User:The Transhumanist
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- User page undergoing expansion/revamp. Please excuse the blank section until it is completed. Thank you.
Introduction
Hi. My name is The Transhumanist.
- As a transhumanist...
I love emerging and evolving technologies, and so...
I'm currently immersed in studying AI (particularly generative AI and reasoning engines), and big data.
I dabble in JavaScript, including writing user scripts from time to time.
My best user script so far, is SearchSuite...
SearchSuite provides further control over Wikipedia search results, such as on/off features to sort them, to present results one-per-line, and more. While it seems to work fairly well, there is definitely room for improvement. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
By the way, most of the scripts I've been working on are for building and augmenting outlines...
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- As an encyclopedist...
I'm interested in all knowledge, especially how to organize it so you can find whatever is most relevant at any given moment.
I've been around Wikipedia since the Fall of 2005, and have been working mostly on Wikipedia's structure, and its knowledge navigation systems, throughout that time.
Selected articles that I've worked on
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Existential risk from artificial intelligence refers to the idea that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could lead to human extinction or an irreversible global catastrophe.
One argument for the importance of this risk references how human beings dominate other species because the human brain possesses distinctive capabilities other animals lack. If AI were to surpass human intelligence and become superintelligent, it might become uncontrollable. Just as the fate of the mountain gorilla depends on human goodwill, the fate of humanity could depend on the actions of a future machine superintelligence.
The plausibility of existential catastrophe due to AI is widely debated. It hinges in part on whether AGI or superintelligence are achievable, the speed at which dangerous capabilities and behaviors emerge, and whether practical scenarios for AI takeovers exist. Concerns about superintelligence have been voiced by computer scientists and tech CEOs such as Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Alan Turing, Elon Musk, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In 2022, a survey of AI researchers with a 17% response rate found that the majority believed there is a 10 percent or greater chance that human inability to control AI will cause an existential catastrophe. In 2023, hundreds of AI experts and other notable figures signed a statement declaring, "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war". Following increased concern over AI risks, government leaders such as United Kingdom prime minister Rishi Sunak and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for an increased focus on global AI regulation.
Two sources of concern stem from the problems of AI control and alignment. Controlling a superintelligent machine or instilling it with human-compatible values may be difficult. Many researchers believe that a superintelligent machine would likely resist attempts to disable it or change its goals as that would prevent it from accomplishing its present goals. It would be extremely challenging to align a superintelligence with the full breadth of significant human values and constraints. In contrast, skeptics such as computer scientist Yann LeCun argue that superintelligent machines will have no desire for self-preservation. (Full article...) -
A depiction of Idris visiting Heaven and Hell from a Persian illuminated manuscript version of the Islamic text Stories of the Prophets (1577)
The afterlife or life after death is a postulated existence in which the essential part of an individual's stream of consciousness or identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, which carries with it one's personal identity.
In some views, this continued existence takes place in a spiritual realm, while in others, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again in a process referred to as reincarnation, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism, and metaphysics.
Some belief systems, such as those in the Abrahamic tradition, hold that the dead go to a specific place (e.g., paradise or hell) after death, as determined by their god, based on their actions and beliefs during life. In contrast, in systems of reincarnation, such as those of the Indian religions, the nature of the continued existence is determined directly by the actions of the individual in the ended life. (Full article...) -
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of successive self-improvement cycles; more intelligent generations would appear more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence that culminates in a powerful superintelligence, far surpassing all human intelligence.
Some scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have expressed concern that artificial superintelligence (ASI) could result in human extinction. The consequences of a technological singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been intensely debated.
Prominent technologists and academics dispute the plausibility of a technological singularity and associated artificial intelligence explosion, including Paul Allen, Jeff Hawkins, John Holland, Jaron Lanier, Steven Pinker, Theodore Modis, Gordon Moore, and Roger Penrose. One claim is that artificial intelligence growth is likely to run into decreasing returns instead of accelerating ones. Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig observe that in the history of technology, improvement in a particular area tends to follow an S curve: it begins with accelerating improvement, but it eventually begins to level off (without continuing upward into a hyperbolic singularity). Consider, for example, the history of transportation, which experienced exponential improvement from 1820 to 1970, but then abruptly leveled off. Predictions based on continued exponential improvement (e.g. interplanetary travel by 2000) proved to be false. (Full article...) -
The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress in the United States, which can be used for shelving books in a library. LCC is mainly used by large research and academic libraries, while most public libraries and small academic libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The classification was developed by James Hanson (chief of the Catalog Department), with assistance from Charles Martel, in 1897, while they were working at the Library of Congress. It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress, to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson.
LCC has been criticized for lacking a sound theoretical basis; many of the classification decisions were driven by the practical needs of that library rather than epistemological considerations. Although it divides subjects into broad categories, it is essentially enumerative in nature. That is, it provides a guide to the books actually in one library's collections, not a classification of the world. (Full article...) -
Visualization of various methodological approaches to gaining insights from meta data areas
Information science is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information. Practitioners within and outside the field study the application and the usage of knowledge in organizations in addition to the interaction between people, organizations, and any existing information systems with the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or understanding the information systems. (Full article...) -
Knowledge extraction is the creation of knowledge from structured (relational databases, XML) and unstructured (text, documents, images) sources. The resulting knowledge needs to be in a machine-readable and machine-interpretable format and must represent knowledge in a manner that facilitates inferencing. Although it is methodically similar to information extraction (NLP) and ETL (data warehouse), the main criterion is that the extraction result goes beyond the creation of structured information or the transformation into a relational schema. It requires either the reuse of existing formal knowledge (reusing identifiers or ontologies) or the generation of a schema based on the source data.
The RDB2RDF W3C group is currently standardizing a language for extraction of resource description frameworks (RDF) from relational databases. Another popular example for knowledge extraction is the transformation of Wikipedia into structured data and also the mapping to existing knowledge (see DBpedia and Freebase). (Full article...) -
Types of democracy refers to the various governance structures that embody the principles of democracy ("rule by the people") in some way. Democracy is frequently applied to governments (ranging from local to global), but may also be applied to other constructs like workplaces, families, community associations, and so forth.
Types of democracy can cluster around values. Some such types, defined as direct democracy (or participatory democracy, or deliberative democracy), promote equal and direct participation in political decisions by all members of the public. Others, including the many variants of representative democracy (i.e., constitutional), favor more indirect or procedural approaches to collective self-governance, wherein decisions are made by elected representatives rather than by the people directly.
Types of democracy can be found across time, space, and language. The foregoing examples are just a few of the thousands of refinements of, and variations on, the central notion of "democracy." (Full article...) -
Life extension is the concept of extending the human lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled biological limit of around 125 years. Several researchers in the area, along with "life extensionists", "immortalists", or "longevists" (those who wish to achieve longer lives themselves), postulate that future breakthroughs in tissue rejuvenation, stem cells, regenerative medicine, molecular repair, gene therapy, pharmaceuticals, and organ replacement (such as with artificial organs or xenotransplantations) will eventually enable humans to have indefinite lifespans through complete rejuvenation to a healthy youthful condition (agerasia). The ethical ramifications, if life extension becomes a possibility, are debated by bioethicists.
The sale of purported anti-aging products such as supplements and hormone replacement is a lucrative global industry. For example, the industry that promotes the use of hormones as a treatment for consumers to slow or reverse the aging process in the US market generated about $50 billion of revenue a year in 2009. The use of such hormone products has not been proven to be effective or safe. (Full article...) -
Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include old technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies are often perceived as capable of changing the status quo.
Emerging technologies are characterized by radical novelty (in application even if not in origins), relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity. In other words, an emerging technology can be defined as "a radically novel and relatively fast growing technology characterised by a certain degree of coherence persisting over time and with the potential to exert a considerable impact on the socio-economic domain(s) which is observed in terms of the composition of actors, institutions and patterns of interactions among those, along with the associated knowledge production processes. Its most prominent impact, however, lies in the future and so in the emergence phase is still somewhat uncertain and ambiguous."
Emerging technologies include a variety of technologies such as educational technology, information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
New technological fields may result from the technological convergence of different systems evolving towards similar goals. Convergence brings previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video together so that they share resources and interact with each other, creating new efficiencies. (Full article...) -
Cardiology (from Ancient Greek καρδίᾱ (kardiā) 'heart' and -λογία (-logia) 'study') is the study of the heart. Cardiology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease, and electrophysiology. Physicians who specialize in this field of medicine are called cardiologists, a sub-specialty of internal medicine. Pediatric cardiologists are pediatricians who specialize in cardiology. Physicians who specialize in cardiac surgery are called cardiothoracic surgeons or cardiac surgeons, a specialty of general surgery. (Full article...) -
The meaning of life is the concept of an individual's life, or existence in general, having an inherent significance or a philosophical point. There is no consensus on the specifics of such a concept or whether the concept itself even exists in any objective sense. Thinking and discourse on the topic is sought in the English language through questions such as—but not limited to—"What is the meaning of life?", "What is the purpose of existence?", and "Why are we here?". There have been many proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. The search for life's meaning has produced much philosophical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical speculation throughout history. Different people and cultures believe different things for the answer to this question. Opinions vary on the usefulness of using time and resources in the pursuit of an answer. Excessive pondering can be indicative of, or lead to, an existential crisis.
The meaning of life can be derived from philosophical and religious contemplation of, and scientific inquiries about, existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness. Many other issues are also involved, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, the existence of one or multiple gods, conceptions of God, the soul, and the afterlife. Scientific contributions focus primarily on describing related empirical facts about the universe, exploring the context and parameters concerning the "how" of life. Science also studies and can provide recommendations for the pursuit of well-being and a related conception of morality. An alternative, humanistic approach poses the question, "What is the meaning of my life?" (Full article...) -
Human impact on the environment (or anthropogenic environmental impact) refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society (as in the built environment) is causing severe effects including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Some human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment on a global scale include population growth, neoliberal economic policies and rapid economic growth, overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution, and deforestation. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss, have been proposed as representing catastrophic risks to the survival of the human species.
The term anthropogenic designates an effect or object resulting from human activity. The term was first used in the technical sense by Russian geologist Alexey Pavlov, and it was first used in English by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in reference to human influences on climax plant communities. The atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen introduced the term "Anthropocene" in the mid-1970s. The term is sometimes used in the context of pollution produced from human activity since the start of the Agricultural Revolution but also applies broadly to all major human impacts on the environment. Many of the actions taken by humans that contribute to a heated environment stem from the burning of fossil fuel from a variety of sources, such as: electricity, cars, planes, space heating, manufacturing, or the destruction of forests. (Full article...) -
A block is a defensive tactic in chess in response to an attack, consisting of interposing a piece between the opponent's attacking piece and the piece being attacked. This type of blocking will only work if the attacking piece is a type that can move linearly an indefinite number of squares such as a queen, rook, or bishop and there is at least one empty square in the line between the attacking and attacked piece. Blocking is not an option when the attacking piece is directly adjacent to the piece it is attacking, or when the attacking piece is a knight (because knights "jump over other pieces" and cannot be blocked). When an opponent's attack on a piece is blocked, the blocking piece is to some extent pinned, either relatively or absolutely, until a future move by either side allows it to be unpinned.
A check on a king by an opponent's queen, rook, or bishop can sometimes be blocked by moving a piece to a square in line in between the opponent's checking piece and the checked king. The blocking piece is then absolutely pinned to the king by the attacking piece.
Another type of interposing in chess can involve placing a piece between two opponent's pieces where one of those pieces is protecting the other, or they are both protecting each other. This chess tactic can be called interference. (Full article...) -
Roboticists with three Mars rover robots. Front and center is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner, which landed on Mars in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder Project. On the left is a Mars Exploration Rover (MER) test vehicle that is a working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. On the right is a test rover for the Mars Science Laboratory, which landed Curiosity on Mars in 2012.
Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots.
Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer science, robotics focuses on robotic automation algorithms. Other disciplines contributing to robotics include electrical, control, software, information, electronic, telecommunication, computer, mechatronic, and materials engineering.
The goal of most robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Many robots are built to do jobs that are hazardous to people, such as finding survivors in unstable ruins, and exploring space, mines and shipwrecks. Others replace people in jobs that are boring, repetitive, or unpleasant, such as cleaning, monitoring, transporting, and assembling. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as technological advances continue; researching, designing, and building new robots serve various practical purposes. (Full article...) -
Artificial general intelligence (AGI)—sometimes called human‑level intelligence AI—is a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks.
Some researchers argue that state‑of‑the‑art large language models already exhibit early signs of AGI‑level capability, while others maintain that genuine AGI has not yet been achieved. AGI is conceptually distinct from artificial superintelligence (ASI), which would outperform the best human abilities across every domain by a wide margin. AGI is considered one of the definitions of strong AI.
Unlike artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), whose competence is confined to well‑defined tasks, an AGI system can generalise knowledge, transfer skills between domains, and solve novel problems without task‑specific reprogramming. The concept does not, in principle, require the system to be an autonomous agent; a static model—such as a highly capable large language model—or an embodied robot could both satisfy the definition so long as human‑level breadth and proficiency are achieved.
Creating AGI is a primary goal of AI research and of companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta. A 2020 survey identified 72 active AGI research and development projects across 37 countries. (Full article...) -
Ontology learning (ontology extraction, ontology augmentation generation, ontology generation, or ontology acquisition) is the automatic or semi-automatic creation of ontologies, including extracting the corresponding domain's terms and the relationships between the concepts that these terms represent from a corpus of natural language text, and encoding them with an ontology language for easy retrieval. As building ontologies manually is extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming, there is great motivation to automate the process.
Typically, the process starts by extracting terms and concepts or noun phrases from plain text using linguistic processors such as part-of-speech tagging and phrase chunking. Then statistical
or symbolic
techniques are used to extract relation signatures, often based on pattern-based or definition-based hypernym extraction techniques. (Full article...) -
Friendly artificial intelligence (friendly AI or FAI) is hypothetical artificial general intelligence (AGI) that would have a positive (benign) effect on humanity or at least align with human interests such as fostering the improvement of the human species. It is a part of the ethics of artificial intelligence and is closely related to machine ethics. While machine ethics is concerned with how an artificially intelligent agent should behave, friendly artificial intelligence research is focused on how to practically bring about this behavior and ensuring it is adequately constrained. (Full article...)
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An EXCOMM meeting during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a crisis between the United States and Soviet Union over ballistic missiles in Cuba
A crisis (pl.: crises; ADJ: critical) is any event or period that will lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affairs, especially when they occur abruptly, with little or no warning. More loosely, a crisis is a testing time for an emergency. (Full article...) -
Athlete's foot, known medically as tinea pedis, is a common skin infection of the feet caused by a fungus. Signs and symptoms often include itching, scaling, cracking and redness. In rare cases the skin may blister. Athlete's foot fungus may infect any part of the foot, but most often grows between the toes. The next most common area is the bottom of the foot. The same fungus may also affect the nails or the hands. It is a member of the group of diseases known as tinea.
Athlete's foot is caused by a number of different funguses, including species of Trichophyton, Epidermophyton, and Microsporum. The condition is typically acquired by coming into contact with infected skin, or fungus in the environment. Common places where the funguses can survive are around swimming pools and in locker rooms. They may also be spread from other animals. Usually diagnosis is made based on signs and symptoms; however, it can be confirmed either by culture or seeing hyphae using a microscope.
