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"Star Trek: Picard" is back for its third and final season. Stewart previously played the character on seven seasons of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and in four theatrical Star Trek films. Check out the trailer for 'Picard' season 3In the third season, Picard reunites with many of his former crewmates from "The Next Generation," including characters played by Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Michael Dorn. How to watch 'Star Trek: Picard' season 3You can watch "Star Trek: Picard" season 3 exclusively on Paramount Plus. You can watch "Star Trek: Picard" for free if you sign up for a trial to Paramount Plus.

☆ 'The Last of Us' is based on real science: A fungus pandemic is unlikely, but not impossible
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

"The Last of Us" on HBO Max depicts a zombie apocalypse caused by a fungus pandemic. Here's the science fact and fiction behind the show, and the possibility of a fungal pandemic. The new scenario, first realized in the video game that the show is based on, is making viewers wonder whether a fungus pandemic can happen in real life. "A fungal pandemic is definitely possible," Norman Van Rhijn, a mycologist researching fungal infections at the University of Manchester, told Insider in an email. Still, fungal infections are on the rise worldwide, and researchers are concerned that more and more people are at risk.

☆ Brain Chips Like Elon Musk's Neuralink Can Change Your Personality
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Evan Malmgren | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Musk's neurotech startup, Neuralink, has been working toward implanting its skull-embedded brain chip in a human since it was founded in 2016. Other researchers have been looking into using BCIs to restore lost senses and control prosthetic limbs, among other applications. Intervening in the delicate operation of a human brain is a sticky business, and the effects are not always desirable or intended. If a brain chip can change key parts of your personality, companies should not be rushing to put them in people's heads. Wexler told me that while most people in the industry aren't that open to using BCIs as a consumer product, they still think it's likely to happen.

☆ Hollywood actress Raquel Welch dead at age 82
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LOS ANGELES, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Actress Raquel Welch, who helped redefine the traditional image of the Hollywood sex symbol with her portrayals of strong women in dozens of movies in the 1960s and '70s, died on Wednesday at age 82. Her death following a brief illness was confirmed in a statement released by Jane McKnight, her Los Angeles-based manager. She won a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a musical or comedy for her performance in the 1973 swashbuckling romp "The Three Musketeers." [1/3] Actress Raquel Welch poses at the 2014 Carousel of Hope Ball at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California October 11, 2014. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo 1 2 3Her portrayal of strong, willful women was credited with reshaping stereotypes.

☆ Biotech CEO famous for spending millions to reverse age accused of walking out on ex after her breast cancer diagnosis and manipulating her in the spirit of 'radical transparency"
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Azmi Haroun | Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A biotech CEO famous for trying to reverse his age was accused of walking out on a cancer-stricken partner. Ex-fiancée Taryn Southern alleged that Bryan Johnson emotionally and financially manipulated her. "Trickery, deceit, preying on Ms. Southern's physical and emotional weaknesses and financial dependence, and creating confusion and fear with his threats of legal action were major features of Johnson's scheme against Ms. Southern," Southern's attorneys wrote. "He aggressively pursued and propositioned Ms. Southern's own friends and acquaintances – while other women were paid prostitutes or girls from 'Sugar Daddy" apps,' Southern's attorneys said in the suit. "He became obsessed with his sexual conquests and relaying the details of his triumphs to Ms. Southern under the guise of 'radical transparency and honesty.'"

☆ Croatian restaurant offers one pot menu cooked by robotic chef
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Antonio Bronic | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] View of a meal that the robot chef prepared at the restaurant Bots & Pots in Zagreb, Croatia, February 9, 2023. You can order any of them at a Croatian restaurant where a robotic chef is able to rustle up about 70 different one pot meals. The devices add oil and seasoning according to digital recipes made by a human chef. The robotic chef called GammaChef is "taught" digitally how to cook a meal by the restaurant's head chef, then remembers it and repeats it endlessly. "Our final goal is to create a 'no waiter, no chef, no cash' space where you order, get and pay for food without human contact."

