The ever-growing menace of plastic pollution and the plight of polar bears has been starkly captured in this shortlisted image for an upcoming photography competition. The image was recently picked as a finalist for the Ocean Photographer of the Year 2024 award along with a selection of other incredible wildlife shots depicting Godzilla-like iguanas, creepy eels, and much more. Celia Kujala took the troubling photograph of the polar bear with plastic trash in its mouth on Kiepert Island, part of the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The photographer described the image as “a stark reminder that even the uninhabited reaches of the Arctic are not exempt from the pervasive grip of plastic pollution.”      It’s no secret that polar bears are becoming increasingly impacted by human behavior. Warming temperatures in the Arctic are causing the sea ice to melt, forcing hungry polar bears to spend more time on land near human settlements. Simultaneously, expanding human activity is increasingly infringing upon the bears' natural habitat.Starved and driven closer to humans, the predicament is leading polar bears to eat an increasing amount of anthropogenic trash – including plastic.A 2023 study looked at the stomach content analysis of 42 polar bears in Alaska and found plastic in the bellies of 12 (28.6 percent) individuals. By no surprise, 14 of the polar bears were found to be suffering from inflammation of the stomach, almost certainly caused by their poor diet.A gannet, entangled in discarded fishing gear, hangs off a cliff. Isle of Noss, Shetland Islands.Image credit: © Rebecca Douglas/Ocean Photographer of the YearPlastic pollution is a big theme in the “Conservation - Impact” category of this year’s Ocean Photographer Of The Year competition. Another selected finalist, Rebecca Douglas, captured a heartbreaking shot of a gannet seabird hanging from plastic netting like a noose, while Francesca Page shared her image of a critically endangered smoothnose wedgefish caught in a fishing net. Between 75 and 199 million tonnes of plastic is currently lost in our oceans. Despite increasing awareness, the use and abuse of plastic continue to grow. Plastic production doubled between 2000 and 2019, from 234 to 460 million tonnes, and it’s set to continue along this trajectory reaching over 1.2 billion tonnes by 2060, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.The winners of Ocean Photographer Of The Year 2024, an annual competition co-presented by Oceanographic and Blancpain, will be announced on September 12, 2024 – so stay tuned!

The European Space Agency's Juice mission is on its way to explore Jupiter’s icy moons, arriving in a few years, but to get there it's stealing some orbital velocity from Earth, Venus, and – for the first time – the Moon. These gravitational assist maneuvers are standard to slingshot missions about the Solar System but what JUICE did last night, and is about to do tonight, is anything but.For the first time, a spacecraft is using two objects for a gravity assist maneuver instead of just one. This is the first-ever lunar-Earth flyby, carried out over two nights. It is such a daring maneuver that it required the launch window for the mission last year to be only 1 second long. Last night Juice successfully flew by the Moon, conducting some tests of the science instruments, including the ones that will study what’s underneath the icy exterior of the Jovian moons, and in the second leg, it will fly by Earth tonight.“This could not be done in the lab. This will be an excellent test to check the performance of the radar in the context of the full spacecraft operating,” Nicolas Altobelli, planetary scientist with ESA, said during a press conference attended by IFLScience 10 days ago.The Moon captured by JUICE at 9:25 pm UTC on August 19, 2024, soon after its closest approach to the Moon.Image credit: ESA/JUICE/JMC, acknowledgments: Simeon Schmauß & Mark McCaughreanWhile most of the focus is on the science, the cameras will also be tested. Several images have already been shared online, with a few that have been lightly processed such as the main image above to show real color differences on the Moon.This image was not actually taken by the proper scientific camera. It comes from the Juice Monitoring Camera, which is used to check the status of the booms and antennae.The spacecraft will fly by Earth in just a few hours and that will put it on the right trajectory to go towards Venus, which it will reach in August 2025. It will then come back to Earth twice in September 2026 for more gravitational assists and then again in January 2029.All the flybys will provide the speed to reach Jupiter in 2031, where Juice will study the system as a whole and Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto for three years, before orbiting Ganymede alone.

Despite a set of stalwart mechanics, the roguelike genre is an incredibly diverse one. Permadeath, procedural generation, and a power creep of new abilities and equipment can be found in almost every spin on the genre, but there’s so much more to it than that. Inscryption bakes the mechanics into the narrative, Slay the Spire was a spinoff into deckbuilding, and FTL pits you against an unpredictable galaxy. There are so many roguelikes that you undoubtedly missed some, so this new Humble sale is filled to the brim with them - take your pick. Continue reading Snag Slay the Spire, FTL, and more excellent roguelikes dirt cheap MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Slay the Spire review, Best card games , Slay the Spire mods

What are the best Spirits in Black Myth: Wukong? One of the rewards you can obtain from beating the many bosses in Black Myth Wukong is a Spirit. Spirits are a form you can temporarily shapeshift into, to use their unique abilities or spells. Spirits can be activated once their corresponding Qi meter is charged. Only one Spirit can be used at a time, and those obtained from bosses cost more Qi, but have stronger effects. You'll also have benefits to your statistics just from having the Spirit equipped. Choosing the correct Spirit is as important as choosing the best Black Myth: Wukong weapons or the best Black Myth: Wukong armor. When timed correctly, they can inflict huge damage and other ailments to foes, giving you the edge in battle. Here are all of the Black Myth: Wukong spirits, the best ones to choose, and where to find them. Continue reading All Black Myth Wukong Spirit locations MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Black Myth Wukong bosses, Black Myth Wukong abilities, Black Myth Wukong weapons

I’m not going to oversell it - I’m not saying the work is done or that we’re anywhere close. But after a seriously troubled launch in September of last year, the controversial Payday 3 seems to be on a correctional course, and recent metrics suggest a comeback may actually be possible. Cyberpunk 2077 did it. No Man’s Sky pulled it off. Thanks to the new Payday 3 update, Starbreeze, too, may be able to find some redemption. They may be subtle, but the signs are there - on Steam at least, Payday 3 seems to be slowly recovering. Continue reading Controversial FPS Payday 3 continues the comeback with new yearly high MORE FROM PCGAMESN: The best co-op games on PC, The best crime games on PC, The best FPS games

Knife violence and mass immigration are merging into a crisis European officials are reluctant to seriously address.

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Bungie has recently updated its Restriction and Banning policy to include the use of Macros, and some players aren't too thrilled about it.