Skydance Media has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Shari Redstone's family company National Amusements and merge with Paramount Global, it was reported Tuesday. Shares of Paramount were up 9% in after-hours trading. Redstone's National Amusements plans ...

A former New York Times editor has accused the White House of concealing President Biden's deteriorating condition while chastising the media for failing to dig in and expose the truth about President Biden's condition, it was reported Tuesday.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday acknowledged his performance during last Thursday's presidential debate wasn't his best, but blamed it on jet lag after two overseas trips earlier in June.Biden has faced mounting questions about his 2024 reelection bid after last week's shaky...

Plate tectonics, oceans, and continents might just be the secret ingredients for complex life on Earth. And if these geological features are rare elsewhere in the universe, then perhaps that explains why we haven’t yet discovered intelligent alien life. New research from American and Swiss Earth scientists suggests that these ingredients represent missing variables in the famous Drake equation, devised more than half a century ago to estimate the chances of finding advanced civilizations in our galaxy. Including these new variables could completely rewrite the probability of detecting intelligent life in the Milky Way. The impetus for this research, with its galaxy-spanning implications, began with a mystery right here at home – why did life take so long to move beyond simple organisms? “Life has been around on Earth for about 4 billion years, but complex organisms like animals didn’t appear until about 600 million years ago, which is not long after the modern episode of plate tectonics began,” said Robert Stern of the University of Texas at Dallas. “Plate tectonics really jump-starts the evolution machine, and we think we understand why.” Stern and his collaborator, Taras Gerya of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, propose that plate tectonics – the grinding movement of the upper layers of the planet at long geologic time scales – helped speed up the transition to complex life. Early in Earth’s history, simple organisms formed in the ocean, but humanity – an advanced civilization capable of communicating across outer space – couldn’t exist if ancient life hadn’t transitioned to land. Vast, resource-rich continents were therefore a vital prerequisite for what Stern and Gerya call Active Communicative Civilizations (ACCs) like humanity to develop. But that alone wasn’t enough: the continents needed to move. The geologic record on Earth suggests that plate tectonics accelerated evolution on land through five distinct processes: it increased the supply of nutrients; sped up the oxygenation of both the atmosphere and the ocean; tempered the climate; caused a high turnover rate of habitat formation and destruction; and offered non-catastrophic environmental pressure that forced organisms to adapt. The end result of all these environmental pressures: us. If Stern and Gerya are right, plate tectonics were a requirement for eventual innovations like the wheel, the smartphone, and the Apollo program. And for other civilizations in the galaxy to develop similar technological marvels, perhaps their planets need plate tectonics too. But as far as we know, they’re rare. Earth is the only planet in our solar system to feature plate tectonics. Volcanism exists on some other worlds, like Venus, Mars, and Io, but these worlds have a singular solid shell, rather than multiple moving plates. Similarly, ocean worlds like Enceladus and Europa are bound within an icy coating, forbidding any hypothetical life there from transitioning to land. We don’t know for sure whether distant solar systems feature planets with plate tectonics – current space telescopes don’t have the resolution to make such determinations. But knowing that they might not enables a more accurate version of the Drake equation. There are two essential factors proposed in the revised equation: the fraction of habitable exoplanets with large continents and oceans, and the fraction of those that have plate tectonics lasting more than 500 million years. This version is much more nuanced than the original Drake equation, which simply took into account the fraction of habitable planets on which intelligent life had developed. The Drake Equation, a mathematical formula for the probability of finding life or advanced civilizations in the universe. Credit: University of Rochester “In the original formulation, this factor was thought to be nearly 1, or 100% — that is, evolution on all planets with life would march forward and, with enough time, turn into an intelligent civilization,” Stern said. “Our perspective is: That’s not true.” Indeed. Their math reduces the percentage of these planets that develop ACCs to just 0.003% at minimum and 0.2% at maximum – a far cry from the original 100%. When put together with all the other factors of the Drake Equation: number of stars formed annually, number of those stars with planets, number those planets that are habitable, number of those habitable planets with life, number of civilizations on those planets sending out detectable signals, and how long they send out the signals – well, the chances of finding intelligent alien life shrink considerably. The implications of the original Drake equation were that ACCs should be common, and we should see them everywhere. But including plate tectonics in the equation changes the result, and makes it clear that it’s perfectly understandable why we don’t see ET all across the galaxy. So intelligent alien life might be rarer than anyone thought. And Earth may be more special than we knew. All thanks to our planet’s fragmented, unruly, and shifting upper crust.   Learn More: Amanda Siegfried, “Geoscientists Dig into Why We May Be Alone in the Milky Way.” University of Texas at Dallas. Robert Stern and Taras Gerya, “The importance of continents, oceans and plate tectonics for the evolution of complex life: implications for finding extraterrestrial civilizations.” Nature Scientific Reports. The post Plate Tectonics Might Only Occur on 0.003% of Planets. That Makes Earth Very Special Indeed. appeared first on Universe Today.

