James' World 2

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Say you accidentally cut the tip of your finger off. Especially if this happened to you as a child, there’s a good chance it would regrow—skin, nail, and all. The same is true for other mammals such as monkeys and mice. Unfortunately, however, our regenerative abilities stop there. While some other creatures, most notably salamanders and starfish, can regenerate entire limbs, mammals don’t have this evolutionary superpower.

“The big question is: Why are mammals limited?” says Jessica Whited, an associate professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University.

Part of the reason why our cells only have a limited ability to regenerate may have to do with our genes. But according to new research, two key environmental mechanisms may be at play, too.

How rich a tissue is in hyaluronic acid and how well it can sense oxygen may affect its ability to regrow and heal, a pair of new studies published in Science on Thursday suggest. The results could lead to better wound treatments and possibly the ability to one day regrow larger pieces of human tissue—even limbs.

In one study, researchers investigated what might makes the mammalian fingertip special: Why can only the tip of the finger regrow, whereas the rest of it can’t? “Same finger, two entirely different outcomes,” says Byron Mui, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The researchers found that mice with a partial finger amputation could regrow part of their finger more easily and with less scarring when there were higher levels of hyaluronic acid in the animals’ “extracellular matrix”—the material between cells. Hyaluronic acid may be familiar to some readers: it is a common ingredient in face creams and moisturizers that claim to reduce wrinkles.

The study “elegantly challenges” the idea that scarring is a given in mammals that have lost a limb or digit, according to a related commentary in Science that was co-authored by Whited, who was not involved with either study.

In the other study, researchers compared two species: African clawed frog tadpoles and embryonic mice. Tadpoles can regenerate their limbs; embryonic mice can’t.

The researchers subjected amputated tissues from tadpoles and embryonic mice to various laboratory tests, explains molecular biologist Georgios Tsissios, the study’s lead author. In a low-oxygen environment—similar to that of tadpoles’ usual aquatic habitat—mice tissue healed better than when it was exposed to more oxygen.

“These experiments showed that lowering oxygen in embryonic mouse limbs can make them mimic frog tadpole limbs, enabling them to activate the very early regenerative responses,” Tsissios says.

Tsissios and his colleagues found, however, that tadpole cells appear to be worse at sensing oxygen than embryonic mice cells do—suggesting that tissue regeneration may be influenced by both levels of oxygen and the animals’ ability to sense it.

The results are preliminary: in neither study did the researchers regrow entire mammalian limbs. And any kind of tissue regeneration therapy for humans based on these findings is a long way off, Whited says. But the studies do offer hope for human research because they offer clues to what factors—both in the animals’ biology and their environment—may determine their tissue’s regenerative powers.

“As a field, the way that we piece all of these puzzle pieces together will eventually lead to human limb regeneration,” Whited predicts.

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Welcome back to the Fluctus Channel, as we explore China’s massive Goupitan shiplift, one of the world’s tallest ship elevators, and the advanced elevator operations onboard US Aircraft Carriers. Fluctus is a website and YouTube channel dedicated to sea geeks. Whenever you are curious or an incorrigible lover of this mysterious world, our videos are made for you ! We publish 3 videos a week on our YouTube channel and many more articles on our website. Feel free to subscribe to not miss any of our updates and visit our website to discover additional content. Don’t forget to follow us on twitter: Please keep the comments section respectful. Any spam, insults, or troll will be deleted. To contact us, make sure to use our email in the about section of this channel.

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Here’s what happened in the war in the Middle East on Thursday.

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NASA’s Artemis II moon mission began the return leg of its historic voyage on Monday night, completing the first half of an elegant figure eight “free return” trajectory from the Earth to the moon and back again.

“We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back,” said astronaut Jeremy Hansen, one of Artemis II’s missions specialists, as the team broke a distance record from Earth for space travel on Monday. “We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.” In marking the record, the Artemis II astronauts proposed that one crater be named Integrity, after their Orion spacecraft, and that another be named Carroll, for mission commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who died in 2020.

The spacecraft has performed as expected, despite some minor computer glitches and toilet trouble, according to NASA.

Launched on April 1, Artemis II is now in the seventh day of its mission to demonstrate a successful crewed trip around the moon—the first in more than a half-century. Around 7:02 P.M. EDT on Monday, the Orion capsule and its crew of four astronauts set a distance record for human spaceflight, reaching 252,756 miles from Earth as it arced around the moon before falling back home.

That’s right: falling. Artemis II’s homecoming is already baked into the voyage, courtesy of the moon’s gravity bending the Orion spacecraft’s trajectory to wing the capsule home without much, if any, help from Orion’s rocket engines. That’s the “free” part of the free return trajectory, says Samantha Kenyon, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech.

