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'Players' of an MMORPG for AI Agents Spontaneously Generated Their Own Religion
SpaceMolt is a new destination for vaguely portentous word salad.
Jensen Huang softens DLSS 5 response, says “I don’t love AI slop myself”
Jensen Huang changes tone on DLSS 5 Jensen Huang has shifted to a softer tone on DLSS 5 criticism, saying he understands why some players reacted
Finishing a video game can trigger “post-game depression,” study finds
Post-game depression is now being studied as a measurable phenomenon, with researchers identifying how finishing a video game can leave players feeling empty, reflective, and emotionally drained.
Leeds 0-0 Brentford
Paul: Leeds played as if they are frightened of losing rather than trying to win. Chris: Good point in the end - they are a good side pushing for a European place and have good players. Hopefully in the final run-in we will see more of Daniel James, Wilfried Gnonto and Noah Okafor, especially in the home games, to create more goals and keep us in the Premier League.
Arizona Diamondbacks Spring Training Gameday Thread, #30 @ Padres
Roster moves The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves and have 33 players in camp. Optioned to Triple-A Reno: Reassigned to Minor League camp: The first of these is a bit of a surprise. Only yesterday, I was noting how Abner seemed to have the inside track for left-handers job, after the recent meltdowns […]
Your Thymus and Your Healthspan
Our thymus gland plays a central role in the development or our immune system, specifically for supporting T cell development (how these cells got their name, maturation and differentiation in the thymus) and discriminating between self and foreign, non-self antigen proteins with production of dendritic cells. As we age, our thymus gland shrinks—the process known as involution—with progressive change from spongy to fatty tissue, with loss of functionality. But this process, with respect to timeline and extent, markedly varies from one person to the next. And to make things even more complicated, our thymus gland anatomy and precise location in the chest also is highly variable. So the famous Frank Netter diagrams from the 1960s (such as at left below) don’t capture the remarkable heterogeneity that a random set of 12 chest CT scans (below at right). What I consider as 2 landmark papers in Nature this week (here and here) used AI to quantify health of the thymus in 2 large cohorts, and then correlate the metric to a broad array of health outcomes. In this edition of Ground Truths, I’m going to cover three questions: (1) How was thymus health determined by AI?; (2) How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? and (3) Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? Subscribe 1. How was thymus health determined by AI? This was accomplished by extensive work developing and validating an AI pipeline for 2 stages, the first for localization and segmentation of the thymus bed, and the second to quantify a digital marker, termed the thymic health score. There’s a lot to this algorithmic development, so I won’t go into all the details, but just provide a rudimentary outline of what was done. The 1st stage used supervised learning with 2 radiologists reviewing 2,461 chest CT scans. That work trained a 3D U-Net model to automatically identify the thymic bed’s 3D cropped region using center of mass coordinates, which reached 99.8% accuracy. The 2nd stage used a foundation model that was pre-trained with SwAV (which stands for Swapping Assignment between multiple Views), a self-supervised model, that generated a high-dimensional thymus representation of 4,096 features. That compares to the radiology reductionist and subjective scoring of 0 to 3 where 0 means the thymus is fully degenerated and fatty, and 3 is considered dense, intact glandular soft tissue. Notably, the self-supervised learning (SSL) performance was superior to supervised (AUC ~0.75 vs 0.55, respectively) reflecting the shallowness of the 0-3 classifier vs SSL’s holistic, self-taught AI. The thymic health score ranged from 0 to 100, with the highest number indexed to fully preserved thymic health. The algorithmic work extended to explainability with both Shapely value distribution, meaning the model was holistic not relying on any “magic” pixel, and occlusion sensitivity, demonstrating the model’s performance was not affected by ribs, sternum, lung tissue, but rather focused on the thymic bed directly. Below are a few saliency maps from the occlusion sensitivity that indicate the thymic bed focus, not affected by neighboring structures, using the jet color scale. Now the AI was ready for processing ~25,000 CT scans, each over 30 MB files, from the 2 large participant cohorts to provide a thymic health score, it did so in less than 14 hours, which is less than 2 seconds per scan! Share 2. How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? The two cohorts were the National Lung Screening Trial, NLST (N=25,031) and the Framingham Heart Study, FHS (N=2,581) each with baseline demographics and long term follow up of >12 years for health outcomes. From the NSLT, you can see below that increased age and body-mass index were correlated to reduced thymic health. And, overall, men had reduced thymic health scores compared with women. There are a lot of graphs in the paper for outcomes, for both the NLST and FHS cohorts. To simplify the major outcomes, below is a composite Figure with striking reduction of all-cause mortality and for the different causes of death. The results were consistent between the 2 cohorts. For example, the cardiovascular mortality hazard ratio average was 0.57 in NLST and 0.38 in FHS (weighted to be 0.53 for the aggregate). The reduction of mortality also extended to digestive diseases and pulmonary disease (data not shown below). Lung cancer incidence was reduced by 36% for high vs low thymic health (Figure below, with a panel -incidence and b panel-mortality, adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking status). Notably, there was a smoker’s paradox: lower incidence and improved survival for lung cancer in smokers who had a high thymus health score. Smoking was associated with lower thymic scores whereas alcohol was not. Higher thymic health was linked to higher HDL cholesterol, lower triglycerides, lower fasting blood glucose, and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Inflammation biomarkers, such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, were elevated in the people with lower thymic health scores. In their second paper, the same team looked at the relationship between thymic score and outcomes for 3,476 patients receiving cancer immunotherapy. The