Mashable

Artifact, a personalized news app curated by AI, is shuttering its windows and shutting off comments, just one year after it launched from the minds of Instagram's former founders.

“We have built something that a core group of users love, but we have concluded that the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way,” wrote co-founder Kevin Systrom in a Medium announcement. "It’s easy for startups to ignore this reality, but often making the tough call earlier is better for everyone involved... We live in an exciting time where artificial intelligence is changing just about everything we touch, and the opportunities for new ideas seem limitless."

SEE ALSO: In Memoriam: The tech that died in 2023

The app was created by Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram co-founders who left in 2018 to pursue to new ventures, including addressing what Sytrom called the "existential crises" facing the news industry and the habits of overwhelmed users.

"News and information remain critical areas for startup investment," Systrom wrote. "We are at an existential moment where many publications are shutting down or struggling, local news has all but vanished, and larger publishers have fraught relationships with leading technology companies. My hope is that technology can find ways to preserve, support and grow these institutions..."

Artifact launched in Jan. 2023, and was initially pegged as a purely consumable feed of "news, fact, and AI" intended to utilize machine learning to curate relevant news and posts from journalists, like a news-forward TikTok For Your Page.

By April, however, the app had expanded into content creation as well, allowing customizable profiles, comment threads, and a voting system that Mashable's Christianna Silva noted was strikingly similar to the user experience of Reddit. "While this might make Artifact more interesting for users, it's also opening a Pandora's box of moderation issues," Silva wrote of the newly unveiled Artifact "reputation scores" at the time. "It's tough to imagine an app all about reading the news that beats the mind-numbing joy (and pain, and fear, and anger...) that we get from Instagram and TikTok."

Despite early appreciation from news professionals and users alike, it appears Artifact couldn't beat the quick churn of popular social media sites — and the increasingly inevitable trailing off of AI buzz.

Commenting and posting abilities have officially been turned off, but Artifact users can continue scrolling through news posts until the end of February.

OpenAI may be paving the way toward finding out its AI's military potential.

First reported by the Intercept on Jan 12., a new company policy change has completely removed previous language that banned “activity that has high risk of physical harm," including specific examples of “weapons development” and “military and warfare.”

As of Jan. 10, OpenAI's usage guidelines no longer included a prohibition on "military and warfare" uses in existing language that obligates users to prevent harm. The policy now only notes a ban on utilizing OpenAI technology, like its Large Language Models (LLMs), to "develop or use weapons."

SEE ALSO: What is the Rabbit R1 AI Assistant and why is everyone going crazy for it?

Subsequent reporting on the policy edit pointed to the immediate possibility of lucrative partnerships between OpenAI and defense departments seeking to utilize generative AI in administrative or intelligence operations.

In Nov. 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a statement on its mission to promote "the responsible military use of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems," citing the country's endorsement of the international Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy — an American-led "best practices" announced in Feb. 2023 that was developed to monitor and guide the development of AI military capabilities.

"Military AI capabilities includes not only weapons but also decision support systems that help defense leaders at all levels make better and more timely decisions, from the battlefield to the boardroom, and systems relating to everything from finance, payroll, and accounting, to the recruiting, retention, and promotion of personnel, to collection and fusion of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data," the statement explains.

AI has already been utilized by the American military in the Russian-Ukrainian war and in the development of AI-powered autonomous military vehicles. Elsewhere, AI has been incorporated into military intelligence and targeting systems, including an AI system known as "The Gospel," being used by Israeli forces to pinpoint targets and reportedly "reduce human casualties" in its attacks on Gaza.

AI watchdogs and activists have consistently expressed concern over the increasing incorporation of AI technologies in both cyber conflict and combat, fearing an escalation of arms conflict in addition to long-noted AI system biases.

In a statement to the Intercept, OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix explained the change was intended to streamline the company's guidelines: "We aimed to create a set of universal principles that are both easy to remember and apply, especially as our tools are now globally used by everyday users who can now also build GPTs. A principle like ‘Don’t harm others’ is broad yet easily grasped and relevant in numerous contexts. Additionally, we specifically cited weapons and injury to others as clear examples."

An OpenAI spokesperson further clarified the change in an email to Mashable: "Our policy does not allow our tools to be used to harm people, develop weapons, for communications surveillance, or to injure others or destroy property. There are, however, national security use cases that align with our mission. For example, we are already working with DARPA to spur the creation of new cybersecurity tools to secure open source software that critical infrastructure and industry depend on. It was not clear whether these beneficial use cases would have been allowed under “military” in our previous policies. So the goal with our policy update is to provide clarity and the ability to have these discussions."

OpenAI introduces its usage policies in a more simplistic refrain: "We aim for our tools to be used safely and responsibly, while maximizing your control over how you use them."

UPDATE: Jan. 16, 2024, 12:28 p.m. EST This article has been updated to include an additional statement from OpenAI.

Something traumatic must have happened to the Beta Pictoris star system within the 20th century.

That might not seem recent, but considering the universe is thought to be 13.8 billion years old, the notion that a major cosmic event happened within some living humans' lifespans — and can be studied — is fascinating to astronomers.

Beta Pictoris, a nearby star with at least two orbiting planets, is about 63 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Pictor. It's visible to the naked eye in the southern sky. A team of scientists used the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, a collaboration of NASA and the European and Canadian space agencies, to make the discovery. The infrared space observatory again showed its prowess in finding details never before detected by other telescopes.

Webb revealed a new dusty feature at Beta Pictoris, curled like a cat's tail. Now, the team is trying to figure out what caused it.

"While there have been previous observations from the ground in this (light) wavelength range, they did not have the sensitivity and the spatial resolution that we now have with Webb, so they didn’t detect this feature," said Isabel Rebollido of the Astrobiology Center in Spain, in a statement.

Featured Video For You 10 mind-blowing discoveries from the James Webb Telescope SEE ALSO: The Webb telescope just probed a star's pulverized corpse Tweet may have been deleted

Rebollido is the lead author of a new study on these findings, set to be published in the Astronomical Journal.

Previous telescope observations of Beta Pictoris have revealed the system has two disks of debris caused by collisions between asteroids, comets, and other small planet-like bodies. Planets are thought to form in such disks.

With computer modeling, the Webb researchers hypothesized that a cosmic event within the past 100 years must have produced the dusty curl.

The James Webb Space Telescope took a new snapshot of the Beta Pictoris system. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Christopher Stark / Kellen Lawson / Jens Kammerer / Marshall Perrin

"Something happens — like a collision — and a lot of dust is produced," said Marshall Perrin, a co-author of the study, in a statement. “At first, the dust goes in the same orbital direction as its source, but then it also starts to spread out."

The light from the star pushes the smallest, fluffiest dust particles away from the star faster, Perrin added, while the bigger grains don't move as much, creating a long trail of dust. This one extends from the southwest portion of the secondary debris disk.

Webb also revealed differences in temperature between the two disks, likely indicating that they're composed of different substances. In visible light, the material that makes the secondary disk and dust tail is dark. But with Webb's infrared vision, it glows.

