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Windows 10 already includes ways to clear out applications and data to repair misbehaving systems or prepare them to be sold, courtesy of the Refresh and Reset features added in Windows 8. Microsoft is now adding a third option: a new refresh tool.

Currently available only for Windows Insiders, the new tool fetches a copy of Windows online and performs a clean installation. The only option is whether or not you want to preserve your personal data. Any other software that's installed will be blown away, including the various applications and utilities that OEMs continue to bundle with their systems.

The tool is currently in preview and has some quirks; it installs a preview build from the fast track, but Microsoft notes that the new tool can sometimes install a version older than the one currently installed. When this kind of version mismatch occurs, the option to preserve your files is removed.

Birds are smart. They use tools, engage in social learning, plan for the future, and do a variety of other things that were once thought to be exclusively the stuff of primates. But hundreds of millions of years of evolution separate mammals and birds, and structurally, their brains look very distinct. Plus there's the whole size thing. If you look at a bird's head, it's clear that there's not a whole lot of space for mental hardware in it. So how do the birds manage with smaller brains?

While other studies have tackled a lot of the structural differences, a new one released this week in PNAS shows that, to some extent, size doesn't matter. Its authors show that birds pack neurons into their brains at densities well above densities in mammals' brains, putting some relatively compact bird brains into the same realm as those of primates when it comes to total cell counts.

And the funny thing is, we probably should have known this was the case.

Mark and Sam discussing the PlayStation VR launch games lineup at E3. (video link)

Sony has recruited the fledgling indie studio Impulse Gear to build a game for the company's new PS VR "Aim" controller. After spending some time with Farpoint, it's one of those rare, solid demos that made me seriously contemplate buying an unnecessary accessory. As someone who has grown weary of useless plastic tat cluttering up my living room, that’s no small praise.

You may recall the PS3's Sharp Shooter attachment, which was mostly a shell that players would stick a PlayStation Move wand into to resemble a gun, but this new VR Aim accessory is its own dedicated, wholly moulded piece of kit. As a result, the gun feels really sturdy—and has more comfortable button placement (plus, it now has two analogue sticks, as opposed to the Sharp Shooter's single joystick).

When it comes to cats and physics, most people don't get much further than Erwin Schrödinger and his gedankenexperiment involving a feline locked in a box. But research from Saho Takagi and her colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan suggests that cats don't just star in physics thought experiments, they may also have an innate understanding of (some of) the physics, too.

We're not suggesting that SpaceX or Blue Origin is looking to hire feline rocket scientists any time soon or that the cats know what to do with Schrödinger's wave function. But Takagi's study provides evidence that our furry little friends might have a better understanding of causal relationships than previously thought, and they may also have a "rudimentary understanding of gravity."

The study involved 30 Japanese cats—eight house pets and 22 residents of cat cafes. The researchers tested the cats using a plastic box containing some iron balls. Normally the balls were free to rattle around in the container, falling out when the box was inverted. But on the opposite side to the box's open end, they added an electromagnet. When turned on, the magnet stopped the balls from rattling or falling out.

New emoji are typically proposed by the Unicode Consortium and approved for the next version of the spec without much fuss, but a rifle emoji proposed for Unicode 9.0 apparently ran into opposition from two major members of the consortium: Apple and Microsoft.

According to a report from Buzzfeed, Apple objected to the idea of introducing a second gun emoji on its platforms, and Microsoft joined in. The decision to remove the rifle emoji, as well as a second "pentathlon" emoji depicting a man holding a pistol among other athletes, was apparently unanimous.

“Nobody in the room seemed to mind not encoding the rifle,” said a Unicode Consortium member present during the discussion.

When making up your mind, going with your gut can be a safe bet. And according to a new study, leaving your gut in charge all the time might not be a bad idea—it may actually help dodge neurodevelopmental disorders.

While microbial mind control might sound far-fetched, one common gut microbe can singlehandedly reverse autism-like social behaviors in mice, researchers report in the journal Cell. Though the study is not yet applicable to human health, it highlights the strength of connections that can build between the gut and the brain—known as the gut-brain axis.

If the findings do hold up in more animal studies and human trials, it could mean that treatments as simple and unfussy as probiotic foods could relieve some symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, the authors conclude.

There's nerding out, and then there's playing Star Trek: Bridge Crew. But oh man is four-player VR co-op fun. (video link)

When you've spent the best part of your day playing collectible card games with a man cosplaying as Geralt from The Witcher, it takes a special something to make you feel like maybe, just maybe, you're a bit too nerdy. That special something is Ubisoft's Star Trek: Bridge Crew, a four-player VR co-op game for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR that lets you live the dream of captaining a Federation starship through deep space. Even the most hardened of Star Trek haters are going to love this.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew puts you in one of four roles: Captain, Helm, Tactical, or Engineering. If you're playing on your own, AI fills in for the other roles, but ideally you want to find a group of well-heeled friends with enough disposable income to buy both a great gaming PC and a VR headset (at least until PS VR comes out). From there, invite everyone over to your place and have one big nerdy Star Trek: Bridge Crew LAN party. That, not so coincidentally, is the exact setup on show at E3 2016.

There are all kinds of problems associated with the console real-time strategy (RTS) game, as the original Halo Wars demonstrated with aplomb back in 2009. The limitations of a control pad compared to a mouse and keyboard make camera movement and unit selection difficult. RTS games are typically more reliant on the CPU than GPU, so processing power is limited. And because RTS games have never really had much success on console, there's far more hand-holding required to relay the basics to players. Despite its problems, though, Halo Wars was workable enough to be a somewhat fun entry into what is a fiendishly difficult genus to crack.

Now Halo Wars 2 will opt for an even more difficult task: a simultaneous release across Xbox One and PC. No longer can the design team overlook mouse and keyboard users in favour of the pad player. In theory, both sets must be catered for equally; in practice, as I sat down to play a beta version on an Xbox One, that's not the case yet.

For the most part, this is a game that—eight months before launch, at least—has the same wider feel as its predecessor. Simplicity is the priority. Radial menus are still used to expand your base, construct vehicles, and train troops, while the units themselves have a wide footprint in order to make them easier to select using the analogue stick. There's also the returning Halo visual style, of course—a mishmash of sci-fi military and alien tech. Base management here is considerably more limited than other games in the genre.