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When I was a kid, I'd play a handful of games on rotation. Spyro was one of them. Like most seven-year-olds, I was a pretty big fan of dragons and having one front an adventure game was enough to lure me in. I also enjoyed that I could actually play it without having to ask for my parents' help, a real gamechanger for little Grace.

It was simple, really – gliding around, picking up gems, and roasting butterflies to bring back my dragonfly friend, Sparx. It aged well, too, staying in my rotation for an unprecedented amount of time. Almost three decades on (gulp), I've been through a myriad of console generations and developed a taste for different genres. Yet, I still feel like there's a dragon-shaped hole in my heart waiting to be filled.

Imagine my surprise when developer Toys for Bob unveiled a brand-new Spyro , Spyro: A Realm Beyond, during June's Xbox Games Showcase. That's the same team who remastered the OG titles in the Spyro: Reignited Trilogy and the studio even created a new entry into another of my favorite childhood franchises, Crash Bandicoot.

As excited as I am about the return of my purple fire-breathing friend, one question still hangs over my head. How will Toys for Bob bridge the gap between the much-loved '90s Spyro and the modern world? It's a much less forgiving landscape for games these days and it's also mighty competitive.

Take flight

(Image credit: Activision) "The more the merrier"

(Image credit: Sony) Spyro: A Realm Beyond lead "couldn't be more happy" about the "resurgence" of 3D platformers like Astro Bot and Rayman

In comparison, playing PlayStation in the 1990s was like living off scraps. I'd grab PlayStation Official Magazine to get demos to play on repeat (here's looking at you, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee). Sure, Toys for Bob successfully remastered the Spyro trilogy, but it also actually made it harder than I remember it being – which was fine for me now, but seven-year-old me would've been mighty sad.

If Spyro: A Realm Beyond wants to appeal to both millennials and Gen Alphas (and the in-betweens), there's a few things I think need to happen. Spyro, at the end of the day, had all the features of a great adventure game from exploration to abundant storytelling to clever mechanics. But, will they translate as well now?

(Image credit: Toys for Bob) For now, there's not too much to go on. The Xbox Games Showcase reveal lasted just over a minute, with little of the new features on show, although ut there was enough to know one thing for certain. In Spyro: A Realm Beyond you'll be able to utilize free flight for the first time . In 1998, Spyro glided between areas, but as a little purple dragon, he never flew. Introducing that mechanic to a whole new world of Spyro is a pretty big deal.

But, I think it's equally important for Spyro to stay true to what made it great originally. Take the well-rounded level design and the plentiful movement combinations. And while I didn't spot Sparx in the trailer, I hope to still have a companion that you can love as much as you love Spyro.

"The world needs more radically joyful, colorful games," Toys for Bob recently declared . And as the trailer demonstrates, there's going to be a whole lot of color and a whole lot of modernization, blending the old with the new.

(Image credit: Toys for Bob) While I've argued that there's a lot of competition in modern era gaming from big budget titles to indie's alike, there is one thing I know and that's that there's not much in that niche space of fun nostalgic characters to play as a family. I'm a '90s gamer that is now in her mid-30s with two small kids.

We play Super Mario Party and LEGO games regularly because it's fun for everyone. They love it because the character is fun and vibrant, I love it because it makes me feel all warm and cosy inside. I'm almost a little jealous that my kids will get to experience a Spyro with such vibrancy and clarity. They can't even imagine the way that games used to look, but they also think I grew up with dinosaurs.

If you can't wait for Spyro...

These are the best adventure games out there right now

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Despite the surge in Overwatch players since Blizzard's decision to drop the 2 and take the hero shooter in a new direction earlier this year, the noise around its MOBA-inspired Stadium mode has died down. And so has its popularity, which has prompted a halt in development plans according to a new blog post by game director Aaron Keller.

Keller provided daily player counts for each mode as of June 28. The data shows that around 54% of players queue up for 5v5 unranked, while only 3% of them head into unranked or ranked Stadium. Even the 6v6 modes are more popular.

Because of this, Blizzard has decided to stop adding new heroes and maps to Stadium. Keller says "we'll continue supporting Stadium with seasonal balance updates, rank resets, and rewards," but the team of developers previously focused on it will be moving on to other projects.