Taking into consideration the tail’s brightness, the team has estimated the amount of dust in it to be on par with a large main belt asteroid dispersed across 10 billion miles.

A recent collision within the system's debris disks could also explain a feature previously spotted by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in 2014. The telescope observed a clump of carbon monoxide near the cat’s tail. Because a star’s radiation should destroy carbon monoxide within about a century, this still-existing gas concentration could be evidence of the same event.

If so, the Beta Pictoris system may be even more chaotic than researchers thought.

Scientists have discovered a world that is almost identical in size to Earth, with a star almost identical to our sun.

But that's pretty much where the similarities end. The exoplanet, a world outside our solar system, is 10 times younger, exponentially hotter, and likely half-soaked in molten lava seas.

Astronomers found the new planet, HD 63433 d, using NASA's TESS probe, short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. The mission was designed to discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest dwarf stars in space.

SEE ALSO: The curious new planets astronomers discovered in 2023 Tweet may have been deleted

The scorched world is the smallest and closest known young exoplanet, at only 73 light-years away. Scientists estimate it's about 400 million years old, a mere whippersnapper compared to our 4.5 billion-year-old home planet.

"Young terrestrial worlds are critical test beds to constrain prevailing theories of planetary formation and evolution," the discoverers said in a new paper published in The Astronomical Journal.

The number of confirmed exoplanets has risen to 5,569, with over 10,000 other candidates under review. Statistically speaking, the growing tally only scratches the surface of planets believed to be in space. With hundreds of billions of galaxies, the universe likely teems with many trillions of stars. And if most stars have one or more planets around them — well, that's an unfathomable number of hidden worlds.

Tweet may have been deleted

HD 63433 d is intriguing because one of its sides is always facing its star. Furthermore, it is much closer to its star than Earth is to the sun: In fact, it's eight times closer to its host star than Mercury is to the sun. That makes the exoplanet's orbit so snug that its year is only four days long. As any experienced sunbather knows, if you don't turn over, one side is going to get seriously burned.

Astronomers believe the side facing the star is subjected to temperatures of about 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. But the backside of the planet that never receives starlight is a mystery, something the research team hopes to learn more about in the future. The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful infrared telescope in the cosmos, could reveal more details about this young world, as well as search for hints of an atmosphere.

"Young planets are exciting because we can study how planets change over time by measuring their properties at different ages," said Andrew Vanderburg, one of the co-authors, on X. "This is kind of like studying how humans age by observing a baby, a child, a teenager, and an adult, without waiting for the baby to grow up."

It’s hard to believe, but the new Fire HD 10 tablet is the 13th generation. Where has the time gone?

This latest model boasts some significant improvements while still providing excellent value compared to other well-known tablets. First, it’s 30 grams lighter than the previous-generation model. Doesn’t sound like much, but the difference is strikingly noticeable — this tablet is feather-light.

SEE ALSO: The best tablets: iPads are great, but have you tried literally anything else?

According to Amazon, it’s also 25 percent faster than the 2021 model. Throughout my testing, I can attest that it has been very fast and responsive. The front-facing camera also got an upgrade — from 2MP to 5MP.

In addition, the tablet has a 13-hour battery life, 3GB of RAM, and a 10.1-inch, high-def 1080p display. All that, and it still squeaks in at just under $140. I tested the tablet for about a week and I have some thoughts on how it performs and whether it’s a worthwhile buy. (Spoiler alert: it probably is a good purchase for most people on the market for an entertainment tablet.)

Made for streaming 'Parks and Recreation' played easily (for the most part) from the Peacock app. Credit: SaVanna Shoemaker / Mashable

According to Amazon this tablet is made for entertainment, so it really shines when it comes to streaming. The display is generous, crisp, and vivid — ideal for video on the go, curled up in the bed, or on the treadmill.

You’ll also have access to a full array of streaming apps from the jump. Prime Video and Freevee come preloaded, and nearly all other popular streaming apps are a quick download away.

I watched a few episodes of Parks & Rec on the Peacock app on the tablet, but unfortunately the app crashed a few times because the tablet kept disconnecting from my WiFi. It immediately reconnected after each disconnection, but it was a bit annoying. This is also something that I’ve experienced intermittently with other Fire tablets.

Sound quality, though, was surprisingly decent.

Decent for reading

One of my favorite things about the entire Amazon ecosystem is the Kindle app and Kindle Unlimited, so of course I had to see if this tablet was useful as an e-reader.

The tablet's size is not as friendly as a Kindle, but it still works as an e-reader with the Kindle app. Credit: SaVanna Shoemaker / Mashable

Honestly, it’s a little too big to use as a dedicated e-reader unless you put it on a stand or use a case with a built-in stand.

Still, the tablet alone works well enough for occasional reading. With such a large screen, I found reading in landscape mode much easier on the eyes.

SEE ALSO: Have a Kindle? Don't sleep on the free credits you could earn through Kindle Rewards. Browsing has improved

Amazon Fire tablets come preloaded with the Amazon Silk browser. (And no, you won’t be able to download another browser from the Amazon App Store — but more on that later.)

This browser used to be a pain point for me, but it has improved significantly over the last few years. It’s not as slow or clunky as it used to be, and it offers an experience much more in line with Google Chrome or Firefox than in the past.

I enjoyed some effortless browsing on the tablet. Although the YouTube app isn’t available on the Amazon App Store, browsing YouTube on the Silk browser was easy and fast.

Alexa integration

Like other Fire tablets, this one can also be used as an Alexa device in lieu of (or in addition to) an Echo device. The tablet can listen and respond to Alexa commands even if the display is off.

In my experience with enabling Alexa on tablets, it’s extremely helpful for my older or less tech-savvy relatives — especially since navigating a Fire tablet is a vastly different experience from navigating a smartphone or a laptop.

Otherwise, for tablets for myself or my children, I tend to keep Alexa disabled. When we want her around, she lives in our dedicated smart home devices.

In classic Amazon fashion, the Fire HD 10 tablet does have lockscreen ads. Credit: SaVanna Shoemaker / Mashable Apps and games are limited

One of the major limitations of Fire tablets — one that many people aren’t entirely aware of before they purchase — is that these tablets do not provide access to the Google Play Store. This means that app selection is severely limited. The Amazon App Store is pretty rinky-dink.

Naturally, you don’t have access to competitor apps — like anything Google (including YouTube) or most niche apps that you may have grown fond of using on your Apple or Android devices. I looked up several apps that I use regularly on my phone — specifically Monarch Money, Forest, Reddit, and Mercari — to find that none of them were available on the Amazon App Store.

Still, it does offer nearly all of the streaming apps except YouTube, all major social media apps except LinkedIn, and a large selection of mobile games — including a highly-rated, tablet-friendly Minecraft that my son is itching to play. Oddly enough, I also find a tablet offers the absolute best experience for browsing Pinterest.

I’m not much of a mobile gamer, so I let my son test a few games and he experienced no issues with speed or performance.

Camera fit for video calls and selfies

With a vastly improved front-facing camera compared to the previous model, this tablet is great for video calls and even selfies. You can make video calls using Alexa or several different apps, such as Facebook Messenger.

