Posted by from MMO Champion
Embrace the Heat During the Midsummer Fire Festival
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Take part in a time of merriment and celebration dedicated to the hottest season of the year. The Midsummer Fire Festival brings with it a variety of activities and rewards to light up Azeroth’s summer.
When: June 21–July 5
Where: Major Horde, Alliance, and Neutral Cities
Currency: Burning Blossom
New in 2025: The Midsummer Fire Festival comes to Khaz Algar!
New faction achievements to gain from honoring the flames in the four major zones—Azj-Kahet, Hallowfall, Isle of Dorn, and The Ringing Deeps:
Flame Keeper of Khaz Algar (Horde)
Flame Warden of Khaz Algar (Alliance)
New Items Available from the Holiday Vendor:
Grand Helm of the Fire Festival Transmog (Head)
Grand Mantle of the Fire Festival Transmog (Shoulders)
Grand Belt of the Fire Festival Transmog (Waist)
New Cosmetic Drops from Frost Lord Ahune:
Crown of the Frost Lord (Head)
Glazfuris, Scythe of the Deep Chill (Two-Hand Polearm)
Rethfuras, Scorched Scythe of Cinders (Two-hand Polearm)
Glazfuris, Spire of the Deep Chill (Two-Hand Staff)
Rethfuras, Scorched Stave of Cinders (Two-Hand Staff)
Holiday Event Boss
Use the Group Finder (I) to participate in an encounter against Ahune, granting a Satchel of Chilled Goods (which contains holiday loot) as a daily reward. This is available to characters level 10 and above.
Daily Quests
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by from MMO Champion
WoW Weekly: The Legacy of Arathor Content Update is Now Live, and More!
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Go on an Adventure in the Legacy of Arathor Content Update—Now Live!
Take your adventures further in the Legacy of Arathor.
You’ll amp up the challenge in Overcharged Delves, go Lorewalking with Lorewalker Cho, get a helping hand with the new Combat Assistant and Single-Button Assistant… and more.
For the complete Legacy of Arathor launch details and everything in the content update, read our
previously published article.
WoWCast: Immerse Yourself in the Ghosts of K’aresh Content Update
Join Community Manager Bethany Hudson as she sits down with Assistant Lead Quest Designer Steph Yoon and Lead Encounter Designer Drew De Sousa as they discuss the Ghosts of K’aresh content update.
Discover an all-new zone, continue your journey through The War Within campaign, and much more. We look forward to seeing you on the Public Test Realm (PTR) and having you experience what we have in store next.
Head over to
our article for more details on the Ghosts of K'aresh content update.
WoW Classic 20th Anniversary Edition Phase 5 Launches July 10
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by AzT from TFW2005
Transformers #24 and Void Rivals #23 arrive in September: **END OF STORY ARC ** OPTIMUS PRIME VS MEGATRON. This is it. And the new era of TRANSFORMERS begins with the most shocking ending to ANY comic book this year! WHEELIE MEETS COBRA-LA! Everyone’s favorite rhyming Autobot makes his debut in VOID RIVALS, coming face to face with Pythona! Discuss the details revealed so far with fellow readers on the 2005 boards! Transformers #24 Creator credits: (W) Daniel Warren Johnson, (A) Jorge Corona, Mike Spicer, (CA) Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer, (A/CA) Jorge Corona, Mike Spicer, (CA) David Nakayama, (CA) Jeff Spokes, (CA) Pye Parr, (CA) Daniel
» Continue Reading.
The post
Skybound’s Transformers Comics Solicitations: September 2025 appeared first on
Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the major-decisions department: Lawmakers in Britain have narrowly approved a bill to legalize assisted dying for terminally ill people, capping a fraught debate in Parliament and across the country that cut across political, religious and legal divides. From a report: MPs passed the bill by 314 votes to 291, in their final say on the question. The bill -- which has split lawmakers and sparked impassioned conversations with their constituents the breadth of Britain -- will now move to the House of Lords for its final rounds of scrutiny.
Friday's vote puts Britain firmly on track to join a small club of nations that have legalized the process, and one of the largest by population to allow it. It allows people with a terminal condition and less than six months to live to take a substance to end their lives, as long as they are capable of making the decision themselves. Two doctors and a panel would need to sign off on the choice. Canada, New Zealand, Spain and most of Australia allow assisted dying in some form, as do several US states, including Oregon, Washington and California.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the turning-coal-into-gold department: Turning recently closed coalmines into solar energy plants could add almost 300GW of renewable energy by 2030, converting derelict wastelands to productive use, according to a new report. From a report: In a first of its kind analysis, researchers from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) identified 312 surface coalmines closed since 2020 around the world, and 134 likely to close by the end of the decade, together covering 5,820 sq km (2,250 sq miles) -- a land area nearly the size of Palestine.
Strip mining turns terrains into wastelands, polluted and denuded of topsoil. But if they were filled with solar panels and developed into energy plants, the report claims, they could generate enough energy to power as big and power hungry a nation as Germany.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the would-you-look-at-that department: alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: The colossal black hole lurking at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is spinning almost as fast as its maximum rotation rate. That's just one thing astrophysicists have discovered after developing and applying a new method to tease apart the secrets still hidden in supermassive black hole observations collected by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The unprecedented global collaboration spent years working to give us the first direct images of the shadows of black holes, first with M87* in a galaxy 55 million light-years away, then with Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our own galaxy. [...]
Their results show, among other things, that Sgr A* is not only spinning at close to its maximum speed, but that its rotational axis is pointed in Earth's direction, and that the glow around it is generated by hot electrons. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that the magnetic field in the material around Sgr A* doesn't appear to be behaving in a way that's predicted by theory. M87*, they discovered, is also rotating rapidly, although not as fast as Sgr A*. However, it is rotating in the opposite direction to the material swirling in a disk around it -- possibly because of a past merger with another supermassive black hole. The findings have been detailed in three papers published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. They can be found here, here, and here.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the spare-parts-coming-soon department: alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: A team of biologists from Northeastern University and the University of Kentucky has found one of the key molecules involved in axolotl regeneration. It's a crucial component in ensuring the body grows back the right parts in the right spot: for instance, growing a hand, from the wrist. "The cells can interpret this cue to say, 'I'm at the elbow, and then I'm going to grow back the hand' or 'I'm at the shoulder... so I'm going to then enable those cells to grow back the entire limb'," biologist James Monaghan explains.
That molecule, retinoic acid, is arranged through the axolotl body in a gradient, signaling to regenerative cells how far down the limb has been severed. Closer to the shoulder, axolotls have higher levels of retinoic acid, and lower levels of the enzyme that breaks it down. This ratio changes the further the limb extends from the body. The team found this balance between retinoic acid and the enzyme that breaks it down plays a crucial role in 'programming' the cluster of regenerative cells that form at an injury site. When they added surplus retinoic acid to the hand of an axolotl in the process of regenerating, it grew an entire arm instead.
In theory, the human body has the right molecules and cells to do this too, but our cells respond to the signals very differently, instead forming collagen-based scars at injury sites. Next, Monaghan is keen to find out what's going on inside cells -- the axolotl's, and our own -- when those retinoic acid signals are received. The research is published in Nature Communications.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the new-and-improved department: Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from the Cool Down: A team of chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented a new process to separate crude oil components, potentially bringing forward a replacement that can cut its harmful carbon pollution by 90%. The original technique, which uses heat to separate crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and heating oil, accounts for roughly 1% of all global energy consumption and 6% of dirty energy pollution from the carbon dioxide it releases.
"Instead of boiling mixtures to purify them, why not separate components based on shape and size?" said Zachary P. Smith, associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT and senior author of the study, as previously reported in Interesting Engineering. The team invented a polymer membrane that divides crude oil into its various uses like a sieve. The new process follows a similar strategy used by the water industry for desalination, which uses reverse osmosis membranes and has been around since the 1970s. [The membrane excelled in lab tests. It increased the toluene concentration by 20 times in a mixture with triisopropylbenzene. It also effectively separated real industrial oil samples containing naphtha, kerosene, and diesel.]
