The Register's Jessica Lyons reports: Apple wants to shorten SSL/TLS security certificates' lifespans, down from 398 days now to just 45 days by 2027, and sysadmins have some very strong feelings about this "nightmarish" plan. As one of the hundreds that took to Reddit to lament the proposal said: "This will suck. My least favorite vendor manages something like 10 websites for us, and we have to provide the certs manually every time. Between live and test this is gonna suck."

The Apple proposal, a draft ballot measure that will likely go up for a vote among Certification Authority Browser Forum (CA/B Forum) members in the upcoming months, was unveiled by the iThings maker during the Forum's fall meeting. If approved, it will affect all Safari certificates, which follows a similar push by Google, that plans to reduce the max-validity period on Chrome for these digital trust files down to 90 days.

... [W]hile it's generally agreed that shorter lifespans improve internet security overall -- longer certificate terms mean criminals have more time to exploit vulnerabilities and old website certificates -- the burden of managing these expired certs will fall squarely on the shoulders of systems administrators. [...] Even certificate provider Sectigo, which sponsored the Apple proposal, admitted that the shortened lifespans "will no doubt prove a headache for busy IT security teams, juggling with lots of certificates expiring at different times." While automation is often touted as the solution to this problem, sysadmins were quick to point out that some SSL certs can't be automated. "This is somewhat nightmarish," said one sysadmin. "I have about 20 appliance like services that have no support for automation. Almost everything in my environment is automated to the extent that is practical. SSL renewal is the lone achilles heel that I have to deal with once every 365 days."

Google announced it will purchase power from Kairos Power's small modular reactors (SMRs) to support its clean energy goals and data center demands. The company did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. CNBC reports: There are only three SMRs that are operating in the world, and none in the U.S. The hope is that SMRs are a more cost-effective way to scale up nuclear power. In the past, large, commercial-scale nuclear reactor projects have run over budget and behind schedule, and many hope SMRs won't suffer that same fate. But it is uncharted territory to some extent. Kairos Power, which is backed by the Department of Energy, was founded in 2016. In July, the company began construction on its Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Rather than use water as the reactor coolant -- as is used in traditional nuclear reactors -- Kairos Power uses molten fluoride salt.

Google said the first reactor will be online by 2030, with more reactors going live through 2035. In total, 500 megawatts will be added to the grid. That's much smaller than commercial reactors -- Unit 4 at Plant Vogtle, which came online this year, is 1.1 gigawatts, for example -- but there's a lot of momentum behind SMRs. Advocates point to lower costs, faster completion times, as well as location flexibility as reasons. Monday's announcement is another example of the growing partnership between tech companies and nuclear power. Data centers need 24/7 reliable power, and right now nuclear is the only source of emissions-free baseload power. Many hyperscalers have ambitious emissions-reduction targets, which is why they're turning to nuclear power.

The oldest human on record, Jeanne Calment of France, lived to the age of 122. What are the odds that the rest of us get there, too? Not high, barring a transformative medical breakthrough, according to research published this week in the journal Nature Aging. From a report: The study looked at data on life expectancy at birth collected between 1990 and 2019 from some of the places where people typically live the longest: Australia, France, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Data from the United States was also included, though the country's life expectancy is lower.

The researchers found that while average life expectancies increased during that time in all of the locations, the rates at which they rose slowed down. The one exception was Hong Kong, where life expectancy did not decelerate. The data suggests that after decades of life expectancy marching upward thanks to medical and technological advancements, humans could be closing in on the limits of what's possible for average life span. "We're basically suggesting that as long as we live now is about as long as we're going to live," said S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois Chicago, who led the study. He predicted maximum life expectancy will end up around 87 years -- approximately 84 for men, and 90 for women -- an average age that several countries are already close to achieving.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Liliputing: The Fedora Asahi Remix GNU/Linux distribution is now shipping with alpha versions of OpenGL, OpenCL, and Vulkan graphics drivers that allow you to play some games on Macs with M1 or M2 series processors. But there are a few things to keep in mind. One is that most of the PC games you're likely going to want to play are designed to run on Windows PCs with DirectX drivers and x86 processors. So there's some emulation required to get them to run on Macs with ARM-based processors, a Linux-based operating system, and Vulkan drivers.

Some of the work was also made possible by the folks at Valve, who developed the Proton software that allows many PC games to run on Linux. And during a live demo at XDC 2024, developer Alyssa Rosenzweig demonstrated the Steam game client loading and running on an Apple Silicon Mac running Asahi Linux. For that reason, it takes a lot of RAM -- according to the Asahi team, "most games require 16GB of memory due to emulation overhead." So you're probably not going to be able to do much entry-level gaming on an entry-level Mac with just 8GB of RAM.