Still, if you’re regularly video chatting, you’ll want to invest in a stand to keep it upright and hands-free, since it’s a little large and can be awkward to hold for long periods of time.

Is the Amazon Fire HD 10 worth it?

Amazon's Fire HD 10 is an affordable alternative to comparable Samsung or Apple tablets, but it’s important to understand exactly what you are — and aren’t — getting for the low price.

The Amazon App Store has an extremely limited selection of apps compared to the Google Play Store or the Apple Store.

However, I was impressed with this tablet otherwise. While it’s a little too big for comfortable reading, it’s great for streaming video and gaming, has a long battery life, and is fast and lightweight.

TL;DR: As of Jan. 14, sign up for a lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish for only $83.99. That's 75% in savings when you use the code SAVENOW at checkout.

Even with two weeks in the new year officially behind us, it’s not too late to add a resolution like learning a second (or third) language. Spanish is an excellent choice, whether you’re in a diverse community or are planning to travel to a Latin American country.

With Rosetta Stone, the experience is both non-intimidating and fun with bite-sized lessons, interactive activities, and tech that listens to your pronunciation. Normally, lifelong access to Latin American Spanish with Rosetta Stone is $299, but it’s on sale for $83.99 with code SAVENOW at checkout through January 14.

Rosetta Stone: The fun way to learn a new language

Learn the world’s second most spoken language in an immersive environment, where every word you see is in Spanish. On top of activities like word and image matching and practice conversations, this helps you learn through context by seeing, hearing, speaking, reading, and writing.

Rosetta Stone even caters the experience to your current skill level — total beginner or someone who took Spanish in high school — and goals, like travel, family, work, or complete fluency. Plus, learning can follow you wherever you go with options to access lessons from your phone, tablet, and computer.

Work on your pronunciation and accent

What really sets Rosetta Stone apart from other apps is TruAccent speech-recognition software that listens to and analyzes your pronunciation and accent. As you’re studying new words and phrases, you can gain confidence in your speaking skills before interacting with native speakers in your community or during your next international getaway.

Set a new goal for 2024 with lifetime access to learn Latin American Spanish with Rosetta Stone on sale for $83.99 (reg. $299) when you use code SAVENOW at checkout until January 14 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

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Opens in a new window Credit: Rosetta Stone Rosetta Stone: Lifetime Subscription to Learn Spanish (Latin American) $83.99 at the Mashable Shop with code SAVENOW Get Deal

TL;DR: As of Jan. 14, you can get a Costway electric fireplace insert for only $164.97 instead of $398.99. That's a savings of 58% for a limited time.

No matter what the season, the ambiance a fireplace creates is always welcome. And if it doesn't require tending to or the act of getting a chimney cleaned, all the better. If you want more peace and relaxation in your space this year, this electric fireplace insert from Costway could be the icing on the proverbial cake. And, through January 14, it's on sale for just $164.97 (reg. $398.99).

This versatile fireplace insert can be used in a variety of ways in a bedroom or common room. Insert it into a wall or cabinet. Or, if you are handy around the house, build a customized encasement to house it.

Safety is always first, so it's good to know this insert has overheating protection with certification from ETL. And since it's electric, no yucky dust or harmful gasses are emitted.

Made to have a realistic-looking flame, this fireplace insert has a lot of features to make your fireplace experience more customizable. You can choose between three flame colors: orange, blue, or orange-blue mix. It also has three brightness levels to play around with. And since it's also a space heater, a high and low heating mode is available depending on how warm you want the room.

With a tempered glass front and an included remote control, you will be all set to elevate the mood while lounging at home this winter and beyond.

Pick up this Costway 28.5-inch electric fireplace insert with a remote control while it's on sale for just $164.97 (reg. $398.99) until January 14 at 11:59 p.m. PT, with no coupon code required.

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Opens in a new window Credit: Costway Costway Electric Fireplace Insert $164.97 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

TL;DR: As of Jan. 14, you can grab a Costway portable electric space heater for only $42.99 instead of $69.99 — that's a savings of 38%.

Whether you're sitting at your desk or feeling the cold floor of the kitchen in the morning, cranking up the heat for your whole home may not be the answer, especially if you're trying to keep your heating budget low. Instead, you could carry the heat with you using a portable space heater. 

The Costway Portable Space Heater is compact, powerful, and super cozy, not to mention pretty affordable. Normally, this portable heater would cost $69, but the price has dropped even more to $42.99 through January 14.

A space heater that takes up so little space

This 1,500W heater may be small, but you could really feel the heat. Just switch to either of the heating settings (low or high) to pump up the heat from the PTC ceramic heating technology. 

The adjustable thermostat allows you to set a comfortable temperature, and the heater includes safety features like overheating protection and a tip-over safety switch to prevent accidents. The power indicator light informs you when the heater is in operation, and the removable heat dissipation mesh simplifies cleaning and maintenance.

This little heater could be ideal for personal use. Put it on your nightstand for a comfy night in bed or remote workers can stay warm through the workday without heating up the whole house. 

Cozy up with a portable heater

Stay warm through winter, whether you're working from home at your desk or lounging on the couch.

You have until February 14 at 11:59 p.m. PT to get the Costway 1,500W Portable Electric Space Heater on sale for $42.99. No coupon needed. 

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Opens in a new window Credit: Costway Costway 1,500W Portable Electric Space Heater $42.99 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

TL;DR: As of Jan. 14, you can grab the Bento Stack Charge 8000 for just $79.99 instead of $99.95 — that's a savings of 19%.

If you're a busy professional, products that help you stay organized can be very welcome. And if those items can also charge up your iPhone, then that's a definite bonus. Many of us made a resolution to get more organized in the new year. And this Bento Stack Charge 8000 can help you make it happen. Plus, through January 14, you can get it for just $79.99 (reg. $99.95).

With a nod to the traditional Japanese bento box, the Bento Stack Charge offers a modular design that allows you to organize your tech essentials. Store your AirPods, Apple Watch, and chargers neatly, with a devoted space for everything.

The cover comes off to pull double duty as a MagSafe-compatible wireless fast charger. Simply put your iPhone on it, and charge it up quickly and without added messy wires. The cover also works as a power station, featuring both USB-C and USB-A ports. 

As seen at CES, this compact and durable plastic charging case is an ideal organizational case to take with you on the go. Easily fit it in your backpack to have all the essentials handy on a long flight and keep everything in order when going to and from the office.

Don't let the anxiety of having a low battery stress you out. Keep your desk orderly and your stuff charged with this handy little box that can help elevate the efficiency of your days.

Grab Bento Stack Charge 8000 for just $79.99 (reg. $99.95) when you order by January 14 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

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Opens in a new window Credit: Function101 Bento Stack Charge 8000 $79.99 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

TL;DR: As of Jan. 14, you can secure a five-year subscription to AdGuard VPN for just $44.97 instead of $359.40 — that's a savings of 87%.

