Awe-inspiring science reporting, technology news, and DIY projects. Skunks to space robots, primates

[ad_1] With a smartphone in your pocket, you'll always have a capable video and audio recorder close to hand. Capturing audio on your phone can help you save an interview, create a spontaneous podcast, log a semester's worth of lectures, and vastly improve your home videos. In all of those scenarios, bad sound quality has the power to ruin your efforts. If you're trying to transcribe an interview, you'll miss words and phrases; if you're sharing the audio with an audience, listeners will get frustrated with the low volume or intrusive background noises. The same goes for filming videos: You don't want distorted sounds to spoil your vacation clips or DIY movies. That's not to say that you need to carry a full sound studio around with you. A few changes can make a huge difference to your phone's ability to capture high-quality sound. Just tweak some settings, download a couple of well-chosen add-ons, and invest in a portable microphone. Here are the apps a...

[ad_1] It was close to midnight in the Brazilian rainforest when biologist Leandro João Carneiro de Lima Moraes spotted a small, grey and white bird resting in the understory. But the snoozing creature wasn’t alone: a large brown moth clung to its neck, probing its eyeball with a long, sucking tongue. A little under an hour later, Moraes came across another bird-moth pair. The bird, another Black-chinned Antbird, once again sat on its branch in a sleepy stupor as the erebid moth fluttered on the bird’s neck and slurped its eye juices. For the moths, this is a pretty standard night out. Biologists have spotted moths and butterflies drinking tears from mammals, turtles, and crocodiles. Bird eyeballs are a less common source of refreshment—Moraes is the first person to spot moths drinking bird tears in Brazil. Before now, there have only been a couple other accounts of moth-on-bird-eye action in Madagascar and Colombia. Moths and butterflies use tear-feeding, officia...

[ad_1] When the leaves start to turn, fleas suddenly seem to show up everywhere. If they establish a beachhead inside your home, you’ll have much more trouble getting rid of them. Here’s how to keep the biting bugs off your turf. Why do fleas appear in the fall? Fleas go through four life stages. First, there’s the egg—one female can lay a hundred to several thousand over the course of her life. These 0.02-inch-long ovals can stay alive for up to a year, but they really thrive in the hot summer months. So as we get into the dog days of August, the ova start to hatch into larvae. These baby fleas have an appetite, and they can eat any organic material, including their fellow eggs (if they don’t hatch fast enough). The larvae prefer dark and humid spaces, so they’ll hole up under your bedding and carpets, munching away. As they’re only 0.06 to 0.16 inches long, they’re also hard to spot unless you have a flashlight. Once the larvae eat enoug...

[ad_1] An uncommon type of storm known as a “Medicane” is swirling to life in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The nickname—a portmanteau of Mediterranean and hurricane—is given to low-pressure systems that form over the sea and take on tropical or subtropical characteristics. Storms of this nature only form once or twice a year due to the Mediterranean sea’s cool waters. The Medicane forming near Greece will bring several inches of rain, damaging wind gusts, and rough seas to the country and other parts of eastern Europe as it moves inland over the weekend. The storm’s size, strength, and winds—possibly gusting to 60 MPH at times—make it comparable to a tropical storm, and it’ll have similar effects to one as it makes landfall. Medicanes have a lot in common with subtropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean. A subtropical cyclone is powered by different processes than a tropical cyclone, but they’re close enough in characteristics a...

[ad_1] The researchers at NASA’s Frontier Development Lab (FDL) in Mountain View California just spent the summer working on out-of-this-world problems. They came from all over the globe and all different disciplines; computer science engineers, planetary scientists, even a particle physicist. For eight weeks they dug through data and maps, created worlds and atmospheres, sorted them, and tested their computer algorithms against the simulations. Their final products are still rough, but some hope they might contribute to our understanding of our own solar system, and overall efforts to find habitable—and maybe even inhabited—planets elsewhere in the universe. The FDL program itself is now in its third year. Previous sessions have tackled problems including asteroid detection, mapping, and deflection, as well as mapping solar storms. This year there were sessions focused on our solar system, including groups looking for ways to improve space weather predictions sponsore...

[ad_1] The Facebook app typically keeps you logged in pretty much forever, so you can pop by at any time and scroll through your feed (and look at a few ads while you’re at it). This morning, however, 90 million users found that they had to log back in thanks to a “your session has expired” error message. It seemed like a simple bug, but it’s actually the result of a “security issue” that Facebook discovered earlier this week that could affect the personal data of up to 50 million users. According to Facebook’s statement, Facebook employees originally noticed the issue on Tuesday, September 25. The problem arose from an exploit within a feature called “view as,” which allows users to see their pages how others would. This feature required the use of an “access token,” which is what hangs around your computer or phone to keep you logged in at all times. By stealing that access token, people with bad intentions could ...

