Month: January 2020

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  2019 was both the fifth anniversary of D&D's Fifth Edition and the 45th anniversary of the game itself, so series handlers Wizards of the Coast decided to commemorate it with a whopping $300 set of dice. The, er, "gem" of the collection is this D20 with a sapphire in-laid to its "20" spot. [credit: Sam Machkovech ]

On the occasion of Dungeons & Dragons' 45th anniversary this November, series handlers Wizards of the Coast celebrated by announcing a rarity from the company: official, limited, super-pricey dice. Are you as old as, or older than, D&D? Does that make you feel so allegiant to the game that you'd like to own a gem-infused 20-sided die, with a set of aluminum dice to match?

If so, Wizards had you in its sights with its $300 Sapphire Anniversary Dice Set. Only 1,974 were made (get it?), and from the look of things, they haven't sold out as of press time. While we'd never recommend spending so much money on tabletop dice—we tend to lose our cheapos thanks to errant, booze-soaked tosses amongst friends—we figured we'd at least photograph and describe the set that surprise-arrived at the Ars Orbital HQ earlier today.

The above gallery tells most of the story, though it only goes so far to convey the glory of a shiny blue sapphire inside of a 20-sided die. We've yet to rig up our dice-rolling robots to test Wizards' claim that an in-laid gemstone doesn't negatively affect rolling weight for a D20. Instead, I rolled the thing 100 times while uploading this report's images, and my tally was... drumroll, please... two critical hits, and three critical misses. Hmm.

Enlarge / A strain of Candida auris cultured in a petri dish at the CDC. (credit: CDC)

A deadly fungal pathogen developed the ability to resist all existing antifungal drugs on three separate occasions in the United States, according to a new report.

The fungus, Candida auris, was already classified as an "urgent threat" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the emergence of so called "pan-resistant" strains raises additional concern, according to the report's authors, who are infectious disease specialists at the CDC and the New York State Department of Health. They published their findings Thursday in the CDC's publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

C. auris was first identified in 2009 in Japan and has since popped up in nearly 40 countries. (It arrived in the US by 2013, and New York City, Chicago, and New Jersey have been hit the hardest.) The insidious germ is known for creeping around healthcare facilities and infecting vulnerable patients, causing invasive infections marked by nondescript fever and chills.

Something sinister is afoot as a young computer engineer investigates a mysterious disappearance at a Silicon Valley quantum computing company in Devs, a forthcoming sci-fi miniseries created by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation). The first teaser for the FX/Hulu miniseries just dropped, in conjunction with Garland's appearance at the Television Critics Association (TCA) meeting.

In Devs, young engineer Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno of Crazy Rich Asians) is convinced her recently deceased boyfriend was murdered, rather than committing suicide. She suspects it has something to do with the highly secretive development division (the titular DEVS) of the quantum computing company she works for: Amaya.

Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, Fargo) co-stars as Amaya's obsessively sinister CEO, Forest, with Alison Pill (American Horror Story: Cult) playing his second in command, a quantum physicist named Katie. Rounding out the main cast are Zach Grenier (The Good Wife) as Amaya's head of security, Kenton; Jin Ha (Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert) as Lily's former boyfriend, Jamie, a cyber security specialist; Stephen McKinley Henderson (Lady Bird) as Stewart, one of the researchers in DEVS; and Cailee Spaeny (Bad Times at the El Royale) as Lyndon, yet another DEVS employee.