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An anonymous reader shares a report: This week has seen the shortest days of the year so far. According to data from the U.S. Naval Observatory and the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, Tuesday's rotation was about 1.34 milliseconds less than 24 hours. More quick spins are expected this week, later this month and in early August, according to predictions from the website Time and Date. This isn't completely out of the ordinary: Our world's spins have been faster than usual lately. The average day has mostly shortened over the past decade, and within the past five years or so, the full rotation has clocked in at a hair less than 24 hours more often than not. Factors driving the change include movements at Earth's core, atmospheric changes and the moon's position. But long-term trends do not suggest that the days will shorten in perpetuity. In fact, it is just the opposite. For many millenniums, the days have been growing longer. A Tyrannosaurus rex that lived 70 million years ago would have experienced an average daily rotation of about 23 1/2 hours, studies have found.

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Denmark's Parliament adopted a law in May raising the retirement age to 70 by 2040, up from the current 67, affecting anyone born after December 31, 1970. The country indexed its official retirement age to life expectancy in 2006 and revises it every five years, with the age set to increase to 68 in 2030 and 69 in 2035. Few Danes actually work until the legal retirement age -- in 2022, when the official age was 67, the actual average retirement age was around 64, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. About 20% of Danish retirees leave work because they cannot find employment or are too sick to continue. The universal public pension currently provides 7,198 kroner ($1,130) per month, supplemented by mandatory and optional employer-funded pensions.

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Four years of research following the 2021 western North American heat wave has revealed both the meteorological conditions that fuel extreme temperatures and evidence that heat has physical limits. The 2021 event "shocked everyone, including specialists working on the subject. People were completely stunned," said Robin Noyelle, a postdoctoral researcher in climate science at ETH Zurich. Scientists now focus on temperature departures from local averages rather than absolute readings. The most anomalously warm temperature was recorded in Antarctica, where temperatures rose 39C above average in March 2022. North Pole temperatures surged 20C higher than normal in February, reaching the melting point in winter. Research has identified five key factors that enable extreme heat: cloudless skies, high pressure, dark surfaces, lower altitudes, and lack of water. "Basically all of these conditions are met in Death Valley, but not in many other places in the world," said climate scientist Friederike Otto. Scientists insist that there are heat limits, though these upper bounds will rise with global warming, they caution.

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Warner Bros. releases a $225 million Superman reboot this week that executives consider the studio's final chance to build a successful cinematic universe rivaling Marvel's dominance. The film, written and directed by James Gunn, serves as the foundation for DC Studios' planned expansion into multiple films and television shows. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav appointed Gunn and producer Peter Safran to lead the newly unified DC Studios in 2022, ending decades of corporate infighting that prevented the company's superheroes from matching Marvel's success. The Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe has generated $32 billion across 36 films since 2008. Warner executives want the movie to gross over $500 million globally, according to WSJ. If successful, this would mark the first year since 2008 that DC outperforms Marvel at the box office.

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New submitter RJFerret shares a Belkin support page: After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to end technical support for older Wemo products, effective January 31, 2026. After this date, several Wemo products will no longer be controllable through the Wemo app. Any features that rely on cloud connectivity, including remote access and voice assistant integrations, will no longer work.' List of devices found in the link (four Thread based unaffected).

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A Russian professional basketball player has been arrested in France at the request of the United States, which reportedly accused him of being involved in a ransomware group that allegedly targeted hundreds of American companies and federal institutions. From a report: Daniil Kasatkin, 26, was detained in June at Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport shortly after arriving in the country with his fiancee, according to local media reports. He is currently being held in extradition custody, with a U.S. warrant reportedly issued against him. Kasatkin previously studied and played basketball in the U.S., at Penn State University. The unnamed ransomware network Kasatkin is suspected of being part of is believed to have targeted nearly 900 entities between 2020 and 2022. Local media, citing court proceedings in Paris, reported that Kasatkin allegedly helped negotiate ransom payments, though the extent of the damage caused by the attacks has not been disclosed.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon did not pull his punches when he spoke at Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs. "You're losing," he said of European competitiveness with the U.S. and Asia, in comments reported by the Financial Times. "Europe has gone from 90% U.S. GDP to 65% over 10 or 15 years. That's not good." "We've got this huge, strong market and our companies are big and successful, have huge kinds of scale that are global. You have that, but less and less," Dimon said on Thursday.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: HMD Global, the company best known for licensing the Nokia brand for new phones and tablets over the last decade, has announced that it will "scale back" its US operations, and appears to have stopped selling both HMD and Nokia devices entirely. [...] Based in Finland, HMD was formed in 2016 in order to purchase the Nokia feature phone business from Microsoft, which had in turn bought the ailing brand in 2014. It also secured a license to use the Nokia name on smartphones and tablets, with a focus on affordable and midrange hardware.

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The University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering is overhauling its approach to computer science education as AI reshapes the tech industry. Director Magdalena Balazinska has declared that "coding, or the translation of a precise design into software instructions, is dead" because AI can now handle that work. The Pacific Northwest's premier tech program now allows students to use GPT tools in assignments, requiring them to cite AI as a collaborator just as they would credit input from a fellow student. The school is considering "coordinated changes to our curriculum" after encouraging professors to experiment with AI integration.