Some of the titles that have been confirmed to be playable include Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Control, Portal 2, and Ghostrunner. But there's a difference between playable and smooth. Developers say performance improvements will be required before "newer AAA titles" can run at 60 frames per second or higher. But less demanding games like Hollow Knight should run at full speed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Amazon might not have ChatGPT, but it has a roadmap that includes developing even more advanced forms of artificial intelligence -- including AI agents that are hell-bent on helping you buy stuff. The ecommerce company is already sprinkling ChatGPT-like AI over its website and apps -- today announcing, among other enhancements, AI-generated shopping guides for hundreds of different product categories. Executives at the company say its engineers are also exploring more ambitious AI services, including autonomous AI shopping agents that recommend goods to a customer or even add items to their cart.

"It's on our roadmap. We're working on it, prototyping it, and when we think it's good enough, we'll release it in whatever form makes sense," says Trishul Chilimbi, a VP and distinguished scientist at Amazon who works on applying the company's core AI to its products and services. Chilimbi says the first step toward AI agents will likely be chatbots that proactively recommend products based on what they know of your habits and interests, as well as a grasp of broader trends. He acknowledges that making this feel nonintrusive will be crucial. "If it's no good and annoying, then you'll tune it out," he says. "But if it comes up with surprising things that are interesting, you'll use it more." [...]

Like many tech companies, Amazon is looking beyond chat and turning its attention toward the potential of so-called agents, which use LLMs but attempt to carry out useful tasks on users' behalf either by writing code on-the-fly, inputing text, or moving a computer's cursor. Future AI agents might, for instance, navigate various websites to sort out a parking ticket, or they might operate a PC to file a tax return. Getting LLM-powered programs to do this reliably is elusive, however, because such tasks are vastly more complex than simple queries and require a new level of precision and reliability.

Amazon's agents are, of course, likely to be more focused on helping customers find and buy whatever they need or want. A Rufus agent might notice when the next book in a series someone is reading becomes available and then automatically recommend it, add it to your cart, or even buy it for you, says Rajiv Mehta, a vice president at Amazon who works on conversational AI shopping. "It could say, 'We have one bought for you. We can ship it today, and it will arrive tomorrow morning at your door. Would you like that?'" Mehta says. He adds that Amazon is thinking about how advertising can be incorporated into its model's recommendation. Chilimbi and Mehta say that eventually, an agent might go on a shopping spree when a customer says, "I'm going on a camping trip, buy me everything I need." An extreme, though not impossible, scenario would involve agents that decide for themselves when a customer needs something, and then buy and ship it to their door. "You could maybe give it a budget," Chilimbi says with a grin.

The greatest tennis players in the world will be left to rage against a machine after any tight line calls at Wimbledon next year as the All England Club will break with tradition by removing line judges from all courts during the championships for the first time in its 147-year history. From a report: From 2025 onwards live electronic line calling (ELC) will be used on all courts in both the main draw at the All England Club and the qualifying tournament off-site in Roehampton. The new technology was successfully tested during this year's championships. Wimbledon's chief executive, Sally Bolton, said: "The decision to introduce Live Electronic Line Calling at the championships was made following a significant period of consideration and consultation."

Bolton added: "Having reviewed the results of the testing this year, we consider the technology to be sufficiently robust and the time is right to take this important step in seeking maximum accuracy in our officiating. For the players, it will offer them the same conditions they have played under at a number of other events on tour."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Months ago, 13-year-old Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson became the first person to "beat" NES Tetris, crashing the game after a 1,511-line, 157-level performance. Over the weekend, 16-year-old Michael "dogplayingtetris" Artiaga became the first to reach an even more impressive plateau in the game, looping past Level 255 and instantly rolling the game all the way back to the ultra-slow Level 0. It took Artiaga a bit over 80 minutes and a full 3,300 cleared lines to finally achieve the game's first near-mythical "rebirth" live in front of hundreds of Twitch viewers. And after a bit of celebration and recovery on the low levels, Artiaga managed to keep his rolled-over game going for another 40 minutes, finally topping out after a total of 4,216 lines and a record 29.4 million points.

Artiaga's record does come with a small asterisk since he used a version of the game that was modified to avoid the crashes that stopped Blue Scuti's historic run. Still, NES Tetris' first-ever level rollover is a monumental achievement and a testament to just how far competitive classic Tetris has come in a short time.