Athlete's foot is not limited to just athletes: it can be caused by going barefoot in public showers, letting toenails grow too long, wearing shoes that are too tight, or not changing socks daily. It can be treated with topical antifungal medications such as clotrimazole or, for persistent infections, using oral antifungal medications such as terbinafine. Topical creams are typically recommended to be used for four weeks. Keeping infected feet dry and wearing sandals also assists with treatment.
Athlete's foot was first medically described in 1908. Globally, athlete's foot affects about 15% of the population. Males are more often affected than females. It occurs most frequently in older children or younger adults. Historically it is believed to have been a rare condition that became more frequent in the 20th century due to the greater use of shoes, health clubs, war, and travel. (Full article...) -
Web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction is data scraping used for extracting data from websites. Web scraping software may directly access the World Wide Web using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol or a web browser. While web scraping can be done manually by a software user, the term typically refers to automated processes implemented using a bot or web crawler. It is a form of copying in which specific data is gathered and copied from the web, typically into a central local database or spreadsheet, for later retrieval or analysis.
Scraping a web page involves fetching it and then extracting data from it. Fetching is the downloading of a page (which a browser does when a user views a page). Therefore, web crawling is a main component of web scraping, to fetch pages for later processing. Having fetched, extraction can take place. The content of a page may be parsed, searched and reformatted, and its data copied into a spreadsheet or loaded into a database. Web scrapers typically take something out of a page, to make use of it for another purpose somewhere else. An example would be finding and copying names and telephone numbers, companies and their URLs, or e-mail addresses to a list (contact scraping).
As well as contact scraping, web scraping is used as a component of applications used for web indexing, web mining and data mining, online price change monitoring and price comparison, product review scraping (to watch the competition), gathering real estate listings, weather data monitoring, website change detection, research, tracking online presence and reputation, web mashup, and web data integration.
Web pages are built using text-based mark-up languages (HTML and XHTML), and frequently contain a wealth of useful data in text form. However, most web pages are designed for human end-users and not for ease of automated use. As a result, specialized tools and software have been developed to facilitate the scraping of web pages. Web scraping applications include market research, price comparison, content monitoring, and more. Businesses rely on web scraping services to efficiently gather and utilize this data. (Full article...) -
This article explains terms used for the British Armed Forces' ordnance (weapons) and ammunition. The terms may have different meanings depending on their usage in another country's military. (Full article...)
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Figure 1. Compliant bonding a gold wire (Click to enlarge view)
Compliant bonding is used to connect gold wires to electrical components such as integrated circuit "chips". It was invented by Alexander Coucoulas in the 1960s. The bond is formed well below the melting point of the mating gold surfaces and is therefore referred to as a solid-state type bond. The compliant bond is formed by transmitting heat and pressure to the bond region through a relatively thick indentable or compliant medium, generally an aluminum tape (Figure 1). (Full article...) -
Two pieces of string under a light microscope
String is a long flexible tool made from fibers twisted together into a single strand, or from multiple such strands which are in turn twisted together. String is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects. It is also used as a material to make things, such as textiles, and in arts and crafts. String is a simple tool, and its use by humans is known to have been developed tens of thousands of years ago. In Mesoamerica, for example, string was invented some 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, and was made by twisting plant fibers together. String may also be a component in other tools, and in devices as diverse as weapons, musical instruments, and toys. (Full article...) -
Etruscan: Diomedes and Polyxena, from the Etruscan amphora of the Pontic group, c. 540–530 BCE – From Vulci
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take varied forms, including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is a visual art. While some ceramics are considered fine art, such as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramic art can be created by one person or by a group, in a pottery or a ceramic factory with a group designing and manufacturing the artware.
In Britain and the United States, modern ceramics as an art took its inspiration in the early twentieth century from the Arts and Crafts movement, leading to the revival of pottery considered as a specifically modern craft. Such crafts emphasized traditional non-industrial production techniques, faithfulness to the material, the skills of the individual maker, attention to utility, and an absence of excessive decoration that was typical to the Victorian era.
The word "ceramics" comes from the Greek keramikos (κεραμεικός), meaning "pottery", which in turn comes from keramos (κέραμος) meaning "potter's clay". Most traditional ceramic products were made from clay (or clay mixed with other materials), shaped and subjected to heat, and tableware and decorative ceramics are generally still made this way. In modern ceramic engineering usage, ceramics is the art and science of making objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials by the action of heat. It excludes glass and mosaic made from glass tesserae.
There is a long history of ceramic art in almost all developed cultures, and often ceramic objects are all the artistic evidence left from vanished cultures, like that of the Nok in Africa over 2,000 years ago. Cultures especially noted for ceramics include the Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Persian, Mayan, Japanese, and Korean cultures, as well as the modern Western cultures. (Full article...) -
A revenue model is a framework for generating financial income. There can be a variety of ways for revenue generation such as the production model, manufacturing model, as well as the construction model. A revenue model identifies which revenue source to pursue, what value to offer, how to price the value, and who pays for the value. It is a key component of a company's business model. A revenue model primarily identifies what product or service will be created and sold in order to generate revenues.
Without a clear and well-defined revenue model new businesses will be more likely to struggle. By having a clear revenue model, a business can focus on a target audience, fund development plans for a product or service, establish marketing plans, open a line of credit and raise capital. (Full article...)
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Selected emerging technologies and related articles
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The 3M22 Zircon, also spelled Tsirkon (Russian: Циркон, NATO reporting name: SS-N-33), is a Russian scramjet-powered, nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile. Produced by NPO Mashinostroyeniya for the Russian Navy, the missile utilizes the 3S-14 launch platforms on frigates and submarines. The missile has a reported top speed of Mach 9. The weapon was first used during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Full article...) -
A Nintendo DS Lite, the best-selling handheld console and the second best-selling console overall
A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers, and controls in one unit, allowing players to carry them and play them at any time or place.
In 1976, Mattel introduced the first handheld electronic game with the release of Auto Race. Later, several companies—including Coleco and Milton Bradley—made their own single-game, lightweight table-top or handheld electronic game devices. The first commercially successful handheld console was Merlin from 1978, which sold more than 5 million units. The first handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges is the Milton Bradley Microvision in 1979. (Full article...) -
Reconfigurable computing is a computer architecture combining some of the flexibility of software with the high performance of hardware by processing with flexible hardware platforms like field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The principal difference when compared to using ordinary microprocessors is the ability to add custom computational blocks using FPGAs. On the other hand, the main difference from custom hardware, i.e. application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) is the possibility to adapt the hardware during runtime by "loading" a new circuit on the reconfigurable fabric, thus providing new computational blocks without the need to manufacture and add new chips to the existing system. (Full article...)
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JX-594 is an oncolytic virus is designed to target and destroy cancer cells. It is also known as Pexa-Vec, INN pexastimogene devacirepvec) and was constructed in Dr. Edmund Lattime's lab at Thomas Jefferson University, tested in clinical trials on melanoma patients, and licensed and further developed by SillaJen.
JX-594 is a modified Copenhagen strain (or Wyeth strain) vaccinia poxvirus engineered by addition of the GM-CSF gene and deletion of the thymidine kinase gene which limits viral replication to cells with high levels of thymidine kinase, typically seen in cancer cells with a mutated RAS or p53 gene. The virus also has the LacZ gene insertion under control of the p7.5 promoter. The virus kills the infected/cancer cells by lysis and also expresses GM-CSF which may help initiate an anti-tumour immune response. (Full article...) -
Two photographs of a single hologram taken from different viewpoints
Holography is a technique that allows a wavefront to be recorded and later reconstructed. It is best known as a method of generating three-dimensional images, and has a wide range of other uses, including data storage, microscopy, and interferometry. In principle, it is possible to make a hologram for any type of wave.
A hologram is a recording of an interference pattern that can reproduce a 3D light field using diffraction. In general usage, a hologram is a recording of any type of wavefront in the form of an interference pattern. It can be created by capturing light from a real scene, or it can be generated by a computer, in which case it is known as a computer-generated hologram, which can show virtual objects or scenes. Optical holography needs a laser light to record the light field. The reproduced light field can generate an image that has the depth and parallax of the original scene. A hologram is usually unintelligible when viewed under diffuse ambient light. When suitably lit, the interference pattern diffracts the light into an accurate reproduction of the original light field, and the objects that were in it exhibit visual depth cues such as parallax and perspective that change realistically with the different angles of viewing. That is, the view of the image from different angles shows the subject viewed from similar angles. (Full article...) -
The Nissan Leaf (left) and the Tesla Model S (right) were the world's all-time top-selling all-electric cars in 2018.
A battery electric vehicle (BEV), pure electric vehicle, only-electric vehicle, fully electric vehicle or all-electric vehicle is a type of electric vehicle (EV) that uses electrical energy exclusively from an on-board battery pack to power one or more electric traction motors, on which the vehicle solely relies for propulsion.
This definition excludes hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs; including mild, full and plug-in hybrids), which use internal combustion engines (ICEs) in adjunct to electric motors for propulsion; and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and range-extended electric vehicles (REEVs), which consume fuel through a fuel cell or an ICE-driven generator to produce electricity needed for the electric motors. BEVs have no fuel tanks and replenish their energy storage by plugging into a charging station, electrical grid or getting a new battery at a battery swap station, and use motor controllers to modulate the output engine power and torque, thus eliminating the need for clutches, transmissions and sophisticated engine cooling as seen in conventional ICE vehicles. BEVs include – but are not limited to – all battery-driven electric cars, buses, trucks, forklifts, motorcycles and scooters, bicycles, skateboards, railcars, boat and personal watercraft, although in common usage the term usually refers specifically to passenger cars. (Full article...) -
Pelareorep (previously known under the trademark Reolysin) is a proprietary isolate of the unmodified human reovirus being developed as a systemically administered immuno-oncological viral agent for the treatment of solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Pelareorep is an oncolytic virus, which means that it preferentially lyses cancer cells. Pelareorep also promotes an inflamed tumor phenotype through innate and adaptive immune responses. Preliminary clinical trials indicate that it may have anti-cancer effects across a variety of cancer types (including breast, colorectal and pancreatic, as well as multiple myeloma) when administered alone and in combination with other cancer therapies.
In April 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted orphan drug designation to pelareorep for malignant glioma. In May 2017, the FDA granted Fast Track Designation for pelareorep in metastatic breast cancer. (Full article...) -
Animation 1. 3D measurement of self-healing material from Tosoh Corporation measured by digital holographic microscopy. The surface has been scratched by a metallic tool.
Self-healing materials are artificial or synthetically created substances that have the built-in ability to automatically repair damages to themselves without any external diagnosis of the problem or human intervention. Generally, materials will degrade over time due to fatigue, environmental conditions, or damage incurred during operation. Cracks and other types of damage on a microscopic level have been shown to change thermal, electrical, and acoustical properties of materials, and the propagation of cracks can lead to eventual failure of the material. In general, cracks are hard to detect at an early stage, and manual intervention is required for periodic inspections and repairs. In contrast, self-healing materials counter degradation through the initiation of a repair mechanism that responds to the micro-damage. Some self-healing materials are classed as smart structures, and can adapt to various environmental conditions according to their sensing and actuation properties.
Although the most common types of self-healing materials are polymers or elastomers, self-healing covers all classes of materials, including metals, ceramics, and cementitious materials. Healing mechanisms vary from an instrinsic repair of the material to the addition of a repair agent contained in a microscopic vessel. For a material to be strictly defined as autonomously self-healing, it is necessary that the healing process occurs without human intervention. Self-healing polymers may, however, activate in response to an external stimulus (light, temperature change, etc.) to initiate the healing processes. (Full article...) -
Graphene (/ˈɡræfiːn/) is a carbon allotrope consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a honeycomb planar nanostructure. The name "graphene" is derived from "graphite" and the suffix -ene, indicating the presence of double bonds within the carbon structure.
Graphene is known for its exceptionally high tensile strength, electrical conductivity, transparency, and being the thinnest two-dimensional material in the world. Despite the nearly transparent nature of a single graphene sheet, graphite (formed from stacked layers of graphene) appears black because it absorbs all visible light wavelengths. On a microscopic scale, graphene is the strongest material ever measured. (Full article...) -
Electropherograms are commonly used to sequence portions of genomes.
Whole genome sequencing (WGS), also known as full genome sequencing or just genome sequencing, is the process of determining the entirety of the DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a single time. This entails sequencing all of an organism's chromosomal DNA as well as DNA contained in the mitochondria and, for plants, in the chloroplast.
Whole genome sequencing has largely been used as a research tool, but was being introduced to clinics in 2014. In the future of personalized medicine, whole genome sequence data may be an important tool to guide therapeutic intervention. The tool of gene sequencing at SNP level is also used to pinpoint functional variants from association studies and improve the knowledge available to researchers interested in evolutionary biology, and hence may lay the foundation for predicting disease susceptibility and drug response. (Full article...) -
The following formats go beyond the current third-generation discs and have the potential to hold more than one terabyte (1 TB) of data and at least some are meant for cold data storage in data centers:[dubious – discuss]* Archival Disc
Announced but not released:- LS-R
- Protein-coated disc
- Stacked Volumetric Optical Disc
- 5D DVD
- 3D optical data storage (not a single technology, examples are Hyper CD-ROM and Fluorescent Multilayer Disc)
In 2004, development of the Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) commenced, which promised the storage of several terabytes of data per disc. However, development stagnated towards the late 2000s due to lack of funding. (Full article...) -
A space elevator is conceived as a cable fixed to the equator and reaching into space. A counterweight at the upper end keeps the center of mass well above geostationary orbit level. This produces enough upward centrifugal force from Earth's rotation to fully counter the downward gravity, keeping the cable upright and taut. Climbers carry cargo up and down the cable.
A space elevator, also referred to as a space bridge, star ladder, and orbital lift, is a proposed type of planet-to-space transportation system, often depicted in science fiction. The main component would be a cable (also called a tether) anchored to the surface and extending into space. An Earth-based space elevator would consist of a cable with one end attached to the surface near the equator and the other end attached to a counterweight in space beyond geostationary orbit (35,786 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity, which is stronger at the lower end, and the upward centrifugal pseudo-force (it is actually the inertia of the counterweight that creates the tension on the space side), which is stronger at the upper end, would result in the cable being held up, under tension, and stationary over a single position on Earth. With the tether deployed, climbers (crawlers) could repeatedly climb up and down the tether by mechanical means, releasing their cargo to and from orbit. The design would permit vehicles to travel directly between a planetary surface, such as the Earth's, and orbit, without the use of large rockets. (Full article...) -
Biosphere 2
Closed ecological systems or contained ecological systems (CES) are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.
The term is most often used to describe small, man-made ecosystems. Such systems can potentially serve as a life-support system or space habitats. (Full article...) -
Molecular electronics is the study and application of molecular building blocks for the fabrication of electronic components. It is an interdisciplinary area that spans physics, chemistry, and materials science. It provides a potential means to extend Moore's Law beyond the foreseen limits of small-scale conventional silicon integrated circuits. (Full article...)
