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Based on the couple of hours I’ve put into the very early preview build of Wreckreation 2, I can, for now, at least optimistically say, “Maybe.” I don’t say that to hype this game up too much or judge it too harshly. Rather, studio head Fiona Sperry (herself a veteran of the Burnout days at Criterion Games) wanted to emphasize that this is an extremely early version of what they’re building.

With that in mind, I loaded up the demo and its dozen-plus events and a couple of upgradeable cars, expecting a rough, buggy mess that might have a kernel of greatness at its core that the team at When Tides Turn just needed time to build and polish into a pearl. And to my pleasant surprise, I instead found the section of the fictional Heartbreak City on offer to be pretty solid on my 5080-powered PC – completely devoid of the framerate hitches and bugs cited by Luke in his review of the first Wreckreation. Does that guarantee that the final version of Wreckreation 2 will also be polished and free of bugs? Certainly not; again, by Sperry’s own admission, this sequel is still early in development. But it’s making a really strong first impression on me.

Road Rage events are ripped straight from Burnout.“

Why? Just as with the first Wreckreation, which I confess I somehow completely missed when it came out, Wreckreation 2 is quite proudly trying to build what is essentially Burnout Paradise 2 in all but name. The shiny visual style is very similar, as is the pop-punk soundtrack. Heck, the flaming turbo meter in the bottom left corner is identical to the one found in Burnout. Even Heartbreak City itself feels reminiscent of Paradise City.

But of course, the play’s the thing, as Shakespeare once wrote, and the team at When Tides Turn recommended I leave the difficulty at its default setting: Hard. I did, and they were right: as I flew around the tracks staked out within the downtown area of the city at blindingly high speeds, I was met by equally aggressive AI drivers who could dish out shunts and takedowns admirably well. Meanwhile, the arcade-y handling of the cars felt instantly familiar and pretty dang good; the handbrake (on the Xbox gamepad’s X button) can get your car around a 90-degree turn pretty quickly if you feather it just right, while stomping on it too hard will slow your car down to a crawl. And slamming into other cars feels weighty, as it should. And if you do get wrecked, you’ve got aftertouch, just like in Burnout, meaning you can nudge your slow-motion-crashing car in any direction to try and take out any approaching opponents along with you.

The events in my preview – aside from free-driving around the city to smash barriers and gates marked on the mini-map – were instantly recognizable to any Burnout fan. My favorite of what was on offer were the two Road Rage events. These are ripped straight from Burnout, so you already know what you’ll be doing: takedowns of rival cars. Each takedown adds time to the clock and gets you closer to the next milestone. For instance, you might need three takedowns for a bronze medal, 7 for a silver, and a dozen for gold.

Everything else in my early build were races of some variety, be they lap-based circuits, single-lap sprints, or one-on-one matchups that would win you a new or upgraded car. Both cars available in the demo – the supercar-styled Dearborn & Schaeffer Nightranger and the ‘57 Chevy-like Huntsville Nebraska – have superior versions you can unlock for your garage. And they do indeed handle quite differently, with the Nightranger being quicker, faster, and lighter (and thus weaker against attempted takedowns) and the Nebraska being the opposite: tankier.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much to do just driving around the open world after I’d completed every event in this early version, but that’s just it: it’s early. And so I’m trying to give When Tides Turn the benefit of the doubt while also keeping my own excitement in check. There’s a long way to go here, by the team’s own admission, but what I’ve already spent a couple hours with is really fun. If Wreckreation 2 can clean up the mistakes the first one made while focusing on being a modern-day Burnout Paradise – with the reasonable caveat that this attempt probably won’t have nearly the manpower or budget behind it that Burnout did in its heyday at EA – then we might have the closest thing we’ve seen yet to a proper Burnout Paradise sequel. That’s the ceiling here. The floor is, unfortunately, another flawed and underbaked attempt like the last one was. But I’m genuinely optimistic that we’re heading for the better outcome here – particularly after the early preview version already addresses some of the criticisms of the first Wreckreation.

Wreckreation 2 will be developed “out in the open” for fans to see, so seek out When Tides Turn’s Discord to follow along. A PC release will happen first, with console versions planned to follow. Fingers crossed that the fourth time is the charm to finally, fully recapture the magic of Burnout.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. His favorite Burnout is Burnout 3: Takedown, because Burnout Revenge's traffic-checking just didn't work as well in his opinion. Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan. %!s()

The agreement could be worth billions of dollars to the US, whose companies could be involved in building a facility to produce enriched uranium, which can be used as fuel for power plants but also to make nuclear bombs.

Nuclear experts and former officials in Israel - the US's top ally in the Middle East - have voiced concern that the plan could ultimately lead to Saudi Arabia being able to develop a nuclear weapon.

