How Clever Branding is Transforming Women's Sports Leagues into Fan Favorites

When the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) dropped the puck on its first season in January 2024, it did something bold: it hit the ice without logos, nicknames, or even full team branding. Now, just a year and a half later, the league has transformed from a name-only start-up into a fast-growing sports property — and branding is at the heart of it. “The same level of passion and fervor that existed (in the first season) still exists,” said Kanan Bhatt-Shah, vice president of brand and marketing for the PWHL. “There’s just more opportunities for it to come to life cohesively.” Those opportunities arrived ahead of the PWHL’s second season, when fans were finally introduced to their teams’ full identities — names, logos, color schemes, and all — thanks to a deep creative process led by Alastair Merry and Mary Lou Bunn, co-founders of the design firm Flower Shop. Their task wasn’t just design. It was research, emotion, and storytelling. In Ottawa, for example, they started by visiting a public library and asking locals how they’d describe the spirit of the city. “It’s not like branding a dishwasher or a tablet,” Merry explained. “This is somebody’s community. This is somebody’s life, going to watch these games.” That mindset helped set a high bar — and the results have been immediate. A Branding Payoff Since the league rolled out team identities, fan engagement has surged. According to league figures, PWHL merchandise sales doubled between seasons. Social media interaction climbed 68%. Average attendance jumped 27%, boosted by larger venues in Toronto and Montreal and a neutral-site tour that brought nine games to NHL arenas and drew 123,601 fans. And all of this happened without a significant shift in media coverage or TV rights. The key? Strong, emotional branding that gives fans something to connect with — a jersey to wear, a chant to learn, a logo to love. “When you set a foundation for a sports team, it creates the subsets that continue to feed into the brand,” said Bunn. “Then you have fan groups, you have chants, you eventually have mascots… Over time, there are things that come out of having a strong brand foundation.” That foundation is especially important in the current sports climate. At least eight new women’s sports leagues have launched in the past three years — from soccer to volleyball to flag football — and each one faces the same challenge: how to turn new interest into lasting fandom. Lessons From the Past Branding’s importance isn’t new. Thomas O’Grady, the original creative director for the WNBA in the 1990s, developed the brand identities for the league’s first eight teams. “You’re planting your brand flag when you come up with your new identity,” he said. “You’re doing that for the players, for the team, for the community and for the league. It’s a pretty heavy lift.” O’Grady called the PWHL’s approach “spot on with almost everything there.” But the PWHL is operating under very different conditions from those early WNBA days. It doesn’t share financial backing with its male counterpart — the NHL — the way the WNBA does with the NBA. While the two leagues occasionally collaborate on marketing and rink-sharing, there’s no ownership or funding link. Instead, the PWHL is funded by the Mark Walter Group, the ownership group led by billionaire investor Mark Walter. That financial independence makes branding and community connection all the more important. Expansion and the Next Wave That connection will be tested and, potentially, deepened this fall when two new teams — Seattle and Vancouver — join the league. Both are awaiting the release of their nicknames and logos, which are expected to drive another surge in interest. “You’re waiting to get that new jersey, the new hat, the new scarf,” said PWHL Seattle coach Steve O’Rourke. “That’ll drive another wave for us.” For Merry and Bunn, the challenge is now to do it all over again: dive into the soul of two more cities and deliver something fans can rally behind. “To be able to create brands that are going to stand the test of time and continue to amass energy behind them was part of the strategy,” Bunn said. “And it’s paying off.” If the PWHL’s second season is any indication, branding isn’t just an aesthetic choice — it’s a competitive edge. It’s the difference between a new league and a lasting one.

