Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:
Behind the Scenes Video of the Day:
See the painstaking work that went into the stop-motion feature Kubo and the Two Strings in this time-lapse video (via Geekologie):
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Visual Effects Breakdown of the Day:
Check out how Iloura created their visual effects for Ghostbusters in this revealing VFX reel (via io9):
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Movie Art of the Day:
In honor of Gene Wilder, here’s a relevant new Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-based print from Truck Torrence’s new Mass Hysteria 2 series of pop culture-inspired art (via Geek Tyrant):
Superhero Movie Parody of the Day:
In response to Deadpool, Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman, Last Week Tonight‘s John Oliver presents his solution to superhero movie fatigue, which is a unique superhero character he created in the fifth grade (via THR):
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Casting Interpretation of the Day:
With word that Bucky/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) might become Captain America in Avengers: Infinity War, BossLogic shows three variants of what that could look like:
All kinds of movie moments become unintentionally romantic in Now You See It’s spotlight on the sense of touch in film:
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Vintage Image of the Day:
William Friedkin, who turns 81 today, directs young Linda Blair on the set of 1973’s The Exorcist:
Actor in the Spotlight:
Watch Natalie Portman grow up, almost Boyhood-like, in Candice Drouet’s spotlight on the actress through the years:
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Cosplay of the Day:
Photographer Laura Izumikawa has been getting attention lately for her pictures of her baby dressed up as movie characters while she’s napping. They just posted a new one inspired by Star Wars:
Classic Trailer of the Day:
Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of the skateboarding movie Thrashin’. Watch the original trailer for the movie, which stars a young Josh Brolin, below.
Drones are flown at a training class in Las Vegas in anticipation of new regulations allowing their commercial use. Ethan Miller/Getty Imageshide caption
toggle captionEthan Miller/Getty Images
We are in “one of the most dramatic periods of change in the history of transportation,” says Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
He was talking about all of it: the self-driving cars, the smart-city movement, the maritime innovations. But the staggering prediction of the day goes to the drone industry:
The Federal Aviation Administration expects some 600,000 drones to be used commercially within a year.
For context, the FAA says that 20,000 drones are currently registered for commercial use. What’s expected to produce a 30-fold increase in a matter of months is a new rule that went into effect Monday and makes it easier to become a commercial drone operator.
“The FAA forecasts there could be as many as 600,000 unmanned aircraft used commercially during the first year after this rule is in place,” FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a press conference. “Drones are helping to create a whole new means of realizing the American dream,” he added later.
Broadly, the new rules change the process of becoming a commercial drone pilot: Instead of having to acquire a traditional pilot’s license and getting a special case-by-case permission from the regulators, drone operators now need to pass a new certification test and abide by various flying restrictions (and, well, be older than 16).
Huerta says more than 3,000 people preregistered to take the certification test Monday — the first day of the new regime.
The rest of the drone safety rules still apply: No flights beyond line-of-sight, over people, at night, above 400 feet in the air or faster than 100 miles an hour. Drones also can’t be heavier than 55 pounds, and all unmanned aircraft have to be registered. (Some locations, such as Washington, D.C., prohibit drones altogether.)
Businesses, however, may get special waivers to skip some of the restrictions if they can prove they can do so safely. Huerta said Monday that the FAA has approved almost 80 waiver applications; the vast majority sought permission to operate at night. CNN was one applicant that received permission to fly over people, Huerta said.
So far, the top uses of commercial drones have included aerial photography, real estate, various inspections, agriculture and filmmaking, according to an analysis by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the industry trade group. Foxx and Huerta also cited firefighting, search and rescue, conservation and academic research as potential beneficiaries.
The drone association expects the industry will create more than 100,000 jobs and generate more than $82 billion for the economy in the first 10 years of being integrated into the national airspace.
“If the federal government continues to embrace drone technology policy that balances safety and innovation, by 2025 our country will reach one million drone flights per day,” Douglas Johnson, vice president for technology policy at the Consumer Technology Association, said in a statement.
The FAA is also working on new rules that eventually will allow drone flights over people and beyond line of sight. Huerta said the FAA expects to propose rules on flights over people by the end of 2016. The agency will also be issuing new privacy guidance to local and state government, he said, and will include privacy education in the pilot certification process.
Most Americans who screen positive for depression don’t receive treatment, a study finds, while most who did receive treatment don’t appear to have the disorder.
“Over the last several years there has been an increase in prescription of antidepressants,” says Mark Olfson, professor of psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center and lead author of the study, which was published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. “In that context, many people assumed that undertreatment of depression is no longer a common problem.”
But Olfson found the opposite to be true after analyzing data from Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys in 2012 and 2013 that asked people if they had been screened for depression. Of the 46,417 adults surveyed, 8.4 percent answered in ways that suggested they had depression, but only 28.7 percent of the people who appeared depressed received any treatment for it.
“The findings highlight that there are continuing challenges in aligning depression care with patient needs,” Olfson says.
Those in the lowest-income group were five times more likely to appear to have depression compared with those in the highest income group, with 18.2 percent of lowest-income adults screening positive compared to 3.7 percent of the highest-income group. But higher-income people were more likely to get treatment.
