Good News on X: Doc Brown Hit 88, a Rocket Engine Roared and Manatee County Is Hiding Manatees

Christine Miller in Parrish started the day the right way, with a sunrise from Anna Maria Island looking back east toward Bradenton. The photo is by Charles Moreley, and it makes a strong case for setting an alarm, which I say as someone who has never once done that on purpose.

Good Morning from Florida! Sunrise from Anna Maria Island in the Gulf looking east toward the mainland

— Christine Miller (@Christine982Mil) See it on X

Here's what people on X were happy about since last night.

Doc Brown turned 88, and he wrote about love

Yesterday was Back to the Future Day. Today, Christopher Lloyd turned 88, which is the speed the DeLorean needs to hit to travel through time. The man planned this better than any of us planned anything. His birthday post is short, a little salty, and it had more than 46,000 likes by mid-morning:

Today I turn 88… The most serious of it all is love.

— Christopher Lloyd (@DocBrownLloyd) See it on X

He and Michael J. Fox also launched the Time Travel Motor Club on Wednesday, a limited run of merchandise and signed collectible DeLorean models at 88mph.shop that's only up for three weeks. Two days earlier he'd posted that it took about three movies before he and Fox really got to know each other, and they've been great friends ever since. That's a nice thing to read on a Thursday.

NASA lit up an Artemis engine in Mississippi

Wednesday afternoon, NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, ran a hot fire test on RS-25 engine No. 10001 on the Fred Haise Test Stand. Per NASA Stennis, the goals were to acceptance test flight components for future Artemis missions and to check a new thermal protection system that shields the engine's nozzle during an SLS launch. This particular engine won't fly. It's the one that does the hard work on the ground so the others don't have to find out the hard way.

Feel the Power of an RS-25 Hot Fire Test!

— Stennis Space Center (@NASAStennis) Watch on X

Turn the sound up. It's the most satisfying 43 seconds of noise you'll hear today that isn't a blender making a margarita.

The Rays opened the Trop for Game 1, plus tonight's football

The Rays play Game 1 of the World Series Friday night in Milwaukee, and you don't have to fly to Wisconsin in late October to feel like you're there. The team is hosting official watch parties at Tropicana Field: watch from the turf, with raffles and the team store open. Per the Rays' postseason page, Game 1 is Friday at 8 p.m. with doors at 7, and there's another one Saturday for Game 2, same times.

Come cheer on our guys at @tropicanafield as they kick off the #WorldSeries in Milwaukee!

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) See it on X

The Game 1 line, per DraftKings via ESPN (pulled about 9:20 a.m. ET Thursday): Milwaukee is the favorite, MIL -161 / TB +133. Run line MIL -1.5 (+149), TB +1.5 (-181). O/U 6. Barely moved since Wednesday. Vegas also doesn't seem to have heard about the Rays this October.

If you need something to watch tonight, it's the Patriots at the Bears on Thursday Night Football, 8:15 p.m. ET on Prime Video from Soldier Field. Both teams are 4-2, and it's Drake Maye against Caleb Williams, two quarterbacks from the same 2024 draft class, which is a fun thing to have on in the background while you pretend to do something else.

The line, per DraftKings via ESPN (pulled about 9:20 a.m. ET): Chicago is a 3-point favorite, CHI -3 (-102), NE +3 (-118). Moneyline CHI -155 / NE +130. O/U 50.5.

Odds are information, not advice. 21+ only. If gambling stops being fun, call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Manatee County is hiding manatees. Little ones.

This is the best thing a county government has posted all month. Starting Wednesday, Manatee County is hiding limited-edition collectible manatees somewhere in the county every day through Halloween, and posting a new hiding spot each day. There are two designs, a Halloween Pumpkin Manatee and a pink Breast Cancer Awareness Manatee. They hide several at each spot, and the ask is one per family so more kids get one. If you find one, take a photo and tag @ManateeGov.

Follow them for today's location. And if you're planning the rest of Halloween around it, the Halloween Finder has the rest of the month's Halloween plans sorted by night.

Two new murals went up in Newtown

The City of Sarasota posted this morning that two new murals are finished at Amaryllis Park Place, the senior affordable housing community in Newtown, done with the Sarasota Housing Authority. The theme is "Where Home Takes Root."

The "Where Home Takes Root" Public Art Program murals by N. Carlos Jefferson & Zulu Painter were recently completed

— City of Sarasota (@CityofSarasota) See it on X

Per the city's mural page, N. Carlos Jefferson, a muralist from Valrico, painted the Orange Avenue wall about the strength and continuity of Newtown, and residents backed his design. Zulu Painter, from St. Petersburg, did the 21st Street wall. His motto is "I want to grow Art everywhere," and the colors suggest he meant it. Residents and neighbors were part of the group that shaped the project. Worth a slow drive by.

A burger stand in Miami turned into a video game

Somebody at the Kaseya Center in Miami had a fun week. The arena's burger stand now looks like Burger Shot, the fast-food chain from Grand Theft Auto, ahead of GTA 6. Per the photos GTA 6 Info shared from @OfficialJoelF, it has custom Burger Shot menus, branded wrappers and cups, and Vice City decorations everywhere.

A closer look inside the real-life Burger Shot at Miami's Kaseya Center

— GTA 6 Info (@GTASixInfo) See it on X

One menu photo making the rounds put the combos at $28.50 to $31, which is about right for arena food and also about right for a video game where everything costs too much. Florida had the fake version of itself built into a game, and now it has the game's fake burgers back in Florida. That's the circle of life down here.

Scientists gave everybody a faster way to design proteins

This one is for the science people. The Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington and NVIDIA released RFD4-Proteina on Wednesday, an open model for designing proteins from scratch, the kind of work that leads to new medicines and enzymes. NVIDIA says it generates designs 13 times faster than RFdiffusion3, the previous tool, at 200 residues, and is state of the art across more than a dozen protein design tasks. The lab called the collaboration "a communal brain," and put the whole thing out for anyone to use at rfd4-proteina.org.

We're thrilled to present RFD4-Proteina, co-developed with @NVIDIAHealth! Can't wait to see what you build

— Institute for Protein Design (@UWproteindesign) See it on X

Fewer guesses in the lab means fewer failed experiments, which means good things show up sooner. That's about as optimistic as a press release gets.

Edinburgh has two lion cubs

Edinburgh Zoo announced this morning that its Asiatic lion Bindee had two cubs on Oct. 11, the zoo's first lion cubs in seven years. Keepers watched the birth on the live cameras in the den. They figured she was expecting when she started taking things a little slower and then rearranging her den, which is exactly what everyone does before company comes over.

It's her first litter. Per the zoo, Bindee is doing an excellent job, and the father, Jay, is "his usual chilled-out self." The family stays out of public view for a while, so for now the cubs belong to the keepers and the cameras. Fair enough.

Planning the weekend? Coming This Week has the list.

That's Thursday. One birthday, one very loud engine, a few hidden manatees and two cubs. Go find a manatee.