non-small cell lung cancer progression-free survival was reduced in patients with low thymic health score. A parallel relationship for survival was seen for other types of cancer including melanoma, breast, and kidney with a 44% lower risk among high thymic scores (Figure). A similar pattern was seen with different immune checkpoint inhibitors. The thymus health score outperformed programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1)and tumor mutation burden (TMB) assay of the tumor and was an independent prognostic marker of progression-free survival. In this dataset, a direct connect with thymus score and adaptive immune function was noted with a correlation before cancer treatment for both T-cell diversity and thymus T-cell production (a metric known as T cell receptor excision circles). Thymus Removal Study There is a highly relevant citation about thymus function before moving onto ways to rejuvenate it. In 2023, a very important study of thymus removal during cardiothoracic surgery was published, with 1146 patients undergoing thymus removal vs 1146 matched controls (mean age 55 years). The adverse outcomes for thymus removal were striking, with a 2.9 higher risk of all-cause mortality and doubling of cancer incidence, 1.5 fold increase in cancer mortality, and 1.5-fold increase in autoimmune diseases. The immune function showed marked compromise after thymus removal, as reflected by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (Figure below) Share Ground Truths 3. Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? In recent months we’ve learned a lot about the process of thymus involution and the pathways by which this may be modulated. Thymus involution is primarily due to loss to thymus epithelial cells (TECs) and there are 2 subtypes with different functions: the cortical, responsible for positive selection of T cells, and the medullary, for negative selection. When adipose tissue infiltrates the thymus, thymic adipocytes are pro-inflammatory, knocking out T-cell output. Likewise, systemic inflammation, or “inflammaging,” from smoking, obesity, and chronic stress promote thymic adipocytes. Now, from preclinical studies, we know about key pathways that account for these processes. Historically, back in 2014, FOXN1 was recognized as a single master transcription factor essential for TEC function, with studies in mice with forced FOXN1 upregulation leading to thymus regeneration. That laid the foundation for potential regrowth of quiescent thymus cells. It took awhile to find pathways to accomplish this goal and to even refute its role as the master regulator. The Liver-Thymus Axis Feng Zhang and his team recently showed that injection of an mRNA vaccine to the liver encoding DLL1, IL-7 and FLT3-L in combination, factors known to support thymopoiesis (Figure), successfully enhanced immune function in aged mice. However, the effect was transient. The FGF21 Story Two reports in 2025 addressed the thymus gland’s production of FGF21, a growth factor (fibroblast growth factor 21) and its control of thymus involution. This growth factor is also produced by the liver, but it doesn’t have impact on the thymus in aged rodent models. In contrast, The liver’s hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) has been shown to reverse senescent TEC structural changes. Growth hormone stimulates production of insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in the liver and the thymus. Two small studies in human participants (TRIIM, for Thymus Regeneration, Immunorestoration, and Insulin Mitigation) of 6 and 50 people, respectively, treated with combined human growth hormone, metformin and DHEA, suggested the potential of slowing epigenetic aging and improving thymus mass and function. But the combination of drugs, small sample, and lack of controls make conclusions murky. Increased thymus FGF21 led to increased CD8 T cells in old mice and extended healthspan and improved physical performance. Building on the previous FOXN1 data, ablation of β-klotho, the obligatory co-receptor for FOXN1, accelerated thymic aging. The benefit to FGF21 was confirmed in a companion paper using an FGF21 knock-in mouse model showing thymus enlargement and increased TECs throughout the lifespan. (schematic Figure below). The accompanying editorial for these 2 papers speculated: “The proposed link between age-associated thymus involution and organismal aging is intriguing, and suggests we might seek to achieve systemic rejuvenation by counteracting thymic involution.” Other Factors Lessons from the Axolotl (Mexican Salamander) In an elegant set of experiments of the axolotl (Figure), known for its complete thymus regeneration after total surgical removal, mediators were identified. Surprisingly FOXN1 was dispensable. But midkine, a growth factor, appeared to be the driver, the initiator of thymus cell growth, survival, and repair. Other components that contributed were Postn+ (periostin-expressing mesenchymal niches) and Ccl19, a chemokine protein from the bloodstream. RANK and RANKL RANK (receptor activator of nuclear factor κB its ligand (RANKL) have been considered key regulators of medullary TECs. In a study of both aged mice and human thymus cell cultures, their key role was confirmed, with multiple benefits of resorting TEC function, recruitment of progenitor cells, and T cell development. Subscribe Summing Up This body of work strongly supports the health of the thymus gland as a critical regulator of human healthspan, not just a correlate or link. The new landmark studies are reinforced by the regenerative biology experimental models that have shown, via an array of mediators, that healthspan of aged mice is at least in part dependent on thymus gland function and its critical role for maintaining adaptive immunity. It sure seems that we’d be better off having an immune reservoir of naive T cells instead of a profile in older adults of exhausted, low quality, memory T cells, with a senescent phenotype. It is striking that we ignored the importance of the thymus gland for many decades. A wake-up call was the results of the thymectomy matched control study reviewed here, with the opposite of high thymic health score improved health outcomes. The convergence of AI and healthspan here is notable. The exceptional and laborious work for developing and validating (no less explaining) the AI to quantify thymus health set the foundation for probing the connect the major health outcomes in two cohorts with extensive follow-up. We’ve never had a way to meaningfully quantify the thymus gland before, so this represents important leverage of supervised, self-supervised, and transformer models. The study wouldn’t have been possible without AI. And it begs the question as