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Breaking New Year’s resolutions is so time-honored a tradition that companies can actually stake their business model on it. Gyms like Planet Fitness depend on thousands joining up at the beginning of the year, only to fail on the follow-through. They sign up about 6,500 people per location despite the fact that each one can only accommodate about 300, relying on the low cost of membership to convince people that at $10 a month, you shouldn’t cancel—you’ll definitely start going next week....

Enter hydrogen: a seldom-used fuel source for vehicles that reaps all the benefits of an electric powertrain while promoting ultra-fast refueling times. The latest company to jump onboard is luxury British automaker Land Rover, which is developing a prototype of its Defender SUV that’s powered completely by hydrogen. The Land Rover Defender prototype looks like any brand-new car on a dealer lot. But what will be found under the hood is what makes a difference....

Listen to the latest episode of the podcast! This week’s show takes a deeper look at the new Google stuff, including the Pixel 3 smartphone, the Home Hub smart screen, and the Pixel Slate convertible tablet. We also discuss the demise of the Google+ social media network, and a font that helps you remember what you read. You can listen in the player above, subscribe on iTunes, follow us on SoundCloud, add us to your Stitcher, and now you can listen on Spotify, too!...

Kitchen appliances Whether your go-to meal takes a few minutes in the oven or you relish whipping up complex new recipes every night, kitchen appliances are a one-size-fits-all tool to make your food prep easier and more delicious. From adding in the satisfying crunch from an air fryer to extracting the smoothest sip for your daily brew, a good appliance can make all the difference when it comes time to step foot in the kitchen....

Time: 1 hour Cost: $100 or less Difficulty: 2 out of 5 Set Up A Webcam Aim a webcam at the welcome mat (wireless models are the easiest to install). Configure the camera to constantly refresh an image to a dedicated Web host. Give The Bell A Brain To imbue your doorbell with artificial intelligence, set up an Ethernet-enabled Arduino microcontroller nearby. Then grab the source code from here (Storck and two friends made the service specifically for this and other home-to-Web hacks)....

This is the second time Jaybird has made a product that’s immune to sweat. Which the company notes requires a much different set of trials than simply making sure moisture can’t seep into the device. Waterproofing Versus Sweatproofing Jaybird General Manager Rory Dooley likens it to the difference between freshwater and saltwater. “Unlike freshwater, saltwater has a corrosive effect. Actual sweat is even worse than salt because it can be highly acidic....

Now a team led by scientists at the University of Hawaii has created several generations of male mice that don’t have a Y chromosome, and they’re even able to reproduce, according to a study published today in Science. The Y chromosome is passed down with very few changes between generations of fathers and sons. But in recent years, researchers have been working to figure out exactly which genes on the Y chromosome are actually important for normal male development and reproduction....

The researchers suspected that the male peacock is actually attempting to attract other females by boasting of his ability to snag one female. (I think there was a Seinfeld episode in which George attempted the same thing by wearing a wedding ring to attract women.) To test out this theory, the researchers recorded this “love honk” and played it back over loudspeakers for a group of peahens. And sure enough, the females approached that speaker much more often than a speaker from which some other sound (or no sound at all) was playing....

Now take these charming fliers, make them even more miniature, and replace the actual seeds with microchips. What you have then is a swarm of tiny airborne electronics, each potentially no larger than a grain of sand. That’s close to what engineers at Northwestern University have created. They claim their little winged chips—“microfliers,” they call them—are the smallest ever human-made flying objects. Soon, they could become the newest, most diminutive way of monitoring the environment....

In order to study Mars’ tremors, the lander’s seismometers need to be sealed in an airtight chamber–otherwise wind creates confusing noise in the data. Bruce Banerdt, lead scientist on the mission, said in a teleconference that the device is sensitive enough to detect the vibration of a single atom, which is why it needs to operate in a vacuum. However, engineers have been unable to make the French-made Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) airtight enough to survive a rough landing and operate in Mars’ freezing temperatures....

Our bodies have internal clocks that tell us how long a day is, and we’re all set to somewhere just around 24 hours. But there’s evidence that early risers’ internal body clocks that run a little faster than average, while night-owls’ clocks run a little slower. And since a day on Mars is about 37 minutes longer than 24 hours, those with a slower body clock (that is, one that takes longer than 24 hours to complete a natural cycle) may find the adjustment to Mars time easier....

Every time she tried to play, waves of depression came on. Desperate to continue her studies, she turned to meditation. Occasional classes with her mom quickly turned into a routine regimen: 30 minutes of morning meditation, the same at night, as well as weekly group sessions and retreats at nearby ashrams. A year into her practice, her depression had melted away, she had friends, and she could play her viola again....

The key is the rover’s six bendable spider legs and wheeled feet. On smooth surfaces, it rolls on those wheels; when it runs into an obstacle it can’t clear, it simply steps over it. ATHLETE can also split into a pair of robots that together pick up and haul specially designed shipping containers. (A lander would bring a container to the surface separately.) So far, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have demonstrated that their $2 million half-size prototype—which consists of two semiautonomous, three-legged robots—can move cargo, walk on inclines, and use tools....

All six have snouts adorned with tentacles, but the intrigue doesn’t stop there. The catfish also have “spines that stick out from their heads, almost like claws, to protect themselves and their nests, and their [bodies are] covered with bony plates like armor,” Lesley de Souza, an ichthyologist (AKA fish scientist) at the Field and lead author of the study, says in a press release. “They’re warriors, they’re fish superheroes....

On a crisp morning last fall in Tijuana, Mexico, psychologist Diana Hernández knocked on the metal doors of Movimiento Juventud 2000, one of several migrant shelters in this border city. Hernández was there as part of a four-person team of municipal workers tending to the needs of some of Tijuana’s thousands of migrants whose lives are in limbo while they wait to request asylum in the United States or to attend the court hearings that will determine the fate of their asylum requests....

Keep your itinerary organized with TripIt I’ve been using TripIt for longer than I can remember, and I can’t overstate its utility when your trip has a lot of moving parts. Sure, if you always fly the same airline to the same place, you can probably just use that airline’s app to keep track of your reservation, but when you take multiple trips a year to different cities, or have a multi-stop trip that contains a flight, a train, and a hotel, things get a bit complicated....

Hey @PopSci, is the #mysteryanimal a baboon? And then I might say “if you think that’s a baboon, perhaps you are the baboon!” But probably not, because this is a positive environment and all guesses are welcome and also this is not a very common animal so guess whatever you want! The first person to get it right wins! We’ll retweet the answer from @PopSci, and also update this post so your amazing animal knowledge will be permanently etched onto the internet....

But it isn’t just as simple as snapping two photos. NASA says the LRO spacecraft first has to be rolled to the side, and then turned to get the widest lunar horizon for the NAC. Add to that the fact that LRO is traveling 3,580 miles per hour. Then, the images are processed to adjust for the motion of the Earth and the moon. In this particular shot, you can see the moon’s crater Compton in the foreground and the continent of Africa prominently displayed....

Nestled adjacent to the Googleplex and in the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA Ames at Moffett Field is a giant complex, where research for NASA’s space program, among many other things, takes place. Below are some of the things attendees can see on the tour. The Ames Research Center houses some pretty spectacular buildings; one that’s highly visible from the street is the largest wind tunnel in the world. The Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel is designed to test commercial and military aircraft and NASA space vehicles....