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2026 has been a year full of ups and downs for Star Wars fans, who were treated to one of the highest-rated projects in franchise history : Maul — Shadow Lord , the Disney+ series starring Sam Witwer . Disney picked up the show for Season 2 before a single episode aired, and it’s all but confirmed that Season 2 will return next year. Things didn’t exactly go according to plan for the other official Star Wars release this year, The Mandalorian and Grogu , which was the franchise’s first feature film since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. The Mandalorian and Grogu has grossed only $340 million at the box office at the time of writing, and it’s expected to finish its run with an even lower total than the $392 million earned by Solo: A Star Wars Story .

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Commons health committee also recommends end to junk food advertising on billboards and public transport

Fast food chains such as KFC should be stopped from opening near schools, and advertising for junk food on billboards and public transport should be banned to help curb obesity, MPs will say today.

The Commons health committee will also urge ministers to stop giving in to food industry lobbying and get tough to tackle a problem that costs the UK £74bn a year and causes huge illness.

Supermarkets should be forced to display fruit and vegetables prominently, for example near entrances and checkouts, to help boost sales.

All food must start carrying front-of-pack, traffic light-style labels telling consumers how healthy or unhealthy they are, which some supermarket chains already use.

The government should urgently progress its previously announced intention to compel food producers to reveal what percentage of their sales come from healthy and unhealthy products.

Ministers should “be more courageous [and start] standing up to challenge from industry”, which often seeks to delay the introduction of measures to limit bad diet.

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Nissan is preparing to axe the Altima and Rogue Plug-In Hybrid.

Amid slowing sales, Nissan believes they only need one sedan in America.

Plug-in hybrid crossover will be replaced by the new Rogue e-Power.

Earlier this year, Nissan announced plans to kill off 11 different models as part of their “Mobility Intelligence for Everyday Life” strategy. At the time, the company was coy on specifics but said they’d cut “low-performing models” to reallocate investments to growth areas.

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Fast forward to today and we’re starting to learn about some of the casualties. In an interview with Wards Auto, Nissan Americas Chief Product & Planning Officer Ponz Pandikuthira revealed the Altima and Rogue Plug-In Hybrid are about to die.

More: Nissan Keeps The Altima Alive For 2026, But Kills Off Key Versions

While the Altima has been a staple of the company’s lineup for 34 years, Pandikuthira said the “Altima will soon depart, since the new, more ‘grown-up’ Sentra is intended to satisfy Nissan’s remaining sedan demand.”

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This is hardly surprising as Altima sales have been declining for years. The brand sold over 200,000 units annually in the United States as recently as 2019, but that number dropped to a mere 92,809 last year.

2026 is shaping up to be even worse as dealers only moved 42,288 Altimas through the first six months of the year. That’s a 31.9% decline and it means the automaker is on track to sell around 84,600 units for the entire year.

The Sentra is doing far better as customers snapped up 75,549 units through June. That’s an 11.7% decline compared to 2025, but the model is easily beating the Altima.

Pulling The Plug On The Rogue PHEV

Besides announcing the impending death of the Altima, Pandikuthira confirmed the sun is about to set on the Rogue Plug-In Hybrid . The lazily rebadged Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV won’t be missed, but the product planner noted it filled a special role.

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As Pandikuthira explained, “We did that car for a very specific reason, to bring it to market as soon as possible to see what having a hybrid in the lineup would do for overall demand.” He added, “If people shopping online see that Rogue does not offer a hybrid, they will not go to the dealer.”

Pandikuthira said the model has served its purpose and will give way to the new Rogue e-Power . He promised the upcoming crossover will offer a “very attractive price point with good fuel economy.”

Lastly, the product planner said the Ariya remains available in Canada and they’re still considering bringing it back to the United States. He went on to mention the company’s upcoming body-on-frame makeover that will spawn new versions of the Frontier and Xterra. Pandikuthira implied a three-row Nissan SUV could follow as well as two- and three-row versions for Infiniti. All would be offered with internal combustion engines as well as hybrid powertrains.

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Researchers have extracted DNA from a 50,000-year-old tooth belonging to an African antelope, setting a record for the oldest DNA ever retrieved from sub-Saharan Africa, a new study reports.

