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Starship joue gros cette nuit : SpaceX tente plusieurs premières qui peuvent changer la suite

Cette nuit, Starship 13 devra réussir là où le vol précédent a vacillé. SpaceX joue bien plus qu’un simple essai : ce qui se passera dans les prochaines minutes pourrait décider de la suite de son programme le plus ambitieux.

Microglia Shape Developing Cortical Blood Vessels via PD-1 Signaling

16 July 2026 at 14:03

New blood vessels flood the developing brain, then must be sculpted into a functional network. In the cortex, this pruning depends on selective elimination of redundant connections, but the cellular command center behind vascular refinement has remained only partly understood. A new study now points to microglia—the brain’s immune sentinels—as active architects of cerebrovascular pruning during postnatal development.

Using live visualization in the frontal cortex of postnatal day 11 mice, researchers tracked how microglia behave around forming blood vessels. They observed that microglia do not merely associate with vasculature; instead, they progressively migrate toward vessels as development proceeds. As vessel remodeling advances, microglia become enriched at sites where pruning occurs, suggesting a causal role rather than passive surveillance.

To test function, the team manipulated microglia–vessel interactions and assessed vascular outcomes. Intervening in microglial activity altered the extent of vessel elimination, consistent with the idea that microglia mediate pruning to refine the emerging vascular map. The results connect microglial behavior directly to the efficiency and organization of the developing cortical circulation.

Central to the mechanism is an immune signaling pathway previously linked to neuronal synaptic refinement: PD-L1 and its receptor PD-1. The study identifies PD-L1–PD-1 signaling as a regulator of microglia-driven vascular pruning. When this axis was disrupted, pruning was impaired, indicating that immune checkpoint-like communication can shape vascular architecture in the developing brain.

The authors further implicate a specific molecular source from microglia. They report that microglial CD5L secretion promotes the PD-1–dependent pruning program. In other words, microglia release CD5L, engage PD-1 signaling through PD-L1 interactions, and thereby influence which vessels persist and which are eliminated.

Collectively, the work reframes cerebrovascular pruning as a neuroimmune-guided developmental process. By showing that microglia actively target redundant vasculature and by defining a PD-L1–PD-1/CD5L pathway, the study provides mechanistic evidence for how immune cells can tune vascular networks to match developing brain circuitry.

Beyond development, the findings raise broader questions about whether similar immune checkpoint signaling contributes to abnormal vascular remodeling in disease, where pruning can be either excessive or insufficient. For now, the study delivers a clear developmental role: microglia help determine what the brain keeps growing and what it discards.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02378-x

Article Title: Microglia prune developing cortical blood vessels through PD-1 signaling.

Article References: Zhang, M., Wang, Y., Yang, R. et al. Microglia prune developing cortical blood vessels through PD-1 signaling. Nat Neurosci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02378-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

Hundreds rally at Bethesda HQ to protest Xbox layoffs, and Ars was there

15 July 2026 at 23:36

ROCKVILLE, Maryland—Hundreds of Bethesda Game Studios and Zenimax Online Studios employees and their supporters braved nearly 100°F temperatures to protest sweeping layoffs across Xbox during a lunchtime rally in front of parent company Zenimax's headquarters today. The rally was one of five organized today by Zenimax Workers United and its parent union, the Communication Workers of America, at offices across Texas, California, and Montreal.

Attendees held up signs with messages like "Layoffs... layoffs never change" and "Our players deserve better" as union organizers and employees rallied the crowd with speeches and songs. The overwhelming message was one of solidarity and a willingness to push back against job cuts they say have decimated their development and quality assurance teams.

"It's about us building our movement and making sure that we get seen and we're visible," Bethesda technical producer and union volunteer organizer Nathan Hahn told Ars. "Because we want to make sure that we're not okay with these layoffs and that Xbox knows."

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Judge: Trump can’t deport researchers just for working in content moderation

15 July 2026 at 22:26

This week, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR) won a key battle in its fight to reverse a visa-restriction policy that the Trump administration had used to attempt to revoke green cards and deport non-US citizens who work on misinformation, disinformation, fact-checking, content moderation, compliance, and trust and safety.

In an opinion published Tuesday, US District Judge James Boasberg granted a preliminary injunction blocking the State Department from enforcing the policy until the CITR’s lawsuit is resolved.

On its face, the policy does not require visa denials or deportations. Instead, it authorizes immigration investigations into individuals suspected of helping foreign adversaries attempt to manipulate public opinion by suppressing US speech.

