Have you been trying to cast Stranger Things from your phone, only to find that your TV isn’t cooperating? It’s not the TV—Netflix is to blame for this one, and it’s intentional. The streaming app has recently updated its support for Google Cast to disable the feature in most situations. You’ll need to pay for one of the company’s more expensive plans, and even then, Netflix will only cast to older TVs and streaming dongles.

The Google Cast system began appearing in apps shortly after the original Chromecast launched in 2013. Since then, Netflix users have been able to start video streams on TVs and streaming boxes from the mobile app. That was vital for streaming targets without their own remote or on-screen interface, but times change.

Today, Google has moved beyond the remote-free Chromecast experience , and most TVs have their own standalone Netflix apps. Netflix itself is also allergic to anything that would allow people to share passwords or watch in a new place. Over the last couple of weeks, Netflix updated its Android app to remove most casting options, mirroring a change in 2019 to kill Apple AirPlay .

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After our celebration of Prime Day earlier in the year, last Friday we all somberly marked the passage of Black Friday , the day where we commemorate the passing of the great Optimus Prime during his apocalyptic battle with that foulest and most deceptive of Decepticons, Megatron (may his name and his energon both be forever cursed). But then, as everyone knows, just as our darkest hour seemed finally at hand, Optimus Prime was resurrected from death and returned to us! The long-ago Monday when this unprecedented event occurred was the day hope returned—the day everyone, human and machine alike, was united in joy. It truly was a Monday for all of Cybertron—a “Cyber Monday,” if you will.

Today in 2025, we pause to recall how the power of the AllSpark and the collective wisdom of the Primes has torn the veil of death, shattering the barrier between the living world and the world beyond—and through that power, Optimus Prime now walks among us again and it’s not weird at all! (Though I think there also might have been, like, some spores or something ? I dunno, it was a long time ago.) To show our joy at the greatest transformer’s return as he takes back up the mantle of Autobot leadership from Rodimus Prime—who, let’s face it, kind of sucked anyway—it is time to do what we did on Black Friday but even harder: it is time to engage in more celebratory commerce!

Below you’ll find a short curated list of the best deals we could find for Cyber Monday. The pricing is accurate as of the time of posting, and we’ll update the list several times today as things change (keep an eye out for the “Updated” tag near the story’s timestamp). ‘Til all are one!

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It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we’re experimenting with a monthly collection. November’s list includes forensic details of the medieval assassination of a Hungarian duke, why woodpeckers grunt when they peck, and more evidence that X’s much-maligned community notes might actually help combat the spread of misinformation after all.

An assassinated medieval Hungarian duke

Credit: Tamás Hajdu et al., 2026

Back in 1915, archaeologists discovered the skeletal remains of a young man in a Dominican monastery on Margaret Island in Budapest, Hungary. The remains were believed to be those of Duke Bela of Masco, grandson of the medieval Hungarian King Bela IV. Per historical records, the young duke was brutally assassinated in 1272 by a rival faction and his mutilated remains were recovered by the duke’s sister and niece and buried in the monastery.

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Peruse a list of films released in 1985 and you’ll notice a surprisingly high number of movies that have become classics in the ensuing 40 years. Sure, there were blockbusters like Back to the Future, The Goonies, Pale Rider, The Breakfast Club and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome , but there were also critical arthouse favorites like Kiss of the Spider Woman and Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Ran . Since we’re going into a long Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve made a list, in alphabetical order, of some of the quirkier gems from 1985 that have stood the test of time. (Some of the films first premiered at film festivals or in smaller international markets in 1984, but they were released in the US in 1985.)

(Some spoilers below but no major reveals.)

After Hours

Credit: Warner Bros.

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If you need some motivation to keep from eating too much this Thanksgiving, here it is: Doctors in Romania pulled an 11 cm (4.3 inch) living, writhing round worm from a woman’s left eyelid.