New submitter ae4ax writes: North American buyers of JuiceBox EVSEs (chargers) received an email today declaring the imminent closure of Enel X Way USA, LLC, the maintainers of the software infrastructure behind their EVSEs. Customer support has already shut down, and apps will be deactivated and removed by October 11, 2024. The company claims economic headwinds from lackluster EV sales and high interest rates as the motivation for the closure. Enel X Way properties outside North America are not affected, they say. "An experienced third-party firm will be appointed to manage the company's affairs and ensure that the closure is handled with the utmost care and professionalism," the company said in a statement. "The appointed firm will be responsible for managing the remaining obligations and communicating directly with customers and partners regarding the closure."

Customers will still be able to charge vehicles but all their connectivity features -- the Enel X Way app and all other Enel e-mobility apps in North America -- will stop working. Commercial charging stations will also lose functionality. "So If you own a JuiceBox, you just got nine days' warning that your home charger can no longer be configured," reports Electrek.

Electrek's Michael Bower, who uses a JuiceBox to charge his Chevy Bolt, said: "I'm disappointed that Enel X Way is removing their apps -- and thus the ability to change the amperage -- for their EVSEs. I live in a condo with a 100A panel, so the ability to lower the amperage from 40 to 32 or 16 was beneficial when charging my EV while drawing power for laundry or the central A/C in the summer. It just shows how 'smart' EVSEs are too reliant on their respective apps."

Amazon Prime is launching a new Shark Tank-style competition show where contestants pitch products to a panel of celebrity investors and a live audience called "The 100." If a product wins audience approval, it gets featured in Amazon's Buy It Now Store, accessible via QR codes during episodes. The show, called Buy It Now and hosted by JB Smoove, premieres on October 30, 2024. You can watch a trailer for it on YouTube. The Verge reports: The company announced the show earlier this year but has now released a trailer showing what it will look like. Contestants pitch their ideas to the audience. If the crowd votes for them, then the panelists pick which ones will show up on Amazon's Buy It Now Store: a new storefront launching alongside the show that viewers can reach using a QR code that shows up during episodes. One presenter per episode will get a $20,000 prize, too.

Apart from Smoove -- who you may remember from Curb Your Enthusiasm and Harley -- the show will feature "a star-studded rotating panel of celebrity panelists," including Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Anderson, Tabitha Brown, Tony Hawk, and Christian Siriano. It will also include three Amazon executives, and Ring founder and current CEO of Door.com (formerly Latch) Jamie Siminoff will serve as the "resident judge and entrepreneurial panelist." Oh, and those panelists will be selling their own products on that Buy It Now Store.

The world's oldest and largest cancer research association "found excessive levels of alcohol consumption increase the risk for six different types of cancer," reports CBS News: "Some of this is happening through chronic inflammation. We also know that alcohol changes the microbiome, so those are the bacteria that live in your gut, and that can also increase the risk," Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, recently said on "CBS Mornings."

But how much is too much when it comes to drinking? We asked experts what to know. "Excessive levels of alcohol" equates to about three or more drinks per day for women and four or more drinks per day for men, Gounder said... Other studies have shown, however, there is no "safe amount" of alcohol, Gounder said, particularly if you have underlying medical conditions. "If you don't drink, don't start drinking. If you do drink, really try to keep it within moderation," she said.

Dr. Amy Commander, medical director of the Mass General Cancer Center specializing in breast cancer, told CBS News alcohol is the third leading modifiable risk factor that can increase cancer risk after accounting for cigarette smoking and excess body weight. [Other factors include physical inactivity — and diet]. "There really isn't a safe amount of alcohol for consumption," she said. "In fact, it's best to not drink alcohol at all, but that is obviously hard for many people. So I think it's really important for individuals to just be mindful of their alcohol consumption and certainly drink less."
The article also includes an interesting statistic from the association's latest Cancer Progress Report: from 1991 to 2021 there's been a 33% reduction in overall cancer deaths in the U.S. That's 4.1 million lives saved — roughly 136,667 lives saved each year.

"So that is hopeful," Commander said, adding that when it comes to preventing cancer, alcohol is just "one piece of the puzzle."