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A Robot Programmed As a 7-Year-Old Girl is Helping Reduce Fear In Hospitals

When six-year-old Luca was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year, he and his mother, Meagan Brazil-Sheehan, found an unlikely source of comfort in the halls of UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center: a 1.2-meter-tall robot named Robin. “Luca, how are you?” the robot asked in a high-pitched voice designed to sound like a seven-year-old girl. “It’s been awhile.” “They had only met once before after being admitted, but his face lit up,” Brazil-Sheehan said. “It was so special because she remembered him.” Robin is an AI-powered therapeutic robot programmed to act like a child, providing companionship in pediatric hospitals and nursing homes while easing pressure on overstretched staff. Five years after arriving in the United States, Robin now makes rounds in 30 facilities across California, Massachusetts, New York, and Indiana. “Nurses and medical staff are really overworked, under a lot of pressure, and unfortunately, a lot of times they don’t have capacity to provide engagement and connection to patients,” said Karen Khachikyan, CEO of Expper Technologies, which developed the robot. “Robin helps to alleviate that part from them.” The sleek white robot is built with a triangular body designed for hugging and a large screen displaying cartoonlike facial expressions. About 30 percent of its actions are autonomous, while operators working remotely manage the rest. Each interaction helps improve its emotional intelligence, Khachikyan explained, always under the supervision of clinical staff and in compliance with HIPAA privacy rules. On a recent day at HealthBridge Children’s Hospital in California, Robin played a patient’s favorite song, “No Fear” by DeJ Loaf, prompting the teen to dance along despite recovering from a car accident. In another room, Robin pulled out silly glasses and a clown nose to entertain a toddler. “She brings joy to everyone,” said speech language pathologist Samantha da Silva. “She walks down the halls, everyone loves to chat with her, say hello.” Robin adapts to the emotions of the person it is with. If a child laughs, the robot laughs too. If someone is sad or anxious, Robin mirrors that emotion with a downturned face and softer voice. In nursing homes, it leads breathing exercises, plays memory games with dementia patients, and offers companionship that can feel like time with a grandchild. Khachikyan recalled a woman in Los Angeles who asked for Robin during a panic attack. The robot calmed her by playing Elvis Presley songs and videos of puppies until she settled. But the company sees Robin as more than a comforting presence. With the Association of American Medical Colleges predicting the U.S. could face a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians within the next decade, Khachikyan wants Robin to help bridge gaps in care. Future versions could measure vital signs, check on patients, and eventually assist elderly people with daily tasks like changing clothes or using the bathroom. “Our goal is to design the next evolution of Robin; that Robin will take more and more responsibilities and become even more essential part of care delivery,” Khachikyan said. He stressed it is not about replacing staff but filling in gaps. At UMass, Robin is used as part of a care team. When Luca needed an IV, a child life specialist introduced the procedure alongside the robot, which then showed a cartoon of itself getting an IV. “It just kind of helps show that Robin has gone through those procedures as well, just like a peer,” said specialist Micaela Cotas. The project began in Armenia, where Khachikyan grew up in a single-parent household. He said he wanted to build a robot that could act as a friend for children who feel lonely. After early testing in different industries, an investor suggested pediatric hospitals. Robin was first introduced in Armenia, then launched a U.S. pilot at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital in 2020. Since then, Robin’s personality has been shaped by children themselves. Developers tested different answers to simple questions, like “What is your favorite animal?” At first Robin said “dog,” then “cat.” But when it answered “chicken,” kids laughed every time. “We created Robin’s personality by really taking users into the equation,” Khachikyan said. “So we often say that Robin was designed by users.”

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A Flash of Light, a Shift of Atoms: Michigan Researchers Pave Path to Faster Electronics