According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine , the worm likely hatched from a hard lump in her right temple, which the woman recalled first spotting a month beforehand. She also noticed that the nodule had vanished just a day before the worm apparently made a squiggly run for her eye.

When she went to an ophthalmologist the next day, doctors immediately noted the “mobile lesion” on her eyelid, which was in the suspicious shape of a bunched-up worm just under her skin with a little redness and swelling.

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Around this time last year, officials at United Launch Alliance projected 2025 would be their busiest year ever. Tory Bruno, ULA’s chief executive, told reporters the company would launch as many as 20 missions this year, with roughly an even split between the legacy Atlas V launcher and its replacement — the Vulcan rocket.

Now, it’s likely that ULA will close out 2025 with six flights —five with the Atlas V and just one with the Vulcan rocket the company is so eager accelerate into service. Six flights would make 2025 the busiest launch year for ULA since 2022, but it falls well short of the company’s forecast.

Last week, ULA announced its next launch is scheduled for December 15. An Atlas V will loft another batch of broadband satellites for the Amazon Leo network, formerly known as Project Kuiper , from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This will be ULA’s last launch of the year.

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Worries about the US grid’s ability to handle the surge in demand due to data center growth have made headlines repeatedly over the course of 2025. And, early in the year, demand for electricity had surged by nearly 5 percent compared to the year prior, suggesting the grid might truly be facing a data center apocalypse. And that rise in demand had a very unfortunate effect: Coal use rose for the first time since its recent collapse began.

But since the first-quarter data was released, demand has steadily eroded. As of yesterday’s data release by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which covers the first nine months of 2025, total electricity demand has risen by 2.3 percent. That slowdown means that most of the increased demand could have been met by the astonishing growth of solar power.

Better than feared

If you look over data on the first quarter of 2025 , the numbers are pretty grim, with total demand rising by 4.8 percent compared to the same period in the year prior. While solar power continued its remarkable surge, growing by an astonishing 44 percent, it was only able to cover a third of the demand growth. As a result of that and a drop in natural gas usage, coal use grew by 23 percent.

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Under ardent anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has named Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham as its new principal deputy director—a choice that was immediately called “dangerous” and “irresponsible,” yet not as bad as it could have been, by experts.

Physician Jeremy Faust revealed the appointment in his newsletter Inside Medicine yesterday, which was subsequently confirmed by journalists. Faust noted that a CDC source told him, “I heard way worse names floated,” and although Abraham’s views are “probably pretty terrible,” he at least has had relevant experience running a public health system, unlike other current leaders of the agency.

But Abraham hasn’t exactly been running a health system the way most public health experts would recommend. Under Abraham’s leadership, the Louisiana health department waited months to inform residents about a deadly whooping cough (pertussis) outbreak. He also has a clear record of anti-vaccine views. Earlier this year, he told a Louisiana news outlet he doesn’t recommend COVID-19 vaccines because “I prefer natural immunity.” In February, he ordered the health department to stop promoting mass vaccinations , including flu shots, and barred staff from running seasonal vaccine campaigns.

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Facing five lawsuits alleging wrongful deaths, OpenAI lobbed its first defense Tuesday, denying in a court filing that ChatGPT caused a teen’s suicide and instead arguing the teen violated terms that prohibit discussing suicide or self-harm with the chatbot.

The earliest look at OpenAI’s strategy to overcome the string of lawsuits came in a case where parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine accused OpenAI of relaxing safety guardrails that allowed ChatGPT to become the teen’s “suicide coach.” OpenAI deliberately designed the version their son used, ChatGPT 4o, to encourage and validate his suicidal ideation in its quest to build the world’s most engaging chatbot, parents argued.

But in a blog , OpenAI claimed that parents selectively chose disturbing chat logs while supposedly ignoring “the full picture” revealed by the teen’s chat history. Digging through the logs, OpenAI claimed the teen told ChatGPT that he’d begun experiencing suicidal ideation at age 11, long before he used the chatbot.

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