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Paramount+ Acquires Rights to 'Blippi' and 'CoComelon' Series
Paramount+ has acquired rights to Moonbug Entertainment shows including series from the 'Blippi' and 'CoComelon' universes.
Trump’s $6 Billion Science Plan Targets AI, Moon and Mars
Trump unveils over $6 billion in science initiatives supporting AI, quantum computing, nuclear-powered Moon and Mars projects, and biomedical research.
Julie Chen Moonves says she was a ‘jerk’ for being ‘pissed off’ about Rick Devens on “Big Brother”
“I was letting my own foolish ego get in the way,” the host admits.
Moonlight Market returns to Frankfort Marina
The Moonlight Market will return to Frankfort for the seventh year from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, according to organizers.
Japan to launch world-first mission to collect samples from Martian moon
Japanese space agency leading five-year mission to Phobos, one of ‘most important unclimbed mountains in the solar system’
Hunter's Moon 2026: All About October's Full Moon And What To Expect Tonight
The title "Hunter's Moon" dates back generations, originating in the Northern Hemisphere because it typically follows the harvest season.
The Moon Is Shrinking, and Scientists Say That Could Be a Problem for NASA
Researchers identified more than 10,000 lunar faults, raising concerns about moonquakes, landslides, and the safety of future lunar missions.
NASA Releases Artemis II Lunar Science Data, Images
NASA’s Artemis II crew traveled around the Moon and back and, along the way, captured stunning imagery and scientific observations of our nearest neighbor.
Moon-Like Madagascar
A bright lens of anorthosite, a rock type prevalent on the lunar surface, is cradled within sheared rocks in the country’s south.
Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo astronauts on the moon, has died
The groundbreaking researcher who helped create the field of software engineering and whose code helped land NASA win the 20th century space race, has died at 90.
"Goodnight Moon" coming to life at Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
FHSAA Open Division projections: Newman football still in after loss
Aquinas, Columbus, West Boca, Chaminade, Miami Central, Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Mooney and First Academy would be in the Open Division after Week 8.
Mars’ North Polar Ice Is Much Cleaner Than Scientists Thought
Beneath the dusty surface of Mars’ north pole, scientists have uncovered surprisingly clean layers of ice that may preserve a hidden record of the planet’s dramatic climate history. Earth maintains a relatively steady posture in space thanks to the gravitational anchor of a massive moon. Mars lacks that stability. Tugged only by two tiny moons,
NASA is searching for hidden caves to build its first Moon base
NASA is preparing for humanity’s first Moon base with three investigations that will hunt for underground shelters, uncover hidden ice, and track dangerous conditions on the lunar surface. The findings could reveal how astronauts can survive and thrive on the Moon while laying the groundwork for future journeys to Mars.
Intel Readies "Moon Lake" and "Wildcat Lake Refresh" Built on 18A Node
Intel is reportedly preparing two new processor SKUs focused on extremely low-power computing. The first, called "Moon Lake," is designed as a pure low-power efficiency (LPE) core SoC. The "Moon Lake" generation features no P-Cores and up to 4 "Darkmont" LPE-Cores on the Intel 18A die. Unlike...
Derby defeat 'one that got away' for Pompey
BBC Radio Solent's Portsmouth commentator Andrew Moon reflects on Pompey's defeat by Southampton in the Championship.
What’s Up: November 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA
I'm Raquel Villanueva from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and that's What's Up this month.
Banana Ball League star Bronny Balholm brings science, kindness and dance to Moon Township school
A Banana Ball star and aerospace engineer showed Moon Township students how baseball connects to physics and why a little positivity can go a long way.
Maresca's big test is to address mounting Man City issues
Enzo Maresca enjoyed a flawless start as Manchester City manager, winning his first seven Premier League games in charge, but the honeymoon period is now over.
Anthropic joins ARPA-H clinical AI moonshot, will hold closed-door health care event
In this edition of STAT Health Tech: Oura delays IPO plans, Anthropic joins an clinical AI effort by ARPA-H, and MAHA's health data goals.
Artemis II crew describes yellow and green hues on the Moon’s surface
Artemis II astronauts reported yellow, green, brown, blue and beige hues on the Moon during an April flyby, according to a preliminary NASA report.
Salt crystals could hold clues to life beneath Enceladus's ice
The ocean beneath Saturn's moon Enceladus lies under kilometers of ice, but some of its contents do reach the surface. Jets near the south pole spray out water vapor and icy particles, offering a way ...
