Apple says it can now collect any money a developer owes the tech giant at any time.

Discover and buy more of Ben’s cartoons hereOrder your own print of this cartoon from the Guardian Print Shop Continue reading...

Falling fertility rates and rising life expectancy will pose ‘significant economic and fiscal challenges’

https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/2001801885922005317QuoteNS-37 Update: Launch is no earlier than Saturday, December 20. Our window opens at 8:00 AM CST / 14:00 UTC. The live webcast will begin 20 minutes prior to launch. Mission updates: https:...

Nike posted more weakness in China and its Converse brand, sending shares down and offsetting higher-than-expected revenue in the latest quarter. Direct-to-consumer sales missed expectations, while Converse plunged 30% in the fiscal second quarter ended Nov. 30. Revenue rose 1% to $12.4 billion, abo…

Premier David Eby says logging the province's old-growth forests for pulp is not an option, as the BC government looks for ways to help a pulp mill closing on Vancouver Island.
The post The Canadian Press: Eby says no to harvesting old-growth to extend life of B.C. pulp mill appeared first on Ancien…

The public beta for iOS 26.3 is here, bringing with it a few interesting new features.

Data management provider AtScale Inc. today announced that it has closed a funding round led by Snowflake Inc.’s venture capital arm. The company didn’t specify the size of the deal, saying only that it’s the largest equity investment it has received to date. That indicates the round is worth more t…

Well the Avatar films basically feature big blue cat people, and if You Tube is anything to go by cats are very popular.

arXiv:2512.14700v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Online harassment has been a persistent issue in the online space. Predominantly, research focused on online harassment in public social media platforms, while less is placed on private messaging platforms. To address online harassment on one private …

The White House issued a sweeping executive order on space policy Dec. 18 covering topics from NASA’s exploration plans to space security.
The post Trump signs sweeping executive order to assert U.S. dominance in space appeared first on SpaceNews.

The long-rumored return has finally been confirmed, but is he playing Captain America?

Here’s one of my shots from last night. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Investigators are also searching for a car they believe was rented by the suspect in the shooting that killed two students and injured nine.

Also, authorities search for a person of interest in the Brown shooting. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.

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CDC awards grant to controversial Danish researchers with ties to top FDA official Tracy Beth Høeg.

Laura Crane, a 30-year-old from Devon, hopes to have broken a world record for the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman.

Comet 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object ever detected, will swing closest to Earth overnight from Thursday to Friday (Dec. 18 to 19). Here’s how to see it.

As Khalifa does not live in Romania, the country would need to file an extradition request with the United States in order to bring him back to face the charges.
Wiz Khalifa Sentenced to Nine Months in Romanian Jail For Weed Possession
Trey Alston

Discussion thread for the US Space Development Agency’s TBD Tranche 1 Tracking Layer mission (T1TR-E).SDA LEO Constellations Discussion ThreadAwarded on October 31, 2023 unde...

https://rocketlabcorp.com/missions/launch-safety/QuoteLaunch DetailsMission Name: THE WISDOM GOD GUIDESLaunch Site: Launch Complex 1, Mahia, New ZealandPlanned Launch Time: 19:12 [NZDT...

https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/2001718622234853711