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On July 17, Xbox-owned Bethesda announced a whole bunch of stuff about the future of Fallout and, more distantly, The Elder Scrolls and Starfield. That same day, studio union OneBGS says devs hit by recent layoffs at Bethesda's Montreal branch were told that their severance pay would be as low as legally possible despite the billions in profit recorded by parent Microsoft and investment in the IP they helped build.

In a post on Bluesky , OneBGS - Bethesda Game Studios Union claims, "Montreal workers are being treated especially poorly by XBOX and we won’t stand for it."

The union says that, when the layoffs were announced on July 6, employees "across the US and Canada were told via video call" that they would "remain employed until September while the company negotiated severance with our union."

The union says the "breathing room" these terms provided evaporated on July 17. Behind the Fallout info explosion, the union says Xbox "told their laid-off Bethesda Montreal employees that they would receive the smallest severance legally possible without bargaining with the union."

This news reportedly came via "termination letters" delivered via email. The union says this left affected employees with "the bare legal minimum in terms of severance: eight weeks of pay in lieu of the minimum legal notice, any outstanding vacation pay, etc."

Additionally, the union says impacted staff "were to also immediately lose their group benefits health insurance."

(Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) In response, the union has filed "yet another legal complaint against Bethesda," alleging it continues to "violate labor laws in Canada."

"Bethesda and XBOX leadership depend on our labour to make them millions, and yet when we do, we are disposed of," the union concludes. "The cycle of workers paying for the mistakes of management ends here."

This news was shared on Bluesky by Bethesda lead character artist Ben Carnow, who adds, "Microsoft did not negotiate with the Union over layoffs in Montreal as they are legally required to do. Folks lost their healthcare with zero notice. Unconscionable."

The union's post also links to feedback listed under Xbox's new "Player Voice" forum. The post collectively calls out the thousands of Xbox staff and developers that Microsoft has laid off in just a few years, demands executive penalties and accountability (like "no executive bonuses when there is a layoff"), asks for an end to layoffs, and requests "transparency for players."

The United Videogame Workers CWA union, an industry-wide organization, previously argued that the Fallout 5 and Elder Scrolls 6 news was meant to distract from the blows dealt to Bethesda employees in the background.

"The timing of this kind of press is intentional," the UVW-CWA said. "How are they going to make these games when Bethesda and Obsidian collectively laid off hundreds? Don’t fall for it."

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James Capon responds to an editorial on the health select committee’s call for radical action to regulate food markets

The MPs’ report mentioned in your editorial is welcome and overdue ( The Guardian view on obesity: put public health before food industry pressure, 15 July ). The health select committee is right to clarify that obesity is an engineered outcome, not a failure of willpower. But there’s a flaw running through decades of British food policy that risks being repeated: the “ high in fat, salt or sugar ” framework itself.

“High in fat, salt or sugar” combines three nutrients as though they carry equivalent blame. However, the evidence on weight gain and type 2 diabetes points to sugar and refined carbohydrates as the primary drivers, not fat. Salt matters, chiefly when combined with sugar, but the body needs salt to function. Fat matters because without it many fat-soluble vitamins will just pass through our bodies. We need no sugar at all.

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Astronauts have grown a common crystal in space — but this extraterrestrial version is exhibiting a very uncommon behavior. Under a microscope, the crystal looks more like a tiny futuristic sculpture than something that formed naturally. The pyramid-like assembly curls in on itself in stair-stepped layers, seeming almost too orderly to be real. But according to scientists, the striking shape is what happens when gravity stops calling the shots.

The image , shared on July 18 by NASA astronaut Don Pettit , and accompanying video were captured aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and show potassium chloride crystals growing in microgravity — the near-weightless environment experienced in orbit.

Microgravity isn't quite zero gravity; astronauts experience a gravitational pull roughly a million times weaker than on Earth's surface, Anne Wilson , a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Butler University, told Live Science. That reduction in gravity's tug has profound impacts on the human body , and, as the new image shows, completely changes how liquids and crystals behave as well.

"[Other] forces start to become far more pronounced than gravity forces," Wilson said, pointing to molecular attraction and polarity as two influences that suddenly take over once gravity fades into the background.

Those conditions enable potassium chloride — a common salt used as a sodium substitute in foods and sports drinks — to crystallize in ways that are nearly impossible to reproduce in a terrestrial lab.

On Earth, growing crystals eventually get heavy enough to sag, break or settle at the bottom of their container. But in microgravity, they keep growing outward from wherever they started.

Potassium chloride naturally forms cube-shaped crystals, Wilson said. In microgravity, those crystals grow mainly from their edges and corners instead of across their faces, leaving the center hollow and creating the striking pyramid-like structures seen in the image.

In microgravity, crystals experience "hopper growth," where the outer edges and corners grow at faster rates than the flat faces, creating a step-like appearance. This timelapse records their growth inside a thin water film. Look closely, and you will see the patterns emerge! pic.twitter.com/iSlqJvke1G June 6, 2026

Scientists call this pattern hopper growth , and it isn't unique to potassium chloride (ordinary table salt forms the same way). As new corners emerge during growth, the crystal can change direction entirely, producing the elegant scrolling pattern visible in the new image.

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While the crystal is visually stunning, the science behind it could prove just as valuable. Materials grown without gravity's interference often form with fewer defects, giving researchers a rare look at what a truly "ideal" structure looks like. This insight could help refine manufacturing processes for semiconductors and other advanced materials back on Earth.

For Wilson, images like this serve another purpose: inspiring curiosity.

"I love seeing videos of how things behave in space," she said. "Who would think that something as simple as potassium chloride could still be super cool?"

ISS astronauts spend a significant amount of their time conducting science experiments that would be near-impossible on Earth. Recently, astronauts used the space station’s newly upgraded Cold Atom Laboratory to create and study an elusive fifth state of matter called the Bose-Einstein condensate. And last year, researchers demonstrated how moss spores exposed to space for nine months on the outside of the ISS continued to grow after being returned to Earth.

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Jimothy, the viral raccoon from Seattle with suspected short spine syndrome, has been added to numerous games by modders, and many developers have paid tribute on social media with art featuring the raccoon in their games' style. Wizards of the Coast has gone one step further, though, by creating an official Dungeons & Dragons stat block for the "beloved cryptid."

Companies often try to jump on viral trends as part of their marketing, and few things have gone as viral as Jimothy's long legs and rotund frame. The raccoon with the rare mutation can be found all over the internet, not just in the few clips of him frolicking around the neighborhood.

The teams behind Cult of the Lamb, World of Warcraft, Old School Runescape, P.I. Mouse For Hire, Dead by Daylight, Among Us, and undoubtedly many more have all released pictures on social media of Jimothy rendered in their games' art styles. Modders who are enamored with Jimothy have also added him to Skyrim and Stardew Valley.

Triptherift's mod will let you interact with and talk to Jimothy in Skyrim. Kirbysteaks has added Jimothy to Stardew Valley as a type of livestock, and plurffle has made a mod that allows you to purchase Jimothy from Marnie, once you have your pet license, of course.

However, to our knowledge, only one company has been brave enough to officially add our latest overlord into its game. Wizards of the Coast has released an official stat block for Jimothy in Dungeons & Dragons and has bestowed upon him the title of " Beloved Cryptid ." His special skills include 'Compact Frame,' which allows him to squeeze through gaps less than four inches wide, and 'Hurl Garbage,' a ranged attack that bludgeons and poisons the target.

Jimothy hasn't officially shown up in a video game yet, but we're sure it's only a matter of time.

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