- Gilbert school explains why suspect played in football game while under investigation for Preston Lord’s murder Arizona’s Family
- Teen Football Player Accused of Murdering Preston Lord Played Game After Being Named Person of Interest: Report PEOPLE
- Family of student charged in beating death of Arizona teen Preston Lord accused of ‘cover-up’ USA TODAY
- Arizona parents of rich-kid gang member charged with murder allegedly tried to cover his tracks: report New York Post
- ALA Gilbert North coach fired over decisions related to Preston Lord defendant The Arizona Republic
Tag Archives: Preston
Musk vs. Preston: X owner vows to spend as much as $100K to oust S.F. supervisor – San Francisco Chronicle
- Musk vs. Preston: X owner vows to spend as much as $100K to oust S.F. supervisor San Francisco Chronicle
- Elon Musk pledges $100K to oust San Francisco supervisor in 2024 election ABC7 News Bay Area
- Elon Musk calls for San Francisco supervisor to be fired over city’s ‘destruction’ amid crime surge Fox News
- Elon Musk pledges $100K to defeat San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston following hearing on car break-ins KGO-TV
- SF Supervisor Dean Preston responds after CEOs, including Elon Musk, call for his firing KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Chicago Officer Aréanah Preston killed: 4 teenagers charged with murder – CBS News
- Chicago Officer Aréanah Preston killed: 4 teenagers charged with murder CBS News
- 4 charged in killing of Chicago Police Officer Areanah Preston FOX 32 Chicago
- Chicago Police Officer Areanah Preston murder: Accused cop killers ordered held without bail Fox News
- Two mothers linked by tragedy: One lost her police officer daughter, the other’s 16-year-old son is accused of the murder Chicago Sun-Times
- ‘It was my work’: Teen bragged to friend after officer Aréanah Preston’s slaying, prosecutors allege WGN News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Off-duty Chicago police officer Areanah Preston killed right in front of her home – FOX 32 Chicago
- Off-duty Chicago police officer Areanah Preston killed right in front of her home FOX 32 Chicago
- 24-year-old off-duty police officer killed in ‘tragic’ shooting near Chicago home ABC 7 Chicago
- Community Activist Offering $5K Reward for Arrest in Killing of Off-Duty Chicago Police Officer NBC Chicago
- Chicago police officer killed: Areanah Preston, CPD officer shot in front of Avalon Park home, wanted to ‘fight for justice’ WLS-TV
- Police continue search for gunman who killed off-duty officer on South Side Chicago Sun-Times
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Preston Vance already has a new ring name in AEW
Preston Vance has wrestled most of his AEW career under the ring name “10” as a member of the Dark Order. He completely ditched the name and his mask last month when he turned his back on Brodie Lee Jr. and his former stablemates.
After Vance broke off from those Dark Order dweebs in November, he immediately joined RUSH and Jose the Assistant as the newest member of La Faccion Ingobernable. On tonight’s (Dec. 30) episode of AEW Rampage, Vance demanded to be called by a new ring name:
No, he’s not following in the footsteps of W. Morrissey and calling himself Prodigious Preston. His new ring name is Perro Peligroso, which translates to Dangerous Dog.
Peligroso is proud that he got a bunch of headlines two weeks ago by trashing 10-year-old Brodie Lee Jr., and he has no remorse for his actions.
Perro is in action for his first singles match in this new gimmick next week on Rampage against an opponent to be named later. He said all the Dark Order guys are interchangeable and he wasn’t bothered by the idea of facing any of them.
Are you digging Perro Peligroso, Cagesiders?
Scientists Are Using Dead Spiders as Horrifying Claw Grabbers
We’ve likely all killed a spider or two in the past, but what if that arachnid’s corpse could be repurposed into something useful? Well, researchers at Rice University in Texas think it can and are pioneering the field of “necrobotics” by injecting dead spiders with air to use them to grasp small objects.
When Rice University assistant professor of mechanical engineering Daniel Preston was setting up his lab, he and graduate student Faye Yap wondered why a dead spider in the corner of the room had its legs curled up. It turns out that spiders extend their legs using hydraulic pressure, which comes from fluid pumped into their legs from a central cavity, which means that when they die, their legs permanently retract. Preston and Yap wondered if they could hack that hydraulic process by injecting air into a dead spider’s legs to force them open. They found that they could, and their study on this macabre opportunity to make a biological gripper was published in Advanced Science on Monday.