Unless you're living completely off the grid, we all have an online presence. And with that presence, there comes risk and vulnerability. If you don't already have a virtual private network (VPN), it should shoot to the top of your list. Using a VPN helps keep you safer online and less vulnerable to the shady stuff that we all know happens there. For a limited time, you can get a five-year subscription to AdGuard VPN for just $44.97 (reg. $359.40).

Whether you're browsing, streaming, or working remotely, AdGuard VPN helps ensure that your online activities remain private and secure no matter where you are. AdGuard has over 60 network locations, which means you can travel and still have secure internet access nearly anywhere you want to go.

This data privacy tool uses its own strict security measures to ensure your data stays private — it even has a zero-logging policy. That means AdGuard does not track what you're doing or collect your information or IP address. You will remain totally private while browsing, shopping, creating, or watching.

This offer gets you connected to AdGuard VPN on up to ten devices at the same time but is only available to new users. With updates included, you'll have access to all of its super-fast servers in every location. It also comes with unlimited data for streaming and downloading. Plus, it's compatible with all platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Google Chrome.

Keep yourself and your family safe and protected online while home or away.

Get this 5-year subscription to AdGuard VPN for just $44.97 (reg. $359.40) when you order by January 14 at 11:59 p.m. PT, with no coupon needed.

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Opens in a new window Credit: AdGuard AdGuard VPN: 5-Yr Subscription $44.97 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

Oura recently released a new feature for its popular sleep-tracking Gen3 ring: the ability to see trends in daytime stress.

Not long after, an intriguing thread popped up in a subreddit dedicated to the Oura ring. Some of its 40,000 members were perplexed by what the Oura app reported about their stress levels.

Much to their surprise, the commenters said it seemed that they were always stressed. Some wondered if the new feature was buggy. But others didn't like how the data made them feel, hinting at the unintended mental health implications of tracking.

"I'm stressed eight hours a day since this new feature has rolled out which is making me stressed," wrote one commenter. "How do I shut it off!"

The conversation pointed to a persistent tension undergirding efforts to track, or even surveil, your own health around the clock. Such data can empower the user, but it can also sew doubt and worry — perhaps where there wasn't any before.

SEE ALSO: 6 med tech innovations from 2023 that could improve our lives

Dr. Vaile Wright, a psychologist and senior director of health care innovation for the American Psychological Association, said these different outcomes depend on the person.

"For some, tracking provides a critical ability to recognize and identify triggers," Wright said. "For others, however, it could actually increase stress, distress, and hypervigilance."

The former group might have difficulty pinpointing what stresses them most or how they feel in that state. Cultivating a greater awareness of that can be useful, because it might encourage them to make proactive changes, like implementing meditation or exercise breaks when their stress spikes. But the latter group might constantly think about their stress, even ruminate on it, and inadvertently engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When a person thinks they're stressed all the time, they may expect that to be the case and then behave in ways that increase stress, like procrastinating, taking anger or frustration out on others, and staying constantly connected to digital devices, the news, and social media.

The challenge is that you may not know how you'll respond until you're staring at days of charts showing an elevated stress level.

The basics of tracking stress levels

Previously, the Oura app only gave users detailed data about how well they slept and recovered from the previous day's exertion.

Oura's head of science, Shyamal Patel, whose Ph.D. is in computer and electrical engineering, told Mashable the company wanted to launch a daytime stress function as a way to give users a "holistic" picture of their stress and recovery. Oura competitor Whoop released its own tracking feature, Stress Monitor, in spring 2023.

The Oura ring measures daytime stress by continuously tracking temperature, heart rate, and heart rate variability (HRV). More variability in your heart rate can suggest resilience to stress, whereas less variation can indicate that the body's nervous system is struggling.

Certain factors impede reliable data collection. Cold hands or a poorly or loosely fitting ring can lead to gaps in tracking. Oura's algorithm excludes exercise or movement from its stress analysis so as not to confuse the physical demands of a workout, for example, with overall distress.

SEE ALSO: With Strava, no one runs alone anymore. That's the problem.

Importantly, the feature hasn't been independently clinically validated, though Patel said the company recently launched a study with this aim.

He's also aware that drawing attention to stress through tracking may have unintended consequences because the same thing has happened to people who began collecting data about their sleep. Patel points to orthosomnia, the new phenomenon of becoming so preoccupied with sleep tracker data that it leads to sleeplessness.

Patel said this is why the Oura app is meant to have an "empathetic" voice instead of using judgmental language oriented around failure when it's providing insights.

Understanding high-stress levels

The ring's sensor gathers data continuously, but the daytime stress chart reports back every 15 minutes. (Only members who pay a monthly $5.99 subscription fee can access the data.) You can watch as stress levels peak, crash, and plateau throughout the day.

The short interval can be informative. A screaming child or tense work meeting may coincide exactly with a stress peak, confirming what you already suspected was true. Or you might be stunned to see that the deep breathing you tried at the dentist's office seemed to make it a low-stress experience.

Yet the time frame can also amplify worry. You might wonder why a brief meditation break or leisurely meal — things you did because you hoped they'd reduce stress — didn't show up as restful or restorative but instead appeared as periods of stress or engagement, a state of being Oura places between stress and relaxation.

Again, the different responses come down to personality and circumstance, said Wright. The app's feedback may motivate one person to change their behavior while another person feels "paralysis" as a result.

SEE ALSO: Should you put a ring on it? I tried the Oura 3 for one month to find out.

There are also things people cannot control. Certain medications, like asthma medicines, antibiotics, cold and congestion medicines, and antidepressants, can increase heart rate and potentially affect heart rate variability, which the app currently doesn't make clear to users. Someone searching for an answer to a sudden spike in stress might not realize it's due to starting a new medication.

Different but even more impactful sources of external stress are the invisible forces that influence well-being. The American Psychological Association's recent "Stress in America" survey found, for example, that the nation is still "recovering from collective trauma" following the worst phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though many respondents downplayed their stress, nearly a quarter of adults said their stress rated between eight and 10 on a scale of one to 10, with the upper end being a "great deal of stress." Respondents were feeling the pressure of financial strain and health challenges, but they were also particularly worried about mass shootings, violence and crime, the nation's future, and "social divisiveness."

In this sense, tracking stress has its limits. If a higher-paying job won't materialize because of economic trends, coping skills will only go so far.

"Yes, there are some things that we can do to help us maintain our emotional well-being that actually are in our control," said Wright, "but they're not sufficient to manage all of our stress in the world, because much of [what is] causing us stress we don't have control over, and there are not necessarily easy fixes for them either."

Are there risks to tracking your stress?

At the outset, Oura didn't offer stress management tools alongside its daytime stress feature. Now, the app suggests relaxation content from the meditation and wellness platform Headspace when Oura detects elevated levels of stress.

A "reflections" feature in beta testing lets users jot down notes about their daily experiences. Ideally, the tool will help users make connections between highs and lows in their daytime stress, shedding light on drivers of triggering, restful, and restorative moments.

Later this year, Oura plans to launch a "stress resilience" measure, which will assess users' ability to withstand physiological stress by tracking daytime stress and recovery, as well as recovery during sleep.

