Steroids and human growth hormone are yesterday’s headlines. The future of performance enhancement belongs to a dizzying array of medical wizardry, including manipulating stem cells and inducing euphoric mental states, that could make the cheaters stronger and faster than ever—and catching them nearly impossible. Launch the gallery for a look at what’s coming.
“If we each keep our genetic information secret, then we’re all going to die,” Maris said onstage yesterday at the Wall Street Journal tech conference in California, as Bloomberg reports. We leave our DNA everywhere we go, Maris points out. And he’s right about that—whether it’s a stray hair left on the floor, or saliva remnants on your used coffee cup, DNA-carrying cells are leaving a trail wherever you go....
Running Swifter suits, shoes that lean and gaming the pistol are just the beginning of the tech innovations giving track the runaround this summer Synchronized Swimming Think it’s a sissy sport? Think again. A look at the arduous training, high-tech speakers and super-strong hair paste involved in keeping those swimmers peak Volleyball Smacking a ball over a net calls for some surprising technology Softball A look at the advanced tools players are using to stay sharp—even as softball’s last hurrah nears a close...
The feat—which pioneering black hole theorist James Bardeen called hopeless in 1973—represented a towering achievement of astronomical technology. But once the data processing was done and the champagne popped, the EHT collaboration in some sense resembled the dog who caught the car. “It took everyone a little by surprise that they got such a good image so fast,” says Andrew Strominger, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University. “Sheperd and Michael [Johnson, a Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist and EHT coordinator,] were asking me about it....
The glitch in the app is specific to the inland city of Mildura, which Apple Maps apparently thinks is more than 40 miles from its actual location. The app places Mildura in the middle of Murray Sunset National Park, which contains no potable water supply and where temperatures can soar to 115 degrees. Police are calling it a “potentially life-threatening issue.” In other words, it’s not a great place to run out of gas....
Some 118 years had passed since Wilbur and Orville Wright achieved the first airplane flight on Earth. Still, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) properly hailed the event as a “Wright brothers moment.” Just like the Wrights, the Ingenuity team faced years of mishaps, milestones, and victories before they saw success. Since that day last month, the Mars chopper has flown five more times, with plans for another flight soon. One tiny detail physically links the Mars drone to the Wright brothers....
To get the image, NASA used a Super King Air turboprop aircraft flying at an indicated airspeed of about 160 mph at 30,000 feet. The two supersonic jets, separated by about 30 feet front to back and 10 feet vertically, were below the King Air by about 2,000 feet when it shot the images. The King Air has ports on its belly that can be opened or closed, and the photography gear was positioned in one of those ports so it could shoot downwards....
But sometimes—to some patients’ probable dismay—leeches are, indeed, what the doctor orders. “We always have leeches on hand,” says Vishal Thanik, a plastic surgeon at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital and New York University’s Langone Medical Center. “If you’ve ever seen a leech, it’s crazy looking. And if you’ve never had to use it, it’s daunting. It’s a bit like time traveling.” The vampiric worms have a storied place in medicine....
The researchers think that in the future this method could be employed not only to control wheelchairs, but also other artificial limbs. The research was published today in Scientific Reports. Previously, other research groups have tried to achieve this task using noninvasive devices, but an implantable brain-machine interface (BMI) provides more nuanced control. The research group, led by Miguel Nicolelis of the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering, implanted the device into the brains of rhesus monkeys, whose brains are most similar to humans....
In findings published in PLOS One late last month, researchers from Naples, Italy found that a segment of Vesuvius victims were likely killed by fast-moving laving surges that streamed down toward the towns below, creating temperatures high enough to vaporize bodily fluids and create explosions in the skull. It’s about as horrific a way to go as you might imagine, and upends the notion that the toxic gases and thick chunks of ash were responsible for choking inhabitants to death during the AD 79 eruption....
Over the last two years, a flood of imaging, genetic sequencing, and experimenting with everything from modified viral particles to disembodied spike proteins has allowed scientists to explain how this pathogen and its variants killed more than 6 million people and infected millions more. The infectiousness and deadliness of SARS-CoV-2 depends on countless factors. To be successful, the virus has to grab onto host cells, reproduce inside, and then make a quick exit....
On Tuesday, NASA launched its Cygnus cargo spacecraft, which is set to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) tomorrow. Hitching a ride on Cygnus is 8,200 pounds of materials designated for scientific experiments aboard the ISS, including the gloopy slime mold. Once aboard, the Blob will undergo a week-long experiment run by the European Space Agency (ESA) to see how the mold’s behavior changes in microgravity. Schoolchildren aged 10 to 18 all over Europe will be following along, replicating the slime mold experiments in class to see how their slimes compare on the ground....
While the test took place in February, the Office of Naval Research announced the results April 13. Earlier that day, the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Flagship Moskva, a missile cruiser, caught fire. Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed the fire set off an internal ammunition detonation while the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said the ship had been hit by Neptune anti-ship missiles. On April 14, while being towed back to port, the Moskva sank....
CBS made an announcement today, stating that Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote the two latest Star Trek films will be the executive producer for the new series, which will be streamed over CBS’ on-demand online service, CBS All Access. You can watch the premiere on TV, but after that you’ll have to subscribe to the $5.99/month service in order to see more episodes. It’s a clever ploy to bring in subscribers, because, really, who doesn’t want to see the next Star Trek series?...
For a print publication as storied as Newsweek this shift to digital is a huge move, not only because it has to be one of the largest (if not the largest) print publications to do so but because online-only, all-digital news-weeklies and dailies haven’t fared particularly well thus far–for instance, The Daily is reportedly on its last legs, and its tablet-optimized, all-digital format certainly isn’t horrible, nor is its content....
Jinho Ahn and Edward Brook of Oregon State University executed the study with support form the National Science Foundation and their report was published in the journal Science. The team essentially crushed the frozen bubbles encased in their 390 ice core samples—carefully, of course, some were almost 90,000 years old—to release some truly old gas. Researchers then measured the carbon dioxide levels in each sample and compared the numbers with climate data from the icy north (Antarctica and Greenland), and with ocean sediments from the south (Chile and the Iberian Peninsula)....
Adding the feature is a good move for Twitter, as it promises to keep users around for things like breaking news, and to quote PopSci contributor Kelsey D. Atherton, breaking news is what Twitter does best. This breaks Twitter’s model of engaging users in conversation though, instead giving them content without letting them interact; viewers who want to chat with the streamer or give them hearts will have to click an “open stream in Periscope” button or open the stream directly in the Periscope app....
Share your passion for space exploration with this quality rendition of the official logo of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This pin is made from enameled copper with silver-colored brass plating, and is 1.25 inches in diameter (a bit larger than a quarter). Display your sense of humor (and your twin loves of coffee and astronomy) with this delightful, 1.2-inch pin, which features two pin backs and clutches to ensure it stays on your stuff....
Anyone who owns a dog knows you can catch a yawn from your pet, and vice versa. My dog, a 5-year-old border collie rescue, has this piercing yawn-peak squeal and head shiver that literally makes it impossible not to catch it. And I have seen her watching me, yawning after I do. She would have started this after about seven months of age, according to this new study, authored by researchers at Lund University in Sweden....
