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After laying its eggs, a female octopus undergoes a dramatic mental shift—from living a normal den life and gently caring for its embryos to no longer eating, dropping muscle tone, and changing color. Worse, it might engage in acts of self harm, like scarring itself against the gravelly sea floor or even eating its own body parts. “What’s striking is that they go through this progression of changes where they seem to go crazy right before they die,” University of Chicago neurobiology professor Clifton Ragsdale said in a recent press release....

Thousands of years ago, large ice sheets covered large parts of northern North America, including large swaths of Canada and the northeastern United States. As a consequence — because the ice sheets were so massive and heavy — they weighed down Earth’s crust, causing it to sink directly beneath the ice sheet. “As a result, places that were around the edges or periphery of that ice sheet were actually levered up,” Piecuch explained....

Attracting Attention During late pregnancy and following birth, caregivers produce elevated levels of prolactin and oxytocin, which prime their ears to be especially sensitive to the frequency range of a newborn’s cries. These hormones also promote nurturing behaviors—like physically comforting the kid—and boost positive feelings that can help keep new moms and dads from throwing their hands up in despair. Mildly Upset Although we perceive this early whine as only one sound, it’s made up of many harmonic tones....

And now we have the Video Resolution War. While the number of pixels available in a display has steadily risen since the earliest days of computing, it’s begun to accelerate in the past few years. The fact that we have more devices with screens has only exacerbated it. We’ve had Retina displays in our smartphones and computers, and now we’re on the verge of jumping from HDTV resolutions of 1080p to mammoth 4K displays....

On the storm’s southeastern edge, tornadoes in Alabama killed one person and critically injured eight others. There were also three deaths in Texas due to accidents from icy road conditions. The storm is being referred to as Winter Storm Landon, although that’s not an official name given by the National Weather Service—it comes from the Weather Channel, which began naming winter storms 10 years ago. But it follows a trend toward naming more extreme weather events, like heat waves, in an effort to communicate their risks to the public....

Scientists estimated that more than 300 wolves may have been killed as a result of both legal hunting and other reasons such as illegal poaching this winter. The state’s wolves may be in a precarious position, the researchers reported on July 5 in the journal PeerJ. The aim of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was to have a hunting season that “resulted in no annual increase or decrease in the state’s wolf population....

As Halloween rolls around once more, with goblins and ghouls lurking around every corner, the pre-deceased among us are left wondering: What about fright? Can it kill? The answer is an emphatic “yes.” Fear, once triggered, spreads far and wide in the human body. Up top, in our brains, the amygdala is responsible for registering frightful stimuli, and triggering a response in the nervous system. From there, the hypothalamus flushes the bloodstream with the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline—remember that later....

But after changing careers—which meant driving to an office for the first time in years—I recently rejoined the world of commuting. My hatred of driving, concerns about climate change, and the simple fact that I’m cheap led me to a 2015 study by Deloitte that found about 28.3 million people live close enough to their jobs to actually bike there. By doing so, they could save themselves a total of $7....

That means beluga whales can have staring contests with penguins in Chicago, a sloth can chum around with dolphins in Texas, rescue puppies can discover the deep sea in Georgia, and gorillas can experience the crankiness of llamas in Canada. These meet-and-greets don’t just add delight to people’s social media feeds—they also give the wildlife involved a break from the monotony. “These experiences could be enriching for the animals by exposing them to unique objects, smells, sounds, etc....

Popular Science: There’s a lot of great tech in the world of Wakanda. Where does your inspiration for it come from? Brian Stelfreeze: I think when you’re being creative, you still attach it to reality somehow. I grew up in a small town in coastal South Carolina. Where I’m from, the people are known as Gullah people. They’re some of the first freed slaves that lived on their own, without being attached to the rest of the U....

The IP scale The most common way to certify and quantify how resilient a gadget is when it comes to water is the Ingress Protection rating, which is typically expressed as “IP” followed by two numbers. This scale comes from the International Electrotechnical commission, which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The first number that appears in the formula represents a device’s resistance to solid particles. The scale goes from 1-6, with one representing a complete lack of protection and six indicating that the device is sealed up tight enough to completely prevent dust from getting inside....

If you have an adventurous palate, you may take offense at the list we have compiled here. Snails sautéed in garlic butter and freshly prepared organ meats are standard fare for foodies these days. For the rest of us, we’d need some serious motivation to munch on some of the creatures listed herein. Personally, I can’t stand the crunchy bugs. Even though they’re standard fare in many parts of the world, just thinking about biting into a crispy cricket activates my gag reflex....

The virus started circulating in Orange County, Florida, in July, and was identified in a group of chickens that researchers use to monitor levels of mosquito-borne diseases in the area. Now, human cases have spread to a number of states, including Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana, Tennessee, and New Jersey. Still others have mosquitoes or animals that have tested positive for the virus. EEEV is dangerous: When it spreads to humans, the virus can infect the brain, and it turns fatal in about a third of people, according to the Centers for Disease Control....

Hosting a Super Bowl party is fun—and it has to be considering how much garbage and wing sauce you’re left to contend with in the aftermath. If you’re having a bunch of people over, your normal supply of garbage bags and paper towels probably won’t do. Today, you can save up to 65 percent on party essentials like heavy duty garbage bags, Clorox micro-scrubbers, roasting pans, essential oil diffusers, paper plates, and more....

Plants can’t get up and run away from predators, so they use alternative methods to defend themselves. Some species, including some of the most popular plants for indoor gardening, have toxins in their leaves, stems, and even seeds to fend off animals and insects in the wild. Those same chemicals can easily hurt your pet if they suddenly decide to go vegetarian. Before adopting a four-legged roommate, consider swapping your plants for similar-looking, non-toxic options....

Part of the problem is that our phones are always with us and easy to reach. Another issue is that there are many short intervals in the day, whether it’s waiting on a subway platform or getting ready to go to sleep, where we’ve got nothing better to do but to open up our apps and see what might be new. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are apps that can bring us all kinds of benefits and positive vibes as an alternative to doomscrolling....

“That character was so unique to the landscape because he wasn’t somebody who needed a gun or conventional tools. He was a cerebral hero who made things up as he went along,” says Peter Lenkov, the creator and executive producer of the new, rebooted MacGyver. “That was the fun of the original show, watching him build things.” The first iteration of the series, which ran from 1985 to 1992, does differ from the reboot....

“The amount of material is stacking up,” says Mariel Borowitz, an associate professor at Georgia Tech who specializes in international space policy and security. But decluttering the final frontier is easier said than done. Besides cost, Borowitz says, the question of who can do the cleaning remains murky. If NASA puts a satellite into orbit, she explains, “it belongs to the United States even if it breaks into pieces.” The same holds true for any company or government....

From working out how long a binge-watching session is going to take, to selecting something to watch at random, these out-of-the-box features can augment your favorite streaming apps in a variety of useful ways. Can I Binge? Before you sit down to start streaming a new show, it’s useful to know how long it will take you to cruise from start to finish—you might be after something you can wrap up in a week, or an epic tale that takes months to watch in full....