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A visual prosthesis, often referred to as a bionic eye, is a visual device intended to restore functional vision in those with partial or total blindness. Many devices have been developed, usually modeled on the cochlear implant or bionic ear devices, a type of neural prosthesis in use since the mid-1980s. The idea of using electrical current (e.g., electrically stimulating the retina or the visual cortex) to provide sight dates back to the 18th century, discussed by Benjamin Franklin, Tiberius Cavallo, and Charles LeRoy. (Full article...)
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Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2025, no device has reached net power.
Fusion processes require fuel, in a state of plasma, and a confined environment with sufficient temperature, pressure, and confinement time. The combination of these parameters that results in a power-producing system is known as the Lawson criterion. In stellar cores the most common fuel is the lightest isotope of hydrogen (protium), and gravity provides the conditions needed for fusion energy production. Proposed fusion reactors would use the heavy hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium for DT fusion, for which the Lawson criterion is the easiest to achieve. This produces a helium nucleus and an energetic neutron. Most designs aim to heat their fuel to around 100 million kelvins. The necessary combination of pressure and confinement time has proven very difficult to produce. Reactors must achieve levels of breakeven well beyond net plasma power and net electricity production to be economically viable. Fusion fuel is 10 million times more energy dense than coal, but tritium is extremely rare on Earth, having a half life of only ~12.3 years. Consequently, during the operation of envisioned fusion reactors, lithium breeding blankets are to be subjected to neutron fluxes to generate tritium to complete the fuel cycle. (Full article...) -
Inspecting an AN/ALQ-184 Electronic Attack Pod.
An electronic countermeasure (ECM) is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar, or other detection systems, like infrared (IR) or lasers. It may be used both offensively and defensively to deny targeting information to an enemy. The system may make many separate targets appear to the enemy, or make the real target appear to disappear or move about randomly. It is used effectively to protect aircraft from guided missiles. Most air forces use ECM to protect their aircraft from attack. It has also been deployed by military ships and recently on some advanced tanks to fool laser/IR guided missiles. It is frequently coupled with stealth advances so that the ECM systems have an easier job. Offensive ECM often takes the form of jamming. Self-protecting (defensive) ECM includes using blip enhancement and jamming of missile terminal homers. (Full article...) -
Swarm of open-source Jasmine micro-robots recharging themselves
Swarm robotics is the study of how to design independent systems of robots without centralized control. The emerging swarming behavior of robotic swarms is created through the interactions between individual robots and the environment. This idea emerged on the field of artificial swarm intelligence, as well as the studies of insects, ants and other fields in nature, where swarm behavior occurs.
Relatively simple individual rules can produce a large set of complex swarm behaviors. A key component is the communication between the members of the group that build a system of constant feedback. The swarm behavior involves constant change of individuals in cooperation with others, as well as the behavior of the whole group. (Full article...) -
Millipede memory is a form of non-volatile computer memory. It promised a data density of more than 1 terabit per square inch (1 gigabit per square millimeter), which is about the limit of the perpendicular recording hard drives. Millipede storage technology was pursued as a potential replacement for magnetic recording in hard drives and a means of reducing the physical size of the technology to that of flash media.
IBM demonstrated a prototype millipede storage device at CeBIT 2005, and was trying to make the technology commercially available by the end of 2007. However, because of concurrent advances in competing storage technologies, no commercial product has been made available since then. (Full article...) -
Generation IV (Gen IV) reactors are nuclear reactor design technologies that are envisioned as successors of generation III reactors. The Generation IV International Forum (GIF) – an international organization that coordinates the development of generation IV reactors – specifically selected six reactor technologies as candidates for generation IV reactors. The designs target improved safety, sustainability, efficiency, and cost. The World Nuclear Association in 2015 suggested that some might enter commercial operation before 2030.
No precise definition of a Generation IV reactor exists. The term refers to nuclear reactor technologies under development as of approximately 2000, and whose designs were intended to represent 'the future shape of nuclear energy', at least at that time. The six designs selected were: the gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR), the lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR), the molten salt reactor (MSR), the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), the supercritical-water-cooled reactor (SCWR) and the very high-temperature reactor (VHTR). (Full article...) -
* When insulin pump technology is combined with a continuous blood glucose monitoring system, the technology seems promising for real time control of the blood sugar level. Currently there are no mature algorithms to automatically control the insulin delivery based on feedback of the blood glucose level. When the loop is closed, the system may function as an artificial pancreas.
- Insulin pumps are being used for infusing pramlintide (brand name Symlin, or synthetic amylin) with insulin for improved postprandial glycemic control compared to insulin alone.
- Dual hormone insulin pumps that infuse either insulin or glucagon. In event of hypoglycemia, the glucagon could be triggered to increase the blood glucose. This would be particularly valuable in a closed loop system under the control of a glucose sensor. The Artificial Pancreas, currently in clinical trials for FDA approval, is a recently developed device designed with this technology in mind.
- Ultrafast insulins. These insulins are absorbed more quickly than the currently available Humalog, Novolog, and Apidra which have a peak at about 60 minutes. Faster insulin uptake would theoretically coordinate with meals better, and allow faster recovery from hyperglycemia if the insulin infusion is suspended. Biodel is developing an ultrafast insulin
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The National Ignition Facility, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, United States. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain. It achieved the first instance of scientific breakeven controlled fusion in an experiment on December 5, 2022, with an energy gain factor of 1.5. It supports nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear explosions.
NIF is the largest and most powerful ICF device built to date. The basic ICF concept is to squeeze a small amount of fuel to reach the pressure and temperature necessary for fusion. NIF hosts the world's most energetic laser, which indirectly heats the outer layer of a small sphere. The energy is so intense that it causes the sphere to implode, squeezing the fuel inside. The implosion reaches a peak speed of 350 km/s (0.35 mm/ns), raising the fuel density from about that of water to about 100 times that of lead. The delivery of energy and the adiabatic process during implosion raises the temperature of the fuel to hundreds of millions of degrees. At these temperatures, fusion processes occur in the tiny interval before the fuel explodes outward. (Full article...) -
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since the 1930s, synchronized with sound and (less commonly) other sensory stimulations. (Full article...)
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Joint replacement is a procedure of orthopedic surgery known also as arthroplasty, in which an arthritic or dysfunctional joint surface is replaced with an orthopedic prosthesis. Joint replacement is considered as a treatment when severe joint pain or dysfunction is not alleviated by less-invasive therapies. Joint replacement surgery is often indicated from various joint diseases, including osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Joint replacement has become more common, mostly with knee and hip replacements. About 773,000 Americans had a hip or knee replaced in 2009. (Full article...) -
Regions with semi-arid climates
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-arid climates, depending on variables such as temperature, and they give rise to different biomes. (Full article...)
Selected global issues and related topics
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Biotechnology risk is a form of existential risk from biological sources, such as genetically engineered biological agents. The release of such high-consequence pathogens could be
- deliberate (in the form of bioterrorism or biological weapons)
- accidental, or
- a naturally occurring event.
A chapter on biotechnology and biosecurity was included in Nick Bostrom's 2008 anthology Global Catastrophic Risks, which covered risks including viral agents. Since then, new technologies like CRISPR and gene drives have been introduced.
While the ability to deliberately engineer pathogens has been constrained to high-end labs run by top researchers, the technology to achieve this is rapidly becoming cheaper and more widespread. For example, the diminishing cost of sequencing the human genome (from $10 million to $1,000), the accumulation of large datasets of genetic information, the discovery of gene drives, and the discovery of CRISPR. Biotechnology risk is therefore a credible explanation for the Fermi paradox. (Full article...) -
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary gas driving global warming, has increased in concentration by about 50% since the pre-industrial era to levels not seen for millions of years.
Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimize future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise.
Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization calls climate change one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change. (Full article...) -
Women selling produce at a market in Lilongwe, Malawi
Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, healthy food. The availability of food for people of any class, gender, ethnicity, or religion is another element of food protection. Similarly, household food security is considered to exist when all the members of a family have consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food-secure individuals do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Food security includes resilience to future disruptions of food supply. Such a disruption could occur due to various risk factors such as droughts and floods, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, and wars. Food insecurity is the opposite of food security: a state where there is only limited or uncertain availability of suitable food.
The concept of food security has evolved over time. The four pillars of food security include availability, access, utilization, and stability. In addition, there are two more dimensions that are important: agency and sustainability. These six dimensions of food security are reinforced in conceptual and legal understandings of the right to food. The World Food Summit in 1996 declared that "food should not be used as an instrument for political and economic pressure."
There are many causes of food insecurity. The most important ones are high food prices and disruptions in global food supplies for example due to war. There is also climate change, water scarcity, land degradation, agricultural diseases, pandemics and disease outbreaks that can all lead to food insecurity. Additionally, food insecurity affects individuals with low socioeconomic status, affects the health of a population on an individual level, and causes divisions in interpersonal relationships. Food insecurity due to unemployment causes a higher rate of poverty. (Full article...) -
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary gas driving global warming, has increased in concentration by about 50% since the pre-industrial era to levels not seen for millions of years.
Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimize future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise.
Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization calls climate change one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change. (Full article...) -
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, convention centers (pictured here) were deemed to be ideal sites for temporary hospitals, due to their existing infrastructure (electrical, water, sewage). Hotels and dormitories were also considered appropriate because they can use negative pressure technology.
A pandemic (/pænˈdɛmɪk/ pan-DEM-ik) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial portion of human population. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.
Throughout human history, there have been a number of pandemics of diseases such as smallpox. The Black Death, caused by the Plague, caused the deaths of up to half of the population of Europe in the 14th century. The term pandemic had not been used then, but was used for later epidemics, including the 1918 H1N1 influenza A pandemic—more commonly known as the Spanish flu—which is the deadliest pandemic in history. The most recent pandemics include the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the 2009 swine flu pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost all these diseases still circulate among humans though their impact now is often far less.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 194 member states of the World Health Organization began negotiations on an International Treaty on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, with a requirement to submit a draft of this treaty to the 77th World Health Assembly during its 2024 convention. Further, on 6 May 2024, the White House released an official policy to more safely manage medical research projects involving potentially hazardous pathogens, including viruses and bacteria, that may pose a risk of a pandemic. (Full article...) -
Seabirds killed by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound. The spill in March 1989 dumped approximately 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil into the environment, killing over 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and numerous other wildlife. The Alaskan fishing industry also suffered tremendously as a result of the spill.
An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity. This point distinguishes environmental disasters from other disturbances such as natural disasters and intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings.
Environmental disasters show how the impact of humans' alteration of the land has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences. These disasters have included deaths of wildlife, humans and plants, or severe disruption of human life or health, possibly requiring migration. Some environmental disasters are the trigger source of more expansive environmental conflicts, where effected groups try to socially confront the actors responsible for the disaster. (Full article...) -
Summary of major environmental-change categories that cause biodiversity loss. The data is expressed as a percentage of human-driven change (in red) relative to baseline (blue), as of 2021. Red indicates the percentage of the category that is damaged, lost, or otherwise affected, whereas blue indicates the percentage that is intact, remaining, or otherwise unaffected.
Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in biological diversity in a given area. The decrease can be temporary or permanent. It is temporary if the damage that led to the loss is reversible in time, for example through ecological restoration. If this is not possible, then the decrease is permanent. The cause of most of the biodiversity loss is, generally speaking, human activities that push the planetary boundaries too far. These activities include habitat destruction (for example deforestation) and land use intensification (for example monoculture farming). Further problem areas are air and water pollution (including nutrient pollution), over-exploitation, invasive species and climate change.
Many scientists, along with the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, say that the main reason for biodiversity loss is a growing human population because this leads to human overpopulation and excessive consumption. Others disagree, saying that loss of habitat is caused mainly by "the growth of commodities for export" and that population has very little to do with overall consumption. More important are wealth disparities between and within countries. In any case, all contemporary biodiversity loss has been attributed to human activities.
Climate change is another threat to global biodiversity. For example, coral reefs—which are biodiversity hotspots—will be lost by the year 2100 if global warming continues at the current rate. Still, it is the general habitat destruction (often for expansion of agriculture), not climate change, that is currently the bigger driver of biodiversity loss. Invasive species and other disturbances have become more common in forests in the last several decades. These tend to be directly or indirectly connected to climate change and can cause a deterioration of forest ecosystems. (Full article...) -
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants.
Although environmental pollution can be caused by natural events, the word pollution generally implies that the contaminants have a human source, such as manufacturing, extractive industries, poor waste management, transportation or agriculture. Pollution is often classed as point source (coming from a highly concentrated specific site, such as a factory, mine, construction site), or nonpoint source pollution (coming from a widespread distributed sources, such as microplastics or agricultural runoff).
Many sources of pollution were unregulated parts of industrialization during the 19th and 20th centuries until the emergence of environmental regulation and pollution policy in the later half of the 20th century. Sites where historically polluting industries released persistent pollutants may have legacy pollution long after the source of the pollution is stopped. Major forms of pollution include air pollution, water pollution, litter, noise pollution, plastic pollution, soil contamination, radioactive contamination, thermal pollution, light pollution, and visual pollution. (Full article...) -
Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse or systems collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an adaptive system, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes of a societal collapse include natural catastrophe, war, pestilence, famine, economic collapse, population decline or overshoot, mass migration, incompetent leaders, and sabotage by rival civilizations. A collapsed society may revert to a more primitive state, be absorbed into a stronger society, or completely disappear.
Virtually all civilizations have suffered such a fate, regardless of their size or complexity. Most never recovered, such as the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the Maya civilization, and the Easter Island civilization. However, some of them later revived and transformed, such as China, Greece, and Egypt.
Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists have proposed a variety of explanations for the collapse of civilizations involving causative factors such as environmental degradation, depletion of resources, costs of rising complexity, invasion, disease, decay of social cohesion, growing inequality, extractive institutions, long-term decline of cognitive abilities, loss of creativity, and misfortune. However, complete extinction of a culture is not inevitable, and in some cases, the new societies that arise from the ashes of the old one are evidently its offspring, despite a dramatic reduction in sophistication. Moreover, the influence of a collapsed society, such as the Western Roman Empire, may linger on long after its death. (Full article...) -
Solid waste after being shredded to a uniform size
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero.
Examples include municipal solid waste (household trash/refuse), hazardous waste, wastewater (such as sewage, which contains bodily wastes (feces and urine) and surface runoff), radioactive waste, and others. (Full article...) -
Tar sands in Alberta, 2008. Oil is one of the most used resources by humans.
Resource depletion occurs when a natural resource is consumed faster than it can be replenished. The value of a resource depends on its availability in nature and the cost of extracting it. By the law of supply and demand, the scarcer the resource the more valuable it becomes. There are several types of resource depletion, including but not limited to: wetland and ecosystem degradation, soil erosion, aquifer depletion, and overfishing. The depletion of wildlife populations is called defaunation.
