Last year, Nautilus won a 20-year lease from Papua New Guinea to mine in the Bismarck Sea. The company’s first customer, Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group of China, has already claimed the entire contents of the first site, Solwara 1, which is roughly the size of 21 football fields and contains 240,000 tons of copper and 25,000 pounds of gold, plus silver and zinc. Although metal prices fluctuate, the total take could approach $3 billion....
Recently, planetary scientists took a closer look at those Martian valleys and compared them with similar formations on Earth. The researchers found that water flowing under ice sheets helped construct a significant proportion of the valleys, confirming that Mars did indeed have a chilly, frigid chapter in its early history. The team reported these findings on August 3 in the journal Nature Geoscience. “Was Mars essentially a frozen planet with very residual amounts of liquid water at the surface, or was it a planet that was dominated by a [water] cycle like that on Earth?...
While his predecessor Scott Pruitt was no friend to environmental causes, many experts worried that Wheeler would be just as bad—or perhaps worse—when he took over in July. He previously spent eight years as a lobbyist for Murray Energy, a large Ohio-based coal mining company. He has also expressed skepticism over the severity of climate change and the fact that it is driven by human greenhouse gas emissions. Wheeler’s time as acting administrator indicates his EPA will weigh the needs of industry higher than those of human health and planetary well-being....
The new M2 chip inside the iPad Pro might also make it the fastest computing device I have in my home. It’s difficult to compare apples to apples when it comes to tablets vs. laptops, but my 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro gets some stiff competition from its skinnier, touch-enabled sibling. In short, the iPad Pro is the best iPad. In fact, I’d consider it the best overall tablet you can buy at the moment....
TaskRabbit Not only is TaskRabbit simple to use, but it covers a broad range of services. These include assembling furniture, fetching groceries, cleaning the house, helping with house moves, and more. TaskRabbit Taskers will even stand in a line for you. From making restaurant reservations to finding someone to fix a leak in your basement, we’ve collected some of the top apps that will turn your phone into an outsourcing machine....
1,095 people in Denmark participated in the study, aptly named “The Facebook Experiment”. In their normal lives, 9 percent of the participants visited Facebook daily, 86 percent browsed their news feeds “often or very often,” and over three quarters used Facebook for 30 minutes or longer each day. Participants were asked to evaluate their lives before and after the study “on different dimensions,” including the question “In general, how satisfied are you with your life today?...
AT&T announced today at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tech show in Barcelona, Spain, that it’s exploring how to connect drones to its LTE data network. This would enable drones to make long-distance flights, and communicate with other drones and infrastructure. This push for better-connected drones is a collaboration with Intel, which already has plans to put its hardware in a number of drones. In the United States, drones operated by consumers aren’t legally allowed to go beyond the line of sight of their operator, and anyone wishing to operate drones for business purposes must currently obtain special permission from the Federal Aviation Administration....
To understand why the impact was so big, and what steps that companies can take to prevent something like these disruptions in the future, it makes sense to take a step back and take a look at what cloud computing is, and what it’s good for. So what is cloud computing and AWS? Whenever you connect to anything over the internet, your computer is essentially just talking to another computer....
Vinegar has been helping humans preserve foods and clean houses for thousands of years. But a perhaps unexpected culprit is responsible for this ubiquitous acid: bacteria. The aptly named acetic acid bacteria are the variety of microbes solely responsible for the production of the acid that characterizes vinegar. These microorganisms take ethanol, guzzle it up for fuel, and release molecules of acetic acid directly into the developing mixture—which means vinegar is basically bacteria compost....
The remarkable consistency of this microbial package across the planet—similar across species, including social bumblebees—is a sign that the bacteria play some fundamental part in the survival of honeybees. Research published earlier this week in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution may partly explain why: Bees with healthy microbial partners grow up to have more complex social relationships and even different brain chemistry from bees with sterile guts. The gut biome—the community of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that live inside us—plays a potentially enormous, but mysterious, role in many animals....
