Clogs in water recovery systems on the international space station have been so backed up that hoses have had to be sent back to Earth for cleaning and refurbishing. This is thanks to the build up of biofilms: a consortium of microorganisms that stick to each other, and often also to surfaces — the insides of water recover tubing, for instance. These microbial or fungal growths can clog filters in water processing systems and make astronauts sick.

So space, like Earth, has a germ problem – so what? Because biofilms can compromise the integrity of and damage equipment, including space suits, recycling units, radiators and water treatment facilities, it can cost space agencies loads of money to replace affected materials. For the full year of 2023, NASA has dedicated a whopping $1.3 billion as part of its budget to resupply its cargo missions to the ISS. Preventing microbial growth in encapsulated space missions will be especially critical for long-haul journeys to places like the moon or Mars, where a quick return to Earth for repairs or treatment of sick astronauts is less feasible.

In a cross collaboration between researchers at the University of Colorado, MIT and the NASA Ames Research Center, researchers studied samples from the space station using a specific and well-understood gram-negative kind of bacteria. The scientists also joined forces with experts at LiquiGlide, a company run by MIT researcher Kripa Varanasi that specializes in “eliminating the friction between solids and liquids.” The multidisciplinary study found covering surfaces with a thin layer of nucleic acids prevented bacterial growth on the ISS-exposed samples. 

Space Biofilm Program

The scientists concluded that these acids carried a slight negative electric charge that stopped microbes from sticking to surfaces. It's worth noting though, that the bacteria were up against a unique physical barrier as well as a chemical one: testing surfaces were etched into "nanograss." These silicon spikes, which resembled a tiny forest, were then slicked with a silicon oil, creating a slippery surface which biofilms struggled to adhere to.

Applying this specific method of covering surfaces with nucleic acids to prevent biofilm buildup showed that in the terrestrial samples, microbial formation was reduced by about 74 percent. Surprisingly the space station samples showed an even more drastic reduction of about 86 percent. However, one recommendation the team has made, based on these initial results, is that longer-duration tests should be carried out on a future mission. Pamela Flores, a microbiology expert at the University of Colorado who participated in the study said that, “We don’t know for how long it will be able to keep up this performance,” in a statement. “So we definitely recommend a longer time of incubation, and also, if possible, a continuous analysis, and not just end points.”

It’s one thing to build a LEGO replica of the Millennium Falcon or something, but rival Mega Bloks just kicked it up a notch. The company’s releasing a 3:4 scale replica of the Xbox 360, complete with the console itself, a controller, and copy of Halo 3. That’s right. You can actually build your own version of Master Chief’s 2007 adventure, as originally spotted by Twitter/X user Wario 64.

Though this is obviously a non-functioning unit, it sounds like a great time for anyone with fond memories of rushing home to open up their launch-era Xbox console. It has a removable hard drive, working lights, an interactive interior and a moving disc drive. Mega says there are even more easter eggs for true Xbox die-hards, suggesting that something happens when you insert the fake Halo 3 disc into the fake disc drive.

The kit includes nearly 1,400 pieces, so the build should take a while, allowing you to revel in the halcyon glow of the mid 2000s. Mega Blok says this set is for ages 18 and up. It releases on October 8 and costs $150, which is half as much as a bare-bones Xbox 360 cost back in 2005. This isn’t the first gaming-themed building set by Mega Blok. In the past, it’s released sets based on Assassin's Creed and World of Warcraft, among others.

While it's debatable if the Xbox 360 was Microsoft’s crowning console achievement, it was certainly the company‘s most popular system to-date. The 360 sold 85 million units throughout its run and had a truly impressive games catalog, from the first two Gears of War entries to the Mass Effect trilogy. The console also saw the release of Skyrim, GTA IV, Halo 3 and a whole bunch of Call of Duty games. Did we mention Crackdown, Alan Wake and Bioshock? It was a good time to be a gamer.

Apple has its fingers in many pies and now it's getting into the monster business with an upcoming TV show. The company has released the first trailer for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and while the title might not make it super clear, this is very much a Godzilla series.

