Author name: Kris Guyer

polestar-ceo-says-the-brand’s-tech-makes-the-us-a-“great-market-for-us”

Polestar CEO says the brand’s tech makes the US a “great market for us”

Cars, Polestar / /

Being an EV-only brand in 2025 looks to be a harder job than once anticipated, and for Polestar that’s doubly hard given the company is owned by China’s Geely, and therefore highly exposed to a string of recent protectionist moves by the US Congress and successive administrations to limit US exposure to Chinese automakers and their suppliers.

Lohscheller didn’t sound particularly pessimistic when we spoke earlier this week, though. “The US in general is a big market in terms of size. I think customers like emission-free mobility. They like also technology. And I think Polestar is much more than just [an] EV. We have so much technology in the cars,” he said.

Referring to the Polestar 3, “It’s the first European Software Defined vehicle, right? So not only can we do the over-the-air bit, we can make the car better every day. And I mean, the German OEMs come probably in four years’ time,” Lohscheller said.

As for the new landscape of tariffs and software bans? “I always think it’s important to have clarity on things,” he said. Now that the impending ban on Chinese connected-car software is on the books, Polestar has begun looking for new suppliers for its US-bound cars to ensure they’re compliant when it goes into effect sometime next year.

“But our US strategy is very clear. We manufacture locally here. That makes a lot of sense. I think we have great products for the US market… I see a renaissance of the dealers. Many people are saying ‘direct [sales] is the way to go, that’s the solution of everything.’ I don’t think it is. It is an option, an alternative, but I think dealers, being close to your customers, offer the service, and we have an excellent network here,” he said.

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drones-are-now-launching-drones-to-attack-other-drones-in-ukraine

Drones are now launching drones to attack other drones in Ukraine

culture, Drones, Ukraine, war / /

Radio mast

The Ukrainian military is talking up a new ground drone called the Pliushch, which doesn’t carry a weapon but instead features a folded, 10-meter (32-foot) tall radio mast. The drone has a range of 40 km (25 miles), and once in position, it can raise the radio mast, which can be used either as a communications repeater or as a mobile electronic warfare station.

The future of drone combat

These examples are really just a partial list—it doesn’t even touch on the continually updated naval drones that Ukraine continues to deploy in the Black Sea—and for every new innovation, there will shortly be a counter-innovation. Case in point: electronic warfare has now saturated front-line combat areas in Ukraine and Russia and, in some places, is so bad that fiber optic drones are now used to avoid its effects. (These drones unspool miles of ultra-thin fiber-optic cable behind them as they fly, which provides a high-quality, unjammable video and control channel to the drone.)

Because fiber optic drones lack the electromagnetic transmissions that can make drones easy to pinpoint, new methods (including short-range radar systems) are now used to hunt them down, while quick-reaction units will use small attack drones to hit the fiber optic drone before it reaches its target.

Given the many kinds of drone hardware available, you might wonder why more assaults don’t rely on machines rather than humans. Now that ground drones are entering the fight in greater numbers, this does appear to be happening. For instance, local news reports from Ukraine in December described how the Khartia brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard attacked Russian positions using only a mix of machine gun ground drones, aerial attack drones, and mine-laying/clearing drones.

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framework-laptop’s-risc-v-board-for-open-source-diehards-is-available-for-$199

Framework Laptop’s RISC-V board for open source diehards is available for $199

framework laptop, framework laptop 13, Tech / /

We’ve covered the Framework Laptop 13 primarily as a consumer Windows laptop, reviewing versions with multiple Intel and AMD processors. But the system’s modular nature makes it possible to expand it beyond Windows PC hardware, as we’ve seen with experiments like the (now-discontinued) Chromebook Edition of the laptop.

Today Framework is expanding to something even more experimental: a DeepComputing RISC-V Mainboard targeted primarily at developers. RISC-V is a fully open source and royalty-free instruction set, making it possible for anyone to adopt and use it without having to license it (unlike x86, which is a maze of cross-licensed Intel and AMD technologies that other companies can’t really buy into; or Arm, which is licensed by the company of the same name).

First announced in June 2024, the board is available to order today for $199. The board is designed to fit in a Framework Laptop 13 chassis, which means that people who would prefer a desktop can also put it into the $39 Cooler Master Mainboard Case that Framework offers.

