Last month, NASA astronaut Chris Williams floated aboard the Crew Dragon Freedom, pointing his camera out the window. What he photographed shows our planet enveloped in a delicate ribbon of light, called airglow, with the Milky Way arching overhead like a faint road through the stars. The photograph, shot on April 13 while the spacecraft was docked to the International Space Station, provides a clear view of something that occurs high above us every night.

Earth softly curves over the bottom of the frame, with brown and reddish land extending out next to patches of deep blue ocean, all speckled with beautiful white clouds. A thin, consistent ribbon of green and yellow hugs the edge of the atmosphere, where the planet meets empty space. Above that ribbon, the sky becomes absolutely dark, with thousands of sharp stars. The Milky Way traces a wide, hazy path across the top, with dense star fields and dark dust lanes easily visible.

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Williams captured the image from the zenith docking port on the night side of the orbit. The window frame and a bit of the station’s solar array emerge at the borders, reminding viewers that this sight came from a small spacecraft hundreds of miles high. The camera was pointed at the horizon, where the glow is greatest, so no city lights appear. Instead, the attention is on the natural light that surrounds the entire globe.

That light is known as airglow, since sunlight penetrates the upper atmosphere during the day and provides energy to the atoms and molecules that float there. After sunset, such particles gradually release their additional energy as weak photons. The procedure creates the colored layers that Williams recorded. Green and yellow tones are most common because oxygen and nitrogen react in different ways at different heights. The effect is similar to the soft brightness inside a glow stick after snapping it, but on a planetary scale and driven by ordinary daylight rather than chemicals.

People occasionally mix airglow with the brighter curtains of an aurora. Both include charged particles emitting light, while airglow relies on consistent solar energy that arrives each day. Auroras require bursts of solar wind to light up. Airglow is always present, but it is too dim for most ground viewers to see unless the sky are very black and the camera exposure is long.

Williams later explained that the night side of the orbit is comparable to standing in one of Earth’s most isolated dark-sky locations. The station’s path allows him to observe stars in both the northern and southern sky at the same time. In his words, the view of the galactic plane is clear because nothing in the thin air above obscures the distant stars. This single frame combines those details: the planet’s curve, the luminous atmosphere shell, and the galaxy beyond.
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Man on Fire is a story that first hit my radar, like many of you, when Denzel Washington stepped into the role of former CIA operative John Creasy in Tony Scott’s 2004 action film. The story of that film, like Netflix‘s new thriller, draws inspiration from A. J. Quinnell’s book of the same name — which is the first entry in the five-book series.

For all intents and purposes, the 2004 film is a solid adaptation, and thanks to the performances of Washington (who plays Creasy) and a young Dakota Fanning, it has stood the test of time and remains a quality actioner to dig into.

Also, potentially like many of you, I’m shocked to say that Netflix’s episodic adaptation of Quinnell’s work is far superior. 

If you’ve paid attention to the numbers, you already know that Man on Fire hit the top of Netflix’s streaming charts with a whopping 11 million views in the show’s first four days on the platform. It was this news that nudged me to give the show a try — and I was immediately hooked.

Read more: 40 of the Best Movies on Netflix You Should Stream Now

Netflix’s Man on Fire isn’t a retread of the 2004 movie because the series loosely adapts the original material. Taking a note from shows of a similar ilk, like Reacher and Cross, Man on Fire takes its own creative liberties while using the books as a narrative foundation. And it works brilliantly.

This Man on Fire takes to the streets of Brazil, altering the conflict of the original story, while adhering to the basics of a weathered man doing anything and everything to protect a girl who’s being hunted by gangs and terrorists hell-bent on killing her. That’s just one piece to an intricate and violent puzzle. 

If it sounds heavy, that’s because it is. But thanks to smart writing and the emotional resonance of the cast performances, the movie is as engaging and heartfelt as it is bloody. 

You want to watch this beatdown man get lit on fire for this purpose — it’s Death Wish for a whole new generation.

Abdul-Mateen stars as Creasy in this rendition, which shifts the character’s backstory from CIA officer to PTSD-stricken Special Forces operative, and from the get-go, the emotional stakes are viscerally there. They steadily ramp up through each episode, justifying Creasy’s Jack Bauer-style actions, all with the motivations of enforcing justice and eliminating every evildoer he crosses paths with.