The show is based on Legendary's Monsterverse and it ties into the studio's recent Godzilla movies. It's partially set in the wake of a battle between Godzilla and the Titans that destroyed much of San Francisco, but it takes place across several three generations. Real-life father and son Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell play the same character, Army officer Lee Shaw, in different eras. Shaw encounters a pair of siblings who are exploring their family's connection to the shadowy organization Monarch, which tracks Godzilla, King Kong and other giant beasts.

The trailer doesn't give a ton away about the show other than to provide looks at the iconic monster (including a shot that invokes the first T. rex encounter from Jurassic Park), some of the cast in action and a ruined San Francisco. But it does seem that Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will include much of the spectacle fans have enjoyed from the movies. You'll be able to watch the first two installments of the 10-episode season on November 17, and a new one will arrive on Apple TV+ each week until January 12.

For Samsung, bigger is often better. The company led the way in popularizing the gigantic smartphones most of us now use, so it’s no surprise that it’s also made some shockingly large tablets recently. In this year's Galaxy Tab S9 series, there are 11- and 12.4-inch models that line up well with Apple's two iPad Pros. And then there's the $1,200 Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, a 14.6-inch behemoth that's nonetheless thin and light for its size.

Android tablets have long been a tough sell, thanks to the fact that relatively few developers bother to optimize their apps for larger screens. And tablets this big are not exactly easy to hold, either. Those facts have been top of mind as I tried to figure out who, if anyone, should buy the S9 Ultra. Despite my skepticism, Samsung's mammoth of a tablet did manage to surprise me with its utility in a few specific cases.

Hardware

When I pulled the S9 Ultra out of its box, I was immediately struck by its svelte footprint – it’s only 0.21 inches thick and weighs 1.6 pounds. In usual Samsung fashion, the tablet feels impeccably solid and well-made. Sure, it's just a big slab of glass and metal, but what can Samsung reasonably be expected to do to innovate here? The tablet form factor is pretty settled at this point. What's most important is that Samsung made the device so thin without it feeling fragile.

That's backed up by the S9 Ultra's IP68 water- and dust-resistance certification; Samsung says this is its first Galaxy S tablet with that rating. It was a pretty big deal when companies started making water-resistant phones, but it feels a lot less necessary here. That said, if you want to watch movies in your bathtub, you can feel secure that you won't immediately destroy your tablet if it takes a dip in the water with you.

The S9 Ultra is dominated by its huge 14.6-inch AMOLED touchscreen. With a 2,960 x 1,848 resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio, it’s great for watching movies but far too tall to comfortably use in portrait mode. That quibble aside, it looks outstanding, with extremely bright, vibrant colors and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. It also supports HDR10+, which can make watching movies even more stunning. Samsung is well known for its mobile displays, and the one on the S9 Ultra is another exceptional offering.

Samsung managed to fit excellent speakers into the S9 Ultra as well, making it a great overall option for watching movies and shows while you're, for example, sitting in isolation with Covid. I don’t know how companies are able to make such solid speakers in super-thin devices, but I’m glad it’s becoming commonplace on higher-end tablets like this and the iPad Pro.

There are a few other minor things to note about the S9 Ultra. You’ll find a pair of front-facing cameras on the long edge of the display: one standard and one ultrawide, both with 12-megapixel sensors. There’s a tiny notch in the screen to make room for them – it’s small, and I mostly forgot about it, but it’s there. On the back are a 13-megapixel standard camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide option. The front cameras worked well for a handful of Google Meet calls I took on the device, and the back ones are serviceable as well. But tablet photography is ridiculous, even more so with a device this large. As I always say, just use the phone in your pocket.

Also on the back is a magnetic strip that holds and charges the included S Pen stylus. It’s not the most intuitive place to store the S Pen, and it’s not the easiest target to find when you’re retrieving the pen or putting it back. But I got used to it pretty quickly and the stylus reliably stayed attached to the back of the S9 Ultra.

Tablet mode

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Since the S9 Ultra doesn’t come with a keyboard case, I first set out to use the massive device as a pure tablet. This… was not my favorite experience. But first, some positives: the S9 Ultra’s screen is outstanding, as are the speakers, which made a great portable movie theater. And the S9 Ultra’s aspect ratio meant most content I watched filled almost the entire display.