Health care aide charged in assault of disabled resident at Halfmoon facility
A Schenectady woman working as a health care aide has been charged after State Police said a disabled resident was assaulted at a Halfmoon care facility.
Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the moon, dies at 90
Pioneering computer scientist led the development of the software for Nasa's Apollo mission and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Turkey signed US-led Artemis Accords. Its moon rovers will hitch a ride with China
Turkish scientists come up with rovers for China’s Chang’e-8 mission to the lunar south pole, months after Ankara joined the accords.
NASA develops batteries to power humanity's return to moon
If you've ever had your car start sluggishly, or not at all, on a particularly frigid winter morning, you know standard batteries do not like extreme cold. That's why NASA researchers are working to develop ...
World's first round-trip mission to Mars has launched — why it could be a 'transformative leap' for science
The Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, which launched from Japan on Oct. 19, is on its way to Mars. When it arrives, the probe will attempt to land on one of the Red Planet's twin moons and scoop up rocks to bring back to Earth. Experts tell Live Science what these "transformative" samples could teach us.
Artemis II results show how much science people can do at the moon
We’ve studied the moon with robotic spacecraft for decades. What do human observers add? Artemis II’s first science results offer some answers.
Immersive "Goodnight Moon" exhibit coming to Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
West Virginia hemp business facing closure if new federal rules take effect
Over the past three and a half years, Moon Flower Hemp has become a staple of downtown Buckhannon, serving various cannabis products to adults from across West Virginia and beyond. However, decisio…
Sportico Transactions: Moves and Mergers Roundup for Oct. 9
Welcome to Sportico’s transactions wire, a weekly rundown of personnel, partnerships, products and purchases across the sports business industry. PERSONNEL X Games Appoints Sports Steve Rogers as Chief Operating Officer X Games has named sports and entertainment executive Steve Rogers as chief operating officer, as the company continues the expansion of the MoonPay X Games …
How Enceladus' ocean spray becomes chemically diverse ice grains
Saturn's icy moon Enceladus hides a global ocean beneath its frozen surface. From fractures near its south pole, material from this ocean is ejected into space as a plume of water vapor and ice particles. ...
Ranked among America’s best science museums in 2026: NASA’s visitor center in Houston lets you touch a real Moon rock and step inside a Space Shuttle replica
Space Center Houston: the NASA science museum where Moon rocks, spacecraft and Candlelight concerts bring space history to life.
Artemis II geologist talks historic lunar science mission
Megan Borel, a geologist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Artemis II lunar science team, delivered a talk titled “The Moon Joy of Artemis” hosted by the departments of geology and physics Oct. 29 in Fowler Hall. Geology professor Nikki Seymour said she knew Borel previously and organized the talk. Seymour said her […]
NASA selects three new science investigations for Moon Base
NASA has selected three new scientific investigations and their payload suites aimed at expanding knowledge of the Moon and supporting planning for a lunar outpost it refers to as “Moon Base”.
AI Cloning Threatens To End Public Playtests For Video Games
Moonlighter dev Digital Sun has cancelled plans for a public playtest of its next game, for fears of Claude clones
How to catch the hunter’s moon this weekend
An orange-colored full hunter’s moon will reach peak brightness early Monday morning along with a potential glimpse of Saturn.
Margaret Hamilton, trailblazer whose software powered Apollo 11 moon landing, dies at 90
MIT computer scientist led development of software for moon mission and earned Presidential Medal of Freedom
Bruce Willis, We May Have A Job For You: Scientists Simulate Nuking An Asteroid, And The Results Are Pretty Encouraging
If an asteroid were heading in our direction, a nuclear blast may not be such a bad idea after all.
Send your name to Saturn's largest moon
NASA's mission to search for life’s building blocks on Titan is scheduled for 2028.
Blue Origin unveils huge 'Power Tower' to boost solar electricity on the moon (video)
"Our Power Tower is a 20-meter-tall, vertically deployed solar array system designed to provide more than 10 kilowatts of power for Moon Base operations at the lunar south pole."
Bruno Kramm, German Goth Musician Who Moonlighted in Politics, Dies at 58
When he wasn’t playing with the groundbreaking dark-wave band Das Ich, he was a prominent figure in his country’s fight for online free speech and digital privacy rights.
Scientists recreate Enceladus’s ocean and watch Earth microbes thrive
Water-rock chemistry helped methane-producing microbes survive extreme alkaline conditions modeled on Enceladus’s hidden ocean.