to whether there are ways we can maintain our thymus at a high health score. But it’s not so simple to rejuvenate our thymus. There are multiple risks including the induction of autoimmunity, increasing the risk of cancer, and inducing a pro-inflammatory state. For example, factors that increase TEC proliferation could compromise the medulllary negative selection process and leak out auto-reactive (self-attacking) T cells. Thymic cells could be induced to proliferate, but we know, for example, that growth hormone and IGF-1 are associated with an increase risk of cancer. If thymus rejuvenation doesn’t clear out the accumulated senescent cells in older adults, then inflammation within the gland could block the production of TECs. Keeping these risks in mind, we now have identified many ways to keep our thymus healthy as we age that undoubtedly will be tested in clinical trials going forward. Ultimately, the benefit-to-risk tradeoffs will be defined. In the meantime, we have desperately needed an immunome. As I’ve stressed in multiple prior Ground Truths, we have no test in the clinic to assess a patient’s immune status! It was very encouraging for me to get an email from Hugo Aerts, the senior author of the landmark papers in the days after they were published: “I also wanted to say that your Substack on “Why We Need an Immunome” was inspiring for this work. We found it a very compelling perspective and greatly enjoyed reading it.” Just having an assessment of a person’s immune status via a chest CT scan, with millions of these performed per year, might help in guiding the right immunotherapy for cancer (e.g. more intensive, combinations for those with low thymic health scores) and help define people who are increased risk for age-related diseases of cancer, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative. The main theme of Super Agers is that we now have many layers of data (genetics, proteins, biomarkers, organ clocks that can be integrated via multimodal AI) for us to define a person’s specific risk decades before one of these age-related diseases leads to symptoms, enabling prevention. From the new studies this week, we can add thymus health score as yet another way to understand a person’s risk, a window into their adaptive immune system and healthspan. And perhaps someday we will be able to safely rejuvenate the thymus, or maintain its health through one’s life, and use the thymus health score to monitor. NB: I wrote this post (No A.I.) A Quick Poll Loading... ********************************************************************* Thanks to Ground Truths subscribers (now > 200,000) from every US state and 212 countries. Your subscription to these free essays and podcasts makes my work in putting them together worthwhile. Please join! If you found this interesting PLEASE share it! Share Ground Truths Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don’t hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered. Leave a comment Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. It enabled us to accept and support 47 summer interns in 2025! We aim to accept even more of the several thousand who will apply for summer 2026.
Bucket hats and home run chains: Getting decked out for baseball season at Poor Boys Sports
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Team USA flag football team should consider these 12 NFL stars ... but not Tom Brady
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Capcom celebrates Resident Evil's 30th anniversary by promising "even more wonderful experiences" are coming, but doesn't confirm when
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Square Enix announces it will integrate Google’s generative AI Gemini into popular online game Dragon Quest X
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Former, current NBA players sound off on NBA expansion as vote looms
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Jacob Devaney: Man United loanee puts in midfield masterclass
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The Business of Football: How many players do you need to win a World Cup anyway?
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Friction without contact discovered as magnetic forces break a 300-year-old law
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Crimson Desert Hears Your Complaints And Will Fix The Controls
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Crimson Desert Dev Promises Patch to Address 'Discomfort Many Players Have Experienced With the Controls,' Apologizes for Awful Keyboard and Mouse Experience
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Open-world adventure game CookieRun: New World announced for console, PC, and mobile
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Full circle: Sean McVay collecting former players on coaching staff
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Good Sports: El Capitan High School baseball players commit to college together
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Crimson Desert Players Debate If The Game Secretly Uses AI Art
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"I genuinely thought my controller wasn't working" - Crimson Desert players are getting so annoyed with its clunky controls they're asking for launch day refunds
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Political tug of war over Iranian women's soccer team prompts criticism in Australia
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2026 Fantasy Baseball: Players we're most excited to draft
Crimson Desert Day One Update Goes Live in Full on PC, in Part on Console — Check Out the Patch Notes
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Markiplier to Microdramas: The Ankler x NAB Show’s Future of Entertainment
