Panic at Red Bull leaves Max Verstappen’s future in serious doubt ahead of United States Grand Prix

Technology

Max Verstappen is searching for his first win since June (Picture: Getty Images)Following a four-week break, Formula One returns for three back-to-back races in the Americas, starting with this weekend’s showdown in Austin, Texas.
The United States Grand Prix is also a sprint race weekend and with so many points at stake and little chance to take a breath, the drivers and team personnel will have to hit the ground running straight out of the box.
With six grands prix to go, Max 
Verstappen remains the championship leader. He is 52 points ahead of Lando Norris but the Dutchman has not won since June’s Spanish GP. Lando, meanwhile, has momentum on his side having won the last race in Singapore from pole.
Signalling how the tide has turned for the once unbeatable Red Bull, it is McLaren who now lead the constructors’ championship. Ferrari are breathing down the neck of Christian Horner’s team. Mercedes aren’t far behind them.
Having lost a number of key technical personnel already, and with design lodestar Adrian Newey and sporting director Jonathan Wheatley soon to depart for Aston Martin and Audi respectively, the Milton Keynes squad are unsettled and panic seems to be setting in.
The team are sticking by No.2 driver Sergio Perez for the remainder of the season but if they continue to slide down the standings he may find he’s made a scapegoat and that his contract for next year is cancelled.

Adrian Newey’s departure has coincided with Red Bull’s loss of form (Picture: Getty Images)Liam Lawson is now at junior team RB and being evaluated for the senior squad following the dismissal of Daniel Ricciardo three weeks ago. Horner insists his technical department, led by Pierre Wache, is as strong as ever and does not want to admit this isn’t the case should his own tenure come under scrutiny. But Red Bull appear to have weakened in a number of areas in the past year.
‘We desperately need answers,’ Horner said about the driver situation. ‘When you look at our opponents, Ferrari will be strong next year, with [Lewis] Hamilton and [Charles] Leclerc. Plus Norris and [Oscar] Piastri is a strong line-up. We need to make sure both of our drivers that there’s not a big gap between them, because you can’t afford that.’
Perez has less than half as many pointsas Verstappen – 144 to the triple world champion’s 331.
Verstappen has taken the last three victories at the Circuit of the Americas but he is really on the back foot this week. Those answers Horner is demanding of the drivers are the tip of the iceberg. What the team are really desperate for are answers as to why their car is underperforming, having been the class of the field in the first half of the season.
The RB20 has developed balance issues, possibly related to a new floor that was introduced in Barcelona. These issues are hurting the tyres and the lap times. For the first time since 2020, 
Verstappen is braking and steering around corners without total confidence.

Sergio Perez and Christian Horner are searching for answers (Picture: Getty Images)The set-up tuning is extremely precise, as is the operating temperature of its Pirellis, and unless they nail both the car is no longer capable of the top spot.
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Read More StoriesIt is interesting to note these problems developed just a month after Newey left his role in F1 car development. His remaining time has seen him work on Red Bull Applied Technologies’ commercial hypercar project.
If Red Bull’s form continues to sink next season, few believe Verstappen will still be there in 2026. In response to questions about tearing up his contract, which runs till the end of 2028, the driver declared he was much more 
concerned about fixing this year’s car.
‘We have enough to worry about at the moment,’ he said. ‘We will see what happens in the future. I’m not really thinking about it too much. But if it doesn’t 
happen [winning the title in 2024], then so be it. It won’t change my life.’

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President Biden appoints UMaine president to National Science Board

Science and Health

According to the White House, Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy was appointed by President Joe Biden for her leadership in advancing Maine’s workforce and economy.

ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy will soon be serving on the National Science Board.

According to the White House, she was appointed by President Joe Biden for her leadership in advancing Maine’s workforce and economy.

The board helps guide the government on science and research and oversee how funding is allocated to support scientific projects. 