This mysterious hole on the Moon may open into a giant cave
NASA has selected the GIMLI project to investigate whether the Marius Hill Pit opens into a vast underground cave or lava tube. Using radar, seismic sensors, gravity measurements, and cameras, researchers will search beneath the lunar surface and estimate the size of any hidden void. Such caves could preserve clues to the Moon’s volcanic history and potentially provide protected shelters for future astronauts.
An AI Called LUMINA Is Being Taught to Pick Safe Landing Sites on the Moon
Ohio State researchers unveiled LUMINA, an AI framework meant to help planners choose safe, resource-rich Moon landing sites, with Mars as a possible later target.
Mahoning Valley arts and entertainment
Art ASHTABULA ARTS CENTER, 2928 W. 13th St., Ashtabula: 2026 Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize exhibition, through Saturday. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. ashtabulaartscenter.org and 440-964-3396. BUTLER INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN ART, 524 Wick Ave., Youngstown: “In […]
I visited Iguazú Falls at night. It was better than I imagined.
I took a nighttime tour of Argentina's Iguazú Falls during a full moon. Walking through the rainforest in darkness made the experience unforgettable.
Set your alarm: Jupiter will disappear behind the crescent moon in a once-in-a-decade alignment tomorrow
Skywatchers in the U.S. and eastern Canada can see a rare lunar occultation of Jupiter early on Oct. 6. Here are the exact times to see the giant planet vanish and reappear.
The 26 best cozy fall movies to watch in November
From the autumnal romance of ‘Moonstruck’ to the cozy comforts of ‘Little Women’ these fall movies perfectly capture the spirit of the season.
Can millions of people live on the moon? These scientists say yes — but not for very long
Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are claiming that we can expect big cities with millions of people on the moon, but a new study found that that may not be possible, so don’t start packing just yet.
SpaceX Starship Will Need To Re-Fuel 22 Times In Space To Make It To The Moon
The total number of times that any rocket has ever done this is zero.
Moonlighter dev delays Steam playtest for its "Tower Defensevania" ReVamp over concerns that AI copycats might clone it before launch
Digital Sun has delayed a planned Steam playtest for ReVamp due to "games being reverse-engineered, cloned and published before the original."
A supercomputer is about to launch to the moon for the 1st time, aboard a rover named FLIP
And yes, it has AI.
Scientists may have finally solved the mystery of the Moon’s two faces
Scientists may have solved a long-standing mystery about why the Moon’s two sides are so different, using samples collected from its farside for the first time. Their findings suggest that uneven heating from Earth's gravitational pull drove enormous flows of ancient magma, creating the dramatically different lunar landscapes we see today.
NASA Is Still Aiming for the Next Moon Landing in 2028
Administrator Jared Isaacman said that the space agency was exploring ways to keep Artemis III on target without compromising safety.
'Swamp-like colors' on the moon: New NASA report reveals strange sights from Artemis II mission — Space photo of the week
Astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission saw surprising "jaundiced yellow" and "swampy green" colors on the moon during their close lunar flyby, a new report reveals.
CA Alumnus, NASA Engineer Returns for Science Night
Columbia Academy alumnus Dr. Phillip Allen is returning to campus on Tuesday, Oct. 13 as guest speaker for CA’s Science Night – and the community is invited to attend. NASA and space travel enthusiasts can attend to learn more about the recent Artemis II launch and trip around the moon. Dr. Allen served as the
Composition of Extreme Debris Disks Across Time
By investigating the compositions of extreme debris disks, scientists inferred that silica-rich disks are produced by high-energy impacts of Mars-sized objects, while silica-poor disks are created by less energetic events from Moon-sized bodies.
NASA shares Artemis II astronauts’ handwritten mission notes
Even astronauts need to jot down their thoughts.
November skygazing: Planetary alignments, a supermoon, comet, and more
The Full Beaver Supermoon rises on November 24.
ESA’s Juice just used Earth as a slingshot to Jupiter
ESA’s Juice spacecraft raced past Earth on September 28, using our planet’s gravity to dramatically reshape its path toward Jupiter without burning much fuel. The flyby changed its direction by 20 degrees and increased its speed by 3.5 km/s, while also giving scientists a rare chance to test its instruments on Earth and the Moon.
Margaret Hamilton, trailblazer whose software powered Apollo 11 moon landing, dies at 90
MIT computer scientist led development of software for moon mission and earned Presidential Medal of Freedom
Japan launches spacecraft to Mars' moon in mission to bring back soil samples
Five of the world's space agencies have joined forces for the five-year mission that will attempt to land a robotic prospector plus a rover on Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons.
