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Ground-based telescopes provided the first real-time look at the death throes of a red supergiant star.
While these aren't the  the brightest or most massive stars, they are the largest by volume. A popular red supergiant, which has attracted interest due to its irregular eclipsing, is Betelgeuse.
This star is located in the galaxy NGC 5731, about 120 million light years from Earth distant it was ten times as massive as the sun. Before they go out in splendor, some stars experience violent eruptions or release bright layers of hot gas.
Until astronomers witnessed this event, they believed that red supergiants were relatively calm. before they explode in a supernova or collapse into a dense neutron star.

Instead, scientists watched the star self-destruct in dramatic fashion before collapsing in a type II supernova. This star death is the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star after it has burned through the hydrogen, helium and other elements in its core.

All that remains is the star's iron, but iron can't fuse so the star will run out of energy. When that happens, the iron collapses and causes the supernova. A study detailing these findings published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.

"This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die," said lead study author Wynn Jacobson-Galán, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at University of California, Berkeley, in a statement.

"Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has never been observed before in an ordinary type II supernova. For the first time, we watched a red supergiant star explode."

Astronomers were first alerted to the star's unusual activity 130 days before it went supernova. Bright radiation was detected in the summer of 2020 by the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy Pan-STARRS telescope on Maui's Haleakalā.

Then, in the fall of that year, the researchers witnessed a supernova in the same spot.

They observed it using the W.M. Keck Observatory's Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer on Maunakea, Hawai'i, and named the supernova 2020tlf. Their observations revealed that there was material around the star when it exploded -- the bright gas that the star violently kicked away from itself over the summer.

"It's like watching a ticking time bomb," said senior study author Raffaella Margutti, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Berkeley, in a statement. "We've never confirmed such violent activity in a dying red supergiant star where we see it produce such a luminous emission, then collapse and combust, until now."

Some of these massive stars likely experience consequential internal changes that cause the tumultuous release of gas before they die, the finding has shown.

The work was conducted while Jacobson-Galán and Margutti were still at Northwestern University. They had remote access to the Keck Observatory's telescopes in Hawai'i, which was "instrumental in providing direct evidence of a massive star transitioning into a supernova explosion," Margutti said.

"I am most excited by all of the new 'unknowns' that have been unlocked by this discovery," Jacobson-Galán said. "Detecting more events like SN 2020tlf will dramatically impact how we define the final months of stellar evolution, uniting observers and theorists in the quest to solve the mystery on how massive stars spend the final moments of their lives."

Source: CNN

The Apple Park campus stands in this aerial photograph taken above Cupertino in October 2019.Sam Hall/Bloomberg via Getty Images

As Apple heads to the end of its self-imposed two-year transition from Intel to its own Apple Silicon, the company  lost the head of his M1 development team. 

Jeff Wilcox originally joined Apple from Intel in 2013 and is now returning to the company while working on  new processors. "After eight great years, I  decided to leave Apple and look for another opportunity," wrote Wilcox on his LinkedIn page. "It's been an incredible journey and I couldn't be more proud of all that we did during my time that culminates in the move from Apple Silicon to the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max systems and SOCs. 

I will  miss all  my  colleagues and friends at Apple very much. "I am pleased to announce that I have  a "Engineering Group CTO, Client SoC Architecture at Intel Corporation," he said. Big things are still to come!

Wilcox returned to Intel in early January 2022.It's not yet known who Apple intends to replace him with as Director, Mac System Architecture.

Nor is it known whether Apple tried to keep Wilcox. Separately, Apple has recently been offering $180,000 bonuses to engineers to prevent them leaving.

Hyundai executives, led by Chief Executive Euisun Chung, elaborated on the vision during a press conference at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

 Buzzwords aside, Hyundai plans to leverage its growing expertise in robotics and artificial intelligence to build  a future mobility network that connects humans in the real world with objects and tasks in the virtual world. 

The concept is linked to the so-called metaverse, a term coined 30 years ago by author Neal Stephenson, but which recently gained attention  when social media company Facebook changed its name to Meta Platforms Inc. 

It refers to shared virtual environments. world that people can access through the Internet and that they can  use  virtual reality or augmented reality. Hyundai offered several examples of how it could connect the metaverse and the real world:

– A vehicle that can be transformed into a work space or an entertainment room that includes a 3D video game platform.