Made in concert with DeepComputing, the board uses a StarFive JH7110 processor with four 1.5 GHz SiFive U74 CPU cores. The board can officially run either Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or Fedora 41, with tech support provided by DeepComputing.

The RISC-V board isn’t being offered in a pre-built laptop, but Framework is also introducing a barebones boardless $399 laptop chassis with a screen, 55 WHr battery, speakers, and a keyboard for $399. It can be used for the RISC-V Mainboard or any other Framework Laptop 13 motherboard model.

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the-mercedes-amg-gt-63-s-e-performance-is-quite-a-name,-quite-a-car

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance is quite a name, quite a car

car review, Cars, Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance four-door / /

The powertrain has been tuned for power delivery, not maximum efficiency—that isn’t the job of a car wearing the AMG badge—and has an almost-dizzying amount of drive modes, suspension settings, and levels of battery regeneration, all configurable from Mercedes’ flat UI infotainment system that can be a little busy to look at but which remains very intuitive (and comes with rather excellent voice recognition). In fact, this might be the least-distracting implementation of MBUX I’ve encountered so far.

When you first start the AMG GT 63 S, it defaults to electric mode, as long as the battery has some charge in it. Top speed is capped at 87 mph (140 km/h), and the electric motor has more than enough torque to make using this mode perfectly pleasant. Your neighbors will appreciate the silence as you leave in the morning, too. There are three levels of lift-off regen, up to the highest setting, which is a one-pedal driving mode.

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S engine bay. Jonathan Gitlin

Comfort fires up the V8 as necessary but will defer to the electric motor whenever possible. It upshifts the nine-speed transmission early, and with the dampers set to Comfort as well, this is the mode you’d use with passengers on board. Because the car is meant to be a performance hybrid, the powertrain will use spare engine power to recharge the battery pack whenever it can and will fully charge the pack in about 30 minutes of driving.

One mode maintains the battery’s state of charge, another is for slippery conditions, and then there’s Sport, Sport+, and Race. These offer escalating levels of performance, with more boost from the electric motor supplementing the raucous V8, faster shift times from the transmission, sharper throttle maps, and more regenerative braking. Finally, there’s an individual mode for you to pick your own settings.

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gecko-feet-inspire-anti-slip-shoe-soles

Gecko feet inspire anti-slip shoe soles

biomimicry, chemistry, friction, geckos, polymers, Science / /

Just add zirconia nanoparticles…

diagram of wet ice's quasi slippery layer and design of anti-slip shoe soles inspired by gecko and toad foot pads

Credit: V. Richhariya et al., 2025

It’s the “hydrophilic capillary-enhanced adhesion”of gecko feet that most interested the authors of this latest paper. Per the World Health Organization, 684,000 people die and another 38 million are injured every year in slips and falls, with correspondingly higher health care costs. Most antislip products (crampons, chains, studs, cleats), tread designs, or materials (fiberglass, carbon fiber, rubber) are generally only effective for specific purposes or short periods of time. And they often don’t perform as well on wet ice, which has a nanoscale quasi-liquid layer (QLL) that makes it even more slippery.

So Vipin Richhariya of the University of Minho in Portugal and co-authors turned to gecko toe pads (as well as those of toads) for a better solution. To get similar properties in their silicone rubber polymers, they added zirconia nanoparticles, which attract water molecules. The polymers were rolled into a thin film and hardened, and then a laser etched groove patterns onto the surface—essentially creating micro cavities that exposed the zirconia nanoparticles, thus enhancing the material’s hydrophilic effects.

Infrared spectroscopy and simulated friction tests revealed that the composites containing 3 percent and 5 percent zirconia nanoparticles were the most slip-resistant. “This optimized composite has the potential to change the dynamics of slip-and-fall accidents, providing a nature-inspired solution to prevent one of the most common causes of accidents worldwide,” the authors concluded. The material could also be used for electronic skin, artificial skin, or wound healing.

DOI: ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2025. 10.1021/acsami.4c14496  (About DOIs).

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Concern about SpaceX influence at NASA grows with new appointee

jared isaacman, NASA, Space, spacex / /

Like a lot of the rest of the federal government right now, NASA is reeling during the first turbulent days of the Trump administration.

The last two weeks have brought a change in leadership in the form of interim administrator Janet Petro, whose ascension was a surprise. Her first act was to tell agency employees to remove diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility contracts and to “report” on anyone who did not carry out this order. Soon, civil servants began receiving emails from the US Office of Personnel Management that some perceived as an effort to push them to resign.

