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Amazon's smart doorbell company, Ring, has agreed to settle a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission alleging that it had "unreasonable" data security and privacy practices, according to a Wednesday filing in the US District Court for Washington D.C.

NEW YORK Meta is planning to lay off employees on Wednesday in the unit of its metaverse-oriented Reality

India has a particularly daunting climate challenge. The world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the country will need

The ocean is home to all manner of mysteries, from “alien” shape-shifters to ancient shipwrecks. And so, when Richard Branson and a team of scientists took a submersible down to the bottom of Belize’s iconic Giant Blue Hole, they were braced for some truly extraordinary sights. The Blue Hole is the largest sinkhole in the world, measuring 300m (984 feet) across and around 125m (410 feet) deep but, until Branson’s expedition in 2018 its depths had not been fully explored. The British billionaire was joined on his groundbreaking journey by Fabien Cousteau – the grandson of pioneering underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau – and oceanographer Erika Bergman. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Their mission was to create a 3D map of the hole’s interior but, when they reached the bottom, they were met by some disturbing discoveries. To be fair, they got off to a good start. The first thing they encountered as they edged down the hole was a wall of giant stalactites, which were “breathtakingly beautiful,” according to Branson. Then, at around 300 feet, they pierced a thick layer of toxic hydrogen sulphide, plunging them into darkness and cutting out the oxygen from the water around them. In an interview with CNN, Bergman explained that once you pierce that layer, which forms naturally over centuries, “you lose all of that Caribbean sunlight and it just turns completely black.” Elsewhere, Branson described it as “extremely eerie,” saying: “We didn’t expect to see any creatures below. But when we got to the bottom we could see crabs, conches and other creatures that had fallen into the hole, arrived on the bottom and then ran out of oxygen and died.” As the team continued to travel further down into the abyss, they were faced with the remains of a tragedy. In an interview with Business Insider back in July 2020, Bergman revealed that they found the bodies of two people who have “been lost in the Blue Hole”. “We found the resting place of a couple [of] folks,” she said. “And we just sort of very respectfully let the Belize government know where we found them.” She added that “everyone decided that we would just not attempt any recovery”, noting: “It's very dark and peaceful down there, [so we] just kind of let them stay.” As they reached the bottom, the team found something else unexpected, and very much unwelcome: human rubbish. It came in the form of a 2-litre Coke bottle and a lost GoPro containing some holiday snaps, according to Business Insider. “As for the mythical monsters of the deep? Well, the real monsters facing the ocean are climate change – and plastic,” Branson lamented following the discovery. “Sadly, we saw plastic bottles at the bottom of the hole, which is a real scourge of the ocean.” The business magnate said the expedition had offered “one of the starkest reminders of the danger of climate change [he had] ever seen.” He pointed out: “The Blue Hole is made of a complex system of caves that once formed on dry land. It is proof of how oceans can rise quickly and catastrophically. “Sea levels were once hundreds of feet lower. 10,000 years ago the sea level rose by about 300 feet when a lot of ice melted around the world. At 300 feet down you could see the change in the rock where it used to be land and turned into sea.” He added in his blog: “Hopefully by this trip taking place we have raised even more awareness of the need to protect the ocean and tackle climate change now – before it is too late.” He stressed that he didn’t want his grandchildren to “grow up in a world without corals, without the wonders of the ocean”. 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.

Blue light emitted from the screens of phones, tablets and televisions could induce puberty early, a study has found. In the modern day, children are raised with devices all around them, with many having a phone or tablet to keep them entertained from a young age. But, researchers in Turkey have discovered that it exposure to the blue light such devices give off could speed up the onset of puberty. Teams from the Gazi University and Bilkent City Hospital in Ankara revealed how they saw the effect in male rats, which could suggest a link between device screens and early childhood development. Their findings were presented at the 61st Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Meeting in The Hague and published in the Frontiers in Endocrinology journal. The study emulates the same findings that were observed in female rats, where early puberty was seen. Lead researcher Dr. Aylin Kılınç Uğurlu, of Bikent City Hospital, said: “For the first time, we found a direct relationship between blue light exposure and early puberty in male rats.” They continued: “Our findings align with our previous work on female rats, which also showed similar effects, thereby providing a more comprehensive view of how blue light may influence puberty in both male and female rats.” As part of the study, 18 male rats, all 21 days old, were split into three groups. Two of the groups were assigned either six or 12 hours of blue light exposure per day. The last group was a control and was not exposed to any blue light from screens. Results showed that the rats with exposure to blue light experienced signs of puberty “significantly earlier” compared with the control group. Uğurlu noted in a news report: “I want to emphasise that this is a rat study and direct results cannot be interpreted for humans. “However, we provide an experimental foundation to further investigate the health consequences of ever-increasing screen time in modern society.” Researchers hope to continue their study on the effects of blue light on rats to “understand its long-term effects on reproductive organ damage and fertility”. Uğurlu continued: “Ultimately, this research could lead to preventative measures and contribute to the ongoing discourse on how modern lifestyles affect physiological development and long-term health.” 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.

Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain-implant company, has won US approval to test on humans. Here is what to know about the multi-billionaire's dream project to enable the human...

YouTube star MrBeast clashes with YouTuber Dino Favara Jr over cutout prank, while fans await updates

By Alexandra Ulmer and Anna Tong SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -In one apparently altered image, former U.S. President Donald Trump is

Fans of The X Files have got a new alien-related US government drama to get stuck into, it seems. Senior Republican Marco Rubio claims that those who have reported alien aircraft being retrieved by the US government “have held very high clearances and high positions within our government." The Florida senator and vice chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence did not reveal who had come forward with claims, but said: “Frankly, a lot of them are very fearful.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Fearful of their jobs, fearful of their clearances, fearful of their career.” At the start of June, James Comer, chair of the influential House Oversight Committee, said the group was looking into allegations that a top-secret military program already had a fully intact UFO. Republicans Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a committee member, and Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who is not a committee member but has made claims about a government cover-up on the subject in the past, are to lead the probe. The investigation came after David Grusch, a 36-year-old airforce veteran, made public claims about UFOs. Grusch previously worked at the National Reconnaissance Office, on what is now referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). Grusch told NewsNation that the government had retrieved a number of “non-human origin technical vehicles,” some of which contained “dead pilots”. “There are people who have come forward to share information with our committee over the last couple of years,” Rubio said on 26 June. Referring to Grusch, he added: “I would imagine some of them are potentially some of the same people perhaps he’s referring to.” Following the NewsNation interview, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said it had “not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.” NASA also said that despite one of its priorities being the search for extraterrestrial life, it had not found credible evidence. Rachel Partlow, communications director for Burchett, told Newsweek on 27 June that the congressman was “aware” of Grusch's claims. She declined to comment on whether the veteran would be brought in to provide testimony, with hearing dates not yet set in stone. 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.

Economists expect to see a gain of 200,000 nonfarm payrolls in the Labor Department's July jobs report coming out Friday, following a 209,000 increase in June.