– A “smart” factory where humans outside the plant remotely control robots that interact with machines and products inside the plant.

– Automated personal transportation devices for people with disabilities or individuals who want to maintain social distances while traveling.

To make all this work, the automaker said it was building a Mobility of Things ecosystem that will link modular robotic platforms to perform different mobility services.

One module called Plug & Drive or PnD is a single-wheel robotics platform that combines intelligent steering, braking and suspension with in-wheel electric drive, cameras and lidar sensors for automated operation.

For larger logistics tasks and other mobility services, Hyundai can bundle four PnD modules, including one application that pairs with a robot dog called – what else? – Spot.

 People wearing protective face masks walk in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in France, January 5, 2022. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Macron told Le Parisien  earlier this week. that he wanted to make life so difficult for those who opposed the COVID-19 vaccine  by leading them away from public places that they would end up being jabbed.
Macron's coarse language barely three months before a presidential election was widely seen as a politically calculated, tapping into a intensifying public frustration against the unvaccinated.

More than 90% of over-12s have received at least two doses, government data shows. Health Minister Olivier Veran said a record number of people since Oct. 1 received a first shot on Wednesday after Macron's comments were published.

Lawmakers in the lower house passed draft legislation including the vaccine pass shortly after 5 a.m. after an all-night session by a margin of 214 to 93. Many of those who voted against the bill were from the far-right or left-wingers.

The legislation will go to the Senate before a final vote in the National Assembly.

People in France have for several months had to show either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to enter venues such as cinemas and cafes and use trains. But with Delta and Omicron variant infections surging, the government decided to drop the test option in the new bill.

The vaccine pass rules will apply to over-16s and not over-12 as the government had initially sought.
European countries have grappled with the possibility of mandating citizens to force them to vaccinate. Italy on Wednesday made the COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for people aged 50 and over,  teachers and public health workers are already required to get vaccinated. , Prime Minister Jean Castex said.
Countries that had switched to compulsory vaccination, such as Italy and Austria, had lower vaccination rates than France.
Castex also said France would be ready to move on to a fourth COVID vaccine shot when the time was right.
On Wednesday, France set a record of more than 332,000 new ones. COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours and an additional 246 COVID-19 deaths in hospitals, as the country.

Vehicles are stuck in gridlock in the morning on the Interstate Highway I-95 near Stafford, Virginia, U.S., January 4, 2022 in this still image obtained from a social media video. Susan Phalen/via REUTERS (Susan Phalen/via REUTERS / Reuters Photos)

A viral video from TikTok  shows how a bread truck  driver was able to provide much needed help to  dozens of unsuspecting drivers who were  stranded on I95 in Virginia for more than 24 hours due to snowy weather and freezing temperatures this week they ate nothing for 37 hours stuck on that frozen Virginia freeway, so they called the bread company whose truck was right in front of them, asking if they could have what was in it, ” said the narrator of the video. showing a photo of Casey Holihan and her husband, John Noe, and the Schmidt Baking Company truck.
“To their surprise, the driver of the truck was contacted and  given the green light to start distributing bread to 50 starving motorists,” they added, as the video shows the gloved driver  handing out bags of bread from the  truck. Baltimore-based company truck.
It is not known how many people were fed by the gesture or how long the drivers were stuck in the roadblock before being rescued.
The blocked traffic prompted Virginia state transportation officials to shut down the entire freeway, including the mostly congested areas between exits 152 and 104.

The incident began Monday before pouring into Tuesday evening but, despite the chaos, there were no reported deaths, injuries, or serious accidents.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., shared on Twitter that he was stuck on the interstate and that it took him 27 hours to travel the 110 miles between Richmond and Washington.

Hundreds — if not thousands — of drivers were affected before their eventual help came from law enforcement vehicles, who were also impeded and delayed by the storm, and the generosity of Schmidt Baking company and its delivery truck driver.
There have been other reports of people helping stranded people, including a family who handed over oranges to the US Senator.
Governor Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency, after initially choosing not to do so as another winter storm is expected to hit Virginia in the coming days.

The winning ticket for the last Powerball was sold at a  convenience store in Sacramento. According to the lottery site, the ticket was sold at 7 Eleven on Wyndham Drive. 

The ticket price is $315 million. 

The other  winning ticket, which hit five out of five numbers, was sold to a Chevron in South Pasadena. This person made about $1.3 million. Powerball's last big  winning ticket was sold at an Albertsons in Morro Bay in October, for a price of $685 million. 