NASA to Help Unlock Mysteries of Mars’ Moons in Upcoming Mission
NASA is playing an important role in JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission, to advance our understanding of
12 Cool New Gadgets to Keep on Your Radar
Catching you up on the past week’s most notable product releases.
A gnarly weekend ahead at Cafe Nola
Last weekend was brimming with Halloween-themed programming for local Frederick music fans to trick-or-treat to, especially with the full moon leading up to the big night to get everybody in
Finding Alien Life on Enceladus Might Be Easier Than We Thought (If It Actually Exists)
Two studies suggest Saturn's icy moon could support an ancient form of metabolism.
A&E: Golden vocal cords provide an award-winning career
The 1995 comic stage play “Moon over Buffalo” marked Carol Burnett’s return to Broadway after a thirty-year absence. She’s the standup comedian with sultry red hair whose television show made
Arts and Entertainment Agenda, Oct. 29 to Nov. 5
‘Día de los Muertos,’ Oct. 7 to 31 Celebrate “Dia de los Muertos” with a vibrant three-course meal, available through Oct. 31 at Toro inside the Viceroy Snowmass, 130 Wood Rd. Led by chef Richard,...
'Blippi' Spinoff 'Meekah' Set at 'Cocomelon' Studio Moonbug
Moonbug Entertainment, the studio behind 'Cocomelon,' has greenlit a 'Blippi' spinoff called 'Meekah.'
Dignity Health Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital Lights Up Pink in Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital glows pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month and hosts Moonlight Mammograms on Oct 8, offering relaxed screenings for women over 40.
NASA releases Artemis 2 science data
Six months after its Artemis 2 mission flew around the moon, NASA has released the full science data collected from the flight.
The Last Disney+ Original?
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get going, I wanted to remind readers about how I plan to keep your trust while I add advertising to this newsletter. As you’ve no doubt noticed, I’m running ads now, but the danger is that it could impact my analysis and writing. I have a list of sponsors on my About Page, so if you think I’m biased, you can check out who’s sponsored this newsletter! This is something that I’m not sure anyone else in digital media does (if you’re a writer or media outlet and you do this, let me know and I’ll shout you out!) but it’s something I’d love to see embraced by the entire industry. Sunlight, i.e. transparency, is often the best disinfectant. Okay, on to this week’s issue. We (finally) have another major Disney+ TV show to talk about, so that’s my main focus for today. Plus, we had a lot of new shows come out, including the fourth seasons of The Diplomat and Tulsa King! And Love is Blind! The Lowdown! Also, four (four!) straight-to-streaming films came out this week, featuring a lot of big names and celebrities, so I’m going to look at those. All that, mixed news for the WNBA, Reacher ends its run on the charts, Skydance does well in September viewership, NYU’s Sundance dominance, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of October 12th to October 18th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Disney+’s Porridge Problem Listen, per my headline, VisionQuest isn’t the last Disney+ Original. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not. They have other MCU shows in development. Well, maybe one: But it sure feels like the end of an era. I’d call it their “porridge too hot” era, to quote myself from The Ringer. I told Ben Lindbergh that Disney+ seemingly couldn’t figure out the right amount of content. In the heights of the Streaming Bubble Era (circa 2019 to 2022), they started releasing an insane amount of TV shows. After their growth slowed, they’re down to two or three shows a year, and that might be down to 1 by 2027. Here’s my TV shows by year chart: Even at the time, I thought Disney was making too many shows (that cost too much). Today? They’re definitely making too few shows (though the budgets are more in check, at least according to the reporting). Porridge too hot, porridge too cold; too many shows, now not enough. Which makes evaluating VisionQuest so interesting. This show didn’t have a great lead-in, whether it be a Marvel Cinematic Universe film (the last non-Sony-produced-Spider-Man flick came out The Fantastic Four from July of 2025) or Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show (the two this year were Wonder Man back in January and _Daredevil: Born Again_in May, both of which underwhelmed). And so far, VisionQuest hasn’t quite recaptured the MCU Originals glory, but it has some signs of sparks. First, it made Samba TV, though at a lowly ninth place. At least it made it, a feat some other Marvel shows didn’t accomplish. (Ironheart landed on the Samba TV charts one week at tenth place, but Wonder Man and Daredevil: Born Again both missed.) VisionQuest also made Luminate, though with only 3.0 and 7.6 million hours. But it missed Nielsen in its first week. The best news might be its 7.8 on IMDb, on 12K reviews so far, great numbers, even for a superhero show. Looking at those numbers, this show will really need to pick up in future weeks—and it may since it’s coming out weekly—or Disney will have another disappointment on its hands. Disney+ binge-released their last few shows to try to boost numbers, but that meant shows like Iron Heart and Wonder Man didn’t last long on the charts. _Daredevil: Born Again’s_last season missed entirely (though it came out weekly). Here’s the Disney+ Originals by totals: And for a fun new look, here