A plucky male American stag beetle thinks he's found a mate on a rotting old tree stump—and then realizes there's another male eager to make the same conquest. The two beetles face off in battle, until the first manages to get enough leverage to toss his romantic rival off the stump in a deft display of insect jujitsu. It's the first time this mating behavior has been captured on film, and the stag beetle is just one of the many fascinating insects featured in the second season of A Real Bug's Life ,  a National Geographic docuseries narrated by Awkwafina.

The genesis for the docuseries lies in a past rumored sequel to Pixar's 1998 animated film A Bug's Life , which celebrated its 25th anniversary two years ago. That inspired producer Bill Markham, among others, to pitch a documentary series on a real bug's life to National Geographic. "It was the quickest commission ever," Markham told Ars last year . "It was such a good idea, to film bugs in an entertaining family way with Pixar sensibilities." And thanks to the advent of new technologies—photogrammetry, probe and microscope lenses, racing drones, ultra-high-speed camera—plus a handful of skilled "bug wranglers," the team was able to capture the bug's-eye view of the world beautifully.

As with the Pixar film, the bugs (and adjacent creatures) are the main characters here, from cockroaches, monarch butterflies, and praying mantises to bees, spiders, and even hermit crabs. The 10 episodes, across two seasons, tell their stories as they struggle to survive in their respective habitats, capturing entire ecosystems in the process: city streets, a farm, the rainforest, a Texas backyard, and the African savannah, for example. Highlights from S1 included the first footage of cockroach egg casings hatching; wrangling army ants on location in a Costa Rica rainforest; and the harrowing adventures of a tiny jumping spider navigating the mean streets of New York City.

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A plucky male American stag beetle thinks he's found a mate on a rotting old tree stump—and then realizes there's another male eager to make the same conquest. The two beetles face off in battle, until the first manages to get enough leverage to toss his romantic rival off the stump in a deft display of insect jujitsu. It's the first time this mating behavior has been captured on film, and the stag beetle is just one of the many fascinating insects featured in the second season of A Real Bug's Life ,  a National Geographic docuseries narrated by Awkwafina.

The genesis for the docuseries lies in a past rumored sequel to Pixar's 1998 animated film A Bug's Life , which celebrated its 25th anniversary two years ago. That inspired producer Bill Markham, among others, to pitch a documentary series on a real bug's life to National Geographic. "It was the quickest commission ever," Markham told Ars last year . "It was such a good idea, to film bugs in an entertaining family way with Pixar sensibilities." And thanks to the advent of new technologies—photogrammetry, probe and microscope lenses, racing drones, ultra-high-speed camera—plus a handful of skilled "bug wranglers," the team was able to capture the bug's-eye view of the world beautifully.

As with the Pixar film, the bugs (and adjacent creatures) are the main characters here, from cockroaches, monarch butterflies, and praying mantises to bees, spiders, and even hermit crabs. The 10 episodes, across two seasons, tell their stories as they struggle to survive in their respective habitats, capturing entire ecosystems in the process: city streets, a farm, the rainforest, a Texas backyard, and the African savannah, for example. Highlights from S1 included the first footage of cockroach egg casings hatching; wrangling army ants on location in a Costa Rica rainforest; and the harrowing adventures of a tiny jumping spider navigating the mean streets of New York City.

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A plucky male American stag beetle thinks he's found a mate on a rotting old tree stump—and then realizes there's another male eager to make the same conquest. The two beetles face off in battle, until the first manages to get enough leverage to toss his romantic rival off the stump in a deft display of insect jujitsu. It's the first time this mating behavior has been captured on film, and the stag beetle is just one of the many fascinating insects featured in the second season of A Real Bug's Life ,  a National Geographic docuseries narrated by Awkwafina.

The genesis for the docuseries lies in a past rumored sequel to Pixar's 1998 animated film A Bug's Life , which celebrated its 25th anniversary two years ago. That inspired producer Bill Markham, among others, to pitch a documentary series on a real bug's life to National Geographic. "It was the quickest commission ever," Markham told Ars last year . "It was such a good idea, to film bugs in an entertaining family way with Pixar sensibilities." And thanks to the advent of new technologies—photogrammetry, probe and microscope lenses, racing drones, ultra-high-speed camera—plus a handful of skilled "bug wranglers," the team was able to capture the bug's-eye view of the world beautifully.

As with the Pixar film, the bugs (and adjacent creatures) are the main characters here, from cockroaches, monarch butterflies, and praying mantises to bees, spiders, and even hermit crabs. The 10 episodes, across two seasons, tell their stories as they struggle to survive in their respective habitats, capturing entire ecosystems in the process: city streets, a farm, the rainforest, a Texas backyard, and the African savannah, for example. Highlights from S1 included the first footage of cockroach egg casings hatching; wrangling army ants on location in a Costa Rica rainforest; and the harrowing adventures of a tiny jumping spider navigating the mean streets of New York City.