This winner was able to choose between the 29-year paid annuity option  or the $ 496 million cash option. Both reward options are subject to tax.

How did flurona come about?

As the name suggests, flurona describes a rare double infection of both coronavirus and influenza. The term has emerged over recent days following the finding of a patient in Israel who tested positive for both diseases when she came into hospital on Thursday - the first recorded case in the world. 

The young woman is pregnant and is reported to only have mild symptoms, but health officials have quickly started studying her case to determine whether the combination causes any greater severity of illness. 

“She was diagnosed with the flu and coronavirus as soon as she arrived,” Professor Arnon Vizhnitser, director of the hospitals’ Gynaecology Department, told Jewish newspaper Hamodia. 

“Both tests came back positive, even after we checked again. The disease is the same disease. They’re viral and cause difficulty breathing since both attack the upper respiratory tract.”

According to latest reports, the patient is expected to be discharged on Thursday. 

What are the symptoms?

It is difficult for scientists to pinpoint an exact set of symptoms, but flurona’s most common effects are likely to be a combination of those of Covid and influenza. 

Related: First Case Of Flurona Emerges in France

The Israeli patient did reportedly exhibit breathing difficulties and since Omicron already exhibits many of the same symptoms as the flu or a cold, the main effects are likely to include a high temperature, fatigue, aches, sneezing, a dry cough and/or scratchy throat. 

Prof Vizhnitser confirmed that both infections are viral and cause difficulty breathing. “The disease is the same disease,” he said. “They’re viral and cause difficulty breathing since both attack the upper respiratory tract.”

How likely is it to spread?

Much about the infectiousness and seriousness of flurona remains unknown, but doctors have confirmed that other cases are likely to emerge - a result of rising flu cases as restrictions ease along with the fast spread of the Omicron variant.

 Related: First Case Of Flurona Emerges in France

“We are seeing more and more pregnant women with the flu,” said Prof Vizhnitser. “It is definitely a great challenge dealing with a woman who comes in with a fever at childbirth.

“This is especially when you do not know if it’s coronavirus or the flu, so you refer to them the same. Most of the illness is respiratory.”

Source: Yahoo News

According to the screenshot shared with the report, the new feature will allow you to see small photos of the sender in the notification when you receive a new message from a single user or group.

The report also reveals that the feature is only available to  a few beta testers running the iOS 15 operating system because the feature uses iOS 15 APIs. 

The Facebook-owned platform is reportedly releasing the feature for more users with the upcoming updates.As the feature is still in beta, WhatsApp may experience  issues showing profile photos on specific notifications, but these issues will likely be resolved whenever the feature is rolled out to the public.

Last week WhatsApp also started rolling out a 2.22.1.1 beta update  for iOS users. The update supposedly contains hidden references to a feature that will allow users to create communities in future updates. 

A similar hidden notice was also discovered in the beta update released two weeks ago for Android smartphones. For those of you who don't know, Facebook's own messaging platform has been working on a community feature for a while.

Object 90377 Sedna - a distant transneptunian object best known  for its highly elliptical, 11,390-year-old orbit - is currently en-route to perihelion (its closest approach to the Sun) in 2076. After that, Sedna will return to the 'space. deep  and will not return for millennia, making this overview a unique (or, once in ~ 113 lifetimes) opportunity to study an object from the far reaches of our solar system. There are no Sedna missions  in the works  yet, but astronomers are starting to plan for the possibility and  ideal launch date for such a mission is fast approaching, with two of the best launch windows coming  in 2029 and 2034.
Sedna was discovered in 2003 by Caltech astronomer Mike Brown and his team, and was one of a series of potential dwarf planets (alongside similar-sized bodies like Haumea, Makemake, and Eris) whose discovery led to the demotion of Pluto in 2006. As best we can tell from a distance, Sedna is about the same size as Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, but its composition and origins are very different. Its chemical makeup suggests it may be covered in deep reddish organic compounds known as tholins, the same material seen on Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects. Unlike Pluto, it is usually too cold for the methane abundant on its surface to evaporate and fall back as snow, though Sedna may briefly gain an atmosphere of nitrogen as it approaches the Sun.
What really sets Sedna apart from the other known dwarf planet candidates is its enormous orbit, which takes it out towards the inner edge of the Oort cloud, the most distant region of the Solar System, where long-period comets lurk. There are several competing theories to explain how Sedna ended up in this position. Perhaps the most high-profile theory is the possibility that a yet unknown ninth planet, perhaps ten times the size of Earth, disrupted Sedna’s orbit and swept it and several other objects out into highly elongated orbits. Visiting Sedna probably won’t solve this particular mystery, but it will tell us a lot about the composition of these extreme trans-Neptunian objects.

