The MCU's foray into streaming television has produced mixed results, but one of my favorites was the weirdly inventive, oh-so-meta WandaVision. I'm happy to report that the spinoff sequel,  Agatha All Along, taps into that same offbeat creativity, giving us a welcome reminder of just how good the MCU can be when it's firing on all storytelling cylinders.

(Spoilers below, including for WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness. We'll give you another heads up when major spoilers for Agatha All Along are imminent.)

The true identity of nosy next-door neighbor Agnes—played to perfection by Kathryn Hahn—was the big reveal of 2021's WandaVision, even inspiring a jingle that went viral. Agnes turned out to be a powerful witch named Agatha Harkness, who had studied magic for centuries and was just dying to learn the source of Wanda's incredible power. Wanda's natural abilities were magnified by the Mind Stone, but Agatha realized that Wanda was a wielder of "chaos magic." She was, in fact, the Scarlet Witch. In the finale, Wanda trapped Agatha in her nosy neighbor persona while releasing the rest of the town of Westview from her grief-driven Hex.

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People have long been fascinated by the haunting plaster casts of the bodies of people who died in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. Archaeologists have presented certain popular narratives about who these people might have been and how they might have been related. But ancient DNA analysis has revealed that those preferred narratives were not entirely accurate and may reflect certain cultural biases, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The results also corroborate prior research suggesting that the people of ancient Pompeii were the descendants of immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean.

As previously reported, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius released thermal energy roughly equivalent to 100,000 times the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, spewing molten rock, pumice, and hot ash over the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in particular. The vast majority of people in Pompeii and Herculaneum—the cities hardest hit—perished from asphyxiation, choking on the thick clouds of noxious gas and ash. But at least some of the Vesuvian victims probably died instantaneously from the intense heat of fast-moving lava flows, with temperatures high enough to boil brains and explode skulls.

In the first phase, immediately after the eruption, a long column of ash and pumice blanketed the surrounding towns, most notably Pompeii and Herculaneum. By late night or early morning, pyroclastic flows (fast-moving hot ash, lava fragments, and gases) swept through and obliterated what remained, leaving the bodies of the victims frozen in seeming suspended action.

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Since the 1940s, baseball players have been spreading a special kind of "magic mud" on new baseballs to reduce the slick, glossy shine and give pitchers a firmer grip. Now, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified just what gives that magic mud its special properties, according to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Before magic mud came along, baseballs were treated with a mix of water and soil from the infield or, alternatively, tobacco juice or shoe polish. But these substances stained and scratched up the ball's leather surface. Lena Blackburne was a third-base coach for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1930s when an umpire complained about that, so he hunted for a better mud. Blackburne found that mud in a still-secret location purportedly near Palmyra, New Jersey, and a baseball dynasty was born: Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud. Once harvested, the mud is strained, skimmed of excess water, rinsed with tap water, and then subjected to a secret "proprietary treatment" before being allowed to settle.

Yet there hasn't been much scientific research on the magic mud apart from one 2022 study. We do know quite a bit about the complex behavior of soil in general, including mud. Per the authors, mud is essentially "a dense suspension of predominantly clay and silt particles in water," sometimes with a bit of sand in the mix, although this has little effect on how mud behaves under shearing forces (rheology). Technically, it falls into the non-Newtonian fluid category, in which the viscosity changes (either thickening or thinning) in response to an applied strain or shearing force, thereby straddling the boundary between liquid and solid behavior.

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The story of Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton's failed 1914 expedition to be the first to traverse the continent of Antarctica has long captured the popular imagination, as have the various efforts to locate the wreckage of his ship, the Endurance. The ship was finally found in 2022, nearly 107 years after it sank beneath the ice. The stories of Shackleton's adventures and the 2022 expedition are told in parallel in Endurance, a new documentary from National Geographic now streaming on Disney+.

Endurance is directed by Oscar winners Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo). According to Vasarhelyi, she and Chin had been obsessed with the Shackleton story for a long time. The discovery of the shipwreck in 2022 gave them the perfect opportunity to tell the story again for a new audience, making use of all the technological advances that have been made in recent years.

"I think the Shackleton story is at the heart of the DNA of our films," Vasarhelyi told Ars. "It's the greatest human survival story ever. It really speaks to having these audacious objectives and dreams. When everyone tells you that you can't, you want to do it anyway. It requires you to then have the actual courage, grit, discipline, and strength of character to see it through. Shackleton is that story. He didn't sensibly achieve any of his goals, but through his failure he found his strength: being able to inspire the confidence of his men."

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Many animals, including humans, have developed a taste for alcohol in some form, but excessive consumption often leads to adverse health effects. One exception is the Oriental hornet. According to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these hornets can guzzle seemingly unlimited amounts of ethanol regularly and at very high concentrations with no ill effects—not even intoxication. They pretty much drank honeybees used in the same experiments under the table.

“To the best of our knowledge, Oriental hornets are the only animal in nature adapted to consuming alcohol as a metabolic fuel," said co-author Eran Levin of Tel Aviv University. "They show no signs of intoxication or illness, even after chronically consuming huge amounts of alcohol, and they eliminate it from their bodies very quickly."

Per Levin et al., there's a "drunken monkey" theory that predicts that certain animals well-adapted to low concentrations of ethanol in their diets nonetheless have adverse reactions at higher concentrations. Studies have shown that tree shrews, for example, can handle concentrations of up to 3.8 percent, but in laboratory conditions, when they consumed ethanol in concentrations of 10 percent or higher, they were prone to liver damage.

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In recent years, materials scientists experimenting with ceramics have started adding an oxidized form of graphene to the mix to produce ceramics that are tougher, more durable, and more resistant to fracture, among other desirable properties. Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a new method that uses ultrasound to more evenly distribute graphene oxide (GO) in ceramics, according to a new paper published in the journal ACS Omega. And as a bonus, they collaborated with an artist who used the resulting ceramic tiles to create a unique art exhibit at the NUS Museum—a striking merger of science and art.

As reported previously, graphene is the thinnest material yet known, composed of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. That structure gives it many unusual properties that hold great promise for real-world applications: batteries, super capacitors, antennas, water filters, transistors, solar cells, and touchscreens, just to name a few.

In 2021, scientists found that this wonder material might also provide a solution to the fading of colors of many artistic masterpieces. For instance, several of Georgia O'Keeffe's oil paintings housed in the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, have developed tiny pin-sized blisters, almost like acne, for decades. Conservators have found similar deterioration in oil-based masterpieces across all time periods, including works by Rembrandt.

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A 12th-century Norse saga tells of an invading army from the south razing a castle stronghold and throwing a dead body into the well to render the water undrinkable. Human remains believed to be those of this so-called "Well-man" were discovered in the 1930s, providing valuable potential outside confirmation of the tale. Scientists have now sequenced the DNA of those remains, and while they could not prove once and for all that the remains are those of the Well-man, their findings are consistent with that identification, according to a new paper published in the journal iScience.

Much of what we know about early Norse and Icelandic history comes from the sagas, many of which were written by scholars centuries after the events described—most likely based on oral traditions or earlier now-lost manuscripts. One notable exception is the Sverris Saga, which covers the reign of King Sverre Sigurdsson (1151–1240 CE), a tumultuous period marked by warring factions all vying to claim the throne. Norse scholars think that at least part of this saga was written contemporaneously at the king's request, and it contains detailed descriptions of many battles and speeches and a large cast of characters.

King Sverre's claim to the throne was that he was the son of King Sigurd Munn, killed in 1155 CE by his brother. Sverre's men were known as "Birkenbeiner" because their legwear and shoes were made of birch bark. Among the rival factions were the "Bagleres" from southern Norway. In 1197, King Sverre was spending the winter in Bergen in his stronghold, Sverresborg Castle. Bagler fighters snuck into the castle via a secret door and plundered the place, burning all the homes within the castle walls. That's when they threw a dead man down the local drinking well, subsequently filling the well with boulders.

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The third and final season of Good Omens, Prime Video's fantasy series adapted from the classic 1990 novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, will not be a full season after all, Deadline Hollywood reports. In the wake of allegations of sexual assault against Gaiman this summer, the streaming platform has decided that rather than a full slate of episodes, the series finale will be a single 90-minute episode—the equivalent of a TV movie.

(Major spoilers for the S2 finale of Good Omens below.)

As reported previously, the series is based on the original 1990 novel by Gaiman and the late Pratchett. Good Omens is the story of an angel, Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), and a demon, Crowley (David Tennant), who gradually become friends over the millennia and team up to avert Armageddon. Gaiman's obvious deep-down, fierce love for this project—and the powerful chemistry between its stars—made the first season a sheer joy to watch. Apart from a few minor quibbles, it was pretty much everything book fans could have hoped for in a TV adaptation of Good Omens.

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When Zachary Lindsey, a physicist at Berry College in Georgia, decided to run an experiment on how to get the best speed and torque while playing disc golf (aka Frisbee golf), he had no trouble recruiting 24 eager participants keen on finding science-based tips on how to improve their game. Lindsey and his team determined the optimal thumb distance from the center of the disc to increase launch speed and distance, according to a new paper published in the journal AIP Advances.

Disc golf first emerged in the 1960s, but "Steady" Ed Hendrick, inventor of the modern Frisbee, is widely considered the "father" of the sport since it was he who coined and trademarked the name "disc golf" in 1975. He and his son founded their own company to manufacture the equipment used in the game. As of 2023, the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) had over 107,000 registered members worldwide, with players hailing from 40 countries.

A disc golf course typically has either nine or 18 holes or targets, called "baskets." There is a tee position for starting play, and players take turns throwing discs until they catch them in the basket, similar to how golfers work toward sinking a golf ball into a hole. The expected number of throws required of an experienced player to make the basket is considered "par."

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A stunning image of differentiated mouse brain tumor cells has won the 2024 Nikon Small World photomicrography contest, yielding valuable insight into how degenerate diseases like Alzheimer's and ALS can arise from disruption in the cytoskeleton of brain cells. The image was taken by Bruno Cisterna, with assistance from Eric Vitriol, both with Augusta University in Georgia.

"One of the main problems with neurodegenerative diseases is that we don't fully understand what causes them,” Cisterna said in a statement. “To develop effective treatments, we need to figure out the basics first. Our research is crucial for uncovering this knowledge and ultimately finding a cure. Differentiated cells could be used to study how mutations or toxic proteins that cause Alzheimer's or ALS alter neuronal morphology, as well as to screen potential drugs or gene therapies aimed at protecting neurons or restoring their function.”

It's the 50th anniversary of Nikon's annual contest, which was founded back in 1974 "to showcase the beauty and complexity of things seen through the light microscope." Photomicrography involves attaching a camera to a microscope (either an optical microscope or an electron microscope) so that the user can take photographs of objects at very high resolutions. British physiologist Richard Hill Norris was one of the first to use it for his studies of blood cells in 1850, and the method has increasingly been highlighted as art since the 1970s. There have been many groundbreaking technological advances in the ensuing decades, particularly with the advent of digital imaging methods.

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