Stadium is basically an over-the-top version of Overwatch where you create MOBA-style builds with items and powers that transform your hero's abilities, like shrinking Ashe's robot sidekick B.O.B. into a mini killing machine. People ate it up in the first few weeks it was out, making it one of Overwatch's most-played modes . But with only a portion of the game's roster available to play, it started to fall behind on updates as Blizzard began rapidly releasing new heroes for the rest of the game. Season 1's Jetpack Cat was the last hero to be Stadium-ified.

Although the most recent midseason patch was filled with plenty of balance changes for Stadium, it seems like the effort it takes to translate new heroes and maps to the mode is too much for Blizzard to juggle alongside the rest of the game. Part of me is glad to see that Blizzard won't be deleting Stadium outright, but another part of me is surprised that it's already effectively over. I'll be curious to see how substantial future balance changes will look if the team focused on it has largely moved on.

The news was tucked into a blog post about two upcoming experimental 6v6 modes Blizzard will be testing soon. From July 16 through July 19, Quick Play will turn into a "Flex Queue" where every team will have one tank, three damage dealers, and two supports. At any point in the match, however, a single damage dealer will be able to swap to a tank hero. Keller says Flex Queue will help improve queue times and add a little more strategy compared to the regular 2-2-2 team compositions.

The second test will run from July 28 to August 3 and will use the same Flex Queue format but only when the matchmaking system fails to find two tank players. The goal with this so-called "Dynamic Queue" will be to see how people handle shorter queue times in exchange for varying team compositions. Right now, queuing up for multiple roles tends to just make you a tank because it's the least popular. This is supposed to alleviate that a bit.

Keller says both tests are to gather data about various things and won't "necessarily mean that we're going to be changing the main format of the game." He said they could lead to tweaks to regular modes or entirely new Arcade modes. "Like with any good experiment, we won't know the results until we complete all the steps."

Although it certainly wasn't pitched as one, it seems like Stadium will go down as one of the many experiments Overwatch has conducted in the last few years. Overwatch's perks system—which lets you choose two of four ability modifiers mid-match—was inspired by it and changed the game for the better. Stadium might be more or less over, but it probably won't be be the last time we see pieces of it show up in the rest of the game.

2026 games : All the upcoming games

Best PC games : Our all-time favorites

Free PC games : Freebie fest

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This is the web edition of STAT’s AAIC in 30 newsletter .

Hello there from the final day of the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference. This is our last edition of this pop-up newsletter, but if you somehow haven’t tired of me, you can join me as well as my colleagues Damian Garde and Katherine MacPhail tomorrow to recap AAIC and discuss how the research presented here fits into the broader direction of the field. You can register for the virtual event here . It’s at 10 a.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. here in the U.K.

With next year’s AAIC set for Chicago, and as this nation descends into full World Cup mania in the coming hours, I’ll end by saying thanks for following along with me here in London.

How blood tests could reshape the future of identifying dementia

Traditionally, an Alzheimer’s diagnosis comes after a brain scan or spinal tap, or perhaps some cognitive tests administered by a behavioral neurologist. The tests can be burdensome, and specialist capacity is limited.

But research presented throughout the conference indicated how the field is moving in new directions, finding ways to make testing much more accessible, and offering more nuanced results that go beyond saying whether someone has Alzheimer’s or not.

In particular, blood-based biomarker tests that can help with diagnoses have started to come onto the market . The Alzheimer’s Association has also started to issue guidelines for how doctors should use them .

One study detailed here looked at whether these tests could be used in the primary care setting. Alzheimer’s experts say it’s crucial for more doctors to be able to diagnose the condition, particularly with the availability of new treatments that are more beneficial the earlier they can be used. Wait times for neurologists can extend for months, if not over a year.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

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Scientists have identified a new species of monkey that has orange lips and makes unique roars and snorting sounds. The distinctive monkey lives in a remote region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

It is only the fifth new monkey species to be identified in Africa in the past 75 years, and there might be more unknown monkey species in the region, scientists behind a new study suggested. Researchers named the newly identified species of monkey Colobus congoensis , after the region, and it is known by the common name "lik­weli" in the local Kilanga language.

"This is remarkable because it's not very common these days to find a new, never-before-documented primate species, let alone a relatively large species of monkey," said Joshua Linder , an anthropologist and president and co-founder of the The Forest Collective , a nonprofit that aims to conserve and restore tropical rainforests.

In 2008, conservationists in the dense rainforests of Lomami National Park , within the Congo Basin in the DRC, photographed an unidentified monkey, but it was partially obscured. Then, in 2018 a similar-looking animal was captured on camera, prompting study co-author Junior Amboko , a Lomami National Park researcher and a Florida Atlantic University anthropologist, to set out to find the mysterious monkey.

