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Photo Courtesy of The Dominica Sperm Whale Project

A sperm whale swimming just below the surface.

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Sperm whales share something fundamental with humans. Both of our species form groups with unique languages and traditions known as "cultures." A new study of sperm whale groups in the Caribbean suggests that these animals are shaped profoundly by their culture, which governs everything from hunting patterns to babysitting techniques. Whale researcher Shane Gero, who has spent thousands of hours with sperm whales, says that whale culture leads to behaviors that are "uncoupled from natural selection."

Gero and his colleagues recently published a paper on Caribbean whale culture in Royal Society Open Science, in which they describe the discovery of a new clan. Though this clan may have lived in the Caribbean for centuries, it's just coming to light now because sperm whales live and hunt in vast territories. This makes them hard to track. Like many scientists who study these wide-ranging creatures, Gero observes them by lowering specialized microphones into the water and recording the sounds they make to communicate.

Scientists working throughout the world have identified 80 unique "codas," the sperm whale equivalent of words, which they produce by emitting sounds called clicks. Each sperm whale clan has its own dialect, a unique repertoire of codas shared only with the other families who make up their clan. In the Pacific, there are five known dialect clans, and many of them co-exist in the same general regions without ever interacting. Atlantic whales have their own dialects too, and in the Caribbean there are two known clans.

CBS and Paramount, the two studios that own the rights to Star Trek, announced a list of 10 guidelines for fan film creators this week. The studios are saying that they “will not object to, or take legal action against” filmmakers that follow the new rules (although the studios added that “CBS and Paramount Pictures reserve the right to revise, revoke and/or withdraw these guidelines at any time in their own discretion.”)

The new rules come amid a dispute between the two studios and Axanar Productions, a production company formed by fans who raised more than $1 million in crowdfunding and donations to create a professional-quality Star Trek fan film about Garth of Izar, a hero of Captain Kirk from The Original Series. Axanar Productions boasted about the fact that it had hired people who had formerly worked on Star Trek, and it released a 20-minute film called Prelude to Axanar in 2014. The feature-length film, simply called Axanar, was supposed to debut in 2016.

But CBS and Paramount produced a list of ways they considered Axanar Productions infringing on their copyright. In early May, a judge ruled that the fan film makers would have to face a lawsuit from the two studios.

Fighting evil with the power of fashion.

After playing a few dozen hours of this massive, 50 to 60 hour quest, however, I particularly like the "#FE" part of the game that hangs off the end of the title. It’s a crouton of a Fire Emblem reference in a game putting nearly all its weight on the Shin Megami Tensei end of the see-saw, but it makes all the difference.

Idolize me

Level design, combat, and setting in SMT are all distinctly influences by Atlus’ post-apocalyptic near-future role-playing games (which makes sense given that Atlus actually developed the thing). As such Tokyo Mirage Sessions is set in the SMT-favorite location of modern-day Tokyo. The game follows a group of young idols—sort of professional celebrity role models—through a dense Japanese culture tour.

Events unfold from the perspective of the aloof and often clueless Itsuki Aoi, but the plot mostly follows in the wake of his best friend and rising star Tsubasa Oribe. Together they, and a growing cast of like-minded performers, get wrapped up in a tale of self-expression, third-person dungeon crawling, and turn-based combat.

(credit: Michael Hicks)

This article originally appeared on the blog of author Ken Shirriff and is reprinted here with his permission.

Alan Kay recently gave his 1970s Xerox Alto to Y Combinator, and I'm helping with the restoration of this legendary system.

The Alto was the first computer designed around a graphical user interface, and it introduced both Ethernet and the laser printer to the world. The laser printer was invented at Xerox by Gary Starkweather, and networked laser printers were soon in use with the Alto. Y Combinator's Alto is an "Orbit" model with slots for the four boards that drive the laser printer, laboriously rendering 16 rows of pixels at a time.

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about four billion years ago, when it would have been more conducive to life. (credit: ESO)

In the year 2016 one might be forgiven for thinking the world is going to hell. Across much of Europe and the United States a distressed and angry working class has begun wielding nationalism as a blunt weapon against the disconnected ruling class. Islamic radicals have stepped up attacks against the West as well as moderate practitioners of their own faith. Then there is humanity's untrammeled use of fossil fuels, worsening water shortages, and other environmental degradations of the planet—not to mention the proliferating threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Finally, we also haven't yet gotten around to tracking every asteroid that might wipe out humankind.

In short, Earth might need a backup plan.

Elon Musk certainly thinks so, having staked much of his fortune on SpaceX and its relentlessly pursued goal of colonizing Mars. But Mars is not the only place humans could go. There are other worlds in the Solar System where humans could walk without space suits, find ample energy, or even swim in subsurface oceans. None of these places are remotely as habitable as Earth, even at our planet's cold poles. But they also don't have Earth's political baggage, either. So here's our guide to the five-best options for DIY colonists:

Two hours or so of WWDC keynoting and Tim Cook didn't mention a new file system once? (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

This article was originally published on Adam Leventhal's blog in multiple parts.

Apple announced a new file system that will make its way into all of its OS variants (macOS, tvOS, iOS, watchOS) in the coming years. Media coverage to this point has been mostly breathless elongations of Apple's developer documentation. With a dearth of detail I decided to attend the presentation and Q&A with the APFS team at WWDC. Dominic Giampaolo and Eric Tamura, two members of the APFS team, gave an overview to a packed room; along with other members of the team, they patiently answered questions later in the day. With those data points and some first-hand usage I wanted to provide an overview and analysis both as a user of Apple-ecosystem products and as a long-time operating system and file system developer.

The overview is divided into several sections. I'd encourage you to jump around to topics of interest or skip right to the conclusion (or to the tweet summary). Highest praise goes to encryption; ire to data integrity.