The choice, Kenyon says, was to either fire Orion’s engines as the spacecraft swooped over the far side of the moon and out of radio contact with Earth—or to fire them much earlier in the mission and closer to Earth. Choosing the latter course “means less risk for the astronauts in the capsule” if something were wrong with the rockets, she says. The free return trajectory also set up the spaceflight distance record that the crew set yesterday.

Last Thursday, the Orion capsule—officially named Integrity—fired its rockets for nearly six minutes in a “translunar injection burn” that consumed roughly 1,000 pounds of fuel, just enough to loosen Earth’s gravitational grip and set a course for looping around the lunar far side and free return. The maneuver went so well that the space agency skipped two out of three smaller corrective burns built into the mission’s schedule.

Aerospace engineers can plot such trajectories by thinking of the respective pulls of Earth and the moon as gravity “wells,” Kenyon says. Imagine these gravity wells as topographic maps of sorts, where Earth and the moon are two gravitational holes rotating around each other, surrounded by curving hills. The free return trajectory is essentially a marble trick of sending Integrity scooting along the curves mapped around the moon’s moving gravity well on a path that gets captured again by Earth’s gravity well. “Once you get to a certain height on that hill’s topographic map and get on that path, you stay on for free,” she says. “All the spacecraft is doing is just following the path that’s associated with the energy that it’s been given.”

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Every year, the Met Gala is where celebrities ascend to style icon status.

On the first Monday in May, celebrities don’t just walk the red carpet: They climb the steps of the Metropolitan Museum in custom gowns and statement couture, presenting their interpretation of the exhibition’s theme to the entire world. Unlike an awards show or a premiere, the goal isn’t to shine for a moment—it’s to create a look that resonates for decades. Despite the wealth of designer gowns and bespoke suits, few accomplish that feat, but those who do earn themselves a place in fashion history.

The greatest hits—Rihanna’s papal chic, Kate Moss’s golden turban, Sarah Jessica Parker’s tartan Alexander McQueen, Erykah Badu’s glittering top hat, Madonna in a hippie caftan—rank among the best outfits ever to be worn. And their charms wouldn’t have been as compelling on another night. After all, the gala encourages the kind of innovation rarely seen elsewhere.

The Costume Institute’s trove of landmark runway creations serves as an inspiration for guests, allowing them to take on fashion at its most avant-garde. Where else will you see Cardi B. and a small army of assistants move a mountainous red Thom Browne train across a pink carpet? Or watch awestruck as Lady Gaga and Brandon Maxwell take their magenta nesting doll ballgown to the streets, much to the delight of New Yorkers. A standout Met look can be performative (Amber Valletta going full baroque in 2004), subversive (Daphne Guinness in a plume of McQueen feathers in 2011), witty (Karolina Kurkova’s playful Viktor and Rolf in 2015, or referential (the Olsen twins and their yearly vintage surprise)—it just can’t be boring.

With this year’s exhibition theme, Costume Art, and a “Fashion is art” red-carpet dress code, what looks can we expect to see? Those fashions will be kept under wraps until the first Monday in May, but considering the co-chairs are Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams, you can rest assured they’ll be worth the wait.

In honor of the 2026 Met Gala, see 118 of the most memorable, daring, and over-the-top Met outfits of all time below.

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Photos: Getty Images

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Even as the status of the Strait of Hormuz remained unclear and U.S. and Iranian officials issued dueling threats to resume attacks if the cease-fire fell apart, both countries had reason to hope it held together.

Here’s the latest.

The day-old cease-fire between the United States and Iran was being tested on Wednesday by uncertainty over the status of the economically vital Strait of Hormuz and disagreement over whether the truce applied to Lebanon, where Israel continued to carry out punishing attacks.

Iran, which said Lebanon was included in the cease-fire, accused the United States of not upholding its end of the deal. And Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Washington had to choose between a cease-fire or continued war via Israel, and “cannot have both.” Pakistan, which mediated the truce, said the deal covered Lebanon, a claim disputed by the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.

Disagreement over Lebanon’s inclusion in the cease-fire threatens to unravel it.

Less than twenty-four hours after Iran and the United States agreed to a cease-fire, a disagreement surfaced over whether or not the terms applied to Lebanon, where Israel is bombarding Hezbollah.

Iran said the deal included Lebanon. The U.S. said it did not.

Attacks reported after cease-fire took effect

Attacks continued in the Middle East on Wednesday after a U.S.-Israeli cease-fire with Iran. Israel said that Lebanon was excluded from the truce.

