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“I stand here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude that the Opportunity mission is complete—and with it, the Mars Exploration Rover [MER] mission is complete,” NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said in Wednesday’s press conference. This latest announcement comes just a couple weeks after the agency announced it was trying last-ditch efforts to contact the rover. Last night, the Opportunity team sent its final set of recovery commands to the rover, and as of this morning, it had not heard anything back....

Why does COVID-19 cause loss of taste or smell? One possible way is that the virus could damage the cells in the olfactory epithelium, which is a patch of skin containing smell receptors that convert stimuli into signals for the brain. Another is that it might disrupt the neurons that help send those signals to the brain. Or, it could affect the taste buds directly. Researchers also point to inflammation around the nose and mouth caused by an immune response as a possible trigger for smell or taste loss....

Says WPI: The robot is made humanoid to fit into spaces built for humans, so it makes sense to give it sea legs. Yet there’s nothing inherent about the design of ships that necessitates a humanoid robot. In fact, making the firefighter person-sized and person-shaped might even get in the way. Here’s an alternate idea, from former U.S. Army technologist Jon Jeckell: Until we get a wall-crawling spider-bot to fight fires on ships, a better-walking SAFFiR is probably our best bet....

Pale in color and blind with pincer-like mouthparts bigger that its head, the two- to three-millimeters long subterranean ant has been dubbed the “eureka ant from Mars” (Martialis heureka) due to its bizarre combination of features. DNA analysis reveals that the less-than-ordinary ant is from a new subgroup—bringing the total up to 21 subfamilies—and evolved earlier than any other living ant. The ant ‘s lack of eyes isn’t what makes it stand out (despite what you’d guess), because there are other known ant groups that are also blind....

A survival shelter can be something you build, with tools or your bare hands. It can also be something you find, ready-to-use and provided by nature. Since exposure is one of the top threats in a wilderness survival setting, learning how to find shelter quickly can save your life. The landscape can provide many different kinds of shelters if you just know where to look. 1. Brush and thickets We can’t always eat the same wild plants or drink the same water as the wild animals do, but we can take a page from their playbook when it comes to finding shelter....

An Alzheimer’s study published in the journal Scientific Reports this February has generated a lot of buzz over the past week after Griffith University in Australia published a press release that linked nose-picking to a risk factor of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.The reason, both the writeup and one of the study authors suggested, is that a harmful bacteria Chlamydia pneumoniae could travel up the nose and into the brain where it could create signatures of Alzheimer’s disease....

Researchers think part of the reason that Eurasian bats weren’t as stricken by the disease was that their immune systems were simply used to the fungus, but now they think they’ve landed on another potential explanation: The roosts, or homes, where North American bats hibernate over winter are P. destructans hotbeds; each year when they return, they are likely getting reinfected with the deadly fungus. The researchers reported their findings this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

The right food is critical for proper development, but what that “right food” is has been socially and emotionally contentious. Parents are bombarded on social media and other sites by an ever-changing stream of advice on how to nourish their young children: Introduce vegetables before bananas to be sure your child will like greens, breast-feed whenever possible as its better for your baby’s gut microbiome, skip pureed foods and go straight to choke-free, finely chopped snacks....

Popular Science will be talking with the ISS astronauts about the new shipment–which includes food and other supplies, a variety of scientific experiments, and a Microsoft HoloLens to test out augmented reality in space–as well as anything else you’re curious about. Tune in here at 10:05 am Eastern to watch it live, and use the hashtag #AskPopSci to let us know all your burning questions.

In a paper published in Climatic Change researchers found that heat waves that currently occur only once every 20 years could occur every year in the near future. And these aren’t isolated incidents. The study predicts that by 2075, 60 percent of the land surface on the Earth could experience these dramatic events. The researchers also found that those extreme heat waves were more likely to be even hotter than those experienced in the present, with heat waves across 60 percent of the land surface having temperatures 5....

