Latest news with #DanielKatz
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Every A24 Movie Coming Out in 2025 and Beyond
Editor's note: this list was originally posted January 2025. It will be periodically updated to reflect new release date announcements. It's rare for a studio to become a brand, but A24 has managed it. Since its humble beginnings as a New York-based distribution company founded by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges in August 2012, A24 has become synonymous with quality for film lovers, the place that releases the must-see indies everyone is talking about. More from IndieWire Mikey Madison in Talks to Star in Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation 'Masque of the Red Death' at A24 Dakota Johnson and A24 Spoof the Iconic '90s Mastercard Campaign for Throwback 'Materialists' Trailer - Watch A24 Scales Back Documentary Division and Lays Off 5 Employees A24's first film was the little-seen and little-loved 'A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III' from Roman Coppola, which hit theaters in February 2013 to muted fanfare. But the movie that really put the company on the map was 'Spring Breakers,' Harmony Korine's wild crime comedy that released in March that same year and established many of the conventions associated with the brand: Artful neon cinematography, shocking content and stylized violence, and cool-kid cleverness suffused in every frame. That's not to say every movie that the company distributes is like 'Spring Breakers' — the majority aren't — but its release made A24 hip in a way a film distribution company usually isn't. Since 2013, A24 has grown quickly to release an impressive slate of acclaimed movies each year. It's become the destination for great arthouse horror, putting out modern genre classics such as 'Under the Skin,' 'The Witch,' and 'Green Room.' It's released Oscar winners and nominees, like 'Room,' 'Ex Machina,' 'Lady Bird,' and 'Aftersun.' In 2016, the company began branching into production, and the first film it produced — Barry Jenkins' 'Moonlight' — won Best Picture in a landmark Oscar moment. Since then, its production output has exploded, and the films A24 has had a hand in financing and backing — 'Hereditary,' 'Eighth Grade,' 'Uncut Gems,' 'The Green Knight,' and 'Past Lives' — have been wildly acclaimed. And with 2023's 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' — another Oscar winner — A24 had their biggest hit yet, as the Daniels' action comedy grossed over $100 million worldwide. So what's next for A24? Looking ahead in 2025, there's plenty of interesting films to get excited about, including movies from acclaimed directors like Spike Lee, David Lowery, Benny and Josh Safdie (separately, not together), Ari Aster, and many more. That's not even getting into other projects still in development, which ensure that A24 and its films should remain as buzzy as they've always been. Here's a look at all the films currently in the works at A24, listed in order of expected release; titles without a release window are listed alphabetically. This list will be updated as new films and release dates are announced. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
Gizmodo
16-06-2025
- Health
- Gizmodo
Traces of Toxic Industrial Chemical Found in U.S. Air for the First Time
Americans' air is teeming with all sorts of known toxin pollutants—now scientists have found a new one to add to the list. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder detailed their discovery in a study published earlier this month. They sampled agricultural sites in Oklahoma and found clear traces of medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs) in the surrounding air. The health effects of MCCPs on people are still being studied, though countries are already planning to debate whether these chemicals should be regulated. 'It's very exciting as a scientist to find something unexpected like this that we weren't looking for,' said lead author Daniel Katz, a chemistry PhD student at CU Boulder, in a statement from the university. 'We're starting to learn more about this toxic, organic pollutant that we know is out there, and which we need to understand better.' While environmental regulations in recent decades have greatly reduced levels of certain pollutants in the air and environment, such as lead, there are still many other lingering airborne toxins out there. Scientists have detected compounds like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) phenylcyclohexene (PCH), and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the air, for instance—many of which have the potential to disturb our hormones. MCCPs and other chlorinated paraffins are common industrial chemicals. They're regularly used as flame retardants and plasticizers (substances that improve flexibility and softness) in a variety of applications. But research has started to suggest that much like short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs), MCCPs aren't without their risks. They appear to be toxic to marine and other aquatic environments, for instance. They might also persist in the environment and our bodies for a very long time, similar to so-called forever chemicals like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The CU Boulder researchers weren't aiming to find MCCPs in the air—they were simply trying to document the general identity, distribution, and behavior of aerosol particles in the atmosphere. They planted a nitrate chemical ionization mass spectrometer at the study site for a month, 24 hours a day. To their surprise, they came across compounds with different patterns than expected, which they eventually determined were actually MCCPs. Their findings, published in ACS Environmental Au, represent not only the first detection of airborne MCCPs in the U.S., but in the Western Hemisphere as a whole. MCCPs have been regularly found in wastewater, which can be recycled into biosolid fertilizer. So in this particular case, the researchers suspect that the chemicals came from the biosolid fertilizer used in the field near their study site. 'When sewage sludges are spread across the fields, those toxic compounds could be released into the air,' Katz said. 