Inside we’ll explain what the sport has in common with the war on terror and why every swimmer worth her hair bun abides by the power of horse cartilage. Go ahead, check it out. Nobody is looking, and we won’t tell. The Cheat Sheet We’re making the fairly safe assumption that you don’t frequent synchronized swimming meets. So below is a cheat sheet of odd quasi-science facts about the sport....
This week’s episode is extra special: it’s the first half of our second live show, which happened on February 1 at Caveat in NYC. As mentioned at the top of this week’s episode, you may hear hosts or audience members shouting “drink!” This is because we were playing a drinking game, which you’re welcome to recreate on your own time (assuming you’re of legal age and not driving while you listen)....
Spring that year had come early, and growers predicted that the warmth would produce a memorable vintage—but that heat dried the earth, and set the stage for a particularly bad wildfire year. On the night of August 14, a lightning storm started a blaze at the southern edge of the valley. By morning, high winds were driving the flames north, through the Golden Mile’s dry sage and grass. On September 10, the valley was under an evacuation order, and Fairview’s Bill Eggert was only partly done with harvesting for the year....
A New Model for Manufacturing Innovation Manufacturing USA — comprised of 14 institutes and their federal sponsors, the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy — has a vision for solving this “valley of death.” By convening experts from industry, academia, and the government to solve these challenges through advanced manufacturing technologies, the network fosters innovation, strengthens the U.S. economy, protects national security, and empowers the next generation. Drastically different in scale and model than anything happening in the private sector alone, Manufacturing USA is a collaborative, large-scale approach to manufacturing innovation....
Today, NOAA announced that the world is in the third recorded global coral bleaching event. That means that all across the world, coral reefs are being exposed to exceedingly warm seas, causing massive die-offs. Coral bleaching happens when the symbiotic algae that live inside coral flee the reef as conditions change. Many different types of disruption can cause bleaching, from contaminated water to unusually hot or cold water temperatures, though many coral bleaching events are driven by excessively warm ocean waters....
The first cases of 2019-nCoV appeared in December in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and it has now infected about 300 people in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and South Korea, and killed at least six. The CDC reports that symptoms include cough, fever, and difficulty breathing, and that the elderly, individuals with underlying health problems, and people with compromised immune systems are at particularly high risk of developing severe pneumonia from the virus....
Built by the Shenyang Institute of Automation, the colorful Qianlong III looks like a clownfish from Finding Nemo, though the cute look belie serious capability. It has a forward propeller in the “eyes” and the “mouth” is a navigation sonar. Its vertical tail has a magenometer, which is useful for detecting metals like manganese nodes or foreign submarines. Cai Wei, the chief scientist of the mothership Dayang Yihao, noted that in two follow-up trips, the Qianlong III collected reams of data on natural gas hydrate and metallic nodules, in support of Chinese interests in natural resources on the South China seabed....
“Maybe it’s not that they’re programmed to do something,” says corresponding author and systems biologist Jeremy Gunawardena, “but rather that the program provides them with the machinery for actually making their own minds up.” Of course, single-celled organisms don’t have “minds.” But Gunawardena and his colleagues seem to have demonstrated that some cells have a say in picking their response to certain stimulants. And it’s not a new concept—the first experiment to show cells reacting freely to their environment took place more than 100 years ago....
The problem is that not enough people are bequeathing their brains to science after they die. If this doesn’t change, crucial research could come to a standstill. Scientists develop treatments and preventative techniques for brain disorders by comparing the chemistry and structure of normal brains against abnormal ones. In the U.K. there are currently about 10,000 brains available for research purposes. To give an idea of the shortage, only about 20 of those are available for autism research, and about 30 for Alzheimer’s; academics would like those numbers in the hundreds....
Our lives are busy—and unpredictable. We never know when we may need assistance during an unexpected power outage or while traveling with our family. The 8-in-1 Maglight Mini Super Bright Utility Flashlight will help you stay prepared for anything coming your way. Boasting powerful LEDs that provide 800 lumens of radiance with four adjustable modes, the mini flashlight offers the visibility you need in various levels of darkness. Choose from super bright, medium, low, or strobe outputs, quickly switch settings from each mode, and get lighting up to 30 times brighter than your phone....
