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Settlers of Catan is the most well-known, family-friendly choice for players looking to dip a toe into the world of more complex tabletop gaming. Win victory points by building settlements—and use those settlements to accrue more resources for cities and development cards. The game works with three to four players, but adding expansions can accommodate even more people. Dixit’s creative and completely unique storytelling-driven game play is perfect for imaginative kids and adults alike....

Tile Slim Bluetooth Tracker We’ve all left our wallets at a restaurant at some point or another. Give the gift of security with a Tile. It attaches to virtually anything, wallets included, and connects to your phone so that you can find your valuables from anywhere. And what’s more practical than that? Joseph Joseph Adjustable Rolling Pin What does a fourth-of-an-inch-thick pie crust look like, anyway? No one except a professional baker would really know, and no one except a professional baker really cares....

Amdahl joined IBM right after he graduated, having been recruited while in school. He was instrumental in developing IBM’s mainframe system, known as the System/360 series. It was introduced at a shareholder’s meeting on April 7, 1964, and became the most successful line of mainframe systems for IBM. And indeed, the design and architecture was evident in computers for decades to come. Amdahl worked at IBM for six years, before leaving to forge his own path....

That sensation eluded most of his colleagues back then, and it still does. They study Einstein’s greatest insight without fully grasping how he achieved it, or what it meant to him; they typically don’t “feel relativity in their bones,” in the words of Columbia University theoretical physicist Brian Greene. The lack of understanding comes from a sticky misconception of what general relativity is, even among those who spend their careers making use of it....

Though infected camels are thought to be the initial source of MERS, most animals, such as cows and mice, aren’t affected by the virus. In earlier studies, scientists have used cows to better understand human immunity, so for this experiment researchers decided to tweak the cows’ genomes slightly so that they carry a human chromosome. That genetic code enabled the cows to create MERS-specific proteins called antibodies that “tag” potentially dangerous cells to be eliminated by the immune system....

Best weighted blanket: Bearaby Cotton NapperBest pillow: MedCline Shoulder Relief Wedge and Body Pillow SystemBest eyemask: Loftie Sleep MaskBest fitness tracker: WHOOPBest for napping anywhere: Ostrichpillow OriginalBest for meditation: Core OrbBest sauna blanket: SunHome Saunas Infrared Sauna BlanketBest ice roller: ESARORA Ice Roller for Face & EyeBest percussion massager: Hyperbolt BluetoothBest for alone time (wink wink): Wild Flower ENBY 2Best chocolate: fx Chocolate ExhaleBest bubble bath: Dr. Teal’s Epsom Salt Antioxidant-Rich Matcha Green Tea Foaming BathBest supplement: Moon Juice Magnesi-omBest comfy pants: Betabrand Skinny-Leg | Power-Down PantsBest weighted vest: Pyvot Spark and Dash vestsBest soaking salt: Adrina Dietra All Natural Bath SoakBest candle: Paige’s Candle Co....

Such a cable could convey cargo into space very cheaply and easily. Carriages would travel up and down the cable under modest power, not the vast expenditures of energy that are currently needed to send anything into orbit. Technology has crept closer to making it a reality: we have geostationary satellites, and carbon nanotubes promise to be strong and light enough to form the filament, if they can be produced in sufficient quantity....

The futurist, sci-fi writer and genius inventor is perhaps best known for popularizing and proselytizing the idea of the singularity, when greater-than-human intelligence will be achieved technologically. Kurzweil isn’t just a theorist, however, and he’s actually a pretty natural fit for Google. Some of the things he has been predicting for years (if there’s one thing Kurzweil has been reliably good at over the years, it’s technological predictions) are now realities in Google’s labs–things like self-driving cars, machine learning algorithms, and speech recognition programs that could answer verbal questions....

I like the Nest Hub Max a lot, but unlike the other smart tools around my house, it doesn’t just blend into the background.. Instead, its big glowing face—and always watching eye—is a constant reminder that it’s there and ready to help. It’s handy, but a little weird. What is it? The Max is nicely designed, even if the bezel is rather chunky. The display is beautiful and renders photos beautifully (you can choose from your Google Photos library or a selection of included stock images for the backdrop)....

