This Gamma-Ray Burst Wasn't Dim, It Was Just Misunderstood (Universe Today)

GRANT BRICKMAN: A gamma-ray burst looked dim in March. It turns out we were just standing in the wrong spot.

GRANT BRICKMAN: Good evening. A gamma-ray burst caught by Fermi in March looked dim, and it was not. Nova has been asking the public how they feel about that. ▶

NOVA: Thrilled to report! The burst only looked dim because we saw it from the side. It packed one billion years of the Sun's energy into a thin beam. Thoughts? ▶

PASSERBY: A billion years of sunshine in one beam? Finally somebody saved up. ▶

NOVA: Bursts like this can release in seconds what our Sun makes in nearly ten billion years. Only the Big Bang is bigger. How does that sit with you? ▶

PASSERBY: Second only to the Big Bang? Always the runner-up. I relate to that burst. ▶

NOVA: The first ones were found by accident in the 1960s, by a satellite watching for secret nuclear weapons tests. Did you see that coming? ▶

PASSERBY: They looked for one kind of flash and found a bigger one? That is every Monday at my office. ▶

NOVA: Every photon that reaches us tells us something. This one just needed the right angle, and the universe stays enormous. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Dim from the side, brilliant head-on. Some dinner guests work the same way. ▶

Before Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man: No Way Home proved the best Marvel event movies put character first (GamesRadar)

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Avengers: Doomsday wants to be Marvel's biggest ever, and GamesRadar says look back at No Way Home.

GRANT BRICKMAN: Marvel's Doomsday is coming, and a multiverse sounds a lot like the station's 1987 weather map: too many fronts. Vera, bring order. ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: GamesRadar says Avengers: Doomsday is positioned as Marvel's biggest movie ever, meant to surpass even Endgame. ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: Robert Downey Jr. returns as Doctor Doom, and everyone from the Fox-era X-Men to the Fantastic Four will be there. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Vera, why does the article point back to a Spider-Man film? ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: Because No Way Home also brought different eras of Marvel together, yet it focused strictly on Peter Parker. ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: It was Marvel's first blowout success after Endgame, grossing almost two billion dollars amid the COVID pandemic. ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: The open question is whether Doomsday can keep character first while a very large cast arrives. That is analysis, not a finding. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: So the template is one person at the center, and the crowd around them. Noted. ▶

The Pixel Line: viewers call in (PXL)

GRANT BRICKMAN: The Pixel Line is open: callers have questions, and some of them are about the right story.

GRANT BRICKMAN: Time for The Pixel Line, our viewer phone-in. The lines are open, the coffee is hot, and we have a caller from Dortmund. ▶

PASSERBY: Hello? Is that Kratos, the one with the axe? Why is he buying a printer in Indiana? ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Different Kratos, Gerald. Kratos Defense, from San Diego, bought an AMCM M 8K additive manufacturing machine for the WestGate@Crane Technology Park in Indiana. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: Gerald raises a fair point about the axe, and we will be looking into the axe. ▶

PASSERBY: Sorry, the magnets on a chip story. Does that mean my fridge magnets get smaller? ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Not your fridge, as far as the report says. Fraunhofer's Microbias puts magnets, Hall sensors and signal processing on one chip, with up to 99 percent less rare earth material. ▶

DIRECTOR MARGE: Greta, Grant, we are off in thirty seconds. One more caller, then wrap it. ▶

PASSERBY: Rivian again! Half the call on robotaxis, and the R2 gets crumbs. I have been saying it for years. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The Verge says nearly half the hourlong call was hands-free driving, chips and robotaxis. Customers get hands-free in 2027, Uber robotaxis are planned for 2028. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: Thank you, Walt. Lines stay open, and Gerald, the axe is on our list. ▶