"Dozens of Fortune 100 organizations" have unknowingly hired North Korean IT workers using fake identities, generating revenue for the North Korean government while potentially compromising tech firms, according to Google's Mandiant unit. "In a report published Monday [...], researchers describe a common scheme orchestrated by the group it tracks as UNC5267, which has been active since 2018," reports The Record. "In most cases, the IT workers 'consist of individuals sent by the North Korean government to live primarily in China and Russia, with smaller numbers in Africa and Southeast Asia.'" From the report: The remote workers "often gain elevated access to modify code and administer network systems," Mandiant found, warning of the downstream effects of allowing malicious actors into a company's inner sanctum. [...] Using stolen identities or fictitious ones, the actors are generally hired as remote contractors. Mandiant has seen the workers hired in a variety of complex roles across several sectors. Some workers are employed at multiple companies, bringing in several salaries each month. The tactic is facilitated by someone based in the U.S. who runs a laptop farm where workers' laptops are sent. Remote technology is installed on the laptops, allowing the North Koreans to log in and conduct their work from China or Russia.

Workers typically asked for their work laptops to be sent to different addresses than those listed on their resumes, raising the suspicions of companies. Mandiant said it found evidence that the laptops at these farms are connected to a "keyboard video mouse" device or multiple remote management tools including LogMeIn, GoToMeeting, Chrome Remote Desktop, AnyDesk, TeamViewer and others. "Feedback from team members and managers who spoke with Mandiant during investigations consistently highlighted behavior patterns, such as reluctance to engage in video communication and below-average work quality exhibited by the DPRK IT worker remotely operating the laptops," Mandiant reported.

In several incident response engagements, Mandiant found the workers used the same resumes that had links to fabricated software engineer profiles hosted on Netlify, a platform often used for quickly creating and deploying websites. Many of the resumes and profiles included poor English and other clues indicating the actor was not based in the U.S. One characteristic repeatedly seen was the use of U.S-based addresses accompanied by education credentials from universities outside of North America, frequently in countries such as Singapore, Japan or Hong Kong. Companies, according to Mandiant, typically don't verify credentials from universities overseas. Further reading: How Not To Hire a North Korean IT Spy

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced updates to the company's Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses at Meta Connect 2024 on Wednesday. [...] Meta says its smart glasses will soon have real-time AI video capabilities, meaning you can ask the Ray Ban Meta glasses questions about what you're seeing in front of you, and Meta AI will verbally answer you in real time. Currently, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses can only take a picture and describe that to you or answer questions about it, but the video upgrade should make the experience more natural, in theory at least. These multimodal features are slated to come later this year. In a demo, users could ask Ray-Ban Meta questions about a meal they were cooking, or city scenes taking place in front of them. The real-time video capabilities mean that Meta's AI should be able to process live action and respond in an audible way. This is easier said than done, however, and we'll have to see how fast and seamless the feature is in practice. We've seen demonstrations of these real-time AI video capabilities from Google and OpenAI, but Meta would be the first to launch such features in a consumer product.

Zuckerberg also announced live language translation for Ray-Ban Meta. English speaking users can talk to someone speaking French, Italian, or Spanish, and their Ray-Ban Meta glasses should be able to translate what the other person is saying into their language of choice. Meta says this feature is coming later this year and will include more language later on. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are getting reminders, which will allow people to ask Meta AI to remind them about things they look at through the smart glasses. In a demo, a user asked their Ray-Ban Meta glasses to remember a jacket they were looking at, so they could share the image with a friend later on. Meta announced that integrations with Amazon Music, Audible, and iHeart are coming to its smart glasses. This should make it easier for people to listen to music on their streaming service of choice using the glasses' built-in speakers. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses will also gain the ability to scan QR codes or phone numbers from the glasses. Users can ask the glasses to scan something, and the QR code will immediately open on the person's phone with no further action required. Zuckerberg also unveiled the company's prototype AR glasses codenamed Orion, which feature a 70-degree field of view, Micro LED projectors, and silicon carbide lenses that beam graphics directly into the wearer's eyes.

Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away, as administrators using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) will soon find out. From a report: Windows Server 2025 remains in preview, but Microsoft has been busy letting users know what is set for removal and what will be deprecated in the release. WSUS fits into the latter category -- still there for now, but no longer under active development. This is a big deal for many administrators who rely on the feature to deploy and manage the distribution of updates and features in an enterprise environment.

It'll even work on a network disconnected from the internet -- download the patches to a connected computer, stick them on some removable media, import the patches to a WSUS server on the disconnected network, and away you go. A tame administrator told El Reg: "We are migrating to Intune. It's a lot more complicated than WSUS, and it takes a lot longer to get set up."