Share Subscribe Vegas, baby! The Ankler is heading back to NAB Show for a second year in a row — and doubling down on conversations with the smartest people in the industry. From April 18–22, we’re partnering again with the industry’s biggest media and tech gathering to break down the Business of Media and Entertainment as it’s actually evolving: faster, riskier and increasingly driven by new formats, new audiences and new power players. This curated series will bring together top creators, executives and innovators to tackle the forces reshaping the industry — from the AI disruption of Hollywood’s creative ecosystem to the rise of the creator economy, shifting audience behavior and the changing economics of production. We’ll be rolling out more programming in the coming weeks — including top speakers from leading AI studios, prediction markets and beyond — so keep an eye on the Business of Media and Entertainment hub. But first up, we’re announcing two panels about what’s actually working in Hollywood: The Scary-Smart Business of Horror A good scare has become one of the entertainment economy’s most reliable engines. With disciplined budgets, built-in fandoms and global box office upside, horror consistently outperforms. From theatrical releases to streaming-first originals and creator-driven IP, the genre is artistically flexible and financially durable — and one of the last truly communal experiences for Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. Join YouTube creator Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier, whose independent feature Iron Lung earned more than $50 million at the global box office, Atomic Monster president Michael Clear and screenwriter Akela Cooper (M3GAN, Malignant) for a conversation moderated by Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey about why horror travels so effectively across platforms and borders, how studios and independents are building sustainable genre pipelines and why the next wave of breakout franchises may emerge from unexpected sources. Inside the Microdrama Boom Short-form serialized storytelling is having a major moment. Microdramas, social-native series and creator-led narratives are capturing massive audiences with low-cost, rapid production cycles and direct-to-fan distribution. What was once dismissed as niche or experimental is now attracting major platform investment. Moderated by Jarvey, this panel of microdrama creators and executives — including one of the format’s top stars and producers, Kasey Esser, and Dhar Mann Studios’ head of vertical content, Erin McFarlane — examines how format innovation, fandom dynamics and algorithmic discovery are reshaping the economics of scripted storytelling and what traditional studios can learn from these agile models. For sponsorship opportunities, contact Lynne@theankler.com Share
NCAA softens targeting punishment: Committee nixes automatic suspensions for players
After more than a decade of complaints from coaches, the NCAA is eliminating the automatic carryover suspension for first-time offenders
New dispute emerges around Subnautica 2’s early access release
Lawyers for the ousted—and now partially reinstated—leadership team of Unknown Worlds, the studio behind Subnautica 2, are crying foul over news that the game will be released into early access in May. The release announcement earlier this week was made improperly, potentially “damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community,” the lawyers said in a letter sent on Tuesday to Vice Chancellor Lori Will of Delaware’s Court of Chancery. In their letter, the lawyers also floated the idea of asking Will to find Krafton in contempt of the court’s ruling. The letter was sent just one day after Will’s bombshell ruling that publisher Krafton had breached its contract with Unknown Worlds’ executive team, when it fired them last June. The new issue isn’t necessarily the May early access timeframe, but how the news was announced. The letter and Krafton’s response have not been previously reported. A quick recap of prior events: Subnautica 2 is an unreleased, underwater survival adventure and the most-wishlisted game on Steam. Last year, longtime Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill, along with studio co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, were fired by Krafton. They swiftly sued, saying the publisher had terminated them to avoid paying out up to $250 million in potential performance-based bonuses. The studio leaders had hoped to earn that with an early access release of the game, which Krafton had blocked. The publisher argued in court that Subnautica 2 wasn’t ready, which the ousted execs disputed. On Monday, Will ruled that Krafton had violated its contract, firing the execs to avoid the performance payouts, and that it had to reinstate Gill and give him full authority over any early access release for Subnautica 2. On Tuesday, IGN reported on a new memo issued that day to Unknown Worlds staff by Steve Papoutsis, the executive Krafton had put in charge of Unknown Worlds after the 2025 firings. In the note, Papoutsis said that Subnautica 2 had passed a key development milestone “last week” and that he and Krafton had determined the game “is ready for Early Access release in May.” This news appeared to catch the lawyers for Gill, Cleveland and McGuire by surprise. On Tuesday night, they sent a letter to Will expressing “serious concerns” about whether it would be possible to forge an agreement with Krafton consistent with the judge’s order. Papoutsis’ memo was a problem, they wrote. He didn’t have the authority to declare anything about Subnautica 2’s release. As of 9am ET on Monday, March 16, the effective date of Will’s order, Papoutsis wasn’t CEO of Unknown Worlds. Gill was. And, per Will’s order, only Gill could make Subnautica 2 release decisions. They continued: Krafton self-servingly announced the launch without any regard to its impact on the game, the team, or the community—let alone this Court’s Opinion. Announcing the release of a game is momentous, and it is typically accompanied by significant marketing activity, fanfare, and community coordination. And most importantly, the announcement is carefully designed to maximize excitement for the game. That entire process was supposed to be driven by Mr. Gill. However, in defiance of the Court’s Opinion, Krafton has now taken that away, further damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community. The lawyers speculated that Krafton had “intentionally leaked” Papoutsis’ memo and then issued an official statement to confirm the leak. Game File is a reader-supported publication. My reporting is only possible through support from readers like you. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe On Wednesday, lawyers for Krafton defended their client in their own letter to vice chancellor Will, saying nothing they did violated her order nor showed contempt: Papoutsis’s message was simply celebrating the UW employees’ efforts toward a past event: Krafton’s pre-Opinion determination that Subnautica 2 was ready for Early Access release. There was nothing improper about conveying the results of the milestone review or thanking the development team for their dedication and talent. They added that Gill could still make his own call about Subnautica 2’s release: In his role as CEO, Gill will be able to assess independently his views on the state of Subnautica 2 and the appropriate release schedule; nothing in Papoutsis’s message alters Gill’s authority or discretion. Vice chancellor Will has not responded to the letters and doesn’t necessarily have to. Both parties were previously ordered by Will to confer this week and submit a proposed judgment consistent with her ruling. The letter from Gill’s attorney’s this week doesn’t indicate whether he would or would not support a May release for Subnautica 2. But it could limit his options. And, if Gill’s lawyers are right, the lack of marketing fanfare around the leak of the May date could dull the launch of the game. Any harm to Subnautica 2’s launch is an extra sensitive issue given the context of the legal dispute: millions of dollars of payouts are on the line, tethered to the scale of the game’s initial performance. In her ruling on Monday, Will noted that there was obvious “bad blood” between Gill’s side and Krafton but that the two would need to work together: “They can—and must—act in good faith to navigate their remaining contractual relationship.” Item 2: A new kind of couch co-op game A highlight of GDC each year is the Alt.Ctrl showcase that features games played with extremely experimental controllers. Perusing this year’s offerings last Friday, I found a game controlled with giant scissors, another with big toothbrushes and one that amounted to dumpster diving. My favorite was Pivot, a co-op game about collectively maneuvering a couch. It was developed by students at the University of Utah’s masters of arts and engineering games program. Players lift and tilt the physical couch in order to control the position of a virtual one. That virtual one is moving through an obstacle course on-screen, while being pursued by a giant skull. Developer Nishant Verma told me at GDC that the couch is made of styrofoam (this became more evident as I watched!) and that the name was a riff on an episode of the sitcom Friends. Item 3: In brief… 🚫 Ubisoft is laying off more than 100 workers at its Red Storm studio, as the North Carolina location known for decades for its Tom Clancy games, ceases in-house game development, VGC reports. 👀 On Monday, Nvidia’s revealed its DLSS 5 AI-driven graphics technology that purports to improve game graphics… and it has been roasted about it by the media and the online gaming public for the remainder of the week. The tech changed the faces of characters in footage from Resident Evil Requiem, Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC, drawing accusations of giving carefully art-directed games the generic look of AI “slop.” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had said on Monday that “DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics—blending handcrafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression.” By mid-week, Huang was telling Tom’s Hardware that the new tech’s critics were “completely wrong” because game-makers could still “fine-tune the generative AI” to suit their game’s aesthetics.
Marathon Players Are About To Solve Its Weeks-Long ARG
Alternate reality games are kind of Bungie's thing.
Matthew Berry’s Love/Hate from 2026 NFL free agency
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Badenoch backs Nick Timothy after he calls Islamic public prayers ‘act of domination’
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Brady, NFL stars to test flag football skills vs. Team USA ahead of Olympics debut
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Valve has thrown a curveball at Counter Strike 2 with a massive reloading change, forcing players to shake off old habits
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Cryptocurrency and AI industries tested their influence in Illinois. It didn't go well
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WNBA CBA talks show execs still don't take women seriously. Do they like losing?
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WNBA, players union reach agreement; season to start on time, reports say
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From The Sports Desk: Venezuela shows why World Baseball Classic matters
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Bethesda promises Nvidia's controversial DLSS 5 AI filters will be "totally optional" for players
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Syracuse.com’s 2026 media day baseball coach poll: Most likely to have breakout season? (photos)
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Iran negotiating with FIFA to move World Cup games to Mexico from US
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2026 WNBA mock draft: Players to watch during Women's March Madness
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China's biggest tech players are piling into the OpenClaw gold rush
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Kane's 2 goals lead Red Wings past Flames
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Street Fighter 6 Alex and balance update patch notes
The long content drought in Street Fighter 6 that spanned five months is about to be finally over, and there will be quite a bit for players to sink their teeth into.Capcom just released the official patch notes for ...
2026 NCAA Tournament Midwest Region bracket preview: Predictions, sleepers, players to watch
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Denver Broncos free agency: Top remaining free agents available
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March Madness men's tournament analysis: Teams, players to watch
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Did Players Championship fans rattle Matt Fitzpatrick? He has thoughts
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Cells can sense 10x farther than expected and it may explain cancer spread
Scientists have discovered that cells can sense far beyond the surfaces they touch. While individual cancer cells can probe about 10 microns ahead by tugging on surrounding collagen fibers, clusters of normal epithelial cells can combine forces to detect layers as far as 100 microns away. This long-range “depth sensing” helps cells decide where to migrate. Understanding how it works could reveal new targets to stop cancer from spreading.
Emotional Abuse in College Sports
March Madness is here. The high-stakes, sudden-death college basketball tournament is a beloved tradition in American sports. For the players, it’s a chance to showcase the skills they’ve developed through years of hard training of the body and mind. In many cases, that push produces incredible feats of athletic performance. But an investigation by reporters Julia Haney and Elizabeth Santos has found instances in which athletes allege that the push from coaches goes too far. Emotional abuse by coaches, some athletes maintain, can cause lasting, even irreparable damage. On this episode of The Sunday Story, we hear from athletes who fought back.*A warning that today’s story includes mentions of sexual and emotional abuse, suicide, bullying and includes explicit language.