'We can't show directly that that's happening, but we think it's a reasonable way that they could be winding up in the air. Sewage sludge fertilizers have been shown to release similar compounds.' SCCPs have been regulated in the U.S. and other countries for several years now. But experts argue that this regulation has spurred manufacturing industries to rely more on MCCPs as an alternative, leading to increased pollution. Members of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, a UN-led international treaty that meets biannually to address potential threats to the environment and human health, are set to discuss this year whether MCCPs should be added to the list of organic chemicals that warrant regulation. Whatever the verdict of the Stockholm Convention, the CU Boulder researchers say that much remains unknown about MCCPs. And they're hoping they and other scientists can continue to study these chemicals. 'We identified them, but we still don't know exactly what they do when they are in the atmosphere, and they need to be investigated further,' Katz said. 'I think it's important that we continue to have governmental agencies that are capable of evaluating the science and regulating these chemicals as necessary for public health and safety.' Unfortunately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may not be up to such a task currently. The renewed Trump administration has started to defang the EPA in all sorts of ways, from telling staffers to ease up on the fossil fuel industry to repealing already-created regulations on greenhouse emissions. MCCPs may be a real public health threat, but there's little indication that U.S. regulators will be interested in tackling them, at least under President Donald Trump.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Scientists Found an Unexpected Toxin Floating in the Oklahoma Sky
Similar to 'forever chemical' PFAS, medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs)—often found in textiles and PVC products—are toxins that can take a long time to breakdown in the environment and negatively impact human health. Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have now, in a first for North American, detected these toxins in the air while researching aerosol formation. These airborne MCCPs particles likely entered the atmosphere through biosolids—a fertilizer developed from treated wastewater. One of the downsides of modern life is the proliferation of chemicals in the natural environment. Arguably the most well-known of these chemical culprits are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are used for stuff like non-stick surfaces on frying pans. They are also known as 'forever chemicals' for their tendency to linger in the environment. But this environmental scourge is only one of many similar substances. Of the others, one of the most concerning is a type of toxin known as medium-chain chlorinated paraffins, or MCCPs. Like PFAS, these chemicals take a longtime to break down, and have been shown to be the driver behind health issues like liver and kidney toxicity, thyroid malfunction, and certain neurological issues. MCCPs have been detected in the atmosphere on other continents (including Asia and even Antarctica) but a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder claims that North America has now joined that unlucky list. In setting out to detect how aerosols form and grow in an agricultural region of Oklahoma, the team of scientists behind this recent study stumbled across trace amounts of MCCPs in the atmosphere. They detected these particles using a technique known as nitrate ion chemical ionization mass spectrometry, and the results were published last week in the journal ACS Environmental AU. MCCPs start their lives within things like metalworking fluids, textiles, and PVC, which is why they can often find themselves in wastewater. That's a problem, because a fertilizer known as biosolids (which is made from treated sewar sludge) is often spread across agricultural crops. 'When sewage sludges are spread across the fields, those toxic compounds could be released into the air,' Daniel Katz, lead author of the study, said in a press statement. 'We can't show directly that that's happening, but we think it's a reasonable way that they could be winding up in the air. Sewage sludge fertilizers have been shown to release similar compounds.' The creation of this synthetic chemical was in large part due to the regulation of its toxic cousin, Short Chain Chlorinated Paraffins (SCCPs), which have been regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Stockholm Convention (an international body formed in 2001 to protect human health against persistent organic pollutants). Earlier this year, the Stockholm Convention also marked MCCPs for global elimination. Who knows if this will spawn the creation of another toxic chemical, but this regulatory game of whack-a-mole is similar in the truly Sisyphean task of trying to eliminate PFAS from the environment. 'We always have these unintended consequences of regulation, where you regulate something, and then there's still a need for the products that those were in,' Ellie Browne, a co-author of the study, said in a press statement. 'So they get replaced by something.' Luckily, there is some good news. The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill earlier this year eliminating biosolids as a fertilizer, and a newly established environmental group called The Coalition for Sludge-Free Land aims to make the ban a national one (the EPA currently regulates, but doesn't ban, the substance). Now that MCCPs have been found in the atmosphere, the UC Boulder team hopes that future efforts will be able to discern their airborne impact. 'We identified them, but we still don't know exactly what they do when they are in the atmosphere, and they need to be investigated further,' Katz said in a press statement. 'I think it's important that we continue to have governmental agencies that are capable of evaluating the science and regulating these chemicals as necessary for public health and safety.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
