It is generally believed that long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are associated with massive star core-collapse 1 , whereas short-duration GRBs are associated with mergers of compact star binaries 2 . However, growing observations [3][4][5][6] have suggested that oddball GRBs do exist, and multiple criteria (prompt emission properties, supernova/kilonova associations, and host galaxy properties) rather than burst duration only are needed to classify GRBs physically 7 . A previously reported long-duration burst, GRB 060614 3 , could be viewed as a short GRB with extended emission if it were observed at a larger distance 8 and was associated with a kilonova-like feature 9 . As a result, it belongs to the Type-I (compact star merger) GRB category and is likely of the binary neutron star merger origin. Here we report a peculiar long-duration gamma-ray burst, GRB 211211A, whose prompt emission properties in many aspects differ from all known Type-I GRBs, yet its multi-band observations suggest a non-massive-star origin. In particular, significant excess emission in both optical and nearinfrared wavelengths has been discovered (see also Ref. 10 ), which resembles kilonova emission as observed in some Type-I GRBs. These observations point towards a new progenitor type of GRBs. A scenario invoking a white dwarf-neutron star merger with a post-merger magnetar engine provides a self-consistent interpretation for all the observations, including prompt gamma-rays, early X-ray afterglow, as well as the engine-fed 11, 12 kilonova emission.

Loot boxes provide randomized rewards in video games; their purchase is linked to disordered gambling and they are present in approximately half of UK video games. The relative novelty of loot boxes means that regulators and policymakers in various jurisdictions are still deciding how to regulate them. The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the first, and presently only, jurisdiction to legally require companies to disclose the probabilities of obtaining randomized loot box rewards – an approach that is also favored by the industry as self-regulation. This study is the first to assess paid loot box prevalence in the PRC and companies’ discretionary interpretations of probability disclosure regulations. Loot boxes were found in 91 of the 100 highest-grossing PRC iPhone games. Of games deemed suitable for children aged 12+, 90.5% contained loot boxes. Probability disclosures could not be found for 4.4% of games containing loot boxes. Disclosures were implemented through various methods both in-game and on the games’ official websites; however, consistent with the concept of ‘sludge,’ only 5.5% used the most prominent format of automatically displaying the probabilities on the in-game loot box purchase page. Loot box probability disclosures should be uniform and visually prominent to best help inform consumers.

The giant flares of soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) have long been proposed to contribute to at least a subsample of the observed short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In this paper, we perform a comprehensive analysis of the high-energy data of the recent bright short GRB 200415A, which was located close to the Sculptor galaxy. Our results suggest that a magnetar giant flare provides the most natural explanation for most observational properties of GRB 200415A, including its location, temporal and spectral features, energy, statistical correlations, and high-energy emissions. On the other hand, the compact star merger GRB model is found to have difficulty reproducing such an event in a nearby distance. Future detections and follow-up observations of similar events are essential to firmly establish the connection between SGR giant flares and a subsample of nearby short GRBs.

Reporting on brucellosis, a relatively rare infectious disease caused by Brucella, is often delayed or incomplete in traditional disease surveillance systems in china. internet search engine data related to brucellosis can provide an economical and efficient complement to a conventional surveillance system because people tend to seek brucellosis-related health information from Baidu, the largest search engine in china. in this study, brucellosis incidence data reported by the cDc of china and Baidu index data were gathered to evaluate the relationship between them. We applied an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARiMA) model and an ARiMA model with Baidu search index data as the external variable (ARiMAX) to predict the incidence of brucellosis. the two models based on brucellosis incidence data were then compared, and the ARiMAX model performed better in all the measurements we applied. our results illustrate that Baidu index data can enhance the traditional surveillance system to monitor and predict brucellosis epidemics in china.

The Chinese CubeSat Mission, Gamma Ray Integrated Detectors (GRID), recently detected its first gamma-ray burst, GRB 210121A, which was jointly observed by the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM). This burst is confirmed by several other missions, including Fermi and Insight-HXMT. We combined multimission observational data and performed a comprehensive analysis of the burst’s temporal and spectral properties. Our results show that the burst is relatively special in its high peak energy, thermal-like low-energy indices, and large fluence. By putting it to the E p –E γ,iso relation diagram with assumed distance, we found that this burst can be constrained at the redshift range of [0.3, 3.0]. The thermal spectral component is also confirmed by the direct fit of the physical models to the observed spectra. Interestingly, the physical photosphere model also constrained a redshift of z ∼ 0.3 for this burst, which helps us to identify a host galaxy candidate at such a distance within the location error box. Assuming that the host galaxy is real, we found that the burst can be best explained by the photosphere emission of a typical fireball with an initial radius of r 0 ∼ 3.2 × 107 cm.