are those same shows, rearranged by the years they came out: That really shows that, in addition to Disney+ releasing fewer shows, those shows just don’t hit like they once did. If I had to offer one main explanation, it’s that Marvel Studios moved away from characters who starred in the Avengersmovies (The Scarlett Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, Loki, Falcon, Winter Soldier) to characters who didn’t (Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Iron Heart, Wonder Man, Daredevil). It sounds trite, but more popular IP tends to do better than less popular IP. In Marvel’s case, beloved, decades-old characters trump newer ones. And yes, I think this is a problem for Disney. The failure of Marvel TV shows to linger for weeks on the charts, unlike in 2021 and 2022, explains why Disney’s share of the charts has plummeted: That’s a strategic issue. Yes, these shows are really expensive, but without them, Disney+ will struggle, especially if Disney+ keeps raising prices AND licenses out its shows non-exclusively. My recommendation? Return to the core value proposition, which is Disney+ as “genre HBO”. The goal is six shows a year, coming out weekly, spaced out throughout the year. When a show hits, keep it coming back. Make three to four of those shows Marvel or Star Wars, and fill out the rest with IP swings like Percy Jackson, Goosebumps or something like National Treasure. And make YA-skewing shows like Coven Academy to fill out the schedule. Disney, you can get this porridge just right, er, make the right number of shows. Quick Notes on TV Netflix’s sophomore, er, junior, er, senior season slump abated very, very slightly this week. I speak of The Diplomat, which returned for its fourth season on 15-Oct. Credit where credit is due, this show debuted in April of 2023, and has put out new seasons every year since. Has that helped the viewership? Not really. This season opened to 16.4 million hours, which is down significantly from the first season (21.7 million hours) and down somewhat from the second season (18.0 million hours), but it is up from last year’s 14.2 million hours opening. On Samba TV, it opened to third place; that’s also very good. On Luminate, it opened to 25.0 million hours, which is good, but over thirty million hours is a hit on that platform. Netflix wisely renewed it, since it’s steady and, frankly, Netflix needs hits.1 Paramount+ put out Tulsa King’s fourth season on a Friday. After putting out most of their big, usually-Taylor Sheridan-scripted shows out on Sundays last year, they’ve clearly moved to Fridays going forward. Was this a thought-out strategic change, Netflix mimicry, or a data-inspired move? Tough to say. Fridays are crowded with new movies, but so are Sundays with new shows. Anyways, this one is coming out weekly, and we haven’t seen it hit the Nielsen or Luminate charts yet. But it did make Samba TV at fifth place, which is a good opening. Still, if this doesn’t make Luminate or Nielsen next week, I’d call it a disappointment. Netflix had two unscripted shows hit the charts this week, one a docu-series and one a reality competition show. Tyson is a four-episode docu-series about one of boxing’s most popular fighters, and it made both the Samba TV and Luminate charts, but not Nielsen. That’s a solid run for only four episodes (assuming it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to produce). Netflix’s latest season of Love Is Blind also returned for its eleventh season, which opened to 10.0 million hours, down from previous seasons. It also had 11.0 million hours according to Luminate, roughly in line with the Nielsen numbers. Last issue, I analyzed the triple successes of Below, Carrie and Crystal Lake, noting that all three have done well. I mostly used Nielsen, but all three shows also made Samba TV (see above). Crystal Lake in particular did very well on Luminate, getting 35.0 million hours, top for Peacock among first seasons: The top “show” of the week would have been Thursday Night Football again, at 41.7 million hours. This is still above last year’s game, but it continues the season’s overall downward trend, which happens every year. (Though a big week is coming, based on the news stories I’ve seen.) As I said before, I’ll do a deeper dive on all the October games later this month, with comparisons to previous years. One company is quietly on a roll, when you consider the shows it makes and streams. I speak of Skydance—a point Variety made—noting that it produces Neagley and Reacher for Amazon, along with Paramount+’s Lioness, which means it produced three of the top four shows of September according to Nielsen. By the way, Neagley fell off the Nielsen charts after four weeks, which is a pinch short for how well it started, but it’s still a huge success. (Interestingly, it finished just 7.3 million hours ahead of the cancelled Ride or Die.) The point, though, which I’ve made before, is that Prime Video still has a problem with how many co-productions it buys, most notably _The Boys_from Sony and Reacher/Jack Ryan from Skydance. It’s not a critical flaw—everyone licenses shows—but Amazon still struggles to make its own hits. Reacher finally fell off the Nielsen charts, so here’s its final rank for season four: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… ...An example of the algorithm NOT picking a film… …whether or not Netflix buys shows simply for the movie poster… ...if East of Eden is above the Obliterated Line... ...what four star-studded straight-to-streaming films didn’t chart... ...and a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue.