It is a matter of research and debate how humanity will be impacted and what the future will look like if resource consumption continues at the current rate, and when specific resources will be completely exhausted. (Full article...) -
A typical suburban development in the United States, located in Chandler, Arizona
Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for very dense urban planning. Sometimes the urban areas described as the most "sprawling" are the most densely populated. In addition to describing a special form of urbanization, the term also relates to the social and environmental consequences associated with this development. In modern times some suburban areas described as "sprawl" have less detached housing and higher density than the nearby core city. Medieval suburbs suffered from the loss of protection of city walls, before the advent of industrial warfare. Modern disadvantages and costs include increased travel time, transport costs, pollution, and destruction of the countryside. The revenue for building and maintaining urban infrastructure in these areas are gained mostly through property and sales taxes. Most jobs in the US are now located in suburbs generating much of the revenue, although a lack of growth will require higher tax rates.
In Europe, the term peri-urbanisation is often used to denote similar dynamics and phenomena, but the term urban sprawl is currently being used by the European Environment Agency. There is widespread disagreement about what constitutes sprawl and how to quantify it. For example, some commentators measure sprawl by residential density, using the average number of residential units per acre in a given area. Others associate it with decentralization (spread of population without a well-defined centre), discontinuity (leapfrogging development, as defined below), segregation of uses, and so forth.
The term urban sprawl is highly politicized and almost always has negative connotations. It is criticized for causing environmental degradation, intensifying segregation, and undermining the vitality of existing urban areas, and is attacked on aesthetic grounds. The pejorative meaning of the term means that few openly support urban sprawl as such. The term has become a rallying cry for managing urban growth. (Full article...) -
Global distribution of dryland areas based on the aridity index computed over a 30-year average during 1981 to 2010. Typical deserts are indicated by the hyper-arid category (light yellow).
Desertification is a type of gradual land degradation of fertile land into arid desert due to a combination of natural processes and human activities.
The immediate cause of desertification is the loss of most vegetation. This is driven by a number of factors, alone or in combination, such as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation for fuel or construction materials. Though vegetation plays a major role in determining the biological composition of the soil, studies have shown that, in many environments, the rate of erosion and runoff decreases exponentially with increased vegetation cover. Unprotected, dry soil surfaces blow away with the wind or are washed away by flash floods, leaving infertile lower soil layers that bake in the sun and become an unproductive hardpan.
At least 90% of the inhabitants of drylands live in developing countries, where they also suffer from poor economic and social conditions. This situation is exacerbated by land degradation because of the reduction in productivity, the precariousness of living conditions and the difficulty of access to resources and opportunities. (Full article...) -
Garbage floating in water, Circular Quay, Sydney, Australia
Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources. These are sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater. Water pollution may affect either surface water or groundwater. This form of pollution can lead to many problems. One is the degradation of aquatic ecosystems. Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation. Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource.
Sources of water pollution are either point sources or non-point sources. Point sources have one identifiable cause, such as a storm drain, a wastewater treatment plant, or an oil spill. Non-point sources are more diffuse. An example is agricultural runoff. Pollution is the result of the cumulative effect over time. Pollution may take many forms. One would is toxic substances such as oil, metals, plastics, pesticides, persistent organic pollutants, and industrial waste products. Another is stressful conditions such as changes of pH, hypoxia or anoxia, increased temperatures, excessive turbidity, or changes of salinity). The introduction of pathogenic organisms is another. Contaminants may include organic and inorganic substances. A common cause of thermal pollution is the use of water as a coolant by power plants and industrial manufacturers.
Control of water pollution requires appropriate infrastructure and management plans as well as legislation. Technology solutions can include improving sanitation, sewage treatment, industrial wastewater treatment, agricultural wastewater treatment, erosion control, sediment control and control of urban runoff (including stormwater management). (Full article...) -
Two Indian stamps which combine to symbolize gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality, gender egalitarianism, or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making, and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations, and needs equally, also regardless of gender.
UNICEF (an agency of the United Nations) defines gender equality as "women and men, and girls and boys, enjoy the same rights, resources, opportunities and protections. It does not require that girls and boys, or women and men, be the same, or that they be treated exactly alike."
As of 2017,[update] gender equality is the fifth of seventeen sustainable development goals (SDG 5) of the United Nations; gender equality has not incorporated the proposition of genders besides women and men, or gender identities outside of the gender binary. Gender inequality is measured annually by the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Reports. (Full article...) -
Overconsumption describes a situation where consumers overuse their available goods and services to where they can't, or don't want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this is the point where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater than their marginal utility. The term overconsumption is quite controversial and does not necessarily have a single unifying definition. When used to refer to natural resources to the point where the environment is negatively affected, it is synonymous with the term overexploitation. However, when used in the broader economic sense, overconsumption can refer to all types of goods and services, including artificial ones, e.g., "the overconsumption of alcohol can lead to alcohol poisoning." Overconsumption is driven by several factors of the current global economy, including forces like consumerism, planned obsolescence, economic materialism, and other unsustainable business models, and can be contrasted with sustainable consumption.
Defining the amount of a natural resource required to be consumed for it to count as "overconsumption" is challenging because defining a sustainable capacity of the system requires accounting for many variables. A system's total capacity occurs at regional and worldwide levels, which means that specific regions may have higher consumption levels of certain resources than others due to greater resources without overconsuming a resource. A long-term pattern of overconsumption in any region or ecological system can cause a reduction in natural resources, often resulting in environmental degradation. However, this is only when applying the word to environmental impacts. When used in an economic sense, this point is defined as when the marginal cost of a consumer is equal to their marginal utility. Gossen's law of diminishing utility states that at this point, the consumer realizes the cost of consuming/purchasing another item/good is not worth the amount of utility (also known as happiness or satisfaction from the good) they'd receive, and therefore is not conducive to the consumer's wellbeing.
When used in the environmental sense, the discussion of overconsumption often parallels population size, growth, and human development: more people demanding a higher quality of living requires greater extraction of resources, which causes subsequent environmental degradation, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Currently, the inhabitants of high-wealth, "developed" nations consume resources at a rate almost 32 times greater than those of the developing world, making up most of the human population (7.9 billion people). However, the developing world is a growing consumer market. These nations are quickly gaining more purchasing power. The Global South, which includes cities in Asia, America, and Africa, is expected to account for 56% of consumption growth by 2030, meaning that if current trends continue, relative consumption rates will shift more into these developing countries, whereas developed countries would start to plateau. Sustainable Development Goal 12, "responsible consumption and production", is the main international policy tool with goals to abate the impact of overconsumption. (Full article...) -
Mushroom cloud from the 1954 explosion of Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear weapon detonated by the U.S.
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radioactive fallout, with global consequences. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization, the extinction of humanity, or the termination of most biological life on Earth.
Besides the immediate destruction of cities by nuclear blasts, the potential aftermath of a nuclear war could involve firestorms, a nuclear winter, widespread radiation sickness from fallout, and/or the temporary (if not permanent) loss of much modern technology due to electromagnetic pulses. Some scientists, such as Alan Robock, have speculated that a thermonuclear war could result in the end of modern civilization on Earth, in part due to a long-lasting nuclear winter. In one model, the average temperature of Earth following a full thermonuclear war falls for several years by 7 to 8 °C (13 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit) on average.
Early Cold War-era studies suggested that billions of humans would survive the immediate effects of nuclear blasts and radiation following a global thermonuclear war. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War believe that nuclear war could indirectly contribute to human extinction via secondary effects, including environmental consequences, societal breakdown, and economic collapse. (Full article...) -
The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (headquarters pictured), the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), on September 15, 2008, is often considered the climax of the 2008 financial crisis.
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners and financial institutions that led to the 2000s United States housing bubble, exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis exacerbated the Great Recession, a global recession that began in mid-2007, as well as the United States bear market of 2007–2009. It was also a contributor to the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis and the euro area crisis.
During the 1990s, the U.S. Congress had passed legislation that intended to expand affordable housing through looser financing rules, and in 1999, parts of the 1933 Banking Act (Glass–Steagall Act) were repealed, enabling institutions to mix low-risk operations, such as commercial banking and insurance, with higher-risk operations such as investment banking and proprietary trading. As the Federal Reserve ("Fed") lowered the federal funds rate from 2000 to 2003, institutions increasingly targeted low-income homebuyers, largely belonging to racial minorities, with high-risk loans; this development went unattended by regulators. As interest rates rose from 2004 to 2006, the cost of mortgages rose and the demand for housing fell; in early 2007, as more U.S. subprime mortgage holders began defaulting on their repayments, lenders went bankrupt, culminating in the bankruptcy of New Century Financial in April. As demand and prices continued to fall, the financial contagion spread to global credit markets by August 2007, and central banks began injecting liquidity. In March 2008, Bear Stearns, the fifth largest U.S. investment bank, was sold to JPMorgan Chase in a "fire sale" backed by Fed financing.
In response to the growing crisis, governments around the world deployed massive bailouts of financial institutions and used monetary policy and fiscal policies to prevent an economic collapse of the global financial system. By July 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, companies which together owned or guaranteed half of the U.S. housing market, verged on collapse; the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 enabled the federal government to seize them on September 7. Lehman Brothers (the fourth largest U.S. investment bank) filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history on September 15, which was followed by a Fed bail-out of American International Group (the country's largest insurer) the next day, and the seizure of Washington Mutual in the largest bank failure in U.S. history on September 25. On October 3, Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, authorizing the Treasury Department to purchase toxic assets and bank stocks through the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Fed began a program of quantitative easing by buying treasury bonds and other assets, such as MBS, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed in February 2009 by newly elected President Barack Obama, included a range of measures intended to preserve existing jobs and create new ones. These initiatives combined, coupled with actions taken in other countries, ended the worst of the Great Recession by mid-2009. (Full article...) -
Map of the world's biodiversity hot spots, all of which are heavily threatened by habitat loss and degradation
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease in biodiversity and species numbers. Habitat destruction is in fact the leading cause of biodiversity loss and species extinction worldwide.
Humans contribute to habitat destruction through the use of natural resources, agriculture, industrial production and urbanization (urban sprawl). Other activities include mining, logging and trawling. Environmental factors can contribute to habitat destruction more indirectly. Geological processes, climate change, introduction of invasive species, ecosystem nutrient depletion, water and noise pollution are some examples. Loss of habitat can be preceded by an initial habitat fragmentation. Fragmentation and loss of habitat have become one of the most important topics of research in ecology as they are major threats to the survival of endangered species. (Full article...) -
Unemployment rate, 2021
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.
Unemployment is measured by the unemployment rate, which is the number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the labour force (the total number of people employed added to those unemployed).
Unemployment can have many sources, such as the following: (Full article...) -
The dodo became extinct during the mid-to-late 17th century due to habitat destruction, overhunting, and predation by introduced mammals. It is an often-cited example of a human-driven extinction.
The Holocene extinction, also referred to as the Anthropocene extinction or the sixth mass extinction, is an ongoing extinction event caused exclusively by human activities during the Holocene epoch. This extinction event spans numerous families of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, impacting both terrestrial and marine species. Widespread degradation of biodiversity hotspots such as coral reefs and rainforests has exacerbated the crisis. Many of these extinctions are undocumented, as the species are often undiscovered before their extinctions.
Current extinction rates are estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates and are accelerating. Over the past 100–200 years, biodiversity loss has reached such alarming levels that some conservation biologists now believe human activities have triggered a mass extinction, or are on the cusp of doing so. As such, after the "Big Five" mass extinctions, the Holocene extinction event has been referred to as the sixth mass extinction. However, given the recent recognition of the Capitanian mass extinction, the term seventh mass extinction has also been proposed.
The Holocene extinction was preceded by the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions (lasting from 50,000 to 10,000 years ago), in which many large mammals – including 81% of megaherbivores – went extinct, a decline attributed at least in part to human (anthropogenic) activities. There continue to be strong debates about the relative importance of anthropogenic factors and climate change, but a recent review concluded that there is little evidence for a major role of climate change and "strong" evidence for human activities as the principal driver. Examples from regions such as New Zealand, Madagascar, and Hawaii have shown how human colonization and habitat destruction have led to significant biodiversity losses. (Full article...) -
Summary of major environmental-change categories that cause biodiversity loss. The data is expressed as a percentage of human-driven change (in red) relative to baseline (blue), as of 2021. Red indicates the percentage of the category that is damaged, lost, or otherwise affected, whereas blue indicates the percentage that is intact, remaining, or otherwise unaffected.
Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in biological diversity in a given area. The decrease can be temporary or permanent. It is temporary if the damage that led to the loss is reversible in time, for example through ecological restoration. If this is not possible, then the decrease is permanent. The cause of most of the biodiversity loss is, generally speaking, human activities that push the planetary boundaries too far. These activities include habitat destruction (for example deforestation) and land use intensification (for example monoculture farming). Further problem areas are air and water pollution (including nutrient pollution), over-exploitation, invasive species and climate change.
Many scientists, along with the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, say that the main reason for biodiversity loss is a growing human population because this leads to human overpopulation and excessive consumption. Others disagree, saying that loss of habitat is caused mainly by "the growth of commodities for export" and that population has very little to do with overall consumption. More important are wealth disparities between and within countries. In any case, all contemporary biodiversity loss has been attributed to human activities.
Climate change is another threat to global biodiversity. For example, coral reefs—which are biodiversity hotspots—will be lost by the year 2100 if global warming continues at the current rate. Still, it is the general habitat destruction (often for expansion of agriculture), not climate change, that is currently the bigger driver of biodiversity loss. Invasive species and other disturbances have become more common in forests in the last several decades. These tend to be directly or indirectly connected to climate change and can cause a deterioration of forest ecosystems. (Full article...) -
Human overpopulation (or human population overshoot) is the idea that human populations may become too large to be sustained by their environment or resources in the long term. The topic is usually discussed in the context of world population, though it may concern individual nations, regions, and cities.
Since 1804, the global living human population has increased from 1 billion to 8 billion due to medical advancements and improved agricultural productivity. Annual world population growth peaked at 2.1% in 1968 and has since dropped to 1.1%. According to the most recent United Nations' projections, the global human population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and would peak at around 10.4 billion people in the 2080s, before decreasing, noting that fertility rates are falling worldwide. Other models agree that the population will stabilize before or after 2100. Conversely, some researchers analyzing national birth registries data from 2022 and 2023—which cover half the world's population—argue that the 2022 UN projections overestimated fertility rates by 10 to 20% and were already outdated by 2024. They suggest that the global fertility rate may have already fallen below the sub-replacement fertility level for the first time in human history and that the global population will peak at approximately 9.5 billion by 2061. The 2024 UN projections report estimated that world population would peak at 10.29 billion in 2084 and decline to 10.18 billion by 2100, which was 6% lower than the UN had estimated in 2014.
Early discussions of overpopulation in English were spurred by the work of Thomas Malthus. Discussions of overpopulation follow a similar line of inquiry as Malthusianism and its Malthusian catastrophe, a hypothetical event where population exceeds agricultural capacity, causing famine or war over resources, resulting in poverty and depopulation. More recent discussion of overpopulation was popularized by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book The Population Bomb and subsequent writings. Ehrlich described overpopulation as a function of overconsumption, arguing that overpopulation should be defined by a population being unable to sustain itself without depleting non-renewable resources. (Full article...) -
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, internet telephony, streaming media and file sharing.
The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across the United States and in the United Kingdom and France. The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's Internet protocol suite. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the internetwork. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life.