The S9 Ultra is well-equipped for more intense tasks than watching movies. its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor (paired with 12GB of RAM on the model I tested) is powerful enough for basically everything I tried. Running Adobe Lightroom was a pretty great experience, as there’s plenty of room for the various tools on one side and a huge, detailed preview of everything you’re doing on the other. Samsung doesn’t offer any battery life estimates, but I got well over 11 hours of use in tablet mode, and the device lasted days on standby. Unless you’re using it for hours every single day, you won’t have to charge it too often.

Another use case for the S9 Ultra is as an artist's canvas. The S Pen is an excellent stylus, and Samsung has years of experience tuning its performance. The S Pen is incredibly responsive – the company says latency has been reduced to 2.8 milliseconds, and I certainly felt no lag while testing it. I’m no visual artist, so I haven’t been able to really push the limits of what the S Pen and various Android software can do, but the combo of a low-lag pen and the S9 Ultra’s massive screen make it a powerful tool for visual artists, provided you can find the right software.

Unfortunately, the sheer size and width of the S9 Ultra means it wasn’t the best for other content consumption. First off, the tablet clearly wasn’t designed to be used in portrait mode – it’s just too tall. This is a problem I’ve found with other Android tablets that use similar aspect ratios, but most of those had smaller screens that are a little more manageable. That’s not the case here, and it just feels downright odd to use – elements at the top are too far away to comfortably interact with.

Things are marginally better in landscape mode, but the main issue with the S9 Ultra is the fact that there still aren’t a lot of Android apps suited to such large screens. Some apps (like Instagram) would only open in portrait orientation, while others like Slack simply have too much wasted white space. Google has done a great job of making its own apps look pretty great on tablets, and a handful of other key apps I use like Spotify and Todoist are also well adapted. But the S9 Ultra just isn’t designed for things most people use tablets for like browsing, messaging, sending emails, playing games and so forth. If that’s what you’re interested in, the 11-inch Galaxy Tab S9 will be a more comfortable device to use that also costs less. The S9 Ultra is proudly a niche device and you’ll want to know exactly how to use it before buying one.

Dex mode

My experience with the S9 Ultra changed once I paired it with Samsung’s $200 “Book Cover Keyboard Slim” and a Bluetooth mouse and started running the tablet in Dex mode. This completely changes the interface from the touch-focused Android UI to something more like Windows or Chrome OS.

Dex mode reminded me a lot of using a Chromebook. There’s a navigation bar at the bottom that shows any open app, and you can pin things there to get back to them quickly. As this is an Android tablet, all the apps you have access to here come from the Google Play Store or Samsung’s own app store. Historically, the main issue with Android tablets is how few Android apps are built to take advantage of bigger screens, and that’s still the case now.

But, since Dex lets you resize any app, you can make things fit properly in windows without wasting space. For example, the Slack app still doesn’t have a left-hand sidebar on Android, unlike on desktop or iPadOS. That’s annoying, but at least I can make Slack narrower, like a phone-sized app that doesn’t have a ton of wasted white space. And apps that do have multi-column interfaces, like basically all of Google’s first-party software, are downright pleasant to use.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

My main complaint with the S9 Ultra in Dex mode is the fact that Chrome for Android isn't quite as capable as the desktop version. That lets you use extensions, has more features and more reliably renders sites the way you’d expect. Most things render well, but you may also end up getting tossed into a version of the site designed for mobile phones, not huge tablets. But one unexpected bright spot was discovering that I could run the full web version of Slack in Chrome, an experience that's a lot better than using the Android app.

Battery life is a bit worse in Dex mode, which wasn’t a huge surprise given how many apps I was quickly jumping between. The tablet lasted for around six hours when I was using it as my full-time work device – not terrible, but worse than a lot of similarly-priced laptops.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Wrap-up

Despite the number of intriguing use cases I found for the S9 Ultra, it’s a niche device that won’t make sense for most people, largely because of the price. That’s not a bad thing; niche devices exist for a reason, and some people will be well-served by this massive tablet. But $1,200 for the S9 Ultra (plus $200 for the keyboard case, or $350 if you want an integrated trackpad) is a ton of money to spend unless you have very specific ideas on how you’ll use this tablet. It doesn’t make sense for me, as I prefer a smaller tablet that I can easily use handheld and then drop into a keyboard case for getting work done. Still, for some, the combo of Dex mode, a keyboard and the S9 Ultra’s big, beautiful screen might make sense.

