Happy Nice Mall

—Melisa Heikkila

This is the first image of the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

EHT COOPERATION

It may not look like much, but this blurry orange-black picture is the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, pictured for the first time.

While the black hole itself, known as Sagittarius A*, is completely dark, it is surrounded by a ring of bright glowing gas distorted by its own gravity. Captured by Event Horizon Telescope Colboration. spherical team that took the famous first picture of a black hole Inside the galaxy Messier 87 (M87) in 2019. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

Word of the Day

“I want to return to my family – not in a coffin.”

— Dmitri, a Russian soldier, explains why he once refused to rejoin the occupation of Ukraine on Russian soil. Guard.

must read

I scoured the internet for today’s most entertaining/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Elon Musk puts Twitter deal “on hold”
He said he awaits details that support his calculation that spam and fake accounts represent less than 5% of users. (WP $)
+ The news came after the company fired two of its top executives.. (NYT $)
+ Twitter for celebrities high risk and low reward. (WP $)
+ Musk pits American Tesla employees against their Chinese counterparts. (Guard)

2 Six dead amid first covid outbreak in North Korea
Another 187,800 people are being isolated and treated because of the virus. (Guard)
+ Africa’s first covid vaccine factory has not received a single order yet. (NYT $)

3 Russian hackers could face cyber war crimes charges
Ukraine’s basic infrastructure was targeted during the war. (wired $)

4 Crypto detectives are in high demand
Investigators are being hired to track down stolen bitcoin and NFTs. (vox)
+ How does the current crypto crash reflect the 2008 financial crisis?. (Foreign policy)
+ NFT sales are also still falling. (WSJ $)

5 Instagram’s algorithms force fear and anger content on new parents
But it’s not easy to stop seeing posts that cause immediate reactions. (WP $)
+ A Texas law penalizing social media for “censoring” users has been reinstated. (axioms)

6 FBI buys Pegasus spyware to aid investigations
The bureau said it previously purchased the hacking tool to test and evaluate. (NYT $)
+ Google doesn’t enforce its own ban on tracking software ads. (EN)

How did Japan lose its global technology advantage?
Now she’s trying to get him back. (rest of the world)

8 Thousands of popular websites monitor what you type
Keyloggers collect keystrokes before hitting ‘submit’ on a form. (wired $)
+ Anonymous social media platform Yik Yak has revealed the locations of its users. (motherboard)

9 Our understanding of female incels is still fuzzy
Mainly because they are not a unified group with defined, shared goals. (Atlantic Ocean $)

10 Primitive bots of the 2000s paved the way for Alexa
And they were a lot more fun too. (dizzy)

We can still have beautiful things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these strange times. (Any ideas? Write me or tweet me.)

+ The wrinkled duck ran the Long Island marathon (well, a kilometer) and rewarded with his own little medal.
+ Danny Boyle Upcoming TV series about the Sex Pistols sounds so fun.
+ Photos by Barry Webb slime mold organisms totally fascinating – they look like alien trees.
+ After yesterday’s giant sturgeon, a endangered giant stingray was safely returned to the Mekong River in Cambodia.
+ “BookTok” undeniably encourages more young people to read.
+ Today is Friday the 13th! Because of this an unlucky day in some cultures.
+ I’m not really sure about that ice cream flavor.