The hottest destination in the Solar System.

Blink and you'll miss it.

Despite the fact that they only speak in purrs, meows, and other cat sounds, cats do communicate with humans. They have their "I'm so cute, don't you want to feed me?" face. There's their "I will not be ignored" shenanigans when they want your attention and their side-eyes of disdain when they don't. They sleep all day in the most random places only to wake you with their thunderpaws romping through the house at 2:00 a.m., and they flat-out refuse to acknowledge your existence in public.Cats may not speak English—or any human language, for that matter—but what if they could? British comedian Jake Lambert shared a viral cat-to-English translation video imagining what they'd say, and it's hilariously spot on. "Wake up! I'm hungry and bored and want attention! Hellooooo," he calls from outside the bedroom door. "I am shattered," he says next, yawning. "I was up all night trying to wake you up! Anyway, I'm gonna go sleep in a really impractical spot for about five hours, see you in a bit." Every scenario is one cat owners have experienced at least once, but most likely live with on a semi-daily basis. Watch: See on Instagram People found Lambert's interpretations to be 100% accurate."My cats are demanding royalties for the script, ?" wrote one commenter."Hahahaha the zero second warning between happy and absolutely raging," wrote another."Cats are such great teachers," quipped another. "Right now I'm taking a PhD in getting rejected and respecting boundaries (just not my own) ??⬛.""Have watched this about 5 times since yesterday and laugh out loud every time especially the ear scratch bliss to hiss ? this is why cats scare me ?," offered another.Other people offered their own additions to the cat conversation:"You missed ‘I really like this food you should buy it again’ closely followed by ‘I hate this food, why would you ever consider buying it?’""Plus dramatically gagging over the same thing he chowed down on the previous day. ?""This would be my cat: *enters living room meowing and a waft of crap follows* 'Just did a dump in my litter tray, can you clean it asap so I can do another in 5 minutes?'""Also: 'please change my menu at least 3 times in each feeding as I’m not sure what I’ll fancy.'""All correct, together with the standing by the front (or back) door undecided on whether he wants to be inside or outside of the house. ?"Cat comedy never gets old, and it's delightful to know that house cats are the same quirky, mysterious, goofy companions no matter what country their owners live in. You can follow Jake Lambert on Instagram.