Patel notes that gleaning insight from wearable data is a relatively new practice. Until the recent past, a person's main source of health data was generated at their annual physical, he said. Now, they can collect continuous data about themselves, including their sleep, stress, heart rate, and menstrual cycle.

Patel said it's important to help people understand what's shaping their health trends, now that they have data about them in hand: "We need to close that gap."

Some Oura users, in a separate, more recent Reddit thread, wondered if their near-constant high-stress days meant they had anxiety. The reflection could be particularly useful when followed by a conversation with a health care or mental health provider.

But Wright urges consumers to be cautious with their health data, too. While Oura doesn't sell member data of any kind (even anonymized) to third parties, no company is immune from a security breach. Oura does partner with researchers who can access de-identified user data to conduct clinical studies but collects "relevant consent" from research participants in advance.

Wright said that, in general, wearables aren't required to be compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law that protects a wide range of health data. They also typically aren't subject to federal regulation, unless they're considered a medical device.

"Research technology moves faster than regulation and ethics," Wright said, adding that she's more worried about data privacy, security, and storage than whether wearables actually work.

Still, Wright knows that many people are eager to track their health metrics, including stress. She encourages them to take digital breaks periodically to see how it makes them feel and then reassess how much they want to engage with their device.

Keeping digital tabs on measurements of well-being may be a mood booster if things are going well, but Wright reiterated that such awareness might be potentially damaging when it leads to anxious thinking.

After all, sometimes the best way to stay even-keeled is to not know exactly how stressed you are.

Flying was never the most stress-free way to travel, but thanks to never-ending airline delays, unruly passengers, and the incredible shrinking airline seat, it's become a nightmare. If you've decided it's finally time to invest in a quality pair of noise-canceling headphones for flying, we've got you covered.

SEE ALSO: How to clean your AirPods the right way

The good news is that plenty of headphones, from over-ear headphones to wireless earbuds, offer active noise cancellation. And in 2024, it's not too hard to find ANC headphones cost under $100.

Even so, if you want to find the best noise-canceling headphones for airplanes, you should be prepared to pay closer $200 to $500 (exempting our budget pick from Anker Soundcore). Premium headphones offer improved active noise cancellation and transparency modes that allow you to hear those all-important gate announcements.

Let's not forget that ANC on its own won't save the day — otherwise, we'd just direct you to our review of the best noise-canceling headphones. For long flights, comfort is also key. It won't matter if your headphones block sound if you only want to wear them for two out of five hours of your flight. A few extra features — like balanced sound and spatial audio — can't hurt either.

SEE ALSO: New Apple AirPods Max expected to launch next year — 2 new features to watch out for

With all that in mind, we've rounded up the best headphones for flying based on our extensive research and hands-on testing.

Because shopping for headphones shouldn't be as stressful as heading to the airport, we've answered every question you need to know before purchasing. Read on for essential info as well as the very best noise-canceling headphones for flying in 2024.

Does paying more really get me more noise cancellation?

Generally, yes. Many cheap headphones claim to offer "noise-canceling" features, but a $50 pair of over-ear headphones will never compare to Sony noise-canceling headphones. Typically, the more you pay and the better known and regarded the brand is, the better the noise cancellation. Brands like Bose and Sony offer multiple levels of noise cancellation so you can choose to be completely blocked off from the world or opt to allow some environmental noises to come in while flying. 

SEE ALSO: What to look for when shopping for the best headphones

Paying more can also get you some nice features to supplement your ANC, like voice assistant support, expansive battery life, advanced codec support for better-sounding music, or better call quality. If you're a frequent flyer, the cost is almost certainly worth it.

What are the best noise-canceling headphones for flying?

Noise-canceling headphones are at their most useful on airplanes. While flying, it's difficult to find a moment's peace when so much is going on around you. Frequent flyers may prefer to rest or work, and the best way to do this is by using the best noise-cancellation methods to block out the chaos. 

With that in mind, some headphones' ANC works best on blocking out people talking more than ambient engine sounds, and vice versa, and people will have different preference levels for how much ANC they actually like. In addition, for long-haul flights, you may also be interested in the best noise-canceling headphones for sleeping

With all that in mind, we've included the best ANC headphones for every traveler. So, read on to find the best noise-canceling headphones for airplanes in 2024 — all based on Mashable's in-depth research and hands-on headphones reviews.

TL;DR: The 2023 Premium Python Programming Mega Certification Bundle is on sale for £36.11, saving you 76% on list price.

If you’re someone who enjoys all things tech-related and wants a deeper understanding of how we make the smart devices in our lives work, you may want to try your hand at computer coding. Fortunately for you, you don’t need to get an expensive degree to start your journey. Not when you can have lifetime access to this Python programming certification bundle, which gives you over 100 hours of instruction. And you can grab this online learning bundle for just £36.11.

Whether you have some computer programming experience already or you’re just starting out, this bundle is a good place to gain some new skills. Aspiring coders can learn the foundations in just three hours with the course, Python Programming for Beginners and Python Bootcamp In A Day, taught by instructor Paul Ashun, a leader in mobile, Internet TV, and web software projects and CEO of Pashun Consulting.

SEE ALSO: 12 of the best Python courses you can take online for free

This bundle gives you some of the easiest Python for beginners courses with lifetime access to 14 different courses taught by experts in Python programming language. You'll learn how to use problem-solving and critical-thinking skills to solve technical and mathematical problems. And if you're looking for something with a unique spin, you can even build your own text-based escape room to explore core techniques within a game.

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Learn to code with Python 3 and go from beginner to advanced programmer at your own pace. Grab this Python programming certification bundle on sale for £36.11.

Opens in a new window Credit: Oak Academy 2023 Premium Python Programming Mega Certification Bundle £36.11 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer.

If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for Jan. 14's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

Not the day you're after? Here's the Wordle answer for Jan. 12.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

We're getting jacked.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no letters that appear twice.

Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...

Today's Wordle starts with the letter B.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. What's the answer to Wordle today?

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to Wordle #939 is...

BULKY.

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for January 14's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

Tweet may have been deleted

Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

Tweet may have been deleted

Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

Want a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: Stressful finances

• Green: Swiper the Fox activities

• Blue: Animal nicknames

• Purple: Lower body clothing

Featured Video For You Connections: How to play and how to win Here are today's Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Things to Pay

• Green: Thieve

• Blue: Male Animals

• Purple: Legwear, In the Singular

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for December 28

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to Connections #217 is...

What is the answer to Connections today

• Things to Pay: BILL, CHECK, INVOICE, TAB

• Thieve: PINCH, ROB, STEAL, SWIPE

• Male Animals: BUCK, BULL, JACK, TOM

• Legwear, In the Singular: JEAN, PANT, SHORT, TIGHT

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Is this not the Connections game you were looking for? Here are the hints and answers to yesterday's Connections.

The debut of the Rabbit R1 AI Assitant feels like a full-circle moment in tech. The existence of this palm-sized personal voice assistant comes from Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu's desire to go back to a time when using a phone was simple. And that belief is catching on, as according to Lyu, Rabbit's AI-pocket gadget has sold out of its initial 10,000 units.

