New cases of the rare monkeypox virus first resurfaced in England, Spain, and Portugal from May 17th.

Outbreaks of the virus were first recorded in England, with officials warning of potential spread given the unknown origin and chains of transmission. Since then, cases have doubled in England to 20, and following cases appearing in Spain and Portugal, cases have also appeared in more European countries, including France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Sweden.

Cases have also been reported in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The monkeypox virus is endemic to Africa, and cases are seldom seen outside of the region, though currently, at least 11 non-African countries have reported a combined 120+ confirmed and suspected cases of it.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft appears to be operating normally; however, it's sent back data that says otherwise.

Voyager 1 is continuing to execute commands it receives from Earth as expected and gathering and returning science data. However, Voyager 1's attitude articulation and control system (AACS), which controls the spacecraft's orientation, is sending back invalid telemetry data that appears either randomly generated or reflects an impossible state for the AACS.

Voyager 1 hasn't been triggered to put itself into safe mode due to the issue, a state in which only essential functions remain active to give engineers time to diagnose and fix any problems. The team is continuing to monitor the signal closely to determine the nature of the issue. However, Voyager 1 is currently 14.5 billion miles (23.3 billion kilometers) from Earth. This means it takes about two days to send a message to the spacecraft and receive a response, though the mission team has become well adjusted to that delay.

The Department of Defense's (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has awarded two Prototype Other Transaction (OT) contracts to develop nuclear-propelled spacecraft, with launches expected in 2027.

The DIU has awarded one contract to the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and the other to Avalanche Energy Designs, "to demonstrate the next generation of nuclear propulsion and power capability for spacecraft." The companies' will be testing nuclear-powered prototypes that allow small spacecraft to "maneuver at-will in cislunar space" and "enable high-power payloads."

"Advanced nuclear technologies will provide the speed, power, and responsiveness to maintain an operational advantage in space. Nuclear tech has traditionally been government-developed and operated, but we have discovered a thriving ecosystem of commercial companies, including start-ups, innovating in space nuclear," said U.S. Air Force Maj Ryan Weed, Program Manager for the Nuclear Advanced Propulsion and Power (NAPP) program at DIU.

A study on the new solar cell titled "Triple-junction solar cells with 39.5% terrestrial and 34.2% space efficiency enabled by thick quantum well superlattices" has been published in the journal Joule.

Researchers from the United States Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have created a solar cell with the highest efficiency under 1-sun global illumination conditions. The new cell has an efficiency of 39.5%, up from the previous record of 39.2% efficiency, which was previously set by NREL researchers as well in 2020.

"The new cell is more efficient and has a simpler design that may be useful for a variety of new applications, such as highly area-constrained applications or low-radiation space applications," said Myles Steiner, a senior scientist in NREL's High-Efficiency Crystalline Photovoltaics (PV) Group and principal investigator on the project.

A study on the updated Hubble constant titled "A Comprehensive Measurement of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant with 1 km s⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹ Uncertainty from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SH0ES Team" has been accepted for publication into The Astrophysical Journal.

Data from the Hubble Space Telescope has been used since it was launched to measure the rate of the universe's expansion. However, there is a discrepancy between the rate derived from Hubble's observations and what other independent observations predict. The SH0ES team (standing for Supernova, H0, for the Equation of State of Dark Energy) and others have been working to refine the universe's rate of expansion, known as the Hubble Constant.

"This is what the Hubble Space Telescope was built to do, using the best techniques we know to do it. This is likely Hubble's magnum opus, because it would take another 30 years of Hubble's life to even double this sample size," said Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Switch will become Nintendo's #1 software sales platform by 2023, company data suggests.

According to data provided by Nintendo and compiled by us, the Switch family of consoles will soon become the company's top platform in game sales and beat out all other previous handhelds and consoles.

Data trends show that the Switch should beat game sales of the Wii (920.81 million) and the DS (948.76 million) by the end of Fiscal Year 2023 (March 31, 2023). The Switch has currently sold 822.18 million games across its five-year lifespan, and software sales trends show the platform has sold an average of 211 million games over the past three years,

From the early days of the NES to the modern Switch, Nintendo has sold billions of games across its mighty lineage of hardware.

Nintendo has sold nearly 5.4 billion video games across all of its handheld and console platforms, new data reveals. According to our calculations, the Nintendo Switch is currently the #3 platform in software sales with 822.18 million units sold to date. The Wii is in second place with a mighty 920.81 million, and the DS conquers with 948.76 million.

These numbers actually put Nintendo in second place. Although Nintendo has been on the market for many years before Sony, the PlayStation platform has sold an estimated 5.71 billion games. Sony has a 300 million+ lead over Nintendo.

Nintendo has sold over 822 million games since the Switch launched in 2017, and the majority of those were from the handheld-console hybrid.

In just 5 years' time, the Switch has revolutionized Nintendo's business. The company was teetering on the brink of ruin following the Wii U's massive flop, but the Switch sparked incredible year-over-year growth and eventually led to the highest operating profits and ordinary profits in Nintendo history.

A significant portion of this turnaround success is owed to the Nintendo Switch's vast library of games. First-party game sales and revenues reign over third-party--Nintendo is the only platform-holder to make more from first-party than third-party--and software has steadily grown year-over-year thanks to the Switch's strong lineup and growing eShop presence.

Nintendo's first-party giants continue to dominate the platforms best-seller charts.

Nintendo's recent full-year performance shows strong consistent earnings across both hardware and software sales. The company sold more games in FY22 than the record-breaking FY21 period, driven by continued momentum in key first-party hits.

Charting Nintendo's top 10 best-selling Switch games shows little deviation in games placement. The overall selection is the same as it was last quarter--Mario Kart 8 still leads the race and now has 45 million+ copies sold, followed up by surprise mega-hit Animal Crossing New Horizons, which is now at 38.6 million sales.

Surprise! Hideo Kojima is making a sequel to his successful, critically-acclaimed new IP Death Stranding.

Death Stranding 2 is apparently happening. Neither Kojima Productions nor Sony Interactive Entertainment have made a formal announcement, but actor Norman Reedus has once again spilled the beans.

In a recent interview with men's style site Leo Edit, Reedus said: "We just started the second one."