☆ Everything is on the table now with Hulu, Disney CEO Iger says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Rebecca Picciotto | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Disney CEO Bob Iger said Thursday that "everything is on the table" with streaming service Hulu. Disney owns two thirds of the streaming service, which focuses on more adult-oriented general entertainment content such as the series "Only Murders in the Building" and the sci fi thriller "Prey." Iger wants Disney to focus on its more family-friendly franchises, such as "Frozen" and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He said that he wasn't going to speculate whether Disney is a buyer or seller of Hulu right now. Comcast introduced a proposal to buy Disney's 66% stake in Hulu, but Disney rejected the idea, CNBC previously reported.

☆ All you need to know about ChatGPT, the A.I. chatbot that's got the world talking and tech giants clashing
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI. These are tools that allow users to enter written prompts and receive new human-like text or images and videos generated by the AI. With a whopping 175 billion parameters, GPT-3 is one of the largest and most powerful language processing AI models to date. watch nowWhat makes ChatGPT so impressive is its ability to produce human-like responses, thanks in no small part to the vast amounts of data it is trained on. No generative AI application has quite managed to achieve the kind of influence and virality that ChatGPT has.

☆ Walter Mosley Thinks America Is Getting Dumber
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +17 min

Mamadi Doumbouya for The New York Times Talk Walter Mosley Thinks America Is Getting DumberWalter Mosley is best known as one of contemporary literature’s pre-eminent crime novelists, but he’s actually four or five different writers rolled into one. You have to tell stories about real people experiencing it and not real people with a Ph.D. People who are not stupid but ignorant, who don’t know things about the world. There are people who don’t know how to spell, they don’t know how to think. You have these people coming out into the world, and they don’t know what to do. That’s going to happen.

☆ How an Artist Is Transforming the Guggenheim Museum—Down to the Freight Elevator Hallway
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Ted Loos | Photography Gioncarlo Valentine For Wsj. Magazine | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

It’s telling that artist Sarah Sze’s cellphone ringtone is the famous five-note tune from the 1977 sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which was used in the movie to communicate with an alien spaceship. “We are so fully immersed in it,” Sze says of technology, one of her great subjects. “We’re in the eye of the storm.”In her Hell’s Kitchen studio in Manhattan this past December, Sze—known for her sprawling multimedia assemblages—works amid what seems like a tornado of artistic materials. But the chaos is carefully controlled.

☆ ‘The Ark’ Review: A Rude Awakening in Space
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

If not for the snowballing crises that keep the mission in motion, “The Ark” might as well be about a sci-fi singles bar in space. Everyone is the same approximate age, attractive, capable, accomplished (except for the stowaways) and genetically primed to start a new society on a new world. In episode 4, one officer thinks he hears a baby. “There are no babies aboard this ship,” he’s told. What kind of survivalist space drama would that be?

☆ ‘24,’ ‘Runaways’ actor Annie Wersching dead at 45; she had cancer
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

Actor Annie Wersching, best known for playing FBI agent Renee Walker in the series “24” and providing the voice for Tess in the video game “The Last of Us,” has died. Wersching passed away Sunday morning in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer, her publicist told The Associated Press. Thoughts are with her loved ones.”Actor Abigail Spencer, who appeared with Wersching on the sci-fi series “Timeless,” tweeted, “We love you Annie Wersching. You will be deeply missed.”Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Wersching appeared on dozens of television shows over the course of her two-decade career. Her first credit was in “Star Trek: Enterprise,” and she would go on to have recurring roles in the seventh and eighth seasons of “24,” “Bosch,” “The Vampire Diaries,” Marvel’s “Runaways,” “The Rookie” and, most recently, the second season of “Star Trek: Picard” as the Borg Queen.

☆ A fungus pandemic is unlikely, but not impossible. There's real science behind the mushroom zombies in HBO's new series 'The Last of Us.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

The new HBO Max series "The Last of Us" depicts a zombie apocalypse caused by a fungus pandemic. Here's the science fact and fiction behind the show, and the possibility of a fungal pandemic. The new scenario, first realized in the video game that the show is based on, is making viewers wonder whether a fungus pandemic can happen in real life. "A fungal pandemic is definitely possible," Norman Van Rhijn, a mycologist researching fungal infections at the University of Manchester, told Insider in an email. Still, fungal infections are on the rise worldwide, and researchers are concerned that more and more people are at risk.

