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

[ad_1] Every day, technology forces us to navigate a swath of complicated social situations. The grand champion of awkward, tech-based interactions, however, is the rating dance we do with Lyft and Uber drivers. This week, we found out that Uber riders with low ratings (rumors suggest the cutoff is somewhere around 4.6) may soon find themselves unable to request a car. It’s the kind of thing that sounds so convoluted and vexing that it would have been a Seinfeld subplot if the show was still on the air. But, that wasn’t the only news in the tech world this week. Here’s a handy breakdown of the biggest stories you may have missed when you were writing fan-fic in which Kramer battles Uber after it bans him for trying to bring a live cougar he won in a card game into his driver’s GMC Yukon. Listen to the latest episode of Techathlon This week’s episode of the best tech-based game show podcast around is short and sweet. A new player joins the squad to take on ...

[ad_1] It’s time for us to get acquainted with the “Forbidden Planet.” No, not the 1956 sci-fi classic—I’m talking about a new Neptune-like exoplanet found 920 light-years away, given the moniker thanks to its inexplicably ability to exist too close to its host star. In the world of space science, Neptune is far from a unique gem. Similar exoplanets (gas giants far bigger than Earth but exceptionally smaller than something like Jupiter) are perhaps the most common planets out there in space. But if they get too close to their host star, in an orbital zone we ominously call the “Neptunian desert,” they’re inundated with bouts of stellar radiation that evaporates their gaseous atmospheres and leaves behind a barren, shriveled up rocky core. That’s not the case with the Forbidden Planet—formally known as NGTS-4b. It’s in the Neptunian desert, frightfully close to its host star, boasting an orbit of just 1.34 days. Yet, as re...

[ad_1] Spring is the season of developers conferences, when tech companies showcase this big releases for the rest of the year. So far, 2019 has been fairly mundane. We’ve already heard about some small updates from Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. This coming Monday, June 3, it'll be time for Tim Cook and the Apple clan to close things out with their World Wide Developers Conference. There were no real world-shakers at last year’s conference. Apple debuted for macOS Mojave—complete with dark mode, which I have very much enjoyed—and iOS 12. The company also announced ARKit 2, though we haven't seen much in the way of augmented reality progress since; the one exception may be the nifty Measure app, which uses the iPhone’s camera and AR to measure real-world objects. Perhaps the biggest debut in 2018 was the Screentime feature, which tallies how much time folks spend on their phones and iPads to guilt them into going outside. It'll be interesting to see if Ap...

[ad_1] The naked mole rat gets so much press, you’d think it was the only mole rat in town. Sure those hairless weirdos can survive at oxygen levels below that of Mount Everest’s peak and seem to age on a ridiculously slow timescale, but that doesn’t mean their toothy brethren don’t also have winning qualities. Yes, there are in fact, roughly 50 mole rat species. Though most of them aren’t wrinkly and bald, the mole rat family do seem to share another common trait: immunity to pain. Now, that doesn’t mean you can stomp on their lil’ feet and not expect a yelp or two. It does mean that several mole rats have developed specific, strategic insensitivities to certain kinds of pain. Take the highveld mole rat. You might think this is a dramatic photo showing a highveld mole rat about to obliterate its mortal enemy, the Natal droptail ant. These little bugs like to bite any invaders entering their nests, then inject a painful, stinging liquid into the...

[ad_1] Smartphones have a plethora of uses nowadays, but they're still essential for simply keeping in touch—the same reason the telephone was invented in the first place. Nearly 150 years later, though, we've got many more options for how to do it. The Android and iOS app stores are packed so many messaging apps that choosing one might seem overwhelming, but we've collected the best of the best here for your perusal. Whether you need to share files with a work colleague, organize a group of friends on a night out, or share photos of your newborn baby with family, these apps can help. Look out for extras like video and audio calls besides basic text chats, as well as full end-to-end encryption if you want to keep the contents of your conversations secret from anyone who isn't involved. WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage will all encrypt your messages. If an app doesn't offer end-to-end encryption by default, that doesn't mean company staff, law enforcement, or gover...

[ad_1] When the conversation turns to clean, renewable energy, the talk almost always is about sun and wind. No one ever brings up another natural power source, as yet untapped — snow. Incredible as it may sound, falling snow carries an electrical charge. Scientists have known this for decades, but until recently they couldn’t figure out how to turn it into electricity. Two UCLA scientists have invented a device that uses silicone to capture the electrical charge from snow — and create electricity. Their tool is uncomplicated, small, thin and flexible, inexpensive, and — because it generates its own power — needs no batteries. With an average annual seasonal snowfall cover of nearly one-third of the Earth’s land mass, “we have a great source of energy ready to be collected,” said Maher El-Kady, a postdoctoral researcher in chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA and co-inventor of the device. ...

[ad_1] Things from space can have quite the impact on the lifeforms trying to chill here on Earth. The most obvious example of this is the meteor impact that casually wiped out three-fourths of the planet’s plant and animal life. Grim stuff. But sometimes, all that space gobbledygook does something much weirder. In a new paper published in the Journal of Geology , scientists suggest a series of distant supernovae —stars that exploded millions of years ago—may have helped encouraged early human ancestors to learn how to walk upright. You can read that part again if you’d like, but it’s not going to get less bizarre. How is it that a bunch of stars catastrophically exploding somewhere else could possibly lead to bipedalism in Homo sapiens ? Let’s take this step. Adrian Melott, an astrophysicist from the University of Kansas and lead author of the new paper, has been studying supernovae for much of his career. But just a few years ago, researchers found ...

