Media Platforms Design Team Everyone knows the feeling. Maybe it was a fantastic golf shot, or maybe it was the way you dominated a mountain bike trail. It could be anything, really, but the sensation is the same—that moment when everything came together. The moment replays in your head for weeks until it’s all you can think about; it nags at you until you get back out there and find that elusive purity once more....
Researchers from the University of Sussex and the University of Portsmouth discovered that horses can read, remember and react to human expressions. Researchers showed domestic horses photographs of an angry or happy human face. Several hours later, they introduced the horses to the actual person photographed. The human subject didn’t know which photos the horses had seen, which meant they all displayed neutral behavior. But the horses reacted differently depending on the photo they’d seen....
There’s no real human equivalent for the zombified attack, one of the most jarring styles of survival in the animal kingdom. For proof of how perplexing these attacks are, consider what parasitoid wasps do to spiders.Recently, scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Institute and the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia in Brazil tried to determine how the parasitoid wasp is able to generate so many changes within spiderwebs. They learned that the wasp, which comes from the wasp family Ichneumonidae within the insect order Hymenoptera, ensures the survival of its species by hijacking the brain of a spider....
A 190-pound Mastiff and his human were hiking when the dog became exhausted and couldn’t continue.The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team saved the day.Floyd, a very good boy, was safely carried down the trail by the rescue squad and is reportedly on the mend at home. Rescuers saved Floyd, a very good, 190-pound Mastiff, after he became exhausted during a hike with his human. They were two miles into the Grandeur Peak Trail in Utah....
If they want to talk to reporters, scientists at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) must now get approval first through their parent office, the Department of Interior (DOI). That’s what anonymous USGS employees have told the Los Angeles Times.The new policy allows for the DOI communications office to reject interview requests on scientific matters. The anonymous employees say that the new policies present “a dramatic change” in the office’s media practices and will interfere with scientists’ ability to quickly respond to reporters’ questions....
It’s one of the most iconic destinations in the solar system: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, moving around the planet like a wandering eye. But the famous storm is filled with plenty of mysteries. Here’s what we know—and what we don’t.What Is the Great Red Spot?The Red Spot is an anticyclonic storm, meaning that it’s traveling in the opposite direction of other powerful winds on Jupiter, which is a jerk. Although it might appear to be pushing its way through Jupiter like a person trying to get the front of a crowded rock concert, there’s no epic battle of storm taking place on the largest planet in the solar system....
Deep-learning machines have figured out how to master games like chess or Mortal Kombat. Now, computer scientists at the University of California, Irvine taken things to the third dimension by creating an algorithm that can figure out how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, a surprisingly difficult change.“Our algorithm is able to solve 100 percent of randomly scrambled cubes while achieving a median solve length of 30 moves — less than or equal to solvers that employ human domain knowledge,” say the scientists in the abstract to their paper, up on Arvix....
Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) has found itself in an interesting bind. No, Malaysian Airlines has not lost another plane. Instead, officials have found three extra Boeing 747s that they can’t account for, and they’re struggling to contacts the planes’ owners. According to the AFP, Malaysian officials have taken out an ad in a newspaper, attempting to reach the absent owners. It also outlines what will happen if they don’t pipe up....
Media Platforms Design TeamDEARBORN, Mich.–Next to 289, the legendary small-block V8 from the 1960s, the number closest to a Mustang fan’s hearts is 5.0. The figure refers to the rounded-off displacement of the Mustang’s pushrod V8 during the early ’80s to 1995. Now, for the first time in a decade the “five-oh” is poised to return. Let’s take a closer look at the new engine. The original 5.0 V8 displaced 302 cubic inches, or 4....
It’s been fourteen years since President George W. Bush announced what would eventually be named Orion, the spacecraft that will take humans beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo missions. Fourteen years of stops and starts, changes and delays. Now, at long last, the spacecraft that will take humans beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo missions has one of its most critical pieces in place. Airbus delivered the European Service Module (ESM), a component of NASA’s Orion craft....