“[Spiders] actually only have flexing muscles,” Yap said in a video call, meaning that spiders can pull their legs in, but have no muscles to extend them. “The way they extend their legs is using hydraulic pressure.”
This pressure comes from the spider’s prosoma—the spider’s cephalothorax, where its legs attach to its body—which sends fluid to the arachnid’s legs, allowing it to walk—individual legs are controlled by the opening and closing of valves in the spider’s anatomy. Preston, Yap, and colleagues found that if they carefully inserted a syringe into the prosoma of a dead spider, they could mimic the hydraulic pressure with air, extending and retracting all of the spider’s legs at once. This meant that the spider could be used as a gripper. But why attempt something so disturbing?
“We’re interested in using them for things like sample collection,” Preston said. “They have an intrinsic compliance due to this hydraulic or pneumatic actuation that we’re able to apply, and that helps protect fragile samples or even other living bugs, for example, if we wanted to collect those in the field.”
The properties of the repurposed arachnid are incredibly promising: The team found that a spider gripper could last upwards of 1,000 open/close cycles, and could be used to lift 130% of its own body weight.
The researchers mainly used wolf spiders for the work in this particular manuscript, but they believe that other spider species could be used as well. Interestingly, Yap says that the group found that spiders with larger body mass—such as the Goliath spider—were only able to lift objects that were 1/10th their body weight, while smaller spiders—like jumping spiders—might be able to lift as much as two times their body weight.
As for how those outside the lab reacted to the project, Preston says most were supportive and even excited when they saw how effective the gripper was. Others, though, weren’t too happy about having spiders around.
“One of the employees that works in our front office really doesn’t like spiders. So we had to give a call to the front office whenever we had another delivery coming in for us to use for the project and just kind of give them a heads up,” said Preston with a chuckle. The team ordered their spiders from a biological supply company, but, unfortunately, some of them did not come deceased. Yap elaborated: “Sometimes they are inanimate, but sometimes we do have to euthanize them. So we do look up the most humane way to kill them from literature.”
While the project might seem bizarre, Preston believes it fits right within his lab’s research scope of studying soft robotics. “We look at anything at the intersection of energy, materials and fluids,” he says. “Soft robotics typically applies nontraditional materials, things that are not the typical hard plastics metals but instead things like hydrogels and elastomers and unique actuation modes like magnetism and light.” Preston and Yap are very interested in using this as a jumping-off point for other research on necrobotic grippers, like figuring out how to open and close individual legs.
While researchers across the globe are working on bio-inspired robotics, Preston, Yap, and the rest of the team cut to the chase and used biology itself, plucked from the floor of their lab. This creative, nature-inspired work is clearly mad science at its best.
Scientists Are Turning Dead Spiders Into ‘Necrobots’ And We Are So Creeped Out
When mechanical engineering graduate student Faye Yap saw a dead spider curled up in the hallway, it got her thinking about whether it could be used as a robotics component.
Turning dead spiders into mechanical grippers may be some people’s idea of a nightmare scenario, but it could have tangible benefits. Spider legs can grip large, delicate, and irregularly shaped objects firmly and softly without breaking them.
So, in collaboration with mechanical engineer Daniel Preston, Yap and her colleagues at Rice University discovered a way to make a dead wolf spider’s legs unfurl and grip onto objects.
They called this new type of robotics ‘necrobotics’.
Weirdly, spider legs don’t have muscles for extension, but instead move their legs via hydraulic pressure – they have what’s called a prosoma chamber, or cephalothorax, which contracts, sending inner body fluid into their legs, making them extend.
So, the team inserted a needle into the spider’s prosoma chamber and created a seal around the tip of the needle with a glob of superglue. Squeezing a tiny puff of air through the syringe was enough to activate the spider’s legs, achieving a full range of motion in less than one second.
“We took the spider, we placed the needle in it not knowing what was going to happen,” says Yap in a video on the Rice University website.
“We had an estimate of where we wanted to place the needle. And when we did, it worked, the first time, right off the bat. I don’t even know how to describe it, that moment.”
