Astronomers have identified a potentially habitable rocky planet about 150 light-years away in the Milky Way. The planet, HD 137010 b, was discovered by an international research team led by scientists at the University of Southern Queensland using data from NASA’s retired Kepler Space Telescope. Researchers say the planet is slightly larger than Earth and orbits a Sun-like star, placing it within the star’s so-called habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface. The team estimates that it completes an orbit in roughly one Earth year. However, the planet receives less than a third of the energy from its star than Earth receives from the Sun, making it significantly colder and dimmer. Scientists estimate surface temperatures could be around minus 70 degrees Celsius.
How do you negotiate with kidnappers when you don't know who can be trusted?
By the late 1990s, kidnapping in Mexico was becoming a business. Gangs targeted wealthy families, ransoms climbed into the millions, and corruption ran deep enough that even police protection came with doubts attached.
In Texcoco, just outside Mexico City, abductions happened in broad daylight and negotiations followed a familiar script: pay quickly, follow instructions, ask no questions. If outside help was needed, a call often went out to Nick Brockhausen and Jeff Miller:former Special Forces operatives who had quietly built a second career solving cases governments couldn’t touch. Not hostage negotiators in the traditional sense. They approached kidnappings as intelligence operations, combining negotiation, surveillance, and logistics with a willingness to operate inside legal gray zones.
When one family’s son was taken, and the kidnappers demanded millions delivered through a maze of burner phones, public drop points, and shifting instructions designed to flush out surveillance, Nick and Jeff were called in.
Join Nick Brockhausen and Jeff Miller in this week’s podcast selection, 'Mexican Maneuvers: Poncho And Cisco', as they take on a kidnapping case.
Take on immersive games and challenges at SPYGAMES! Test your team's skills and strategy, compete to climb the leaderboards, and recharge with food and drink in your own private space hosted by a dedicated staff member.
Book your next team social.
Take on immersive games and challenges at SPYGAMES! Test your team's skills and strategy, compete to climb the leaderboards, and recharge with food and drink in your own private space hosted by a dedicated staff member.
Alex Honnold added an unlikely structure to his résumé last weekend: Taipei 101. The climber free soloed the 1,667-foot skyscraper, scaling it without safety equipment in roughly 90 minutes and setting a record for the tallest free solo of a building. The ascent was livestreamed on Netflix, and Honnold capped it with a selfie at the summit.
Honnold reached a wider audience in 2018 with the documentary Free Solo, following his rope-free ascent of El Capitan. Since then, he has continued to tackle famous routes, including Half Dome and Moonlight Buttress. Brain imaging studies have suggested his amygdala shows a dampened response to certain fear stimuli, possibly due to repeated exposure. Now 40 and a father of two, Honnold credits his climbs to obsessive preparation and risk management rather than bravado.
Articles
Spies For Hire
What happens when espionage leaves government service and enters the private market?
A sprawling private intelligence industry now operates alongside official spy agencies, staffed by former soldiers, police officers, and intelligence operatives trained in covert surveillance and analysis. Valued at more than $18 billion worldwide, this shadow sector supports corporate lawsuits, political battles, and discreet investigations far from public view.
Unlike licensed private investigators in much of the US and the Commonwealth, Britain’s private eyes face little formal regulation. Many charge hundreds of pounds per hour, using techniques lifted straight from state tradecraft: long-term surveillance, hidden camera setups disguised as foliage, and digital monitoring designed to quietly gather evidence or apply pressure behind closed doors.
From established firms like Kroll and Hakluyt to more controversial operators linked to political scandals and covert smear campaigns, private spies have quietly embedded themselves in modern power struggles. Discover more private spy agencies for hire in this SPYSCAPE article.
Give your party guests an unforgettable experience designed to engage, entertain, and inspire. Our dedicated staff will be on hand to help, and you'll even get your own private space to celebrate.
Host your birthday at SPYSCAPE or SPYGAMES.
Give your party guests an unforgettable experience designed to engage, entertain, and inspire. Our dedicated staff will be on hand to help, and you'll even get your own private space to celebrate.
Scientists have used data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to produce one of the clearest maps of dark matter to date, offering new clues about how galaxies first took shape. The study, published Monday in Nature Astronomy, focused on a patch of sky in the constellation Sextans, where Webb spent 255 hours imaging nearly 800,000 distant galaxies made of ordinary matter.
Researchers then looked for subtle distortions in the shapes of those galaxies. These warps are caused by gravitational lensing, in which invisible mass bends light as it travels through space. By tracking those distortions, scientists inferred where dark matter must be concentrated, even though it does not emit, absorb, or reflect light.
The resulting map shows dense clumps of dark matter sitting alongside large clusters of galaxies. That alignment supports the idea that dark matter acted as a kind of cosmic framework, pulling ordinary matter into place. Once enough hydrogen and helium collected in those regions, the first stars and galaxies could form, eventually leading to planetary systems like our own. NASA plans to study dark matter’s distribution and behavior in greater detail using the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled for launch no later than May 2027. Find out more about the study here.
Try brain-teasing challenges at SPYSCAPE and pulse-racing fun in SPYGAMES.
.gif?upscale=true&width=1120&upscale=true&name=Newsletter_ads_17s_202511170654_ayxtp-ezgif.com-optimize%20(1).gif)
