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Humanity is driving the extinction of one million species
A huge and troubling report by the UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) concludes that a million animal and plant species are at risk of extinction due to human activity (Nature).
The report is based on data from almost 15,000 studies and government reports and indicates that agricultural activities are the prime driver of extinction, alongside the exploitation of natural land and marine resources, climate change, pollution and the spread of invasive species. This assessment has been approved by representatives of 132 governments, but those governments must now take urgent action to protect both global biodiversity and the ecosystems we all depend on.
Riot Games workers walk out over forced arbitration contracts
In what's thought to be a first for the game development industry, 150 Riot Games workers have walked out in a protest action against institutional sexism and forced arbitration contracts, which prevent employees from seeking legal redress in cases of discrimination or harassment (Kotaku).
Riot claims that it will not be retaliating against protestors and says that it's working to improve its widely reported cultural problems, but staff say the firm has avoided taking action against prominent executives with a long history of harassment complaints against them.
Diagnosing da Vinci's palsied right hand
Fascinating research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine puts forward a new possibility for the condition that crippled Leonardo da Vinci's right hand in later life (Ars Technica). Based on historical written and illustrated evidence, it suggests that the artist, who wrote and sketched left-handed but used his right in painting, suffered from ulnar palsy – also called claw hand – rather than a stroke, as has been previously suggested.
YouTube's carbon footprint is huge, but smarter web design could fix it
YouTube's annual carbon footprint is about 10Mt CO2e (Million Metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent), according to researchers — about the output of a city the size of Glasgow (WIRED). A pair of researchers totted up the carbon footprint based on YouTube's electric energy consumption from 2016, taking into consideration the entire chain of delivering an online video from servers to content-delivery networks to home routers.
Microsoft is teasing a Minecraft AR game for later this month
Microsoft has used the opening keynote of its Build conference to tease a new augmented reality smartphone game based on Minecraft (The Verge). All we see are characters and blocks from Minecraft's distinctively cuboid world superimposed on the real world via a phone screen, with a promise that we'll learn more on May 17.
The controversial Caster Semenya verdict
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