What the Rabbit R1 is or does is a hard question to answer. It's not a smartphone (well, not exactly), and it's not just a voice assistant like Alexa (although it kinda is). That's why ahead of another round of preorders in the spring, we took a deep dive into exactly what the Rabbit R1 does, how it works, and whether it can replace our smartphones.

SEE ALSO: 24 gadgets from CES 2024 that you can buy already What is the Rabbit R1 AI Assistant?

Unveiled at CES 2024, Rabbit R1 is a $200 handheld AI assistant with a 2.88-inch touchscreen. The device, co-designed with Teenage Engineering, resembles a walkie-talkie with its square design and eye-popping orange — adding to its retro feel. It includes features like a camera, a control wheel, speakers, and microphones. Additionally, it has 4GB of memory, 128GB of storage, and runs on a 2.3GHz MediaTek processor.

It's surprisingly light and only half the size of an iPhone 15. However, unlike the iPhone 15, Rabbit R1 doesn't have apps; instead, you can connect to the apps on your phone. Operating on Rabbit OS, the R1 runs on a Large Action Model (LAM), an AI model that can navigate app interfaces to perform tasks. It responds to voice commands and is capable of activities like booking rides, managing household tasks, and answering queries.

While it's not so different from what we already do with our smartphones, the purpose, according to Lyu, is to offer a more focused and less intrusive digital experience. Plus, what's cool is that, with its dedicated training mode, you can teach the R1 how to interact with certain commands, and it will do that going forward.

This is all because of R1's LAM, which is designed to be adaptable, allowing it to learn and interact with new applications. This feature means that the device's capabilities can be expanded beyond pre-installed apps, adapting to various user interfaces and functionalities. This training aspect enhances the R1's utility, making it a versatile tool for a range of tasks and interactions.

As The Verge notes in their hands-on with the device, how this will work in practice is unclear as the only working model that exists at this moment is the one Lyu owns. Despite its adaptability in what it can work with, at the end of the day, the R1 is still a glorified Google Assistant. But cute and orange.

Why is it so popular and how do I get one?

As of right now, you can't. As noted earlier, Rabbit announced that its initial order of 10,000 units has sold out. There was even a second batch scheduled for March that is now sold out as well.

Part of its swift and sudden popularity is that, in theory, the R1 is designed to fundamentally change how humans interact with technology. One of the big recurring themes at CES 2024 was the Internet of Things (IoT), with many companies focusing on integrating with existing operating systems like iOS or Android. Every startup and big company wants your phone connected to a suite of tech inside your house, so the nostalgic simplicity of the R1 has been an instant hook.

Just look at this tweet calling Lyu's announcement the "iPhone moment for the AI era."

Tweet may have been deleted

Or you can save your $200, seeing that tech wizards on X (formerly Twitter) have already rebuilt the Rabbit AI inside of a smartphone.

Tweet may have been deleted

See what I mean about things coming full circle?

When SpaceX rolls Starship to the launchpad this year for its third trial, the company will begin testing the spacecraft's ability to transfer super-chilled rocket fuel in space.

NASA is depending on billionaire Elon Musk's rocket company to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface for the Artemis III and IV moon missions under a $4.2 billion contract. To do that, SpaceX first has to master how to refuel a Starship in low-Earth orbit, after it has already blasted off the planet. The tricky concept is known as "cryogenic propellant transfer" — something never done before in microgravity.

NASA's plan to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in a half-century involves its own Orion spacecraft, but also SpaceX's Starship. In a sort of space relay, Orion would fly the crew to lunar orbit, and Starship would complete the final leg of the journey by meeting up with the astronauts in space and landing them on the surface. The "baton" could be passed at a yet-to-be-built moon-orbiting space station, or directly from one spacecraft to another.

The U.S. space agency has promised Artemis III will put a woman and person of color on the moon for the first time. But given that Starship has attempted spaceflight twice so far, each time ending minutes after liftoff with an explosion, it's perhaps unsurprising NASA just announced the moon-landing mission will be delayed at least a year to 2026.

SEE ALSO: Astronauts test SpaceX's crucial moon elevator

"They're making tremendous progress in Boca Chica with their test flights," said Amit Kshatriya, NASA's Moon to Mars deputy associate administrator, referring to SpaceX's private spaceport in South Texas. "But it's extremely challenging to some of the propellant transfer and other goals that they have in order to make that Earth departure sequence work for us."

Why does NASA want a propellant depot in space?

NASA and commercial partners are interested in space fuel stations because they could allow spacecraft to travel longer and farther into the solar system. Future missions could use ice on the moon to make propellant by splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. If engineers can figure out how to store super-cold liquids in space, whether they are launched from Earth or produced somewhere else, it could make a long-term stay on the moon possible and even support distant missions to Mars.

NASA has invested $370 million in over a dozen U.S. companies to develop the technology needed to store and transfer rocket fuel in space. That funding includes $53 million for SpaceX to demonstrate a propellant transfer, from tanker to ship, in orbit.

The U.S. space agency has chosen to use private vendors for moon landers to buy down the technical risks and costs of the Artemis program, which seeks to use the moon as a springboard for eventual missions to Mars. SpaceX was the first selected, and Blue Origin, billionaire Jeff Bezos' rival space company, was awarded the contract for Artemis V, a crewed mission slated for no earlier than 2029.

In a sort of space relay, Orion would fly the crew to lunar orbit, and Starship would complete the final leg of the journey by meeting up with the astronauts in space and landing them on the surface. Credit: NASA

SpaceX's 400-foot-tall rocket and spacecraft, known collectively as Starship, are designed to carry immense cargo and numerous people into deep space. Starship runs on 10 million pounds of liquid methane and oxygen, but the rocket consumes much of that fuel just to escape the firm grasp of Earth's gravity.

How would propellant transfer in orbit work?

To make the rest of the quarter-million-mile journey to the moon, Starship would need to top off its tank. The plan is for SpaceX to send up tanker versions of Starship into low-Earth orbit, establishing a fueling depot in space. A passenger version of Starship would dock at a tanker, fill up, and then complete the rest of the moonbound flight.

Blue Origin will also rely on orbital refueling.

"Propellant transfer in orbit sounds complex and scary — it seems like this big, nebulous thing — but when you really break it down into the various pieces, we've actually achieved almost all of the complex parts already on our operational programs now," said Jessica Jensen, SpaceX's vice president of customer operations and integration.

NASA astronauts test a docking hatch on an Orion spaceship prototype. Credit: NASA / Radislav Sinyak Starship's third orbital test flight

NASA, on the other hand, seems more daunted by the obstacles that lie ahead. Getting the choreography down for a dual launch campaign of Orion and Starship will be a "significant coordination challenge," Kshatriya said.

SpaceX plans to conduct a preliminary test in orbit this February, attempting to transfer 11 tons, or 10 metric tons, of liquid oxygen between tanks contained within Starship. It's a first step toward the eventual goal of transferring propellant between two separate ships in space.