☆ These are the 11 cheapest electric cars you can buy in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Tim Levin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

We've found the 11 cheapest new EVs you can buy in 2023. Chevrolet Bolt EVThe 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV. ChevroletRetail price: $27,800EPA-estimated range: 247 milesQualifies for EV tax creditChevy recently introduced a big brother for the Bolt EV, the Bolt EUV. MazdaRetail price: $34,110EPA-estimated range: 100 milesMazda's first electric model disappoints in the all-important range department. KiaRetail price: $39,550EPA-estimated range: 253 milesThe Kia Niro gets bold new looks for the 2023 model year.

☆ Investing in Space: Doing well to do good
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Michael Sheetz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

CNBC's Investing in Space newsletter offers a view into the business of space exploration and privatization, delivered straight to your inbox. I met up with Planet CFO Ashley Fieglein Johnson here in NYC earlier this month, and one thing she said has really stuck with me: "We have to do well in order to do good." And it's true: Space technologies have changed life around the world in a variety of ways, from GPS to communications and more. "The carrot of being able to do good doesn't tend to survive the nuclear winter of a tough economy," Fieglein Johnson said. Planet's stock slid last year alongside other recently debuted pure-play space companies, but Fieglein Johnson sees the company at a "tipping point" because "awareness of Planet is just at a fundamentally new level."

The NYSE, which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N), said a "system issue" prevented the opening auctions in a subset of its listed securities. The stocks began trading without an opening print, causing erroneous prices that the exchange said will be declared null and void. NYSE ended the day with a normal market close and expected a regular open on Wednesday, Blaugrund added. The NYSE-listed stocks trade on all 16 U.S. stock exchanges, which use the NYSE's prices. In March 2018, the NYSE was the first exchange fined under Reg SCI.

☆ ‘Extraordinary’ Review: A Merely Human Coming-of-Age Show
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The ability to make people laugh ought to be considered a superpower, especially in the world of “Extraordinary,” the gleefully crude, rude, lewd and almost unfailingly likable eight-part series that is quite the unusual thing—a sci-fi-inflected coming-of-age story and a sitcom that’s actually funny. The situation in the show involves the birthright of (almost) every citizen in the fictional present concocted by rookie creator-writer Emma Moran : a specific, individual superpower. It might be Marvel-ous—super strength, super speed—or mundane, like the ability to hold one’s cellphone up in the air and talk on it hands-free. Whatever it is, the power is supposed to arrive on your 18th birthday. If you’re 25 years old, like Jen (Máiréad Tyers), and not yet empowered, you’ve been waiting seven years for your preternatural gift.

☆ Elon Musk says 'Ricky and Morty' co-creator charged with domestic abuse is the 'heart of the show'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk said that "Rick and Morty" co-creator Justin Roiland is the "heart of the show." After Adult Swim made the announcement on Tuesday, adding that "Rick and Morty" would continue, YouTuber Tim Pool tweeted: "how lol justin is rick *and* morty." An Adult Swim representative reiterated for THR, and Insider, that it has "ended its association with Justin Roiland." Roiland was charged in 2020 with domestic violence in California, to which he pleaded not guilty to at the time. Adult Swim ordered 70 more episodes of "Rick and Morty" in 2018, and about half of those have aired.

☆ Tesla reports earnings after the bell Wednesday
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Lora Kolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Hong Kong, China, 13 Sept 2022, A red Tesla car passes in front of a Tesla dealership in Wanchai. (Photo by Marc Fernandes/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Electric vehicle maker Tesla plans to report fourth-quarter results after market close on Wednesday. Here's what analysts were expecting as of Wednesday morning, according to Refinitiv:Earnings (adjusted): $1.13 per shareRevenue: $24.16 billionIn the year-ago quarter, Tesla reported revenue of $17.72 billion and adjusted earnings of $2.52 per share. Tesla reported 405,278 vehicle deliveries and production of 439,701 vehicles in the period ending December 31, 2022. Tesla solicits questions ahead of their earnings calls via a site called Say.com from both retail and institutional investors.