To see what was already known, Amboko and his colleagues showed the pictures to people from 52 villages around the park.

"These people really know the fauna and flora in the forest," Amboko told Live Science. "In only eight villages, people knew the monkey ‪—‬ and these were hunters, who know the economic value of animals or how much food each animal can provide, but even they didn't know much."

The researchers worked in the Lomami National Park, within the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Image credit: Daniel Rosengren, Frankfurt Zoological Society ) Hunters of the Balanga ethnic group called the monkey "likweli," although the meaning of this name isn't known. Some in the Mituku local communities called the species "kasaba nkoni," which Amboko said means "the branch shaker." This refers to the way colobus monkeys leap from branch to branch, Amboko said.

In their searches between 2018 and 2022, the researchers recorded 114 sightings of the species across an estimated range of about 660 square miles (1,700 square kilometers) naturally isolated between the Lomami and Lualaba rivers. They reported their findings July 15 in the journal PLOS One .

The monkeys, seen hanging out in groups of between one and 20 individuals, are mainly glossy black, but they have a conspicuous orange patch around the mouth and nose. Bare gray skin on their cheekbones makes it look as if they're wearing masks. They also have a patch of white fur around the anus.

"We're going with the face and the rump as the two distinctive traits," said study co-author Kate Detwiler , an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University. "If you see the face, you see this unique bare skin that's orange cream. And then if you're coming from behind, you see this white patch."

DNA analysis confirmed C. congoensis was a previously unknown species. (Image credit: Daniel Rosengren, Frankfurt Zoological Society ) The monkeys, which weigh about 15 pounds (7 kilograms), also make deep, loud roars, punctuated by distinctive snorts. These unique‬ vocalizations distinguish them from other colobus monkeys, Detwiler told Live Science.

By taking samples, and sequencing DNA, from monkeys killed by hunters and destined for the illegal bushmeat trade, and comparing the results with what’s in museum collections and datasets of genetics, skulls, teeth and pelts for other colobus monkeys, the team confirmed that C. congoensis was a previously unknown species.

"My lab got the tissue sample and did the genetics, and we were shocked by how divergent the key area of the mitochondrial genome was from other colobus monkeys," Detwiler said.

Researchers think the new species diverged up to 5.78 million years ago. (Image credit: Daniel Rosengren, Frankfurt Zoological Society ) The monkeys live in the same forest as the Angola colobus ( Colobus angolensis ), but their closest relatives are black colobus monkeys ( Colobus satanas ), which live around 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) to the west, in Cameroon, Gabon and Bioko Island.

"The fact that the results show that the closest living relative to this new species is the black colobus located 1200 km away in West Africa is equally remarkable," Linder, who was not involved in the new study, told Live Science via email.

Detwiler estimates that these close relatives diverged between 5.78 million and 3.44 million years ago ‪—‬ the longest known split between species within the Colobus genus. "The discovery is reshaping our understanding of African monkey evolution," she said.

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Given the small geographic range, rare sightings and increasing habitat loss, the researchers recommend that C. congoensis be classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List .

The discovery also emphasizes the importance of Lomami National Park, where another previously undescribed monkey, the lesula ( Cercopithecus lomamiensis ), was reported in 2012 by a team that included Detwiler.

The Congolian rainforest ranging across this part of Africa is the world's second-largest tropical forest, after the Amazon , and about 60% of it is in the DRC. "It is a paradise for biodiversity," Amboko said, adding that there might be more undescribed primate species there. "If we are able to discover two big new primate species, who knows how many other new mammals, fish, reptiles or plants there could be?"

What do you know about chimpanzees and great apes? Test your smarts with our primate quiz!

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Rex the Dinosaur is regarded as one of Jacksonville’s most lovable roadside landmark. Built in the 1960s, he was originally installed as part of Goony Golf, a mini-golf and family-fun complex which closed its doors and putting greens in the late 1990s.

When the land was purchased for redevelopment, locals protested his destruction and, in 2007, Rex was not only saved but restored with help from students in the University of North Florida's Building Construction Management program.

Rex still stands at his original location, now developed into a small shopping center. He has been featured on Jacksonville City merchandise and was a prize for a 2025 scavenger hunt where players could find 3D-printed miniature Rex replicas hidden around Duval.