Scientists at Michigan State University have found a way to “wiggle” atoms with ultrafast lasers, briefly changing how a material behaves—and opening the door to faster, smaller, and more efficient electronics. The work, published in Nature Photonics, combines experiments led by physicist Tyler Cocker with theoretical modeling from materials scientist Jose L. Mendoza-Cortes. Together, their teams showed how a layered material called tungsten ditelluride (WTe₂) can be manipulated at the atomic scale. Using a custom-built scanning tunneling microscope, Cocker’s lab directed terahertz laser pulses—firing hundreds of trillions of times per second—onto the sharp metal tip hovering above WTe₂. The intense pulses nudged the top atomic layer slightly out of alignment with the rest, like the top sheet in a stack of papers slipping askew. “When the laser was on, the top layer of the material behaved differently, showing electronic properties we hadn’t seen before,” Cocker said. The team was even able to capture images of the material’s “on” and “off” states, effectively creating a nanoscale switch. Meanwhile, Mendoza-Cortes’ group ran quantum simulations of the same material. Their models predicted atomic shifts of about 7 picometers—an almost unimaginable scale—that matched what Cocker’s team observed. “Our research is complementary; it’s the same observations but through different lenses,” Mendoza-Cortes said. For graduate student Daniel Maldonado-Lopez, the implications are clear: “The movement only occurs on the topmost layer, so it is very localized. This can potentially be applied in building faster and smaller electronics.” The researchers say this kind of atomic control could eventually reshape the components inside laptops, smartphones, and even quantum computers, lowering costs and boosting energy efficiency. “When you think about your smartphone or your laptop, all of the components that are in there are made out of a material,” noted Stefanie Adams, a graduate student in Cocker’s lab. “At some point, someone decided that’s the material we’re going use.” Now, MSU scientists are betting that tomorrow’s devices may rely on materials we don’t fully understand yet—ones that, when nudged by light, reveal entirely new possibilities.

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Abandoned Golden Retriever Puppies Beat Deadly Virus, Find Hope in Boston

Three golden retriever puppies abandoned in Boston while battling a deadly virus are now on the road to recovery—and soon, to new homes. Boston Animal Control found the pups, all under 6 months old, in the Geneva Avenue area of Dorchester on August 23. Tests confirmed they had parvovirus, a highly contagious illness that can kill young dogs within 48 hours of symptoms appearing. “Parvo is highly contagious and potentially deadly, so when the puppies tested positive, Boston Animal Control immediately reached out to us for help,” said Mike Keiley, vice president of the MSPCA-Angell’s Animal Protection Division. The Massachusetts animal welfare group took in the two sickest dogs for treatment. One of them, nicknamed Big Red, was the weakest at first but has since made a strong recovery. “Golden retrievers are a highly sought-after breed, so it’s abnormal that a bunch were found sick and alone outside like this,” Keiley said. “No one has stepped forward to claim the dogs, so considering all of the circumstances, we believe they were abandoned.” After six days of intensive care at MSPCA-Angell’s hospital, the puppies moved into foster homes. Big Red is in the final stages of treatment and will be ready for adoption soon, while the other two are already healthy enough to be placed through Boston Animal Control. Interest has been overwhelming—more than 400 people have applied to adopt Big Red. “Although we can only pick one adopter, we’re so excited that he’ll soon have the very best home and a bright future after a challenging start,” Keiley said. The MSPCA used the moment to remind dog owners about the importance of vaccinations. Parvovirus, which causes vomiting, bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain, and severe lethargy, can linger in the environment for months. “Fortunately, vaccines are hugely effective and broadly available, so we hope that this serves as a reminder to people: Please vaccinate your dogs,” Keiley said. For these three golden retrievers, the worst is now behind them. Soon, each will have a fresh start—healthy, loved, and safe.

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This Heroic Dog Led Firefighters To His Leash Before a Rescue In a House Fire

An Illinois police officer who entered a smoke-filled home to rescue a family’s beloved dog was seen patiently following the quirky pooch to his leash before he could be led outside to safety. Aurora Police said units responded to a report of a house fire around 12:51 pm on Thursday, September 11, and immediately observed flames in the rear of the home on Whitehall Court. Body-worn camera footage shows Investigator Michael Ely forcing entry into the home and locating Oakley the terrier. Ely removes a gate to let Oakley out, and the dog charges off. The officer follows the dog to a leash hanging near a door. Ely obligingly clips the leash to Oakley’s collar, and the two leave the house by the front door. “Fortunately, nobody was inside the home at the time of the fire besides Oakley,” the police department said on Facebook. “The preliminary investigation indicated the fire originated in the attic and there were no signs of foul play.” According to the homeowners, who wished to remain anonymous, Oakley is an American Staffordshire terrier and was adopted as a puppy from local rescue Players for Pits. “He enjoys snuggling with us, snoring loudly as he sleeps, sunbathing, and eating peanut butter,” the homeowners said, according to police. “We are forever grateful to Mike at the Aurora Police Department for saving our sweet dog.”