"Such is progress!" he sighed. Microsoft's advice is, unsurprisingly, to migrate to cloud tools. As well as the aforementioned Intune, there is also Windows Autopatch for client update management or Azure Update Manager for server update management. And there are plenty of third-party tools out there too, such as Ansible. Microsoft's announcement has attracted comment. One user said: "Congratulations, you just made centralized automated patching subject to internal politics and budget constraints. "I survived the era of Melissa, SQL Slammer, and other things that were solved when we no longer had to choose between paid patch management or trusting admins of every server to do the right thing. For those of you that did not live through that, buckle up!"

Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, must serve 24 months in prison and forfeit $11 billion. "I've seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years. I've never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison," said Judge Lewis Kaplan during the sentencing hearing today. The Verge reports: Ellison pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and five conspiracy counts in December 2022 as part of a cooperation agreement with the government. Prosecutors had recommended a lenient sentence because of Ellison's "extraordinary" and "very timely" cooperation. Her own lawyers asked for no jail time, as did the federal Probation Department.

Ellison was the key witness at the trial of FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried, where she testified for three days. A statement submitted by the prosecution before Ellison's sentencing said the speed at which she came clean made it possible to indict her ex-boyfriend Bankman-Fried quickly, "ensuring that he did not flee the Bahamas or further obstruct the government's investigation." The document also noted that Ellison was completely and immediately forthcoming in her meetings with the government.

Ellison was also prompt in assisting John J. Ray, the new CEO charged with cleaning up the FTX mess, in locating and recovering customer assets, according to a statement written by Ray submitted by the defense. Her "early cooperation" was "valuable" in recovering debtors' assets, he wrote. Ellison is working on a deal where she will turn over "substantially all of her remaining assets after satisfying her forfeiture obligations" to the FTX debtors.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Pacific country of Kiribati might be surrounded by water, but on land its population is running dry. The ocean around them is steadily encroaching, contaminating underground wells and leeching salt into the soil. "Our waters have been infected," climate activist and law student Christine Tekanene says. "Those who are affected, they now can't survive with the water that changed after sea level rise." The freshwater crisis is just one of the many threats driven by rising seas in Kiribati. Its people live on a series of atolls, peaking barely a couple of metres above a sprawling tract of the Pacific Ocean. As global temperatures rise and ice sheets melt, Kiribati -- and other low-lying nations like it -- are experiencing extreme and regular flooding, frequent coastal erosion and persistent food and water insecurity.

This week the United Nations general assembly will hold a high-level meeting to address the existential threats posed by sea level rise as the issue climbs the international agenda; last year the UN security council debated it for the first time. Wednesday's meeting aims to build political consensus on action to address the widespread social, economic and legal consequences of rising seas. Samoa's UN representative, Fatumanava Dr Pa'olelei Luteru, says the upcoming UN meeting is long overdue and "extremely important" for island nations. "Economically, militarily, we're not powerful," says Luteru, who also serves as the current chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). "At least within the context of the UN and the multilateral system we have the possibility and the opportunity to engage and achieve some of the things that are a priority for us."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Paper or paper? In California, shoppers will have only one bag option at the checkout line starting in 2026. A decade ago, California became the first U.S. state to ban single-use plastic bags, the flimsy sacks that regularly blew into waterways, littered streets and collected in landfills. The prohibition, in the nation's most populous state, was considered a turning point in the effort to reduce plastic waste. But the move backfired in a way that few supporters expected. Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014, according to data from CalRecycle, California's recycling agency. A loophole in the initial ban allowed retailers to provide thick-walled plastic bags and charge 10 cents a piece for them. Though technically reusable and recyclable, the heavier-duty sacks still ended up in many trash cans after a shopping trip.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday banning the sale at grocery checkouts of all plastic bags (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), regardless of thickness. The only option for customers who lack their own reusable shopping bags will be buying paper bags for 10 cents each. "We deserve a cleaner future for our communities, our children and our earth," said Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Democratic assemblywoman and co-author of the bill, in a statement. "It's time for us to get rid of these plastic bags and continue to move forward with a more pollution-free environment." Plastic bags are typically used for 12 minutes before being discarded, according to the California Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy group. But those bags live in oceans and landfills for hundreds of years, and can contaminate drinking water and food in the form of microplastics. SB 1053 will go into effect on January 1st, 2026. It also changes the definition of a "recycled paper bag," requiring all bags with that label to be made of at least 50% post-consumer recycled materials starting January 1st, 2028.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: On Thursday, Amazon Ads announced Video Generator and Live Image, "our first generative AI-powered technology designed to remove creative barriers and enable brands to produce lifestyle imagery that enhances ad performance."

