LOS ANGELES (AP) — For viewers, “The Crown” offers a peek into a modern royal family’s life and times, or at least an engaging dramatization. For the cast, it’s meant the lofty equivalent of gig work as the Netflix series ticks through the decades. Claire Foy played Britain’s young Queen Elizabeth II for the first two seasons, with Olivia Colman stepping in to chart her middle years last season and in the 10 new episodes out Sunday. Imelda Staunton…
Countless shipwrecks littered the sea in Finland‘s western archipelago during the late 1800s and early 1900s. On New Year’s Day in 1905, a newly constructed steamship became the latest vessel to succumb to the shallow waters. In 1906, construction on a lighthouse to aid travel along the trade route began in haste. In a mere nine months, the lighthouse was erected and composed of granite and bricks. It was lit for the first time on December 19, 1906. Workers……
Atoms in a gas can seem like partiers at a nanoscopic rave, with particles zipping around, pairing up, and flying off again in seemingly random fashion. And yet physicists have come up with formulas that predict this behavior, even when the atoms are extremely close together and can tug and pull on each other in complicated ways. The environment within the nucleus of a single atom seems similar, with protons and neutrons also dancing about. But because the nucleus……
Nicholas of Myna was born in Myna, Asia Minor in 270 CE into a wealthy and religious family. He was orphaned at an early age and was cared for and educated by his uncle, the bishop of Myna. Nicholas devoted his life to religion at an early age. He was later ordained as a priest and eventually succeeded his uncle. Nicholas led a religious life and was known for his devotion and generosity. It’s said he distributed all of……
When Keiara Wade rides her horse, Penny, she thinks of her younger brother, who was murdered when he was 23. “My brother thought that being a man meant being in a gang,” she said. Wade, who grew up in Compton, south of downtown Los Angeles, found solace at Richland Farms, a working horse ranch improbably nestled in the heart of the city. The ranch takes in horses that have been abandoned or abused. “You feel just the way I……
Ada Blackjack was a small Inupiaq woman born in an Alaskan settlement in 1898. History has not said much about her. But when we remember her, it’s usually in comparison to white men. The “female Robinson Crusoe,” as her rescuers called her. “An unlikely Arctic heroine,” others have said. Blackjack’s nephew described her without drawing such parallels: “Her story truly speaks of the will and spirit to survive against all odds.” She was educated by Methodist missionaries who taught……
While sirens blared and enemy planes dove overhead, Hisako Koyama hid under her futon, holding a small flashlight over her variable star charts. During air raids, the city of Tokyo turned off its lights, leaving only clear, dark skies above—exactly what the young astronomer needed to observe the heavens. As World War II raged, and guided by a path lit by a rogue spirit deep within, Koyama made her first forays into the work that would captivate her all……
When waiters at the Black Cat Café in San Francisco began pushing dining tables together at the front of the room, a murmur would ripple through the crowd. A performance was coming. The crowd would fall silent as a man stepped onto the makeshift stage. Less than five feet tall, he was dressed in red pumps, a tiara, tight black pants and a shawl. He wore cherry-red lipstick. In his hand: a single orchid. This was José Sarria, who……
Artist Daisy Boman crafted these figures to appear as though they were scaling the walls and roof of a warehouse at Godefriduskaai and Willemdok. These all-white, humanoid-like statues easily stand out amid the backdrop of the red brick wall. Across the street near the dock is another similar figure reclining on a pedestal. This statue is equipped with a small speaker box. Anyone can leave a message to somebody important at the statue using the app De Fluisteraar. The……
It was her childhood peanut allergy that first sparked senior Ayesha Ng’s fascination with the human body. “To see this severe reaction happen to my body and not know what was happening — that made me a lot more curious about biology and living systems,” Ng says. She didn’t exactly plan it this way. But in her three and a half years at MIT, Ng, a biology and cognitive and brain sciences double major from the Los Angeles, California……
A COVID-19 outbreak has been declared at a Petawawa high school after three students tested positive, the Renfrew County and District Health Unit announced Sunday. Read More
This is The TechCrunch Exchange, a newsletter that goes out on Saturdays, based on the column of the same name. You can sign up for the email here. Are you tired? I am. What a week. But, if you kept your eyes off American politics and instead focused on the stock market, this was not a week of stress at all. It was a celebration. Yes, the election appears to be influencing stocks, with investors delighted at what could be a……
Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7 a.m. PT). Subscribe here. The US is settling in for some new form of national gridlock, but state and local propositions are busy defining how technology businesses will be allowed to work (legally) in the US. Policies on topics as broad as customer usage and employment or as narrow as a drug chemical got the vote across the country. The……
I’ve worked at TechCrunch for a little over a year, but this was one of the hardest weeks on the job so far. Like many people, I’ve been distracted in recent days. As I write this, I have one eye on my keyboard and another on a TV that sporadically broadcasts election results from battleground states. Despite the background noise, I’m completely impressed with the TechCrunch staff; it takes a great deal of focus and energy to set aside……
“At the age of between 12 and 15 I was drawing; I was making plans of fusion devices.” David Fischer remembers growing up in Vienna, Austria, imagining how best to cool the furnace used to contain the hot soup of ions known as plasma in a fusion device called a tokamak. With plasma hotter than the core of the sun being generated in a donut-shaped vacuum chamber just a meter away from these magnets, what temperature ranges might be……
