Month: February 2025

Max is pulling CNN and sports from some US subscribers starting on March 30

People who pay for ad-free Max will still have access to CNN Max and B/R Sports.

People who subscribe to Max at the ad-supported tier will no longer be able to access CNN or Bleacher Report (B/R) Sports content through the service starting on March 30, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced this week.

At that time, only people subscribed to one of Max’s more expensive, ad-free subscription tiers will be able to access Max's live news and sports hubs.

In a statement accompanying the announcement, JB Perrette, CEO and president of global streaming and games at WBD, said the decision to change access to CNN Max and B/R Sports, which includes MLB, NBA, NHL and other live sporting events, followed over a year of assessing how people watch news and sports on Max.

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Punch: Nasa will Sonne und Heliosphäre erforschen

Dafür sollen vier kleine Satelliten mit einer Falcon-9-Rakete gestartet werden. Ihre Daten will die Nasa mit denen von Parker Solar Probe kombinieren. (Nasa, Raumfahrt)

Dafür sollen vier kleine Satelliten mit einer Falcon-9-Rakete gestartet werden. Ihre Daten will die Nasa mit denen von Parker Solar Probe kombinieren. (Nasa, Raumfahrt)

What we know about Waymo’s 2025 expansion plans

The public has a long way to go before it trusts autonomous vehicles.

Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous driving subsidiary, has been rapidly expanding its self-driving robotaxi across various US cities, introducing both testing phases and public ride-hailing operations. Despite these expansion plans, many people remain hesitant to embrace autonomous technology. A Pew Research Center study from 2022 found that 45 percent of Americans would not feel comfortable sharing the road with driverless vehicles.

Much of this skepticism comes from the coverage of autonomous driving incidents in the media. Crashes are rare, so when they do happen, they make headlines and fuel the idea that these cars are untrustworthy. The hype around a few high-profile crashes can easily drown out the bigger picture.

The data tells a different story, though. In collaboration with Swiss insurance company Swiss Re, Waymo conducted a study analyzing 25.3 million miles driven by its autonomous vehicles. The findings revealed an 88 percent reduction in property damage claims and a 92 percent reduction in bodily injury claims compared to human-driven vehicles for the same distance traveled.

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Study: Hot Vesuvian ash cloud really did turn a brain to glass

Fresh analysis with calorimetry, X-rays, electron microscopy lend support to hotly debated theory.

For several years now, we've been following a tantalizing story indicating that the high heat of the ash cloud generated when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD was sufficiently hot to turn one of the victim's brains into glass. It remains a matter of debate in the archeological community, but a fresh analysis of the physical properties of the glass-like material found in the remains lends more evidence to the hypothesis, as detailed in a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.

As previously reported, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius released thermal energy roughly equivalent to 100,000 times the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, spewing molten rock, pumice, and hot ash over the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in particular. The vast majority of the victims died of asphyxiation, choking to death on the thick clouds of noxious gas and ash.

But a 2001 study in Nature, co-authored by Petrone, estimated a temperature of 500° Celsius (932° Fahrenheit) for the pyroclastic surge that destroyed Pompeii, sufficient to kill inhabitants in fractions of a second. Back in 2018, we reported on Petrone's conclusion that inhabitants of Herculaneum may have suffered a similar fate. There was fracturing in the bones and "cracking and explosion" of the skullcaps, consistent with forensic cases where skulls burst from extreme heat.

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Study: Hot Vesuvian ash cloud really did turn a brain to glass

Fresh analysis with calorimetry, X-rays, electron microscopy lend support to hotly debated theory.

For several years now, we've been following a tantalizing story indicating that the high heat of the ash cloud generated when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD was sufficiently hot to turn one of the victim's brains into glass. It remains a matter of debate in the archeological community, but a fresh analysis of the physical properties of the glass-like material found in the remains lends more evidence to the hypothesis, as detailed in a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.

As previously reported, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius released thermal energy roughly equivalent to 100,000 times the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, spewing molten rock, pumice, and hot ash over the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in particular. The vast majority of the victims died of asphyxiation, choking to death on the thick clouds of noxious gas and ash.

But a 2001 study in Nature, co-authored by Petrone, estimated a temperature of 500° Celsius (932° Fahrenheit) for the pyroclastic surge that destroyed Pompeii, sufficient to kill inhabitants in fractions of a second. Back in 2018, we reported on Petrone's conclusion that inhabitants of Herculaneum may have suffered a similar fate. There was fracturing in the bones and "cracking and explosion" of the skullcaps, consistent with forensic cases where skulls burst from extreme heat.

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There’s a battery bigger than in most BEVs inside the Ramcharger hybrid

Why 22 kWh of the Ramcharger’s 92 kWh battery is not useable.

Ram's 1500 Ramcharger goes on sale later this year, and the company is taking a slightly different approach to its electrified truck than rivals Ford and General Motors, which both now offer battery electric pickups. The Ramcharger will be a range-extended EV, albeit one with more lithium-ion on board than most BEVs have.

Honestly, pickup trucks are a poor candidate for electrification, at least while we're still firmly in early adopter territory. The instant and impressive torque from an electric motor is great, but the shape of a cab and bed is inherently draggy in a way that few other vehicles are, a problem exacerbated by whopping great frontal areas.

But the pickup truck is also the most popular kind of vehicle in the US, and the industry has tried very hard to convince itself and everyone else that pickup buyers could seamlessly adopt electric powertrains en masse. That way, everyone in America could drive an EV, climate change would go away, and no one would have to consider changing their lifestyle or taking a bus to work.

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There’s a battery bigger than in most BEVs inside the Ramcharger hybrid

Why 22 kWh of the Ramcharger’s 92 kWh battery is not useable.

Ram's 1500 Ramcharger goes on sale later this year, and the company is taking a slightly different approach to its electrified truck than rivals Ford and General Motors, which both now offer battery electric pickups. The Ramcharger will be a range-extended EV, albeit one with more lithium-ion on board than most BEVs have.

Honestly, pickup trucks are a poor candidate for electrification, at least while we're still firmly in early adopter territory. The instant and impressive torque from an electric motor is great, but the shape of a cab and bed is inherently draggy in a way that few other vehicles are, a problem exacerbated by whopping great frontal areas.

But the pickup truck is also the most popular kind of vehicle in the US, and the industry has tried very hard to convince itself and everyone else that pickup buyers could seamlessly adopt electric powertrains en masse. That way, everyone in America could drive an EV, climate change would go away, and no one would have to consider changing their lifestyle or taking a bus to work.

Read full article

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