Author: aliakhan00901

When I was 18, I bought a heavily reduced MiniDisc player. This wasn’t even what you could charitably call “fashionably late”, given the format was already on its last legs, but I loved it, and because nobody else was interested, blank discs were dirt cheap. I have a vague recollection of grabbing packs at Poundland, allowing me to create a glorious self-curated library of cheap music, five years before the birth of Spotify.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.I’m reminded of this because this week I’ve published a…

BBCWhen life gets busy and stress levels rise, it’s not uncommon to find yourself walking into a room and forgetting why you went there, losing your train of thought mid-sentence or struggling to stay focused on simple tasks. Especially after the weekend, it can be hard to get back into work or study mode.This mental cloudiness is often called brain fog and while it isn’t a medical condition in itself, it refers to a collection of cognitive symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, and mental slowness.Common causes of it can include menopause or perimenopause, but it can also strike when…

Among the many treasures now on display at the just-opened David Bowie Centre in London is a letter Lady Gaga wrote the legendary musician in the early 2010s. The short note wasn’t dated, but it was likely sent around late 2012 or early 2013. Gaga mentions having received an “advanced copy” of Bowie’s new album, and later says she’s finishing her own LP, Artpop, which eventually came out in November 2013. The Bowie album Gaga received was probably The Next Day, which arrived in March 2013.  Gaga told Bowie it was “truly an honor” to receive the album, adding, “I…

GB’s Jake Wightman, Josh Kerr and Neil Gourley qualify for the the men’s 1500m finals while USA’s Olympic Champion Cole Hocker is disqualified at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.FOLLOW LIVE: World Athletics ChampionshipsAvailable to UK users only.

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. It seems that every day brings a new headline about the burgeoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini—headlines that are either exciting or increasingly apocalyptic, depending on one’s point of view. One particularly striking story arrived earlier this year: a paper that described how an LLM had passed the Turing Test, an experiment devised in the 1950s by computer science pioneer Alan Turing to determine whether machine intelligence could be distinguished from that of a human. The LLM in question was…

A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of popular novels set in America’s Old West. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.

The characters Hayden Panettiere and Connie Britton played on Nashville immediately got off to a bad start, which immediately put Panettiere in her feelings. “I remember the first scene that I ever did with her. It was in [Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium], the backstage of the Ryman, and Rayna comes in and says something nice to me, and I am just so passive-aggressive to her,” Panettiere tells Entertainment Weekly on the occasion of the country music melodrama arriving on Netflix on Monday. Panettiere remembers that after the bristling encounter — their first ever on and off camera — she “kept apologizing…

Sep 13, 2025, 10:00 AM ETIn August 2025, ESPN and World Wrestling Entertainment announced an exciting new deal that will bring WrestleMania to ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming service starting in 2026.The deal includes two-night events, such as WrestleMania and SummerSlam, plus other WWE premium live events including Royal Rumble, Survivor Series and Money in the Bank. WWE will produce the events for ESPN platforms, which will serve as their exclusive U.S. domestic home.On the heels of this new development, ESPN is excited to showcase the first Wrestlepalooza event in September. The occasion will mark the first Premium Live Event (PLE) from…

The world of pregnancy is going to radically change, predicts Noor Siddiqui. “I think that the default way people are going to choose to have kids is via IVF and embryo screening,” she said at the WIRED Health summit last week. “There’s just a massive amount of risk that you can take off of the table.”Siddiqui is the founder and CEO of Orchid, a biotech company that offers whole-genome screening of embryos for IVF. By analyzing the DNA of different embryos before selecting which one to implant, Orchid says, parents can lower the risk their children grow up affected by…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not ruled out further strikes on Hamas leaders following last week’s attack in Qatar, saying they would not have immunity “wherever they are”.Speaking at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said every country had the right “to defend itself beyond its borders”.Israel’s decision to target senior Hamas leaders in Qatar – a close US ally – drew international outrage and criticism from US President Donald Trump. Hamas said six people were killed but that its leaders survived.When pressed on whether the US had any involvement in…