Starting in December of 2017 and extending for the next 35 years, about 600,000 square miles of the Southern Ocean in an bay called the Ross Sea will be protected from commercial fishing. In 72 percent of the sanctuary, no fishing of any kind will be allowed. In the remaining 28 percent, some fishing of krill and fish will be allowed for scientific research. The agreement was announced this week by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), an international body that helps regulate activities in the waters off of Antarctica....
Best large chest freezer: Kratos Refrigeration 69K-749HC Solid Top Chest FreezerBest upright: Midea MRU07M2AWW Upright FreezerBest energy-efficient mini-freezer: Whynter Energy Star 1.1-cubic foot mini freezerBest outdoor or garage freezer: Midea 7-cubic foot chest freezerBest budget: Arctic King 5-cubic foot chest freezer When it comes to picking a deep freezer, let’s get all the questions off our chests Deep freezers have come a long way. Not only don’t they require you to keep enormous blocks of actual ice somewhere in your living space, but they also aren’t powered by ammonia and sulfur dioxide like they were in the 1830s (until someone realized that that combination was, to put it mildly, lethal)....
Best for the safety-conscious: Traeger BAC454 Wooden Grill ScraperBest for hands-on cooking: Homemaxs Extreme Heat-Resistant Grill GlovesBest for campers: OXO Good Grips Grilling Tools SetBest for beginning grillers: OXO Good Grips Grilling ToolsBest for non-smokers: LIZZQ Premium Pellet Smoker TubeBest for control freaks: Pamxio Meat Thermometer for Cooking What to consider when shopping for the best grill accessories No matter what type of grill you use—gas, electric, charcoal or wood—the perfect grill accessory makes the cooking and serving process easier....
There was a time when a security system involved unsightly cameras that had to be professionally installed. Spools of wiring would lead to a VCR, where routinely you’d need to rewind or replace the tape in case you needed to review the evidence following an intrusion (assuming the cassette hadn’t run out, broken, etc.). Well, those days are long gone. Whether outdoors or indoors, security cameras now can be completely discreet if desired, sometimes require as little as two screws or double-sided tape to install, and may offer instant smartphone alerts and even live video you can monitor remotely....
Best with snow brush: Hopkins 532 Mallory 26″ Snow Brush with Foam GripBest magical ice scraper: Magical Car Ice Scraper Best heated: Perfect Life Ideas Heated Snow Ice ScraperBest with a glove: Ice Scraper for Car Windshield with Mitt Best with brass blade: C J Industries F101 Fantastic Ice Scraper with Brass BladeBest budget: Snow Joe SJEG01 Ice Scraper Best ice scrapers: Reviews & Recommendations You could try a windshield snow cover, but most people go with a trusty scraper....
Best overall: Lava Colormax lampBest tall: Jambo 16-inch motion lampBest unique: Edier 16.5-inch Lava Lamp with Bluetooth speakerBest glass: Tricolor White and Clear 14.5-Inch Lava Lamp with Aluminum Base and CapBest budget: Lamp Lava 2179 14.5-Inch How does a lava lamp work? Look at a working lava lamp and you’re witnessing an elegant example of a scientific concept called a convection current. The glass container holds a series of wax blobs suspended in a liquid like water or sometimes mineral oil....
Best overall: Pentel GraphGear 500Best value: Tombow MONO GraphBest for precision: rOtring 600 Black Barrel Mechanical PencilBest for drawing: Koh-i-Noor Mechanical Hardtmuth Lead HolderBest ergonomic design: Pilot Dr. Grip G-Spec Shaker Mechanical Pencil How we selected the best mechanical pencils Newcomers to the pencil world might get their senses saturated with the sheer amount of mechanical pencils available in the market right now. After all, a pencil is a pencil. Except that it’s not....
These small entertainment units often include built-in batteries for truly portable play, and some have Android TV functionality for easy streaming. Integrated speakers are common and they all include HDMI and USB ports for external media like Blu-ray players, set-top streaming boxes, or USB streaming sticks. Finding the best mini projector that meets your own priorities isn’t always easy, so we’ve gathered five of our favorites while also providing some insight into what to look for when you’re shopping....