How a St. Louis sixth-grader turned her love of space into a published book
Inspired by her love of space and science, Ava-Marie McDonald turned a handwritten story into a published adventure, "The Moon Crystal."
NASA wants to send humanoid robots to the moon
Don't worry. Actual astronauts aren't out of a job.
China's Chang'e-6 Mission To The Moon Brought Puzzling Samples Of Cubic Iron Back With It
It is the first time this phase of iron has been found in lunar samples. Usually, it would only be stable at temperatures between 912 and 1,394 degrees Celsius (1,674 to 2,541 degrees Fahrenheit).
Comparing Off-World Rover Driving Distances
This infographic illustrates the distances driven by various rovers on the surface of Earth’s Moon and Mars. Of the vehicles shown, the NASA Mars rovers
Japan's sample return mission to Phobos may also collect some Mars dust
Japan’s MMX mission will be the first to the moons of Mars and it aims to bring back precious rock samples — perhaps even indirectly from Mars.
The moon is shrinking. Astronomers finally know how fast.
Understanding moonquakes will be useful for future lunar bases.
UT Health Sciences Advisory Board to Hold Fall Meeting Friday, Nov. 13
The UT Health Sciences Advisory Board will meet Friday, Nov. 13, at 11 a.m., in the Mooney Library, 875 Monroe Ave., on the Memphis campus.
Harvest Moon Festival returns to downtown Warrenton on Saturday
The Warrenton Harvest Moon Festival will be held on Saturday, Oct. 10, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Warren County Courthouse Square, 109 S. Main St., in downtown Warrenton.
The ice blasting from Saturn's moon Enceladus is stranger than scientists realized
Enceladus may naturally separate and concentrate chemicals from its hidden ocean as droplets slowly freeze and shatter on their way into space. The process could explain Cassini’s puzzling ice-grain chemistry while giving future spacecraft a powerful advantage in searching for organic compounds and clues to life.
‘Big Brother’ host Julie Chen Moonves says she was a ‘jerk’ rooting against Rick Devens
Julie Chen Moonves says she was a ‘jerk’ for being ‘pissed off’ about Rick Devens on ‘Big Brother’: ‘I was letting my own foolish ego get in the way.’
Chang’e-6 lunar soil contains a surprising magnetic time capsule
Scientists studying Chang’e-6 lunar soil have discovered a previously unknown magnetic mineral in natural Moon samples: a form of metallic iron called γ-Fe. Found inside tiny impact-glass particles, the nanoscale iron can preserve a stable magnetic signal, potentially acting like a microscopic fossil of the Moon’s long-lost magnetic field.
NASA, International Partners Advance Work on Space Crops
NASA, CSA (Canadian Space Agency), and the German Aerospace Center signed a joint statement of intent to begin coordinated, preparatory work toward an Earth-based demonstrator to learn how to grow crops on the Moon.
NASA and IBM's open source lunar model turns 17 years of orbiter data into a foundation for lunar science
NASA and IBM have released the Lunar Foundation Model, one of the first open-source AI models for lunar science. Trained on nearly 2 million tile bundles, mostly from 17 years of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data, it cuts the error in predicting polar ice deposits by up to 22 percent compared to the strongest model it was tested against.
Paramount+ Acquires Rights to Moonbug Series From the ‘Blippi’ and ‘CoComelon’ Universes (EXCLUSIVE)
Paramount+ has acquired non-exclusive rights to several kids franchises from Moonbug Entertainment, including series from the “CoComelon” and “Blippi” universes. Under the new deal, some Moonbug serie...