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As the cease-fire deal among the U.S., Israel and Iran took hold, residents of Tehran expressed mixed reactions. CreditCredit…Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

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Right now, all eyes are on Artemis II, NASA’s historic mission that just sent astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than a half-century. But, as detailed by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman at the space agency’s recent “Ignition” event in Washington, D.C., Artemis II is only the beginning of a larger U.S. effort to populate the moon with astronauts and resource-prospecting robots. If this quest advances at the breakneck pace Isaacman desires, then Earth’s celestial sidekick will also become a place of profound scientific revelations.

Despite the moon being so nearby, we know surprisingly little about it with much certainty. The Apollo astronauts hauled back a bevy of moon rocks and left behind a few short-lived geological experiments, but most of our lunar knowledge today comes from moon-orbiting satellites, telescopic observations from Earth, and the handful of sample-return missions undertaken recently by China.

Starved of more in situ data, researchers can’t yet scratch a bigger scientific itch; they wish to study the moon as a Rosetta Stone for the origin and evolution of our world and the solar system at large. Now, thanks to the proposed high cadence of lunar missions—crewed and robotic, by space agencies and private industry alike—it looks like their wish will be granted. Earth’s tectonics, volcanism, oceans, atmosphere, and life have all erased the geological records of the planet’s earliest eras. But the moon, lacking such tumult, has preserved them. That makes Earth’s silvery orb “a perfect geological laboratory,” says Sara Russell, a planetary scientist at London’s Natural History Museum.

With that in mind, here are the biggest mysteries moon-focused scientists are now hoping to solve.

How is the moon still alive, geologically speaking?

The churning heat deep within planets and moons is what gives them geological “life,” from volcanic eruptions and earthquakes to uplifting mountains and excavating ocean basins. But when the heat wanes, a world dies, geologically speaking.

Scientists know of three main ways to keep the metaphorical fires burning: the “primordial” heat left over from impactors slamming together during the world’s collisional formation, the heat from decaying radioactive elements and the frictional heat from tidal forces that can knead a world’s innards like dough.

The moon is much smaller than Earth, so its primordial heat should have leaked into space long ago. Lunar samples and theoretical models suggest it lacks a hidden abundance of radioactive elements. And careful calculations show that Earth’s gravitational pull shouldn’t be causing significant lunar tidal heating. Yet shallow “moonquakes” still shake the moon, while age estimates based on crater counts of its pockmarked surface hint that some volcanism may be 100 million years old—which, on geological timescales, is yesterday.

Scientists, naturally, have questions. “Is the moon still volcanically active?” asks Thomas Watters, a senior scientist in the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. To find out just how much geological “life” still lingers there—and why—“we need to get a better look at the moon’s internal structure,” Watters says.

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A visualization of the moon’s Orientale basin, a region closely studied by the Artemis II crew during their lunar flyby. Gravitational data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission are depicted in false colors on this image’s right side, and chart the basin’s subsurface structure. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

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What we know about the incident

• The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office in California is assisting with a shooting involving agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The incident occurred near Sperry Avenue and Interstate 5, between San Jose and Modesto.
• Authorities said no local law enforcement officers were involved in the incident. The “suspect” was taken to a local hospital for further medical attention, the sheriff’s office said.
• There will be road closures and a large law enforcement presence for an undetermined period, causing significant traffic delays, the sheriff’s office said.

Person shot by ICE in critical condition, county officials say, adding FBI will lead investigation

A sheriff’s sergeant said the person shot by ICE officers has been taken to a local hospital and is in critical condition.

Sgt. Veronica Esquivez, speaking with reporters in Spanish, said the shooting victim was the only one who was hurt in the incident.

Asked for a message to the broader community, Esquivez said that it was a unique event and that the community should not be scared.

ICE spokesperson Todd Lyons had identified the man as Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, an alleged gang member from El Salvador, and has said the shooting took place after a “targeted vehicle stop.”

Esquivez said that the Stanislaus Sheriff’s Department does not work with ICE but that it responded to the shooting after it initially got a call about shots fired and helped secure the scene.

The FBI has assumed primary responsibility for the investigation and asked the public to share information or videos of what happened online. 

ICE has been under the microscope after months of tensions

For the last year, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been under intense public scrutiny as the Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement.

There were at least 14 shootings involving ICE between September and March, which included shootings of suspected criminals, immigrants who lack permanent legal status, and U.S. citizens. It is not clear how many of the shootings federal authorities have fully investigate,d as there have been no public reports of any findings.

