An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A new proposed class-action lawsuit (as noticed by Bloomberg Law) accuses user-generated "metaverse" company Roblox of profiting from and helping to power third-party websites that use the platform's Robux currency for unregulated gambling activities. In doing so, the lawsuit says Roblox is effectively "work[ing] with and facilitat[ing] the Gambling Website Defendants... to offer illegal gambling opportunities to minor users." The three gambling website companies named in the lawsuit -- Satozuki, Studs Entertainment, and RBLXWild Entertainment -- allow users to connect a Roblox account and convert an existing balance of Robux virtual currency into credits on the gambling site. Those credits act like virtual casino chips that can be used for simple wagers on those sites, ranging from Blackjack to "coin flip" games.

If a player wins, they can transfer their winnings back to the Roblox platform in the form of Robux. The gambling sites use fake purchases of worthless "dummy items" to facilitate these Robux transfers, according to the lawsuit, and Roblox takes a 30 percent transaction fee both when players "cash in" and "cash out" from the gambling sites. If the player loses, the transferred Robux are retained by the gambling website through a "stock" account on the Roblox platform. In either case, the Robux can be converted back to actual money through the Developer Exchange Program. For individuals, this requires a player to be at least 13 years old, to file tax paperwork (in the US), and to have a balance of at least 30,000 Robux (currently worth $105, or $0.0035 per Robux).

The gambling websites also use the Developer Exchange Program to convert their Robux balances to real money, according to the lawsuit. And the real money involved isn't chump change, either; the lawsuit cites a claim from RBXFlip's owners that 7 billion Robux (worth over $70 million) was wagered on the site in 2021 and that the site's revenues increased 10 times in 2022. The sites are also frequently promoted by Roblox-focused social media influencers to drum up business, according to the lawsuit. Roblox's terms of service explicitly bar "experiences that include simulated gambling, including playing with virtual chips, simulated betting, or exchanging real money, Robux, or in-experience items of value." But the gambling sites get around this prohibition by hosting their games away from Roblox's platform of user-created "experiences" while still using Robux transfers to take advantage of players' virtual currency balances from the platform. In a statement, Roblox said that "these are third-party sites and have no legal affiliation to Roblox whatsoever. Bad actors make illegal use of Roblox's intellectual property and branding to operate such sites in violation of our standards."

"In the early hours of October 30, 1961, a bomber took off from an airstrip in northern Russia and began its flight through cloudy skies over the frigid Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya," writes the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Slashdot reader DanDrollette (who is also the deputy editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) shares their report on "The secret history of the world's largest nuclear detonation, coming to light after 60 years." Slung below the plane's belly was a nuclear bomb the size of a small school bus — the largest and most powerful bomb ever created.

At 11:32 a.m., the bombardier released the weapon. As the bomb fell, an enormous parachute unfurled to slow its descent, giving the pilot time to retreat to a safe distance. A minute or so later, the bomb detonated. A cameraman watching from the island recalled:

A fire-red ball of enormous size rose and grew. It grew larger and larger, and when it reached enormous size, it went up. Behind it, like a funnel, the whole earth seemed to be drawn in. The sight was fantastic, unreal, and the fireball looked like some other planet. It was an unearthly spectacle...!

Within ten minutes, it had reached a height of 42 miles and a diameter of some 60 miles. One civilian witness remarked that it was "as if the Earth was killed." Decades later, the weapon would be given the name it is most commonly known by today: Tsar Bomba, meaning "emperor bomb...." at 50 megatons, it was more than 3,300 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed at least 70,000 people in Hiroshima, and more than 40 times as powerful as the largest nuclear bomb in the US arsenal today. Its single test represents about one tenth of the total yield of all nuclear weapons ever tested by all nations...

Within two years, though, the Soviet Union and the United States would sign and ratify the Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, and the 50-megaton bomb would fall into relative obscurity.
Drollette notes that "The United States dismissed the gigantic Tsar Bomba as a stunt, but behind the scenes it was working to build a 'superbomb' of its own."

The article argues there a lesson for our times in the 1961 episode, calling it "a potent example of how nationalism, fear, and high-technology can combine in a fashion that is ultimately dangerous, wasteful, and pointless."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PsyPost: New research based on four decades of longitudinal data indicates that it is rare for a person to receive and keep a single mental disorder diagnosis. Rather, experiencing different successive mental disorders appears to be the norm. The findings, published in JAMA Open, suggest that psychiatrists and other mental health professionals should move toward adopting a life-course perspective on mental disorders.

The researchers examined data from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study in New Zealand, which used repeated standardized psychiatric assessments to track 17 mental health conditions from age 11 to age 45. The study included more than one thousand participants and the mental health conditions were diagnosed according to DSM criteria. "These disorders included externalizing disorders (for example, ADHD, conduct disorder, substance dependence), internalizing disorders (for example, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD), and thought disorders (for example, mania, schizophrenia, OCD). This is the most detailed time series of mental-disorder life-histories ever assembled," explained Avshalom Caspi, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.

The study also included neurocognitive examinations during childhood and adolescence, along with a neuroimaging-based assessment of brain aging at age 45. About one-third of the participants experienced the initial onset of a disorder by age 15 years and 86% met the criteria for at least one disorder by age 45 years. The researchers found an "ebb and flow" of mental disorders over time. Participants with a disorder from any one of the three diagnostic families were at higher risk for disorders from other diagnostic families in the future. Participants characterized by one consistent mental disorder were not the norm. "The primary finding is that over decades, individuals experience many changing disorder types, shifting between internalizing, externalizing, and/or thought disorder families. People seldom 'get' one disorder and keep it. Every disorder predicted significantly increased risk for every other disorder," Caspi told PsyPost.