The team were able to make the dead spider grip onto a small ball and used that experiment to determine a peak grip force of 0.35 millinewtons.
They then demonstrated the use of a dead spider to pick up delicate objects and electronics, including having this necrobotic gripper remove a jumper wire attached to an electric breadboard and then move a block of polyurethane foam.
They also showed that the spider could bear the weight of another spider of about the same size.
(Preston Innovation Laboratory/Rice University)
Since spiders extend their legs by exerting hydraulic pressure from their cephalothorax, when they die the hydraulic system doesn’t work anymore. The flexor muscles in the spider’s legs go into rigor mortis, but, as the muscles only work in one direction, the spider curls up.
While most man-made robotics components are quite complex to manufacture, spiders are complex already and (unfortunately for arachnophobes) are in plentiful supply.
“The concept of necrobotics proposed in this work takes advantage of unique designs created by nature that can be complicated or even impossible to replicate artificially,” the researchers say in their paper.
Spiders are also biodegradable, so using them as robot parts would cut the amount of waste in robotics.
“One of the applications we could see this being used for is micro-manipulation, and that could include things like micro-electronic devices,” says Preston in the video.
One drawback to the dead spider gripper is that it starts to experience some wear and tear after two days or after 1,000 open-and-close cycles.
“We think that’s related to issues with dehydration of the joints. We think we can overcome that by applying polymeric coatings,” explains Preston.
The researchers experimented with coating the wolf spiders in beeswax and found that its mass decrease was 17 times less than the uncoated spider over 10 days, which meant it was retaining more water and its hydraulic system might function longer.
This study was published in Advanced Science.
Green Bay Packers sign Preston Smith to 4-year, $52.5 million extension, release Za’Darius Smith
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Preston Smith helped extend his career with the Green Bay Packers, and the team picked up much needed salary-cap space when they came to an agreement on a new contract Monday.
Meanwhile, Za’Darius Smith, the pass-rusher that signed in Green Bay in the same 2019 free-agent class as Preston Smith, saw his time with the Packers end on Monday. The Packers are releasing him, sources told ESPN.
Preston Smith, who had one year and $12.5 million left on his existing deal, signed a four-year, $52.5 million extension, a source told ESPN. Smith will make $25 million over the next two seasons with the chance to earn $31 million with incentives. The entire deal could earn Smith up to $71 million over five seasons should he reach all of the incentives.
The release of Za’Darius Smith saves the Packers $15.75 million in salary-cap space.
Preston Smith was scheduled to count $19.5 million on this year’s cap. The Packers were $45.5 million over their salary cap before Smith’s deal, which is expected to lower his cap charge by about $8-9 million. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ contract extension, when it’s done, also will lower the Packers’ cap number.
The Packers are also releasing offensive tackle Billy Turner, a source told ESPN. That move will save them $3.142 million in cap space immediately or $5.8 million if they designate him a post-June 1 release.
The Packers must be under the cap by 4 p.m. ET Wednesday, when the 2022 league year begins.
Preston Smith teamed with Rashan Gary to form a strong pass-rushing duo last season while Za’Darius Smith missed most of the year because of a back injury. Preston Smith took a pay cut last offseason following a substandard 2021 season but bounced back with nine sacks.
In seven seasons, he has 49.5 sacks and has missed only one game. He originally signed a four-year, $52 million deal with the Packers in 2019.
Za’Darius Smith, who was named to the Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons with the Packers (2019 and 2020) and was a second-team All-Pro in 2020, played only 18 snaps last year in the regular season. All came in the season opener before he underwent back surgery. He did not return until the NFC divisional playoff game, a loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Last offseason, he made attempts to secure a contract extension with the Packers, even changing agents in May. However, he dealt with a back injury that kept him out of offseason practices and most of training camp.
Za’Darius Smith was the highest-priced free agent ever signed by general manager Brian Gutekunst, who gave him a four-year, $66 million deal. He lived up to it early on, posting the most sacks (26) by a player in his first two seasons with the Packers. He was one of only three players in the NFL with 12-plus sacks in 2019 and 2020, joining Aaron Donald and T.J. Watt.