The BBC has asked the White House for comment.

The deal would allow U.S. companies to run nuclear power for the Saudis on Saudi soil, CBS reported citing a regional official familiar with the agreement. The corporations involved have not been disclosed and Congress would need to be consulted.

After undertaking a joint study with the US, Saudi Arabia may be allowed to enrich uranium on its soil to produce fuel at a US-built enrichment facility, instead of relying on imported fuel, according to media reports, external.

The deal would last 30 years and is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported, external.

The enrichment provision would distinguish this agreement from another one that was struck by the US in 2009 with Saudi Arabia's neighbour, the United Arab Emirates, under which the UAE does not produce its own fuel and accepts a host of other restrictions.

For that reason, the agreement is also expected to attract the concern of nuclear non-proliferation campaigners, whose ultimate aim is to prevent an increase in the number of nuclear weapons worldwide.

The nuclear issue has been at the centre of the months-long US-Israeli conflict with Iran. The two nations say one of the reasons they attacked Iran in February was to prevent the country from ever developing a nuclear weapon - something that Tehran denies planning to do.

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, told CBS News in 2018 that his own nation was not planning to acquire a nuclear weapon, but that "without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible". %!s()

Researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a new computational approach that extends the widely used open-source particle-in-cell (PIC) method with condensed-matter physics. The result is a single platform that can simulate a much broader range of light-matter interactions in metals, semiconductors and emerging quantum materials.

Published in Computer Physics Communications, the research, "Particle-in-cell simulations of quantum plasmas," demonstrates how an established plasma physics tool can be adapted to study condensed-matter systems, opening new possibilities for designing photonic and quantum technologies.

Seeing the big picture without losing the details

Simulation plays a critical role in developing new photonic and semiconductor technologies. Engineers rely on virtual models to predict how devices will behave before investing time and resources in fabrication.

However, current simulation tools typically specialize in only one aspect of the problem. Some can accurately simulate an entire device but provide limited insight into how electrons behave within it. Others capture electron behavior in great detail but are only practical for structures that are much smaller than real-world devices.

Imagine using Google Maps. Zoom out and you can see the whole city, but not the individual vehicles. Zoom in and you can follow the vehicles but lose sight of how traffic is flowing across the city. Existing simulation tools face a similar trade-off. The new approach combines both perspectives, allowing researchers to see the bigger picture without sacrificing the finer details.

"For many years, researchers have had to choose between understanding how an entire device behaves and seeing what individual electrons are doing," said associate professor Wu Lin from SUTD's Science, Mathematics and Technology Cluster. "We wanted to remove that trade-off. By extending an established simulation method rather than building a new one from scratch, we've created a framework that gives researchers a much richer picture of how light and electrons interact inside advanced materials."

Building on an established tool

Rather than developing an entirely new simulator, the researchers enhanced an established computational method already trusted by plasma physicists around the world.

PIC simulations are widely used to model charged particles and electromagnetic fields. However, they were originally developed for classical plasmas and could not readily emulate the quantum behavior of electrons in condensed materials such as metals, semiconductors and graphene.

To overcome these limitations, the team introduced four new physics modules that extend PIC simulations to capture important quantum effects while retaining the method's core strengths. Together, these additions allow researchers to study a much wider range of nanoscale light-matter interactions within a single computational platform.

The researchers demonstrated the framework across diverse condensed-matter systems, including plasmonic metals, ultraviolet silicon nanostructures and graphene-based materials, highlighting its versatility for studying complex electromagnetic phenomena.

Accelerating innovation across multiple industries

This work could benefit researchers and engineers working on next-generation semiconductor and photonic technologies. More realistic simulations could reduce the time and cost needed to develop photonic integrated circuits, optical sensors, lasers, LEDs and solar cells by allowing more design decisions to be tested virtually before manufacturing.

In the longer term, the researchers envision the framework contributing to digital twins of photonic and semiconductor devices—virtual models that closely mirror their real-world counterparts and allow engineers to optimize performance before fabrication. Such capabilities could help accelerate innovation in AI computing, telecommunications, renewable energy and health care.

By making the modified PIC codes open source, the team hopes researchers worldwide will continue expanding the platform. This collaborative approach could help avoid duplication of effort and accelerate progress across the field.

"This is only the beginning," said Wu. "Because the framework is open source, we hope researchers around the world will continue expanding it with new material models and applications. Ultimately, we want to help create digital twins that allow photonic and semiconductor devices to be designed, tested and refined virtually before they are built."

