Month: July 2024

Enlarge / Long covid activists attend the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing on the "Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request for the National Institutes of Health," in Dirksen building on May 23, 2024. (credit: Getty | Tom Williams)

As a summer wave of COVID-19 infections swells once again, a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine offers some positive news about the pandemic disease: Rates of long COVID have declined since the beginning of the health crisis, with rates falling from a high of 10.4 percent before vaccines were available to a low of 3.5 percent for those vaccinated during the omicron era, according to the new analysis.

The study, led by Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System, used data from a wealth of health records in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The researchers ultimately included data from over 440,000 veterans who contracted COVID-19 sometime between March 1, 2020, and January 31, 2022, as well as over 4.7 million uninfected veterans who acted as controls.

Al-Aly and colleagues divided the population into eight groups. People who were infected during the study period were divided into five groupings by the dates of their first infection and their vaccination status. The first group inlcuded those infected in the pre-delta era before vaccines were available (March 1, 2020, to June 18, 2021). Then there were vaccinated and unvaccinated groups who were infected in the delta era (June 19, 2021, to December 18, 2021) and the omicron era (December 19, 2021, and January 31, 2022). The uninfected controls made up the final three of eight groups, with the controls assigned to one of the three eras.

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  Boundless premieres tonight, taking Vision Pro users on a hot air balloon ride in Turkey. [credit: Apple ]

Today, Apple announced a slate of more than a dozen upcoming Immersive Videos for its Vision Pro spatial reality headset. The first, titled Boundless, launches tonight at 9 pm ET. More will follow in the coming weeks and months.

The announcement follows a long, slow period for new Vision Pro-specific video content from Apple. The headset launched in early February with a handful of Immersive Video episodes ranging from five to 15 minutes each. Since then, only three new videos have been added.

On March 28, Apple released a highlight reel of Major League Soccer plays from the season that had ended months prior. A second episode of Prehistoric Planet, Apple's Immersive Video dinosaur nature documentary, went live on April 19. Likewise, a new episode of the Adventure series titled "Parkour" landed on May 24.

Enlarge / Ad-free Basic subscribers will be crane kicked off the plan soon. (credit: Netflix/YouTube)

Netflix today confirmed suspicions that it will stop letting people pay $12 per month to stream without commercials.

The ad-free Basic plan was the cheapest way to watch Netflix without commercials. The plan limits users to 720p resolution and one device and lets people download content. Netflix stopped offering the Basic plan to new subscribers in January. In June, Netflix started booting subscribers in the UK and Canada off the plan and automatically put them onto a cheaper subscription plan with ads.

In a letter to shareholders today [PDF], Netflix confirmed publicly for the first time that it “will now start” to phase out the ad-free Basic plan in the US and France. This will make the cheapest commercial-free Netflix plan $15.49/month in the US. That Standard plan supports up to two devices, downloads, and 1080p resolution.

Fans of director Denis Villeneuve's epic two-part film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune have no doubt been curious about the upcoming HBO Max series, Dune: Prophecy. It's a prequel series inspired by the novel Sisterhood of Dune, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, exploring the origins of the Bene Gesserit. The studio just dropped a tantalizing teaser rife with political intrigue, ominous warnings, and a bit of hand-to-hand combat.

The series was first announced in 2019, with Villeneuve serving as an executive producer and Alison Schapker (Alias, Fringe, Altered Carbon) serving as showrunner. The first season will consist of six episodes, and it's unclear how closely the series will adhere to the source material. Per the official premise:

Set 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides, Dune: Prophecy follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit.

Emily Watson co-stars as Valya Harkonnen, leader of the Sisterhood, with Olivia Williams playing her sister, Tula Harkonnen. Mark Strong plays Emperor Javicco Corrino, described as "a man from a great line of war-time Emperors, who is called upon to govern the Imperium and manage a fragile peace," while Jodhi May plays Empress Natalya and Sarah-Sofie Boussnina plays Princess Ynez.

The face huggers and chest bursters return with a vengeance in a few weeks when Alien: Romulus finally hits theaters. It's the latest installment in the Alien franchise from horror director Fede Alvarez (Don't Breathe, Evil Dead), and the final action-packed trailer just dropped.

(Spoilers for Alien and Aliens below.)

As previously reported, Alien: Romulus is set between the events of Alien and Aliens (and is not related to FX/Hulu's Alien prequel series slated to premiere next year). That is, after Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of the Nostromo, destroyed the killer xenomorph and launched herself into space in the ship's lifeboat—along with the ginger cat, Jonesy—and before she woke up after 57 years in hypersleep and battled more xenomorphs while protecting the young orphan, Newt (Carrie Henn). Per the short-and-sweet official premise: "While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."