In planning a mission to Sedna, the Voyager spacecraft are not bad places to look for inspiration. They famously took advantage of a lucky alignment of planets to take a grand tour of the outer Solar System, stealing energy from Jupiter to pick up speed and reach their more distant targets. Similar gravity assists will be required to make the trip to Sedna manageable. A team of scientists led by Vladislav Zubko from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences recently modeled a series of possible trajectories  to Sedna, favoring a 2029 launch date as the most feasible option.

The 2029 trajectory, they determined, would take the spacecraft to Venus first, then back to Earth (twice), before passing Jupiter on the way to Sedna, with flight times as short as 20 years but more optimally in the 30-year range. The longer flight time would increase the altitude of the spacecraft over Jupiter during the gravity assist, reducing the time spent exposed to the gas giant’s harmful radiation.

A 30-year flight plan would also mean passing by Sedna more slowly, providing more time to gather data on the object. Choosing this option would give the spacecraft a relative velocity of 13.70km/s as it passed Sedna, comparable to the speed at which New Horizons  approached Pluto in 2015.

A second trajectory proposed by the team would consist of a 2034 launch, and would provide a similar additional flyby, this time of the metallic asteroid  16 Psyche.

At the moment, it’s unclear whether a mission to Sedna will actually make it to the launch pad with all the competing options available to mission planners in the coming decade, but as it’s our only chance in the next 11,000 years, the idea is sure to be given due diligence.

Note:This article is taken from Universe Today to see original article Click here

Source: Universe Today

Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech announced on Wednesday that they would develop a potential mRNA-based vaccine for the prevention of viral  shingles, working together for the third time after the success of their COVID-19 vaccine.

 Pfizer partnered with BioNTech in 2018 for an influenza vaccine and again in 2020 to develop the COVID-19 vaccine which has been used around the world and  brought in billions of dollars in corporate sales.

The companies plan to begin clinical trials of the shingles vaccine, which will combine antigen technology recognized by scientists at Pfizer  with BioNTech's mRNA platform technology, in the second half of 2022. 

Shingles, also known known as herpes zoster, usually develops in older people who had chickenpox or varicella-zoster virus when they were younger. 

Its hallmark is a painful rash that goes away within a month in most cases. In some cases, however, this leads to nerve pain which can persist for much longer collaboration, BioNTech will receive $225 million in upfront payment and be eligible  for future regulatory and commercial payments of up to $200 million. BioNTech will pay Pfizer $25 million for the company's proprietary antigen technology.

HBO ended the year with 73.8 million subscribers to its streaming service and its eponymous cable network, up from 69.4 million in September. 

Those gains, coupled with the addition of nearly 900,0000 monthly paid phone subscribers, pushed the stock up 3% to $ 26.46. in the midday exchanges. 

“I think the  streaming service's cap is much higher than what we've seen to date,”  WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar said in an interview. 

“This will quickly become a three-way race for storytelling companies.

HBO Max still has a long way to go to capture market leader Netflix Inc, with  214 million subscribers, and Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) Disney +, with 118 million. Disney's growth slowed  in the company's fiscal fourth quarter, prompting a banker to downgrade the stock. Disney + added just 2.1 million in the October quarter. Netflix, which slowed sharply in the first half of 2021, saw its subscriptions increase in October, adding 4.4 million during the quarter, driven by the global sensation “Squid Game".

 WarnerMedia's HBO Max logged gains as it expanded the server reach from a single market, the United States, to 46 countries. Kilar said global expansion will continue this year,  eventually targeting 190 countries. 

AT&T (T.N) announced last May that it would split its WarnerMedia unit and merge it with Discovery (DISCA.O). The deal is expected to be finalized in the middle of this year.

Threat actors used a cloud-based video hosting service to perform a supply chain attack on more than 100 real estate websites operated by Sotheby's Realty that involved the injection of malicious skimmers to steal sensitive personal information . 