Want the best of both worlds? Get a compact smart display/stereo speaker in one with the Echo Show 8, on sale for $99.99 (was $129.99). You have access to plenty of the most popular streaming apps, plus there’s a 13MP camera with auto-framing—so buy two, one for you and one for family or friends, and say “I miss UR face” to their face. Oh, and there’s also a battery pack (sold separately) if you want to take the show(s) on the road....
Scientists have found a way to generate a potent wild strawberry scent by allowing one particular fungus to work on the pulp, seeds, and skin of black currants, a type of berry commonly grown in Europe. They published their results on November 17 in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Their motivation was to cheaply reuse agricultural waste, converting it into “natural flavors in a highly sustainable way,” says Helgor Zorn, a food scientist at the Institute of Food Chemistry and Food Biotechnology at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Hesse, Germany, and one of the researchers....
To get to full speed, the Skreemr would combine three fast technologies: rockets, scramjets, and magnetic rails. First, the plane would accelerate along a special runway, much like this sled is hurtled from an aircraft carrier into the sea by an electromagnetic catapult. To continue the acceleration, the Skreemr would fire rockets, boosting it into the air. Then, once it attained a supersonic speed, the scramjets would kick in, accelerating the plane through the sky at speeds of at least four times the speed of sound....
Glaw’s first thought was that there was a parasite latched onto the mantis—a common sight that he has seen many times before in nature. It wasn’t until he brought in Christian Schwarz, in the faculty of biology and biotechnology at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, that the pair realised that the odd protrusion was no stranger to the mantis but actually a part of its body. Their research, published in the Journal of Orthoptera Research showed that the protrusion is actually a pheromone gland being emitted by the female....
There are plenty of ways to prevent mosquitoes from hanging out in your home, including setting up traps, draining standing water, and planting mosquito-repelling plants. You can also install something like the Sunna Solar Outdoor Light, which not only functions as an illumination source, but also has a built-in mosquito killer that can zap those pesky insects away. The Sunna is a cost-efficient solar light with high-capacity batteries and dual sensors, providing hours upon hours of light after dark with this high-quality LED that delivers uniform, soft, and anti-glare light....
Click here to see the full resolution chart. This story appears in the Spring 2020, Origins issue of Popular Science.
“The Trapping Mechanism of the Common Bladderwort” won the Expert’s Choice award for Posters & Graphics in the 2016 Vizzies. See all 10 of the winners. This article was originally published in the March/April 2016 issue of Popular Science, under the title “The 2016 Vizzies.”
FYI: Why Are Mean People So Hot?Can Taking A Pill Before Bed Get Rid Of Bed Bugs?7 Gift Ideas For The Climate Change Denier In Your LifeBritain Is Testing An Amphibious House That Rises Along WIth FloodwatersSkylon Spaceplane Engine Endorsed By European Space Agency Cadbury’s Chocolate Of The Future Doesn’t Melt Even At 104 Degrees And don’t forget to check out our other favorite stories of the week: Gray Matter: Finding Water Where It’s Least ExpectedBoxee TV Review: Not Ready For PrimetimeFYI: Can Viagra Make You A Better Athlete?...
AI text-to-image models like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, Google’s Imagen, and Midjourney are having a bit of a moment. It’s hard to avoid their output on social media (especially Twitter), where people share the weirdest and wildest things they are able to get the AI models to create. The results are undeniably impressive—and it’s going to be fascinating to see how these tools develop as they gather more input. Since Imagen isn’t yet open to the public, and DALL-E 2 and Midjourney are both in Beta, TikTok is now the AI text-to-image generator with the largest (potential) user base....
The sand is used to scrub the internal surfaces of the rover, serving as a quality-assurance protocol just in case anything from Earth was left over in there. Then the rover spits the sample back out. When the decontamination process has been performed three times and actual sample distribution is ready, the rover will send sand to its Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments. This image was taken by Curiosity’s right Mast Camera on October 10, the 64th sol since Curiosity landed in Gale Crater....