Abdul-Mateen holds his own in the role, quickly eliminating the remnants of Washington’s performance two decades earlier. And that’s no easy undertaking. Yet, as we’ve seen with the roles the actor has taken, from Dr. Manhattan in HBO’s Watchmen to playing Candyman in the 2021 horror remake and Wonder Man earlier this year on Disney Plus, he’s got range and a top-tier skill of wearing his heart on his sleeve, no matter what his character must do on screen. 

In short, you can’t help but root for Abdul-Mateen, which means it’s nearly impossible to not root for Creasy.

It doesn’t stop with him, though. Every actor that graces the screen in Man on Fire is legit (as the kids say) fire. Bobby Cannavale dips in for a hot second to remind everyone of how great he is. Alice Braga, as Valeria, serves as a supportive counterpoint to Creasy’s hotheaded actions.

It’s Billie Boullet as Poe, the teenage girl Creasy protects from every possible danger, who steals the show, though. She’s got the same sort of wide-eyed emotional resonance Fanning had opposite Washington, yet it hits different and better here. She’s notably older than Fanning was, and the character she’s playing is a departure from earlier portrayals. That only works to her benefit, allowing her to find her own emotional footholds in the character. Boullet paired with Abdul-Mateen is a perfect match, full stop.

Instead of taking place in Mexico City, where Washington unleashed hell in the Tony Scott movie, this rendition sends Creasy to Brazil. The Netflix series shows off the beautiful, tourist-friendly areas of the country, then flips it, shoving us deep into the favelas to explore an often misrepresented culture. 

The entire time I watched the show, I found myself leaning in close to take in the surroundings of each scene. Was this shot in a studio in front of a blue screen or on location? I’m pleased to say it was shot in multiple urban landscapes, like Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. That tactile authenticity brings the story to life in a necessary way, embracing its realness rather than re-creating it in post.

Oh, and did I mention how action-packed and violent the show is? I did, but it bears repeating. 

This is Jason Bourne-style action, in the form of a TV show where each episode runs approximately 40 minutes. If ever there was a way to guarantee my attention and keep me glued to the screen for hours on end, everything I just mentioned — from the writing to the acting and the viscera in between — adds up to the perfect formula to do just that. If you’re anything like me and you’ve read this far (so I assume you are), you’ll feel the exact same way.

After three people died on a cruise ship struck by a hantavirus, authorities are actively tracking down 29 people who had left the ship. They’re trying to trace the spread of the virus. It’s a long, arduous, global process to find and notify people who might be at risk of infection.

Hey, wasn’t there supposed to be an app for that?

Contact-tracing apps were a global effort starting in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Enabled by phone companies like Apple and Google, contact tracing was designed to use Bluetooth connections to detect when people had come in contact with someone who had or would later test positive for Covid and report as much. It didn’t do much to solve the spread of the pandemic, but tracking the virus became more effective at least. The same process wouldn’t go well for the hantavirus problem.

“There is no use of apps for this hantavirus outbreak,” Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in an email response to WIRED. “The number of cases are small, and it’s important to trace all contacts exactly to stop transmission.”

On a smaller scale of infection like this, officials have to start at the source (an infected individual), then go person-by-person, confirming where they went and who they might have come into contact with. Data collected by apps from a broad swath of devices would not be anywhere close to accurate enough to give a good idea of where the virus might have hitchhiked to next.

Contact tracing on a wider scale, like, say, a global pandemic, is less about tracking the individual infections and more about understanding what parts of the population might be affected, giving people the opportunity to self-quarantine after exposure. But that depends on how people choose to respond, and how the technology is utilized by public emergency systems. During the Covid pandemic, contact-tracing via apps tended to work better in more carefully managed European countries, but did not slow the spread in the US.

Making devices accessible to that kind of proximity information has also brought all sorts of concerns about privacy, given that the technology would require always-on access to work properly. Contact tracing also struggled to maintain accuracy, and in some cases could be providing false negatives or positives that don’t help further real information about the spread of the virus.

Especially in the case of something like the Hantavirus, where every person on that cruise ship can theoretically be directly tracked and contacted, it’s better to do that process the hard way.

“During small but highly fatal outbreaks, more precision is required,” Gurley wrote.