Their next goal is to incorporate additional physics into the platform—including complex many-body interactions and detailed electronic band structures not yet captured—while extending it to realistic device-scale simulations. The team is also developing AI accelerators based on physics-informed neural networks to reduce computation time without compromising physical accuracy, bringing the vision of practical digital twins for photonic and semiconductor devices a step closer to reality.

More information

Gregory K. Ngirmang et al, Particle-in-cell simulations of quantum plasmas, Computer Physics Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cpc.2026.110305

Who's behind this story?

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Citation: Researchers expand simulation tool to help design the next generation of photonic and quantum devices (2026, July 22) retrieved 22 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-simulation-tool-generation-photonic-quantum.html

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The research focused on laboratory-grown brain tissues called organoids. The findings add to growing evidence that these miniature brain models could eventually help scientists develop and select more precise treatments for specific groups of people with Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia and affects more than 7 million Americans.

The team also discovered that the organoids release tiny particles called extracellular vesicles that carry cellular information. These particles may offer new biomarkers for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease and determining how far it has progressed.

The study, which received partial funding from the National Institutes of Health, was published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

Mini Brain Models Could Support Personalized Care

"Our study suggests that large-scale, patient-derived brain organoids and the vesicles they secrete can help us stage Alzheimer's disease, investigate the mechanisms that drive it and assess how patient subgroups may respond to different treatments," says study leader Vasiliki Machairaki, Ph.D., associate professor of genetic medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

There is currently no cure for Alzheimer's disease. However, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are often prescribed to help manage neuropsychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and agitation. These symptoms affect nearly all patients, but responses to the medications vary widely, Machairaki says.

The Johns Hopkins researchers studied miniature models of the hindbrain, a region at the back of the skull that helps control essential functions such as breathing, sleep and heart rate. The team wanted to determine whether these models could reveal molecular signs showing whether the SSRI escitalopram oxalate might help reduce symptoms associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Turning Patient Blood Cells Into Brain Tissue

The researchers began with blood samples collected with permission from people with Alzheimer's disease at the NIH-funded Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

They reprogrammed blood cells so that they returned to a stem cell-like state. These cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells, can develop into any type of cell in the body.

Using induced pluripotent stem cells from people with Alzheimer's disease and healthy individuals, the team created hindbrain organoids containing specialized brain cells, or neurons, that produce the neurotransmitter serotonin.

The cells were guided to organize themselves into small, pea-sized clusters of brain tissue that resemble the hindbrain. The study included hundreds of organoids representing individual patients with Alzheimer's disease as well as healthy participants. Machairaki believes it may be one of the largest brain organoid studies conducted so far in Alzheimer's research.

Alzheimer's Organoids Show Distinct Molecular Changes

The patient-derived organoids reproduced several important biological characteristics of Alzheimer's disease at the molecular level.

Compared with organoids created from healthy individuals, those grown from the cells of people with Alzheimer's showed differences in proteins involved in communication between brain cells, inflammation, and pathways associated with the disease.

The researchers then treated the organoids with escitalopram oxalate, a widely prescribed antidepressant.

In some organoids derived from patients, the medication increased proteins involved in serotonin signaling and communication between brain cells. These are pathways that antidepressants are designed to influence. Other organoids showed little or no molecular response.

"We used these organoids to model how some patients' tissue may respond to a commonly prescribed SSRI," Machairaki says. "On a large-scale level, our model may eventually be used to identify subgroups of patients, based on underlying molecular mechanisms, who are more likely to respond to certain drugs and thus help us to create precise, targeted treatments in the long run."

Tiny Vesicles May Reveal Drug Response

The team next investigated whether extracellular vesicles released by the organoids could serve as biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease or help researchers evaluate how tissue responds to treatment.

Before and after treating the organoids with escitalopram, the scientists examined proteins inside extracellular vesicles released by the patient-derived organoids and by healthy control organoids.

The vesicles contained proteins involved in essential brain activities, including communication between neurons, memory and the release of neurotransmitters.

Organoids grown from the cells of people with Alzheimer's showed clear changes in several disease-associated proteins. Levels of RAB3A, NSF and ATCAY were lower in the Alzheimer's organoids. These proteins play important roles in normal signaling between brain cells.

After escitalopram treatment, levels of some proteins increased in certain samples. The changes were especially noticeable in proteins connected to serotonin signaling and synaptic pathways that antidepressants target.

Some organoids displayed strong molecular responses, while others showed little or no change. According to Machairaki, this variation raises the possibility that extracellular vesicles from brain organoids could eventually help identify which patients are most likely to benefit from a particular treatment.

Building More Realistic Brain Organoids

Machairaki plans to develop more advanced organoids that contain immune cells and vascular-like networks that imitate blood vessels. Adding these features could make the tissues more similar to living human brain tissue.