☆ Explainer: Wall Street's market glitches and the repercussions
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Chuck Mikolajczak | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

This led some market participants to voice complaints that increasingly automated trading posed a systemic risk. Others saw such a shocking market tumble as an outlier, and the cost of progress, that just needed additional guardrails in order to avoid a repeat. In 2012, the benchmark index for the circuit breakers changed to the S&P 500 (.SPX) and the percentage levels needed to trigger the trading halt were lowered. There have been instances, of varying severity, since the 2010 crash where trading was unable to take place. Others included a three-hour trading halt on Aug. 22, 2013 and the Aug 2015 session that saw trading halted for nearly four hours.

The NYSE, which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N), said it was still investigating and that traders may want to consider filing for erroneous trade claims. "Obviously, there were a lot of stocks that had major issues," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey. Saluzzi said there was "zero failure tolerance" among traders for glitches at the key open and close of trading. The NYSE-listed stocks trade on all 16 U.S. stock exchanges, which use the NYSE's prices. In March 2018, the NYSE was the first exchange fined under Reg SCI.

As with castmates Michelle Yeoh, nominated for best actress, and Ke Huy Quan, nominated for best supporting actor, Stephanie Hsu’s name drew particular applause during her category’s announcement. Notably, after Campion became just the third woman to ever win best director at last year’s ceremony, not a single female director was nominated this time around. Overall, the lesbian power-trip flick made a lesser showing than the Daniels’ queer kung-fu film. But its six nominations included spots in the evening’s biggest categories, including best picture, best cinematography, best original screenplay and, predictably, best actress. But an Oscar for best actor would be the ultimate prize in what has been a victorious comeback tour for the former heartthrob, following his decadelong, virtual exodus from Hollywood.

The NYSE, which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N), said it is still investigating the issue and that traders may want to consider filing for erroneous trade claims. "What appears to have happened is a technical glitch where all of my opening orders on the NYSE autocancelled even though some of them should have been fulfilled," said Dennis Dick, trader at Triple D Trading. The gaffe with the NYSE's opening auction comes as the SEC is considering routing most retail stock orders through auctions with the aim of getting individual investors better prices. The NYSE-listed stocks trade on all 16 U.S. stock exchanges, which use the NYSE's prices. The $14 million fine partly related to a nearly four-hour trading halt in July 2015 that resulted from a flawed software rollout.

☆ Asian actors and filmmakers dominate Oscar nominations
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Brahmjot Kaur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Asian American-led projects have been the standouts at this year’s award shows, and the Academy Awards nominations, which were announced Tuesday, were no different. Golden Globe-winning stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan were also nominated for best actress and best supporting actor, respectively. Stephanie Hsu, who played Yeoh’s daughter, Joy, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who played Deirdre, an IRS inspector, were also nominated for best supporting actress. The film was also nominated for best picture, best costume design, best original screenplay, best original score, best film editing and best original song. “Then along came the best gift: ‘Everything, Everywhere All at Once.’”Hong Chau, who plays Liz in A24’s “The Whale” with Brendan Fraser, was also nominated for best supporting actress.

☆ ‘The Wandering Earth II’ Review: It Wanders Too Far
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-22 | by ( Brandon Yu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Upon its release, “The Wandering Earth,” Frant Gwo’s 2019 film about a dystopia in which Earth is perilously pushed through space, was minted as China’s first substantial, domestic sci-fi blockbuster, with the box office returns to prove it. The film was entertaining enough, but its ambitious scope had something of an empty gloss to it, partly because the story’s drama wasn’t grounded in anything beyond the showy cataclysm. Its audaciously messy sequel, “The Wandering Earth II,” seems to have taken note and sprinted, aimlessly, entirely in the other direction. Losing all of the glee of its predecessor, the movie instead offers nearly three hours of convoluted story lines, undercooked themes and a tangle of confused, glaringly state-approved political subtext.

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