Then there are the actions of SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Last week he sowed doubt by claiming NASA had “stranded” astronauts on the space station. (The astronauts are perfectly safe and have a ride home.) Perhaps more importantly, he owns the space agency’s most important contractor and, in recent weeks, has become deeply enmeshed in operating the US government through his Department of Government Efficiency. For some NASA employees, whether or not it is true, there is now an uncomfortable sense that they are working for Musk and to dole out contracts to SpaceX.

This concern was heightened late Friday when Petro announced that a longtime SpaceX employee named Michael Altenhofen had joined the agency “as a senior advisor to the NASA Administrator.” Altenhofen is an accomplished engineer who interned at NASA in 2005 but has spent the last 15 years at SpaceX, most recently as a leader of human spaceflight programs. He certainly brings expertise, but his hiring also raises concerns about SpaceX’s influence over NASA operations. Petro did not respond to a request for comment on Monday about potential conflicts of interest and the scope of Altenhofen’s involvement.

I spent this weekend talking and texting with NASA sources at various centers around the country, and the overriding message is that morale at the agency is “absurdly low.” Meetings between civil servants and their leadership, such as an all-hands gathering at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia recently, have been fraught with tension. No one knows what will happen next.

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“zero-warnings”:-longtime-youtuber-rails-against-unexplained-channel-removal

“Zero warnings”: Longtime YouTuber rails against unexplained channel removal

censorship, content moderation, deceptive content, online bans, Policy, spam, youtube / /

Artemiy Pavlov, the founder of a small but mighty music software brand called Sinesvibes, spent more than 15 years building a YouTube channel with all original content to promote his business’ products. Over all those years, he never had any issues with YouTube’s automated content removal system—until Monday, when YouTube, without issuing a single warning, abruptly deleted his entire channel.

“What a ‘nice’ way to start a week!” Pavlov posted on Bluesky. “Our channel on YouTube has been deleted due to ‘spam and deceptive policies.’ Which is the biggest WTF moment in our brand’s history on social platforms. We have only posted demos of our own original products, never anything else….”

Officially, YouTube told Pavlov that his channel violated YouTube’s “spam, deceptive practices, and scam policy,” but Pavlov could think of no videos that might be labeled as violative.

“We have nothing to hide,” Pavlov told Ars, calling YouTube’s decision to delete the channel with “zero warnings” a “terrible, terrible day for an independent, honest software brand.”

“We have never been involved with anything remotely shady,” Pavlov said. “We have never taken a single dollar dishonestly from anyone. And we have thousands of customers that stand by our brand.”

Ars saw Pavolov’s post and reached out to YouTube to find out why the channel was targeted for takedown. About three hours later, the channel was suddenly restored. That’s remarkably fast, as YouTube can sometimes take days or weeks to review an appeal. A YouTube spokesperson later confirmed that the Sinesvibes channel was reinstated due to the regular appeals process, indicating perhaps that YouTube could see that Sinesvibes’ removal was an obvious mistake.

Developer calls for more human review

For small brands like Sinesvibes, even spending half a day in limbo was a cause for crisis. Immediately, the brand worried about 50 broken product pages for one of its distributors, as well as “hundreds if not thousands of news articles posted about our software on dozens of different websites.” Unsure if the channel would ever be restored, Sinesvibes spent most of Monday surveying the damage.

Now that the channel is restored, Pavlov is stuck confronting how much of the Sinesvibes brand depends on the YouTube channel remaining online while still grappling with uncertainty since the reason behind the ban remains unknown. He told Ars that’s why, for small brands, simply having a channel reinstated doesn’t resolve all their concerns.

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treasury-official-retires-after-clash-with-doge-over-access-to-payment-system

Treasury official retires after clash with DOGE over access to payment system

department of government efficiency, elon musk, Policy / /

“This is a mechanical job—they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,” Mazur was quoted as saying. “It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda… You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.”

The Trump administration previously issued an order to freeze funding for a wide range of government programs, but rescinded the order after two days of protest and a judge’s ruling that temporarily blocked the funding freeze.