Also currently on the Packers’ cap is receiver Davante Adams’ $20.145 million franchise tag. Neither the Packers nor Adams want him to play under the tag this season. It would provide Adams no long-term security and would be hard for the team to handle on their cap. While there has been little progress in negotiations, general manager Brian Gutekunst said using the tag is “more of a bridge to hopefully an extension down the road.” They will have until 4 p.m. ET on July 15 to work out an extension.
Britney Spears shares rare photo of sons Sean Preston, 15, and Jayden James, 14
Britney Spears can’t believe her “two babies” — Sean Preston, 15, and Jayden James, 14 — are now young men.
The singer, 39, shared a rare photo from a hike with the pair she shares with ex-husband Kevin Federline. Both are now taller than their famous mama — and she said the teens, who have on masks in the pic, gave her approval to post the image.
“It’s so crazy how time flies,” Spears wrote. “My boys are so big now!!!! I know … I know … it’s very hard for any mama especially a mama with boys seeing them grow up so fast !!!! Talk about enough to make you go to your knees … GEEZ !!!!”
However, “I’m extremely lucky because my two babies are such gentleman and so kind that I must have done something right !!!!,” she wrote.
Spears wrote that she hasn’t posted photos of them recently “cause they’re at the age where they want to express their own identities and I totally get it.” She said she “went out my way” to edit the photo of the sunset and that is what got them to agree to let her post.
“Now I don’t feel left out anymore and I’m gonna go celebrate,” she joked, adding, “Oh sh** I guess cool moms don’t do that … Ok I’ll just read a book instead.”
Spears’s boyfriend, Sam Asghari, commented on the photo, “Lioness with her Cubs.”
The teens primarily reside with Federline, Spears’s backup dancer husband, who has the better hand in their 70-30 custody arrangement.
In September 2019, the boys were granted a restraining order, obtained through Federline’s attorney, preventing Spears’s dad and co-conservator Jamie from being able to see them. It stemmed from an alleged incident a month earlier when Jamie and Sean Preston had a verbal argument which led to Jamie allegedly putting his hands on the teen.
In early 2020, Jayden shared what he really thought about his grandfather in an Instagram Live video that was quickly deleted.
Jamie, of course, is at the center of the #FreeBritney movement. Spears has been in a conservatorship since her 2008 involuntary hospitalizations. Jamie, initially at the helm of the entire thing, now oversees Spears’s $60 million estate along with co-conservator Bessemer Trust, a financial company, but Spears has been trying, through her court-appointed attorney, to have her dad ousted. Her attorney said she’s afraid of him and won’t resume working until he’s no longer in the role. Spears wants the conservator of her person Jodi Montgomery —who currently makes decisions about her health, where she lives and who she sees — to oversee the whole thing.
The New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears looked at the conservatorship and amped up the movement to #FreeBritney. Last week, Jamie’s lawyer insisted “people have it so wrong” and he only wants to help his daughter from people who “were exploiting her.”
Monday was a reflective day for Spears, who also shared a post talking about “the craziness the past year” and it suggested she wasn’t just talking about the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic hitting the U.S.
She wrote, “This new year should be a year of cleansing our inner selves with meditation … prayer … any kind of hobby that brings joy … and being conscious of what we put in our bodies as well ] !!! This all helps us to have a clear mind … body … spirit and offers so much more clarity in our everyday lives !!!! This year I devote myself to lots of tea and healing !!!! I’m working on allowing myself to not be so strong all the time and to know it’s ok to cry !!!! I pray for deep healing this year for all of us and I hope we can all inspire each other !!!!”
She ended with, “Again … BE KIND – PASS IT ON AMERICA!!!!” — a message also learned in the documentary, which showed how mean the media was to her along her rise to superstardom.
Spears also shared a throwback of herself at the 2002 Grammys. She was just 20 at the time and looked so happy and in a red dress with curly locks.
“This night was a dream,” she wrote. “Sometimes you have so much fun that the time flies by in literally 2 seconds !!!! That happened to me this night !!!! I got to hair and makeup in jeans and a sweatshirt and I left like this !!!!”
Spears admitted, “It’s taken me 19 years to realize that I was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman” with her red dress, the white and red diamonds and “geez the curly hair!!!! The power of dreams.”
The next hearing in her conservatorship case is March 17.
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: