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Technology

It sure sounds like Valve’s Gabe Newell is having a lovely time in New Zealand

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Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell has given one of his famously rare interviews with New Zealand’s 1 News. In it, he discusses his admiration for the island country, where he recently applied for residency after having sheltered there during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also used the interview to confirm that Valve does indeed have new games in development (though he declined to offer more details) and addressed rumors that the company plans to set up an office in New Zealand.

Mostly it just seems like Newell is having an absolutely lovely time living in a country that hasn’t reported any COVID-19 deaths since September last year. He says he’s been attending motorsport races and pursuing an interest in neuroscience, all while Valve employees back in the US have been stuck at home for months on end. Unsurprisingly, although Newell recently denied reports that Valve is actively planning to set up an office in the country, he says there’s been “strong interest” from the company’s employees to relocate.

“There’s a lot of interest at a grass roots level inside of the company to have some people move,” Newell says, adding that New Zealand’s public health infrastructure is now “critically valuable” for a company in the age of a pandemic.

“It’s as if there’s a new element that’s been discovered called ‘not-stupidium’, and New Zealand is one of the world’s producers of it — it’s actually something that’s been built by the people of New Zealand,” Newell says, “It’s absolutely, insanely valuable — like, any high-tech company would say our people are going to be a lot more productive in New Zealand than they are going to be in Ireland or Los Angeles or lots of other places.”

Inevitably, the interview touches on future games for Valve’s Half-Life and Portal franchises. Although Newell declined to offer exact details (“I’ve successfully not spoken about those things for a long time and I hope to continue to not talk about them until they are moot questions.”), he did confirm that the company has games in development. “It’s fun to ship games,” he said.

It might not be much, but it’s reassuring that a studio with such an enviable back catalog of titles still has plans to release more games in the future — not least because Valve acquired Firewatch developer Campo Santo in 2018, after it teased its impressive-looking follow-up, In the Valley of Gods. Last year, Valve made its long-awaited return to single-player games with the excellent VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx, with some employees reporting that its development had got the studio’s “excitement and creative juices flowing” to release more games.

You can check out the full interview on 1 News.

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Sports

Super Bowl LV will host 22,000 fans, including 7,500 vaccinated health care workers

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Super Bowl LV will have 22,000 fans in attendance at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., including 7,500 vaccinated health care workers, the NFL announced Friday.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a news release that the health care workers will be guests of the league to thank them for their service during the coronavirus pandemic. The health care workers will come from hospitals in Tampa and other areas of Central Florida and will receive free tickets to the game.

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“These dedicated health care workers continue to put their own lives at risk to serve others, and we owe them our ongoing gratitude,” Goodell said. “We hope in a small way that this initiative will inspire our country and recognize these true American heroes. This is also an opportunity to promote the importance of vaccination and appropriate health practices, including wearing masks in public settings.”

There will be 14,500 additional fans allowed to attend the Super Bowl at Raymond James Stadium. The NFL said the protocols for fans attending the game outdoors include mandatory mask-wearing, social-distancing, podded seating, touchless concession stands and other security checkpoints.

SUPER BOWL LV TIME, DATE AND EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GAME

“Florida is proud to host Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa to crown the champion of an unprecedented NFL season,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.

“On behalf of Floridians and football fans across the nation, I’d like to thank the many men and women who worked hard to make this game a reality, especially our frontline health care workers who have worked tirelessly over the past year to keep people safe. I look forward to the positive impact this game will have on the Tampa Bay area, and my family and I can’t wait for the big game.”

Several teams began hosting fans throughout the season. Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., and Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., will each have a limited number of fans in the stands for the conference championship games.

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Super Bowl LV kicks off Feb. 7.

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Science

Record-breaking laser link could provide test of Einstein’s theory

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UWA’s rooftop observatory. Credit: ICRAR

Scientists from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the University of Western Australia (UWA) have set a world record for the most stable transmission of a laser signal through the atmosphere.

In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, Australian researchers teamed up with researchers from the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) and the French metrology lab Systèmes de Référence Temps-Espace (SYRTE) at Paris Observatory.

The team set the world record for the most stable laser transmission by combining the Aussies’ phase stabilization technology with advanced self-guiding optical terminals. Together, these technologies allowed laser signals to be sent from one point to another without interference from the atmosphere.

Lead author Benjamin Dix-Matthews, a Ph.D. student at ICRAR and UWA, said the technique effectively eliminates atmospheric turbulence. “We can correct for atmospheric turbulence in 3-D, that is, left-right, up-down and, critically, along the line of flight,” he said. “It’s as if the moving atmosphere has been removed and doesn’t exist. It allows us to send highly stable laser signals through the atmosphere while retaining the quality of the original signal.”

The result is the world’s most precise method for comparing the flow of time between two separate locations using a laser system transmitted through the atmosphere.

One of the self-guiding optical terminals on its telescope mount on the roof of a building at the CNES campus in Toulouse. Credit: ICRAR/UWA

ICRAR-UWA senior researcher Dr. Sascha Schediwy said the research has exciting applications. “If you have one of these optical terminals on the ground and another on a satellite in space, then you can start to explore fundamental physics,” he said. “Everything from testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity more precisely than ever before, to discovering if fundamental physical constants change over time.”

The technology’s precise measurements also have practical uses in earth science and geophysics. “For instance, this technology could improve satellite-based studies of how the water table changes over time, or to look for ore deposits underground,” Dr. Schediwy said.

There are further potential benefits for optical communications, an emerging field that uses light to carry information. Optical communications can securely transmit data between satellites and Earth with much higher data rates than current radio communications.

“Our technology could help us increase the data rate from satellites to ground by orders of magnitude,” Dr. Schediwy said. “The next generation of big data-gathering satellites would be able to get critical information to the ground faster.”

The phase stabilization technology behind the record-breaking link was originally developed to synchronize incoming signals for the Square Kilometer Array telescope. The multi-billion-dollar telescope is set to be built in Western Australia and South Africa from 2021.

Moon to Earth: Western Australia to host space communications station

More information:
Benjamin P. Dix-Matthews et al. Point-to-point stabilized optical frequency transfer with active optics, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20591-5

Provided by
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research

Citation:
Record-breaking laser link could provide test of Einstein’s theory (2021, January 22)
retrieved 22 January 2021
from https://phys.org/news/2021-01-record-breaking-laser-link-einstein-theory.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.



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Health

New Research Has Solved A 100-Year-Old Mystery About Cancer

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It was the great German doctor and Nobel laureate Otto Warburg who, back in 1921, discovered that cancer cells don’t use sugar as fuel the way we thought they would. Rather than “burning” sugar using oxygen like most cells in our body prefer, cancer cells adopt a tactic known to be used by yeast cells: fermentation.

This specialized fermentation process (known as the Warburg effect) is rapid and preferred by cancer cells to produce ATP (used by cells for energy) even in conditions where oxygen is available. However, it is not the most effective way to tap into all of the energy stored within sugar molecules and therefore left scientists intrigued for many years as to why cancer cells do this. 

Many proposed ideas have surfaced over the years since Warburg coined the term. One hypothesis was that cancer cells have faulty mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell), the organelle within cells where sugar is “burned” and turned into energy very effectively. However, the hypothesis has not stood the test of time, as it was found that the mitochondria within cancer cells work as they should, and hence it could not have been the reason why cancer cells prefer the fermentation route to acquire energy from sugar. 

Now, researchers at the Sloan Kettering Institute led by Dr Ming Li have published a potential explanation in the journal Science. Using biochemical and genetic experiments, the researchers showed that it all comes down to an important growth factor signaling molecule called PI3 kinase, an enzyme involved in a wide range of cellular activities such as cellular division, proliferation, growth, and survival.

“PI3 kinase is a key signaling molecule that functions almost like a commander-in-chief of cell metabolism,” Dr Li said in a statement. “Most of the energy-costly cellular events in cells, including cell division, occur only when PI3 kinase gives the cue.”

PI3 kinase has been extensively studied as part of a key signaling pathway involved in proliferation and cancer metabolism. As cancer cells start to shift and use the Warburg effect, the levels of PI3 kinase increases within the cells. This in turn, via a cascade of downstream events, leads to the cells becoming more committed to dividing. This is of course a hallmark of cancer: rapid division and proliferation. 

“PI3 kinase is a very, very critical kinase in the context of cancer,” Dr Li says. “It’s what sends the growth signal for cancer cells to divide, and is one of the most overly active signaling pathways in cancer.”

To study this, researchers turned to another cell type in our bodies that has the ability to use the “ineffective” Warburg effect to investigate this phenomenon: immune cells. When certain types of T-cells are alerted of a nearby infection and need to rapidly divide to increase in number, they too are capable of turning off the sugar “burning” method of energy production, and turn on the Warburg effect to produce ATP and aid their proliferation. 

As the authors explain in the press release, this “switch” from using oxygen to starting to use the fermentation process is controlled by an enzyme called lactate dehydrogenase A (LDHA). In turn, LDHA is regulated by the amount of PI3 kinase activity within the cell. By using mice that lack the LDHA enzyme, the researchers found that animals could not maintain their normal levels of PI3 kinase within their T-cells, and were unable to fight off infections, because the T-cells didn’t divide properly as the PI3 kinase levels were not what it should be. 

This cemented the idea that the metabolic LDHA enzyme was somehow regulating the cells’ PI3 kinase signaling molecule. 

“The field has worked under the assumption that metabolism is secondary to growth factor signaling,” Dr Li says. “In other words, growth factor signaling drives metabolism, and metabolism supports cell growth and proliferation. So the observation that a metabolic enzyme like LDHA could impact growth factor signaling through PI3 kinase really caught our attention.”

The researchers go on to explain that like most enzymes, PI3 kinase uses ATP as an activating source of energy to perform its functions, like enforcing cellular division. As the Warburg effect ultimately results in ATP production, a positive feedback loop is established between the two molecules where ATP drives the activity of PI3 kinase, and with more PI3 kinase available, it results in rapid cell division and growth.

The findings challenge the accepted textbook view that cell signaling drives metabolism in cancer, as the researchers demonstrate in immune cells that use the Warburg effect, metabolic enzymes could be driving signaling molecules which in turn drives cellular division and growth, explaining a long-standing mystery as to why cancer cells might preferentially use the fermentation process to their advantage.

Although more research needs to be done using cancer cells instead of immune cells to test this, the current findings open up an exciting therapeutic avenue in the future where one might be able to target cancer growth and proliferation by targeting LDHA, instead of the more commonly focused on PI3 kinase signaling enzyme. 



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World

Tennis legend Margaret Court to receive top Australian honor; faces massive backlash over anti-LGBT views

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Margaret Court, a tennis legend who won each of the sport’s four major tournaments multiple times and has created controversy over her anti-LGBT views, is set to be honored on Australia Day.

However, the decision to give her the Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia, which is “awarded for eminent achievement and merit of the highest degree in service to Australia or humanity at large,” sparked a massive backlash. The award is set to be given Tuesday, on Australia Day.

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Views on Court have changed since her playing days on the tennis courts. Court, now a Pentecostal minister, has been outspoken about her disagreement with LGBT rights and same-sex marriage in Australia. Her criticisms sparked calls for Australia to rename the Margaret Court Arena, which is one of the venues for the annual Australian Open.

The decision to award Court the honor on Australia Day received criticisms from Australian politicians. Former tennis star Martina Navratilova didn’t outright criticize the decision but retweeted Court scrutiny.

“I don’t give out those gongs. That’s not a matter for me; that’s for others. You might want to speak to them about why they think those views, which are disgraceful, hurtful and cost lives, should be honored,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said Friday, via The Guardian.

SPANISH TENNIS PLAYER SAYS SHE TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

Andrews added more in a tweet.

Anthony Albanese, of the Australian Labour Party, also tweeted about the decision.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison didn’t comment on Court’s honor.

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“I can’t comment on an award that is done through an independent process that hasn’t been announced or I have no official knowledge of those things,” he said.

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Health

A Covid-19 peak? Variants muddy forecasts for coming months

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Hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the United States are falling after having hit record levels this month — a welcome sign that the winter surge may finally be leveling off. But as new, potentially more contagious variants of the virus circulate, coronavirus modelers warn that the U.S. is by no means out of the woods yet.

The emergence of new variants isn’t altogether surprising, but experts say that without a better understanding of how these strains affect things like transmissibility and the effectiveness of existing vaccines, it’s difficult to know how the pandemic may play out.

“There’s so much up in the air, and the new variants have thrown a huge monkey wrench into our ability to model things,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a professor of medicine and director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “All of those things make the crystal ball very cloudy.”

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Although hospitalizations and the number of new infections in the U.S. both declined compared to the previous seven days, Covid-19 deaths are still rising. The country surpassed 400,000 deaths this week, and on Wednesday it set a daily record, with 4,131 reported deaths, according to an NBC News tally.

It’s estimated that the coronavirus has undergone thousands of mutations since it was detected in humans. Many ended up being inconsequential, but scientists are concerned about any alterations that could make the virus more contagious or make the available vaccines less effective.