“Others import videos, even their websites are embedded with skimmer codes,” researchers from Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks said in a report released this week.

The skimmer attacks, also called formjacking, relates to a type of cyber attack wherein bad actors insert malicious JavaScript code into the target website, most often to checkout or payment pages on shopping and e-commerce portals, to harvest valuable information such as credit card details entered by users.

In the latest incarnation of the Magecart attacks, the operators behind the campaign hacked Sotheby's Brightcove account  and deployed malicious code in the cloud video platform player by forging a script that can be loaded to add JavaScript customizations to the video player. 

"The attacker modified the static script in his hosted location by attaching the skimmer code. On the next player update, the video platform reingested the compromised file and served it  with the affected player." the researchers said, adding that he had worked with the video service and the real estate company to help remove the malware.

The campaign is said to have begun as early as January 2021, according to MalwareBytes, with the harvested information — names, emails, phone numbers, credit card data — exfiltrated to a remote server "cdn-imgcloud[.]com" that also functioned as a collection domain for a Magecart Attack  targeting Amazon CloudFront CDN in June 2019.

To detect and prevent the injection of malicious code into online sites, it is recommended that you perform periodic web content integrity checks, remembering to protect accounts from takeover attempts and pay attention to potential social engineering schemes. 

“The skimmer itself is highly polymorphic, elusive and ever-changing,” the researchers said. “When combined with cloud distribution platforms, the impact of such a skimmer  could be very significant.

Partners Kevin Yorn, Gregg Gellman and Jared Levine will lead that rep team.T

he phenomenal success of Netflix’s Squid Game came seemingly out of nowhere, catapulting Hwang and the cast to global stardom and making them the hottest commodity in Hollywood. That created a stampede among the major agencies late last yearto sign Hwang and the actors, the vast majority of whom have no Hollywood representation. The courtship got underway when cast and creators came to Hollywood for a big press junket Netflix held. Several of the cast signed with agencies. It looks right now that the Squid Game EP duo will have the attorneys be their sole Hollywood reps, sources said.

Hwang hinted recently at a third season for the show, even before the second season gets the official green light. Season 1 was made on a modest budget, reportedly $2.4 million per episode ($21.4 million in total), while projected to generate $900 million value for the streamer, according to data cited by Bloomberg.

The cast and Hwang had no-frills contracts typical for local-language Netflix productions. Clearly the new reps will be out to change all that and help set up new series and films. “I’m not that rich,” Hwang told The Guardian last year. “But I do have enough. I have enough to put food on the table. And it’s not like Netflix is paying me a bonus. Netflix paid me according to the original contract.”

Source: Yahoo News

The account of the movie star, known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, on Monday shared a photo of a pro-Palestinian rally with the phrase "Solidarity is a verb."
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson)

On the other hand, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, criticized the publication:
"Fiction may work in Harry Potter, but in reality it doesn't work," he wrote on Twitter. The wizarding world could eradicate the evils of Hamas (which oppresses women and seeks to destroy Israel) and the Palestinian Authority (which supports terrorism). I would be for it! " he said.

His comments followed those of former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon.

“10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite,” Danon tweeted.

Several social media users slammed Danon for his comments.

Leah Greenberg, the coexectual director of the indivisible project, a non-profit organization, which was founded in 2016 in response to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, released the allegations of Danons and said that they were "a perfect demonstration of liberation absolutely cynical and bad-faith weaponisation of antisemitism to shut down basic expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

Palestinian journalist and activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who played a crucial role in raising international awareness about the forced eviction of Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, responded saying that Watson’s “simple statement” had left “Zionists everywhere … in a frenzy”.

Workers have continued to quit work at a historic rate. Low-wage industries directly affected by the pandemic continued to be the source of much of the increase in quits, ”said Nick Bunker, research director  at  Indeed Hiring Lab, in comments by e -mail.
The big question for 2022 is whether this momentum will persist. The high quits rate Data for November  released on Tuesday does not yet take into account the arrival of the Omicron variant on US shores, which has pushed infections on the rise. and put many workers at risk of contracting the virus in the workplace.