The Players Championship 2026 purse, payouts: Ludvig Åberg holds 3-shot lead entering Sunday at TPC Swagrass
Rick Pitino: My Players Got St. John's 'Out of Hibernation'
After advancing to the Big East Championship, St. John's head coach Rick Pitino stressed the importance of the program's revival.
Warriors' tailspin continues as injuries knock out 4 more players during loss to T'Wolves: 'We're going through it'
Players Championship: Two killed in parking lot near TPC Sawgrass, tournament opening delayed
In what police are calling a domestic incident, two people were shot and killed near the site of The Players Championship.
The Players: Spectators delayed entering ahead of third round of PGA Tour event after fatal shooting close to TPC Sawgrass
Spectators were delayed entering The Players ahead of the third round at TPC Sawgrass, following a fatal shooting close to the course the previous evening.
Linux Finally Catches Up to Windows with a Game-Changing Performance Feature
For years, the Linux kernel’s scheduler has been world‑class at balancing loads, yet it missed a crucial, cache‑aware instinct. In modern multi‑core systems, that gap can turn into measurable latency, especially when threads bounce between cores that don’t share the same cache. A new upstream feature, often called Cache Aware Scheduling, is now set to change that equation. A cache‑savvy scheduler arrives At the heart of any OS, the scheduler decides which thread runs where and for how long. In modern CPUs, small private caches (L1 and L2) sit beside each core, while a larger Last Level Cache (LLC, typically L3) is shared among groups of cores. When a task migrates across LLC boundaries, its warm data may vanish from the cache, forcing slower trips to main memory. Cache Aware Scheduling keeps related tasks close to their shared LLC, reducing destructive migrations. By respecting cache topology, the kernel minimizes cold‑start penalties and preserves locality that many workloads desperately need. The result is less thrashing, fewer memory stalls, and more consistent throughput. "Keep tasks close to their data, and the system will keep performance close to its peak." Why this narrows the Windows gap Windows has long leaned on topology‑aware, cache‑sensitive heuristics, especially since the Windows 10 era. That advantage helped Microsoft handle hybrid designs with P‑cores and E‑cores, plus complex cluster and NUMA layouts. With cache awareness integrated upstream, Linux brings parity to this vital dimension, without sacrificing its trademark flexibility. The Linux approach remains deeply configurable, reflecting the ecosystem’s breadth across servers, desktops, and embedded devices. It layers atop existing NUMA‑balancing and energy‑aware logic, refining placement rather than reinventing the wheel. Crucially, it aligns scheduling with the hardware’s real shape, not just with abstract CPU counts. Real‑world gains and who benefits Early tests on Intel Sapphire Rapids platforms point to gains in the 30–45% range for select workloads. Those wins appear in cache‑sensitive tasks like in‑memory analytics, high‑thread compilation, and microservices with tight working‑sets. Games and latency‑bound engines can also feel steadier frame‑times, especially when threads share hot assets. The benefits extend to AMD’s 3D V‑Cache parts, where keeping threads near enlarged cache slices prevents needless misses. Hybrid x86 designs with performance and efficiency cores further profit when cache and core roles are scheduled in concert. Even handhelds running SteamOS can squeeze more out of limited power, translating cache locality into smoother play. Key advantages include: Lower end‑to‑end latency Fewer expensive misses to RAM Better multi‑socket and NUMA behavior Improved energy efficiency More predictable QoS under mixed loads Stronger scaling on dense servers Caveats, tuning, and rollout No scheduler change is purely free, and trade‑offs still exist. Favoring locality can reduce cross‑cluster balance if limits are set too tight. Likewise, fairness and utilization must remain healthy, especially under heterogeneous, bursty workloads. Linux’s implementation is designed to be measured and tunable, not a blunt instrument. It cooperates with energy‑aware scheduling for mobile efficiency, and with NUMA‑balancers on big iron. Expect architecture‑specific refinements as vendors surface richer topology hints and cache‑sharing maps. Upstream integration has begun, with broad distribution adoption likely over the next cycles. Many users will encounter the change through standard kernel updates in 2025–2026, depending on distro cadence. Server‑class kernels may enable or tune it sooner for targeted fleets where cache locality is money in the bank. How to think about performance impact Cache Aware Scheduling amplifies gains when your workload is both CPU‑bound and cache‑sensitive. Think tight inner loops, hot code paths, and datasets that fit snugly in shared LLC. It’s less dramatic for I/O‑bound services or memory‑hungry tasks that blow past cache capacity. Still, even modest locality improvements often translate into smoother tail‑latency, which is where user experience and SLAs typically break. Developers can further help by pinning related threads, batching work, and aligning data to reduce cross‑cluster chatter. The scheduler’s new awareness works best when applications expose good hints. The bottom line By understanding and honoring cache topology, Linux removes a subtle yet costly bottleneck. The kernel’s smarter placement keeps hot data hot and work near where it belongs. That narrows a long‑standing gap with Windows, while preserving the openness and tunability Linux champions. For gamers, creators, and operators, the payoff is practical: more consistent frames, faster builds, and snappier services. For the ecosystem, it’s another step toward hardware‑savvy scheduling that turns transistor complexity into real‑world speed. And for Linux itself, it’s a timely upgrade that matches today’s silicon with tomorrow’s expectations.
