Posts

For decades the company has been struggling to regain its former glory after a series of unfortunate events relegated Caddy to a luxury also-ran, a brand known as a denizen of the cul-de-sacs of Boca Raton retirement communities. But with the upcoming ultra-luxury Celestiq electric sedan, General Motors’ crested brand is hoping to regain the footing it once held. Cadillac announced production intent of its very pricey flagship sedan on July 22, with the aim to take on the best that Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Maybach have to offer—and do it with zero tailpipe emissions....

The study involves golden rice, a goldenrod-colored form of the grain developed more than a decade ago for the express purpose of addressing vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. It has been alternately hailed as a humanitarian breakthrough and denigrated as an empty promise to the poor–but one thing it has not been is actually approved for use. The study at the heart of this new controversy was a step on that path....

The silver iodide furnaces developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (or CASC) will be placed on Himalayan mountains at altitudes above 16,400 feet. These “cloud seeders” encourage puffs of vapor coming from the Indian Ocean to produce rain, something they don’t do on their own given the geography of the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau and the Qaidam Basin. Those northern areas fall into a “rain shadow;” low-altitude clouds are blocked by the southern part of the Himalayas....

The laser rifle is the ZKZM-500, developed by Xian Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics in Xian, Shaanxi. It’s manufactured by the Institute’s subsidiary, ZKZM Laser. Weighing at 6 pounds (about the weight of a typical assault rifle), the ZKZM-500 has a range of 2,600 feet. The ZKZM-500 uses a lithium battery with enough power for 1000 two second shots (keep in mind, those 1000 shots may not be at full power)....

The study, published on May 26 in the journal Cell, mapped out microbial communities in 60 cities across six continents, analyzing over 4,700 samples taken from subways and bus systems to get a sense of the bacteria, viruses, and archaea that live there. “What we knew before is that there were definitely thousands of species awaiting us at every turnstile and bench,” says lead author Chris Mason, an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York....

iRobot Roomba 694 Robot Vacuum-Wi-Fi Connectivity $179 (Was $274) If you’re looking for a sweeping change to how you deal with household cleaning, a robot vacuum is what you need. And the best part if that you don’t have to spend a lot to get one—if you act fast—because right now the overwhelmingly popular, voice assistant-equipped, sensor-rich iRobot Roomba 694 is ready to learn your home and habits and take some of the pressure off your chores at an amazing price....

Not until more recently, however, did astronomers uncover the strange truth. Unlike planets, asteroids, and other hunks of rocks that fly through the heavens, comets are mostly made of ice with a dash of dust. And those various ices—molecules of frozen carbon monoxide and methane as well as water and other compounds—represent a rare record of the solar system’s early days, when a smooth disk of chemicals and dust turned around sun....

He also studies the impact of extreme events, such as glaciation, tsunamis, massive snow, wind and rainstorms, and climate change, “which push life to the limits,” he said. On the Tibetan Plateau, for example, where endangered wild yaks exist at sub-zero temperatures and on dwindling oxygen, global warming is prompting big shifts in snow patterns, as increasing temperatures “vaporize” food and water and threaten to disrupt the balance of the ecosystem....

Higgs, a technician at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado, was racing to recover an instrument, called the AirCore, now dangling by a string from the rapidly ascending balloon. Within about 90 minutes it would arrive at the top of Earth’s atmosphere, an altitude of about 100,000 feet. Then, an automated mechanism would set the equipment loose. After a brief 150 miles-per-hour freefall, a parachute would slow the ascent....

And it’s only gotten worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of surgical masks, body bags, and other plastic-based protective equipment increased the amount of plastic in the ocean and in landfills. The production of plastic packaging is estimated to grow by 5 percent as a result of the pandemic. The solution to the plastic pile up, however, could be wandering around farms across the country. The largest component of a cow’s stomach, called the rumen, could be the next key trick to breaking down plastic....

Here’s the result: And here’s Stamen’s description of what you’re seeing: Each visualization is made up of a series of branches starting from a single person. As the branch grows, re-shares split off on their own arcs, sometimes spawning a new generation of re-shares, sometimes exploding in a short-lived burst of activity. The two different colors show gender, and each successive generation becomes more and more white as time goes by....

When scientists talk about dark matter (reminder: it’s the stuff that makes up 85 percent of the universe), they’re not always talking about the same kind of dark matter. Since we’ve never actually detected it directly, there are plenty of theories bouncing around as to what dark matter looks like and how it behaves—and, more bizarrely, what its effects on the human body might be. “We hope work like this helps to bring alternative dark matter candidates into a wider consciousness of more people, which is good,” says lead author Jagjit Singh Sidhu, a physics doctoral student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio....

A little beetle that lives in the hot, dry Namib Desert has a surprising talent for harvesting water right out of the air. It does so with a bumpy shell. The bumps on its back draw moisture from the air, which then forms little droplets. And the bug’s sides are smooth, which channels the collected water into the beetles mouth. It’s a pretty ingenious construction. And that’s why researchers were inspired by such a system when they were trying to better understand frost....

In the process of learning that devil rays regularly make these dramatic dives, scientists may have solved an anatomical mystery as well: the purpose of the ray’s rete mirabile, a mass of blood vessels in the front of its skull that keep its brain warm. Simon Thorrold of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and his team put satellite tags on 15 Chilean devil rays, and tracked their movement for several months....

Now, none of the samples were found to be unsafe for human consumption in any way, and it’s likely that many would have no objection to eating pig or, even, horsemeat. (Horse is a traditional meat in some areas of France, among other places.) The pork can be explained away by the fact that both pork and beef are processed at the same plant, though nobody seems to have any idea how a significant amount of horsemeat made its way into the ground beef....

The family successfully sued—the authors of the law in question said that the hospital was misinterpreting it, and the fetus was no longer viable. But in more than half of America’s states, there are laws on the books that put limits on the types of choices that can be made for a pregnant woman without the ability to make her own medical decisions. Further, in many states, that information is not disclosed on the paperwork people fill out describing what they want to happen if they cannot make their own medical decisions....

My instructor, professional driver Tiago Rodrigues, started racing more than 30 years ago. I, on the other hand, have been driving an unremarkable spread of family cars since I was a clueless 16—my most exciting moments behind the wheel centered on inching through the perennial snowstorms of Upstate New York. Yet here we were together in the North of Finland, riding around on a frozen lake. Bentley flew me out to test some of the most luxurious high-performance cars in the world....

The idea of using bleach to “detox” the body or prevent certain diseases is nothing new, but global panic over the novel-coronavirus pandemic means this dangerous DIY treatment is getting some more time in the spotlight. As Gabby Landsverk reported for Insider on Thursday, Christina Cuomo—wife of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and sister-in-law of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—recently shared a COVID-19 wellness routine on her publication The Purist that includes bathing in diluted bleach....

Email trackers are vital for companies’ profit margins. They offer an incredibly sly way to build personalized consumer profiles with which they can then send you targeted ads, shape your online ecosystem, and even pass along personal info to other third-parties. According to DuckDuckGo’s estimates, approximately 85 percent of people using its Email Protection beta received emails containing hidden email trackers. Now, anyone can head over to DuckDuckGo’s Email Protection homepage via their desktop browser to sign up for free or by updating their iOS/Android app to the latest version....

It might seem that the future is running a little behind schedule. But never fear! It is, indeed, only a matter of time. So today, allow us to present to you eight technologies that were supposed to be up and running by now, but still haven’t become part of daily life; along with info on when we can expect the technologies to actually arrive. From fusion to artificial intelligence, from flying cars to jetpacks, these are our favorites of science’s delayed (but never destroyed) promises....