But part of what has made orbital refueling seem hazy to outsiders is the mystery surrounding just how many launches will be needed to transport the propellant to a space tanker. Competitor Blue Origin suggested SpaceX's proposal would require 16 consecutive launches. Musk told a Washington Post reporter on X, then known as Twitter, that figure was "extremely unlikely," and it would probably fall somewhere between four and eight launches.

During an Artemis teleconference with reporters this week, Jensen estimated "10-ish," after NASA administrator Bill Nelson pressed her to provide a number.

SpaceX confidence in rapid refueling

Regardless of how many successive launches are necessary for the operation, SpaceX officials feel confident based on their track record. Though rapid refueling may "seem very intimidating," SpaceX has already proven it can handle several launches within hours of each other for its Falcon 9, the workhorse rocket that regularly lifts satellites to orbit.

The company has even proven it can turn around and launch from the same launchpad within a matter of days.

The Orion spaceship flies away from the moon and back toward Earth during the Artemis I maiden voyage. Credit: NASA

Furthermore, Jensen assured that SpaceX has experience with many of the steps involved in propellant transfer, such as rendezvous and docking maneuvers. Its Dragon spacecraft has docked more than 30 times at the International Space Station, flying 250 miles above Earth.

"Everything we've learned, from the sensors we use, the algorithm we use for the rendezvous, from pulling back — we're going to leverage all of that in having two Starships dock together," she said.

Two little screws almost ruined the ending of NASA's seven-year space journey to asteroid Bennu and back.

But after more than three months of trying to pry the lid off a can containing the bulk of rocks and dust from the asteroid, engineers have finally done it. To remove the stuck top, they made and tested new tools that could safely unscrew the fasteners without damaging the precious sample.

So far the science team has only seen grainy cell phone pictures of the sample, said Andrew Ryan, a co-investigator on the NASA mission, but better photos are expected next week.

"We are all delighted by what we’ve seen inside," Ryan told Mashable.

SEE ALSO: NASA needed help with a mission. The Vatican came to the rescue. Tweet may have been deleted

NASA's $800 million OSIRIS-Rex mission, short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security Regolith Explorer, launched a robotic spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2016. It completed its 4-billion-mile flight when it dropped from 63,000 miles above Earth onto a patch of isolated Utah desert on Sept. 24, 2023.

OSIRIS-Rex is the first U.S. mission to retrieve a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth. Not since the Apollo moon rocks, collected between 1969 and 1972, has NASA brought back space souvenirs of this magnitude.

Bennu was selected for the mission because it is chock-full of carbon, meaning it could contain the chemical origins of life. It also has a very remote chance of hitting Earth in the next century. Learning about the asteroid could be helpful in future efforts to deflect it, should that become necessary. Bennu was also considered a convenient asteroid destination because every few years it crosses Earth's orbit around the sun, making it easier to reach than some other asteroids.

Asteroid bits coat the base of the OSIRIS-Rex sample canister. Credit: NASA / Erika Blumenfeld / Joseph Aebers

Through the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft, the team saw so-called "hydrothermal mineral deposits" on Bennu they believe may have occurred early in solar system history.

These long veins of salty material could suggest a hydrothermal system similar to what exists at Earth's mid-ocean ridge. It's an intriguing environment where geologists think origin-of-life chemistry may have begun for our own planet. This kind of material hasn't shown up in Japan's Ryugu asteroid sample, which flew back to Earth in 2020, or any meteorites found on Earth.

That's why Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, meant his words literally when he said in September: "This is the rarest stuff we've ever had on Earth."

Scientists paused their efforts to open the sample container in mid-October after they realized two of the 35 fasteners could not be removed with the tools approved for use inside the OSIRIS-Rex glovebox.

To prevent contamination of the sample, NASA's curation team had set stringent rules about what could go inside the glovebox. Only about 15 materials were approved, such as stainless steel, aluminum, and glass. Motors, computers, and circuitry were strictly prohibited.

"This is the rarest stuff we've ever had on Earth." On the right side of this image, pieces of asteroid Bennu are visible atop the sample collector. Credit: NASA / Erika Blumenfeld / Joseph Aebersold

Immediately after encountering the problem, NASA started making new tools. Two were developed with a specific grade of surgical, non-magnetic stainless steel — the hardest metal approved for use in the pristine curation glovebox.

"These new tools also needed to function within the tightly-confined space of the glovebox, limiting their height, weight, and potential arc movement," said Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-Rex curator, in a statement. "The curation team showed impressive resilience and did incredible work to get these stubborn fasteners off."

Scientists already swept up some of the dust and rocky bits that leaked into the external container for analysis, almost 2.5 ounces' worth, which exceeded NASA's goal. Portions were shipped off to institutions around the world for studies.

Soon they'll know the total amount of Bennu material they captured by weighing the rest of the contents.

Featured Video For You NASA spacecraft gets extremely close to volcanic world, snaps footage

This cold and flu season, the internet agrees on one thing – lots of us have a cough that won't go away.

British author Essie Fox posted on X (formerly Twitter), "Has anyone else had this cough that just won't go away and makes you feel wretched and exhausted?" It seems like "at least fifty percent of the people that you know have this hacking cough that has been going on for weeks," said TikToker Bethany Veach in one viral video.

While your cough amid this potent cold, COVID, and flu season might be nothing to worry about, a lingering cough can also be a sign of something more serious. Here's what you need to know about that cough you can’t kick.

SEE ALSO: 5 big COVID vaccine myths, debunked Tweet may have been deleted What's causing my cough?

Unfortunately, it's hard to say for sure.

"I think that the biggest thing is that we're seeing multiple respiratory viruses," Danielle Sebbens, a pediatric nurse practitioner at Arizona State University, told Mashable. A year ago, a "tripledemic" of COVID-19, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) made headlines, and the three viruses are again circulating. And of course, the various viruses that cause the common cold are going around. All of these can cause a cough – and a number of them are different coronaviruses (that have infected humans for ages).

Out of the three well-known viruses circulating, RSV might be the most likely culprit behind your gross cough, said Dr. Janet O’Mahony, an internal medicine doctor in Baltimore at Mercy Personal Physicians. In an email to Mashable, she wrote that she saw many patients with a "junky cough" around Thanksgiving, when there were many cases of RSV in her area. Cases of the virus have since gone down near her, she said.

Regardless of what specifically caused it, a lingering cough with no other remaining symptoms is probably caused by some type of virus, said Sebbens. If the infection were bacterial, you would usually have other symptoms that linger, like fever and fatigue.

Tweet may have been deleted Why won't my cough go away?

Coughing when you’re sick (and in general) is a reflex to expel mucus, germs, and other sources of irritation from your lungs. Likely the most common reason for a persistent cough is lingering inflammation in your lungs and windpipe, even after the infection itself has cleared, Dr. Maureen Tierney, the chair and associate dean for clinical research and public health at Creighton University School of Medicine in Nebraska, told Mashable.

It’s also possible you managed to get multiple infections. Along with lowering your overall immunity, fighting a respiratory illness can damage tiny hair-like structures in your lungs called cilia, Tierney explained. These cilia help keep infections out of your body, so a respiratory infection might make you vulnerable to other viral and bacterial infections.

"It's not normal to have a cough that persists for more than three to four weeks."