In addition to the use of force, some have criticized the administration for going after undocumented immigrants without criminal histories and those in the process of obtaining citizenship through the legal system. Critics have also taken issue with the detention of young children.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended his immigration policies, which was a cornerstone of his re-election campaign.

Tensions came to a head in January, when federal officers flooded into Minneapolis and its surrounding area as part of an immigration crackdown. They were met with widespread protest.

Two U.S. citizens were fatally shot — Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Their deaths ignited a national outrage. The Trump administration withdrew most of its immigration enforcement from Minnesota. Former Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem was fired weeks later and replaced by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla.

Democrats are insisting on reforms on how ICE and Customs and Border Patrol operate in return for funding the Department of Homeland Security, which has been in a shutdown since Feb. 14. Republicans have yet to come to an agreement with their counterparts on the matter.

Video from bystander shows ICE shooting at vehicle

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Caroline Radnofsky,  Marin Scott, and Video from a bystander shows the moment ICE officers opened fire on a vehicle in Patterson, California.

The video shows a hatchback vehicle on the side of the road with at least three law enforcement officers surrounding it. The hatchback is between two larger vehicles in an area that matches where the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office said the shooting occurred.

NBC News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the video.

At least one of the officers is in front of the driver-side window and seems to lean forward before the hatchback reverses into a truck behind it. The passenger-side door is open and seems to be heavily damaged in the crash.

Seconds later, the video shows the hatchback moving forward and turning toward the road as officers appear to pull weapons and point them at the vehicle. There is no audio in the clip seen by NBC News.

The hatchback accelerates across the road’s median, hitting the road hard enough that two hubcaps come off the wheel, before the clip ends.

FBI confirms it is investigating ICE shooting

Insiya Gandhi

The FBI’s field office in Sacramento is responding to the shooting in Patterson, California, it confirmed in a statement that noted the investigation is “in its early stages.”

“We are conducting a thorough investigation in partnership with the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office and are grateful for the Patterson community’s continued patience and support,” the FBI said.

ICE officers were seeking a gang member before shooting, DHS says

Doha Madani

ICE officers were attempting to arrest a man who is allegedly a gang member wanted in El Salvador prior to the shooting this morning in Patterson, according to a statement from Todd Lyons, acting director of the agency.

ICE identified the man as Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, saying he is a member of the 18th Street Gang. Hernandez is wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection with a murder, and ICE officers attempted to arrest him in a “targeted vehicle stop,” Lyons said.

“As officers approached the car, the wanted gang member weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over,” Lyons said in the statement. “Following their training, our officers fired defensive shots to protect themselves, their fellow agents, and the public.”

The FBI is at the scene of the shooting, the statement added.

No details yet on suspect’s condition, sheriff’s office says

Doha Madani and  Insiya Gandhi

There is no information yet on the status of the individual who was shot, according to a spokesperson for the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office.

The person, identified only as a “suspect” by the sheriff’s office, was transported to a local hospital. The spokesperson added that the sheriff’s office does not provide information on which hospital individuals are taken to for medical care.

NBC News has reached out to multiple medical centers in the area, but some said they do not take trauma patients. A hospital in the nearby city of Turlock referred NBC News to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office when asked if it had received a patient in the incident.

Homeland Security still without funding as Congress debates ICE reforms

Doha Madani

The Department of Homeland Security is still in a shutdown as Congress remains at odds over Democrats’ push to implement reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It’s been nearly two months since the department’s funding lapsed on Feb. 13, and lawmakers have not been able to come to an agreement on the future of the embattled agency. Democrats have insisted on implementing changes to ICE after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed during the surge of federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Congress is currently in recess and will not return to Capitol Hill until Friday, with the House of Representatives returning to session.

ICE reportedly made 18 arrests in the county over last 6 months

Doha Madani

There have been at least 18 arrests by ICE in the county over the last six months, according to a report by The Modesto Bee last week.

Stanislaus County, home to the city of Modesto, is located in the San Joaquin Valley of Northern California.

The area is known for its agricultural economy, with almonds serving as its top crop over the last several years. An agricultural report from 2023, the most recent available on the county’s website, says its total gross value of almonds brought in exceeded $813 million, with milk shortly behind at more than $761 million.

ICE involved in shooting in Northern California, sheriff’s office says

Doha Madani and Jay Varela

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Is it possible that our esteemed 47th “Great Businessman”, “get coal miner’s jobs back” President, is a batshit crazy scam artist?  Are there bats in the belfry at the second white house, Mar-A-Largo?  Can we get a definitive answer, so already great America won’t  be the laughing stock of the world?

