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Several small bird populations are in decline with a study citing a net loss of almost three billion birds since 1970.Several factors have caused the mass loss including urbanization, habitat loss, and climate change.Measures can be taken to help prevent the loss of existing populations such as lessening or even eliminating the use of pesticides and planting a garden with native species.Since 1970, researchers and scientists have been collecting data on 529 bird species and have noticed a trend: certain populations have been in decline over the course of the last 48 years....

AI gamer bots have successfully defeated a team of highly-ranked, 99.95th percentile Defense of the Ancients (Dota) 2 players. Dota is one of the highest paid e-sport games combat games in the world, with prize pools reaching one million dollars. In the game, two teams of characters called “heroes” attempt to defeat the opponent’s home base. In a tournament performed in front of a live audience and 100,000 livestreamers, the AI team won two-of-three DOTA games rapidly (it only lost when the audience selected its heroes, a lineup that put it at a disadvantage)....

Earlier this month, a different kind of poker tournament kicked off in Pittsburgh. It was a contest between four professional poker players and a highly advanced AI called Libratus, built by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. The tournament just ended, and Libratus was declared the decisive victor, with a more than $1.7 million lead after 120,000 hands.The gamer here is no limit Texas hold ’em. Most versions of poker are difficult for AIs because of the problem of incomplete information—it doesn’t know what the players have in their hands, which is what makes bluffing possible....

The Pentagon needs quick ways to get small satellites into space to fill a shortfall in battlefield communication. Military satellites were once considered to be reliably out of harm’s way. But antisatellite weapons and solar flares threaten to transform these important pieces of communications hardware into space junk. Even if nothing goes wrong, tech-reliant U.S. forces can easily outstrip the available local bandwidth when they deploy. To fill the gap, the Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space program is developing smarter microsatellites that can be placed in orbit in less than a year and for under $20 million....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn response to a safety standard proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that would require automakers to install simulated sound devices on future hybrid and electric vehicles, two automotive trade associations representing just about every auto manufacturer have issued a written response calling the regulations “too complicated and unnecessarily prescriptive.“The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Global Automakers—who between them represent the Big Three here in the States, the Big Three in Germany, and the Big Three in Japan—take issue with the rule’s required loudness specifications....

The manufacturer of the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter is looking for ways to keep the famous close air support and tank killer relevant on battlefields well into the mid-21st century. Boeing, which will soon be building more than a hundred Apaches a year for clients around the world, is mapping out upgrades to keep the helicopter a key weapons system for decades to come.Boeing’s production lines have produced Apache helicopters since the early 1980s....

Today at the SmallSat conference in Utah, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck announced a new initiative from his company: he’s building an online reservation system for anyone wanting to launch their small satellites into space. In an interview prior to the announcement, Beck compared it to reserving an airline ticket.Rocket Lab, a private spaceflight company based out of New Zealand, will launch a series of Electron rockets into space, each carrying a series of CubeSats....

Media Platforms Design TeamAlexander VertikoffI was on the hunt for ideas for an upcoming remodel of the small guest bathroom in our house when I found this picture at Houzz.com. Two things here jumped out at me:Crafty Medicine CabinetOne primary objective of my remodeling my tiny bathroom will be to maintain what storage we have, a large part of which can be found in a mirrored medicine cabinet mounted above the sink....

Cancer has slowly become less deadly in the United States over the past 25 years, according to numbers from the American Cancer Society. The organization’s annual report, Cancer Statistics 2017, states that the number of cancer deaths has fallen 25 percent between 1991 and 2014.The report also estimates the number of new cancer cases and cancer deaths in 2017. According to the report, there will be approximately 1.6 million new cases of cancer, and 600,000 deaths....

BUY NOWWe’ve long been fans of Portland-based boot company Danner, a company that’s remained a permanent fixture among our favorite boots made in America. Although we have a particular affinity for Danner’s Mountain 600 line, the Vertigo 917 is a personal favorite when you need something that can tackle the metropolis. Now, a new collaboration with Huckberry has taken this design a step further. While the Vertigo line was originally designed to be the ultimate city boot, the new Vertigo 917 Gold Rush takes things a step further....

