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We recently heard from two U-2 spy plane pilots about what it’s like to operate this aircraft and how the Air Force uses it today. Here’s what we learned. The landing literally involves a speeding car The U-2 loves heights—it has nearly twice the cruising altitude of a commercial jet. That’s thanks to its long, glider-like wings, which span 105 feet across. “This jet does not want to be on the ground, and that’s a real problem when it comes to landing,” says Matt Nauman, a U-2 pilot....

In blog post today, Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR), the division within the company dedicated to AI, detailed some of its most important achievements of 2015. Some were older and had been previously reported on, like their neural network that can recount plot points in The Lord Of The Rings, and some are new, like a working unsupervised learning model. The company has made substantial investment in artificial intelligence in the last few years, growing a small department of 45 researchers and engineers based in New York City....

The therapy in questions involves the injection of precursor cells into the spine, where the cells will then differentiate into oligodendrocytes, the cells type that sheathes and protects the nerves of the spinal cord. As a Phase One trial, Geron’s test will only examine the safety of the therapy, not the actual effectiveness. “This is an important trial, there’s a lot of hope riding on it,” said Wise Young, director of the W M Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University....

This month’s dust cloud is more resilient than usual—its dust is so opaque and thick that it can be clearly seen from the International Space Station, while its predecessors have been ghostly and faint from space. Astronaut Doug Hurley photographed the cloud from the ISS on June 21, tweeting, “We flew over this Saharan dust plume today in the west central Atlantic. Amazing how large an area it covers!” These dust plumes, called the Saharan Air Layer (or SAL) are born when severe wind storms strike the Sahara....

In Portland, Oregon, he chats with Josh Lifton, co-founder and president of Crowd Supply, which recently found backing for Airpup, a hybrid kite-helium balloon with potential videography, communications, and meteorology applications. It’s only one of the many ideas, Crowd Supply has successfully floated to the innovation community, including some components found in Oregon’s first satellite. His crowdfunding platform for electronic open-source hardware helps engineers get through the critical funding stage to bring their ideas to life....

Water level changes: float bobs, pulls cord, lifts tone-arm, moves needle, needle hovers over disk; caller calls, switch-operator connects, electric relay answers, soundbox lowers, phonograph spins, needle contacts disk, recorded voice announces numbers etched into precisely-positioned grooves. The result? A remote reading of the water level in a reservoir. Rube Goldberg would be proud! Then again, when Popular Science published “Talking Machine Phones Height of Water in Reservoir” in November 1922, Rube Goldberg was just making a name for himself, and this contraption was a novel device on the forefront of telemetry—and a small window into a future sensor-filled world....

When Popular Science ran the article “Food or Poison?” in November 1936, it would be more than 30 years before Kimishige Ishikaka and his wife Teruko would discover Immunoglobulin E or IgE, the antibody responsible for allergic reactions. But, even in 1936, the hunt for clues that would identify and explain food allergies had been underway for decades. German dermatologist Josef Jadasshon may have been the first to devise a test for diagnosing such sensitivities in 1896....

Rennselaer’s researchers aren’t the only ones attempting to produce ultra-dark materials. They’ve been in a quasi-competition with NASA, which developed a material also made of carbon nanotubes and created using the same process. But at only 99.5 percent absorption, it is not quite as dark as Rennselaer’s VACNT. Why a race for dark materials at all? Isn’t regular black paint dark enough to absorb all the colors of light? Conventional black paint and graphite absorb most visible light but reflects a significant amount due to dielectric interface–a moderate reflection of 5 to 10 percent in the air....

There is no vaccine for Schistosoma and as a result, infected individuals rely on drugs such as praziquantel. However, resistance to the drug has been seen and appears to be spreading not unlike antibiotic resistance in bacteria. This suggests there is a need to examine other alternatives in order to fight infection. While there have been some successes in the lab, none have made it past the rigor of clinical tests....

Unless you’re shooting something for Instagram TV, you’ll always want to shoot in landscape orientation, since we watch most videos on a horizontal screen. When you add an external lens, you can distort, enhance, zoom, and capture shots that your iPhone camera simply can’t do alone. The Moment lens works with most iPhone, Pixel, and Galaxy phones. It is available in two lens types: the first gives you a frame that’s twice as wide and the second is a 170-degree fish-eye lens....

This is tough if you’re a marketer wishing to do minor graphic design work on publicity materials or a small business owner wanting to create marketing collaterals without outsourcing to a professional. If you wish to get a handle on graphic design so you can take matters into your own hands, the 2022 School of Graphic Design Bundle can help get you started. Packed with eight courses rated as high as 4....

But store-bought and prescription products are not the only factors that keep skin looking polished. Our genetics also influence how our skin looks and behaves, but researchers are still parsing through just how much of our skin health has to do with our DNA, and investigations into exactly which genes affect our skin’s appearance is still in the early stages. Genetics play a large role, but not the only role, in determining whether you have good skin, says Adam Friedman, professor of dermatology at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences....

Google Maps’ current traffic and busyness features work by tapping into users around the world who are connected to their devices, usually a smartphone with location sharing on. The company then compares these real-time conditions to historical traffic patterns. Google also uses location data to power a range of emergency warning alerts, like those for incoming natural disasters. That’s not the only connection there has been between Google Maps and the unprovoked invasion in Ukraine....

Today, more than ten years after a group of authors sued Google for the book-scanning project, a U.S. appeals court ruled that Google’s book-scanning project did not violate copyright law. The judges rejected an appeal from a collection of authors who claimed that the scanning project deprived them of revenue. In the case, Google’s legal team argued that scanning books and making them searchable actually boosted sales. Google’s legal team said that it made it easier for readers to find specific books and also made it easier to discover new books ....

On that front, Google is adding even more color to the situation by trying to publicly shame Apple into adopting a protocol called RCS with a new website and social media campaign launched this week. “Get The Message” lays out Google’s arguments for why Apple should enable RCS instead of SMS—and encourages users to “Help @Apple #GetTheMessage” by Tweeting about it. Messaging, of course, is an incredibly important feature of smartphones....

If you happen to have been swayed into buying these shiny new gadgets, the next step is to invest in accessories that can improve your user experience. Take your pick from these options on sale: Portable Keychain Apple Watch Charger This mini charger can refuel your Apple Watch in record time. Equipped with a USB tip, simply plug the charger and put your watch on top for easy wireless charging....

Maybe Neanderthals just get a bad rap. One well-credentialed Harvard scientist, at least, thinks they’re more intelligent than they’re portrayed, and he’s willing test that theory out. He just needs an “adventurous” woman on board as a surrogate for a modern-day Neanderthal. George Church of Harvard Medical School is a geneticist noted for his work on the Human Genome Project. If Neanderthals were re-introduced to the planet, he says, their way of thinking could be beneficial to Neanderthals and Homo sapiens alike....

Being able to block out the background noise and just concentrate on what you want to listen to is a real boon. This premium set of cans gets high praise for their noise cancelling technology, but also boast a battery life of 30 hours, and can integrate seamlessly with Alexa so you can play music, skip tracks, control your smart home, and even get a weather or news update, just by pressing a button, making them as appealing to homebodies as high flyers....

This is one of the examples in a new report, published on June 5th by the National Wildlife Federation, that documents the oft-overlooked capacity of natural ecosystems to protect communities from hurricanes and other natural disasters. The report, “The Protective Value of Nature,” draws upon decades of research to make the case for the “urgent need to dramatically scale up the application of natural infrastructure,” including both intact natural ecosystems, like mangroves and forests, and systems built to mimic nature, such as engineered dunes....

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