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Scientists Just Discovered the Pathway To Element 120—The Holy Grail Of Chemistry

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory say they’ve cracked a new way to reliably make livermorium, element 116 on the periodic table—and the breakthrough could point the way to creating even heavier, more stable elements. In a preprint paper, researchers described how they used a beam of titanium-50 ions to bombard a plutonium target, successfully producing atoms of livermorium. The work, carried out over 22 days, showed the titanium beam was strong, consistent, and effective—an encouraging sign as scientists search for the next elements, including the still-unmade 119 and 120. Until now, most superheavy elements beyond uranium have been made using calcium-48, a stable isotope long considered the “MVP” of nuclear chemistry. Calcium has been central to discoveries all the way up to element 118, oganesson, the heaviest element confirmed so far. But scientists have run into a dead end: the only suitable targets for pushing beyond oganesson are einsteinium and fermium, elements that can’t be produced in large enough quantities to make useful targets. That’s where titanium comes in. With 22 protons and 28 neutrons, titanium-50 is stable, accessible, and powerful enough to offer a new path forward. The experiment not only proved that titanium can create livermorium reliably but also suggested that the technique could be extended to heavier targets in pursuit of the elusive “island of stability.” For decades, nuclear chemists have theorized that certain combinations of protons and neutrons—the so-called “magic numbers”—might form superheavy isotopes that are far more stable than the fleeting atoms scientists can currently create, which decay in microseconds. Finding such an isotope could open the door to studying entirely new properties and potential applications. “We don’t know yet what these elements might be capable of,” the team wrote. History shows elements can surprise: mercury is a liquid metal at room temperature, bismuth is diamagnetic, and copper alone produces a wide palette of natural colors. Stable superheavy elements could hold even stranger surprises. For now, each success amounts to only a few atoms, barely enough to measure. But the titanium beam signals a new generation of tools is ready to take over from calcium, giving chemists a fresh shot at building out the periodic table. If titanium proves to be the key, the next half dozen elements—and perhaps the first glimpse of real stability in superheavy matter—may finally be within reach.

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Philadelphia Nurse Weaves Art From Healthcare Experiences, Inspires Through Creativity

Linda Ruggiero has spent years caring for people as a nurse in Philadelphia. When she takes off her scrubs, she reaches for yarn and a loom. Weaving, she says, is her way of making sense of what she sees at Penn Medicine, where she works in the cardiac catheterization lab. "I definitely get my inspiration a lot from those experiences in the lab and in other areas of nursing," Ruggiero said. One piece she created, called “Aneurysm,” was inspired by the tubes and stents she uses with heart patients. “The heart is such a great metaphor for artwork and for opening up and healing and life,” she said. “And so it was sort of easy to make that connection.” Before becoming a nurse seven years ago, Ruggiero worked in neuroscience research. She loved the science, but when COVID-19 hit early in her career, she found herself on the front lines. “It was terrible and it was so heartbreaking, and it just felt like it wouldn't stop,” she said. During those months, she turned to weaving as a lifeline. One piece she made, called “Contained,” reflected the false hope that the virus could be controlled. Another, a chaotic mass of yarn, captured what life on the COVID ward really felt like. “This was sort of our trying to keep things tidy and contained, with it sort of seeping out on the sides. And this is what I felt like it was in reality, just kind of chaotic,” she explained. Today, her work reflects new struggles she sees in Philadelphia, from families affected by gun violence to patients fighting drug addiction. “Being creative has always kind of helped me, like, feel better,” Ruggiero said. When she isn’t working or creating, she teaches weaving to others. What began as knitting on the bus in her early 20s has grown into a second vocation, one that gives her and her students a way to process life’s hardest moments through art. For Ruggiero, nursing and weaving aren’t separate. Both are ways of caring, of finding meaning in pain, and of stitching fractured lives back together.