The car chase in the 1968 film Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen, is one of the greatest in movie history. The tire-shredding, San Francisco street-jumping scenes made McQueen’s green Mustang an icon. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the film, Ford has developed a limited edition Mustang Bullitt. The GT gets a host of upgrades for 2008 Bullitt duty that make it one of the most balanced Mustangs ever. The 4.6-liter V8 is boosted by 15 hp to 315, thanks to a cold-air intake, freer-flowing exhaust and higher redline....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Pentagon has been researching nonlethal pain rays since the mid-’90s, but finding a vehicle to carry them has proven to be a challenge. Researchers have mounted these microwave weapons—which repel people by heating water molecules just under the skin, reportedly without damaging tissue—on trucks, guard towers and Humvees, but the U.S. military has never deployed them for real-world use. (Using such weapons on civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan is not seen as a good way to win hearts and minds....

Dabiq, a propoganda magazine for the terrorist group Islamic State, today released this photo of what it claims to be the parts of the bomb that blew up a Russian airliner over Egypt, killing all 224 people on board. You can see a can of Schwepps soda and a detonator.Says Reuters:Islamic State said it had exploited a loophole at Sharm al-Sheikh airport, where the Airbus 321 originated, in order to smuggle a bomb on board....

The Trump Administration has signaled it will leave the Cold War-era Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF Treaty, meant to limit the range of land-based missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Abandoning the treaty could spur a new generation of missiles designed to strike Russian and Chinese targets in a conventional—or nuclear—war.In 1988, the United States and Soviet Union signed the INF Treaty, which banned stocks of medium and intermediate-range land-based missiles held by both countries, and had the effect of removing potential first strike weapons from Europe....

Aside from riddle of the sphinx, one question has haunted humans since the dawn of time: What’s more pizza, two mediums or one large? Recently, we saw how math proved that one big pizza is the better bet. But if you’re still not sure, now there’s a calculator to end the madness.Just add pizza.The Pizza Calculator, a subset of the Omni Calculator (which also has calculators related to Pokemon Go and losing socks), has a simple setup....

Media Platforms Design TeamAlaska Airlines may have been voted the best airline, but here’s one award they didn’t grab: first airline to offer virtual reality visors to passengers. That honor belongs to Qantas, an Australian airline that is teaming up with Samsung to bring the Gear VR into the sky.Powered by Oculus, the headsets will feature content exclusive to Qantas and developed by Samsung. It will include a 360-degree 3D-guided tour of Kakadu State Park....

Russian forces reportedly sank an old ex-Syrian warship in a display of naval power. The test, which is rumored to have took place on April 5, was a warning to Western naval forces operating in the Eastern Mediterranean, within striking distance of Russia’s Syrian allies. Indeed, those U.S., U.K., and French forces later attacked Syria’s chemical weapons capability, though this footage of the anti-ship test was released afterward.View full post on YoutubeThe footage appears to show an old Syrian Petya-I class light frigate stripped of weapons, as it is missing both twin 76-millimeter gun turrets....

A few months ago, several members of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba had apparently suffered some strange kind of attack. Multiple members of the embassy’s staff claimed a variety of symptoms from headaches to brain damage, and investigators were unable to determine what was going on.The strange collection of symptoms combined with the lack of any sort of device that could have caused such symptoms has stymied investigators for months. Doctors had analyzed the brains of the victims and discovered ‘anomalies’ but no clear cause, and repeated sweeps of their hotel rooms turned up no weapons, devices, or anything else suspicious....

Over the past few days, the Arctic’s most resilient sea ice has begun to break up. Located north of Greenland, this ice has remained solid since humans started monitoring it in the mid-60s. Until now, that is. Scientists believe that this will usher in a new era for arctic ice, where almost none of it lasts a full year without melting.The Arctic region suffers the most from climate change and experiences around twice as much warming as most other parts of the world....

The U.S. Marines want a flying drone that could both reconnoiter the nearby landscape, finish its mission by exploding on target, and is small enough to be carried by an individual Marine. The new Organic Precision Fires drone system would be very useful if small units of Marines find themselves cut off from friendly forces and unable to call in air and artillery support. After nearly two decades of chasing lightly armed guerrillas with ample air and artillery support on call, the U....