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A new study published in the journal Neuroscience details a team of researchers accidentally creating violent hamsters.

The team of researchers writes in their study that they used CRISPR gene editing technology to remove a receptor, Avpr1as, for a naturally occurring hormone called vasopressin. The gene and the hormone are designed to regulate levels of teamwork and reduce social barriers. The team was able to determine that the two hamsters the test was performed on were without the gene receptor and the hormone by performing full scans on the subjects' brains.

The researchers expected that the removal of the gene/hormone would mean the hamsters wouldn't regulate their kindness towards each other and become extremely friendly, docile, and basically non-violent. Unfortunately, the polar opposite happened as both of the hamsters exhibited extreme communication with each other, became very territorial, and showed high levels of aggression toward hamsters of the same sex.

Podcast listeners weren't able to put on their favorite podcasts as all of the shows hosted on Spotify's Megaphone platform went offline.

A spokesperson for Spotify told The Verge that the music streaming platform, unfortunately, suffered from an issue "related to our SSL certificate". The spokesperson explained that throughout the duration of the outage, Spotify users weren't able to access any podcast hosted by Megaphone publishers. Podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience, The Ringer, and more were temporarily unavailable from 8PM ET on Monday until 6AM Tuesday.

Notably, Megaphone is a service that adds advertisements into podcasts, and Spotify purchased the company for $235 million in 2020. Furthermore, Engadget explains that an SSL certificate is used to verify an authentic connection between a server and browser or application, and as the publication points out, Spotify is a large technology company that relies on secure connections. Having its SSL certificate expire and not be renewed for several hours is the equivalent of an MLB player dropping stock-standard fly-ball.

A study on the illusion titled "The Eye Pupil Adjusts to Illusorily Expanding Holes" has been published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

For 86% of people, looking at the central black hole in the above image causes it to appear to expand, as if you were moving into a darker environment. Researchers use illusions such as these in scientific settings to probe how the visual system works. The new "expanding hole" illusion tricks the brain into dilating our pupils to let in more light as if we are really moving into a darker environment and need to let more light into our eyes.

A new report from Reuters has revealed that Russia is open to accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for international payments.

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in contracting heavy sanctions from numerous countries that condemned the Russian Federations' actions, the Russian economy has been crippled, and officials are looking at alternative ways of keeping it afloat. There have been rumors of Russia accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment, but now we are hearing from the First Deputy Governor of The Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Ksenia Yudaeva, who said Russia's bank is open to implementing digital currencies.

"In principle, we do not object to the use of cryptocurrency in international transactions," said Yudaeva. Notably, that open-mindedness from Russian bank officials only stretches so far as Yudaeva and other banking officials still believe that adopting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies comes with considerable risk to Russia's financial infrastructure that may negatively impact Russian citizens.

NASA has recently debuted a new video of its helicopter making a record flight across the Red Planet's surface.

NASA has taken to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube channel to post a video of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter making its 25th flight. The flight occurred on April 8, 2022, and marked the longest and fastest flight Ingenuity has taken yet, covering an astonishing 2,310 feet at a max speed of 12 mph. Notably, the above video showcases sped-up footage of the 161.3-second flight, where the helicopter first reaches an altitude of 33 feet before beginning its flight.

Furthermore, NASA explains that once Ingenuity reaches its designated altitude, it turns southwest and begins to increase its speed. Checking NASA's flight logs on its website, we can see that Ingenuity has since taken many three more flights, all of which weren't as fast or as far as the flight that occurred on April 8. It should be noted that NASA only expected Ingenuity to fly a total of five times, as the helicopter was merely a technology demonstration.

The co-creator of one of the world's most popular cryptocurrencies has taken some shots at SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

In a recent interview with Australian publication Crikey, Jackson Palmer, the co-creator of Dogecoin, has gone after Musk with heavy criticisms, describing the billionaire as a "grifter". Notably, Palmer said to the publication that "when Musk was saying something about crypto, I said Elon Musk was and always will be a grifter, but the world loves grifters. They love the idea that they may also be a billionaire one day, and that's the dream he's selling."

Furthermore, Palmer said to the publication that he has directly spoken to Musk after he developed a software script that automatically reported cryptocurrency scams in users' replies. Palmer said that Musk reached out to him to acquire the new script, and it "became apparent very quickly that he didn't understand coding as well as he made out," as he asked Palmer, "How do I run this Python script?"

The French inventor of the jetpack has unfortunately suffered from a horrible crash landing after falling 50 feet during a demonstration.

French inventor Franky Zapata was demonstrating a new jet-powered hoverboard when the demonstration took a turn for the worst as Zapata lost control of the device and began to climb in altitude while spinning uncontrollably. The crash occurred over a Lake Biscarosse, located on the west coast of France, and according to reports from BBC, Zapata is alive and recovering from the fall in hospital.