Most traditional communication media, including telephone, radio, television, paper mail, and newspapers, are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email, Internet telephone, Internet radio, Internet television, online music, digital newspapers, and audio and video streaming websites. Newspapers, books, and other print publishing have adapted to website technology or have been reshaped into blogging, web feeds, and online news aggregators. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interaction through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking services. Online shopping has grown exponentially for major retailers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their "brick and mortar" presence to serve a larger market or even sell goods and services entirely online. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries. (Full article...) -
Gray goo (also spelled as grey goo) is a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass (and perhaps also everything else) on Earth while building many more of themselves, a scenario that has been called ecophagy (literally: "consumption of the environment"). The original idea assumed machines were designed to have this capability, while popularizations have assumed that machines might somehow gain this capability by accident.
Self-replicating machines of the macroscopic variety were originally described by mathematician John von Neumann, and are sometimes referred to as von Neumann machines or clanking replicators.
The term gray goo was coined by nanotechnology pioneer K. Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation. In 2004, he stated "I wish I had never used the term 'gray goo'." Engines of Creation mentions "gray goo" as a thought experiment in two paragraphs and a note, while the popularized idea of gray goo was first publicized in a mass-circulation magazine, Omni, in November 1986. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
- ... that Hamas militant Tito Masoud, who manufactured the first Qassam rocket, became wanted by Israel after a colleague revealed his name under interrogation?
- ... that the Antarctic lichen Buellia frigida has been to outer space?
- ... that the steps of Pohang Space Walk represent an ascent to an unreachable utopia?
- ... that C/1990 K1 (Levy) was the first comet observed by the Hubble Space Telescope, but only short exposures were obtained as the telescope was not yet able to track Solar System bodies?
- ... that Zinkiv, Ukraine, was a center of Hasidic Judaism until almost the entirety of the city's 2,300-strong Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust?
- ... that the quasar 3C 345 has a jet that appears to move five to fifteen times faster than the speed of light?
- ... that the first dogs in space returned to Earth with a parachute?
- ... that Lillian V. Holdeman Moore identified a spike in hydrogen-gas-producing bacteria in Skylab astronauts?
- ... that the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment could detect gases leaking from an astronaut's life support systems on the Moon's surface?
- ... that the Skyrocket Galaxy has been described by NASA as looking like a "July 4th skyrocket"?
- ... that King Faisal Street, one of the main thoroughfares in downtown Amman, has been used as a public space for national events and celebrations?
- ... that there was a doomsday cult named after Neo from The Matrix?
- ... that foam has been used to kill farm animals en masse in a process called foam depopulation?
- ... that ice in outer space is an amorphous solid, and this may be the most common phase of ice in the universe?
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Selected images that captured my attention
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An animation of a cicada undergoing ecdysis, the molting of the exoskeleton in arthropods and related groups. Since the cuticula of these animals is inelastic, it is shed during growth and a new, larger covering is formed. The old, empty exoskeleton is called an exuvia. Within one or two hours, the cuticle hardens and darkens, during which time the animal grows, since growth is otherwise constrained by the rigidity of the exoskeleton. Each frame of this image was taken at one-minute intervals, with a 30-minute gap in middle while the cicada rested. The entire process took about 2 hours to complete. -
The Hubble Extreme Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax released by NASA on September 25, 2012. The successor to the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, this image was compiled from 10 years of previous images with a total exposure time of two million seconds, or approximately 23 days. -
A swan created using modular origami, a paperfolding technique which uses two or more sheets of paper to create a larger and more complex structure than possible with single-piece origami techniques. Each individual sheet of paper is folded into a module, or unit, and then modules are assembled into an integrated flat shape or three-dimensional structure by inserting flaps into pockets created by the folding process. These insertions create tension or friction that holds the model together. -
Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during the August 28 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 people participated in the march, which featured Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech. It was a major factor leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The march was also condemned by the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, who termed it the "farce on Washington". -
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The "Baker" explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on July 25, 1946. Its purpose was to test the effect of nuclear weapons on naval ships. It was the second US nuclear bomb set off since the bombing of Nagasaki. -
Sandboarding is a boardsport similar to snowboarding, but competitions take place on sand dunes rather than snow-covered mountains. Here, a member of the US Navy sandboards down a dune in Jebel Ali, Dubai. -
The mushroom cloud caused by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan in 1945, rising approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) above the hypocenter. -
The Aqueduct of Segovia is a Roman aqueduct located in Segovia, Spain that transports water from the Rio Frio. It is thought to have been constructed during the 1st century CE. One of the most significant and best-preserved ancient monuments left on the Iberian Peninsula, the aqueduct is considered a symbol of Segovia and is present on the city's coat of arms. -
The American Bison, or Buffalo, is the largest terrestrial mammal in North America, and once inhabited the Great Plains in massive herds. They were central to the lives of Native American tribes. This pile of bison skulls from the 1870s illustrates the extent of their slaughter in the 19th century by settlers: from a population of about 60 million in 1800 to as few as 750 in 1890. They have since been reintroduced into the wild and are no longer considered a high risk endangered species. -
The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy located 21 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was first discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and communicated to Charles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries. This image, released on February 28, 2006, is composed of 51 individual exposures, as well as some extra ground-based photos. At the time of its release, it was the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy by the Hubble Space Telescope. -
Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and currently the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft). It was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development known as Downtown Dubai. Construction took over five years, and the skyscraper was officially opened in January 2010. -
The International Space Station (ISS) as seen from the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Zarya, the first module of the ISS launched in 1998, is seen in the foreground. Since then, twenty-six Space Shuttle flights have docked with the ISS to assemble various other modules and components, which include four pairs of solar arrays seen on each side. -
One of two monkey selfies taken by Celebes crested macaques using equipment belonging to the British nature photographer David Slater. In mid-2014, the images' hosting on Wikimedia Commons was at the centre of a dispute over whether copyright could be held on artworks made by non-human animals. Slater argued that, as he had "engineered" the shot, he held copyright, while Wikimedia considered the photographs public domain on the grounds that they were made by an animal rather than a person. In December 2014, the United States Copyright Office stated that works by a non-human are not subject to US copyright, a view reaffirmed by a US federal judge in 2016. -
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the freestanding bell tower of the Cathedral of Pisa, Italy. The third oldest structure in the city's Square of Miracles, it is known worldwide for its unintended tilt. The tower's tilt began during construction in the 12th century, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure's weight. The tilt gradually increased until the tower was stabilized (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The tower, which measures 55.86 metres (183.27 feet) from the ground on the low side and 56.67 metres (185.93 feet) on the high side, has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. -
American astronaut Eugene Cernan (born March 14, 1934), shown here on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission, the last time any human has set foot on it. In that final lunar landing mission, launched December 7, 1972, Cernan became "the last man on the moon" since he was the last to re-enter the Apollo Lunar Module during its third and final extra-vehicular activity. Prior to this, Cernan had also gone into space twice on the Gemini 9A and Apollo 10 missions. -
A dust storm rushes towards a military camp as it rolls over Al Asad Airbase, Iraq, just before nightfall on April 27, 2005. A dust storm (or sandstorm) is a meteorological phenomenon common in dry, arid and semi-arid regions, usually the result of convection currents created by intense heating of the ground. These currents then carry clouds of sand over large distances. -
The sperm whale is the largest toothed animal on Earth. The species was hunted extensively by humans throughout history, until protected by a worldwide moratorium on whaling starting in 1985–86. -
The Door to Hell is a natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan, which has been burning since 1971 when it was ignited by Soviet scientists who expected it to burn out within days. They were trying to prevent the release of poisonous gases. The name "Door to Hell" was given to the field by locals. The hot spots range over an area with a width of 60 metres (200 ft) and to a depth of about 20 metres (66 ft). -
Crash landing of an F6F Hellcat into the port side 20mm gun gallery of the USS Enterprise, November 10, 1943. Lieutenant Walter L. Chewning, Jr., USNR, the Catapult Officer, is climbing up the plane's side to assist the pilot from the burning aircraft. The pilot, Ensign Byron M. Johnson, escaped without significant injury. Note the plane's ruptured belly fuel tank. -
Devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana during 2005, shown here looking down on Interstate 10 at West End Boulevard towards Lake Pontchartrain. Over 1,800 people were confirmed dead with 705 still missing. It was the costliest Atlantic hurricane in history causing around $86 billion in damage. This photo shows flooded roadways as the United States Coast Guard conducted initial damage assessment overflights of New Orleans on Monday, August 29, 2005. The city flooded due primarily to the failure of the levee system. Many who remained in their homes had to swim for their lives, wade through deep water, or remain trapped in their attics or on their rooftops. -
The I-35W Mississippi River bridge was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Saint Anthony Falls of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Once the third-busiest bridge in the state, it suddenly collapsed on August 1, 2007, killing 13 and injuring 145. Rescue of people stranded on the bridge was complete in three hours, while recovery of bodies—involving 75 local, state and federal agencies—took three weeks. An NTSB investigation cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that a too-thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets. -
Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola module of the International Space Station, observing the Earth below during Expedition 24. Caldwell Dyson is an American chemist and astronaut. She was selected by NASA in 1998 and made her first spaceflight in August 2007 on the STS-118 mission aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour. -
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Atlantic White-sided Dolphins, on a concrete-floored dock at the port of Hvalba, which is in the Faroe Islands, north of the United Kingdom. Whaling in the Faroe Islands has been practised since at least the 10th century. It is strongly regulated by Faroese authorities and is approved by the International Whaling Commission. -
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was a magnitude 9.15, undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on December 26 2004. The earthquake generated a tsunami that killed more than 150,000 people around the Indian Ocean, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history. This photograph shows the tsunami as it reached Ao Nang, Thailand. -
View from Notre-Dame de Paris. -
Imagine waking up to this. Which makes me wonder whatever happened to the guy who took this photo. -
San Francisco Bay shrouded in fog, as seen from the Marin Headlands looking east. The fog of San Francisco is a kind of sea fog, created when warm, moist air blows from the central Pacific Ocean across the cold water of the California Current, which flows just off the coast. The water is cold enough to lower the temperature of the air to the dew point, causing fog generation. In this photo, the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge can be seen poking through the fog, and the Bay Bridge is visible in the distance. -
Height comparison of notable statues: 1) Statue of Unity 240 m. 2) Spring Temple Buddha 153 m. 3) Statue of Liberty 93 m. 4) The Motherland Calls 91 m. 5) Christ the Redeemer 39.6 m. 6) Statue of David 5.17 m. -
The mushroom cloud from the Ivy Mike nuclear test, one of two tests conducted as part of Operation Ivy at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Elugelab in the Marshall Islands. Mike was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, and it left an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1,900 m) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where the island had been. -
Glaucus atlanticus is a species of small, blue sea slug. This pelagic aeolid nudibranch floats upside down, using the surface tension of the water to stay up, and is carried along by the winds and ocean currents. The blue side of their body faces upwards, blending in with the blue of the water, while the grey side faces downwards, blending in with the silvery surface of the sea. G. atlanticus feeds on other pelagic creatures, including the Portuguese man o' war. -
A lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo, a volcano found in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lava lakes, which can form in three different ways, are large volumes of molten lava, usually basaltic, contained in a volcanic vent, crater, or broad depression. Persistent lava lakes such as the one at Nyiragongo, which is the largest to appear in recent times, are rare. -
A man engaging in big wave surfing at Mavericks, located just north of Half Moon Bay, California. Big wave surfing is a discipline within surfing in which experienced surfers paddle into or are towed onto waves which are at least 20 ft (6.1 m) high, and is a hazardous activity, as surfers can be pushed far beneath the surface of the water after a wipeout. -
A neutral density filter is a filter that reduces or modifies the intensity of all wavelengths or colors of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition. The filter reduces the amount of light entering the lens, allowing the photographer to select combinations of aperture, exposure time and sensor sensitivity to avoid overexposed pictures. It would normally be attached to the lens, but is hand-held here to illustrate the effect. -
NGC 1300 is a barred spiral galaxy located roughly 69 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Eridanus. In its core, the nucleus shows its own extraordinary and distinct "grand-design" spiral structure that is about 3,300 light-years long. -
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United States Navy personnel engage in Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction (SPIE) training between a Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopter and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69). SPIE involves either a person or goods being lowered from or raised to a helicopter via a cable above terrain on which landing would be difficult. -
You are feeling very sleepy... -
An overhead view of Skylab, the United States' first space station, in Earth orbit as photographed from the Skylab 4 Command and Service Modules. Skylab 4 was the last mission to Skylab and brought back its final crew; this photograph was the last one taken of the station before the mission re-entered Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated in 1979. -
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin saluting the flag of the United States, part of the Lunar Flag Assembly, during Apollo 11. The Lunar Flag Assembly was designed to survive a Moon landing and to appear to "wave" as it would in a breeze on Earth. This flag fell over when the Lunar Module Eagle took off. -
A Marginated Tortoise hatchling. -
Lucky Diamond Rich (b. 1971) is a New Zealand-born performance artist and street performer who holds the Guinness World Record for most tattooed man, taking the title from Tom Leppard in 2006. He is recognized by Guinness as being covered in tattoos over 100% of his body, including the inside of his eyelids, ears, and mouth. -
aurora australis, as seen from the International Space Station. Aurorae are natural light displays in the sky caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude thermosphere. The particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and, on Earth, are directed by Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere.