Today’s El Clasico live stream sees the La Liga title up for grabs at the Camp Nou, with Barcelona requiring only a point to seal the crown and Real Madrid needing nothing less than a victory.

A second-straight La Liga may now be a virtual certainty for Hansi Flick’s Barcelona, but it would be even sweeter to seal things on Sunday against their fiercest foes. The race was pretty tight for much of the season, before Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and co. went on a 10-game winning streak to catapult themselves into pole position.

Marshals, a new Yellowstone spinoff starring Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton, is airing on CBS right now. You can also tune in with Paramount Plus. The Yellowstone sequel series sees Grimes’ former Navy SEAL join an elite unit of US Marshals to bring range justice to Montana, according to a synopsis from CBS.

The show includes Yellowstone actors Gil Birmingham as Thomas Rainwater, Mo Brings Plenty as Mo and Brecken Merrill as Tate. Spencer Hudnut is the showrunner of Marshals — formerly known as Y: Marshals — and Taylor Sheridan is an executive producer.

When to watch new Marshals episodes on Paramount Plus

Episode 11 of Marshals airs on CBS on Sunday, May 10. Viewing options for Paramount Plus customers vary by subscription tier. You can watch the episode live if you have Paramount Plus Premium, which includes your local CBS station. If you subscribe to Paramount Plus Essential, you can watch the installment on demand the following Monday, but not live on Sunday.

Here’s a release schedule for the next three episodes of Marshals.

• Episode 11, On Thin Ice: Premieres on CBS/Paramount Plus Premium on May 10 at 8 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT/7 p.m. CT. Streams on Paramount Plus Essential on May 11.
• Episode 12, The Devil at Home: Premieres on CBS/Paramount Plus Premium on May 17 at 8 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT/7 p.m. CT. Streams on Paramount Plus Essential on May 18.
• Episode 13, Wolves at the Door: Premieres on CBS/Paramount Plus Premium on May 24 at 8 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT/7 p.m. CT. Streams on Paramount Plus Essential on May 25.

You can also watch CBS and the eleventh episode of Marshals without cable with a live TV streaming service such as YouTube TV, Hulu Plus Live TV or the DirecTV MyNews skinny bundle. In addition to offering a lower-cost option, Paramount Plus lets you watch the other two Yellowstone spinoffs: the prequels 1883 and 1923.

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After a price increase in early 2026, the ad-supported Essential version runs $9 per month or $90 per year. The ad-free Premium version runs $14 per month or $140 per year. Paying more for Premium gives you downloads, the ability to watch more Showtime programming than Essential and access to your live, local CBS station.

Car airbags are both a very simple concept and a marvel of engineering, replacing the bone-shattering impact of unforgiving plastic and steel with a relatively soft landing in a funky-smelling air cushion. This deceptively simple concept requires that the gas generator activates only when there is a crash and finishes filling the airbag in the milliseconds before the squishy human’s cranium with its soft filling attempts to occupy the same space as said airbag. This makes mad Aussie bloke [Turnah81]’s attempt at DIY-ing a car airbag a most daring proposition.

Rather than messing about with an IMU and microprocessors, he went low-tech with an inertial fuel cut-off switch. These are mechanical switches that hold a steel ball in place with a magnet until a sufficiently large force — like a crash — dislodges the ball and triggers an event. Usually, a switch like this cuts off the fuel pump.

After a bit of fun with a crash-test rig and the airbag of a salvaged steering wheel, a DIY airbag was assembled using a compressed-gas cylinder instead of the fancy gas generator, along with an electrically triggered valve. Here, you can already see why modern airbags use a gas generator, as it is simply far more compact.

For the bag itself, a pillow case was adapted, with the subsequent crash test — as pictured above — going about as well as you can imagine. After this, he tried a few improvements, like using a bin liner and detonating some fuel, but it seems that the gas generator is very hard to beat for producing a large amount of gas in very little time.

Meanwhile, the inertial cut-off switch turned out to be more than sufficient for this purpose, and it was also used to trigger the original airbag. Of course, with how cheap those off-the-shelf airbag units are and are tested to be fit for purpose, you’d never DIY them for actual use in a car unless you were stark raving mad.

Airbags have a checkered history. There are some places you shouldn’t try to save costs.