Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

People who speak more than one language may have brains that appear younger than expected for their age, according to research presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) Forum 2026. The brain depends on billions of nerve cells constantly communicating with one another. As people get older, those connections can weaken, contributing to slower thinking and declines in memory. The new findings suggest that multilingual experience may help offset some of those age-related changes. People who spoke more languages tended to have younger-looking brains, and the effect also appeared stronger among those who learned another language earlier and…

In the early 1990s, the logging roads running through Sarawak’s Upper Baram became the site of a bitter confrontation. Penan families built wooden barricades and faced off bulldozers, timber trucks, and state security forces. As the protests drew international attention, the government of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud restricted media access and portrayed the Penan as backward people manipulated by foreign activists. International NGOs presented them as forest dwellers engaged in a timeless struggle to protect an untouched Eden.  Pete Brosius, an anthropologist who conducted research with the Penan for four decades, spent much of his career complicating…

Even though partially funded by the Pentagon, Stars and Stripes has been editorially independent – through a congressional mandate and DoD rules.The newspaper’s Middle East reporter Lara Korte said she had also been told she was fired.Both Slavin and Korte say their dismissals – both for insubordination – relate to an interview they gave to CBS’s Sunday Morning programme last month, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.Stars and Stripes reported that publisher Max Lederer was also fired.He had announced his retirement on Tuesday, saying his understanding of the paper’s value and mission differed in “fundamental ways” from the…

Kemi Badenoch has called defectors who left for Reform “some of the most dishonest people” she has ever met, as she ruled out allowing “drama queens” to return to the party.Speaking at the Edinburgh festival fringe, the Conservative party leader again ruled out any prospect of an election deal with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, insisting there would be no coalition between the parties.“Reform has people who left the Conservative party, some of the most dishonest people I have ever met in my entire life,” Badenoch told event host Iain Dale on Saturday.Multiple current or former parliamentarians have joined Reform from…

Taylor Clemons/ZDNETComputer monitors can come with some pretty steep price tags, especially if you’re in the market for a specialized screen for PC gaming or creative work like animation or video editing. This is doubly true if you want a high-end OLED display, a 4K monitor, or a super-sized screen. Also: How I turned my old Android phone into a streaming stick for freeThere’s a way around this, however. If you’re looking for a cheap solution, you can easily connect your TV to a laptop or PC to use as your main screen, a part of your current multi-monitor setup, or as…

Written by: Farid Mustafayev, Cybersecurity Expert at ThreatLocker Named pipes are a common choice for communication between applications running on the same Windows computer. They are fast, supported directly by the operating system, and work well for communication between Windows services, desktop applications, tray processes, command-line utilities, and background agents. A typical design may include a privileged Windows service acting as the named-pipe server while a user-facing application connects as the client. Because both processes run on the same computer, developers often treat this communication as internal and therefore trusted. In practice, the pipe is accessible from an environment where many unrelated…

Solana’s new network governance system is approaching votes on its constitution, inflation schedule and fee structure. The frontend’s production bundle still contains a 60% quorum path that conflicts with the stated one-third rule.The discrepancy is a display problem, not an allegation that Solana’s on-chain voting system is corrupting votes. Pull request 170, the proposed frontend fix, remained open as of press time.A Solana Foundation repository issue recorded public proposals with voting enabled, a start at epoch 1021 and an end at epoch 1024. A network sample at 07:08 UTC implied that epoch 1021 would begin around 03:35 to 03:50 UTC…

A hugely popular forest outside Paris reopened to the public Saturday after being partially ravaged by a wildfire in July which forced the closure of the beloved nature oasis. Although part of the Fontainebleau forest remains off limits for now, 80 percent of the area has reopened and large groups of walkers, rock climbers and other outdoor enthusiasts flocked to the woods to take advantage of the late summer sun. The sprawling forest, around 60 kilometres (40 miles) southeast of the Fernch capital, is a particular magnet for climbers who come from around the world to tackle its famous boulders.…

Germany has become Europe’s largest regulated cannabis market since partially liberalising the drug two years ago, as imports surge and conservative politicians warn of rising criminal activity and health risks.Legal marijuana imports have increased sixfold since 2024, according to data from the Federal Health Institute. That year, the leftwing government led by then-chancellor Olaf Scholz passed laws allowing adults to possess and privately cultivate cannabis, while also expanding legal sales to users with a prescription.Now critics, including from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats and its Bavarian sister party CSU, are warning of the negative effects of the marijuana industry on…

Our phones have become do-it-all gadgets. They enable us to keep in touch with one another, track how many steps we’re taking each day, snap photos of everything, and access the collective knowledge of humanity. All that universal functionality extends across both our work and personal lives.The gadget that pings you on Slack when your colleague has a question is the same one that alerts you when your friend has just outscored you at Wordle. That blurring of boundaries can be a problem.There is actually a solution to this, at least if you’re using an Android phone. Android supports the…