Most people would be better off spending their money on a different device, though. As impressed as I am with Dex, you can easily get a laptop that can run far more software for less money. And while I think the iPad is a better choice for most people looking for a tablet, those who prefer Android should consider Samsung’s own 11- and 12.4-inch Galaxy Tab S9 and S9+, as they offer basically the same specs, high-quality design and excellent screens for less cash. But if you’re interested in having a massive tablet with a great stylus and solid productivity chops, the S9 Ultra might be worth opening your wallet for.

Having pulled in more than six million players in less than a week, Starfield is Bethesda’s biggest game launch of all time. Some of those players are already poking at the game’s limits by creating mods and speedrunning it. One has found another way to break the game, namely by building a ship that enemies can’t figure out how to consistently hit.

The player, who goes by Morfalath, figured out that the enemy AI targets the center of your ship. By building a spacecraft that’s essentially a hollow cube with a few missing edges, they created what they claim is an “unbeatable ship.”

It’s as if the enemy AI thinks you have a glowing red weak spot in your ship’s midsection even if the vessel's "stomach" is completely missing. In a video of a dogfight that Morfalath shared, the unusual ship catches an errant shot or two on its frame, but the butt-ugly design appears to outfox even high-level enemies.

Meanwhile, even though Xbox execs claimedStarfield would be Bethesda's least buggy game launch ever (despite the publisher's long track record of its title having glitches when they first arrive), players have captured a litany of very strange moments. Perhaps you'll see characters who have a missing head save for their eyeballs and mouth, or maybe you'll encounter individuals who rudely butt into conversations. Starfield might not have had as disastrous a debut as Cyberpunk 2077 in terms of bugs, but some of them are pretty funny nonetheless.

Starfield is here! It’s just too bad we only like some of it. This week, Devindra chats with Senior Editor Jessica Conditt about Bethesda’s latest massive open world title, and why it just feels like Fallout 4 in space. Also, we dive into reports around Nintendo demoing the Switch 2 at Gamescom, and we dream up what our ideal sequel console could be. (Just call it the Super Switch!)

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

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Topics

• Engadget’s Starfield review: You will like some of it – 1:25

• Baldur’s Gate 3 is a big win for games in Early Access – 22:11

• Eurogamer reports Nintendo demoed the Switch 2 to devs at Gamescom – 33:42

• What we’re playing: Viewfinder, Sprawl, Armored Core VI and more – 41:44

• Pixel 8 Pro 360 render has leaked – 52:00

• New York City reins in AirBnb – 53:37

• Logitech’s UE EpicBoom sounds like a killer party speaker – 57:45

• Mozilla report finds that cars are a data privacy nightmare – 1:00:44

• AI News: How much of Kaedim’s 3D modeling AI is actually AI? – 1:06:57

• Working on – 1:14:20

• Pop culture picks – 1:15:43

Credits
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Jessica Conditt
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Apple has released a critical iOS 16 security update for iPhones and iPads to patch a particularly malicious bug that could allow a hacker to take over your device with no action on your part. The "zero-click, zero-day" exploit allows attackers to install NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, which could let them read a target's text messages, listen in on calls, pilfer and transmit images, track their location and more. 

The exploit (referred to as "Blastpass") was first discovered by Citizen Lab, which immediately disclosed it to Apple. It was reportedly used to install Pegasus onto the iPhone of an employee from a Washington DC-based organization. It's capable of compromising devices running the latest 16.6 version of iOS "without any interaction from the victim," the group wrote. 

Apple has released iOS 16.6.1 to counter the vulnerability, stating simply that "a maliciously crafted attachment may result in arbitrary code execution." In addition, Citizen Lab even advised "all at-risk users to consider enabling Lockdown Mode as we believe it blocks the attack." It's believed that the attack involved PassKit (an SDK that allows developers to put Apple Pay in their apps), hence the Blastpass name, along with malicious images sent by iMessage. For obvious reasons, Citizen Lab didn't release any other details. 

