Month: July 2021

Enlarge / Jeff Bezos holds aviation glasses that belonged to Amelia Earhart at a press conference about his flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard on July 20, 2021, in Van Horn, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | Joe Raedle)

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) today rejected Blue Origin's attempt to block the lunar-landing contract that NASA awarded to SpaceX. The GAO also rejected a similar protest filed by Dynetics.

NASA in April 2020 selected SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics to design and build human landing systems. But in April 2021, NASA decided to go only with SpaceX and its Starship vehicle for the Artemis program, which is NASA's plan to return humans to the Moon by 2024.

"The cost of SpaceX's bid was about half that of Dynetics, and one-fourth the amount received by Blue Origin," as our coverage at the time said. While budget was apparently the biggest factor, NASA also "praised the [SpaceX] vehicle's innovative design and future-looking technology that might also one day be used on Mars" and cited Starship advantages including "a spacious cabin for astronauts, two airlocks, and ample payload capability to bring large numbers of experiments to the Moon and return samples to Earth."

Enlarge (credit: iStock / Getty Images)

We're currently watching—often in horror—what happens as a virus and its hosts engage in an evolutionary arms race. Measures to limit infectivity and enhance immunity are selecting for viral strains that spread more readily and avoid at least some of the immune response. All of that is easily explained through evolutionary theory and has been modeled mathematically.

But not all evolutionary interactions are so neat and binary. Thursday's edition of Science included a description of a three-way fight between butterflies, the wasps that parasitize them, and the viruses that can infect both species. To call the interactions that have ensued "complicated" is a significant understatement.

Meet the combatants

One of the groups involved is the Lepidoptera, the butterflies and moths. They are seemingly the victims in this story because, like any other species, they can be infected by viruses. Many of these viral infections can be fatal, although some kill the animal quickly, and others take their time. Since they often strike during the larval/caterpillar stages, the viruses need other hosts to transfer the viruses to other victims.

Enlarge / A billboard above the El Capitan Entertainment Centre promoting Marvel Studios' Black Widow on June 22, 2021, in Hollywood, California. (credit: Getty Images | AaronP/Bauer-Griffin)

Scarlett Johansson sued the Walt Disney Company yesterday, alleging that it breached her contract by releasing Black Widow on Disney+ the same day it was released in theaters.

The simultaneous release allowed Disney to pay Johansson less money because she and the Disney-owned Marvel agreed that her compensation for Black Widow "would be based largely on 'box office' receipts generated by the picture," according to Johansson's complaint filed in Los Angeles County's Superior Court for the State of California. This was a contract violation because Johansson secured a promise from Marvel that the movie would initially be released in theaters only, the lawsuit said:

To maximize these receipts, and thereby protect her financial interests, Ms. Johansson extracted a promise from Marvel that the release of the picture would be a "theatrical release." As Ms. Johansson, Disney, Marvel, and most everyone else in Hollywood knows, a "theatrical release" is a release that is exclusive to movie theaters. Disney was well aware of this promise, but nonetheless directed Marvel to violate its pledge and instead release the picture on the Disney+ streaming service the very same day it was released in movie theaters.

The reasons for this were twofold. First, Disney wanted to lure the picture's audience away from movie theaters and towards its owned streaming service, where it could keep the revenues for itself while simultaneously growing the Disney+ subscriber base, a proven way to boost Disney's stock price. Second, Disney wanted to substantially devalue Ms. Johansson's agreement and thereby enrich itself. In the months leading up to this lawsuit, Ms. Johansson gave Disney and Marvel every opportunity to right their wrong and make good on Marvel's promise. Unlike numerous other movie studios, however—including Warner Brothers who, on information and belief, settled with its talent on films such as Wonder Woman after it released those films "day-and-date" to its streaming service HBO Max last year—Disney and Marvel largely ignored Ms. Johansson, essentially forcing her to file this action.

The lawsuit accuses Disney of intentional interference with contractual relations and inducing breach of contract, alleging that the contract breach "was the direct result of Disney directing Marvel to ignore Ms. Johansson's agreement and/or overruling Marvel's wishes to comply with it." Johansson demanded a jury trial and asked the court for monetary and punitive damages in amounts to be proven at trial.

• 

  The Huawei P50 Pro, in several colors.

Despite facing down a global chip shortage, a US export ban, and plummeting market share, Huawei is still plowing ahead and announcing its next flagship smartphone, the Huawei P50 Pro. The phone, which was teased back in June, is the company's first smartphone launching with HarmonyOS, Huawei's in-house operating system (though it's just a fork of Android).

Huawei is weathering several storms as best it can, but these storms are leading to a lot of wild product decisions with the P50 Pro. Huawei devices are usually based on the company's in-house "Kirin" SoCs, made by subsidiary HiSilicon. While the initial versions of the phones will use the 5 nm Kirin 9000 SoC, once the supply on those runs out, Huawei says it will switch to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC. But wait—didn't the US Government ban companies from exporting US-origin goods to Huawei?

It did, but Qualcomm was granted a license to sell chips to Huawei back in November 2020.