Here are some of the best Philips Hue Black Friday deals to start your smart home or expand your current Hue setup. Philips Hue White LED Smart Button Starter Kit $75 (Was $99) The Philips Hue system typically requires a bridge that connects to your network and relays commands to all the bulbs throughout your home. This kit includes that hub, as well as three Philips Hue A19 white bulbs and a smart button to act as an ad hoc light switch....

With everything turned upside down—and so quickly!—I started to worry that a magazine full of riddles and sports and fart jokes would seem tone-deaf when life by necessity is serious and grim. And when the stakes are so very high. The longer I sat at home, unable to tap my normal sources of release (trivia nights and boxing classes), the truth emerged: We need fun now more than ever. So, we’re doing something different this time....

According to research performed by Dr William E. Banks and a team from the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, l’Ecole Pratique d’Hautes Etudes, and the University of Kansas, and published in the journal PLoS ONE this month, an analysis of the distribution of archaeological sites shows modern humans moving in on Neanderthal territory and the consequent shrinking of Neanderthal-dominated zones across Europe around 40,000 years ago. Scientists used a radiocarbon dating and modeling technique that allowed them to reconstruct areas inhabited by Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon populations....

But Facebook’s presence looms large over the Stories and how you use them. The social media giant doesn’t use the glasses to funnel you onto its platform, but you do need a Facebook account to use them, and Facebook collects data from the glasses. Depending on your point of view, you can interpret this as a reluctant acceptance that photographers don’t take photos exclusively for Facebook or Instagram… Or an insidious attempt to get more data from its users by giving them ways to interact with Facebook outside the app....

Large buttons: Casio SL-300SV Solar Powered Standard Function Calculator Next time you’re at the bank or grocery store, pull this small calculator out of your bag or shirt pocket and forget everything you ever knew about long division. It’s just 4.6 inches long and 2.8 inches wide, which is a bit more than an inch shorter and slightly narrower than the iPhone 11. Calculate profit-margin and square root functions in addition to arithmetic basics, and view your results on an 8-digit display....

See the stats! The Next Four Years The next president will have to decide whether to reverse declining federal outlays for R&D, and what kinds of research to prioritize. He will also have to figure out the best way to keep educated immigrants in the country. The annual number of H-B1 visas (reserved for students who graduate with a master’s degree or above) is capped at 20,000. The U.S. received 31,000 applications the first week they became available this April....

In videos shown during the presentation, you can see Leibovitz in action, shooting portraits in the field. She was using the Pixel 4, but she wasn’t holding it like a typical phone. Instead, she had it secured into a roughly foot-long rig with handles. It’s a piece of gear more familiar to video shooters than photographers, but adding a rig to your camera can have some noticeable benefits no matter what you’re shooting....

In a study published today in the journal Parasitology, researchers found that the Roman fondness for baths, toilets, and indoor plumbing didn’t keep them any cleaner than the barbarians at their gates. Researchers looked at the archeological record, examining coprolites (fossilized poop), combs, and other hygiene artifacts for traces of parasites, evidence of dysentery, and lice. They found that after the Romans conquered entered an area, bringing along their baths and toilets, the number of parasites didn’t fall....

The Chernobyl power plant was “fully disconnected from the power grid” because of the Russian invasion, Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator, said in a statement on Wednesday. “The nuclear station has no power supply.” A loss of power at these plants could disrupt the cooling processes required to keep radioactive material on site safely contained. No electricity means risking leakage. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Wednesday that repairs to the grid are urgently needed....

The company’s WH-1000 line has been popular for years. Still, the WH-1000XM5 is the first generation Sony has radically refreshed the headphone’s design, and the updated look is as simple and sleek as the sound and software are richly detailed. At $279, these are still a premium product (they’re one of our best headphones), but they’re currently down to their lowest price ever. Given their popularity, you may want to pick up a pair ASAP in case they sell out....