Lockdown mode is a recent iOS feature designed to severely restrict the functions of Apple devices and is aimed at a "very small number of users who face grave, targeted threats to their digital security," Apple has stated. The company has faced a number of threats of late, including a vulnerability from February 2023 that "may have been actively exploited," Apple said at the time. 

The exploit also brings Pegasus back into the news, following a ban by the Biden administration earlier this year. Developed by the Israel-based cyber-arms company NSO Group, it created a furor after it was used by multiple nations to spy on journalists, activists and others. In one notorious case, it was reportedly used by Saudi Arabia to spy on journalist Jamal Kashoggi, who was later murdered in Turkey. 

There’s no denying Nintendo’s Switch, at 6.5 years, is reaching the end. Nintendo is (finally) gearing up for what’s next and was reportedly showing tech demos of its next-gen system to developers at Gamescom last month.

According to Eurogamer, one of the Switch 2 demos was a beefed-up version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was apparently a tech demo, showing the world of Hyrule at a higher frame rate and resolution than the existing game.

Engadget

VGC says another tech demo was The Matrix Awakens, running on the dev kit. The captivating tech demo was originally designed to highlight what Unreal Engine 5 can do on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, but Nintendo got it working on an early version of its next system. The Switch 2 demo also featured NVIDIA’s DLSS upscaling tech, ray-tracing and visuals comparable to those on the PS5 and Series X. DLSS support is key, as that could help Nintendo run games at higher frame rates and resolution without having to use more powerful components.

Nintendo is expected to release its next console in 2024 – but what will be its unique trick?

– Mat Smith

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BMW’s terrible heated seats subscription didn’t make it to a second winter

Drivers will no longer have to deal with hardware paywalls in the brand’s cars.

BMW

BMW is one of several automakers that have been nickel and diming customers, with a monthly subscription for heated seats (which already exist in these vehicles) in certain models and territories. The company has dropped that controversial practice to focus on paid software services — it no longer plans to charge drivers extra to use hardware features already in their cars.

Drivers didn’t take to the $18 per month heated seats subscription in the countries where BMW offered that, er, perk. “We thought that we would provide an extra service to the customer by offering the chance to activate that later, but the user acceptance isn’t that high,” Pieter Nota, BMW’s board member for sales and marketing, said.

Continue reading.

iOS apps will publish to the Apple Vision Pro store by default

This should give headset owners access to ‘hundreds of thousands’ of applications.

Engadget

We haven’t heard much about Apple’s mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, in recent weeks, but in the runup to Apple’s big event next week, the company has elaborated on the device’s app offerings. It’s announced every iOS app will automatically publish to the Vision Pro store by default, which the company says will give early adopters access to “hundreds of thousands of iPad and iPhone apps.” Most apps can easily run on Vision Pro, but you won’t get a full futuristic experience. Instead, you’ll see what you normally see on your phone or tablet, just blown up on a fake screen before you.

Continue reading.

Walgreens agrees to pay $44 million to Theranos blood test customers

The company used to offer Theranos’ faulty blood tests in its stores.

There was a time when Walgreens championed Theranos’ blood tests and offered them at “wellness centers” in its stores. That was before it came to light that Theranos’ tests were faulty. Now, according to Bloomberg, Walgreens has agreed to pay $44 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by customers who received flawed Theranos blood tests. A court still has to approve the proposal, but based on the court filing by the plaintiffs, those customers will receive around double their out-of-pocket damages if the terms remain unaltered.

Continue reading.

Following Huawei's surprise launch of the seemingly 5G-capable Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro smartphones last week, the Chinese firm has today unveiled two more devices: the Mate 60 Pro+ and the Mate X5 foldable. Huawei was largely limited to 4G connectivity on its handsets since the US sanctions, but with this latest wave of smartphone launches, the company has been intentionally secretive about its choice of radio. Sources told Engadget that these are indeed 5G devices — as supported by Chinese blogger Vincent Zhong's speed test on the new foldable, which reached a download speed of over 1Gbps (you'll see that there is no 5G indicator on the screen).