People who were female, white, non-Hispanic, had at least a high school education or had health insurance were more likely to get treatment if they were depressed, the study found. People with low incomes, uninsured adults, racial and ethnic minorities and men were less likely to be treated.
Though 8 percent of people surveyed got some form of treatment, most of the people who got treatment probably didn’t need it. Only 29.9 percent of the people treated had screened positive for depression; 21.8 percent of them appeared to have serious psychological distress. People with public insurance such as Medicaid and people who were separated, widowed or divorced were most likely to be treated, while uninsured adults, racial and ethnic minorities, and men were least likely.
Antidepressants were far and away the most common treatment, and people with either less serious distress or no depression were more likely to receive them. That could be a problem, Olfson says, because studies have shown that antidepressants are not more effective for patients with mild depression than a placebo.
“Being a little less aggressive in medication in mild depression would be beneficial,” he says. “There are simpler forms of psychological interventions that can be adapted for primary care.”
Patients with mild depression could first be given nondrug treatments ranging from counseling and exercise to yoga, the researchers say.
And although the study found that those with serious psychological distress are more likely to be treated by psychiatrists instead of general medical professionals, that wasn’t the case for older patients, African-Americans, the uninsured or those with less education.
Most people with untreated depression make at least one visit to a primary care doctor annually, and Olfson says those visits could be used to screen people in disadvantaged populations, and ideally offer them mental health treatment at the primary care clinic.
“If you give them a referral to a mental health clinic, they simply won’t go if they don’t think they have a mental health disorder,” he says. “By embedding the services within primary care, it becomes more accessible and less stigmatized.”
It’s an idea Benjamin Cook, director of the Health Equity Research Lab and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, agrees on, but he says increasing access for minorities would require professionals who speak their languages and understand what type of treatment they are open to. Cook was not involved in the study.
“African-Americans and Latinos prefer antidepressants less than whites,” Cook says. That might be an underlying reason “not to go for mental health treatment, why they might not stay at treatment for as long.”
It can be hard for primary care doctors to find mental health professionals to refer patients to, particularly in rural areas, Olfson says; prescribing antidepressants might be their only option. “Depression really is a serious condition and we’re finding that so many Americans aren’t receiving care,” he adds. “I hope that [this study] brings attention to this situation.”
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent news service supported by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Tennis matches get started on Monday at the U.S. Open in New York. Renee Montagne talks to Courtney Nguyen, senior writer at WTA Insider, who offers a preview on what to look for.
Transcript
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Summer is drawing to a close. And that means the start of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. Last year, Serena Williams lost in the semifinals in what was considered one of the biggest upsets of all time. This year, she enters her matches ranked on top. Courtney Nguyen is a senior writer at WTA Insider, the magazine of the Women’s Tennis Association, and she joins us. Good morning.
COURTNEY NGUYEN: Good morning.
MONTAGNE: What will you be watching for in this U.S. Open?
NGUYEN: Well, for me, I mean, that Serena Williams is the big story – comes in ranked No. 1, hasn’t been the top-notch year or, really, historical year that she had in 2015, but still by far and away the No. 1 player in the world. But she’s playing for history, chasing Steffi Graf, as she has been for quite some time, going for slam number 23, which would break the record for singles titles in the Open era, and also trying to break a consecutive No. 1 ranking, with 186 consecutive weeks at No. 1. And she’s trying to hold on to that top ranking. And she actually is being challenged for it this year.
MONTAGNE: Well, Serena Williams, and on the men’s side, obviously, Novak Djokovic, are both favorites to win, but both are nursing injuries. What are the chances their injuries could impair their performances?
NGUYEN: Yeah, I mean, so far, you know, they were pretty dominant for the last 18 months. And what we’re seeing in the last few months are these injuries crop up. And it has impacted their results, with Novak Djokovic losing early at Wimbledon to American Sam Querrey. He also lost early at the Olympics.
Serena Williams did the same thing – after winning Wimbledon, went to the Olympics, only played three matches between Wimbledon until now – and lost early in Rio to a young Ukrainian. So, you know, the injuries are very, very significant here. They’re the best players in the world when they’re healthy. And right now, we know that they’re not 100 percent healthy going into New York.
MONTAGNE: OK, and with Djokovic, as you’ve just described, on something of a summer slump, Roger Federer, who many consider the greatest player of all time, is missing his first U.S. Open in 17 years because of a knee injury. Does that mean we could see someone else rush up there as No. 1?
NGUYEN: No. 1 on the men’s side is pretty secured by Novak Djokovic. But we are seeing a lot of movement from the men behind him. Andy Murray has done an incredible job of playing some consistent tennis in 2016. And then we have some younger players who are really trying to make a big splash. So it’s a nice little time of transition for the ATP. And, you know, with Roger’s absence, it opens up some opportunities for some young names.
MONTAGNE: All right. Well, thanks very much.
NGUYEN: Thank you.
MONTAGNE: Courtney Nguyen is a senior writer at WTA Insider.
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