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To many, it's the greatest video game console ever made. The Super Famicom — or Super Nintendo Entertainment System as it is more commonly known outside of its native Japan — is host to some of the finest pieces of interactive entertainment ever made. It was on this console that Nintendo refined so many of the franchises which had made it famous on the original NES; series like Super Mario, Zelda and Metroid all came of age on the this 16-bit wonder. Third party support was almost unprecedented; big-hitters like Capcom, Konami, Square, Irem and Enix all flocked to support the console with their biggest and best releases. Although console technology has advanced to the point where photo-realistic visuals are now possible and players are able to prove their skills online with a global roster of rivals, it's genuinely difficult to think of a modern system which has a library that is as fully-formed and packed with classics as the Super Famicom (or SNES, if you prefer). When it...

US and European police arrested nearly 900 people thought to be connected to an underground child pornography network in a case that has drawn criticism from some civil libertarians. The announcement of the arrests from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Europol came days after a court sentenced Florida-based Steven Chase, founder of the so-called Playpen pedophilia network, to 30 years in prison. The arrests were in connection with the Playpen network and followed a more-than-two-year investigation into the group's members around the globe that began after Chase's arrest in 2014. Playpen was accessible in what is known as the "darknet," where internet users can engage in illegal activities using encryption and anonymity software in an effort to hide their identities. The secret network allowed anonymous users to engage in a forum where they could share photos and videos showing the sexual abuse of children. As part of its investigation, called "Operation Pacifier,"...

Researchers at the University of Miami are studying whether COVID-19 can be sexually transmitted. So far, they have found COVID-19 can invade the male testicles and linger. Fertility specialist Ranjith Ramasamy and his colleagues at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine looked at tissue from autopsies of six men who died with the COVID-19 infection and found the virus was still in their testicles. They also found COVID-19 in the testicles of a male patient who had the coronavirus and recovered without showing symptoms. In the men studied, about half the time the virus inhibited their sperm function. "What most surprised us is the fact the virus can be present in the testes of asymptomatic men and linger long after they test negative, even if they have no testicular pain," Ramasamy said. It makes sense that the testicles, which are responsible for sperm and testosterone production, are a target for COVID-19 infection because of the way the virus attaches to organs...

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To live in the year 2020 is to be filled with the sense that the world as we know it is coming to an end. It’s hard to pinpoint just one piece of evidence, but take your pick—an imminent climate collapse heralded by apocalyptic storms and wildfires; a rampant global pandemic; the descent of nations around the world into authoritarian fascism; failing institutions unable to contain the viral spread of disinformation. It’s not the dystopia we’ve been taught to expect. Instead of giant meteors, zombie plagues, and other numbingly cliché scenarios, ours is a harrowing reality of slow-burning crisis-upon-crisis that has never been adequately captured in speculative fiction and pop culture. As far as I’m concerned, there’s one game that comes close to evoking the vibe of our end-times, and that’s the bleak, decaying world of Dark Souls. For a game with lots of exploration and very little dialogue, the lore of the Souls series is astoundingly deep. Using environmental storytelling...