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Rescued Sheep Relearns To Walk Thanks To This Custom Wheelchair

Dave the ram was never supposed to make it this far. Rescued from slaughter as a lamb, he’s spent the past six years living peacefully at Albert’s Horse Sanctuary in Barnsley. But earlier this year, his carers feared the worst. Dave was found cast, a dangerous condition where sheep end up on their backs and can’t right themselves. If left too long, it can be fatal within hours. Dave survived, but he couldn’t stand on his own for months. Volunteers lifted him daily, tended to his pressure sores, and refused to give up on him. Their persistence paid off when Winston’s Wheels, a mobility charity, donated a custom-built wheelchair. The device gave Dave the support he needed to rebuild his strength. This week came the breakthrough: Dave stood up by himself and even managed a few steps. “His journey is inspiring everyone who meets him,” a sanctuary spokesperson said. The sanctuary is now appealing for support as it struggles with rising costs for feed, bedding, and veterinary care at a time when donations are falling. For Dave, though, every step forward is proof of what care, patience, and a little ingenuity can achieve.

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A Nonprofit is Partnering With New York To Supply Families With Diapers And Baby Products

Kelly Sawyer Patricof and Norah Weinstein, the CEOs of Baby2Baby, have partnered with New York State to boost maternal health and support newborns. This collaboration aims to set an example for other states across the U.S. The state is teaming up with Baby2Baby to distribute free newborn supply kits to families in need. These kits include essentials like diapers, hygiene items, and breastfeeding supplies. This initiative is part of a larger $2.2 billion commitment from New York aimed at improving access to affordable childcare. Governor Kathy Hochul's 2026 budget allocates $9 million to this nonprofit effort. "We were able to invite Governor Hochul into our warehouse in L.A., into our headquarters," said Weinstein. "She visited us in December, and after just a few minutes, packing the kits herself and having the program resonate with her, she made the decision to put $9 million into the state budget so that we can provide 100,000 of these kits to every mother giving birth on Medicaid next year across the state of New York." According to Baby2Baby, half of American families struggle with diaper affordability. Diapers rank as the fourth highest expense for low-income households after food, rent, and utilities. Under Patricof and Weinstein's leadership, Baby2Baby has developed a system that manufactures diapers at 80 percent less than typical retail costs. "We're able to distribute five times as many," Patricof noted about their distribution capabilities, "which is what has led us to distributing 250 million diapers." Nationally, Baby2Baby assists over one million families and children each year. Since its inception in 2011 under Patricof and Weinstein’s guidance, the organization has provided more than half a billion essential items for children in need. The partnership with New York marks their latest endeavor aimed at supporting low-income parents across the state.

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NASA is Launching a Mission To Map the Sun's Protective Bubble And Predict Space Weather

The Sun doesn’t just light up the sky—it also creates an invisible shield that makes life on Earth possible. By constantly sending out streams of charged particles, the Sun inflates a protective bubble called the heliosphere. This vast cocoon stretches far beyond Neptune, deflecting cosmic radiation that would otherwise bombard our planetary system. Despite its importance, the heliosphere remains a mystery. Now, NASA is preparing to change that. On September 23, the agency will launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, on a mission to chart the boundaries of this solar bubble. The spacecraft will travel about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth to the first Earth-Sun Lagrange Point, a gravitationally stable spot between the two bodies. From there, IMAP will orbit the Sun, free of magnetic interference from Earth and other planets. Its task: to map the edges of the heliosphere and track the particles streaming through it. “With IMAP, we’ll push forward the boundaries of knowledge and understanding of our place not only in the solar system, but our place in the galaxy as a whole,” said Patrick Koehn, IMAP program scientist. “As humanity expands and explores beyond Earth, missions like IMAP will add new pieces of the space weather puzzle that fills the space between Parker Solar Probe at the Sun and the Voyagers beyond the heliopause.” The spacecraft is relatively compact, about 2.4 meters wide and 1 meter tall, and spins at four revolutions per minute. It carries 10 instruments, including three designed to detect energetic neutral atoms. These particles begin as solar wind ions but lose their charge after colliding with others in space. By mapping their movements, IMAP can help scientists pinpoint where the heliosphere ends and interstellar space begins. “IMAP will advance our understanding of two fundamental questions of how particles are energized and transported throughout the heliosphere and how the heliosphere itself interacts with our galaxy,” said Shri Kanekal, IMAP mission scientist. The mission also aims to provide practical benefits. By collecting near real-time data on the solar wind and energetic particles, IMAP could give Earth up to 30 minutes’ warning of potentially harmful space weather. Such storms can disrupt satellites, communications, and power grids, and pose serious risks to astronauts. “The IMAP mission will provide very important information for deep space travel, where astronauts will be directly exposed to the dangers of the solar wind,” said David McComas, the mission’s principal investigator at Princeton University. IMAP will also analyze interstellar dust—tiny grains that drift through space and eventually form the raw material of stars and planets. Understanding this dust could reveal more about the building blocks of the universe beyond our solar system. The probe follows in the footsteps of the Voyager spacecraft, which in 2012 and 2018 became the first human-made objects to leave the heliosphere. But while Voyager offered the first glimpse beyond the bubble, IMAP is designed to create a detailed map of its structure. By tracing the outlines of the heliosphere, IMAP could help answer some of the biggest questions in astrophysics—about how our solar system fits into the Milky Way, how cosmic rays are filtered, and how to keep future spacefarers safe.