Evidence from the U.K. has shown that one such variant, known as B.1.1.7, spreads more easily from person to person, although it doesn’t seem to make people sicker and it appears to be susceptible to vaccines. A report released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the U.K. variant could become the predominant strain in the U.S. by March.

New variants have also been reported in South Africa, Brazil and the U.S., with a flurry of research underway to characterize the changes. Early lab experiments suggest that the vaccines made by Pfizer and BioNTech and by Moderna may be less effective against the variant identified in South Africa, but the research wasn’t done in humans, and the findings have yet to be peer-reviewed.

As variants emerge, it will be crucial to adhere to measures to slow the virus’s spread and pick up the pace of vaccinations to keep all of those figures from spiking, said coronavirus modeler Alessandro Vespignani, director of Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute.

That’s because a more contagious variant is likely to result in more cases overall, which adds even more strain on health care systems that are already overburdened.

“It’s a bit of a race against the emergence of new strains that are more transmissible,” Vespignani said. “If we roll out the vaccine fast enough and keep epidemic levels low, that will also slow down the variants and buy us more time.”

The distribution of vaccines has been problematic, with some states running out of their supplies while others have struggled to administer all the doses they were receiving.

And there are concerns that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to track genetic changes in the virus by sequencing genetic codes. Not knowing specifically what variants are present in the country makes it harder to protect those at risk, said former CDC official Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health at the University of Washington. It also makes it more challenging for modelers to project how the pandemic may unfold.

“If we don’t stay on top of what’s circulating, we may have a homegrown variant that is more transmissible than the one we’ve seen in the U.K., and we wouldn’t know,” he said.

Mokdad is part of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which developed one of the most widely cited coronavirus models. Its current projection shows that while the number of new infections is decreasing in the U.S., Covid-19 deaths aren’t expected to peak until early March.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Still, Mokdad said, there are ways the U.S. can avoid additional spikes in hospitalizations and deaths, even with the emergence of new variants.

“We have to do what we know is effective — social distancing and wearing a mask,” he said. “We can’t celebrate prematurely, because if everyone assumes the worst is behind us, that’s when we’ll see peaks again.”

And although models anticipate that deaths will continue to rise for several more weeks, it’s possible to flatten the curve if people remain vigilant, Vespignani said.

“Every forecast is not a deterministic outcome,” he said. “We can do something to change the trajectory.”

Denise Chow

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on the environment and space. 



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US

Bernie Sanders’ mittens are sold out

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“Thanks for all the interest in Bernie’s mittens!” Jen Ellis wrote on Twitter. “I’m so flattered that Bernie wore them to the inauguration. Sadly, I have no more mittens for sale. There are a lot of great crafters on ETSY who make them.”
A few years ago, Ellis, who teaches second grade, gave the Vermont senator the patterned, hand-knit “smittens” — part mittens, part sweater — on the campaign trail. But she didn’t expect he’d start wearing them at high-profile events like the inauguration. The mittens are made from repurposed wool sweaters and lined with fleece made from recycled plastic bottles, she said in a tweet last year.
The image is also being sold on T-shirts, mugs and as a $25 bobble head. Some sellers on Etsy are already touting “Bernie inspired” mittens. Last year, online merchants cashed in on the fly that buzzed on former Vice President Mike Pence during the debate against Kamala Harris. The Biden campaign sold more than 35,000 fly swatters with the slogan, “truth over flies,” a play on the campaign’s slogan “truth over lies.”
Ellis couldn’t be reached for comment, but she told the Jewish Insider that “there’s no possible way I could make 6,000 pairs of mittens, and every time I go into my email, another several hundred people have emailed me.”

“I hate to disappoint people, but the mittens, they’re one of a kind and they’re unique and, sometimes in this world, you just can’t get everything you want,” she told the news site.

The virality and levity of the Bernie meme is reminiscent of more carefree days of the internet. As one Twitter user captured it, “The Bernie Sanders memes and photoshops are what the world needs right now.”
This isn’t the first time the mittens have been in the spotlight either. Last year, Sanders wore them to the Women’s March in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; some called the mittens “oversized mittens” and a dedicated Twitter account, @BerniesMittens, was born. At the time, Ellis said she was “humbled by the support” and “what started out as a simple act of kindness more than 2 years ago has grown into something beyond my imagination.”

She added: “This mitten frenzy is really distracting me from getting my mid-year report cards done.”

In a statement to CNN on Thursday, Sanders said the meme this week “makes people aware that we make good mittens in Vermont. … We have some good coats as well.”