Trump ordered cooperation with DOGE

The Trump executive order establishing DOGE took the existing United States Digital Service and renamed it the United States DOGE Service. It’s part of the Executive Office of the President and is tasked with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”

Trump’s order said that federal agencies will have to collaborate with DOGE. “Among other things, the USDS Administrator shall work with Agency Heads to promote inter-operability between agency networks and systems, ensure data integrity, and facilitate responsible data collection and synchronization,” the order said. “Agency Heads shall take all necessary steps, in coordination with the USDS Administrator and to the maximum extent consistent with law, to ensure USDS has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems. USDS shall adhere to rigorous data protection standards.”

The Post writes that “Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the US government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources, and the General Services Administration.”

On Thursday, Musk visited the General Services Administration headquarters in Washington, DC, The New York Times reported. The Department of Government Efficiency’s account on X stated earlier this week that the GSA had “terminated three leases of mostly empty office space” for a savings of $1.6 million and that more cuts are planned. In another post, DOGE claimed it “is saving the Federal Government approx. $1 billion/day, mostly from stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations, all consistent with the President’s Executive Orders.”

“Mr. Musk’s visit to the General Services Administration could presage more cost-cutting efforts focused on federal real estate,” the Times wrote. “The agency also plays a role in federal contracting and in providing technology services across the federal government.”

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Driving the Ford Mustang Dark Horse R makes every other pony feel tame

Cars, Ford Mustang, Ford Performance / /

The steering wheel is track-spec, too, a Sparco steering wheel that replaces the big, leather-wrapped one in the road car. Behind that, the 12.4-inch digital gauge cluster is gone. A MoTeC display instead stands proud, the sort that you’d expect to find in a real race car, which this, of course, very much is.

Credit: Tim Stevens

It surely shifts like a race car, with linkage connected to an upright plastic shift knob. It offers no semblance of padding and communicates everything that’s happening in the transmission through your fingertips, though the clutch action is far lighter than the one on your average track toy. This made it a breeze to swing out of the pit lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway, far easier than the hair-trigger clutch on most track-only machines.

The shift action is delightfully short, too, and though that MoTeC gauge cluster had a sweeping tachometer running across the top, I didn’t need it. The sound of that Coyote and the way it shook my core made it pretty clear when it was time to grab another gear.

I did a lot of running up and down those gears as I swung the Dark Horse R through the twisty infield at Charlotte, gradually gaining confidence in pushing the car and its Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires a bit more. As I began to feel the limits, it was pretty clear that the car’s manually adjustable Multimatic DSSV suspension and alignment had been configured in a very safe way.

When I cranked that Sparco steering wheel over aggressively mid-turn, the car just fell into terminal understeer, patiently plowing straight ahead until I wound back to a more reasonable steering angle. Given that this Mustang has neither traction nor stability control, with 500 hp going straight through the limited-slip rear differential and to the road with no digital abatement, that was probably for the best, especially because I had just a handful of laps to get comfortable.

The back half of a Ford Mustang Dark Horse R

Credit: Tim Stevens

Needless to say, the experience left me wanting more. Buyers of this $145,000 track toy are in for a real treat, especially those lucky enough to compete in the race series. The Mustang Dark Horse R gives all the right feels and experience of a proper racing machine like the GT3 or GT4 flavors, but at a much more attainable cost. It’s familiar enough to be manageable but still unbridled enough to deliver the proper experience that any would-be racer wants.

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stem-cells-used-to-partially-repair-damaged-hearts

Stem cells used to partially repair damaged hearts

Biology, heart disease, heart musle, medicine, Science, stem cells / /

When we developed the ability to convert various cells into a stem cell, it held the promise of an entirely new type of therapy. Rather than getting the body to try to fix itself with its cells or deal with the complications of organ transplants, we could convert a few adult cells to stem cells and induce them to form any tissue in the body. We could potentially repair or replace tissues with an effectively infinite supply of a patient’s own cells.

However, the Nobel Prize for induced stem cells was handed out over a decade ago, and the therapies have been slow to follow. But a group of German researchers is now describing tests in primates of a method of repairing the heart using new muscle generated from stem cells. The results are promising, if not yet providing everything that we might hope for. But they’ve been enough to start clinical trials, and similar results are being seen in humans.

Heart problems

The heart contains a lot of specialized tissues, including those that form blood vessels or specialize in conducting electrical signals. But the key to the heart is a form of specialized muscle cell, called a cardiomyocyte. Once the heart matures, the cardiomyocytes stop dividing, meaning that you end up with a fixed population. Any damage to the heart due to injury or infection does not get repaired, meaning damage will be cumulative.

