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Several years ago, animal behavior specialist Monique Udell of the University of Oregon and her then doctoral student Kristyn Vitale decided to look at cat-human relationships through the lens of attachment theory. The theory, originally developed in the 1970s by psychiatrist John Bowlby, describes the types of relationships that young humans form with their guardians. Bowlby and the researchers who built on his work observed that infants whose caregivers were consistent, responsive, and affectionate developed what he called secure attachments....

One reason blood is dangerous to human health is it carries risky viruses. “Human blood is a biohazard,” says Laura Purdy, a family medicine physician and chief medical officer of telehealth company OpenLoop. “By exposing ourselves to someone else’s blood, you are potentially exposing yourself to infections that live in the bloodstream.” Just a few drops from the impure liquid is enough to transmit infectious blood-borne diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C....

“You get very excited to see that for the first time,” says Angela Ziltener, a wildlife biologist at the University of Zurich who has studied dolphins in this region for more than a decade. When she initially witnessed the behavior, she wondered if the dolphins were brushing up against the corals because it simply felt good or if there was something more to it. To find out, Ziltener and her collaborators analyzed tissue samples from the invertebrates....

Here is a list of things the Parrot POT doesn’t do: FlyMoveLocomoteTravelSoarLevitate Instead, this non-moving flowerpot is an invitation for gardeners to move even less. Available in slate gray, porcelain, or brick, the pot is almost 12 inches tall, 8 inches in diameter, and weighs a little over 3 pounds. It also holds up to 9 cups of water in its tank, and it can monitor the soil and moisture of the plant inside....

The UC team created a software program called Sneakey that can re-create the “biting code” of a key. This code, which is quite simple compared to the passcode needed to unlock, say, a wireless network or encrypted hard disk, examines the indentations of a standard key, which usually has only five or six cuts. The software uses this to output a copy of the biting code, which can be used to create a new key....

But when atmospheric scientists approximated the effect of rising carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, they found a different story: that the world would warm as we continued to burn fossil fuels. In 1967, Syukuro Manabe and Richard. T. Wetherald published their paper “Thermal Equilibrium of the atmosphere with a given distribution of relative humidity,” finding that a doubling of carbon dioxide could lead to a 2.4ºC temperature rise. It’s since been cited over 1,700 times and is considered the first major study to predict global warming....

A quick note about buying refurbished The eBay refurbished program breaks out products into different tiers based on their condition. The top tier comes with the Certified Refurbished designation, which means it’s basically new and comes with a two-year warranty. There are three steps below that, each representing a bump down in overall condition, but they still all offer a full one-year warranty. eBay Certified Refurbished deals Remember that eBay will give you an extra 15-percent off up to $100 in total discount if you use the code REFURBISHED15....

That all changed with a bang, sometime around 2.3 billion years ago. Scientists generally believe that microorganisms called cyanobacteria, using photosynthesis, began to pump out enough oxygen to quite literally terraform Earth. It’s called the Great Oxygenation Event, or GOE. It was “this huge climatic shift, environmental shift in Earth’s history,” says Sarah Slotznick, an Earth scientist at Dartmouth College, “the biggest one that we have.” But there are many unanswered questions about how the GOE played out....

PFAS are useful, but the major problem with many of them is that they never fully breakdown in the environment—and some have been found to pose serious health risks. That’s why staff at Zero Waste Washington, a nonprofit advocating to reduce waste, were concerned about compostable food packaging, because the paper-based boxes, cups, and plates are lined with—you guessed it—a coating that often contains PFAS. “Heather Trim from Zero Waste Washington called me and said we push everything to be composted that can be composted … but I think we’ve made a big mistake, we didn’t know about these perfluorinated compounds,” recalls Linda Lee, an agronomist at Purdue University....

