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“With more economic growth, climate mitigation is more difficult to achieve, because with it comes increasing energy and material use, which in turn needs decarbonization,” says Lorenz T. Keyßer, an environmental systems and policy graduate student at ETH Zurich and author of a recent study in Nature on how the economy and climate are intertwined. “So this is like running up a downwards accelerating escalator.” It’s no secret that most of the world’s biggest polluters tend to be those with the fastest-growing economies....

Heading into summer, the US faces a significantly more controlled pandemic, with more than half of the adult population now fully vaccinated. But globally, there are still more challenges to overcome. Here are the latest COVID-19 updates. Moderna seeks full FDA approval for vaccine Moderna announced that it has begun the full approval process with the Food and Drug Administration for its COVID-19 vaccine. Use of its vaccine has of course been widespread in the US since it was authorized for emergency use on Dec....

This contradictory question is the reality that Thomas Archdeacon, a fish biologist with the New Mexico Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, is having to ask himself more often each summer. The Rio Grande river typically runs low between monsoon rains, and for decades, dams have left stretches of the river in southeastern New Mexico dry during the summer irrigation season. But this year, the river dried up completely where it runs through Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the first time since the 1980s....

With daycare and school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents have taken on more responsibility for children’s learning and development and for many this has been a major source of stress. The pandemic and the challenges of learning from home have definitely taken a toll on parents and children. Parents and children are also grappling with cancelled sports, camps, and activities this summer, or reduced-capacity daycare centers. Parents typically rely on these activity and care options to keep kids busy, and parents’ time scheduled....

Now, scientists have found that they can make a superconductor that’s different from others that have come before. It lets electricity flow in only one direction: Like a train pointing downhill, it slides freely one way but faces a daunting uphill in the other. It sounds arcane, but this ability is critical to making electronic circuits like the ones that power your computer. If these scientists’ results hold, it could bring that future one step closer....

The study also showed that former athletes are 22 percent more likely to give than their couch-potato counterparts, and that hockey players are more generous than football alums, but that there’s no difference in generosity between men and women.

Some platforms will automatically start charging you after your trial expires, and others will collect your personal data in exchange for their service. But fret not: With just a little care, you can enjoy the benefits of free trials without being stung for payment or compromising your online security. Do your research People will often see a “free trial” button and click on it without a thought, giving scammers a perfect opportunity to spread malware or mine victims’ personal data....

Welcome to COP 26—arguably one of the most important climate conferences in the history of the world taking place, where the next decade of crucial climate action will be mapped out. “The climate crisis is already causing loss and damage for so many people; and while we may all be in the same storm, we are definitely not all in the same boat,” Elizabeth Wathuti, the Global South Co-Chair of the COP26 Civil Society and Youth Advisory Council, said in a UN release....

Competition in the market posed the biggest complication for getting this merger passed and the solution isn’t a simple one. In order to assuage fears of decreased competition, satellite provider, Dish, has agreed to buy various pieces of the mobile companies to reduce their scope. Dish is buying Virgin Mobile, Boost mobile, Sprint’s pre-paid wireless coverage and some access to the wireless spectrum. Dish promises to build out its own wireless network eventually, but until then it will have access to T-Mobile’s....

Coffee grounds are supposed to be a great, all-natural way to exfoliate—and this scrub is infused with plenty of other moisturizing, pampering ingredients for your skin, like shea butter, olive oil, and coconut extract. Dead sea salt flakes help exfoliate. Scoop some out and rub it around in circular motions while you shower. Users find this scrub to help with cellulite, stretch marks, and improving skin texture, and the extra moisturizing ingredients will leave your skin hydrated after the exfoliation process....

“A lot of students say things like, ‘I didn’t know science was fun,’” said Samantha Gizerian, now a clinical assistant professor at Washington State University. Apparently they also showed a greater interest in taking books home to read, and a greater willingness to practice math. The lessons were simple, too–in one case, a college student just brought in some microscope slides from his lab. Gizerian says the lessons taught science, but also acted “as a spark to ignite a child’s interest in lifelong learning in all areas....

Instead of introducing tons of new features or crowding every page with features and graphics, the fourth iteration of Messenger is stripped down to the most essential functions. Yes, there are new color gradients for message bubbles, the usual supply of infinite gifs and stickers, and a tweak to the logo. But users will also see a serious Marie Kondo-ing (author of the bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up), as Messenger bucks the busyness trend and reduces its existing nine tabs to just three—chats, people, and discover....

Anyway. LIVIN just launched a Kickstarter for the LIVIN Farms Hive, which is a counter-top mealworm farm that you can keep in your kitchen (I’ve previously written about a prototype black solider fly farm by the same group). The mealworms can eat veggies and scraps and, according to the inventors, provide 200-500 grams of protein per week. It doesn’t get much more local than that. Check it out:

In roughly half of the country, current abortion bans or restrictions will make it very difficult or illegal for pharmacies to provide abortion pills. In states where abortion procedures remain legal, pharmacies may face public pressure from healthcare providers, abortion rights advocates, and the general public. It is also possible that national pharmacy chains like CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid could decide to offer the medication in those states, while not providing it in their stores in states with more restrictive laws....

It doesn’t have to be this way, though. All the big cloud storage providers have useful tools for searching through your files and folders, whether you’re using a web browser, a desktop computer, or your phone. Find files in Dropbox Load up the Dropbox website, and you’ll see a deceptively simple-looking search box up in the top right-hand corner. There, type the name or part of the name of a file to start looking for it....

The virus, which is spread via mosquitoes, was discovered in 1947 but scientists have just recently linked the infection with microcephaly—a rare neurological condition that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains. In October, health officials in Brazil investigated the cause of the 3,000 cases of microcephaly and found that the babies’ mothers had previously been infected with Zika. Hawaiian health officials say the mother was likely infected with the virus in Brazil while she was pregnant....

BigDog does not react, its mute body and spinning cyclopean eye simply taking in the world as raw emotionless data. BigDog’s human operator happily steers the contraption away from its would-be assailant. This is hardly the first time animals have reacted poorly to trespassing machines. The internet is full of videographic evidence of animal-on-robot violence, and some animals now are specifically trained to attack unmanned aerial intruders. A study in bears found that, while they appeared outwardly calm when pestered by drones, their heart rates and stress levels spiked....

A traditional camera uses one main lens to focus a scene on a light sensor, forming a single 2-D image. Stanford’s camera divides the light sensor into 12,616 small clusters of pixels. Each cluster is topped with an 11-micron lens that sees the scene from a slightly different angle than its neighbors. A computer compares the overlapping images and builds a 3-D map of each pixel in the scene. Unlike other multi-lens setups, this array doesn’t require periodic calibration, making it useful for a variety of applications, says Keith Fife, the lead developer on the project....

It’s normally difficult for such tiny robots to transmit information. “If you think of large-scale robots, they can communicate using a lot of different tools—Bluetooth, wireless, all those sorts of things. But for a tiny, power-constrained robot, we are forced to think about new modes of communication,” explained MIT professor Kevin Chen, who was the senior author of a recent report describing the machines, in a press release about the project....

That said, Fortnite is a game with a high skill ceiling and there are some things you’ll want to know as both a parent and a brand-new player before you and your kids make your first drop together. Most popular battle royales, like Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Apex Legends, are shooters, though some games in this genre utilize other weapon systems. Spellbreak, for example, uses spell-casting for combat rather than guns....