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© UCG / Contributor | Universal Images Group

Engineer identifies and explains every '90s computer seen in Jurassic Park

15 July 2026 at 22:04

Jurassic Park, while beloved as a film, has been the subject of snarky memes for the infamous line in which one of the characters declares, "This is a Unix system, I know this!" while using a computer with an unusual 3D file manager interface.

Despite the memes, the film's production team was meticulous in accurately sourcing the right PCs (and adjacent details) for the sets—not too much of a surprise, given writer Michael Crichton's background with computing and his obsessive attention to detail in the book the film is based on.

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© Universal Pictures

Engineer identifies and explains every '90s computer seen in Jurassic Park

15 July 2026 at 22:04

Jurassic Park, while beloved as a film, has been the subject of snarky memes for the infamous line in which one of the characters declares, "This is a Unix system, I know this!" while using a computer with an unusual 3D file manager interface.

Despite the memes, the film's production team was meticulous in accurately sourcing the right PCs (and adjacent details) for the sets—not too much of a surprise, given writer Michael Crichton's background with computing and his obsessive attention to detail in the book the film is based on.

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© Universal Pictures

‘What’s the point?’ Teenagers give their verdict on Britain’s social media curfew

15 July 2026 at 17:04

All the young people the Guardian spoke to disagreed with aspects of the government’s proposed block

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds in Britain are to be encouraged to observe a midnight to 6am social media curfew but will be able to opt out by changing their account settings.

From next spring, they will be urged to refrain from using certain apps, with the block being switched on by default. But the curfew will not be mandatory and can be overridden.

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© Photograph: Cultura/Alamy

© Photograph: Cultura/Alamy

© Photograph: Cultura/Alamy

SpaceX Investors Are Lamenting All the Money They’ve Lost

15 July 2026 at 16:53

Shares of Elon Musk’s SpaceX are scraping by at record low levels this week, struggling to find any renewed enthusiasm from wary investors.

The stock is hovering just below $136, a hair above its original IPO price of $135, and well below its opening price of $150 on the day it went public last month. Shares are down almost nine percent over the last five days alone, and are just shy of 40 percent down compared to their all-time high of $225.

The slumping value of Musk’s rocket company has been a brutal wake-up call for some particularly daring investors, who went all in on what many have started to refer to as a “meme stock.” One Reddit user, who leveraged their own Roth IRA by making major calls on SpaceX, wiped out several hundred thousand dollars from their retirement.

The user made several SPCX calls at $160 and $145, decisions that ultimately came back to haunt them.

“So my Roth IRA is down 25 percent, I went and made a few options trades in Robinhood that also went the other way,” the user lamented in the infamous Wall Street Bets subreddit.

The warning signs of a steep market correction were all there. SpaceX went public with an astronomical, multitrillion dollar valuation despite losing billions of dollars a quarter, effectively guaranteeing major volatility. Even members of the Wall Street Bets community, which has a long history of advocating for aggressive trading strategies, were shaking their heads.

“No one could have seen this coming,” one user wrote facetiously.

“Crazy that people knew the insanely bloated valuation but still went long,” another added.

“Musk companies aren’t rational, Tesla has an insanely bloated valuation and is still way too high,” one user argued. “The only winning move is not to play.”

Analysts have long warned that investing in SpaceX is a bet on Musk himself. To make sense of its enormous valuation requires buying into his lofty vision of establishing AI data centers in space and constructing a city on Mars.

As Reuters puts it, SpaceX’s listing has turned into a “confidence test.” Now that shares have plunged below its IPO price, the scales could already be falling from investors’ eyes.

“It raises the narrative that the stock is up on fluff, on speculation, on froth, and not on real fundamentals,” Miller Tabak chief market strategist Matthew Maley told Reuters.

Anybody who bought in early “hoping to ‘make a killing’ will be disappointed,” Carnegie Investment Counsel director of research Greg Halter added.

More on SpaceX shares: SpaceX Stock Plunges to All-Time Low After Competitor Makes Major Leap

The post SpaceX Investors Are Lamenting All the Money They’ve Lost appeared first on Futurism.

On connaît enfin le nom d’un astronome maya : sa signature se cachait sous une formule mathématique

15 July 2026 at 15:35
Ils ont prédit les cycles des planètes, construit des calendriers d’une grande complexité et observé le ciel avec une précision remarquable. Mais leurs noms avaient disparu. Jusqu’à ce qu’une inscription vieille de 1 200 ans révèle enfin l’identité d’un savant maya.

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