[ad_1] Google continued rolling out its Smart Compose feature to a larger group of users this week. The Gmail service, which was announced in May but rolled out slowly, generates suggestions for how to end this sentence—or any other. The feature works like this: Instead of staring down a blank page, phantom words appear in a light grey amidst your half-written sentences. Hit the "tab" button, and Google's words are incorporated seamlessly into your note, as if they were your own. When I tried writing this story in a blank new message on Gmail, nothing happened. The service had very little predictive power in the face of my deliberately original sentences. But as I’ve been writing more rote messages to my colleagues, with questions about contracts or things that are administrative in nature, Gmail would automatically filled in “Hi, [person name],” try to round out a few easy sentences, and even generate a warm send-off. (I do hope to hear from you soon, colleague...

[ad_1] Gadgets The end-of-week dispatch from PopSci's commerce editor. Vol. 56. My job is to find cool stuff. Throughout the week I spend hours scouring the web for things that are ingenious or clever or ridiculously cheap. [ad_2] Written By Billy Cadden

[ad_1] For more than a decade, millions of bees around the world have been dying mysteriously. This week, scientists may have found another clue as to why—linking the popular weed-killer Roundup to problems in the microbiome of honey bees. Previous research has linked the plight of the bees to common pesticides, pests and pathogens, and global climate change. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, could contribute by messing with the balance of healthy bacteria in bee guts and making them more susceptible to disease, according to a new study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . “There are many factors causing death in beehives related to colony collapse disorder, and we want to know what’s really causing that,” says Erick Motta, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the authors of the new study. Glyphosate doesn’t actually kill bees outright. Roundup is an herbicide rather than a pestic...

[ad_1] Hurricane Rosa could pose a flooding threat to desert southwest and parts of the Rocky Mountains in the middle of next week as the storm makes a sharp turn toward northwestern Mexico. Forecasters are only expecting a couple of inches of rain—nothing like we’ve seen from recent storms out East—but the impermeable ground in the Southwest makes even a short burst of heavy rain a dangerous prospect for people in vulnerable areas. The eastern Pacific hurricane season is churning out storms in abundance this year. Rosa is the tenth hurricane to form in this part of the world this season, and it’s the first storm to significantly threaten the Mexican coast. Rosa grew into a major hurricane on Thursday afternoon, taking advantage of warm water, moist air, and low wind shear in the environment around it. Weather models have been strikingly consistent, with the trough picking up the hurricane and moving it toward Mexico and the United States. An upper-level trough i...

[ad_1] Yesterday, Facebook and Oculus announced a new self-contained virtual reality headset with a killer feature: the ability to map the room around you. The device, called Oculus Quest, uses four onboard sensors to understand what the surrounding environment in the real, physical world looks like. It can track your head’s position in that landscape. This isn’t the first VR system to do something like this: Oculus Rift, which requires a powerful PC to operate, uses separate, external infrared LED sensors to track your motions. The Quest does something similar, without the need for a PC or those separate sensors. Here’s how Oculus Quest fits into the VR landscape, and how it works. It’s a big step up from the Go device The Oculus Quest follows another self-contained VR device from the company: the Oculus Go. That headset, released in May of this year, is a gadget that doesn’t require a computer to run, but lacks awareness of where it is in a room. (Its cat...

[ad_1] In 15 frames, the bright flare of the sun moves across a pitch-black sky, arcing above a rocky, boulder-strewn surface. It was taken by Rover 1-B, one of two Japanese rovers currently hopping around on the surface of the asteroid Ryugu. The duo detached from the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft last week and quickly began sending back mesmerizing images of the asteroid’s stony surface. The solar-powered rovers are small, just seven inches across and less than three inches tall, but they contain cameras and temperature sensors to give astronomers back home their best look so far at a C-type (carbon-rich) asteroid. The bots move autonomously, activating an internal motor that sends them just high enough to glide about 50 feet in 15 minutes. The hopping mechanism is carefully calibrated—Ryugu’s low gravity means that a more powerful jump could send them soaring straight off into space. The Hayabusa-2 mission is just getting started. In October, it’s expected to release ...

[ad_1] A researcher watching Russia’s largest High Arctic glacier was surprised when his gaze shifted to its nearby neighbor. What he saw there raised questions about how glaciers work—and what we may be facing as the world warms. “I kept on seeing this other ice cap in the southern part of the scenes I was looking at via satellite,” says University of Colorado geologist Michael Willis. He was studying the Academy of Sciences Glacier, Russia’s largest, but what really caught his eye was the nearby Vavilov Ice Cap. It was doing something totally unexpected, he says: moving, and quickly. The ice cap—the term refers to a type of glacier, of which “polar ice cap” is a subset—is of a kind that’s supposed to be very stable. “This kind of ice cap shouldn’t be displaying this kind of behavior,” Willis says. In this instance, though, the ice cap was practically galloping along: “surging” at a pace of 82 fee...

