Link25 (240) – The Hostile Exoplanet Edition

“It’s true, it’s true. All these things happen, all these things happen in real life. In reality,” Paulina, a fan of Ghanaian movies, told me at the beginning of my research on Ghana’s emergent local film industry in the fall of 1996. I was struck by depictions of the hidden operations of occult powers that also were at the center of testimonies and sermons in the phenomenally popular Pentecostal churches. Paulina’s point that Ghanaian films (click on the image to read the full article).

Early in “Your Name,” the anime blockbuster that’s conquered Japan, China, and the rest of Asia, a high-school girl named Mitsuha performs a ritual dance at her family’s Shinto shrine. Dressed in the red and white costume of a Miko shrine maiden, she and a partner pose and twirl, punctuating the (click on the image to read the full article).

Alphabet Inc’s YouTube said on Thursday it would place ads on videos only if they reach 10,000 views as it tries to weed out channels that make money by stealing content from other sources.

The video streaming service also said once a video channel crosses the threshold, it would review the content to see if it qualifies for (click on the image to read the full article).

Startlingly green hills, surging rivers and the snow-wrapped Sierra Nevada had already signaled what Gov. Jerry Brown made official on Friday: The long California drought is over. (Click on the image to read the full article).

It stands to reason that our best hope of finding life as we know it on a planet beyond our solar system would require an atmosphere like the one that keeps us from receiving a lethal dose of (click on the image to read the full article).

Trees need water throughout their bodies, from the depths of the roots to the tips of their leaves, sometimes tens of meters above the ground. So how do they manage to get the water up there?

To begin with, in the general case tree roots usually have higher concentrations of minerals than the soil that surrounds them. This causes root pressure, a phenomenon whereby the (click on the image to read the full article).

In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum sat in MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a room crowded less by people than hulking frames of computer hardware.

Before him was a teleprinter, an electronic typewriter that displays both input and output — a paper computer display. Weizenbaum put his fingers to the keys and typed “I am very unhappy these days.” He waited for a response. (click on the image to read the full article).

The shot came in the bottom of the second inning of Tebow’s first game with the New York Mets’ low-A affiliate, and came on the heels of a spring training performance during which he struggled in Grapefruit League exhibitions (Click on the image to read the full article).

King, the developer behind Candy Crush Saga, is working on a Call of Duty game for mobile. Describing the project as part of a job listing for the company’s Stockholm studio, King said it will “strive to transform the best console experience fans know and love, while (click on the image to read the full article).