A more serious cause of a persistent cough is developing a complication of respiratory illness, said Tierney, like pneumonia. For this and other reasons, she recommends that anyone who has had a cough for more than a few weeks seek medical care.

"It's not normal to have a cough that persists for more than three to four weeks," she said.

Why is this non-COVID illness happening now?

It might be that our immune systems are still recovering from years of extra protection during the COVID-19 pandemic. As some people leave masking and social distancing behind, their immune systems might have a hard time adjusting to the change.

"We didn't get the same immune system development that we get from year to year" during the pandemic, said Sebbens. "Our immune system is just not prepared for this influx of viruses."

Tierney thinks our immunity is up to speed, but is currently contending with a large number of viruses.

"I think that we pretty much caught up with immunity over the past two years," she said. Tierney attributes the ubiquitous cough and other symptoms to widespread circulation of many different viruses, something that the addition of COVID-19 can only increase.

Tweet may have been deleted How do I make the cough stop?

If it's been over three weeks, you should seek out medical care, or if you have symptoms like coughing up blood, cough so violently you throw up, or have other symptoms, like fever and fatigue that won’t go away. If it turns out you have a bacterial infection, your doctor might prescribe antibiotics.

You can also test yourself for COVID, and a medical professional can test you for the flu. Both viruses have effective antiviral treatments – Paxlovid for COVID-19, and Tamiflu for influenza (both these treatments must start relatively soon after symptoms begin). If your cough is caused by lingering inflammation, Tierney says your doctor might prescribe an inhaler, which can sometimes help.

"It’s not too late to get vaccinated."

Unfortunately, some viruses like COVID are just going to make you cough. O’Mahony recommends people use over-the-counter medication like Tylenol, Claritin, and Mucinex to treat their symptoms. There’s even some research to suggest that honey might help.

Though it won’t help you if you already have a cough, you can also get vaccinated. Many people haven’t yet gotten updated COVID and flu shots, and there is also a new RSV shot if you are 60 or older or have other risk factors for severe illness.

"It’s not too late to get vaccinated," said Tierney. 

In the original 2004 Mean Girls, gossip plays out through word of mouth or surprise three-way phone calls. But in the film adaptation of the Mean Girls musical, vicious teen backstabbing gets a social media makeover.

The film, which was also written by Tina Fey, moves the classic 2000s flick to the present day, trading Y2K aesthetics for Gen Z vibes. With that shift comes the need to bring modern-day tech and social media into the movie — because how can you accurately depict the 2020s high school experience without it?

For directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., the challenge became incorporating social media into this new take on Mean Girls in a way that would ring true with audiences today (especially younger viewers).

SEE ALSO: 'Mean Girls' review: Can the movie musical live up to the classic teen comedy?

"You can't overdo it," Perez Jr. told Mashable in a video interview.

"It's a balance, right?" Jayne added. "If you go too hard with it in scenes where it doesn't count, it feels superfluous."

They found inspiration in the framing device of the musical on which the film is based, which sees Janis (Auli'i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) recounting Cady's (Angourie Rice) encounter with the Plastics as a "cautionary tale." With that in mind, Perez Jr. said, the vision for Mean Girls became: "Let's do this film as if Janis and Damian directed it."

We see this right from Mean Girls' opening moments. Janis and Damian film themselves vertically on a phone while singing in a garage. Seconds later, the screen widens into a CinemaScope aspect ratio as we journey to Cady's home in Africa. Throughout the film, we'll see these aspect ratio changes time and time again, as the format jumps between widescreen and vertical phone screens. Sometimes these changes even happen mid-musical number.

How can social media shape a Mean Girls musical number? Avantika, Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, and Bebe Wood in "Mean Girls." Credit: Jojo Whilden / Paramount

Take Karen's (Avantika) Halloween costume banger "Sexy." In the original stage musical, the song opens with a gag that involves Karen appearing onstage, realizing she's messed up her song, and leaving. Seconds later, in one of the musical's biggest applause breaks, she returns to the stage and starts all over again.

"We're huge fans of the musical. We love how she walked out on stage, then left, and that was the joke there," explained Jayne. "But that just wouldn't translate [to film]. So, what would she do?" Mean Girls solves that problem by having Karen singing into her phone camera while preparing for the Halloween party, only to restart her recording when she screws up.

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"We pitched that ['Sexy'] should start as a Karen 'Get Ready With Me' video," Jayne said.

From there, Karen's "Sexy" dance is picked up by other performers in their own videos, mimicking how TikTok dances spread. These dances come courtesy of the film's choreographer Kyle Hanagami, whose viral dance combos are an internet staple. "He is so beloved by the internet, and he speaks internet," Jayne said, "so he just knew how to do all of these fun transitions that all the kids do."

Capturing the overwhelming nature of social media Avantika, Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, and Bebe Wood in "Mean Girls." Credit: Jojo Whilden / Paramount

Beyond being a tool to add new flair to musical numbers, social media becomes a key storytelling device in Mean Girls. Think of it as an evolution of the talking heads in the original, where North Shore students tell the camera things like, "I saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip flops, so I brought army pants and flip flops." The new Mean Girls sees these kinds of observations texted between friends or brought up in TikTok videos.

The role of social media becomes especially prominent in key montages, like reactions to Regina George (Reneé Rapp) falling over at the Christmas talent show or to her getting hit by a bus. Since these incidents were filmed by other students, the magnifying glass on people like Regina and Cady grows a hundredfold. Their every move is replayed and dissected for the whole world to see. (You can spot several cameos in these sequences, including rap superstar Megan Thee Stallion and influencers like the Merrell Twins and Alan Chikin Chow.) The scope and potential reach of these posts makes Cady's experience more overwhelming than the gossip of the original, or even in the musical, which projected an onslaught of posts onto the back of the stage.

"When we dive into these barrages of social media posts, we wanted it to feel like these characters are scrolling through their phone. It's in your face. We wanted it to feel violent, in a way," Jayne said of the montages.

"Yeah, if you're getting bullied, that's what it feels like," Perez Jr. added.

"When people are talking well of you, it feels euphoric. And when people are disparaging you and making jokes about you, it feels devastating," Jayne said. "We wanted that to feel as real as we could make it."

That sense of overwhelming emotion in the face of relentless social media scrutiny came in part from Jayne and Perez Jr.'s scouting of real high schools. There, they saw the impact of technology on teen life firsthand. They cited things like phones always being out and plugged in to charge in classrooms as guidance for the ubiquity of tech in Mean Girls. But what surprised them most about current teen culture was the difference between interactions in real life and online.

"[The students] kind of seemed nicer. I heard a lot of people be really nice to each other," said Perez Jr. "So I would ask, 'What's going on here?' And the kids were like, 'Oh no, no one's mean to your face anymore. They're vicious to you online.'"

"I do not have the mental fortitude to go back to high school and experience it that way, with social media. I would just crumble!" Jayne laughed. "But it was really interesting speaking to [students] and trying to understand their experience now, and bring it to the movie [in a way that would] resonate with today's audience."

Mean Girls opens in theaters Jan. 12.