[ad_1] The original Ultimate Ears Boom speaker debuted way back in 2013. It was rugged, looked cool, and sounded surprisingly great in a time when most rugged bluetooth speakers had the autio quality of an FM radio tied up in a garbage bag. Now, UE is rolling out the Boom 3 and the bigger Megaboom 3, both of which carry on the tradition of excellent audio products you don’t mind taking into the shower. What you won’t find inside those stylish, tubular bodies, however, is Alexa. Unlike the Blast and the Megablast that arrived late last year. Instead of voice control, the Boom 3 added a single programmable button, and in some ways, that’s just better than a full-on digital assistant. What is it? The $150 Boom 3 and the $200 Megaboom 3 are portable, battery-powered speakers that are waterproof and shaped in such a way that they throw sound in every direction. The Megaboom 3 is a physically larger speaker—imagine a fatter version of those tall Arizona iced tea cans y...

[ad_1] If you want to navigate your smartphone at top speed, single-finger tapping just won't cut it. As device manufacturers ditch physical buttons for huge, bezel-free screens, specific hand gestures have become vital shortcuts for powering through emails, notifications, maps, and more. But how can you tell when to make specific motions? The correct swipe isn't always obvious (especially if you've just recently upgraded your iPhone to one of the new Home-button-free versions). Here are the gestures you should add to your repertoire. On an iPhone Hide the keyboard: When you're typing a message, but then decide to check something on the lower half of the screen, that keyboard gets in the way. To hide it, swipe down on its top border; then restore it by tapping inside the text-entry box again. Go back: In certain iOS apps, such as Safari and Messages, a back button appears in the top-left corner of the interface. You can also return to the previous screen with a gestur...

[ad_1] A s floodwaters brought by Hurricane Florence subside, homeowners, businesses, and the government face the long task of cleaning up. But as the crews do their work, there is a little-talked-about danger in the aftermath of severe storms like this one — Formosan termites. This invasive species is a plague on homes and structures across the southeast, where decades-long efforts to exterminate and contain them can be undone when the bugs hitch a ride with cleanup crews hauling away storm debris. Some termites — metaphorically speaking — can “hold” their breath underwater for nearly 20 hours, making them uniquely equipped to survive hurricane-induced floods. The Eastern subterranean termite, for example, can last 19 hours, nearly twice as long as the Formosan termite (at 11 hours), or the Southern subterranean (14 hours). They can drown if flood water persists for several days, but most won’t. To be sure, technic...

[ad_1] Announcing all-new, high definition nightmares, brought to you by researchers at the University of Kansas, where biologists have developed new techniques to pose and image certain animals. The ability to compare vertebrate skeletons in excruciating detail is important for anatomists and taxonomists who need to note minuscule differences for their research. Traditionally they’ve gone about this work by “staining” the bones with dyes, and “clearing” out most of the muscle tissue by dissolving it with a digestive enzyme. You wind up with a colorful but floppy specimen with see-through skin—ready for its close-up. The new methods supercharge that process by creating the option to pose the creature. After a year of trial and error, a biologist-taxidermist duo cooked up a concoction of gelatin and glycerine that sets slowly enough to suspend your stained-and-cleared specimen in the gel and get your tools (and fingers) out of the way with time to spar...

[ad_1] Your local putt-putt spot is a silly land of spinning windmills and laughing clowns. But the tacky surroundings don’t mean you can’t go all Jack Nicklaus and totally freakin’ dominate those baby greens. The putting skills you refine while dodging miniature Stonehenges can help on the big-kid course too. Here’s the pro-grade gear you need to destroy your friends at the shortest short game. 1. Practice first. The PuttOut is a serious training tool. A well-struck ball, with the force and trajectory to go in the hole, will roll up the plastic ramp, then back toward you. Hit too hard and the ball will launch off the back; wayward shots will fall off the side. 2. Picture success Markings on the Wellputt Pro mat help you visualize every element of a perfect hit. Guidelines on the 10-​foot-​long turf show the right backswing distance and ideal ball paths. The drills in the included book will help hone your skills. 3. Choose your tool The Odyssey Exo ...

[ad_1] Take a look up at the night sky. See all those stars? For every one of those bright points of light, there may be an object that failed to shine. But astronomers have spent decades trying to figure out why some balls of gas shine bright while others hide in the dark. But now, for the first time, astronomers have found a failed star that’s just as big as a successful one—and it’s challenging what we know about star formation. In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, Carnegie Institute of Science researchers looked at a bizarre stellar system around 12 light years away. The triple system involves one star slightly smaller than the Sun—Epsilon Indi A—and two failed stars, Epsilon Indi B and C. Astronomers identified these two failed stars, or “brown dwarfs,” in 2002, but their exact mass had never been measured. The team spent years monitoring the objects and the subtle effects they had on their parent star that cause it to deviate...

[ad_1] What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s newest podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, PocketCasts, and basically everywhere else you listen to podcasts every Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. This week's episode is extra special: it's the first half of our first-ever live show, which happened on September 14 at Caveat in NYC. We're already cooking up plans for another one in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled for more info! FACT: This cheese is so gnarly it's literally illegal By Rachel Feltman on behalf of Sara Chodosh, who is on a well-deserved vacation! Consider how many disgusting, potentially dangerous foods are totally legal to eat: fermented, actively rotting shark mea...