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Trump news tracker
- 24 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- U.S. president Donald Trump tells reporters at the White House that Israel and Iran "don't know what the fuck they are doing" as both countries continue to launch attacks despite U.S. claims of a ceasefire. (BBC News) (The Independent) (The Guardian)
- 23 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- U.S. president Donald Trump announces that a ceasefire has been reached between Iran and Israel. The ceasefire has not been confirmed by either Iran or Israel. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)
- 22 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- U.S. president Donald Trump announces that the U.S. Air Force has conducted strikes on several nuclear facilities in Iran, including Natanz Nuclear Facility and Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant. (The Times of Israel)
- 21 June 2025 – Pakistan–United States relations
- Pakistan announces that it will formally nominate U.S. president Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing his mediation during the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict. (BBC News)
- 19 June 2025 – June 2025 Los Angeles protests
- A federal appeals court rules that President of the United States Donald Trump is allowed to keep the National Guard under federal control in California, pending further litigation. (BBC News)
- 17 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- U.S. president Donald Trump calls for the unconditional surrender of Iran amid its war with Israel. Iran rejects the ultimatum. (BBC News) (The Guardian)
- 16 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia introduces legislation to prevent U.S. president Donald Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress's authorization. (Reuters) (US Congress)
- 15 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- According to American officials, U.S. president Donald Trump vetoed a plan by Israel to assassinate the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Reuters)
- 14 June 2025 – Protests against Donald Trump
- Protests against the second presidency of Donald Trump
- A series of protests occur across the United States in all 50 states, the same day as the United States Army military parade in Washington DC. (Politico) (The New York Times)
- 13 June 2025 – Protests against Donald Trump
- June 2025 Los Angeles protests
- U.S. district judge Charles Breyer issues a temporary restraining order directing President Donald Trump to return control of the National Guard to California, saying he violated the Tenth Amendment and exceeded his statutory authority. Later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocks the order. (AP) (The Hill)
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Wikipedia newsfeed
- 25 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Iran–Israel war
- United States strikes on Iranian nuclear sites
- A report by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency finds that Iran's nuclear program has only been set back by a few months after the U.S. airstrikes, with the centrifuges required to enrich uranium left largely intact. (AP)
- Gaza war
- Israeli forces kill at least 78 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, with at least 14 who were seeking humanitarian aid. (Al Jazeera)
- Seven Israeli soldiers are killed in Khan Yunis when an explosive device affixed to their armored vehicle detonates. (AP)
- 25 June 2025 – Nigerian bandit conflict
- At least 17 soldiers are killed when groups of bandits attack three Army bases in Kaduna and Niger States in Nigeria. The Army and Air Force reports they have launched counteroffensives against the bandit gangs. (DW)
- 25 June 2025 –
- The first train from North Korea arrives at the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow, Russia, after a five-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (TASS)
- Online dating service Bumble announces it will layoff 30% of its global workforce, equal to at least 240 jobs. (AP)
- At least 11 people are killed and 15 others are missing after a landslide in Medellín and Bello, Antioquia Department, Colombia. (AP)
- 25 June 2025 – 2025 Kenyan protests
- At least 16 people are killed and over 400 others are injured, including demonstrators, police officers and journalists, when police clash with protestors during nationwide anti-government protests across Kenya. (CTV News)
- 25 June 2025 – 2025 NBA Draft
- In basketball, the NBA Draft is held, with the Dallas Mavericks selecting Duke player Cooper Flagg with the first overall pick. (CNN)
- 24 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Iran–Israel war
- Airstrikes during the Iran–Israel war
- Israel continues to launch airstrikes on Iran while Iran launches a wave of ballistic missiles at Israel despite the United States claiming a ceasefire had been reached between the warring sides. (Al Jazeera) (The Guardian)
- Nine people are killed in an Israeli airstrike on residential units in Gilan, Iran. The attack also injured 33 people, including 16 women and children, with five requiring hospital treatment. (Al Jazeera)
- Four people are killed and 22 others are injured in Beersheba, Southern Israel, after an Iranian missile strikes an apartment block. (The Times of Israel)
- U.S. president Donald Trump tells reporters at the White House that Israel and Iran "don't know what the fuck they are doing" as both countries continue to launch attacks despite U.S. claims of a ceasefire. (BBC News) (The Independent) (The Guardian)
- Gaza war
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- At least 44 Palestinians are killed by Israeli forces who open fire towards people waiting for aid trucks in Gaza. (AP)
- 24 June 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Dnipro strikes
- Russian forces launch an Iskander missile strike on Dnipro, Ukraine, killing at least 19 people and injuring 300 others. Another two civilians are killed and nine others are injured in Samar, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as a result of a Russian air attack. (Reuters) (The Kyiv Independent) (Ukrainska Pravda)
- 24 June 2025 – Insurgency in Cabo Delgado
- Human Rights Watch reports that at least 120 children have been abducted by Islamic State-linked Ansar al-Sunna insurgents in Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique, this year. The children are used for labor, conscripted as child soldiers, or forced into marriage. (AP)
- 24 June 2025 –
- German finance minister Lars Klingbeil announces that the German government will raise its defense budget from 2.4% to 3.5% of its GDP by 2029, citing a NATO quota for member states to raise defense spending. (AP) (Politico)
- The death toll from a boat accident from a storm on Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the United States increases to eight as the final missing person is recovered. (NPR)
- Twenty people are injured, including 12 children, after lightning strikes near Lake Murray in the U.S. state of South Carolina. (MSN)
- 24 June 2025 – 2025 The Hague NATO summit
- The NATO summit is held in The Hague in the Netherlands. (Espreso TV)
- 24 June 2025 – 2025 Irapuato shooting
- At least 11 people are killed, including a teenager, and 20 others are injured when gunmen open fire at a party celebrating the Nativity of John the Baptist in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. (Reuters)
- 24 June 2025 –
- Three soldiers are killed and eight others are injured when a soldier opens fire on his colleagues during an altercation over paychecks in Mungazi, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. (CTV News)
- French police detain 12 people after over 145 people report being stabbed with syringes at Fête de la Musique sites across the country. (DW)
- 24 June 2025 – 2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary
- Zohran Mamdani leads the primary to become the Democratic Party nominee for the 2025 New York City mayoral election, defeating former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, with Mamdani having received 43.5% of first-choice votes. He is the presumptive nominee, however the official winner will be declared after the ranked choice tally on July 1st. (USA Today)
- 23 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Iran–Israel war
- Airstrikes during the Iran–Israel war
- A United Nations fact-finding mission reports that Israeli strikes on Iran’s state broadcasting agency and killing of Iranian nuclear scientists were likely in violation of international humanitarian law. (Al Jazeera)
- The Israeli military strikes Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran, damaging the facility's infrastructure. State TV showed first responders carrying a casualty and searching for survivors under a collapsed building. (BBC News) (Reuters)
- Qatar closes the country's airspace amidst an imminent threat of a Iranian ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces stationed in the country. Multiple explosions are reported over Doha. (AP) (BBC News)
- 2025 Iranian strikes on Al Udeid Air Base
- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps says it has launched missiles at the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and U.S. bases in Iraq. U.S. officials later confirm no Iranian missiles hit the Al Udeid Air Base. (France 24)
- The Qatar Foreign Ministry says the Qatari military has intercepted all the missiles launched at the Al Udeid Air Base, and that no injuries are reported. (Al Bawaba) (Axios)
- 2025 Iran–Israel war ceasefire
- U.S. president Donald Trump announces that a ceasefire has been reached between Iran and Israel. The ceasefire has not been confirmed by either Iran or Israel. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)
- Gaza war
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- Israeli gunfire and airstrikes kill at least 43 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including 13 people seeking aid assistance. (Al Jazeera)
- Spanish foreign minister José Albares calls on the European Council to suspend EU relations with Israel due to Israeli human rights violations in Gaza. He also calls for an arms embargo against Israel and sanctions on individuals obstructing the two-state solution. (Al Jazeera) (YeniSafak)
- 23 June 2025 – Somali Civil War
- 2025 Shabelle offensive
- At least seven Ugandan Armed Forces personnel are confirmed killed by Al Shabaab following a three-day siege on Sabiidd-Anole in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia amid ongoing operations against the militant group. The soldiers were part of the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, tasked with countering Al-Shabaab. (Garowe Online) (The Defense Post)
- Al-Shabaab claims that its fighters have overrun a military installation, killed several soldiers, and seized weapons and military equipment following fierce fighting erupted on the morning between Somali National Army and Al-Shabaab militants. (Hiiraan Online) (The Eastleigh Voice)
- Child soldiers in Somalia
- The United Nations formally removes Somalia from its annual register of nations that enlist and deploy child soldiers. The country had been included on the register since 2007, owing to consistent reports of child recruitment by Somali Armed Forces and associated militias. (The Eastleigh Voice) (UN)
- 23 June 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War
- NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte announces that European countries and Canada will send Ukraine a combined aid package of €35 billion (US$40.3 billion). (RBC)
- Kyiv strikes
- Russian forces launch a large-scale drone and missile strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, damaging residential areas, hospitals, and sports infrastructure, killing nine people and injuring at least 33 others. (BBC News)
- 23 June 2025 – Gaza war protests
- The United Kingdom announces it will ban the direct action protest network Palestine Action on anti-terrorism grounds after the group broke into the RAF Brize Norton base and vandalized two planes. (AP)
- 23 June 2025 –
- The Thai Department of Special Investigation seizes 2.4 metric tons of methamphetamine disguised as corn flour packages worth $90.8 million from a tourist boat off the coast of Eastern Thailand and arrests eight men in Rayong province for attempted drug smuggling. (AP)
- The Indonesian National Narcotics Board announces it arrested 285 people, including 29 women and seven foreigners, and seized over 0.68 ton of narcotics in a two-month crackdown operation on narcotrafficking and illegal drug abuse. (AP)
- The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile releases the first light images from its new 8.4-meter (28 ft) telescope. (Scientific American)
- 22 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Iran–Israel war
- Airstrikes during the Iran–Israel war
- United States strikes on Iranian nuclear sites
- U.S. president Donald Trump announces that the U.S. Air Force has conducted strikes on several nuclear facilities in Iran, including Natanz Nuclear Facility and Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant. (The Times of Israel)
- The International Atomic Energy Agency says no increase in off-site radiation levels was detected at the three targeted nuclear sites. (Al Jazeera)
- A report by Axios finds that Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence panels were not given advance notice of the attack, while Republicans were given advance notice. (Axios)
- The Parliament of Iran votes for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S. attacks. (The Guardian)
- Iran launches over 40 ballistic missiles at Israel, injuring at least 23 people and destroying apartments and homes. (AP)
- Gaza war
- Gaza war hostage crisis
- Israeli forces in Gaza recover the bodies of three hostages who were abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attacks. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, of which 20 are thought to remain alive. (Reuters)
- The Israel Defense Forces kill at least 51 people and injure 104 others in southern Khan Younis, central Gaza, and northern Gaza City. (Al Jazeera)
- 22 June 2025 – Syrian civil war
- Mar Elias Church attack
- At least 23 people are killed, including the perpetrator, and 63 others are injured when at least one alleged Islamic State suicide attacker opens fire and detonates an explosive device inside the Mar Elias Church in Damascus, Syria. (CTV News) (The Washington Post)
- 22 June 2025 – 2025 NBA Finals
- In basketball, the Oklahoma City Thunder win the NBA Finals in 7 games against the Indiana Pacers, winning their first championship in franchise history. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is named NBA Finals MVP. (NPR)
- 21 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Gaza war
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- Israeli gunfire and airstrikes kill at least 21 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including 11 people seeking aid assistance. (Al Jazeera)
- The European Union European External Action Service finds that Israel may have breached its human rights obligations under the terms of the EU-Israel Association agreement governing its ties with the EU. (Al Jazeera)
- Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announces the UNRWA will open an office in Turkey's capital, Ankara. (Al Jazeera)
- Iran–Israel war
- The death toll from Israel's strikes on Iran rises to more than 430, while 3,056 people have been injured. (Al Jazeera)
- Iran's health minister Mohammadreza Zafarghandi says Israel has targeted three hospitals during the conflict, killing two health workers and a child, and has targeted six ambulances. (Al Jazeera)
- Iran's emergency organization head says Israeli strikes have targeted medical and relief facilities, in addition to residential areas across the country. Three relief bases and eight ambulances have been seriously damaged or destroyed. (Al Jazeera)
- 21 June 2025 –
- The Netherlands officially returns 119 sculptures from the Benin Bronzes collection that were looted from the Kingdom of Benin in present-day Edo State, Nigeria, by British colonial forces. (Al Jazeera) (OkayAfrica)
- 21 June 2025 – 2025 Santa Catarina hot air balloon crash
- At least eight people are killed and 13 others are injured in a hot air balloon accident in Praia Grande, Santa Catarina, Brazil. (CNN) (DW)
- 21 June 2025 –
- Three people are killed and 81 others are injured after a barrier collapsed in Stade du 5 Juillet in Algeria, in a match between MC Alger and NC Magra. (BBC News)
- Six people are killed and two others are missing after a boat carrying ten people capsizes on Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada, United States. (NBC News)
- 21 June 2025 – Belarus–United States relations, Human rights in Belarus
- Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko pardons several opposition figures, including opposition leader Siarhei Tsikhanouski, following a deal brokered by U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg. (Politico)
- 21 June 2025 – Pakistan–United States relations
- Pakistan announces that it will formally nominate U.S. president Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing his mediation during the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict. (BBC News)
- 21 June 2025 –
- Panama declares a state of emergency in Bocas del Toro Province and temporarily suspends some constitutional rights amid a series of anti-government protests opposing a pension law that has left one person dead and injured at least 30 others, including several police officers. (Al Jazeera) (EFE) (Reuters)
- 20 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Iran–Israel war
- 2025 Iran–European nuclear talks
- Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi meets with the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Germany, France and European Union in Geneva for talks about its nuclear program. (AP)
- Hundreds of thousands of people protest against Israel on the streets of Tehran after weekly prayers, chanting slogans in support of Iranian leaders. Protests also took place in Tabriz in northwestern Iran and Shiraz in the south. (Al Jazeera)
- Saudi Arabia's Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission says military strikes on civilian nuclear facilities violate international law in response to Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. (Al Jazeera)
- Gaza war
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- Israeli gunfire and airstrikes kill at least 82 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including 34 people seeking aid assistance. (Al Jazeera)
- The United Nations relists Israel on its blacklist of countries committing abuses against children in armed conflict in its annual Children in Armed Conflict report. (Al Jazeera)
- 20 June 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Odesa strikes
- Russian forces launch a large-scale drone strike at Odesa, Ukraine, damaging buildings and public facilities, with one person killed and another 14 injured. (Ukrainska Pravda)
- 20 June 2025 –
- Four people are missing after a Kawasaki medical helicopter on a rescue operation crashes north of Baie-Johan-Beetz near Natashquan on the Côte-Nord in Quebec, Canada. The pilot is found and taken to hospital. (CBC)
- 20 June 2025 – France–Niger relations
- The Nigerien government announces it will nationalize the controlling share of the SOMAIR mining company that previously belonged to French multinational nuclear fuel cycle corporation Orano, which is in turn controlled by the French government. (DW) (AP)
- 20 June 2025 – Singapore–Vietnam relations
- The governments of Singapore and Vietnam sign a memorandum to exchange 300 to 1,000 skilled workers between the countries annually. (VnExpress)
- 20 June 2025 – Detention of Mahmoud Khalil
- Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil is released from prison, after being in custody for three months. (NBC News)
- 20 June 2025 –
- The United Kingdom parliament votes to approve a bill allowing terminally ill adults to voluntarily end their lives, moving towards legalizing assisted suicide in England and Wales. (DW) (BBC News)