Liverpool injury latest: Alisson Becker, Alexander Isak and more
Liverpool Fitness Update Ahead of Tottenham Hotspur ClashLiverpool head into another busy Premier League weekend with attention centred on the fitness of several key players. Arne Slot’s side face T...
Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Åberg take control at The Players as Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy struggle
Åberg and Schauffele are in control halfway through The Players.
Should the Pittsburgh Steelers close the door on Aaron Rodgers?
The NFL has had a busy week of transactions. Teams haven’t just signed free agents — they’ve also pulled off several trades. The Pittsburgh Steelers have stayed active on both fronts. They signed players such as Jamel Dean and Rico…
Stick to sports or not, student-athletes need a voice in the room
President Donald Trump's college sports roundtable didn't include any current college players. They deserve a voice, not to be scapegoated.
Have the Giants Been Aggressive Enough in Free Agency?
Though they haven’t made any groundbreaking additions, the New York Giants have been quite active in free agency. The Giants have brought back players like Jermaine Eluemunor and Micah McFadden, while adding newcomers such as Isaiah Likely, Tremaine Edmunds, and Patrick Ricard. But after restructuring and cuts before free agency, there were hopes of retaining more […] The post Have the Giants Been Aggressive Enough in Free Agency? appeared first on The Lead.
SGA breaks Wilt's 63-year-old scoring record; Kyler Murray signs with Vikings; latest Bracketology update
Plus first-round results and takeaways from The Players Championship
Book review: Hands, Wrists, Fingers: Creative Health for Musicians
Philippa Bunting reads Pedro de Alcantara's volume on boosting health for the curious musician, including some novel arm, wrist, hand and finger exercises for string players
Big 12 to swap LED glass court for hardwood floor for rest of basketball tournament after players complain
Commissioner Brett Yormark told CBS Sports he made the decision for the change after consulting with coaches
Rory McIlroy struggles in first-round of The Players Championship
Defending champion Rory McIlroy shot 74 in the opening round of The Players Championship.
Fox News Digital's News Quiz: March 13, 2026
Sports analyst Stephen A. Smith ruled out a White House bid and discussed GOP support while Iranian women's soccer players gained asylum in this weekly news quiz.
Ravens pivot to Hendrickson after nixing Crosby trade; The Players Championship gets underway
Plus Team USA advances to the quarterfinal of the World Baseball Classic
Dolphins re-sign pair of defenders as free agency opens
The Miami Dolphins had several players hitting the market when the new league year officially started, but they kept two late Tuesday afternoon.
Iran’s sports minister says country can't take part in World Cup because of U.S. attacks
Iran was expected to take part in the World Cup that will be held across North America in June, but Iranian Sports and Youth Minister Ahmad Donyamali told state television that his country’s soccer team players are not safe in the U.S., according to a video of the interview posted Tuesday.
2026 Players Championship odds, picks: Surprising predictions from model that's called 16 majors
Mike McClure's model has simulated The Players Championship 2026 10,000 times and revealed PGA best bets for TPC Sawgrass
Best remaining free agents: Who fits the 49ers?
Taking a look at 6 players who the 49ers might be interested in at a couple of positions of need.
Nebraska players challenge CSC over rejected NIL deals in potential precedent-setting arbitration
Eighteen Nebraska players are challenging the CSC's rejection of NIL deals worth more than $1 million total
How Giants' spring training position battles are shaping up as camp nears end
Alex Pavlovic provides a look at where some of the San Francisco Giants' spring training battles stand as players get closer to packing up.
The WNBA and players' union log 12-hour marathon talks to avoid delaying start of the season
Both sides described talks as constructive, though revenue sharing continues to be the central sticking point.
CERN Science Gateway celebrates its 1000th science show
CERN Science Gateway has reached another milestone: the delivery of its 1000th science show! Since opening its doors in October 2023, Science Gateway has welcomed nearly 900 000 visitors of all ages to explore the fundamental questions of the Universe. Among its most popular activities are the science shows – dynamic, interactive demonstrations led by CERN guides and tailored to a broad audience of different age levels, including school groups, families and the general public. Designed to make complex scientific concepts accessible and entertaining, these live shows combine spectacular experiments, multimedia elements and audience participation. From the physics of particle collisions to the properties of superconductivity, electromagnetism and cryogenics, the science shows translate the research carried out at CERN into engaging visual experiences. Visitors might see superconductors levitate, follow particles through different detector layers or discover the beauty in phase transitions. Each demonstration is carefully crafted to spark curiosity while maintaining scientific accuracy. Members of the CERN community are of course warmly invited to visit CERN Science Gateway with their family or friends and attend one of the science shows. To register, please visit this page, and don’t forget to check the programme for the coming days. Become a CERN guide and run your own super-cool science show (and more)! To become a CERN guide, you can join the introduction course held every 3–4 weeks, which will give you an overview of what being a CERN guide entails. From there, further courses are available depending on what type of guide you would like to be. Because, of course, CERN guides are needed everywhere at CERN. If you imagine yourself as a more ‘traditional’ guide, you should know that there are currently more than ten exciting visit points in CERN’s visits portfolio, such as the Antimatter Factory, the ALICE experiment (surface), the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) control room, the ATLAS experiment (surface), the CERN Control Centre (CCC), the Data Centre, the LHCb experiment (surface), the Synchrocyclotron (SC), the SM18 test facility and the newly inaugurated Linac2 visit point. Indeed, CERN’s Visits Service and Visual Impact and Exhibitions Section recently collaborated on redesigning the Linac2 visit tour, which has just reopened to the public after several months of renovation work. The new tour offers visitors and guides alike an enriched, more immersive experience, designed to highlight the history and scientific significance of this major facility. So, fancy becoming one of the insiders? Join the introduction course, check the guides website or contact guides.manager@cern.ch. And remember, becoming a guide can benefit you, too.