It's likely that both phones are also powered by Huawei's mysterious HiSilicon Kirin 9000S, the 7nm process node of which has raised concerns on whether the local chip supplier, SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), has violated US sanctions to access foreign chip-making technology. Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comments about the specs of these new phones or the chip.

A recent Kirin 9000S teardown conducted by TechInsights for Bloomberg confirmed SMIC's 7nm process, which was thought to be impossible given the import ban on key manufacturing equipment — namely the EUV lithography machines from Dutch firm ASML (Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography). Before the US import ban, Huawei relied on TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) for its 5nm process, which was enabled by ASML's machines.

It is unlikely that SMIC procured such advanced machinery from ASML — at least not directly — without raising alarms. According to Bits & Chips, ASML CEO Peter Wennink recently expressed that "the Mate 60 Pro shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, as the restrictions essentially forced the Chinese to double down on innovation." Thus implying that SMIC could well have developed its own high-end lithography machine. 

Benchmarks conducted by Chinese tech blog Geekerwan suggest that the Kirin 9000S' performance is close to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888, meaning it's around two generations behind. The site added that the CPU here features one big core and three middle cores based on Huawei's own "TaiShan" architecture, in addition to four little cores based on Arm's efficient Cortex-A510. As a bonus, the Kirin 9000S is the first mobile processor to support multi-threading — running eight cores with 12 threads, though apparently apps will require further optimization to make use of this feature. As for the GPU, Huawei added its own Maleoon 910, which is allegedly on par with the one in the Snapdragon 888.

Huawei

Much like the Mate 60 Pro, the higher-end Mate 60 Pro+ supports satellite call service by China Telecom and satellite messaging using BeiDou. The only notable differences (that we can see for now) are the different "nanotech metallic double dye process" and better rear cameras. As for the Mate X5 foldable, it's almost identical to the super slim Mate X3, except for the switch to Huawei's fancier Kunlun Glass on the external screen (hence a 2g bump in weight), as well as the slightly tweaked appearance of the rear camera island. Huawei has yet to reveal prices for either model, though pre-orders will start at 6:08PM local time today.

If all four of Huawei's latest smartphones are indeed powered by Kirin 9000S, it would suggest that Huawei is confident with its chip yield — potentially adding a further blow to the US sanctions. Rumors suggest that we'll be hearing more about these devices towards the end of September — conveniently avoiding the iPhone 15 rush.

One of the consequences of Brexit was that the UK was forced out of several key European Union science programs, including the Galileo satnav project and Horizon, the EU's flagship science research scheme. Now, the UK is set to rejoin Horizon as an associate country under what UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called a "bespoke deal." 

The UK will also become an associate member of Copernicus, the EU's £8 billion (€9 billion) Earth observation satellite program. It won't be rejoining the Euratom nuclear research group, however, instead choosing to focus on its own nuclear fusion research. Under the terms of the deal, the UK will contribute almost €2.6 billion (£2.2 billion or $2.75 billion) per year on average for its participation in both Horizon and Copernicus.

"We have worked with our EU partners to make sure that this is the right deal for the UK, unlocking unparalleled research opportunities, and also the right deal for British taxpayers," said Sunak. "The EU and U.K. are key strategic partners and allies, and today’s agreement proves that point. We will continue to be at the forefront of global science and research," added von der Leyen.

Scientists in the UK who feared research isolation expressed relief. "Thank you to the huge number of researchers in the U.K. and across Europe who, over many years, didn’t give up on stressing the importance of international collaboration for science," biomedical researcher Paul Nurse told the Associated Press. 

The UK was kept out of Horizon due to a dispute over the Northern Ireland Brexit trading agreement, despite positive negotiations in 2020. A deal was struck for a UK return in February 2023, but negotiations stalled over the UK's level of financial commitment.

A key tenet was that the UK would not pay for the years of absence, but the UK's opposition Labour Party also noted that Britain had missed out on a lot in that time. "Two years of global companies looking around the world for where to base their research centers and choosing other countries than Britain, because we are not part of Horizon," said Labour science spokesman Peter Kyle. "This is two years of wasted opportunity for us as a country."

Horizon Europe "tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth," according to the European Commission. It includes all EU member states and 17 associate nations as of January 2023, and boasts a budget of €95.5 billion ($102 billion).