With additional research, she hopes extracellular vesicles might one day function as a type of liquid biopsy. Such a test could potentially help diagnose Alzheimer's disease, determine its stage, and identify a patient's particular disease subtype.

Machairaki emphasized that the current study represents an early step toward that goal.

In addition to Machairaki, scientists who contributed to this work include Rachel Boyd, Daiyun Dong, Ram Sagar, Waqar Ahmed, Xenia Androni, Paul Rosenberg, Constantine Lyketsos and Kenneth Witwer from Johns Hopkins, Anton Iliuk from Tymora Analytical Operations and Anton Porsteinsson from University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health (T32 AG058527, R01AG052510, P30AG066507, 1RF1AG083801, AGR01054771, AGR01050515, AGR01046543 and AGR01071522), the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Foundation and the Richman Family Precision Medicine Center of Excellence in Alzheimer's Disease at The Johns Hopkins University.

No authors declare a related conflict of interest under Johns Hopkins University policies. %!s()

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will make the announcement in a speech to open the Labor national conference on Thursday, which will cast “practical” policies as the key to combating the anxiety and frustration gripping the electorate.

Labor MPs, trade unionists and rank-and-file members will use the triennial conference to thrash out the party’s policy agenda for the next three years.

A high-level commitment to increase taxes on gas exports and wind back fuel tax credits are set to be enshrined in the official party platform, which sets a long-term expectation – rather than an immediate requirement – for the parliamentary party to act.

Deals between factional powerbrokers are expected to avert major flare-ups during the three-day conference, although there is tension ahead of Saturday’s debate on the party’s position on Israel and Palestine.

Jewish groups and Israel’s embassy in Canberra are publicly putting pressure on the party to water-down the draft text, which they claim is not critical enough of Hamas’ role in the Gaza war, while pro-Palestine supporters within Labor are pushing to strengthen the language.

Senior Labor figures believe the draft version strikes the right balance and are reluctant to bend to either group, meaning a contested debate on the conference floor is unlikely.

A Students for Palestine protest calling for a stop to arms trade with Israel – which the government disputes occurs – is planned for Thursday afternoon outside the Adelaide Convention Centre, which will have beefed-up security for the 3000-person conference.

In his speech, Albanese will attempt to draw a clear contrast between Labor and its political opponents, in particular One Nation, warning that “raging against a system” without a plan to fix it doesn’t “take the country forward”.

“I understand that for many Australians right now, looking to the future runs second to the immediate pressures they are under,” the prime minister will tell the conference, according to a draft version supplied to Guardian Australia.

“It is a challenge confronting governments and democracies right around the world.

“That is why our focus remains squarely on helping with the cost of living, on the practical measures that matter to people and make a positive difference to their lives.”

The prime minister will announce students in ten extra courses will receive up to $338.60 a week during their clinical or professional placements, starting 1 July 2027.

The courses are: clinical psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, paramedicine, radiography, pharmacy, rehabilitation therapies, audiology podiatry.

The program is currently limited to teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work.

The expansion comes after pressure from MPs including David Pocock and Helen Haines, who last month tabled a 43,000-person signature calling for allied health courses to be included.

“This is how Labor governs,” Albanese will tell the conference. “We deal with the here and now in a way that builds for the future too. We navigate the rough seas, while always keeping our eyes on the horizon.”

After Kate Ellis is installed as the new Labor president on Thursday morning, the 400 conference delegates will start debating the text of the 126-page draft platform, starting with economic and climate policies on Thursday.

Delegates from the left and right factions held lengthy meetings on Wednesday to discuss their positions on various topics.

The section of the draft platform that commits Labor to securing a “fairer return” for natural resources is expected to feature in the final text, effectively binding the Albanese government to eventually act on the campaign to increase taxes on gas exports.

Left faction sources were on Wednesday night optimistic a proposal to “remove disincentives for decarbonisation” would also make the final text after it was excluded from the draft version.

The grassroots Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) is pushing the amendment as part of a campaign to cap fuel tax credits for mining companies, which has won the support of hundreds of local branches and Labor MP Jerome Laxale.

Even if the amendments succeed, the government is unlikely to move quickly on fuel tax credits or a gas tax due to the uncertainty the Middle East conflict has caused to the global oil market.

The left is discussing pushing for even stronger positions in tackling online gambling harm, including a national regulator, ahead a scheduled debate on Friday.

The draft platform already goes further than the government’s gambling advertising legislation with a commitment to address inducements offered by wagering companies.

A ban on inducements and the establishment of a national gambling regulator were among several recommendations from the landmark Murphy report that were omitted from the the government’s bill, which is set to be debated when federal parliament returns next month. %!s()