This is especially problematic in cases of blocked blood vessels, which can repeatedly starve large areas of the heart of oxygen and nutrients, killing the cardiomyocytes there. This leads to a reduction in cardiac function and can ultimately result in death.

It turns out, however, that it’s relatively easy to convert induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC, with pluripotent meaning they can form any cell type). So researchers tried injecting these stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes into damaged hearts in experimental animals, in the hope that they would be incorporated into the damaged tissue. But these experiments didn’t always provide clear benefits to the animals.

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trump-executive-order-calls-for-a-next-generation-missile-defense-shield

Trump executive order calls for a next-generation missile defense shield

military space, missile defense, Science, Space, space force, space policy / /

One of the new Trump administration’s first national security directives aims to defend against missile and drone attacks targeting the United States, and several elements of the plan require an expansion of the US military’s presence in space, the White House announced Monday.

For more than 60 years, the military has launched reconnaissance, communications, and missile warning satellites into orbit. Trump’s executive order calls for the Pentagon to come up with a design architecture, requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield within 60 days.

A key tenet of Trump’s order is to develop and deploy space-based interceptors capable of destroying enemy missiles during their initial boost phase shortly after launch.

“The United States will provide for the common defense of its citizens and the nation by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield,” the order reads. “The United States will deter—and defend its citizens and critical infrastructure against—any foreign aerial attack on the homeland.”

The White House described the missile defense shield as an “Iron Dome for America,” referring to the name of Israel’s regional missile defense system. While Israel’s Iron Dome is tailored for short-range missiles, the White House said the US version will guard against all kinds of airborne attacks.

What does the order actually say?

Trump’s order is prescriptive in what to do, but it leaves the implementation up to the Pentagon. The White House said the military’s plan must defend against many types of aerial threats, including ballistic, hypersonic, and advanced cruise missiles, plus “other next-generation aerial attacks,” a category that appears to include drones and shorter-range unguided missiles.

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a-telltale-toilet-reveals-“lost”-site-shown-in-bayeux-tapestry

A telltale toilet reveals “lost” site shown in Bayeux Tapestry

Archaeology, Science / /

Seats of power

The Bayeux Tapestry, showing King Harold riding to Bosham, where he attends church and feasts in a hall, before departing for France. The Society of Antiquaries of London

According to Creighton and his co-authors, there has been quite a lot of research on castles, which dominated aristocratic sites in England after the Norman Conquest. That event “persists as a deep schism that continues to be seen as the watershed moment after which elites finally tapped into the European mainstream of castle construction,” they wrote. The study of residences (or “lordly enclaves”) has been more peripheral, yet the authors argue that up until 1066, aristocrats and rulers like King Harold invested heavily in residences, often co-located with churches and chapels.

The “Where Power Lies” project employed a wide range of research methodology—including perusing old maps and records, a re-analysis of past excavations, geophysics, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), and photogrammatic modeling—to define the signatures of such enclaves and map them into a single geographic information database (GIS). The project has identified seven such “lordly centers,” two of which are discussed in the current paper: an early medieval enclosure at Hornby in North Yorkshire and Bosham in West Sussex.

It has long been suspected that one particular manor house in Bosham (now a private residence) stands on the site of what was once King Harold’s residence. Per the authors, the original residence was clearly connected with Holy Trinity Church just to the south, parts of which date back to the 11th century, as evidenced by the posthole remains of what was once a bridge or causeway. More evidence can be found in a structure known as the “garden ruin,” little of which survives above ground—and even that was heavily overgrown. GPR data showed buried features that would have been the eastern wall of King Harold’s lordly enclave.

The biggest clue was the discovery in 2006 of a latrine within the remains of a large timber building. Its significance was not recognized at the time, but archaeologists have since determined that high-status homes began integrating latrines in the 10th century, so the structure was most likely part of King Harold’s residence. Co-author Duncan Wright of Newcastle University believes this “Anglo-Saxon en suite,” along with all the other evidence, proves “beyond all reasonable doubt that we have here the location of Harold Godwinson’s private power center, the one famously depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry.”

DOI: The Antiquaries Journal, 2025. 10.1017/S0003581524000350  (About DOIs).

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