[ad_1] Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are everywhere. There are thousands of these synthetic compounds, which get used in all sorts of products because of their flame retardant and oil- and water-repelling properties. PFAS coat nonstick pans, water-resistant fabrics, and glossy paper. They’re also in fire-fighting foams. 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,...

[ad_1] Popular Science’s new series, The Builders, takes you behind the construction tape to reveal the individuals responsible for history’s greatest architectural works. Glance at an Incan brick, and you’ll notice there’s very little that’s conventionally bricklike about it. There are no right angles, no proper corners. And it’s not a rectangle at all, but a trapezoid: one side wider and squatter than the other. Look at another. Then another. Then another. No two are exactly the same, each a polygonal version of the unique rock it started as. Carefully stacked together like a 15th-century game of Tetris , these seemingly haphazard blocks have withstood 500 years of disasters, both natural and human. The signature style of the pre-Columbian empire, these stones marked the Inca expansion some 2,500 miles down the backbone of South America. The sprawl took just a few decades, propelled by the strength of a man named Pachacuti, the ninth Sapa Inca (the ...

[ad_1] We are forever chasing our origins. When we can’t find what we want in the present, we go back, and back further still, until there, at the dawn of time, we imagine we’ve found it. In the gloomy mists of the past, having squeezed ourselves back into the womb of humanity, we take a good look. Here it is, we say with satisfaction. Here is the root of our difference. Once upon a time, scientists were convinced that Aboriginal Australians were further down the evolutionary ladder from other humans, perhaps closer to Neanderthals. In 2010 it turned out that Europeans are actually likely to have the most drops of Neanderthal blood, metaphorically speaking. In January 2014 an international team of leading archaeologists, geneticists, and anthropologists confirmed that humans outside Africa had bred with Neanderthals. Those of European and Asian ancestry have a very small but tangible presence of this now-extinct human in our lineage, up to around 4 percent of our DNA. People...

[ad_1] You might not realize just how many tasks can be carried out via your smartphone, but if you've got the right apps, you can do pretty much anything. That doesn't just mean playing games, surfing the web, or posting photos—you can use it to knock things off your to-do list, too. From making restaurant reservations to finding someone to fix a leak in your basement, we've collected some of the top apps that will turn your phone into an outsourcing machine. TaskRabbit Not only is TaskRabbit simple to use, but it covers a broad range of services. These include assembling furniture, fetching groceries, cleaning the house, helping with house moves, and more. TaskRabbit Taskers will even stand in a line for you. First, choose the job you need a hand with and the app will show you a list of qualified Taskers, together with their hourly rates and reviews from previous users. You'll be able to pick appointment times and organize any further details inside the app. All poten...

[ad_1] Last year, the company that makes Roombas announced their latest floor-cleaning robot. Called the i7, the bot’s marquee feature was the ability to learn the layout of your home, remember that house-scape, and then clean specific rooms on command. But that kind of intelligence, plus a base station that automatically sucks the dirt out of the Roomba, comes at a price: $1,100. But today iRobot announced an even pricier model, called the S9, that costs $1,300. (It goes for $1,000 without the self-cleaning base station.) When I asked iRobot’s CEO, Colin Angle, how this newest cleaning machine compares to the i7—I referred to the i7 as the “Cadillac of Roombas” when phrasing the question—he called the s9 “the Hummer.” Part of what justifies that Hummer nickname is its ability to suck more powerfully than previous, older Roombas—it has four times the suction of the i7. Another is that it’s better sealed, to keep allergens insid...

[ad_1] This morning, Amazon announced the $90 Echo Show 5. It’s essentially an Echo smart speaker with an adorable little 5.5-inch touchscreen display on the front. It’s roughly half the size and less than half the price of the 10.1-inch, $229 Echo Show, and the 5 will probably only get cheaper once Prime Day, Black Friday, or any other holiday associated with e-commerce frenzies rolls around. On paper, the new Echo Show 5 looks like a very capable device for its price, but the fact that it has a simple plastic flap that covers the camera has found its way into an abundance of headlines. The device’s front-facing camera enables voice chat through services like Skype, but it also makes some users slightly nervous. Amazon has been putting cameras in Echo devices since the original Echo Show debuted in 2017, but this is the first time one has come with an integrated cover that physically blocks it. The move makes sense. Recently, Alexa attracted a lot of unflattering head...

[ad_1] The summer of 2018 in Europe, North America, and Asia was blistering. People died from the scorching heat. Roads and train tracks cracked. Power fizzled. Wildfires erupted. In Switzerland, climate researcher Martha Vogel found relief by swimming in Lake Zurich. But trying to work in her south-facing office without air conditioning became a real challenge. She left the windows open at night and closed the shutters against the sun during the day, making conditions a bit more tolerable. Her building was near the lake, which also helped. But the experience left her convinced it was important “to investigate the 2018 event from a climate perspective,” she said. In subsequent research, Vogel and her colleagues at ETH, a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics university in Zurich, found that the size and number of simultaneous heat waves in the summer of 2018 is the result of human-caused climate change. “The occurrence of such extraordinary global-scale hea...