Month: April 2018

Enlarge / This innocuous-looking Overwatch loot box is now criminal in Belgium, according to the country's gambling regulators.

The Belgian Gaming Commission has determined that randomized loot boxes in at least three games count as "games of chance," and publishers could therefore be subject to fines and prison sentences under the country's gaming legislation.

A statement by Belgian Minister of Justice Koen Geens (machine translation) identifies loot boxes in Overwatch, FIFA 18, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive as meeting the criteria for that "game of chance" definition: i.e., "there is a game element [where] a bet can lead to profit or loss and chance has a role in the game." The Commission also looked at Star Wars: Battlefront II and determined that the recent changes EA made to the game means it "no longer technically forms a game of chance."

Beyond that simple definition, the Gaming Commission expressed concern over games that draw in players with an "emotional profit forecast" of randomized goods, where players "buy an advantage with real money without knowing what benefit it would be." The fact that these games don't disclose the odds of receiving specific in-game items is also worrisome, the Commission said.

Enlarge (credit: NOAA)

Coral reefs are the poster-organisms for ecosystem services, aiding fisheries, promoting biodiversity, and protecting land from heavy waves. Unfortunately, we seem to be repaying them by killing them. Our warming oceans are causing coral bleaching and death, rising sea levels will force them to move, and the acidification of our oceans will make it harder for them to form reefs. It would be nice if we could help them, but interventions are difficult to design when you don't know enough about coral biology.

Now scientists have announced a new tool is available to study corals: genetic editing provided by the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The ability to selectively eliminate genes could help us understand how corals function normally and could eventually provide a tool that lets us help them ride out climate change.

Coral complexities

You might think that we'd have a pretty good grasp of coral biology, given the amount of study that reefs receive. But much of that study has focused on coral reefs as an ecosystem, rather than coral as an organism. And that's a big barrier to helping these reef-builders survive in our changing world. To give one example, coral bleaching is caused by a heat-driven breakdown in the symbiosis between coral and a photosynthetic algae that provides the coral with food. Corals that live in warmer waters are clearly able to form partnerships with heat-tolerant algae, but the precise mechanics of which species partner with what algae aren't well understood.

Sometimes, dashcams and bodycams catch police in their worst behavior. But a video released on Tuesday shows police in Tenafly, New Jersey exercising remarkable restraint in the face of badgering by Caren Turner, a commissioner from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Turner, who was appointed to the position by former Governor Chris Christie, suddenly resigned last week.

"Commissioner Turner's resignation was appropriate given her outrageous conduct," a Port Authority official said in a statement to NJ.com.

Turner's daughter was riding in a friend's car on March 31 when police pulled the car over. Police decided to tow the vehicle after determining that the car's Nevada registration had expired and the driver couldn't produce proof of insurance. Turner was called to pick up the daughter and her friends, but when Turner arrived, she tried to intercede with the police officers. "I'm here as a concerned citizen and friend of the mayor," Turner told the officers. "I take full responsibility for them."

Electric GT

Two things we love here in the four wheels-and-a-motor section of Ars are racing and electric vehicles. The former is just plain fun, the latter is just plain common sense. But there has been relatively little overlap between them, save for Formula E and the occasional entry at Pikes Peak. From November, we can add one more to the list: the Electric Production Car Series from Electric GT. It's a one-make series that will use a grid of identical Tesla Model S sedans converted for track action, and this week Electric GT confirmed the first season will start November 3 in Jerez, Spain, followed by nine other races in Europe.

We first reported on Electric GT back in 2016, when the series planned to use modified Model S P85+s and then again last year, following the news that the cars would now be the more powerful all-wheel drive P100D. Electric GT has stripped more than 1,100lbs (500kg) of weight out of the luxury EVs, ditching most of the interior comforts and replacing them with a stout roll cage. The cars also feature wheel arch extensions to allow for wider racing tires (specially made by Pirelli), as well as a front splitter and rear wing to add some downforce. Additionally, the suspension is now a double wishbone setup with pullrod dampers for better handling, and the cars feature a racing-spec braking system.

Enlarge / COPENHAGEN, DENMARK - APRIL 25: Special prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen (R) holds a press briefing after pronouncement of sentence in the case against submarine owner Peter Madsen for the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall. A unanimous court reached the verdict that Peter Madsen was guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Madsen has lodged an appeal. (credit: Ole Jensen - Corbis/Getty Images)

Peter "Rocket" Madsen, the Danish inventor who sought to put himself into space aboard an amateur-built rocket and built (with the aid of colleagues) his own submarine—the UC3 Nautilus—was found guilty today by a judge and two jurors in the bizarre death of journalist Kim Wall, who disappeared last August while aboard the Nautilus.

Madsen was found guilty on all three of the primary charges filed by Copenhagen prosecutors against him: premeditated murder, aggravated sexual assault, and the desecration of a corpse. He was given a life sentence—a rare verdict in Denmark, and one that on average means 16 years of prison time. Madsen's attorney, Betina Hald Engmark, said after the sentencing that Madsen will appeal the verdict.

Wall's dismembered body and decapitated head were recovered weeks after her disappearance, as Madsen repeatedly changed his story about what happened to her. At first he said he had dropped her off the night before, and then he claimed she had died when the submarine's deck hatch slipped from his fingers and hit her on the head. Finally, after her head was recovered without signs of a head blow, he said that she had died of asphyxiation from carbon monoxide.