Sending astronauts to the red planet will be a decades-long activity and cost many billions of dollars. So why should NASA undertake such a bold mission?

A new report published Tuesday , titled “A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars,” represents the answer from leading scientists and engineers in the United States: finding whether life exists, or once did, beyond Earth.

“We’re searching for life on Mars,” said Dava Newman, a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, in an interview with Ars. “The answer to the question ‘are we alone ‘ is always going to be ‘maybe,’ unless it becomes yes.”

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Near the end of the film A House of Dynamite , a fictional American president portrayed by Idris Elba sums up the theory of nuclear deterrence.

“Just being ready is the point, right?” Elba says. “It keeps people in check. Keeps the world straight. If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war.”

There’s a lot that goes wrong in the film, namely the collapse of deterrence itself. For more than 60 years, the US military has used its vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, constantly deployed on Navy submarines, at Air Force bomber bases, and in Minuteman missile fields, as a way of saying don’t mess with us. In the event of a first strike against the United States, an adversary would be assured of an overwhelming nuclear response, giving rise to the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction.

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Nearly a decade after Pebble’s nascent smartwatch empire crumbled, the brand is staging a comeback with new wearables. The Pebble Core Duo 2 and Core Time 2 are a natural evolution of the company’s low-power smartwatch designs, but its next wearable is something different. The Index 01 is a ring, but you probably shouldn’t call it a smart ring. The Index does just one thing—capture voice notes—but the firm says it does that one thing extremely well.

Most of today’s smart rings offer users the ability to track health stats, along with various minor smartphone integrations. With all the sensors and data collection, these devices can cost as much as a smartwatch and require frequent charging. The Index 01 doesn’t do any of that. It contains a Bluetooth radio, a microphone, a hearing aid battery, and a physical button. You press the button, record your note, and that’s it. The company says the Index 01 will run for years on a charge and will cost just $75 during the preorder period. After that, it will go up to $99.

Core Devices, the new home of Pebble, says the Index is designed to be worn on your index finger (get it?), where you can easily mash the device’s button with your thumb. Unlike recording notes with a phone or smartwatch, you don’t need both hands to create voice notes with the Index.

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In a lawsuit filed against top Trump administration officials on Monday, Apple was accused of caving to unconstitutional government demands by removing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement -spotting app from the App Store with more than a million users.

In his complaint, Joshua Aaron, creator of ICEBlock, cited a Fox News interview in which Attorney General Pam Bondi “made plain that the United States government used its regulatory power to coerce a private platform to suppress First Amendment-protected expression.”

Suing Bondi—along with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons, White House “Border Czar” Thomas D. Homan, and unnamed others—Aaron further alleged that US officials made false statements and “unlawful threats” to criminally investigate and prosecute him for developing ICEBlock.

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Netflix won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s) streaming and movie studio businesses last week. But Paramount Skydance isn’t relenting on its dreams of owning WBD and is pushing forward with a hostile takeover bid.

On Friday, Netflix announced that it had agreed to pay an equity value of $72 billion, or an approximate total enterprise value of $82.7 billion, for WBD’s streaming and film businesses, as well as its film and TV libraries. The deal includes HBO and the HBO Max streaming service but not WBD’s cable channels, which are to be split off ahead of the acquisition into a separate company called Discovery Global. Netflix said WBD’s split should conclude in Q3 2026.

Paramount has different plans, though.

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The 2025 Formula 1 World Championship drew to a close this past weekend in Abu Dhabi, and with it came the end of the current generation of cars. After a grueling 24 races, the title was decided in a three-way fight by the finest of margins; just two points, less than half a percent, separated the winning driver from second place when the checkered flag waved on Sunday.

Coming into Abu Dhabi, McLaren’s Lando Norris was, if not a comfortable favorite, then at least the driver with the highest odds of prevailing. After a strong start to the season, the British driver’s form dipped at the Dutch Grand Prix. But he bounced back, retaking the championship lead from his Australian teammate Oscar Piastri in Mexico in October.

For much of the season, it seemed to be a two-car race. McLaren had a clear car advantage and two strong drivers, suggesting a repeat of the years we saw Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg duking it out to bring home titles for Mercedes. But that didn’t figure on Red Bull developing its car late in the season. New boss Laurent Mekies has revitalized the energy drinks squad, and four-time champion Max Verstappen was able to close inexorably toward the McLaren drivers in the points with a string of sublime performances .

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Almost every bit of bike testing I’ve done starts out the same way. After assembling the bike, I set the seatpost to its maximum possible height, take it on a short test ride, and try to figure out new and creative phrasing to describe the same old problem: The frame isn’t quite big enough to accommodate my legs. While I’m on the tall side at a bit over six feet (~190 cm), I’m definitely not abnormally large. Yet very few e-bike manufacturers seem to be interested in giving people my height a comfortable ride.

So imagine my surprise when, within two blocks of my first ride on the XPress 750, I had to pull off to the side of the street and lower the seat. This was especially notable given that the XPress is a budget bike (currently on sale for just under $1,000.00) that is only offered in a single frame size. So kudos to Lectric for giving me a comfortable and enjoyable ride, and doing so with a lot of features I wouldn’t expect at this price point.

That said, hitting that price necessitated some significant compromises. We’ll discuss those in detail so you can get a sense of whether any of them will get in the way of your riding enjoyment.

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Meta has agreed to make changes to its “pay or consent” business model in the EU, seeking to agree to a deal that avoids further regulatory fines at a time when the bloc’s digital rule book is drawing anger from US authorities.

On Tuesday, the European Commission announced that the social media giant had offered users an alternative choice of Facebook and Instagram services that would show them fewer personalized advertisements.

The offer follows an EU investigation into Meta’s policy of requiring users either to consent to data tracking or pay for an ad-free service. The Financial Times reported on optimism that an agreement could be reached between the parties in October.

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Prime Video dropped an extended teaser for the fifth and final season of The Boys —based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson—during CCXP in Sao Paulo, Brazil. And it looks like we’re getting nothing less than a full-on Supe-ocalypse as an all-powerful Homelander seeks revenge on The Boys.

(Spoilers for prior seasons of The Boys and S2 of Gen V below.)

Things were not looking good for our antiheroes after the S4 finale . They managed to thwart the assassination of newly elected US President Robert Singer, but new Vought CEO/evil Supe Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) essentially overthrew the election and installed Senator Steve Calhoun (David Andrews) as president. Calhoun declared martial law, and naturally Homelander (Antony “Give Him an Emmy Already” Starr) swore loyalty as his chief enforcer. Butcher (Karl Urban) and Annie (Erin Moriarty) escaped, but the rest of The Boys were rounded up and placed in re-education—er, “Freedom”—camps.

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