The event was captured by onlookers and was quickly posted to Twitter, where the video/s gained traction. Above, you can see Zapata flying what seems to be Zapata's company's "Flyboard Air", a device capable of reaching speeds of 87 mph, and, according to the company's website, "this machine can lose one engine and still fly. If it loses two engines, the pilot will perform a controlled landing."

A new electric vehicle has been unveiled by an automaker, and this time around, DeLorean Motor Company has taken center stage to reveal its Alpha 5.

The automaker that originally went bankrupt in 1982 and later sold its IP to a new Texas company has revealed several renderings of its upcoming Alpha 5. The company states on its website that the Alpha 5 is "designed with purpose" and that DeLorean is currently writing its legacy in real-time. Notably, the Alpha 5 keeps the same beloved sleek DeLorean look that is reminiscent of the car seen in the Back to the Future movies.

Much like the car in Back to the Future, the Alpha 5 can reach 88 mph, but once it's breached that speed, it won't time travel like Doc Brown's car. However, the Alpha 5 can reach 88 mph in just 4.35 seconds and can go from 0 - 60 mph in under 3 seconds. Furthermore, DeLorean's new electric vehicle will come equipped with a 100 kWh battery that will give it a top range of 300 miles. The Alpha 5 is expected to be shipped out to customers throughout 2024, according to DeLorean.

Reports indicate that a device has been found at a Chinese space launch that is used to jam communication signals.

The Chinese newspaper named Beijing Daily has reported that researchers from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia, have found a strange device that was causing "abnormal" interference with communications. Researchers at the launch site detected the communications interference and began looking for the device, which turned out to be a rather small frequency transmitter that only had a range of about 32 feet.

The size of the device and the proximity of the frequency it transmitted have caused researchers and authorities to speculate if the device was placed there intentionally in an attempt to sabotage China's upcoming launch where the space agency will send three astronauts to its newly constructed space station. However, authorities have yet to confirm if the device's placement was intentional or how it arrived where it was found. Furthermore, China's space agency has stated that it will go ahead with the launch.

The new NREL Kestrel supercomputer details have been unveiled, with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) division of the US Department of Energy (DOE) packing some serious horsepower into its new supercomputer.

We're looking at a Minajatwa of silicon between Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPUs, AMD EPYC "Genoa" CPUs, and NVIDIA H100 GPU accelerators. We have 44 petaflops of peak compute performance, up from just 8 petaflops on the previous-gen Eagle supercomputer.

CPU upgrades are big: Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPUs with 52 cores, 112 threads each -- up from the 18 cores and 36 threads from the Intel Xeon-Gold Skylake CPUs in the Eagle supercomputer.

Intel's new scalable chip design that uses x86 CPU cores and Xe GPU cores for supercomputing workloads, the new Falcon Shores XPU, has been detailed a little more at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC 2022) in Germany.

The new Intel Falcon Shores XPU is described as a "New Tile-Based Flexible & Scalable Architecture" by the company, with three different configurations shown off: a completely x86 Tiled solution, an Xe GPU Tiled solution, and another that glues both x86 CPU cores and Xe GPU cores together on a single socket.

Intel is going with at least four Tiles on all of its Falcon Shores XPUs which matches the Tile layout of the Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPU family, but then Intel is making some huge performance claims here. Falcon Shores XPUs will be delivering 5x the performance/watt, 5x the Compute density in x86 socket, and 5x memory capacity and bandwidth.

God of War on the PC is being updated, with v1.0.12 of the game now live on Steam... introducing support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.0 technology.

The new update for God of War makes it the third game to feature AMD FSR 2.0 upscaling technology so far, joining DEATHLOOP (the first) and then Farming Simulator 22 just recently. AMD says that it takes around 3 days to get FSR 2.0 working in a game, so things must be cranking at Team Red and game developers across the world getting FSR 2.0 into their games.

If you've got a newer Radeon RX series GPU and God of War on the PC, then make sure your game is updated on Steam and you can enable AMD FSR 2.0 right now. In the patch notes, the developer explains: "FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 has been implemented and is now available as a resolution-scaling option within the display settings menu".

Corsair has just unveiled its latest DDR5 high-performance memory kit, with the introduction of its new DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5-6600 CL32 memory: now the world's fastest DDR5 kit on the market.

The new Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5-6600 CL32 memory comes in 32GB (2 x 16GB) kits with tight timings of 32-39-39-76. Corsair explains: "At time of writing, these are the fastest DDR5 kits available to buy in the world, achieving remarkably tight timings of 32-39-39-76. Available in kits of 2x16 GB, DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB continues to break frequency barriers with unprecedented speeds, and stay on the cutting-edge of performance".

Corsair already has a few different DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 memory kits on the market: with DDR6-6400, DDR5-6200, and DDR5-6000 that are now joined by their biggest brother in the DDR5-6600 kit. Corsair's new DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5-6600 CL32 memory is the perfect companion for the new Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs and flagship Intel Z690-based motherboards.

