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A defining feature of this metaverse will be creating a feeling of presence in the virtual world. Presence could mean simply interacting with other avatars and feeling like you are immersed in a foreign landscape. Or, it could even involve engineering some sort of haptic feedback for users when they touch or interact with objects in the virtual world. (A primitive form of this is when your controller used to vibrate after you hit a ball in Wii tennis)....

We’re a little obsessive about how we measure body fat and try to move it around. And no, we’re not talking about stealing bags of liposuction leftovers to make soap. As a society, we seem perpetually unhappy with wherever our body chooses to store its fat cells. Pop music keeps telling us we should exercise enough to get “little in the middle” while maintaining, as they say, “much back.” Countless workouts and fad diets promise to target only “problem areas....

Luckily, there are a variety of plant-based, high-protein foods for our gustatory pleasure. Here are just a few: Technically, quinoa is a seed, and a cup of it cooked boasts 8 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, plus potassium and iron. It’s cheap, filling, vegan, and the perfect base layer to top with vegetables, nutritional yeast, tofu, sriracha, or whatever else floats your boat. It’s easily cooked in a pot and there’s a whole trove of Instapot recipes out there, too....

But according to recent research, homebuyers may not know what they’re getting into when they buy houses in floodplains, leading them to overpay—to the tune of at least $44 billion. And significantly, the research doesn’t just rely on future projections of climate-driven flooding: it finds that housing markets aren’t incorporating the flooding information that’s already available. The risk is that, as in any housing bubble, homeowners could be stuck with properties that are worth less than they paid for their mortgage....

A Tesla Model Y can be legitimately unlocked in three ways: With a keycard that uses near field communication (NFC), with a correctly configured smartphone, or with a key fob (that is a $175 add-on). This attack—called an NFC relay attack—targets the Tesla’s keycard system. Before looking at how the hackers exploit this vulnerability, let’s step back and understand how the keycard system works. Tesla provides two smart keycards with every car....

A new analysis focused on extreme rainfall suggests that climate change played a significant role in this destructive period. Scientists used computer simulations to compare the 2020 hurricane season under contemperatory and preindustrial climate conditions, and concluded that rising sea surface temperatures increased the peak three-hourly tropical storm rainfall rates by 10 percent. “Climate change isn’t an end-of-the-century problem; it’s actually here,” says Kevin Reed, a climate scientist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook....

While studies have yet to confirm the official cause behind the disastrous waters in Pakistan, the flood “has all the signs of a climate change-enhancing event,” says Benjamin Zaitchik, a climate change scientist at Johns Hopkins University. There are several leads that researchers, such as Zaitchik, are following to understand why the relentless monsoon occurred and what weather conditions should be monitored to prepare for events in the future. One of the most likely scenarios involves greenhouse gases....

During that time, the hydrogen gas that makes up most of the material in the space between galaxies today became electrically charged. That epoch of reionization, as it’s called, was “one of the last major changes in the universe,” says Brant Robertson, who leads the Computational Astrophysics Research Group at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It was the dawn of the universe as we know it. But scientists haven’t been able to observe in detail what occurred during the epoch of reionization—until now....

In a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, researchers looked at plankton that could jump out of the water in response to a threat or disturbance and those that couldn’t. Using a high-speed camera they watched how plankton leapt out of the water, and then repeated the motion by shooting tiny plankton-sized balls (less than 3 millimeters wide) towards the water’s surface from the bottom of a tank....

From deathly divide to life line. Few would have foreseen that the dark, decades long fracturing of a continent would give the earth such respite, foster such green shoots, see natural connections spring from such grisly division. And yet, a ribbon of land once consigned to concrete, guns, barbed wire and border guards has been revitalised; it is now home to orchids and otters, wood grouse and wild cats, marsh fritillary butterflies, black storks, rare mosses....

“I like dogs and cats, and I’m definitely not recommending that people get rid of their pets or put them on a vegetarian diet, which would be unhealthy,” UCLA geography professor Gregory Okin, who authored a 2017 paper on environmental impacts of pet ownership, said in a press statement. “But I do think we should consider all the impacts that pets have so we can have an honest conversation about them....

With each real-world chirp, cheep, and melody, the bird is sending a potent message. It might be a male’s love poem, designed to woo a comely female, or a show of strength, warning other birds to back off. Often, that seemingly-carefree song serves as an alarm call indicating that a predator is on the prowl—or a human is lumbering down the trail ahead. For millennia, wild critters have been listening in to these messages....

Technically, there weren’t any for sale, she said, but there were some left over from a project if I really wanted them. I felt nervous about the responsibility of caring for such a precious plant, and worried that they wouldn’t thrive in my only outdoor space, a balcony. I chickened out. Luckily, there’s no need to engage in back-alley arrangements to acquire native plants. Where to look First, though, you’ve got to learn what grew in your area before people started importing other plants....

There’s a lot to say about the academic research industry, but many believe scientific studies should be freely available to the public. Even if you find a paper that’s hidden behind a paid subscription, there are ways to get it for free—and we’re not talking about piracy. Often, the study you’re looking for may be freely, legally available elsewhere, if you know how to find it. Google (Scholar) it Don’t get discouraged just because one database says you need to pay for a specific study....

The key is to heat up your marshmallows just right—but what that means exactly is often a controversial point of discussion around the campfire. If you like your white fluffy treats burned to a crisp and still cold on the inside, that’s your prerogative. On the other hand, if you prefer the warm gooeyness of a perfectly chocolatey s’more, you can use science to make it happen. Similarly to cooking meat, you want to make sure the inside gets warm before the outside burns....

While the duration of Sandy’s outages was unusual, their breadth—more than eight million homes in 21 states ultimately lost power—has become disturbingly common. In 2011, Hurricane Irene cut electricity to about 5.5 million homes. Tornadoes, ice storms, wildfires, and drought now routinely overwhelm the nation’s aging electrical infrastructure, inflicting sweeping blackouts. In the early 1990s, the U.S. experienced about 20 mass outages a year; today it’s well over 100. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report attributes much of the rise to an increase in extreme weather events....

“Once you are broken, it is hard to put you back together,” says Brian Kennedy, a molecular biologist and president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California. “If we can target aging, then we can extend human health span, keeping people disease-free and high-functioning.” That would give people more time when it matters most­—when they’re feeling youthful enough to enjoy it. Cell Service Aging starts in a fundamental part of our bodies: our cells....

Here’s a quick guide to recalling messages on some of the most popular communication apps. Some are easier than others, and some are downright impossible. Facebook Messenger With the 191.0 release of Facebook Messenger in the Apple App Store, users will have a 10 minute window to recall what they sent. The feature comes just a few months after some controversy about whether Facebook was deleting messages from CEO Mark Zuckerberg from other people’s inboxes....

How to automate tasks in Adobe Photoshop In Photoshop, these shortcuts are called Actions, and you can use them to apply the same crop, the same resize, or the same effect to a series of photos over and over again. The Actions pane might already be open, depending on how you’ve set up the application, but if not you can choose Window and Actions to see it. If you’re using a software application that doesn’t support the use of macros, there are third-party tools to fall back on that can automate processes across any program in Windows or macOS....

You can install Plex on basically any device—whether it’s a smart TV, a computer, a tablet, or a phone—and use it to track down which services are offering which TV shows and movies. Even better, because Plex lets anyone set up their own streaming service, you can also search your personal media collection while you’re at it, as well as the collections of any friends who happen to share theirs with you....