- 20 June 2025 – Deportation of the Crimean Tatars
- The parliament of the Netherlands recognizes the deportation of the Crimean Tatars carried out by the Soviet Union in 1944 as genocide. (Kyiv Independent)
- 19 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Iran–Israel war
- Airstrikes during the Iran–Israel war
- The death toll from Israel's strikes on Iran rises to more than 240, including 70 women and children. To date, at least 24 people have been killed by Iranian strikes on Israel. (Al Jazeera)
- Iran strikes four sites in central and southern Israel. The Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, is hit by an Iranian ballistic missile, injuring at least 240 people. Iran says it was targeting a military site, striking an Israeli military and intelligence centre located near the hospital. (Al Jazeera) (AP)
- The Israeli Air Force strikes the Arak Nuclear Complex, a heavy-water reactor near Arak, Iran. (The Times of Israel)
- Gaza war
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- Israeli gunfire and airstrikes kill at least 92 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including 16 people waiting for aid assistance near the Netzarim Corridor. (Al Jazeera)
- 19 June 2025 – Democratic Republic of the Congo–Rwanda conflict
- M23 campaign
- After three days of dialogue, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda sign a provisional peace treaty and are set to begin negotiations for a draft peace treaty on June 27. (Al Jazeera)
- 19 June 2025 –
- A rockslide at Bow Glacier Falls near Banff, Alberta, Canada, kills at least two people. Three other hikers sustained injuries. (CFCN-DT)
- 19 June 2025 – Israel–Norway relations
- A hand grenade is thrown into the courtyard of the residence of the Norwegian ambassador to Israel in Herzliya. (Reuters)
- 19 June 2025 –
- The Finnish Parliament votes 155–18 to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty, which bans the use of anti-personnel mines, citing the threat Russia poses to its national security. (Reuters) (Helsingin Sanomat)
- 19 June 2025 – June 2025 Los Angeles protests
- A federal appeals court rules that President of the United States Donald Trump is allowed to keep the National Guard under federal control in California, pending further litigation. (BBC News)
- 19 June 2025 –
- The Rwandan government arrests opposition figure Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, founder of the United Democratic Forces, for allegedly plotting to incite public unrest. (AP) (RFI)
- 18 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Iran–Israel war
- Airstrikes during the Iran–Israel war
- Twenty-five Iranian ballistic missiles are launched at central Israel, with most being intercepted and no injuries reported. (YNet)
- Gaza war
- Israeli gunfire and airstrikes kill at least 30 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
- 18 June 2025 – Acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel
- After 18 months of negotiations, Nippon Steel finalizes its $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel. The deal allows U.S. Steel to retain its name and headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and gives the U.S. government the ability to veto corporate decisions as needed. (DW) (Business Wire)
- 18 June 2025 – LGBTQ rights in the United States
- United States v. Skrmetti
- The U.S. Supreme Court votes 6–3 to uphold a law proposed by Tennessee to ban gender-affirming care for minors, allowing other states to implement similar bans. (NPR) (BBC News)
- 18 June 2025 – Management of HIV/AIDS
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Gilead Sciences's new lenacapavir drug, marketed as Yeztugo, for the treatment of HIV after successful clinical trials show the drug nearly eliminated the infection spread. (NBC News) (AP)
- 18 June 2025 – Córdoba Neonatal Hospital baby serial murders
- A court in Córdoba, Argentina, sentences nurse Brenda Agüero to life in prison for the serial murders of five babies and the attempted murder of eight others between March and June 2022, whom she deliberately injected with potassium and insulin. (Página 12)
- 18 June 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- North Korean involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- North Korea sends thousands of workers to help rebuild Russia's Kursk. (BBC News)
- The parliament of Ukraine approves a law to allow multiple citizenship for Ukrainians in an attempt to ease a demographic crisis caused by the Russian invasion. (Reuters)
- 18 June 2025 –
- The Czech government survives a vote of no-confidence called by the opposition ANO party after the justice ministry accepted a bitcoin donation and sold them for nearly 1 billion Kč (US$47 million). (AP)
- The government of New Zealand halts its financial support to the Cook Islands over a partnership agreement signed with China earlier this year. (RNZ)
- 18 June 2025 – Starship flight test 10
- SpaceX Starship 36 explodes when a "major anomaly" occurs during a static fire test. (KRIV-TV via Yahoo! News)
- 17 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- Gaza war
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- Israel kills at least 59 Palestinians in Gaza after Israeli tanks fired into a crowd trying to get humanitarian aid from trucks. At least 14 other people are also killed in separate Israeli gunfire and airstrikes elsewhere in the exclave. (Reuters)
- Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip
- An Israeli soldier from the Golani Brigade is killed and three others are seriously injured in the southern Gaza Strip. (Al Jazeera)
- Iran–Israel war
- Airstrikes during the Iran–Israel War
- Israel says it has killed Major General Ali Shadmani, the most senior military commander in Iran who was appointed to his post four days ago. (The New York Times)
- U.S. president Donald Trump calls for the unconditional surrender of Iran amid its war with Israel. Iran rejects the ultimatum. (BBC News) (The Guardian)
- 17 June 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Kyiv strikes
- Russian forces launch a total of 440 drones and 32 missiles at Kyiv, Ukraine, damaging buildings and public facilities, killing 28 people and wounding dozens more. (BBC News)
- Russia's Ministry of Defence says its air defence units have intercepted and destroyed 147 Ukrainian drones overnight. (BBC News)
- 17 June 2025 –
- Twenty-four people are evacuated after two oil tankers collide near the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman. (NOS)
- 17 June 2025 – Puntland–Yemen relations
- Seven Yemeni fishermen who were detained for nearly two months after entering Puntland waters without authorization from Puntland’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources are released. The fishermen were apprehended by the Puntland Maritime Police Force after their vessel was intercepted by the coastguard in the Ras Aseir region of Puntland. (The Eastleigh Voice) (Hiiraan Online)
- 17 June 2025 – 2025 Stanley Cup Finals
- In ice hockey, the Florida Panthers defeat the Edmonton Oilers in six games in a rematch of last year's finals, repeating as Stanley Cup champions. (Miami Herald)
- 16 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- 2024 Iran–Israel conflict
- Iran–Israel war (list of airstrikes)
- The death toll from Israeli airstrikes on Iran rises to at least 220 people, including 70 women and children. (Al Jazeera)
- Israel strikes buildings in Tehran belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Iran's state-owned media company, knocking it temporarily off-air for an hour before later returning. Three employees are killed and several others are injured. (Al Jazeera) (Al-Monitor) (The Wall Street Journal)
- Iran says Israel struck a hospital in Kermanshah in western Iran. Video footage published by local platforms showed bloodstains, indicating casualties from the strike. (Al Jazeera)
- Israeli jets strike 120 surface-to-surface missile systems in central Iran and ten command and control centres belonging to the IRGC's Quds Force. (AP)
- Israeli drones strike two Iranian Air Force F-14 Tomcats stationed at Imam Khomeini International Airport. Combat footage released by the IDF confirm both were destroyed. (The Times of Israel)
- An Iranian ballistic missile barrage kills eight people and injures 287 others in central Israel. (The Times of Israel) (Reuters)
- Iran's parliament prepares a bill to exit the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Reuters)
- Israel announces it has taken "full aerial operational control" of the airspace over Tehran and western Iran after destroying much of the country's air defence network giving the Israeli Air Force near complete air supremacy over Iranian forces. (BBC News)
- Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia introduces legislation to prevent U.S. president Donald Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress's authorization. (Reuters) (US Congress)
- Gaza war
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- Israel kills at least 50 Palestinians in Gaza, including 23 near an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. (Reuters)
- 16 June 2025 – Herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria
- The death toll from the attack by unknown gunmen in Guma, Benue State, Nigeria, on Saturday increases to over 150, including many who were burned to death. (AP)
- 16 June 2025 –
- The death toll from severe weather and flash floods in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, rises to at least 77 with more than 100 others still reported missing. (AP)
- 16 June 2025 – Foreign relations of Andorra
- Andorra and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta establish official diplomatic relations. (Diari d'Andorra)
- 16 June 2025 – Kincora Boys' Home scandal
- Gary Hoy, a survivor of child sexual abuse at Kincora, resolves a legal action against the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Home Secretary with an undisclosed agreement. The legal action alleged that paedophile housemaster William McGrath was allowed to target children to gather information about the far-right paramilitary organization Tara. (RTÉ).
- 16 June 2025 –
- Thai police raid a house in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, and arrest 13 foreigners, mostly Australians and British people, for running a fraudulent electronic trading platform that has stolen over AU$1.9 million (US$1.2 million). (AP)
- 15 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- 2024 Iran–Israel conflict
- Iran–Israel war (list of airstrikes)
- The Israeli Air Force says it has targeted Mashhad Shahid Hasheminejad International Airport in eastern Iran, destroying a refueling plane used by the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. (BBC News)
- An Iranian ballistic missile strike on a residential building kills nine people, including three children, and injures over 200 others in Bat Yam, Israel. (The Times of Israel)
- According to American officials, U.S. president Donald Trump vetoed a plan by Israel to assassinate the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Reuters)
- The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that a Syrian civilian woman was killed after a drone strikes her home in rural Tartus Governorate, Syria, which the group says was likely an Iranian drone. (The Times of Israel)
- Gaza war
- Gaza war hostage crisis
- The Israel Defense Forces confirms that they recovered the body of Israeli hostage Aviv Atzili, who was abducted by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad during the October 7 attacks, in Gaza last Wednesday. (Haaretz)
- Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip
- Israeli gunfire and airstrikes kill at least 41 Palestinians across Gaza. (RTÉ News)
- Rafah aid distribution killings
- At least eight people are killed and dozens of others are injured in a shooting near an aid distribution site near Rafah, Gaza. Witnesses attribute the shooting to Israeli forces. (NPR)
- 15 June 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Russia returns the bodies of 1,200 Ukrainian soldiers who were killed in action as part of a prisoner exchange agreement with Ukraine. (Reuters)
- 15 June 2025 – 2025 Callao earthquake
- A Mw 6.1 earthquake hits Lima, Peru, killing one person and injuring at least five others. (Agencia EFE)
- 15 June 2025 –
- Seven people are killed, including an infant, when a Bell 407 aircraft crashes in a forested area in bad weather while en route to the Kedarnath Temple in Kedarnath, Uttarakhand, India. (The Free Press Journal)
- At least six people are killed, 25 are swept away, and 32 others are injured, including six critically, when a bridge over a river collapses at a popular tourist destination in Kundamala, Pune, Maharashtra, India. (Al Arabiya) (CTV News)
- Three hikers are killed by a lightning strike on Mittagsspitze mountain in the Central Eastern Alps, Austria. (Reuters)
- 15 June 2025 – Gaza war protests
- Between 100,000 and 150,000 protesters march in The Hague, Netherlands, demanding that the Dutch government pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in the Gaza Strip. (AP)
- 15 June 2025 –
- The 51st G7 summit begins in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. (France24)
- The MI6 appoints Blaise Metreweli to lead as Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, making her the first woman to lead the agency. (BBC News)
- 15 June 2025 – 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans
- In endurance racing, the AF Corse Ferrari team wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the third consecutive year, with drivers Phil Hanson, Robert Kubica, and Yifei Ye. (AP)
- 15 June 2025 – 2025 Queen's Club Championships
- In tennis, German player Tatjana Maria defeats American player Amanda Anisimova 6–3, 6–4, in the Queen's Club Championships women's singles final to become the event's first female winner since Russia's Olga Morozova in 1973. At 37 years old, Maria also becomes the oldest winner of a WTA 500 event. (NDTV)
- 15 June 2025 – 2025 U.S. Open
- In golf, JJ Spaun wins the 2025 U.S. Open with a score of one-under-par to win his first major title. (ESPN) (PGA)
- 14 June 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
- 2024 Iran–Israel conflict
- Iran–Israel war (list of airstrikes)
- Iran and Israel continue to launch missiles and drones at each other after the preemptive strike on Iran yesterday. Israel targeted Iran's Ministry of Defence headquarters while Iran retaliated by launching missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa. (AP)
- At least 13 Israelis are killed and over 200 others are injured in an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Bat Yam. (The Times of Israel)
Me (incomplete), described in userboxes...
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.png){kind=small}
History and contributions...
Awards and praise I've received over the years...
Tip of the day April 21, 2006: Thanks for helping a newbie!
I just want to thank you for building on my tip and making it a true wikipedia tip of the day. I'm still learning a lot about how to do things around here, so your help was greatly appreciated! Keep up the great work, and keep on Going for it!
Smashing!
Barnstar
Barnstar
Award
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The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | |
| Your kindess was not random, because you were kind enough to listen to my requests to fix my userpage. Your major kindness will not be ignored, as this BarnStar is my token of appreciation! Kyo catmeow! 01:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC) |
!!!
<O.o --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 01:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
- You're welcome. The Transhumanist 01:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Barnstar
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The da Vinci Barnstar | |
| Awarded to User:The Transhumanist. Sometimes those who take on large areas of wikipedia organisation seem to be taken for granted, and this is just to show that your work is appreciated by the community. Khukri (talk . contribs) 09:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC) |
!
Cool signature Kamope · talk · contributions 12:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. The Transhumanist 05:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks so much!
Thanks so much for the hints in your userpage tutorial. 
. I am a new user and familiar with HTML markup, but not so with Wikimark up. Your userpage tutorial really helped! Real96 06:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
- You're welcome. I'm glad you found it useful. If you see any way to improve it, by all means, please feel free to do so. The Transhumanist 06:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
How can I sum the above up....? Oh yes:
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The Original Barnstar | |
| For your revamp of The Welcoming Committee, and of the Welcome Page, I award you the original barnstar. Well done! Anthonycfc [T • C] 18:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC) |
WOW!!
as a near- noob, this is by far the most detailed and useful article on wikipedia for me! Excellent! I really wish I had a user page like this after two years...Snailey! 15:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Barnstar
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar | |
| For all your work with admin coaching, barnstar awarding, Wikipedia-expanding, and various administrative duties (if you can call all that political stuff we Wikipedians must wade through such a name), I, Sharkface217, hereby award you this Tireless Contributor Barnstar. Good job. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 19:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC) |
Just a few words...
TT, my friend, my mop would never have been gained without your incredible expertise. My kindest regards to you, and drop by as often as possible! Now, a little token of my appreciation...
This, the Golden Wiki Award, the highest attainment level of awards and barnstars, goes to you - The Transhumanist - for being one of the most helpful, kind, resourceful and generous Wikipedians I've had to utmost fortune to meet. Your contributions around the Wiki - at the WikiClassroom, in Dispute Resolution, at the Welcoming Committee, but most of all being a genuinely fun guy, are an amazing feat, and if half the trolls I'll undoubtedly meet after gaining my mop (thanks to you) took a leaf from your book, Wikipedia would be a nicer place.
My kindest possible regards,
Anthony 21:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Barnstar
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What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar | |
| I award you this Brilliant Idea Barnstar for helping others to earn Barnstars and awards through your Award Center! • The Giant Puffin • 13:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC) |
Award
Hello The Transhumanist, (Hold on, can I say that or is it "Hello Transhumanist")
I was going to give you an award but there wasn't one good enough, so I made one better than any that has ever been seen before - This message. Yes, yes, I know, you don't think your worthy of it, but I assure you, you are the only one good enough for it - Pheonix 19:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
A Help:Contents Barnstar
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar | |
| As the top contributor to Help:Contents, you deserve this barnstar. Thank you! Jreferee (Talk) 05:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC) |
Barnstar
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The Original Barnstar | |
| For taking up the challenge and improving my command page, I, Sharkface217, hereby award you this Original Barnstar. Another feather in the Transhumanist cap, eh? :-P |
:D
Hi there Trans Face!
X××x××pink×jellocreature××x××X (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
You won an award!
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X××x××pink×jellocreature××x××X (talk) awards you the unofficial funniness award!