Chuck Lorre claims Les Moonves made ‘no f---ing way’ gesture at Jon Cryer’s ‘Two and a Half Men’ audition
Chuck Lorre recalls casting ‘Two and a Half Men’ in his new memoir, ‘Sitcom,’ and being told by the network, ‘We don’t want to hear the words ‘Jon Cryer.’’
Netflix’s Leadership Shake Up…Explained
(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Well, I had a simple article planned for this week. Called “Whoa, I Missed It!”, I’d take a gander at a few important-but-under-the-radar stories I didn’t cover while I wrote about all things “Skydance. (Formerly known as “the saga of Netflix trying to buy Warner Bros., but not Discovery, then Paramount-Skydance bought all of Warner Bros. Discovery”.) Alas, that article will have to wait. Netflix made news. Ironically, my “Whoa, I Missed It!” article would have mostly been about “content” strategy decisions, which is also what today’s article is about. But instead of the entire industry, this article will only cover Netflix’s decision to upend their film and TV content teams. Just that! So that’s the full topic of the day. I’m going to tackle the issue in the opposite direction of the way “stuff” flows: uphill. We’ll start at film, then move onto TV, and then onto the CEOs themselves, and the strategy questions that still remain. But we start with the numbers driving this. Let’s dive in. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Netflix Upends Their Corporate Hierarchy I’ve got a lot of thoughts, but we’ll start with the most common response to yesterday’s article. Let’s Talk Stock Price More than one person, responding to what I published two days ago, pointed out that, well, actually, the thing driving Netflix’s actions is this: In short, stock price! Even if Netflix isn’t obsessed with their own share price—they probably are, but, for the record, my strategic advice to every CEO is to absolutely ignore stock prices, which will, ironically, probably help the stock price long-term—most everyone thinks they are. By the way, I prefer market capitalization to stock prices, because it’s a more apples-to-apples way to compare companies: But there’s an even better way to look at it, and it kinda casts some doubt on the entire push here: price-to-earnings. I have a long list of articles that I wish I had written, and chief among them is an article titled, “Am I Still a Netflix ‘Bear’?” meaning someone who thinks Netflix’s stock is overvalued. As of last summer, Netflix had solved their biggest problem—which for me (circa 2019) was the lack of free cash flow—but their stock was CRAZY overvalued. That’s this chart here: Why did Netflix’s stock price increase to a price-to-earnings ratio of 50 last summer? What financial metric changed so quickly? Nothing. Given that, historically, mature entertainment companies average 10 to 20, with 16 being the average, that increase made little sense. Netflix’s stock swoon these last eight or so months wasn’t irrational; the stock price rise last year was. So if you want a really hot Netflix take, here it is: Netflix’s stock price has been going down because the financial industry recovered its senses, not because of any strategic mistake. Yes, that would imply that cleaning house may have been a mistake. That’s why the charts yesterday are so important, because they show that Netflix did have a strategic problem (a lack of hits) and that’s what they moved to address. (One could also argue the industry drastically overrated Netflix’s growth prospects, but that’s a financial industry problem, not a Netflix strategy problem per se. Some growth estimates are just crazy. *cough* AI *cough*) Now, the last time Netflix’s stock price crashed—circa 2022—it gave them an opening. I’d argue Netflix insiders knew they needed to expand post-COVID-19 crisis, adding advertising, cracking down on password sharing, and dabbling in sports. But if they had done that when their stock price was high, it would give folks a reason to second guess their strategy. (Arguably, last year, when Netflix pursued the Warner Bros. merger, it gave the industry a chance to review their business.) Instead, after the 2022 fall, they had the opening to make strategic changes. We may see Netflix pivot again following this latest slide. For example, the “binge versus weekly” conversation is alive and well again. Same for expanding into theaters even more. And adding both linear channels and streaming bundles. And maybe more either social, user-generated, vertical, or creator content. But the first shift came with who is making the content calls. A Message from Our Sponsor Last winter Pulp Fiction was on Netflix. For those same 90 days, it was also free, with ads, on Pluto TV and the Roku Channel. That is not a glitch, and it is not rare. The title has run on 20 different US streaming services since 2019, across 80 separate windows, and for more than 600 of those days it sat on a paid subscription service and a free ad-supported one at the same time. Almost nobody can see this, because when a title leaves a service, the record that it was ever there tends to leave with it. Reelgood keeps that record, dated to the day rather than the month: 4MM+ movie, show and episode titles across 300+ services globally, with timestamped arrivals, departures and moves