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Sports

Olympics 2021: Japan and IOC determined to hold Tokyo Games despite cancellation rumors

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The Japanese government also said on Friday that it is determined the Games will go ahead following an unconfirmed report that a cancellation might be imminent.

On Friday, the Times of London, citing an unnamed senior member of the ruling coalition, reported that Japanese authorities had privately concluded that the Olympics could not proceed due to the ongoing pandemic. CNN has not independently verified this report, which officials have refuted

“Some news reports circulating today are claiming that the government of Japan has privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics will have to be canceled because of the coronavirus,” said the statement from the IOC.

“This is categorically untrue … All parties involved are working together to prepare for a successful Games this summer.”

In a statement, the Tokyo 2020 organizers said that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga had expressed to them his determination to hold the Games, and that meetings were ongoing to ensure that they could go ahead while implementing thorough infection countermeasures and other precautions due to the pandemic.

“All our delivery partners including the national government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the IOC and the IPC are fully focused on hosting the Games this summer,” the statement said. “We hope that daily life can return to normal as soon as possible, and we will continue to make every effort to prepare for a safe and secure Games.”

Speaking in parliament Friday morning, Suga said the Games “will be a symbol of humanity overcoming the novel coronavirus, and a chance to showcase Japan’s reconstruction from the devastating (2011) earthquake and tsunami to the world.”

“We are determined to work closely together with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, and the IOC to realize a safe and secure Olympics,” Suga said.

Other Olympic officials were also quick to deny the claims made by the Times.

“Unfortunately, I need to address unfounded rumors that Tokyo Games will be canceled, rumors that only create more anxiety for the athletes in our sports,” Australian Olympic Committee CEO Matt Carroll told reporters Friday. “The Tokyo Games are on. The flames will be lit on the 23rd of July 2021. This has been just reconfirmed again by the Japanese Prime Minister this afternoon.”

In a thread on Twitter, Canadian Olympic chief David Shoemaker said his team was “unaware of any decision taken by the Japanese government as is being reported.”

“The Canadian Olympic Committee has confidence that the Games can be staged safely and successfully given what has been learned in sport over the last several months and the emphasis the IOC and Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee have placed on Covid-19 countermeasures,” he said. “We continue in our preparation to participate at Tokyo 2020 with a focus on the health and safety of our athletes, their families, and their communities.”

Saturday marks six months until the postponed Games are due to begin.

CNN’s Aleks Klosok contributed to this report.

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Technology

Mass Effect 2’s Jack Was Originally Pansexual, But Non-Straight Romances Were Cut Because Of Fox News

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Jack was supposed to be pansexual in Mass Effect 2, but BioWare changed her romance after the first game was criticized by the mainstream media.

In the 11 years since Mass Effect 2 launched, fans have often wondered why Jack – a character who specifically references times in which she became intimate with non-male romantic partners – is only romanceable if Commander Shepard is a man. As it turns out, this wasn’t supposed to be the case. Jack was originally written as pansexual, but her relationship conditions were changed towards the end of development due to concerns about the mainstream media’s reception to the first Mass Effect game.

After Mass Effect launched in 2007, Fox News hosted an extraordinarily tactless panel pertaining to the game’s depiction of sex. As expected of the time, sex was spoken about as if it were completely taboo.

 

The panel instigated a domino effect, which led to baseless criticism not only towards Mass Effect’s sex scenes, but also the fact that it included a non-straight romance option in Liara T’Soni (Kaidan Allenko was locked into a straight-only relationship arc until Mass Effect 3).

“I was trying to chart out the arc of [Jack’s] romance, which for much of the development – it was actually very late that it became a male/female-only romance,” Brian Kindregan tells me. Kindregan was the lead writer for Jack, Samara, and the first critical path mission on Horizon in Mass Effect 2, and also did the first pass on Grunt and Tuchanka, “She was essentially pansexual for most of the development of that romance.

Related: Retailers List Mass Effect: Legendary Edition For March

“Mass Effect had been pretty heavily and really unfairly criticized in the US by Fox News, which at the time… maybe more people in the world thought that there was a connection between reality and what gets discussed on Fox News,” Kindregan continues. “The development team of Mass Effect 2 was a pretty progressive, open-minded team, but I think there was a concern at pretty high levels that if [the first] Mass Effect, which only had one gay relationship, Liara – which on paper was technically not a gay relationship because she was from a mono-gendered species – I think there was a concern that if that had drawn fire, that Mass Effect 2 had to be a little bit careful.”

