Experts say that there may be 14 up to 21 named storms, with three to six of them having winds of 111 mph or higher. And with powerful storms like that, you can also expect bouts of public safety power shutoffs. It’s then in your best interest to have some form of backup power in your home, especially if your daily activities rely on electricity. The good news is you can score a generator on sale at our 4th of July sale....
This year especially, as a real-life pandemic nightmare rages on, there’s no better time to celebrate the spookiest time of year by staying in, turning the lights off, and tucking into a horror game. We’ve curated a list of five top-tier modern scary games to play, widely available on a range of contemporary platforms. Beloved players and critics alike, these titles encompass a variety of themes and gameplay mechanics while offering some of the best scares you can give yourself this spooky season....
But our batteries aren’t perfect. Even if they’ll one day underpin a world that’s sustainable, today they’re made from materials that aren’t. They rely on heavy metals or non-organic polymers that might take hundreds of years to degrade. That’s why battery disposal is such a tricky task. Enter researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Houston, who have made a battery from a promising alternative: crustacean shells....
So, it calls for a equally gigantic solution. Just this week American fashion company Tom Ford announced the finalists for its $1.2 million Plastic Innovation Prize. Out of 64 applicants spanning six continents, eight were selected to material test their concepts for plastic alternatives. After a year, three winners will be chosen to share the prize and continue to develop their product, says Dune Ives, executive director of the environmental nonprofit Lonely Whale, which is co-leading the competition....
“Geneva is, for us, the most important event every year,” explained Christian von Koenigsegg, CEO of the eponymous boutique supercar builder in the film APEX: The Story of the Hypercar. “It is the most international, most prestigious car show on the planet from my perspective.” This year’s show demonstrated why, as Koenigsegg and its peers rolled out still more shocking technology, slinky sheet metal, and astounding performance claims in a new crop of amazing cars....
Luckily, big data and a bunch of savvy psychologists are here to help. They’re figuring out novel ways to track your in-store behavior, anticipate your needs, and help you find exactly what you need—or a pretty nice trade-off if it’s no longer available. Leading that charge is Ray Burke. He directs the Customer Interface Laboratory at Indiana University and has spent years analyzing shopping habits. “Those security cameras you see when you walk into a store?...
While pesticides have consistently been acknowledged as a contributing factor within this problematic milieu, recent research at Penn State has revealed that pesticide levels in hives are much higher than researchers predicted. Beekeepers use some pesticides as an inexpensive way to combat varroa mites in their colonies. While the researchers were able to reduce the pesticide levels in beeswax foundation — the wax that beekeepers use to create hive structures — through irradiation, this only addresses part of the problem....
For example, a Queen-sized Casper Sleep Original Hybrid Mattress, our best hybrid mattress pick, is on sale for $1,440.75 (usually $1,695). That’s 15-percent more you’ll keep in your bank account while you keep your spine aligned thanks to soft foam around the shoulders and firmer foam under the hips, waist, and lower back. A similarly sized Casper Sleep Nova Hybrid is on sale for $1,950.75 (usually $2,295). A Queen Casper Sleep Wave Hybrid is on sale for $2,315....
It turns out soot, a by-product of burning fossil fuels, is to blame for an average temperature rise of about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit. While that’s not quite enough to melt a mogul, it is doing demonstrable damage (from the ski bunny’s point of view, at least). When soot falls, it darkens the snow it lands upon. In turn, the darkened snow absorbs more of the sun’s energy than whiter, cleaner snow would....
Starry-night blanket This super soft and large blanket, made out of microfiber, is the perfect addition to any space-themed room. It features a solar system print and is made by a small, family-owned company based in Austin, Texas. Space-time Bible Originally published in 1988, A Brief History Of Time was a bestseller and a seminal work of scientific writing. Many of Hawking’s observations have since been confirmed, like the discoveries of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE)....
Gummy bears are delicious. That’s not up for debate (though you’re welcome to eat a few to prove the hypothesis). But they’re also the perfect critters to help demonstrate a process that makes life as we know it possible: Osmosis. Believe it or not, osmosis also happens when you drop gummy bears into water, revealing the most basic inner workings of your body’s cells. Just add water and a spoonful of salt to see it happen before your eyes....
Nokia Maps, formerly Ovi Maps, is actually very good, with all those features Apple Maps lacks, and, don’t forget, Nokia owns Navteq, one of the biggest mapping companies in the world. And now Nokia says that “in the coming weeks,” the company plans to release a maps app for iOS (and, soon, Android, though Android’s Google Maps is pretty outstanding). Hell, if you can’t get people to buy Lumias, why not sneak the Lumia’s map app onto iPhones?...
Half a million Vietnamese people are still missing as a result of the war. As victims’ families are clamoring for answers, unidentified bodies keep turning up when people dig into the earth for farming or construction. Vietnamese scientists have tried to identify the bodies using DNA tests, but it’s not easy—the bodies aren’t well preserved because of haphazard burials, often under hot and humid conditions. So even though scientists have decoded DNA from bodies buried centuries ago, much this 40-year-old DNA has broken down over the decades....
One company, Materialise, created the body with stereolithography machines, integrating a student-designed system that, on the car’s left side, draws air across the radiator to cool the engine and, on the right, keeps dirt and water away from the battery pack. The students then worked with the technology group Sirris to print suspension uprights from titanium powder, which lightened the car’s frame by 30 to 40 percent. Another firm, Layerwise, printed hollow titanium suspension components that cut the weight further....
Biophysicists and morphologists analyzed tardigrade walking patterns and found that their gait closely matches those of insects 500,000 times their size, implying that the water bears may share a common ancestor with fruit flies, ants, or perhaps other segmented bugs. Tardigrades also maintain their same scurrying gait no matter their travel speeds, a characteristic mostly observed in insects. The findings were recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....
1. Water After a plumber installs Buoy on your water main, H2O travels through it. Based largely on that flow rate, the system can determine how your household is using its precious hydration—from showers to dishwashing—and shut off the line if it senses a leak. 2. Electricity From your electrical panel, Sense samples your home’s power usage 1 million times a second. AI helps the 5.3-inch box parse how much power each of your appliances draws, so you can adjust usage or, perhaps, upgrade to more-efficient models....