LGBTQ influencer Chris Stanley was doing on-the-street reporting on June 2nd at the WeHo Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, when he ran into a straight guy with the best reaction to the event.WeHo is one of the largest annual Pride celebrations in the world, drawing hundreds of thousands of people every June.Australian TV star Timm Hanly was chomping down an ice cream cone when he ran into Stanley, who asked why he was there. He calmly told Stanley that he is “straight, not gay” and just there “for the vibes.” Hanly added that his family was visiting from Australia and it was their second day in the city.Hanly appeared on “The Bachelorette Australia” in 2019 and “Bachelor in Paradise” in 2020 and then married his wife, Briana. The couple had a baby last October. However, his newfound domestic bliss didn’t stop Hanly from enjoying the festivities. When Stanley asked if the gays threw a good party, he adamantly agreed.“F**king’ oath. One hundred percent. No one does it better, really,” Hanly replied. (For those who don’t speak fluent Aussie, “oath” is a very affirmative version of “yes,” like when American Gen Zers say “bet.”) See on Instagram Hanly doubled down on his LGBTQ allyship when he grabbed the mic after being asked how he feels when hit on by gay men. “Oh, I love this,” he responded. “Let’s say I’m walking down the street and a gay guy is like looking at me. That’s as good as a girl looking at me. That counts. That’s as good for my ego as a hot chick looking at me,” Hanly said as Chris laughed.The video captures what many people believe LGBTQ pride is all about love, acceptance, and having a good time. Many people thought that Hanly was the perfect example of straight allyship. “I think so many people loved it because there was zero toxic masculinity at all,” Chris told Upworthy. “He was just a dude who stumbled across something gay and admired it for what it was without any hostility involved. Something we need more of.”“My favorite response was when he said he’s ‘just here for the vibes,’” Stanley continued. See on Instagram A lot of the commenters agree with Stanley.“And that’s how straight guys who are comfortable in their own sexuality should react to [a Pride parade],” Masterwill7 wrote. “Can Tim and his wife stay in the US and teach the men around here how to be better?” HJomckinney_added.To further his quest to understand what Pride means in America. Stanley recently created a 22-minute short film about one of the smallest Pride celebrations in America in Morgantown, West Virginia.“Imagine a Pride celebration so small, it’s almost a secret,” he says in the opening scene. The film explains what life is like for LGBTQ Americans in a state where intolerance is a part of life. “Everyone in West Virginia has a gay neighbor, but not everyone in West Virginia wants to talk about the fact that they have a gay neighbor,” Dustin Blankenship, from nearby Granville, says in the film.I Went to the Smallest Pride in America! | LGBTQ+ Documentary

Yes, we’ve come a long way regarding gender equality. But if there’s any proof that we’ve still got a long way to go, look no further than the attitudes many still have when it comes to parenting roles. Many still consider a father as “helping out” with a mom’s inherent responsibility when he participates in taking care of children, rather than simply being an equally contributing partner. And if mom is not working, the nuclear family ideal is even more persistent…as it is assumed she is the sole caretaker of the kids with no job to distract her. All this can make the already difficult early chapters of parenthood next to impossible…and certainly not as enjoyable as they could be for moms who find themselves both partner-less and village-less.Neil Shyminsky, a college professor and new dad, recently delved into this issue when he explained why he still participates in nighttime feedings—even though he works a full time job and his wife is on parental leave. Shyminsky’s video was actually a response to another video made by labor equality advocate Paige Turner, who shared that someone called her “crazy” and “selfish” for suggesting a working dad should still wake up early with a new baby to give his wife an occasional break. @professorneil #stitch with @Paige We’re all working, we’re all tired, and we all have to work in the morning, too #parenting #work #labor ♬ original sound - Professor Neil “So it's currently 2 a.m. and I'm awake with this little one,” he says in the clip, explaining that he’ll be “on call for another two hours or so” until he switches with his wife, who is currently on parental leave.As Shyminsky sees it, both parents are still currently working full-time, which makes his participating in overnight activities a no brainer. “I might have to work a full day on four hours of really awful sleep, but I mean, what's the alternative? That she has to work a full day on none?” he asks. As he eloquently puts it: “Parenting's work, parenting's labor. Stay-at-home parents work. I have no idea why we are still having this argument. Yeah, I can't figure it out there.”So many viewers wrote in to praise Shyminsky’s rational take. “It is exhausting to be the only parent to wake up at night.”“I never understood the work argument. I still have to stay awake all day to take care of the baby and other kids. I need sleep.”“Everything you said, and also the way to bond with a baby is by caring for it. That bond is worth some lost sleep.”Others shared how they incorporated similar strategies.One person wrote, “My husband and I had a great plan: I would go to bed around 8:00 and he would wake me up to switch around 1:00 or 2:00. We each got 5-6 hours each night. It worked for us!” Another added, “Yeah we definitely did full night shifts. I’d take one night and husband would take the next. Lifesaver knowing you’d get a night of sleep every other night.”Shyminsky also told Upworthy that this in no way is considered “helping” his wife, as that implies all things parenting are technically her responsibility and that he’s “assisting” her. “When I’m not at my job, parenting is a shared and equal responsibility. So I’m not helping with the parenting, I’m sharing in it,” he said. So true. Parenting is a full-time job…one without pay, and one that you can’t really clock in and out of. It’s downright unrealistic to expect mothers to take it all on by themselves.