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Minecraft's iconic Steve character will finally land on Chinese computers and smartphones thanks to a licensing deal with a Chinese game publisher. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

When Microsoft opened its wallets in 2014 and traded $2.5 billion for Mojang, the public by and large nodded their heads in agreement. Right, the makers of Minecraft. Those dudes are worth a lot of money.

But any doubters who questioned that sky-high valuation saw a new feather drop onto Microsoft's cap this week: Minecraft's PC and smartphone versions are finally coming to China. On Friday, Microsoft and Mojang announced the beginning of a "five-year exclusive partnership" with Chinese software publisher NetEase, Inc to roll the game out onto Chinese computer and smartphone marketplaces.The game's Chinese rollout date and release details have yet to be announced, and neither company confirmed how much money exchanged hands for the deal.

China isn't hurting for games originally published in the West, but Minecraft is arguably the world's most popular video game. Microsoft was able to publish the game on Xbox One consoles late last year, but those consoles have yet to penetrate the Chinese market to the extent that PCs and smartphones have, and the fact that even Microsoft had to license the game to someone else as opposed to launching it from its own Shanghai campus is a stern reminder of what roadblocks stand in the way of Western software developers.

Enlarge / iPad Pro and Smart Keyboard. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Update: Apple has re-posted the update as of today. Fixing an iPad bricked by the old update may be possible if you connect your tablet to a Mac or PC running iTunes, but we'll need to wait for reports from affected users to know for sure.

Original story (5/20/16): Apple is pulling iOS 9.3.2 for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro following reports that tablets were being bricked by the update. Affected tablets show the "connect to iTunes" message that iDevices display when put into recovery mode, but iTunes only displays an "Error 56" message and can't actually be used to restore the tablets. The bug doesn't appear to affect any other supported iDevices and the update hasn't been pulled for any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod.

Apple's statement on the issue offers no real insight about what the problem is. The company says it is "working on a fix" and will "issue an update as quickly as possible." Whether the update will resuscitate already-bricked iPads isn't clear, but 9to5Mac reports that at least a few users had affected tablets replaced at Apple Stores.

Rep. Lamar Smith, right (R-Texas) conferring with Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). (credit: Getty Images | Alex Wong)

Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has used his subpoena powers liberally to seek the e-mails of climate scientists in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Even before getting the evidence he claims he needs, however, Smith has accused NOAA of scientific dishonesty.

Rep. Smith and the 12 other Republicans on the committee have now turned their sights on a new target—actually, on 25 new targets. On Wednesday, letters were sent to 17 state attorneys general and eight environmental groups demanding e-mails and documents related to recent efforts to investigate Exxon Mobil’s past campaigns to downplay climate change.

Stories by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times described climate research by Exxon scientists in the 1970s and 1980s. At the time, Exxon’s own scientists apparently made it clear to leadership that climate change was a threat. Building on those revelations, momentum has been building behind the accusation that Exxon intentionally mislead its shareholders (and the public) about climate change, both via its own company statements and through the funding of contrarian think tanks. Several attorneys general are now pursuing investigations of consumer and securities fraud akin to the investigations that damaged the tobacco industry in the 1990s—it's too early to know if these accusations have similar merits.

(credit: Center for Open Science)

Some of the problems within science have been getting much more public attention recently. Psychology’s replication crisis has gained deserved notoriety, but the social sciences are far from alone, with pharmaceutical science being plagued by the same problems.

These issues are the product of a number of underlying problems. A study published recently in the journal PLOS Biology presents evidence showing that a very cheap solution could help to patch up one of them: the sharing of data that underlies published research. It's a solution that isn't out of place in a video game—all it takes is a digital badge or two to encourage researchers to be more transparent.

It’s clear that although the scientific method is still the best tool we have at our disposal, there are some situations where it desperately needs sharpening. One thing that has dulled the tool is the damaging incentives often faced by scientists. They’re under pressure to publish exciting, positive results in order to keep their jobs and be promoted, which can push some people to do awful things like fake data. But on a more mundane level, the pressure often means that only the most exciting, whizzbang studies see the light of day.