Case in point, the UCLA Labor Center said in a report also released on Tuesday that nearly a quarter of fast food workers in the Los Angeles area have contracted Covid in the past 18 months. Less than half of them had been informed by their employers that they had been potentially exposed to the virus.
Including layoffs and discharges, the total number of terminations was 6.3 million in November.
Hotels and restaurants saw the biggest increase in departures, while also seeing the biggest drop in open jobs, the data showed. America had 10.6 million jobs to fill in November, down slightly from just over 11 million jobs opened in October. Available jobs in the United States peaked at 11.1 million last July.

Positions in finance and insurance, as well as in the federal government, increased in November.

Hires were little changed at 6.7 million and that paints a positive picture of the labor market:

"People who quit are taking other jobs, not leaving the workforce," said Heidi Shierholz, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute in a tweet Tuesday. "On net, the labor market is gaining a ton of jobs every month."

"This threat actor was able to keep most  of the attack under the radar by breaking the attack down into several small files, most of which had very low detection rates by the [antivirus] engines,  the last step leading  Purple Fox rootkit infection, said researcher Natalie Zargarov.

First discovered in 2018, Purple Fox comes with rootkit capabilities that allow the malware to be planted beyond the reach of security solutions and evade detection. A March 2021 report from Guardicore  detailed its worm-like propagation feature, enabling the backdoor to spread more rapidly.

Then, in October 2021, Trend Micro researchers discovered a .NET implant dubbed FoxSocket distributed in partnership with Purple Fox that uses WebSockets to contact its command and control (C2) servers for a more secure way to establish communications.

"The capabilities of the Purple Fox rootkit make it more capable of achieving its goals in a more stealthy manner," the researchers noted. “They allow Purple Fox to persist on affected systems and deliver additional payloads to affected systems.

Last but not least, in December 2021, Trend Micro also  shed light on the later stages of the Purple Fox infection chain, targeting SQL databases by inserting a malicious SQL common language runtime (CLR) module to achieve a persistent and stealthier execution and ultimately abuse the SQL servers for illicit cryptocurrency mining.

The new  chain of attacks observed by Minerva begins with a Telegram installer file, an AutoIt script that publishes a legitimate installer for the chat app, and a malicious downloader called "TextInputh.exe", the latter being executed to retrieve the next malware from the C2 server.

 Then the downloaded files  block the processes associated with the different antivirus engines, before moving on to the final step of downloading and running the Purple Fox rootkit from a  remote server which is now down. installers providing the same version of the Purple Fox rootkit  using the same attack chain, ”Zargarov said.

“ Some appear to have been delivered by email, while others, we assume, were downloaded from websites phishing. The beauty of this attack is that each step is separate for a different file, which is unnecessary without all of the files.

Source: The Hacker News

The red planet looks good enough to eat in this Trace Gas Orbiter image of a crater. 

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a breathtaking new photo of a two-and-a-half-mile-wide ice-covered crater on Mars affectionately nicknamed "Red Velvet."
Spotted by Digitaltrends, the image was captured by the Trace Gas Orbiter taking photos of the surface of the red planet, examining gases in the atmosphere, and serving as a communication link between landers and other devices on the surface and on planet Earth.
The orbiter is officially a collaboration between  ESA and Russian space agency Roscosmos and the photo, originally taken on July 5, 2021, shows a nearly four-kilometer-wide perspective of the surface and the covered crater ice near the north polar region of Vastitas Borealis on Mars.
Like a splash of icing sugar on a rich red velvet cake, this scene from ESA / Roscosmos Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter Captures The contrasting colors of brilliant white water against rusty red martian soil, "the ESA describes .

The ESA says the crater is partially filled with water ice more prevalent on the north-facing slopes since that region receives fewer hours of sunlight throughout the year with the dark sections on the crater edges likely containing volcanic materials like basalt, giving it a sort of scorched looking appearance.
The presence of water on the planet is a big deal for space exploration, since bringing the precious liquid would be too heavy to carry all the way to the planet on a potential future  manned mission. The presence of the ice means the liquid could be melted down and used for drinking water or fuel. The problem, according to the ESA, is that most of these deposits that have been found exist near the polar regions of the planet, and most missions want to land near the equatorial regions. Naturally, the next step is to seek out ice below the surface of the planet with missions like the upcoming  Marce Ice Caper, or the last option is to take the hydrated minerals from the soil and bake them to release any water they might contain.