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You deserve a barnstar for your efforts. I can't think of anyone who has contributed more to Wikipedia, except maybe Jimbo. I'm not sure where to put this on your frontpage, so here it is:
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What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar | |
| For boldly redirecting Debt-based monetary system to Criticisms of fractional-reserve banking, both saving it from deletion while defending Wikipedia from those who would violate WP:FRINGE, and being one of the most helpful editors on Wikipedia, in general. Zenwhat (talk) 03:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC) |
Barnstar
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar | |
| I, Diligent Terrier, award you this "Tireless Contributor Barnstar" for your work in starting the List of basic American Civil War topics article from scratch. Great Job! DiligentTerrier • talk |sign here 22:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC) |
My Userpage
Hi There First id like to thank you immensly for your pages about creating a decent userpage!! They are great and I would be lost without them!! Just one question, On my userpage i have a small welcome banner up the top. How do I make this text larger and change the font? Sorry if you have already covered this somewhere. Thanks in advanceCstubbies (talk) 12:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
A valuable service
I think you need recognition for doing the job of ten other editors, and doing it out of altruism and genuine belief in Wikipedia. Not many editors here have the same good attitude and provide the same service as you - I don't have any specific point to put across, but I thought you should just be prodded and reminded that you do a lot of good around here, in the hope you'll keep it up. Kudos! Seegoon (talk) 17:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
:)
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The Excellent Userpage Award | |
| Nice page. jaytur1 (talk · contribs) 12:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC) |
Welcoming committee
Just a note, I've made a minor update to your contributions. To reiterate my edit summary, you put in a tonne of effort there, and you deserve to be credited for it :) Feel free to revert, nonetheless. Regards, AGK (contact) 16:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi there TTH, Just wanted to thank you for your labors on this page, which is a great resource for us. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 17:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
You'd better hope there is a humour barnstar
... because you just gave me the biggest laugh in weeks. Good stuff giving that RfA spammer what-for here. αѕєηιηє t/c 22:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Nice work -- I will withdraw the AfD nom. – ukexpat (talk) 00:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
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The Barnstar of Recovery | |
| For saving List of basic Canada topics from being deleted, I - Milk's Favorite Cookie hereby award you this Barnstar! Congrats! - Milk's Favorite Cookie 01:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC) |
Fictional lists
The deletion review was approved for recreation: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 March 10. Just letting you know, in case you weren't watchlisting it. I'm not sure what you have to do next to get the old version undeleted though (if that's what you wanted :) Nice catch on rescuing that grouping. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
'Tis for you
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The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | |
| I've noticed the extra mile you've gone to help a new user, and I wanted you to know it hasn't gone unnoticed. Keep up the good work! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC) |
Barnstar
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The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | |
| I award this barnstar to The Transhumanist, for being patient and taking four rounds of references from me, until they were all valid. LAAFan 01:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC) |
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The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | |
| I award this barnstar to The Transhumanist, for putting funny stuff on his discussion page which led me to copy them and put some of those funny stuff on my website. Thanks. Emir34 01:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC) |
Hi Transhumanist, I wanted to note that I saw all of your work on the List of Basic France topics, and I appreciate it! Lazulilasher (talk) 02:12, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
From Zach...
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The da Vinci Barnstar | |
| For helping me so many times. and for my wonderful userpage. Cheers, Zacharycrimsonwolf 04:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC) |
Guidance Star
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The Guidance Barnstar | |
| For helping me to find resources on humanism, which I will hopefully be able to use to improve the articles on it here as well! Scapler (talk) 02:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC) |
Happy Transhumanist's Day!
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The Transhumanist has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, |
→ Dylan620 (Toolbox Alpha, Beta) 00:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Happy The Transhumanist's Day!
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The Transhumanist has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, Cheers, If you'd like to show off your awesomeness, you can use this userbox. |
- Congrats. :) –Juliancolton | Talk 23:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I think...
...you need a barnstar for all of the hard work you have put into the WP:WPOOK!
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The Barnstar Barnstar | |
| You deserve two! at-210 discovered elements ∞ what am I? 20:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC) |
Barnstar
Transhumanist my friend,
It's about time you deserve a barnstar for all your contributions to outlines on Wikipedia, and also for being the promoter that you are for outlines. If it wasn't for you we might not have outlines as they are, so it is my honor to present to you the Special Barnstar because no other barnstar could merit what you do for outlines on Wikipedia. :-) Burningview (talk) 03:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
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The Special Barnstar | |
| This barnstar is presented to Transhumanist for all the hard work, contributions, coordination, and promotion he does in advancing the idea, coverage, content, and quality of Outlines on Wikipedia. For this he deserves a Special Barnstar Burningview (talk) 03:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC) |
Well done
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The Special Barnstar | |
| This award is in appreciation of the excellent work you have done supporting the development of Outlines on Wikipedia Thruxton (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC) |
Made me laugh
You once said in a AFD: "If you are building a robot, you can start with just the left pinky." I love that. Happy New Year! Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 20:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
another thanks
I appreciate you pointing me in the direction of a formatted signature. For some reason I couldn't find any reference to how it is done in the years I have been here. Cheers. ◦◦derekbd◦◦my talk◦◦ 12:16, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
Impressed
I just wanted to tell you (probably not the 1st ^^ ) that your are an incredible wikipedia member, your userpage is simply amazing and your contribution is...gigantic? huge? Incredible? not for the number edits (still high) but rather over the appropriateness of the things that you have created, especially the outline project. I wont give you another award, you already have billions, but simply a modest "Bravo!". --
Offiikart (Talk) 05:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks
Hi, thanks a lot for the barnstar, you are truly a user with whom it is pleasant to interact. I greatly appreciate your help, your tips and you recognition on the work done, even if only very minimal compared to the work you have done.
I think you, more than everyone else, deserve a special recognition. Here is the first Barnstar I ever awarded :
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The WikiProject Barnstar | |
| To The Transhumanist who created the outline project and tirelessly continues to improve it. A special thanks for your help and your recognition. OffiikartTalk 13:54, 29 June 2011 (UTC) |
ps. I did put the page alert on my watchlist 
A barnstar for you!
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The Original Barnstar |
| Your fine contributions are not overlooked. You are a quality editor, and we are so glad you are here. Thanks to the user:Transhumanist! Pinkstrawberry02™ talk 01:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC) |
Note to user getting this message: Please respond on Pinkstrawberry02's talk page. If for some reason you cannot, please send them a {{talkback}} and reply on your own talk page. Thanks for your understanding in this manner. See ya around the wiki!
barnstar
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The Chess Barnstar | |
| Awarded for many contributions to chess articles, especially the Outline of chess. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Original Barnstar |
| Thanks so much for your work on the Outline of domestic violence, it is so much better that it's astounding how far it's come along. Thanks for making my first outline "sing"! CaroleHenson (talk) 11:11, 21 November 2011 (UTC) |
- You're first one? Wonderful! I can't wait to see what you come up with next. And I also look forward to seeing what you have in store for this outline. Thank you for the barnstar. It's very nice to feel appreciated. The Transhumanist 22:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Original Barnstar |
| Wow! Thanks for your help on the Future studies project. I can't believe all the pages you've contributed to, but glad you found ours!... RealFuturist (talk) 17:09, 3 February 2012 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Copyeditor's Barnstar |
| Thanks for the ndashes on the Apple outline article. Zach Vega (talk) 00:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC) |
A cookie for you!
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Many years ago, back before I had created my current account, I created a humble little userspace navigation menu based off of two of your menus from the User Page Design Center (initially 15, but ultimately 6). Over the years it has grown, but I don't know if I ever would have started it without seeing your menus first. I just want to thank you for putting the effort into creating those menus and then sharing them at the Design Center where they have been helpful for people like me. I hope you don't mind me borrowing from your hard work! Thanks again and take care! Michael Barera (talk) 03:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC) |
Thank you
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The Instructor's Barnstar | |
| This Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have performed stellar work in the area of instruction & help for other editors. Just wanted to stop by and say this edit was something I wanted to do but simply did not have the "kahunas" to do so. Thank you for the bold edit :-) Moxy (talk) 07:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Barnstar of Diligence |
| For your efforts on updating, improving and organising Outline of human anatomy LT910001 (talk) 06:39, 2 January 2014 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
| For your work on "Outline of space science" Tetra quark (don't be shy) 05:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC) |
Thank you. The Transhumanist 07:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
A cup of coffee for you!
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A cup of coffee for you! masum (talk) 06:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC) |
Thank you. The Transhumanist 06:56, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
At Tip-Of-The-Day: Thank you for your updates & guidance!
Want to let you know the value of your insights & feedback!
Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 21:53, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you. Keep up the good work. The Transhumanist 16:50, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Pony!
Pony!
Congratulations! For all your hard work on redirect repair at Glossary of North American horse racing and general wikignoming along the way of articles such as Easy Goer, you have received a pony! Ponies are cute, intelligent, cuddly, friendly (most of the time, though with notable exceptions), promote good will, encourage patience, and enjoy carrots. Treat your pony with respect and he will be your faithful friend! We need more wikipedia editors like you! Montanabw(talk) 02:22, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
To send a pony or a treat to other wonderful and responsible editors, click here.
Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!
- please help translate this message into the local language
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The Cure Award |
| In 2015 you were one of the top 300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med Foundation for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a user group whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs, and we would love to collaborate further. |
Thanks again :) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 03:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
| Great work with the Outlines :) Pratyush (talk) 21:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC) |
Thank you. The Transhumanist 15:31, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Love the outlines
Hi there! I just wanted to let you know that I think your planet outlines are really cool. I have long thought it was a shame that only Wikipedians seem to know about Books or Portals, because they are really great tools for structuring knowledge (while everyone loves diving down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, we could really do with some better content organization). The outlines strike me as a great way to bring that sort content organization to mainspace, where it will actually reach a large number of readers. I notice that I am the first one to edit them besides yourself, and I hope you know that I do so with love.
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What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar | |
| Great idea with the outline articles - a great solution to a need for better mainspace-based content structuring! I see from WP:Outlines that you actually came up with this concept some years ago, but this is the first I've noticed it. A2soup (talk) 02:46, 8 February 2017 (UTC) |
A Barnstar for you!
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The Portal Barnstar | |
| The Portal Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have made significant contributions to topic portals. Awarded to Transhumanist for his overly enthusiastic efforts regarding the portal system and WikiProject Portals. – Lionel(talk) 11:02, 30 April 2018 (UTC) |
- Transhumanist, thank you for your extraordinary efforts on behalf of portals. It reminds me of the time when a series of attacks on scientific bibliographies led to the formation of WikiProject Bibliographies. I don't understand why your detractors are so passionate about deleting portals, but your actions have been a model for how to deal with an attack constructively. RockMagnetist(talk) 16:10, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
A Barnstar for you!
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The Article Rescue Barnstar | |
| May all who see this barnstar know that The Transhumanist made a valiant and commendable effort for defending the portal namespace from deletion. It preserved countless hours of work initially invested into creating the content. Moreoever, The Transhumanist, is doing a yeoman's job in attempting to improve the content within with portal namespace. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:24, 26 May 2018 (UTC) |
@RightCowLeftCoast: Thank you. I feel honored. Please keep in mind that I have not been working alone. Credit goes to the nearly 400 editors who came forward to speak up for the keeping of portals. And although the RfC to delete all portals is over, the job of defending portals from deletion is not. For the portal namespace to be retained in the long term, the portals in it will need to be improved to a worthy quality level, otherwise we may see more deletion attempts. This task is far more than a single editor can handle. Fortunately, many editors have come forward to meet the challenge. Working to develop portals and the entire portal system, is a team of 80 editors who are diligently redesigning, upgrading, updating, and maintaining portals. They are the members of the Portals WikiProject, and without them there might be no portals. They are doing a wonderful job, and I am very proud of them. Thank you. — The Transhumanist 17:22, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Precious
thinking-related topics
Thank you for organising a list of thinking-related topics, for Shift work sleep disorder and the index of oral health and dental articles, for your thoughts and efforts regarding portals, and beginnings such as Portal:Thinking/Selected picture, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!
Precious
portals
Thank you for your thoughts and efforts regarding portals, for the concept of outlines, for sectional redirects, for articles such as Life Extension Foundation, for service from 2006, including portal philosophy and user page design center, - repeating (1 & 4 June 2009): you are an awesome Wikipedian!
Thank you. I looked, but couldn't figure out what 1 & 4 June 2009 were referring to. Just curious. — The Transhumanist 19:26, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
- Follow the link "awesome W." and look for your name: 2 others said it before me! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:48, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Executive director of portals
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The Portal Barnstar | |
| Not sure if a simple barnstar can express the communities gratitude to the portal work that you're doing. Your an indispensable member of our community. Moxy (talk) 18:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC) |
Moxy, thank you. I'm honored, and I receive this praise for the team, without whom there would be very little progress on portals. They are literally transforming them into something new. I'm glad to be a part of that. — The Transhumanist 18:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
A Barnstar for you
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The Portal Barnstar | |
| The Portal Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have made significant contributions to topic portals. Thanks for the great work you have been doing in the WikiProject. Dreamy Jazz talk | contribs 22:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC) |
You are welcome, formerly Wpgbrown. Nice new name. ;) — The Transhumanist 10:26, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Technical Barnstar |
Good to see others of the view we have as to the need to know more. Im a research person here just of this week and your views relate to my work here. take care.
Tleesd (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2018 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thank's for updating the Portal:Seventh-day Adventist Church. You deserve this star for your good work. Catfurball (talk) 15:28, 12 October 2018 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
| For your excellent work on Portals. Everyday the portal project improves. Your dedication and willingness to get people involved really pays off. Cannot wait to continue working with you and the Portal team. Thank you for your work. AmericanAir88(talk) 00:30, 30 October 2018 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | |
| Thank you for helping me in my first attempt in creating a portal page ‑‑V.S.(C)(T) 10:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC) |
Some barnstars for you!
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thanks for creating Portal:Hummingbirds when I asked for it. Keep doing a good job! Catfurball (talk) 00:01, 4 January 2019 (UTC) |
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thanks for making Portal:Capsicum. Catfurball (talk) 19:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC) |
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thanks for making Portal:Peaches. Catfurball (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2019 (UTC) |
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thanks for creating Portal:Woodpeckers for me. Catfurball (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC) |
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thanks for creating Portal:Tyrant flycatchers for me. Catfurball (talk) 19:16, 14 February 2019 (UTC) |
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thanks for creating Portal:Plums, you do a great job creating portals. Catfurball (talk) 18:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC) |
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The Graphic Designer's Barnstar |
| Thanks for creating Portal:Cotingas for me. Catfurball (talk) 19:07, 22 February 2019 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Portal Barnstar | |
| For your tireless dedication to creating, maintaining, and improving portals, as well as your active involvement in making improvements to the system of portals itself. I'm sorry to hear that you're temporarily unable to create them, but your work is greatly appreciated 🙂 Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 14:17, 23 March 2019 (UTC) |
A Barnstar for you
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The Original Barnstar | |
| message Ambuj Shukla 19:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC) |
You have made immense contributions to outlines over the years, and have encouraged many more Wikipedians to follow your lead. The impact of your contributions are great. Keep doing the good work! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ambujshukla2004 (talk • contribs) 19:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you. — The Transhumanist 00:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Outline Barnstar | |
| Hello The Transhumanist, you are receiving this award for the creation and continued dedication to WikiProject Outlines. You deserve this barnstar more than anyone. Jerium (talk) 19:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
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The Barnstar of Good Humor |
| I appreciate you reviving the User page design center! I used this when I was new. Also, everyone has a phases where they religiously obsess over their user page (especially userboxes), and this tool is a good way to show them how to have fun with it. Panini! • 🥪 23:59, 2 June 2024 (UTC) |
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Categories:
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