across SVOD, AVOD, TVOD and vMVPD. Licensing teams price against every prior window. Rights teams check what a licensee actually delivered, and when. Pick a title you think you know: data.reelgood.com/title-availability Film - Dan Lin Want to know why I don’t opine on individual film or TV executives, especially new hires? Dan Lin. As I always caution, it’s really, really, really tough to predict which executives will succeed in new roles and which won’t. The successful head of co-production/finance partner, Rideback, Lin was considered for the head of DC Studios job before taking the job as the head of Netflix. By all accounts at the time, this was a smart hire. (That’s my read of the news coverage anyways.) But now that Netflix has fired Dan Lin, we got a slew of news stories about how he was doing a terrible job. In sports media, Bryan Curtis, new Substack writer/podcaster from The Ringer, calls this the “now you tell us” story, when you only hear the bad news after a star athlete leaves a sports team. In this case, now they tell us that Dan Lin was bad with talent after he got kicked out the door. So was Dan Lin a flop? It’s actually tough to say. While film moves faster than TV, even two years isn’t really enough time to evaluate a person’s output. The new head hasn’t really taken control. As Emily Horgan noted, it takes much longer than two years to produce animated films, so yeah, it’s definitely too early to judge in that domain. As for live-action films, I just published an article by Brandon Katz called “Netflix’s Summer of Bummer”, but I’d point out Netflix had a bad summer two years ago too. Arguably, their best summer came from KPop Demon Hunters last year and Happy Gilmore 2, the latter of which I saw credited to Lin. Then, the stories came out that Dan Lin clashed with talent, both Ben Affleck and Greta Gerwig, classic “now they tell us” factoids to explain his firing. This may have been true, but also should have been expected given that he was given the mandate to bring budgets back in check, especially after Rebel Moon. So if he made folks upset, well, that’s what he was hired to do! But also, he was described as “well-liked” at his hiring! In that case, I’m a bit sympathetic to Lin, since he may have been undercut by senior leadership, as often happens. Basically, a CEO hires a subordinate to be their “bad cop” and keep budgets in check, but then when talent complains, the CEO ends up undercutting them. That’s how I think you end up with a Narnia movie as expensive as any of the other flops, along with a film executive the town no longer likes. As a result, I think that Netflix is now executing a classic “hire the opposite” move by hiring Peter Rice. This phrase comes from my experience following football and basketball coaching decisions, where teams generally hire the opposite of who they just had. If you have an offense-minded head coach, hire the defensive guy. Or in college football, if you have a strong recruiter, then you pivot to an “X’s and Os” type of guy. Or in pro basketball, if you have a very analytically minded coach, you hire the player-friendly guy. I see that here. After dropping Scott Stuber—arguably a talent-friendly executive with lax budget control—Netflix hired the business guy to keep costs in check. Now Netflix is pivoting back to Peter Rice and presumably a more talent-friendly regime. (Disney, by the way, has done this twice: hiring business guys to succeed talent-friendly Bob Iger. It didn’t work out last time.) When it comes to Peter Rice…we’ll see! Maybe he works out, but maybe he doesn’t. I’d actually say the biggest problem is that Netflix still hasn’t solved its “IP Problem”, in that they don’t own much IP, so they just have a lower hit rate. The new executive won’t solve that. (Though buying Lionsgate would help.) Share “Content” - Bela Bajaria I almost published yesterday’s article after this column, but ended up flipping the order, because it told the story so well. So if you want the data for why Netflix is looking at TV to fix their problems, it’s in that article, this graph in particular: I know I just wrote that it’s often hard to judge executives, but Bajaria ran TV for six years and film for three and a half more. That’s more than enough to judge hit rates, and Netflix needs more hits. That’s the story. Since 2023, Netflix hasn’t had as many hit shows as it used to, and many of its previous power house TV shows have ended their runs (Stranger Things most of all). Also, many shows from 2020 to 2022 probably pre-dated Bajaria’s tenure. (That said, one thing may have been outside of Bajaria’s control, which I explain below.) Let’s lump some content strategy thoughts about Netflix and TV into one place: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… Why I partially blame Squid Game for Netflix’s latest troubles… What is “the football trap”... Why it might not be the TV shows or films’ fault at all… What change I don’t think Netflix will make... How Bela Bajaria evolved Netflix’s TV strategy in smart ways… Whose departure likely submarined Bajaria’s final few years… One sneaky explanation for Netflix’s content struggles... And a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
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