18 Nebraska football players challenging CSC over rejection of third-party NIL deals worth over $1 million
2026 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference shows why data make a difference
Over 2,500 — including coaches and players from Team USA, NBA, WNBA, and more — attended the 2026 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, the Institute’s industry-leading event.
2026 Players Championship picks, odds: Expert predictions, favorites to win in betting field at TPC Sawgrass
Who will win The Players? Our experts dive into all of the possibilities entering TPC Sawgrass
PS5 Players Could Get Compensation as Sony Slammed for Monopolistic Practices in UK Court
"Excessive and unfair"
2026 Players Championship odds, prop picks, predictions, free best bets: Golf model backing Collin Morikawa
Mike McClure's golf model has simulated the 2026 Players Invitational golf tournament 10,000 times and revealed its best prop bets
The PLAYERS Championship Best Bets: Why Rory's Still Our Guy
Plus, why you should keep your eye on Collin Morikawa, Min-Woo Lee, and Viktor Hovland this week.
Crimson Desert Specs For PC, Console, And Other Platforms Revealed
Pearl Abyss lets players know how powerful their machine of choice needs to be to run its open-world RPG.
Parkinson urges Wrexham to reel in Hull
Phil Parkinson has urged his Wrexham players to close the gap to the sides above them in the Championship as opposed to looking over their shoulders at the chasing pack over the remainder of their play-off run-in. The Red Dragons currently sit sixth but will move above Hull City into fifth if they can beat the Tigers at Stok Cae Ras tonight (19:45 GMT). "With Hull, they've had some strange games," Parkinson said.
Initial Thoughts on the Vikings’ Free Agency Moves
The Minnesota Vikings were not big players in the first day of the ‘legal tampering period’ which has become essentially the first day of free agency as a torrent of deals are announced. The Vikings did make some big splashes in free agency last year, and the dead cap hits to clear those moves is […]
World Cup virtual soccer lets bet365 players stack same-game bets
Bet365 extends virtual sports deal as Inspired adds Bet Builder to Virtual Soccer, targeting more personalized bets for the 2026 World Cup.
Slay the Spire 2 hits nearly 575,000 concurrent players, almost beating Silksong's record
Data from Video Game Insights suggests Mega Crit's deck-builder sequel has sold around 2.8 million units
Pokémon Pokopia has only just released, but players are already starting to figure out Minecraft-like automatic builds and logic gates
Pokémon Pokopia players are starting to figure out automatic builds that remind us of Minecraft's humble beginnings.
NFL free agency starts (kinda) Monday − ranking top 100 players available
NFL free agency starts Monday with something of a soft launch as players on expiring deals can begin negotiating with outside teams.
Tennis players and coaches have one of sports’ most complex relationships. Some go alone
Tennis players going without a coach is far more common — and complicated — than fans might think.
Here Comes a Massive Week for J.J. McCarthy
The Minnesota Vikings will begin signing new players next week, along with retaining ones they want back from the 2025 […]
Diamondbacks' Tawa, Barrosa planned tweaks
The Diamondbacks need a couple young players who graduated prospect status to take steps in their development: Jorge Barrosa and Tim Tawa.
Resident Evil Requiem Players Can Give Grace a Massive Advantage on Second Playthroughs (Perfect for Insanity Run)
Resident Evil Requiem players find a way to give Grace a huge advantage on second playthroughs, making it perfect for Insanity runs.
Jon Rahm claims LIV Golf title in Hong Kong
Jon Rahm produces a final round 64 to claim victory at the LIV Golf event in Hong Kong as he beats Thomas Detry - one of the players he helped leave the Middle East - to the title.
Mick Cronin's controversial criticisms aren't rattling UCLA players
UCLA coach Mick Cronin's courtside demeanor and postgame bluntness make him no stranger to controversy, but his players say they are fine with his methods.
PSA: Pokémon Pokopia Players Can Now Tour The Developer's Cloud Island
You'll need a code and Switch Online sub to visit
UiPath Expands Into Healthcare AI As Valuation Lags Analyst Targets
UiPath (NYSE:PATH) has launched agentic AI automation tools tailored for healthcare providers and payers. The company is partnering with Genzeon to target data management and revenue cycle workflows. Use cases include medical records summarization, claim denial prevention, and prior authorization processing. For investors following NYSE:PATH, this move takes the company deeper into healthcare, a sector where many workflows still rely on manual processes and fragmented systems. UiPath built...
Trump predicts ‘whole educational system’ could go out of business without fixes to college sports
Many schools are drowning in red ink from paying players while the rules for those payments keep evolving.