Interestingly enough, Courtenay Taylor – who played Jack in Mass Effect 2 – also expressed that she was originally supposed to be a pansexual character. In a recent chat with our own Kirk McKeand, Taylor said:

“It’s funny to me because my understanding was always that she was pansexual. So I don’t know if that’s just something I inferred from the character or something that she said that maybe got cut. I was surprised there wasn’t a female romance possible because that was my understanding. I think it was the time, you know? That was, what – 2008/2009? The industry has changed exponentially since then, and BioWare was leading the charge on that. I don’t know if it came down to a budget constraint or maybe someone being like ‘this is too obvious’ because everyone was like ‘of course she’s a lesbian.’ But my sense was always that she was [pansexual] and it just didn’t get followed through. Of course, the community modded it immediately so you can have it your way.”

As Jack’s writer, Kindregan explains that he didn’t necessarily agree with the decision to change her sexuality. He understands why it happened, and says “it wasn’t like some anti-gay person high up on the Mass Effect 2 team saying, ‘we’re not going to have that’.” Instead, it had to do with the firestorm of controversy that Mass Effect had received back in 2007, and attempting to minimize the amount of critique that would be directed towards the community by outlets like Fox News again. “The short version is, a lot of us were asked pretty late to focus the relationships on a more traditional kind of vector,” Kindregan says.

“I’ve definitely heard a lot from people who were surprised that Jack turned out to not be open to that,” he continues. “I understand why. I would say that there were a lot of seeds planted in her conversations that certainly implied that she was pansexual – she once specifically references being part of a thrupple. She says there was a guy and a woman she was running with that invited her into their robberies and into their bed. She definitely references those things. That was explicitly to start sending the message that yes, this is a character who is pansexual. In the eleventh hour revision of cleaning that up, she’d already been partially recorded with voiceover. Not all of that could be changed.

“I would say even with the things I could change, and I don’t know if this was the right decision or not, I still saw her as a character with an edge,” Kindregan says. “Not edgy, but with an edge of not following traditional norms. I think I might have, even during the revision process, kept some of that stuff in there with a sense of like yeah, this is a person who’s been around and done a lot of things, went off the farm and down to Paris.”

Ultimately, though, Jack became a romance option that was exclusively available for male Shepard, despite the fact that both her writer and actor agree that she was originally supposed to be pansexual. 2010 was only three years after the infamous Fox News Mass Effect debacle, and so BioWare was reluctant to follow through on some of the ideas that were specifically put in place early in development. By the end of production, the only non-straight romance options in the game were:

  • Kelly Chambers, who is not a squadmate and does not disqualify other relationships.
  • Samara, who expresses that she has feelings for you but ultimately turns you down – Kindregan compares it to someone saying, sure, I’ll be with you, but I’m in love with this other person and I’ll ditch you for them if they come calling.
  • Morinth, who literally kills you less than a single second into having sex.

“I’ve worked with lesbian developers who have come up to me and said like, ‘Why is Jack not into me?’” Kindregan says. “And I have to say ‘I’m so sorry, it’s partially my fault.’ But I still stand by the thing of keeping her with a more varied background. Maybe someday Jack will be portrayed as pan.”

Keep an eye on TheGamer.com at the beginning of February for our Mass Effect Day – an entire day of deep-dive articles dedicated to one of the best RPG series of all time.

Next: Stop Making Every Good Pokemon A Boring Dragon

Fire Emblem’s 30th Anniversary Edition Is Continuing To Sell Like Hot Sweet Buns


About The Author


Cian Maher
(465 Articles Published)

Cian Maher is the Lead Features Editor at TheGamer. He’s also had work published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Verge, Vice, Wired, and more. You can find him on Twitter @cianmaher0.

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Science

Touchless tech mimics the ability to ‘press’ an elevator button

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In their COVID—19 information page, both the CDC and the WHO warn people against touching their faces with unwashed hands, since the virus can survive on surfaces. There’s been a rise in the use of touchless technologies as a result, and Singaporean studio Stuck Design envisions a world wherein passengers won’t even have to press elevator buttons with their fingers to get to where they need to go. The studio’s Kinetic Touchless technology can mimic the movement of one’s fingers and recreate the tactile response of pushing a button.

It works by using motion as an input method so it doesn’t need direct contact and can imitate the movement from a distance. The studio says the type of touchless interaction its technology offers can be applied to various gestures, as well. That means buttons using the technology can sink inwards or move outwards if the user makes a pushing or pulling motion. A row of buttons can also follow the user’s finger if they make a sliding movement.

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