Elon Musk and his son X Æ A-Xii at a Time Person of the Year event on 13 December 2021 in New York City(Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIME)

According to Forbes, the controversial social media billionaire who is also the founder of commercial space company SpaceX remained at the top of the world's richest list for the new year. In second place and $ 103.6 billion behind Musk is Bernard Arnault,  CEO of the French fashion empire LVMH. Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos is in third place, Forbes said.

The surge in the Tesla share price has again been attributed to South Africa's growing wealth.
The electric car maker said it  delivered more than 936,000 cars in 2021, beating analysts' forecasts, but also said the company had recalled 475,000 of its cars built between 2014 and 2021. Forbes said

 Shares of Tesla had risen more than 13% when the market closed, with the company's market cap once again surpassing the $ 1 trillion mark after falling below that level last month. As Tesla's CEO, Musk, named  Person of the Year 2021 by Time Magazine, owns around 15.6% of the company's shares.He has Continued to sell shares, ending the year after offloading 3 million shares on the open market  to face taxes on the approximately 5.7 million stock options  he exercised at the same time.

If true, this would place him among the biggest ever individual tax payers in the history of the US, although this only represents roughly 0.0036 percent of his worth.

He reportedly sold 15.7 million Tesla shares over the course of 2021 - worth more than $16 billion before tax.

Musk's fortune jumped more than $200 billion over 2020 and 2021. In 2021 alone, he added $116 billion to his net worth.

This, Forbes said, is the biggest one-year gain by any billionaire since the news outlet began tracking the wealth of high net-worth individuals.

Musk is set to earn another windfall later this month when Tesla reports its fourth quarter earnings. If the company meets certain operational and valuation goals, the world's richest man is set to become even richer.

2021 was an eventful year for Musk, marked by a hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live, a break-up with girlfriend Grimes, and his self-coronation as 'Technoking' of Tesla.

Musk made huge waves last month as he sold off many billions worth of his Tesla stock in a move purportedly dictated by a poll he posted on Twitter.

Tesla's soaring stock price has again been credited for Musk's growing wealth. Tesla delivered more than 936,000 vehicles last year, a record figure that represents an 87 percent increase from its 2020 delivery count. Pictured: A Tesla factory in China (file photo)

In reality, at least some of the stock sales were driven by mandatory taxes as he exercised stock options that will expire in August.

He has sold $16.4 billion worth of shares since early November when he said he would sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock if Twitter users agreed, which they did.

But Musk in September had set up a prearranged plan for stock sales related to options expiring next year, and Tesla in a filing on Tuesday said the program was complete.

Musk said last week that he would be done selling shares after his programmed sales ended, meaning that the selloff is now complete.

The final trades, reported on Tuesday, included exercising an option on 1.6 million shares and selling 934,090 of those shares to pay for taxes.

In total, Musk has sold 15.7 million shares in Tesla late in this year, approximately the 10 percent stake the billionaire had pledged to sell.

He exercised options granted in 2012 to buy nearly 23 million shares at $6.24 each, a fraction of Tesla's share price, which stood at $1069.33 in late trading on Thursday, the final trading session of the year.

Tesla delivers a record 936,172 electric cars in 2021 despite supply chain issues

Tesla delivered more than 936,000 vehicles last year, a record figure that represents an 87 percent increase from its 2020 delivery count despite a number of hurdles the electric carmaker faced during the past year.

The Austin, Texas-based company announced its fourth-quarter production and delivery results Sunday - just days after it recalled nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars to address issues that increase the risk of crashing.

And last February, Tesla told workers it would temporarily halt some production at its car assembly plant in California as it faced a semiconductor shortage.

Workers on a Model 3 sedan production line in Fremont were told their line would be down from February 22 until March 7, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News.

Despite the challenges Elon Musk's electric car empire faced during the past year - including chip shortages and whistleblower scandals - demand for the sleek, futuristic cars has only grown.

The amount of cars delivered last year dwarfs company figures from yearend 2020, when 499,550 vehicles were shipped to customers.

Of the sales made last year, Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y rides accounted for 911,208 - or 97 percent - of the 936,172 vehicles delivered. Its most budget-friendly Model 3 sedan retails for $46,490 and up, while the Model Y midsized SUV starts around $61,000.

It delivered 24,964 of its pricier Model S and Model X vehicles; its only full-sized SUV, the Model X is tagged about $110,000 while the flagship Model S starts about $100,000.

Tesla in 2020 delivered 57,039 of its Model S and X vehicles in 2020, and 442,511 Model 3 and Model Y cars.