 I recently watched the Armageddon  movie and the USA lead the charge to solve the problem.   I want to know where do we go from here? This crazy man won’t shut up, look at what happened in the ‘House of Represenatives’. Do they want to gain power for themselves while destroying America. if we arn’t very careful  America will suffer a ‘Red Dawn’. check out the movie which could be our furture!

Beware America!

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It was a stunning threat that promised to eliminate Iranian civilization, delivered with all the casual callousness that has become President Trump’s preferred style of communication.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

And that is what passed as a normal Tuesday-morning update from the Trump White House: a warning of mass destruction and what international law would define as war crimes, blithely delivered on Truth Social, posted alongside ads for bullet-shaped pens, patriotic hats, and a gala dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” Mr. Trump wrote in his message. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

The message arrived two days after Mr. Trump marked Easter Sunday by calling on the Iranians to end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” he wrote.

In the minds of the president and his supporters, the post is all part of Mr. Trump’s chaotic negotiation style, intended to prompt an end to his self-inflicted conflict and persuade Tehran to open the strait. Some of the president’s advisers saw Mr. Trump’s escalating rhetoric as a negotiating tactic that suggested he was more interested in finding a way out of the war than following through with a devastating attack.

On Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump had toggled back to diplomat mode, announcing that he had agreed to a proposal by Pakistan that calls for a two-week cease-fire and the immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The president said that the United States would work on finalizing an agreement with Iran. “It is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution,” he wrote.

Even for Mr. Trump, who has a long history of comments that fly far beyond the pale, his latest comments bear the mark of an impulsive leader who is used to getting his way through coercion and unpredictability, but who is not getting his way now.

Alex Wellerstein, a historian who studies nuclear conflicts, said that even if Mr. Trump does not carry out the extent of his threat, the president’s violent rhetoric damages his credibility as a negotiator and his country’s standing in the world.

“You’re talking about a world that largely increasingly sees the United States as unhinged and dangerous, and not a reliable partner,” he said, “where all of the countries that typically align with democracy and freedom are on the other side of the United States.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters have joined the usual chorus of critics in recent days. Tucker Carlson, the right-wing podcaster, said that the president’s Easter message had “shattered” the holiest day on the Christian calendar.

“It is vile on every level,” Mr. Carlson said on his podcast. “It begins with a promise to use the U.S. military, our military, to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country, which is to say to commit a war crime, a moral crime against the people of the country, whose welfare, by the way, was one of the reasons we supposedly went into this war in the first place.”

The president responded by calling Mr. Carlson a “low I.Q. person,” and continuing on with his war. Ever a reality television producer, Mr. Trump is trying to program this war like he does everything else — through cliffhangers and wait-and-see diplomacy. As such, Mr. Trump created an 8 p.m. Eastern deadline Tuesday for Tehran to comply. Mr. Trump announced “a double sided CEASEFIRE” about 90 minutes before his self-imposed deadline.

Americans have seen versions of this playbook before: Mr. Trump makes increasingly escalatory threats, secures some semblance of a deal, and walks away declaring victory. In January, Mr. Trump threatened to send in U.S. forces to capture the Danish territory of Greenland. He settled for an agreement to increase the number of American troops there.

With Iran, though, there is still little evidence that Mr. Trump is going to ultimately get what he wants. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military, has said that Iran would retaliate “crushingly and extensively” if its civilian infrastructure were attacked.

Even with a cease-fire, Mr. Trump is far from achieving his larger strategic objectives.

The president’s increasingly violent messaging betrays a degree of frustration that he has not gotten what he wanted after pushing back an earlier deadline to barrage the country’s infrastructure. His threats to level power plants, oil installations, and bridges have seemed to have the opposite effect on some Iranians, who have formed human chains around points of infrastructure that support civilian life.

Even some people who have supported Mr. Trump in the past see his strategy on Iran, to the extent that there is one, as damaging and dangerous.

“Trump believes he is threatening Iran with destruction, but it is America that now stands in danger,” Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned in March, wrote on X. “If he attempts to eradicate Iranian civilization, the United States will no longer be viewed as a stabilizing force in the world, but as an agent of chaos — effectively ending our status as the world’s greatest superpower.”

Several Republicans in Congress, who are absent from Washington during a two-week recess, criticized the president’s rhetoric, although many of them have stayed mum.

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, left room for the possibility that Mr. Trump was posturing: “I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster.”

Mr. Trump’s message also alarmed top Democrats, who quickly promised to force another vote on a resolution to rein in the use of the military in Iran.

“This is an extremely sick person,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, wrote on X after Mr. Trump sent his threat. “Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is.”

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Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

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