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Raducanu withdrew from the Berlin Open this week as she continues to manage back pain after a spasm. She is due to compete in Eastbourne. But before that was spotted with Myah Petchey

The Reform UK leader was responding to a powerful article in the Daily Mail by Sir Jeremy Hunt, who was Health Secretary when the babies died at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

ScienceAlert reports: Casino lighting could be nudging gamblers to be more reckless with their money, according to a new study, which found a link between blue-enriched light and riskier gambling behavior. The extra blue light emitted by casino decor and LED screens seems to trigger certain switches in our brains, making us less sensitive to financial losses compared to gains of equal magnitude, researchers from Flinders University and Monash University in Australia found... The researchers think circadian photoreception, which is our non-visual response to light, is playing a part here. The level of blue spectrum light may be activating specific eye cells connected to brain regions in charge of decision-making, emotional regulation, and processing risk versus reward scenarios. "Under conditions where the lighting emitted less blue, people tended to feel a $100 loss much more strongly than a $100 gain — the loss just feels worse," [says the study's lead author, a psychologist at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute]. "But under bright, blue-heavy light such as that seen in casino machines, the $100 loss didn't appear to feel as bad, so people were more willing to take the risk...." That raises some questions around ethics and responsibility, according to the researchers. While encouraging risk taking might be good for the gambling business, it's not good for the patrons spending their cash. One professor involved in the study reached this conclusion. "It is possible that simply dimming the blue in casino lights could help promote safer gambling behaviors." The research has been published in Scientific Reports. Thanks to Slashdot reader alternative_right for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tributes have been paid to a police officer who died while on duty.

The former ITN News At Ten anchor has described how the terrifying assault - which took place on busy Piccadilly in Central London - left her 'shattered and traumatised'.

Rhian welcomed George, her first child, with her husband Oliver Mellor in April last year.

After a two-year-long engagement, Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez are due to get married in Venice, Italy.

EastEnders' have confirmed a fan favourite is returning to the BBC soap after eight-years away from Albert Square

Lending money to the Government by buying its 'gilts' direct is seen as a low-risk and lucrative earner by investors. Here's what you need to know.

BlueSky has grown from roughly 10 million users in early November to 36.79 million today — and its last 30 days of traffic looks very level. But instead of calling BlueSky's traffic "level", right-leaning libertarian Megan McArdle argues instead that BlueSky's "decline shows no sign of leveling out" (comparing the stable figures from the last month to a one-time spike seven months ago so they can write "It's now down about 50 percent"). And Wednesday the conservative UK magazine Spectator also ignored the 30-day-leveling to write instead that BlueSky is somehow "sliding down a slope". But TechCrunch thinks the "up or down" conversation is entirely missing the point of "the wider network of apps built on the open protocol that Bluesky's team spearheaded" — and how BlueSky "is only meant to be one example of what's possible within the wider AT Proto ecosystem." If you don't like the tone of the topics trending on Bluesky, you can switch to other apps, change your default feeds, or even build your own social platform using the technology. Already, people are using the protocol that powers Bluesky to build social experiences for specific groups — like Blacksky is doing for the Black online community or like Gander Social is doing for social media users in Canada. There are also feed builders like Graze and those in Surf that let you create custom feeds where you can focus on specific content you care about — like video games or baseball — and exclude others, like politics. Built into Bluesky (and other third-party clients) are tools that let you pick your default feed and add others that interest you from a range of topics. If you want to follow a feed devoted to your favorite TV show or animal, for instance, you can. In other words, Bluesky is meant to be what you make it, and its content can be consumed in whatever format you prefer best. In addition to Bluesky itself, the wider network of apps built on the AT Protocol includes photo- and video-sharing apps, livestreaming tools, communication apps, blogging apps, music apps, movie and TV recommendation apps, and more. Other tools also let you combine feeds from Bluesky with other social networks. Openvibe, for instance, can mix together feeds from social networks like Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Nostr. Apps like Surf and Tapestry offer ways to track posts on open social platforms as well as those published with other open protocols like RSS. This lets the apps pull in content from blogs, news sites, YouTube, and podcasts. Even just considering BlueSky itself, three weeks ago Fast Company pointed out that BlueSky "grew from 11 million users to 25 million between late October and mid-December, but has added only about 10 million more since then." So how is a 10-million user increase "dying"? For a social network, being prematurely written off is a rite of passage. It's even a compliment of sorts — a sign that people are paying attention and care... When I chatted with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber this week, I wasn't surprised that she didn't seem fazed by the debate on her platform and saw the parallels with early-days Twitter. "Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated," she told me. "It's a similar thing, because with social sites, it's not straight up all the time. [Growth] comes in waves, and at each stage, there's a new era of communities being established and formed. We're still seeing a lot of community formation, and one of the most exciting things is how structurally different this is. It's not just another social site that has to be a singular winner-take-all in an ecosystem with existing incumbents...." One other challenge that Bluesky has not yet fully confronted is monetizing itself. Onstage at Web Summit, Graber emphasized that it's working on subscription services, a healthier revenue source than stuffing feeds with ads, though potentially a tougher one to scale up to sustainability. The company announced a $15 million Series A funding round last October. But again, the point isn't BlueSky's increasing user count or its stablizing levels of Daily Unique "Likers" — but its underlying open source protocol: [S]he was at her most passionate when discussing the company's aspiration to decentralize social networking via its open AT Protocol. It powers Bluesky — and variants such as the Pinksky photo-sharing app, which she praised onstage — but could also provide the infrastructure for further-flung social experiences. Maybe even ones catering to folks who have zero interest in participating in the Bluesky community. "The goal is to really get through that this is a Choose Your Own Adventure and Bluesky's just the beginning," she says. "The sky's the limit." Whether she'll fulfill her grandest ambitions, I'm not sure. But I already like this era of social networking better than the one when a handful of winners really did take all.

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He has argued that with 'an epidemic of cheating' triggered by AI, a handwritten essay is the surest test of ability.

The Royal London policy was set up to financially protect the family if Ryan suffered a serious illness such a heart attack, cancer or stroke.

The astrologer, who goes by the name Astro Sharmistha on social media, tweeted earlier this year that 'air accidents will be more in numbers' until June.

From Hollywood royalty to top CEOs to political figures, here's who will be in attendance when the billionaire, 61, says 'I do' to the glamorous former news anchor, 55, next week.

The Amazon founder, welcomed four children with his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, whom he married in 1993. Here's everything we know about both his and Lauren's kids ahead of their wedding.

Following similar calls from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, Sir Keir Starmer said today it was 'not appropriate' for the Irish rappers to perform at the festival.

Kam Zaki, 47, was one of the 1,800 commuters who were stranded on the Thameslink services which had passengers feeling like they were being 'slow cooked' in 'an oven'.

Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom are reportedly set to have serious conversations about the state of their relationship.

Courtney Murley posted a video detailing how to avoid paying for a costly drinks package on a cruise.

A teen was served instant karma as he was forced to quickly flee after hurling chairs at two restaurant workers as a gang of 30 teens watched on.