“I’m just deeply honored and can’t quite still believe this,” Ferrini-Mundy said. “It’s an extraordinary opportunity to be a part of the national conversation.”The National Science Board’s mission is to shape the future of science and technology, drive innovation, and expand opportunities in STEM education.“This is a major both responsibility and opportunity to be a part of really important discussions in fields that I care and have cared about over my whole career and that is STEM and the advancement of STEM and the progress of science,”  Ferrini-Mundy said. During Ferrini-Mundy’s six years as the University of Maine president, she’s led the school to several STEM education achievements including earning top research status and securing funding to improve education opportunities for people across the state. Now she’ll be one of 24 board members serving on the National Science Board. 

RELATED: UMaine unveils $78M engineering facility ahead of school year

“It’s kind of a mutual learning experience I hope where I can bring what we’ve able to do here at Maine but can also bring insights and connection from all of the colleagues I’ll have on that board,” Ferrini-Mundy said. She steps into the role at a time the nation is facing a shortage of stem professionals. “Making sure that we have enough employees and people in the workforce in the STEM fields to advance our nation and I know that’s a primary focus of the National Science Foundation and so I’m very much excited about those conversations,” The University of Maine Chancellor Dannel Malloy, who nominated Ferrini-Mundy for this role, said she will be a voice for smaller states like Maine. 

“It’s wonderful for the state to have a representative on the national science foundation,” Molloy said. “I also think its good for the smaller states to have someone on that panel,” Malloy said. 

RELATED: ‘You can be whatever you want to be’: Meet women in STEM driving UMaineAs she steps into this role, Ferrini-Mundy hopes to continue advocating for innovation in science and education.

How a local travel company designed American actress Drew Barrymore’s Singapore itinerary within a week

Travel

Then they have guests so well-travelled that their requests are uber specific. One, in particular, was returning to Tanzania in East Africa despite having previously been there during the Great Migration. Witnessing the year-long phenomenon, which sees constant movement of over a million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, is one of the most sought-after experiences for wildlife and nature enthusiasts. The guest had said, “I’m only going back to Tanzania because I need to see the animals crossing the river. I don’t want to see them running about in the fields. They need to be crossing the river”, Tan recalled in amusement.

“It’s a very specific request, so we had to stick them at a lodge that’s right by the Mara River, and you have to time it in such a way that you know the animals are going to be there crossing the river at the time they’re staying there.”

In Singapore, one of the most “puzzling” requests they received was from a guest who wanted to replace the mattress in the presidential suite of an ultra-luxe heritage hotel in the city centre, whose name Tan requested to withhold. He’d found it “too hard” due to his back issues. 

“The problem is the mattress was made specifically for the custom-built bed frame. You can’t just switch it out with any other mattress,” Tan said. The repeated attempts by the butler team to use mattress toppers to soften the mattress were unfortunately futile.

So she’d initially apologised, unable to see any way her team could fulfil the request, even as they’d worked quickly with the hotel’s butler team to try and resolve the concerns. Then, unexpectedly, a solution presented itself.

“While (the client) was in the spa, we worked with the hotel’s butler team, who managed to source a softer mattress from a partner property that was able to fit the suite’s custom bed frame. The hotel’s housekeeping team of about six to eight people then transported the replacement mattress by foot, hand-carrying it across the road and switching it out whilst the client was in the spa.”

Scientists reveal how sperm and egg connect like a key in a lock

Science and Health

How a sperm and an egg fuse together has long been a mystery.New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalising clues, showing fertilisation works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.”We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published in the journal Cell.ADVERTISEMENTScientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognise each other”, Pauli said.Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry”, he said in an email.ADVERTISEMENT

The 2024 election voter’s guide

2024 Election

Election Day is fast approaching and early voting numbers are already breaking records. Voters will determine a number of federal, state, and local races on Tuesday, Nov. 5, including the next president of the United States. Many voter registration deadlines have already passed, but depending where you are, there may still be time to sign…