Apple applied for a patent in 2019, which is now public record, showing a sleek, curved, all-glass iMac.The filing is compelling mostly for one proposed functionality: a docking station for your MacBook to seamlessly connect to the larger screen.While this likely won’t come to market any time soon, it shows Apple is finally thinking outside-the-box again.Apple has long cornered the market on essential consumer tech, but the company hasn’t released something truly radical in quite some time....
Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s Saturday night at a business park in a quiet suburb northeast of Dallas. The place is all but abandoned, the parking lot empty except for a cluster of cars parked around the corner. A late rain has slickened the black asphalt. A garage door opens. Six men wheel out a complicated, washing machine-size device and lower it to the bottom of a loading dock well. A wave of condensing vapor pours out over the pavement as they charge the apparatus....
The year I wore my high school boyfriend’s chunky Timex Ironman made me a military-timer for life. I can still picture its face, as wide as my wrist. My first black stainless-steel Fossil was as much a fashion statement as it was a time-keeping device, until it was stolen from the sock drawer of my Lower East Side walk-up. When I lost its successor to an unplanned ocean plunge, I decided that was it for me and watches, though I still checked my wrist for the time until iPhone habits gradually took over....
View full post on VimeoWith the “New Tube for London” next-generation trains designed by Paul Priestman, soon Londoners will spend less time minding the gap and more time zooming to their destinations in style. The just-unveiled design could be traveling the London underground by the 2020s.The modernized front of the trains features ribbons of curved LED lights that glow differing colors to alert passengers. Inside, LED plays a big role in the fresh look....
Legend has it that the original bowie knife was made in 1831 for Col. Jim Bowie by a blacksmith named James Black. It was said that the knife could piece a silver dollar without damaging the blade edge. Of course, silver dollars back in those days boasted a much higher silver content, and silver is a relatively soft metal.Bowie knife popularity has declined in recent days. Imperial Schrade hasn’t produced them on a regular basis for decades....
A team of French scientists claim to have finally cracked the puzzle of metallic hydrogen. Their claim, published in scientific paper depository arXiv, which moderates papers but does not offer peer review, was met with intrigue and skepticism. Hydrogen is easily found on Earth, the sun, and several planets in the solar system. It’s the most abundant element in the universe. It is commonly known as a gas, but in 1935 physicists Hillard Bell Huntington and Eugene Wigner theorized that it could also be turned into a solid, metal state under extreme pressure....
A Japanese destroyer shot down a simulated ballistic missile in a test off the coast of Hawaii last week. The test on September 11 test involved the destroyer Atago using its American-made Aegis Combat System and SM-3 missile interceptors to shoot down a stand-in for an incoming missile. The joint U.S-Japan test involved the same missile defense equipment deployed on American ships. Here’s a no-sound video of the test:View full post on YoutubeThe test, officially called Japan Flight Test Mission-05, took place off the coast of the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands....
New research suggests tardigrades have a very surprising vulnerability considering their well-known toughness.A study published in Scientific Reports reveals that tardigrades seem highly susceptible to prolonged exposure to high temperatures possibly because some of the proteins that keep their bodies alive during tun state become denatured.The team behind the study hopes that their findings will lead to additional research on temperature tolerance for the creatures.Turns out tardigrades—the toughest animals on Earth—have a weakness after all and it’s pretty surprising for a species known to survive in the vacuum of space....
Media Platforms Design TeamIn the wake of a scathing published this past weekend, all hell is breaking loose over the General Motors recall of more than 1.6 million cars with faulty ignitions. earlier, a failure that can lead to your car turning off while you’re driving it, and what to do if your vehicle falls under the recall. But the fallout is just beginning. The piece says that 260 incidents of ignition failures were reported to GM and to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA)....
The Paris Agreement to combat climate change became international law on Friday — a landmark deal about tackling global warming amid growing fears that the world is becoming hotter even faster than scientists expected.So far, 96 countries, accounting for just over two-thirds of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, have formally joined the accord, which seeks to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). More countries are expected to come aboard in the coming weeks and months....