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Virtualization software like Parallels and VMware Fusion give Mac owners the ability to run Windows and Linux on top of macOS, but for Apple Silicon Macs, that support was limited to the Arm-based versions of those operating systems. And while Windows and Linux both support some level of x86-to-Arm app translation that attempts to maintain compatibility with most software, there are still plenty of things that demand an Intel or AMD processor with the x86 instruction set.

Last week, Parallels released a new update that partially resolves this problem: Users of Parallels Desktop Pro 20.2.0 now have access to x86 operating systems via an "early technology preview" of Parallels' "proprietary emulation engine."

The technology preview is currently limited to certain 64-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2019 and 2022. Parallels also says it has tested several UEFI-compatible Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 22.04.5, Kubuntu 24.04.1, Lubuntu 24.04.1, and Debian versions 12.4 to 12.8. Fedora will install, but it's unstable. 32-bit versions of operating systems, as well as older versions of Windows like Windows 7 or 8, aren't supported.

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Virtualization software like Parallels and VMware Fusion give Mac owners the ability to run Windows and Linux on top of macOS, but for Apple Silicon Macs, that support was limited to the Arm-based versions of those operating systems. And while Windows and Linux both support some level of x86-to-Arm app translation that attempts to maintain compatibility with most software, there are still plenty of things that demand an Intel or AMD processor with the x86 instruction set.

Last week, Parallels released a new update that partially resolves this problem: Users of Parallels Desktop Pro 20.2.0 now have access to x86 operating systems via an "early technology preview" of Parallels' "proprietary emulation engine."

The technology preview is currently limited to certain 64-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2019 and 2022. Parallels also says it has tested several UEFI-compatible Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 22.04.5, Kubuntu 24.04.1, Lubuntu 24.04.1, and Debian versions 12.4 to 12.8. Fedora will install, but it's unstable. 32-bit versions of operating systems, as well as older versions of Windows like Windows 7 or 8, aren't supported.

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Virtualization software like Parallels and VMware Fusion give Mac owners the ability to run Windows and Linux on top of macOS, but for Apple Silicon Macs, that support was limited to the Arm-based versions of those operating systems. And while Windows and Linux both support some level of x86-to-Arm app translation that attempts to maintain compatibility with most software, there are still plenty of things that demand an Intel or AMD processor with the x86 instruction set.

Last week, Parallels released a new update that partially resolves this problem: Users of Parallels Desktop Pro 20.2.0 now have access to x86 operating systems via an "early technology preview" of Parallels' "proprietary emulation engine."

The technology preview is currently limited to certain 64-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2019 and 2022. Parallels also says it has tested several UEFI-compatible Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 22.04.5, Kubuntu 24.04.1, Lubuntu 24.04.1, and Debian versions 12.4 to 12.8. Fedora will install, but it's unstable. 32-bit versions of operating systems, as well as older versions of Windows like Windows 7 or 8, aren't supported.

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Chinese officials have reportedly discussed selling TikTok's US operations to Elon Musk as the threat of a US ban looms.

Sources "familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg that Chinese officials would "strongly prefer" that ByteDance remain in control of TikTok US, but if TikTok's bid to get the Supreme Court to block the ban fails, ByteDance wants to be prepared with "contingency plans."

One of those supposed contingency plans would apparently see Musk operating TikTok as part of X (formerly Twitter) operations. Under that scenario, Musk's X would control TikTok US, sources said, and thus gain access to a massive trove of TikTok data that the US has alleged poses a grave national security risk if left under a Chinese-owned company's control.

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Chinese officials have reportedly discussed selling TikTok's US operations to Elon Musk as the threat of a US ban looms.

Sources "familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg that Chinese officials would "strongly prefer" that ByteDance remain in control of TikTok US, but if TikTok's bid to get the Supreme Court to block the ban fails, ByteDance wants to be prepared with "contingency plans."

One of those supposed contingency plans would apparently see Musk operating TikTok as part of X (formerly Twitter) operations. Under that scenario, Musk's X would control TikTok US, sources said, and thus gain access to a massive trove of TikTok data that the US has alleged poses a grave national security risk if left under a Chinese-owned company's control.

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Chinese officials have reportedly discussed selling TikTok's US operations to Elon Musk as the threat of a US ban looms.

Sources "familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg that Chinese officials would "strongly prefer" that ByteDance remain in control of TikTok US, but if TikTok's bid to get the Supreme Court to block the ban fails, ByteDance wants to be prepared with "contingency plans."

One of those supposed contingency plans would apparently see Musk operating TikTok as part of X (formerly Twitter) operations. Under that scenario, Musk's X would control TikTok US, sources said, and thus gain access to a massive trove of TikTok data that the US has alleged poses a grave national security risk if left under a Chinese-owned company's control.

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