Yesterday brought Fortnite's big Star Wars event, which ended up being a bit bigger than players had expected. In addition to the exclusive Rise of Skywalker movie scene, the event brought new Legendary tier Star Wars weapons to the game, crash sites with Stormtrooper bots, new Star Wars challenges, and more. Here's what you need to know.
Venus is an incredibly hot and inhospitable planet that has claimed the lives of several space probes, making it incredibly difficult to study. Despite that, NASA hopes to investigate the planet in the relatively near future in order to better understand its history and what made the planet's environment change so drastically during its life. Balloons may be the key to this mission.
If you rent a movie through Walmart's Vudu video streaming platform, only to change your mind minutes later, the company will now let you undo the purchase and get your money back in the form of credits. There are some restrictions on the new cancellation process, including a time limit on how long users can choose to undo the purchase.
Newly published research links the use of electronic cigarettes and clinical depression, raising questions over the role these devices play in mental health. The researchers behind the study found that heavier vape use was linked to more severe cases of depression, but big questions remain. Though people who are depressed may be more likely to vape, it's also possible that vaping has a negative effect on one's mood.
HBO Max has ordered a television series adaptation of Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, it has been announced. The science fiction novel was published in 1992; the book earned ample critical praise and helped catapult Stephenson's career as a sci-fi writer. The television series based on the book is being developed by Paramount TV -- it'll be a streaming exclusive.
Rising temperatures have impacted various crops around the world, raising concerns about food insecurity and famines in some regions. Though many studies have largely focused on the big cereal crops, a new study warns that climate change also threatens the wild versions of humanity's most commonly consumed cultivated vegetables. Most of these wild relatives aren't stored in gene banks, leaving cultivated veggies at risk of decimation by environmental changes.
As advertised on many posters in the battle royale island, today brings Fortnite's big Star Wars event. This afternoon, players will be able to pile into the Risky Reels in-game theater to watch a scene from the upcoming movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. If you were debating about whether to watch, Epic Games is offering a free perk as a bit of incentive to participate.
Lyft has launched a new relatively inexpensive car rental service that gives its customers an alternative to ordering a ride from a driver. The car rentals are only offered in a couple of big cities at this time; with them, the company says, people have more transportation flexibility for those times they want to take a weekend trip or engage in other travels that aren't restricted to ordering rides.
After dodging a deadly eclipse, NASA's Juno spacecraft made a surprising discovery: there's another cyclone on Jupiter and it's about the size of Texas. The cyclone is located at the planet's south pole, joining another six similar storms all clustered in the region. The cyclone was spotted on November 3 during the spacecraft's 22nd flyby more than three years after the mission launched.
A thief managed to steal the personal banking information belonging to 29,000 Facebook employees, the company has revealed, in an incident that took place last month. This data theft didn't involve hacking into Facebook's system but rather was the result of a person who stole several unencrypted hard drives from a Facebook worker's vehicle. The company alerted its employees in an email sent out on Friday.
Billboard 200, the record chart that ranks the 200 most popular music albums in the US, will start factoring in the number of times a video has been streamed on YouTube and other music streaming services, Billboard has announced. The change will take place on January 3, after which point the new data will have an effect on the Billboard 200 chart's rankings.
During the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium today, researchers highlighted a concerning risk associated with the use of certain hormone pills: greater odds of developing breast cancer. The research dates all the way back to 2002 when a study revealed that taking combination hormone pills featuring both estrogen and progestin as a way to deal with menopause symptoms may have tragic consequences.