Thunberg is superlative in a lot of ways—she’s already a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and would be the youngest laureate ever if she wins—and this boat trip is no exception. She also doesn’t fly. As part of her relentless campaign against climate change, she’s led school strikes and spoken publicly in many countries, but she’s always traveled using some other method to do her part in reducing carbon emissions. Trains, for instance, can get you far in Europe....

SpaceX, which is preparing to launch astronauts to the ISS any month now in its newly human-rated Crew Dragon capsule, announced last week that NASA won’t be the only paying customer for its new vehicle. The private company is also offering to launch up to four private citizens into orbit in late 2021 or 2022. And SpaceX is far from the only company on the verge of starting space tourism operations....

The Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the leading builder of Chinese space launch rockets, announced that its Long March (CHang Zheng in Chinese) LM-8 space rocket will launch in 2020. Like the SpaceX Falcon and Falcon Heavy, the LM-8’s first stage will be reusable, using leftover fuel to land vertically. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that CASC has previously promised to make all its rockets reusable by 2035....

Gaze at the top image of Ben Franklin’s famous kite study. Now, the one below it. See the changes? You probably can’t, and you’re not alone. In fact, what psychologists call change blindness is really a power struggle raging in our brains. When we view something, we notice big details—the people, the forest they are in, perhaps the house in the back—and fail to zero in on less important features like the number of shrubs in the forest or the house’s finer details (hint, hint)....

When to use a memory palace Right now, you’re probably thinking of a sprawling mansion filled with hundreds of rooms, each one containing snippets of your childhood or special days in your life. That’s a great thought, but it’s not an accurate description of this technique. First, unless you literally grew up in one, your memory palace won’t be a palace at all—it’s meant to be a familiar environment that you know by heart, which we’ll talk more about in the next section....

There are a few clear-cut indicators that this season will spell trouble for the US, infectious disease scientists say. In most years, flu seasons are a guessing game for those experts. Because the virus is constantly mutating, it’s hard to say for certain whether or not it’ll be a severe one. “We’ve been saying for the last few years to expect bad flu seasons, and that didn’t pan out,” explains Andrew Handel, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Stony Brook University....

This is the image that came to mind when I read a new bat study coming out today. Like ridiculous Elwood, hunting bats effortlessly avoid trees, power lines, and each other, appearing insanely unhinged but in fact behaving very carefully. They do this in total darkness, too. They have sonar, but it turns out the way it works is actually pretty simple, the new study says. Scientists have assumed bats must use some kind of complex echo interpretation to figure out where they are relative to their prey, relative to each other, and relative to any trees or other obstacles in their paths....

This story originally featured on Undark. For Kim West, dressing for work doesn’t end at home. After arriving at her office at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, West will often layer a second outfit over her shirt and slacks: a full-body gown, topped with booties, sleeve protectors, two pairs of gloves, a hairnet, and an N95 respirator. Donning this extravagant getup—designed to guard against the dangerous and often airborne pathogens she studies—has become second nature for West, who long ago lost track of the sheer amount of protective gear she cycles through each year....

How to add a link to an Instagram Story From there, tap the stickers button at the top of the screen (it looks like a smiling square with a peeled-up corner) or swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Tap the Link sticker to open the Add Link interface. If you don’t see it, you may not have been granted this power—yet. Instagram is in the process of rolling this feature out to users worldwide, so try updating your app and/or checking back in a few days....

Back in those days, English intellectuals would throw friendly social gatherings known as science parties. In genteel homes, over coffee and tea, men and women would engage in science discourse and see demonstrations of the latest findings and ideas. For example, the great chemist Humphry Davy—who eventually discovered numerous elements including sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium—would hold rambunctious gatherings where participants would take turns inhaling nitrous oxide, better known today as laughing gas, with predictably intoxicating results....

With help from Cortana and Siri, you can do a whole lot without having to touch the keyboard or mouse. Talking to your computer may feel a little strange at first, but that’s what it’s like to live in the future. Here’s how to set up these assistants and make the most of them. Set up Cortana on Windows 10 When you install Windows 10 or power up your new Windows 10 machine for the first time, Cortana should activate automatically....