Science

To me, and I’m sure many others, the Pokémon franchise as a whole has always been “cozy.” Set in a (mostly) idyllic world with cute best friends who are always by your side, how could it not give you warm fuzzy feelings at least occasionally? We’ve had some relaxing Pokémon games over the years, but we’ve never quite had a game that embraced this secondary cozy aesthetic fully into its gameplay–until now, with Pokémon Pokopia. I played the first hour of Pokémon’s first life-sim, and the sheer amount of discovery to be made hooked me. I also played Pokémon Pokopia in multiplayer mode in a more developed world, plus, I learned more straight from the developers. Pokémon Pokopia begins with a Ditto waking up after a long, undefined slumber. It remembers its trainer in its hometown, with the na...

SMOKE + FOG = SMOG!Hello parents, teachers and students! If you’re looking for a fun way to explore how pollution and weather interact, check out this neat activity.Be sure to watch GMSA@9 on Wednesdays, when KSAT Meteorologist Sarah Spivey demonstrates and explains the science behind it.HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEEDMaterials needed (Copyright 2026 by KSAT - All rights reserved.)Glass mason jarAluminum foilHot waterIceSaltMatchesPiece of paperDO THE ACTIVITYSTEP 1: Put a little hot water in a 16 oz mason jar STEP 2: Put some ice sprinkled with salt on top of a piece of aluminum foil that is big enough to cover the top of the mason jarMake a pile of ice with salt on top of the aluminum foil (Copyright 2026 by KSAT - All rights reserved.)STEP 3: Using parental guidance, light the match and light t...

A revitalised Overwatch (formerly Overwatch 2) is bringing players back, propelling the game to most-watched status on streaming service Twitch, and to being one of the most played games on Steam - comfortably above copycat hero-shooter Marvel Rivals. There was even a queue to log in to Overwatch when I played yesterday evening, which is something I've never seen before. Currently there are nearly 100,000 people watching Overwatch streams on Twitch, making it the most viewed game by some way, with nearly 30,000 more viewers than second-place game League of Legends. Meanwhile on Steam, Overwatch peaked at 165,000 players, putting it briefly in the top 10. It's currently 13th, nearly 10 places ahead of genre rival Marvel Rivals, which has trumped Overwatch on Steam for a long time. Note, how...

Women have made gradual inroads into scientific careers. In Spain, they represent 39.6% of research personnel. However, their increased presence does not translate into equal conditions, and the differences that still persist also extend to scientific communication. This is demonstrated by a large-scale study recently published in the journal PLOS Biology. The authors analyzed 36.5 million academic articles and concluded that biomedical and life science research led by women spends more time in the peer-review process than that led by their male colleagues.The study used a sample of texts indexed in PubMed, the biomedical literature database, and compared the time elapsed between manuscript submission and final acceptance. The results show that studies with women as first authors or corres...

If you've been waiting on bated breath for the Directive 8020 release date, you can now breathe easy. Supermassive Games has revealed that the choice-based survival horror game will launch in May, and it'll arrive with a cool new feature called Turning Points.While those Directive 8020 achievements are still hidden away, we do finally have a release date for Supermassive's next Xbox horror game. Directive 8020 launches on Xbox Series X|S on May 12, 2026, taking players to the alien world of Tau Ceti f for a cinematic sci-fi horror adventure.With the Earth slowly dying and humanity on the brink of destruction, it falls to the colony ship Cassiopeia to travel 12 light-years from home to the unexplored planet of Tau Ceti f in search of a saving grace. After the ship crash-lands on the planet,...

Lilit Martirosyan, associate professor of mathematics at UNCW, recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to represent the mathematics community in national research advocacy and leadership efforts. In January, Martirosyan spoke at the Association for Women in Mathematics session on women in mathematical physics. She presented her research on tensor categories, mathematical structures that help explain deep patterns connecting symmetry, geometry and physics. Her talk was supported by an American Mathematical Society grant. As part of Joint Mathematics Meetings Hill Day, Martirosyan was among nearly 290 mathematicians nationwide who received formal advocacy training and then met directly with members of Congress to argue for sustained federal investment in mathematics research and graduate educa...

Mewgenics, the latest release by Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel, launched yesterday. Within six hours the game sold over 150k copies, made back its development costs, and leaped to the top of Steam's Top Sellers list. Speaking to IGN, Glaiel revealed that the game has already a bigger release than any of the expansions for The Binding of Issac, the prior game released by the duo and itself an indie darling. Mcmillen revealed that prior to Mewgenics, The Binding of Issac: Rebirth sold 40k copies on its release date, while Mewgenics sold 152k in its first five hours. He added: "Isn't that kind of insane?" The original Binding of Isaac managed to sell over 700k copies in less than a year after launch, an impressive figure that's on track to be beaten in short order. You can watch Mewgeni...

Political Theory within and without Political Science By Nathan H. Feldman, Columbia University Neoliberalism provides a compelling explanation for how city governments satisfy private capital interests by slashing social welfare spending and criminalizing the racialized poverty it unleashes. However, neoliberalism cannot account for why the politics of law and order also often find support from within overpoliced communities. This article claims that underlying broken windows policing is a neoconservative theory of democracy aimed not so much at directly reducing crime or enforcing disorder but at empowering organic community authorities. Specifically, I show how neoconservatives developed this theory of democracy in response to the urban crisis, which they argued was a crisis of au...

Apple is planning to launch new MacBook Pro models as soon as early March, but if you can, this is one generation you should skip because there's something much better in the works. We're waiting on 14-inch and 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, with few changes other than the processor upgrade. There won't be any tweaks to the design or the display, but later this year, a massive refresh is coming. Rumors suggest that there won't be just one ‌MacBook Pro‌ refresh in 2026, but two. After launching M5 Pro and M5 Max ‌MacBook Pro‌ models in the spring, Apple will do another update in late 2026, introducing the first OLED ‌MacBook Pro‌ models. The OLED ‌MacBook Pro‌ is expected to feature a design refresh, faster M6 chips, all new display technology, and, in a first fo...

The McCourt School of Public Policy’s Tech & Public Policy program Scholar Joya Wheatfall-Melvin (MS-DSPP’26) is using data to advance equity in criminal justice and education. For Joya Wheatfall-Melvin (MS-DSPP’26), the power of data lies in its potential to be a driver of change. Joya Wheatfall-Melvin (MS-DSPP’26) “Data, when handled with care and context, can become a tool for liberation,” she says. This “mantra,” as Wheatfall-Melvin calls it, has guided her work as a data scientist and Tech & Public Policy (TPP) program Scholar. Her journey to McCourt began in a data analysis class at her alma mater, Spelman College. It was one of her professors, passionate about bringing more Black women into coding, who introduced her to the discipline. She then landed a pivota...