The finding suggests that DNA preservation in sub-Saharan Africa is possible for tens of thousands of years. In most cases, the region's hot climate breaks down the molecule and prevents researchers from understanding the evolution of numerous species, including ancient human ancestors and relatives .

While some temperate regions are known for preserving ancient human DNA — for instance, the Sima de los Huesos ("Pit of Bones") in Spain preserved DNA from a mysterious relative of modern humans that lived around 400,000 years ago — the sub-Saharan African climate is less forgiving. The oldest human DNA from sub-Saharan Africa is about 18,000 years old and was discovered in bones found in a rock shelter in Tanzania . And the oldest sub-Saharan animal DNA is just 9,300 years old, from an extinct antelope in South Africa.

In the new study, researchers tested whether DNA could be successfully extracted from ancient skeletons even older than that. By analyzing more than 300 teeth from animals that lived in the past 110,000 years, they discovered that small amounts of DNA could be identified even in remains from the Late Pleistocene , the latter part of the last ice age.

Researchers extracted the DNA from the 50,000-year-old tooth of a mountain reedbuck ( Redunca fulvorufula ), a species of antelope that still lives in Africa today. (Image credit: Getty Images) In a study published online May 27 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews , researchers extracted DNA from dozens of Holocene bovid specimens younger than 11,700 years old and from four Late Pleistocene bovid specimens between 12,000 and 50,000 years old. Although many of the teeth didn't yield DNA, a handful did. The oldest DNA the researchers found came from a partial molar from an African antelope called a mountain reedbuck ( Redunca fulvorufula ) discovered in Boomplaas Cave in southern South Africa. The other old DNA samples came from three extinct long-horned buffalos ( Syncerus antiquus ) ‪—‬ two that died 21,000 years ago and one that died 12,000 years ago.

"The 50,000-year-old DNA is exciting," study first author Deon de Jager , a paleogenomics expert at the University of Copenhagen, told Live Science in an email. "But I am myself skeptical of it, for two reasons."

The reedbuck DNA is significantly older than the next-oldest DNA the researchers retrieved, from the long-horned buffalo, de Jager explained, and the reedbuck specimen was contaminated with some human DNA, which they were able to remove. These two issues mean the 50,000-year-old antelope DNA result is not ironclad. However, since the publication of the study, the researchers have also sequenced the genome of a 42,000-year-old wildebeest from Ethiopia, suggesting DNA lasts a lot longer in Africa's climate than experts once thought.

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"There is of course a limit to DNA preservation in Africa, but what it is, is not clear," de Jager said. "There are certainly parts of Africa where DNA will be preserved even better than from the sites we have surveyed. Deep caves with stable, low temperatures will certainly be good candidates, but also high-elevation sites where temperatures have been very low for a long time."

The Late Pleistocene teeth that de Jager and colleagues analyzed produced very low amounts of DNA, which is thought to have a half-life of about 521 years, meaning half of the DNA in a specimen disappears every 521 years until none is left. But the amount the researchers found is still useful, de Jager said.

The DNA is sufficient for identifying evolutionary lineages, de Jager added. If they can gather enough data, researchers might be able to compare gene flow and interbreeding among species and populations.

Although these results suggest that DNA analysis is possible for understanding the past 40,000 to 50,000 years of animal and human evolution in South Africa, we may never be able to extract DNA from ancient human relatives like Homo naledi , which went extinct around 240,000 years ago, or Paranthropus robustus , which died out around 1 million years ago.

"I think the chances of obtaining DNA from Homo naledi are very, very low, unfortunately," de Jager said. "One would have to get very lucky with an incredibly well-preserved skull with the petrous bone still present, which is the best bone for obtaining ancient DNA. To get DNA from something in Africa nearly 1 million years old would probably be impossible, as the conditions in Africa are just too harsh."

How much do you know about Earth's frosty past? Find out with our last ice age quiz!

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The metal ball dropped 40 centimeters onto a hair-thin flexible Samsung display with a resounding, cringeworthy clunk, but it did not break, and yet that wasn’t the most remarkable thing. It was that I was the one dropping the ball, using one of Samsung Display’s own pieces of testing equipment, and I was doing so inside Samsung Display headquarters, a place where no media has gone before.

