Misinformation has run rampant on Elon Musk's social media platform X in the 48 hours since Hamas militants' surprise attack on Israel, with users sharing false and misleading claims about the conflict and Musk himself pointing users to an account known for spreading misinformation.

The water cops knew their way around the maze of strawberry fields and dirt roads surrounding the Doñana

Bank of England rate-setter Swati Dhingra warned that consumers should prepare for more food price spikes in the

The Sun has been punching holes in the Earth’s magnetic field lately – but that’s not as alarming as it sounds. Instead, they have been sparking magnificent light shows across Europe and North America, made up mainly of crimson auroras and sustained periods of red sky. The displays have been caused by disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field, which happened after a massive ejection of plasma from the Sun came hurtling our way. The event, known as a coronal mass ejection, made a hole in the planet’s magnetic field, allowing highly charged particles to make their way in and cause a geomagnetic storm. Normally, the Northern Lights are made up of mainly green, with the occasional flash of other colours including red. However, longer periods of red light shows are very rare. The highly charged particles then get channelled towards the north and south poles, where they interact with gas molecules in the atmosphere. They, in turn, release photons, causing the aurora borealis in the north and aurora australis in the south. Normally, the Northern Lights are made up of mainly green, with the occasional flash of other colours including red. However, longer periods of red light shows are very rare. But what makes this geomagnetic storm different is that the particles coming from the Sun collided with oxygen atoms higher in the Earth’s atmosphere than normal. The altitude at which this interaction happens dictates the colour of the aurora. This time, the charged particles were between 300 and 400 kilometres in the sky. There, the oxygen is less concentrated and doesn’t need as much energy to cause it to react. It all adds up to a flash of crimson red light in the sky. Somewhat excitingly for aurora-watchers, this sort of event is likely to get more common over the next two years, as the Sun’s activity becomes heightened until its peak in roughly July 2025. Looks like there will be more of these incredible ruby light shows soon enough. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The US Federal Trade Commission urged an appeals court to delay Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion takeover of Activision

It’s been less than a week since Instagram launched Threads, its text-based alternative to Twitter, and the team at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta are already looking to rollout new features to improve the app – one of which could be a “hilarious” jab at Twitter owner Elon Musk if it’s implemented the right way. Released just days after the bird app was marred by outages and temporary limits on the number of tweets users could view a day, Threads has already been criticised for its lack of a Following feed (it’s currently algorithmically generated) and the absence of an alt text feature for blind and visually impaired users – amongst other issues. Now, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri has confirmed his team are looking to introduce new – and much-requested – features to the app. In a post on Threads on Tuesday, he wrote: “With so many people joining [Threads] so fast these last six days (six days!) the team has been entirely focused on keeping the lights on and fixing bugs. “But we’re starting to [prioritise] the obvious missing features, like a following feed, the edit button, and post search. “We’re clearly way out over our skis on this, but the team is pumped to start shipping improvements this week.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter However, it’s one reply to Mosseri’s post which has got users all excited at the possibility for some delicious “schadenfreude”. Writer and photographer Craig Mod suggested: “It would be hilarious if the first thing you ship is a free edit button.” Hilarious because over on Twitter, the feature is paywalled behind a subscription to Twitter Blue – the same £11 a month offer which affords users the once-coveted blue checkmark, but also the ability to upload videos up to two hours’ long, and post tweets up to 25,000 characters in length. That’s five times the character limit on Threads, just to put that into perspective. And so, the idea of Instagram embarrassing Musk once more (in addition to the 100 million users the app boasts already in six days alone) with a free edit feature has amused many other individuals who flocked to Threads from Twitter. “This idea is giving me chaotic energy and I’m here for it,” commented one. Another claimed: “This would destroy bird app [sic].” “The one thing Twitter would NOT give us for free. Yep. That is where I would start.” Not just that, but Mosseri himself has liked Mod’s tweet. So now we wait… Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

As Myth pulled off an impressive xQc impression at a cafe, his friend began to laugh uncontrollably

A natural phenomenon consisting of polka-dot-style formations has been cropping up around the world, and scientists are baffled as to why. The circular-shaped patches of ground have been seen in deserts in Australia and Namibia but now experts believe they are more widespread than originally thought. Known as “fairy circles”, there are now 263 known sites across the globe where they can be found, according to new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). They have been documented in 15 countries, across three continents, including the Sahel region of Africa, Madagascar, and in Middle-West Asia. And yet, despite the spread of these anomalies, scientists are still none the wiser about how they actually form. A team led by environmental scientist Emilio Guirado, of the University of Alicante in Spain, explained in their paper on the "intriguing" phenomenon: “We conducted a global and systematic assessment of fairy circle-like vegetation patterns and discovered hundreds of [fairy-circle]-like locations on three continents. “Our study provides insights into the ecology and biogeography of these fascinating vegetation patterns and the first atlas of their global distribution.” The mysterious circles appear in desert regions and can be as wide as 12 metres (39 feet) in diameter. They are almost always spaced out and rarely connect or overlap with one another. Several theories have been put forward as to what causes them, including, tiny insects, termites, and plant toxins. But, none have been accompanied by any significant evidence and some have been debunked completely. One significant factor limiting their study is they are often found in places that are difficult to access and are inhospitable. Locating the 263 different sites of “fairy circles” involved analysing high-resolution satellite imagery. Guirado and his team wrote in their paper: “[The sites] include those already identified in Namibia and Western Australia, as well as areas never described before, including the Sahel, Western Sahara, Horn of Africa, Madagascar, Southwest Asia, or Central and Southwest Australia. “By doing so, our study provides a global atlas of areas showing FC-like vegetation patterns and expands the known existence of this vegetation type to new countries and continents.” The team hopes that locating new sites will enable them to find common traits that may point towards their cause. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

SHENZHEN, China Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies received $560 million in royalty revenues in 2022, Alan Fan, its

Chinese technology shares surged Wednesday after Huawei Technologies Co. surprised investors by debuting a 6,999 yuan ($960) smartphone,

UPDATE: Jun. 24, 2023, 5:00 a.m. EDT This post has been updated to reflect the

With Apple's Vision Pro threatening to take a chunk out of the virtual reality market,