Saturday 1st June 2024
  • Asthma treated in mice using offshoot of CAR T-cell cancer therapy - New Scientist (No paywall)

    A single dose of genetically engineered immune cells reduced asthma symptoms in mice for at least a year

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  • What is thought and how does thinking manifest in the brain? - New Scientist (No paywall)

    We can describe different kinds of thought and how they arise, to some extent, but the relationship between neural activity and the nature of what we are thinking isn't well understood

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  • The behavioural science that can help us choose more sustainable foods - New Scientist (No paywall)

    Sophie Attwood is working with the food industry to promote some surprising psychological tricks designed to make environmentally friendly choices more desirable

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  • These scientific rules of connection can supercharge your social life - New Scientist (No paywall)

    Several psychological biases undermine our ability to make new friends. Understand them and you’ll know the secrets to building meaningful relationships that last

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  • 9 Years Later, the Most Inventive Soulslike Owes Its Success to Women

    You enter the ancient city of Yharnam suddenly. It’s an awakening, like the moment you feel consciousness hit you as a child. It’s the night of the hunt, when men and beasts roam the streets, out for each other’s blood. There’s power in that blood; it stems from the paleblood of the Great Ones, tentacled Lovecraftian beings that once lived in Yharnam and still haunt the world. The Great Ones all long for children of their own. Unfortunately, conceiving is hard for them, and when their children perish, they seek surrogates.

    Nine years ago, FromSoftware’s PS4 exclusive Bloodborne was my entry into the studio’s dark and difficult fantasy worlds. The beast-filled streets of Yharnam gush with blood and Victorian London influences. As someone who grew up in the Big Smoke, I enjoyed all the jokes about how England is actually just like Yharnam — plagued by torch-wielding denizens who would stab you as soon as look at you. But it wasn’t until a recent playthrough that I realized my childhood was closer to Bloodborne than the jests suggested.

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  • 5 Years Later, an Iconic Stephen King Villain is About to Return

    Prequels are somehow more popular than ever. You can watch Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in theaters now, and it arrived after The First Omen but before A Quiet Place: Day One and Mufasa: The Lion King. Streaming services are chock full of prequel series, too: just look at Andor, House of the Dragon, and Rings of Power. Now, an iconic horror movie is hopping on the bandwagon, bringing back a star actor and teasing more scares in a new TV origin story.

    According to Deadline, the It prequel series Welcome to Derry will bring back Bill Skarsgård to reprise his creepy performance as Pennywise, quashing rumors the series would focus on a younger iteration of the being. Announced in 2022, Welcome to Derry (still just a working title) is part of Max’s TV offerings spun off from movies, like The Batman spinoff The Penguin and the upcoming Dune prequel Dune: Prophecy.

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  • 'Furiosa's Scene-Stealing Warlord Reveals New Details About the Mad Max Prequel

    Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’s scene-stealing warlord Goran D. Kleut tells Inverse all about making the movie and the unspoken secrets about his instantly iconic character.

    Outside the gates of Gastown, the fearsome Dementus turns to his horde of followers, singles one rider out among hundreds, and makes a fearsome demand to him. “I only answer to the Octoboss,” the man answers defiantly.

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  • How The Starliner Crew Have Kept Cool Heads In Quarantine

    Astronauts sure know how to thrive in a quarantine — and come out ready on the other side.

    For a long 26 days, the Boeing Starliner flight, what would be the first dissimilar contingency spacecraft for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, has been put on pause. And while space fans attempted to prognosticate while they bit fingernails and engineers checked and rechecked helium and oxygen leaks, two crucial people waited a bit more intently then the rest. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been expectantly sitting in quarantine. But what, exactly, does that entail? As you might expect, a lot more than what we, one-time COVID quarantiners went through.

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  • PlayStation's Next 'Helldivers 2' Is Off To A Shaky Start

    Concord, PlayStation’s next big service game gamble, was finally shown to the public during Thursday’s State Of Play stream. Sadly, the five-on-five hero shooter hasn’t left a great impression on players, kicking off a precarious uphill battle well before its launch in August.

    Developed by Firewalk Studios, Concord kicked off PlayStation’s middling showcase of what players can expect to play for the remainder of the year (and in 2025). While there were some compelling high points during the show, including Alien: Rogue Incursion and the charming family-friendly platforming game Astro Bot, the same could not be said of Concord.

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  • PlayStation's New Open-World Game Invents a Genre I Didn't Know I Needed

    The latest PlayStation State of Play showed off all the familiar genres you’d expect to see at a premier gaming showcase — shooters, survival horror, third-person action, more shooters, and of course, dress-up games. Okay, that last one is a little bit of an outlier, but that’s exactly what made Infinity Nikki stand out from the rest of the crowd.

    Developer Papergames first showed off Infinity Nikki back in December 2022. The game will mark the first console release for the long-running Nikki series of dress-up games, and it looks like a major evolution in terms of gameplay as well. Unlike earlier games in the series, Infinity Nikki adds a full open world full of platforming challenges to explore alongside its dress-up elements.

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