I’d come to South Korea for a wide-ranging Samsung Electronics product briefing and tours of its massive Gumi Digital City Factory and this first-ever look inside Samsung Display. With Samsung Unpacked now just days away (July 22) and new foldables anticipated, the visit would prove more than illuminating.

They let me set and drop a steel ball onto a flexible display. Future Future Future Future Future Future While obviously connected and working closely to deliver products like the Galaxy S26 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 (and whatever comes next), they’re also separate, working in a partnership that also allows Samsung Display to supply displays to, for instance, Apple (more on those Apple folding phone rumors later).

Samsung Display is a display specialist operating in a vast and in some ways nondescript (and in other ways beautiful) factory that is just a stone’s throw away from its nearest competitor, LG Display, which works in South Korea with its partner LG Electronics in a similar fashion.

Most of Samsung Display's buildings are unattractive, brutalist monoliths, but the interiors feature some eye-popping examples of their work. Ironically, we were initially greeted by a conference-hall-sized display featuring our names, which Samsung Display did not build. But on an adjacent wall was an animated edifice of phones, tablets, TVs, and other screens that all tell the story of Samsung Display technology, one that has taken it from tiny feature-phone displays and tube TVs to the vast OLED panels and flexible displays featured in the latest foldables.

This massive display offered some cool 3D effects but was not built by Samsung Display. Future Displays on this wall shifted in and out for a truly mesmerizing visual experience. Future Screen sizes ranged from phones to TVs Future Yes, Samsung Display made all these screens. Future A little bit of screen history. Future The ball-drop demo was part of a whistle-stop tour of Samsung Display's latest innovations and stress tests. I only dropped the 21.7-gram ball on the panel after watching a Samsung Display tech do it multiple times from a height of 30 centimeters on a 220lb machine that Samsung Display had moved into this small room just for this one demonstration.

However, Samsung seemed in the mood to open up, and we were soon visiting multiple rooms where Samsung Display puts panels through the wringer.

Ever wonder how Sasmung Display makes all those screens? Future It's all about layers Future And building big OLED panels... Future That you can slice into many, many smaller screens. Future Following our guides, we hopped on a special elevator and soon were standing outside a 24-hour lab that’s running tests even when Samsung employees are asleep. “Only authorized technicians get in,” our guide warned us before unlocking the door with her ID and ushering us inside.

Many of these tests Samsung Display runs are designed to test “how long can I use it?” So, there are the folding and unfolding tests to the tune of thousands of times a day, and stress tests that heat the panels up to 60 degrees Celsius or cool them to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Many of the large gray or beige metal boxes where the tests are performed are sealed, so technicians must track the tests via video feeds from internal cameras.

We got a close look at the display test labs, a place where no media has tread before. Future Future But as I learned while touring other Samsung facilities, the company likes to automate these processes, so it’s often an unemotional computer that will recognize and report a failure.

Our next stop was another few levels down (B5, to be precise) where we saw image quality and reflection testing. The latter was interesting because, as is often the case, Samsung Display built a special rig, this one a barium sulfate-coated contraption to shine ultra-bright light on the panel and then use a spectrometer to read the light refracted back. For foldable displays, they even check how light bounces off the crease, which will, of course, affect visibility of the crease.

Samsung Display is also where they’re unsurprisingly pushing the boundaries of display technology. Company execs showed us a series of displays that, I think, speak to the future of many of our display-worthy electronics.

And we got an up-close look at some cool display concepts. Future Future The first display, a visual trick of sorts, may have been my favorite. It looked like a small, bezel-less OLED screen showing off the inside of an ornate cathedral. However, when I got close and shifted my view to the left or right, I realized it was two displays sandwiched on top of each other; a small portion of the image was on the smaller display, and behind it was the complete image. Head-on, they seamlessly blend together.

How do you make two screens look like one? Essentially, remove the bezels. Future Future Future Future This optical illusion only works because Samsung Display has figured out how to reduce its tolerances so much that the small gap necessary for electrodes and encapsulation is almost zero, meaning that the top display has no visible black border around it.