It delivered 112,000 vehicles in 2019.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said the latest numbers are 'jaw-dropping' given the ongoing global chip shortage affecting the automotive industry.

Ives said the production increase was likely boosted by growing demand from car buyers in China, as well as broader enthusiasm for electric vehicles.

Musk also chimed in on the accomplishment, tweeting: 'Great work by Tesla team worldwide!'

Tesla's brand image took some hits last year, most recently last week when it recalled 356,309 Model 3 vehicles made between 2017 and 2020 due to problems with the rearview camera and 119,009 Model S vehicles due to front trunk problems.

Tesla warned that for the specific Model 3 vehicles, opening and closing the trunk could damage the cable harness attaching the rearview camera, causing the camera to suddenly fail.

And the Model S issue could stop the front trunk from latching, allowing it to swing up while the vehicle is in motion.

According to Tesla, only about one percent of the Model 3 cars have the flaw, compared with 14 percent of the Model S vehicles.

Tesla shares have fallen from their record highs, reached two days prior to Musk's infamous Twitter poll, but are still on pace to end the year up 54 percent from January 1.

The company has this week come under fire after it announced that it has opened a showroom in Xinjiang.

The move has attracted criticism from U.S. rights and trade groups, making it the latest foreign firm caught up in tensions related to the far-western Chinese region.

Xinjiang has become a significant point of conflict between Western governments and China in recent years, as U.N. experts and rights groups estimate more than a million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in camps there.

China has rejected accusations of forced labour or any other abuses there, saying that the camps provide vocational training and that companies should respect its policies there.

The U.S. electric car maker announced the showroom's opening in Xinjiang's regional capital, Urumqi, on its official Weibo account last Friday. 'On the last day of 2021 we meet in Xinjiang,' it said in the post.

On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim advocacy organization, criticised the move, saying that Tesla was 'supporting genocide'.

The United States has labelled Chinaâs treatment of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang as genocide. The United States and a few other countries plan a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February over the issue.

'Elon Musk must close Teslaâs Xinjiang showroom,' Council on American-Islamic Relations said on its official Twitter account referring to Tesla's founder.

Similar criticism came from a U.S. trade group, the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The carmaker operates a factory in Shanghai and is ramping up production there amid surging sales in China.

A slew of foreign firms in recent months have been tripped up by tensions between the West and China over Xinjiang, as they try to balance Western pressure with China's importance as a market and supply base.

In July, Swedish fashion retailer H&M reported a 23% drop in local currency sales in China for its March-May quarter after it was hit by a consumer boycott in March for stating publicly that it did not source products from Xinjiang.

Last month, U.S. chipmaker Intel faced similar calls after telling its suppliers not to source products or labour from Xinjiang, prompting it to apologise for 'the trouble caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners and the public'.

Although some have been trying to reduce their supply chain exposure to the region, especially as Washington bans imports such as Xinjiang cotton or blacklists Chinese companies that it says have aided Beijing's policy there, many foreign brands operate stores there.     

Tesla has also found itself under scrutiny from the NHTSA auto regulator, which is probing its autopilot system over safety concerns.

The automaker has also agreed to update its software to prevent drivers from playing video games on the car's system while the vehicle is in motion, following a government safety investigation.

Source: Daily Mail Online

As spotted by 9to5Google, if you head over to Google Photos > Photos settings > Backup & sync, you'll find the option to set a daily backup limit when on mobile data. The available allowances include No data, 5MB, 10MB, 30MB, and Unlimited. There's also another separate toggle for backing up your photos and videos while on roaming. However, the ability to specifically disable video backups while on mobile data has been removed.

The implementation could be a Google mistake, as the Photos support page still references the previous settings. The iOS version of Google Photos also continues to display the option to enable / disable video backups on mobile data. 

Additionally, the daily data limits are very low by US and EU standards and users cannot manually increase them, further indicating that this is a loophole on Google's part. Limits on daily mobile data usage are useful in countries like Brazil, Thailand, India, and Nigeria, where users have  relatively little data  and do not have access to a network. WiFi  on a regular basis. 

This is not a cause for concern in developed countries, and some users prefer  their photos to be saved to mobile data immediately. Since videos are considerably larger, it usually makes more sense to only save them  when over WiFi. 

Hopefully Google will bring this option back soon.