Amazon's blog post calls it "a new feature that uses generative AI technology to make it easier for advertisers to create more interesting and relevant video ads for customers. The new feature, Video generator, creates visually rich video content in a matter of minutes and at no additional cost. Using a single product image, Video generator curates custom AI-generated videos tailored to a product's distinct selling proposition and features, leveraging Amazon's unique insights to vividly bring a product story to life."

An accompanying video demonstrates how Amazon's AI-powered tech can be used to animate still images, making it appear that steam is rising from a coffee mug, flowers are being blown in the wind, the night sky is changing breathtakingly behind a telescope, and that waves are breaking behind a smart speaker at the beach.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After 20 years, it's now possible for solo players to finish storylines in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft that previously required a group to do an intensive raid. That's thanks to "Story Mode," a new raid difficulty that was added for the final wing of the first raid of the recently released The War Within expansion. Over the years, developer Blizzard has expanded the difficulty options for raids to meet various players and communities where they are in terms of play styles. The top difficulty is Mythic, where the semi-pro hardcore guilds compete. Below that is Heroic, where serious, capital-G gamers coordinate with friends in weekly raid schedules to progress. Then there's Normal, which still requires some coordination but isn't nearly as challenging and can typically be completed within a few tries by a pick-up group. The most accessible difficulty is Raid Finder, where you're matched with random players automatically to complete a vastly easier version of a raid. Now Story Mode has been added to the mix, and it's even easier than Raid Finder.

In Story Mode, you fight only the raid's final boss, which has been scaled back in stats and complexity so that it's beatable for a single player or a very small group of friends. Challenging encounter mechanics have been removed, and the whole fight has been retooled to focus exclusively on the narrative aspects. There are some rewards, but they're not the same as those on more difficult raids; the goal was to avoid cheapening the experience for those who do want to go all the way. So far, Story Mode is available exclusively for the newest raid, which is called Nerub-ar Palace. It hasn't been made available for other encounters yet, but Blizzard has hinted that this could be the long-term goal.

Young corals bred using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and planted in reefs around the US, Mexico and the Caribbean have surprised scientists, after most survived last year's record marine heatwave, while older corals struggled. From a report: A study has found that 90% of the young IVF-created corals surveyed remained healthy and colourful, holding on to the algae that live within them and supply them with nutrition. In contrast, only about a quarter of older non-IVF corals remained healthy. The rest, including large colonies that may have lived for centuries, were either bleached by the heat -- expelling the algae from their tissues and turning white -- or paled, expelling some of the algae. Some died in the heatwave before the survey was conducted.

Dr Margaret Miller, lead author and research director at Secore International, a reef conservation organisation, said: "[The heatwave] was a horrible time. But I was impressed and surprised that the data came out with such an extreme pattern." The young corals were bred over the past five years using a version of IVF developed by Secore. Divers collected coral spawn, which was used to fertilise eggs in the laboratory. The resultant baby corals were then planted on reefs across the Caribbean to form colonies.

Most coral restoration efforts have historically focused on fragmentation techniques -- where corals are broken into smaller pieces and transplanted to a new location. Rather than producing exact clones, as fragmentation does, breeding corals by IVF increased the genetic diversity, giving them a higher chance of adapting to heat over time. "Natural selection back in the reef environment will choose the best ones," said Miller. The 771 young corals in the study -- a fraction of the thousands bred each year by Secore and partner institutions -- live in restored reefs off Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the US Virgin Islands, and the Dutch Caribbean territories of Bonaire and Curacao.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The State Department announced Wednesday that its online renewal system is now fully operational, after testing in pilot programs, and available to adult passport holders whose passport has expired within the past five years or will expire in the coming year. It is not available for the renewal of children's passports, for first-time passport applicants for renewal applicants who live outside the United States or for expedited applications. "By offering this online alternative to the traditional paper application process, the Department is embracing digital transformation to offer the most efficient and convenient passport renewal experience possible," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. The department said it estimated that about 5 million Americans would be able to use this service a year. In 2023, it processed 24 million passports, about 40% of which were renewals.

Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter, whose bureau oversees passport processing said the department hoped to expand the program in the coming years to possibly include Americans living abroad, those seeking to renew a second passport and children's passports. "This is not going to be the last thing that we do," she told reporters. "We want to see how this goes and then we'll start looking at ways to continue to make this service available to more American citizens in the coming months and years." You can renew your passport at www.Travel.State.Gov/renewonline.