Intel has teased its next-gen Rialto Bridge data center GPU a the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany, for next-gen AI and HPC dominance. Check it out:

The new Intel Rialto Bridge GPU will succeed the upcoming Ponte Vecchio GPU that launches later this year, where Rialto Bridge will pack up to 160 Xe-Cores, and enhanced tiles on the next-gen Intel process node. Intel teases increased density, performance, and efficiency but wasn't clear on the process node: spoiler alert, expect Intel 4.

Intel's upcoming Ponte Vecchio GPU has up to 128 Xe-Cores, with the new Rialto Bridge GPU packing up to 160 Xe-Cores we have a 25% increase in core count. We will see the company most likely using super-fast HBM3 memory on Intel Rialto Bridge, as Intel has promised "increased I/O" bandwidth -- without numbers to back it up.

The French government is pushing onwards with their fight to preserve the purity of the language, redefining rules on using English gaming terms.

Even in the year 2022 filled with gaming, game streamers, YouTubers, influencers, social media, content creators, pro-gamers, and so much more... the French government is banning most of them as they could act as a "barrier to understanding" for non-gamers.

Barrier to understanding for non-gamers... eh? I don't need to know French or English to think what the fresh hell is that... as Engadget reports "That's a solid point, as I can attest that many French non-gamers wouldn't have a clue what a term like "streaming" means"... while I beg to differ. It's 2022 -- I'm sure most people know what "streaming" means -- given how big streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime are in the country. But hey, French people must be a bit slow... they don't know what "streaming" or "professional gamer" mean.

Apple has been in the headlines for a while when it comes to its upcoming AR or MR headset, with the company set to kick off its upcoming WWDC 2022 conference on June 8.

I recently reported on the company seemingly teasing its "realityOS" operating system for its upcoming headset, with a shell company by the looks of things... you can read more on that here. But now, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has chimed in to waste down our expectations, and the hype.

Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted: "It still takes some time before Apple AR/MR headset enters mass production, so I don't think Apple will release AR/MR headset and rumored realityOS at WWDC this year. Apple's competitors worldwide can't wait to see the hardware spec and OS design for Apple's AR/MR headset".

We all know we're spied on by the powers that be, with the most prolific people in the world spied on every second, of every day -- whether they know it or not -- including SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk.

In a new tweet, Musk shared a meme that takes a poke at a Facebook-like social media post that asks "does anyone else feel like their being watched", the reply is from the CIA (or the Central Intelligence Agency) which simply corrects the post with "*they're".

Mega founder and the kinda New Zealand equivalent of Musk, Kim Dotcom, replied saying: "You are. 24/7 on all your devices and online services, including your own Starlink. In your case it's not just mass surveillance. You are a priority target. Welcome to the club". Musk quickly replied back, saying: "I would be shocked if I'm *not* being spied on haha. My only ask is that anyone spying on me please not affect call quality too much or I can't hear what's being said!"

Sony is confident its new three-tiered PlayStation Plus subscription will help boost paying users to a new record level.

PlayStation Plus subscribers will hit 50 million in Fiscal Year 2022--or at least that's what Sony is planning. The company believes the value proposition of its new PS Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium tiers will catalyze this significant growth. For reference, Sony hit 48 million PS Plus subscribers in Q3'21 and dropped to 47.4 million in Q4; Sony would have to accelerate adoption by 2.6 million users to hit this target. That kind of growth hasn't happened since 2019.

There's one secret key to this growth: PlayStation Now subscribers. Sony is phasing out PS Now subscriptions and will instead merge them into the new PS Plus Premium tier. That means all existing PS Now subscribers will be counted as PS Plus subscribers.

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan says that Sony is "not at all finished" with its acquisitions and buyouts.

The new era of consolidation sees gaming giants snapping up third-party publishers and devs; Microsoft is buying Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion; Take-Two spent $12.7 billion to merge with Zynga; EA has spent over $4 billion buying Playdemic, Glu Mobile, and Codemasters; and Sony is buying Bungie for $3.6 billion. So who's next? No one knows for sure, but Sony isn't done making buyouts.

In a recent PlayStation business presentation, SIE CEO Jim Ryan says that Sony will continue making inorganic acquisitions similar to its recent deal with Bungie in order to expand its games division.

Sony's new live service games could significantly raise PlayStation's annual revenues per user metrics and supercharge its digital business.

For years Sony has watched third-party giants like Activision, Take-Two, and EA made billions of dollars from live games. Now Sony finally wants in on the action, and is making big investments into live games. By 2025, Sony wants to have 12 live games on the market. This high-level expansion is expected to fuel long-term, recurring player spending and help boost its digital & add-on revenues--a segment that already makes more revenues than PlayStation hardware, software, and services.

In a recent business event, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says that ARPUs, or annual revenues per user, could well surpass the PS5's current $174 ARPU if even only a fraction of Sony's new live service games are successful.