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Scientists Unearth 112-Million-Year-Old Amber Ecosystem in Ecuador Quarry

A quarry in Ecuador has yielded an extraordinary find: amber dating back 112 million years that has preserved an entire ecosystem, complete with insects, pollen, and even fragments of spider web. The discovery at the Genoveva quarry marks the first large-scale find of insect-bearing amber in South America. For paleontologists, it offers a rare window into life during the Cretaceous period in the Southern Hemisphere, a region far less represented in the global fossil amber record. At least five orders of insects were trapped in the amber, including fungus beetles, wasps, a caddisfly, and several kinds of flies. One piece even contains strands of spider silk, arranged in a way that suggests it could have belonged to an early orb-weaver. Unlike modern orb webs, though, it lacked the sticky droplets that snare prey today. "These findings provide direct evidence of a humid, resinous forest ecosystem and its arthropod fauna in equatorial Gondwana during the Cretaceous Resinous Interval," said paleobiologist Xavier Delclòs of the University of Barcelona and his colleagues in their report. Gondwana was the giant supercontinent that once connected what is now South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. By the early Cretaceous, it was already breaking apart, reshaping ecosystems in dramatic ways. Amber is common in the Northern Hemisphere, with famous deposits in places like Myanmar and the Baltic region. But in the south, discoveries are far less frequent. The Ecuadorian amber formed during the Barremian age, about 122 million years ago, when coniferous trees released massive amounts of resin. Over time, this sticky material hardened into amber, locking away tiny traces of ancient life. In this case, the amber came from araucariacean trees, once abundant across Gondwana but now represented only by a few species scattered in the Southern Hemisphere. The researchers found two kinds of amber at the quarry: one from resin seeping underground through tree roots, and another formed above ground when resin oozed out into the open air. Most amber globally is root-derived, and usually lacks much in the way of fossilized insects. The Genoveva site, however, was unusually rich in insect specimens. It also lacked the abundant resin-eating fungi often found in other Cretaceous deposits, a difference the team suggests may have been due to unusually waterlogged soils that stifled fungal activity. Above ground, though, the resin acted as a natural trap, catching and preserving invertebrates in exquisite detail. For paleontologists, these finds are more than just curiosities—they help reconstruct ancient ecosystems and track how life adapted as continents drifted and climates shifted. "This discovery, and the associated plant remains in the amber-bearing rocks, enhance our understanding of the Gondwanan arthropod fauna and flora inhabiting forests along its western margin during a time interval of major ecosystem transformation," the authors wrote. The team hopes further exploration at the site and in similar regions will allow comparisons with other Gondwanan amber deposits, which remain largely unstudied. Such work could help piece together how South American life once connected with its counterparts in Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. The study was published in Communications Earth & Environment.

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