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Fertility rates have fallen to historically low levels [PDF] in virtually all high-income countries due to a fundamental reordering of adult priorities rather than economic factors, according to a new National Bureau of Economic Research study. Economists Melissa Schettini Kearney and Phillip B. Levine analyzed cohort data and found rising childlessness at all observed ages alongside falling completed fertility rates. Total fertility rates have dropped below replacement level in nearly all OECD countries, with many sustaining rates below 1.5. Some East Asian countries including South Korea, Singapore, and China now have fertility rates at or below one child per woman. The researchers concluded that period-based explanations focused on short-term income or price changes cannot explain the widespread decline. Instead, evidence points to "shifting priorities" involving changing norms, evolving economic opportunities, and broader social and cultural forces that have diminished parenthood's role in adult lives.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Dexerto: It's been ten years since YouTube first introduced its trending page in 2015, and the platform is finally sunsetting the program in favor of a new system. [...] As announced by YouTube in a support thread on July 10, 2025, the site is now set on introducing Charts, a new system for ranking popular content on its platform. "Back when we first launched the Trending page in 2015, the answer to 'What's trending?' was a lot simpler to capture with a singular list of viral videos that everyone was talking about," the post reads. "But today, trends consist of many videos created by many fandoms, and there are more micro-trends enjoyed by diverse communities than ever before." As a result, YouTube says that its Trending page has seen "significantly" less traffic in the last five years, prompting them to make a change. Now, YouTube Charts will break up trends from one, all-encompassing page into separate, category-specific lists. The current Trending page will be moved to a Trending Now section, where the site's most popular content overall will be shown. However, viewers can now look for specific trends in certain categories on YouTube Charts for things like music videos, top podcasts, movie trailers and more. In the meantime, YouTube says that its Gaming Explore page will be home to trending gaming videos, and it will continue to serve personalized content to users via recommendations on their home feeds.

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A new study found that psilocybin treatment significantly delayed cellular aging, extending human cell lifespan by over 50% and increasing survival in aged mice by 30%. The compound appeared to achieve these effects by reducing oxidative stress, preserving telomeres, and improving DNA repair. Neuroscience News reports: A newly published study in Nature Partner Journals' Aging demonstrates that psilocin, a byproduct of consuming psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, extended the cellular lifespan of human skin and lung cells by more than 50%. In parallel, researchers also conducted the first long-term in vivo study evaluating the systemic effects of psilocybin in aged mice of 19 months, or the equivalent of 60-65 human years. Results indicated that the mice that received an initial low dose of psilocybin of 5 mg, followed by a monthly high dose of 15 mg for 10 months, had a 30% increase in survival compared to mice that did not receive any. These mice also displayed healthier physical features, such as improved fur quality, fewer white hairs and hair regrowth. While traditionally researched for its mental health benefits, this study suggests that psilocybin impacts multiple hallmarks of aging by reducing oxidative stress, improving DNA repair responses, and preserving telomere length. Telomeres are the structured ends of a chromosome, protecting it from damage that could lead to the formation of age-related diseases, such as cancer, neurodegeneration, or cardiovascular disease. These foundational processes influence human aging and the onset of these chronic diseases. The study concludes that psilocybin may have the potential to revolutionize anti-aging therapies and could be an impactful intervention in an aging population.

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Senator Dick Durbin questioned a Texas-led effort to move Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston, describing it as an expensive "heist" costing an estimated $305 million, not the $85 million initially budgeted. "This is not a transfer. It's a heist," said Durbin during a budget markup hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. "A heist by Texas because they lost a competition 12 years ago." In April, Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz introduced legislation to move the Space Shuttle Discovery from Virginia to Houston, which ultimately passed into law on July 4 as part of the "One Big Beautiful Bill." Ars Technica reports: "In the reconciliation bill, Texas entered $85 million to move the space shuttle from the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia, to Texas. Eighty-five million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it is not nearly what's necessary for this to be accomplished," Durbin said. Citing research by NASA and the Smithsonian, Durbin said that the total was closer to $305 million and that did not include the estimated $178 million needed to build a facility to house and display Discovery once in Houston. Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian's collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred "all rights, interest, title, and ownership" for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian. "This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don't have the right in Texas to claim this," said Durbin. [...] To be able to bring up his points at Thursday's hearing, Durbin introduced the "Houston, We Have a Problem" amendment to "prohibit the use of funds to transfer a decommissioned space shuttle from one location to another location." He then withdrew the amendment after having voiced his objections. "I think we're dealing with something called waste. Eighty-five million dollars worth of waste. I know that this is a controversial issue, and I know that there are other agencies, Smithsonian, NASA, and others that are interested in this issue; I'm going to withdraw this amendment, but I'm going to ask my colleagues be honest about it," said Durbin. "I hope that we think about this long and hard." "I am glad to see this pass as part of the Senate's One Big Beautiful Bill and look forward to welcoming Discovery to Houston and righting this egregious wrong," Cornyn said in a statement. "Houston has long been the cornerstone of our nation's human space exploration program, and it's long overdue for Space City to receive the recognition it deserves by bringing Space Shuttle Discovery home."

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