Samsung Display is bending, curving, stretching, shaping, and rolling OLEDS in all kinds of remarkable ways, Future Future Many of these concepts could make it to future devices. Future A speaker with a flexible display? Why not? Future Oddly shaped OLEDS are alreayd appearing out in the wild. Future The other 7.2-inch displays were of the flexible variety. We saw screens flex, we saw them roll away, but the most interesting was the hybrid: a foldable and rollable screen, something that’s never been tried before.

As for when these displays might come to consumer devices, that’s hard to say, but it does seem inevitable. After all, I first saw Samsung flexible displays more than a decade ago, and now they’re part of a growing legion of consumer-grade foldable phones.

Display executive perspective

Later, we moved to another part of the vast facility for a sit-down with Samsung Display executives Byung Duk Yang, EVP & Core Component Technology Team; KyungJin Yoo, EVP & Head of Team Mobile Display Product Development Team; and Gina Suk, VP & Head of Communication Group.

Unquestionably, the bleeding edge of the work they do continues to be the foldable phone partnership with Samsung Electronics, where these innovations presented a series of unusual challenges, many of which the firm has overcome over seven generations of foldable devices (and whatever we expect to come next week at Samsung Unpacked).

“The two companies are always thinking about how we can continue to improve the usability of the foldable,” said Byung Duk Yang.

Byung Duk Yang, Samsung Display EVP & Core Component Technology Team (Image credit: Future) Yang talked about how these flexible devices and their folding screens introduced diverse user paradigms. Some of the work they do is figuring out how to handle challenges like drops, pressure, and collisions with heavy objects.

But it sounds like it’s been rewarding work and the company is undoubtedly committed to the foldable space. “The future of the foldable device is very promising,” said Byung Duk Yang. But when we asked about how soon some of those fold and slide screens might be in our hands, Samsung Display execs cautioned us, “We have to consider the real-world usage pattern. The display might be ready, but we should consider many aspects of the usage.

The screen that welcomed us (Image credit: Future) When we have confidence that we can deliver meaningful innovation to the user, then every other aspect of technology are ready, then we are going to list the product,” said Byung Duk Yang, who added that as an engineer, he knows they’re not ready.

We are exploring and we are thinking, when and how to implement the privacy display into foldable display.

Byung Duk Yang, Samsung Display EVP & Core Component Technology Team

When I asked, though, if there were any intrinsic barriers in folding displays to the introduction of the privacy display — a breakout feature for the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra — the answer surprised me.

“We are exploring and we are thinking, when and how to implement the privacy display into foldable display. Because we know many people love the feature. We are thinking, considering,” smiled Yang.

Speaking of innovation, the Samsung Display execs revealed that, with the upcoming new line of foldables, it's introducing a new material, or rather, doubling the use of a material generally associated with strength and not flexibility: Titanium.

All the layers in Samsung Display's Flex Titanium Technology for its folding devices. (Image credit: Samsung Display) Samsung Displays described it as "Flex Titanium Technology," and what it means is that upcoming foldable Galaxy phones, which the company will reveal next week, will feature not one but two titanium layers.

One is an update to the relatively rigid one that's existed in previous Galaxy Fold models, with a new, special structure at the fold or crease to give flexibility and reduce crease visibility. The second, new, almost paper-like titanium alloy film replaces the polymer layer below the OLED in previous foldable devices and sits on top of the more rigid titanium plate. It's both thinner than that old polymer layer and, Samsung claims, more resilient.

"Polymer layers are good for flexibility but [we] want to minimize permanent deformation; titanium alloy has a much better quality to reduce permanent deformation,” they explained.

To help us visualize the new flexible display construction, Samsung Display brought out a bread-box-sized diorama, with each display layer hanging inside like a curtain. The new titanium polymer layer felt smooth, thin, light, and quite strong.

Byung Duk Yang, Samsung Display EVP & Core Component Technology Team (Image credit: Future) Naturally, we had to ask about Apple’s rumored foldable phone, which may be called the iPhone Ultra, and how Samsung Display might supply the screen. They wouldn’t comment on the rumors but did share, “I think it’s more than welcome because when the other competitors and other companies join the market, this market will be standard and the owners will increase….We really welcome the big competitor joining this market…

We mean it, we love other companies to join this market.”

If you look closely, you can see we are all making heart signs with our fingers. (Image credit: Future)