Enough House and Senate seats are on the ballot to flip legislative control—though a House swap is more likely. FiveThirtyEight says there’s an an 85-percent chance that the lower chamber will change hands, and the Cook Political Report has marked 49 races as toss-ups. A sweeping change could reset the agenda on dozens of issues, including incentivizing renewable-energy efforts and protecting net neutrality. “One of the primary things we would see immediately would be issues surrounding the environment and climate change playing out in oversight hearings,” says Joanne Carney, head of government relations for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a nonprofit based in Washington, D....

E-Ink draws power only when changing its black-and-white images, so it can show a pattern without draining batteries. In the latest version, engineers shaved 40 percent off the screen’s thickness by applying thinner layers of the coatings that protect it from moisture and ultraviolet light. They also stacked the layers in a different order to mesh them together tighter. A flexible ceramic backing, in place of Teflon, lets the screen withstand temperatures from 14° to 140°F....

The case is a departure from the PS4’s current design. Its curved sides and flared white outer layer make it very easy to discern from other consoles, including the upcoming Xbox Series X, which will adopt a very understated obelisk shape. Critics online have already laid into the PS5 for its resemblance to a high-end router and its “popped collar” on the front. There will be two hardware editions of the PS5: one will include an optical drive for playing disc-based games, the other will be completely digital....

Falling through thin ice is a wintertime hazard that claims many lives each year. Before you head out for ice fishing, trapping, or any other activity on frozen bodies of water, make sure you plan ahead for this kind of winter crisis and make sure you know exactly what to do if it happens to you or someone near you. Sometimes the wrong decision or delayed action can cost lives....

In 2005, high-resolution images from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan revealed icy jets and plumes ejecting particles into space above the southern polar region of Enceladus. After examining several models, researchers working on the Cassini mission theorized that the source of the plumes could be pockets of liquid water close to the surface of Enceladus — like icy versions of Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser. In 2008, Cassini completed several “flybys” of Enceladus, including one on October 9 that brought the spacecraft to within just 16 miles of the moon’s surface — the closest flyby yet of any Saturn moon....

If you’re looking for a well-priced laptop that can withstand long hours on the job and the daily commute, the Asus ZenBook 13 delivers. The 13-inch design meets military grade standards for durability, yet still weighs just 2.6 pounds. This model contains an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8565u processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, making it highly competitive with other top laptops. An innovative hinge on the screen allows your keyboard to tilt to a more ergonomic position when open, so you are typing at a slight angle....

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In a butterfly house—a walk-through greenhouse—the flying, colorful insects float above heads, balance gracefully on plants, and even sometimes land delicately on arms. The experience, some argue, is a means to ease the insect world’s icky-sticky PR problem, and help the public appreciate the essential ecological roles such critters play. “I think our little butterfly house ventures have become ever more important in reminding people of the symbiosis between nature, between insects, between humans and the whole thing,” says Stephen Fried, who’s built the enclosures across Western Europe....

In 2013, Dennon Oosterman and his former classmates Alex Kay and David Joyce grew tired of churning through expensive filament. So they built a machine that could recycle it back into usable form. The $700 ProtoCycler grinds scrap plastic—such as empty bottles and rejected 3D-printed models—into digestible pieces, melts it down, extrudes it, and winds it onto a spool. To ensure consistency, a computer-controlled diameter-feedback system uses two cameras to accurately measure the width of the filament....

“We would have been happy with either name, but we really think the name Fritz fits this spunky little guy’s personality,” said Cincinnati Zoo’s head hippo keeper Wendy Rice in a press release. “We also thought it was funny that it was suggested because ‘Fritz’ is here due to Bibi’s birth control being ‘on the fritz’.” Earlier in 2021, Bibi and Tucker received a breeding recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Species Survival Plan (SSP) Program....

Polar bears have an unusual hunting period. Most animals stock up on food in the warm months, building fat reserves to get through the long, cold winters. But polar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay area do the opposite: their best food source is the arctic seal, which they can only hunt in the coldest winter months. In the winter and spring, the polar bears head on out into the bay, frozen over with ice, and begin hunting delicious, fatty seals....