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When I was in sixth grade, I spent a lot of time at my friend Janet Ihnat’s house in Western Pennsylvania—putting pennies on the train tracks and jumping off the hayloft in the barn. Well, the barn burned down some years ago and Janet has long since moved away. But, recently, I had a very good reason to go back for a visit: Worm World. John Ihnat (Janet’s dad) started farming redworms for bait in 1993, and soon learned the wigglers were favorites among home composters as well as perch....

You may think that the sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey is trippy enough already, or that it would be a sin to mess with the stylistic triumph that is Blade Runner. It turns out that there is an acceptable and amazing way to tweak these classic films: run their scenes through a deep neural network so they are presented in the styles of famous painters. Here is 2001 as a Picasso painting: View full post on VimeoAnd Blade Runner as Van Gogh’s Starry Night: View full post on VimeoThe creator of these artistic gems, Bhautik Joshi, explains his process on his Tumblr: To create these I used a hacked-up version of Style Transfer by the indestructible Frank Liu....

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected defense contractor Dynetics to develop its vision of small, uncrewed aircraft that are launched from warplanes and recovered in midair. Known as “Gremlins,” the small drones are meant to be reusable and reconfigurable, flying again with 24 hours.According to DARPA, the rising costs of crewed aircraft prompted it to look for a solution that involved reusable uncrewed aircraft. Advances in uncrewed technology prompted the agency to look drones that could be launched by any aircraft, including from the rails of a F-16, the internal weapons bay of a B-1B bomber, or out the cargo ramp of C-130 transport....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Wessex Water)Bath Bus Company is harnessing the power of poo. Its new Bio Bus fleet runs on waste gases from the biomethane decay of human feces and food scraps, and is now carrying passengers from Bristol to Bath, U.K.Using what amounts to the yearly waste of five people, the bus can travel 186 miles on a tank of poo. It’s a new spin on the idea of energy independence… and adds a strange new step to the cycle of buying local....

During an unannounced trip to Iraq, President Bush told reporters that a deal to rescue the automakers was not far away. The White House said an announcement of the deal is unlikely to come today, but if the rescue plan is going to have its intended effect, namely preventing widespread bankruptcies, detail of the plan should be announced soon. Many suppliers are already planning for the worst regardless of Bush’s reassurances....

What makes a video game funny? Is it a combination of great dialogue and irreverent cultural references, a la Family Guy? Or does it all come down to how you, the player, interact with the game itself? To hear Squanch Games co-founder and Trover Saves the Universe creator Justin Roiland tell it, it’s a combination of a few very important factors. But a virtual reality setting certainly helps. Gearbox Publishing Trover Saves the UniverseGearbox Publishing Trover Saves the UniversePlay NowCredit: Squanch GamesTrover Saves the Universe, in stores today, is a VR-optional adventure ripped straight from Rick and Morty, the irreverent Adult Swim series that Roiland co-created....

Media Platforms Design Team"Cryptography" comes from the ancient Greek for “secret writing.” And in the beginning, that’s all it was—a way to keep written words safe from prying eyes. As Simon Singh says, “As soon as you have something precious to hide, you have people who want to steal it.” Singh is the author of The Code Book, which traces the history of cryptography from ancient times to the present day....

If anyone knows the dark and cold, it’s the Danes. On December 1, they’ll get seven hours and 29 minutes of sun all day. The entire day. (For comparison, my AAA Rochester Red Wings once played a 33-inning baseball game that lasted eight hours and 25 minutes.)Dark means cold. And cold means I want to be comfy. Which is why it’s no surprise that my latest winter survival gear is 1....

Climate change is becoming increasingly costly, according to a new study from Swiss Re, a reinsurance company based out of Switzerland. The combined insured natural catastrophe losses for the two year period between 2017-2018 was $219 billion, the highest ever over a two-year period. The company credits man-made activities like urbanization and climate change with the higher price tag.The world’s second-largest reinsurer, Swiss Re insures insurance companies around the world with offices in 25 countries....

Media Platforms Design TeamStrapped for cash, GM is on the brink of bankruptcy. It’s a dramatic shift for a car company that had begun to right itself after decades of trouble. So what happened? We turned to PM Advisory Board Member and Chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, David Cole, for his take. Ironically, GM’s perfect storm of troubles hit just as the company seemed to be making progress on a number of fronts: The company is producing its most competitive cars and trucks in decades, and the upcoming 2011 Chevy Volt has generated more excitement for GM than any product in recent memory....

Media Platforms Design TeamView full post on YoutubeIf you’ve tried to wear glasses or sunglasses with those big pilot’s headphones or a tight-fitting motorcycle helmet, then you know Dean Siracusa’s problem—the painful way that the helmet or headset presses the glasses frame against your head. Siracusa’s solution: Flying Eyes, a pair of customizable sunglasses.The wearer can sub out the side pieces of the frame in favor of a soft fabric strap that won’t dig into their temples while they have a headset on....

Astronaut Eugene “Gene” Cernan, Commander of Apollo 17 and the most recent person to stand on the surface of the moon, has died at age 82. The cause of death is not immediately known, but NASA did report that Cernan passed away “surrounded by his family.“View full post on TwitterGene Cernan led the final manned mission to the moon in 1972, but his contributions to aviation and space exploration span decades....

In the black void of deep space, between all the stars and galaxies, are an infinite number of things that could someday be coming to kill us. We’ve only just started to get our act together when it comes to watching for planet-smashing asteroids, but that’s only the very beginning. Take, for instance, the gamma ray burst. More than just the title of a fantastic song, gamma ray bursts are streams of deep space photos so powerful that they can smash through atomic bonds, which in layman’s terms means they are streams of radiation that can kill you dead real fast....

Media Platforms Design TeamDesignYowza! It’s about as thin as a computer could be without bending like a sheet of paper. Sort of bucks the current Apple design trend, though, with a fat aluminum bezel around the screen, instead of glass all the way to the edges.PerformanceThe dedicated Nvidia GeForce 320 is on identical to the GPU found in MacBook Pro 13-inch models, but the starting 1.4 GHz dual-core CPU seems a bit skimpy....

NASA has successfully tested one of the most crucial systems on its future Orion spacecraft: the launch abort system (LAS). “That was a spectacular test we all witnessed this morning. It was really special for the program; a really big step forward to us,” Orion Program Manager Mark Kirasich said during a post-launch briefing from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Tuesday. “It was a really great day all around—weather and the vehicle....

Today, Apple announced its new slate of gadgets that will soon invade your life, starting with the latest, greatest iPhone models. If you want to watch the company’s entire keynote presentation, click here. Just want the basics? Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s new products.iPhone 11 ProThe new iPhone 11 Pro has not one, not two, but THREE camera sensors.AppleAs predicted, the new model will include a funky looking camera array with three sensors aligned in a triangular shape....

Here, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, Ill., geologists have announced data that reveals the inner workings of a new kind of tectonic plate movement. Using GPS satellites, Susan Schwartz, professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, took an in-depth look at subduction zones–the area where two plates collide. Geologists have long held that these grinding collisions happen in one of two ways: Either the plates move dozens of meters in a few minutes and release a lot of energy in an earthquake, or the plates continuously move slowly–just a few centimeters a year–and slip past each other with hardly a tremor....

Three weeks ago it may have seemed unlikely, but the 12 Thai boys who were trapped in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave, along with their soccer coach, are all alive and well. At a press conference, the boys described their surreal experience.The team’s 25-year-old coach, Ekapol Chanthawong, explained the circumstances that had led the team to be trapped. After soccer practice on June 23, the team had wanted to go exploring in the nearby caves, which are a popular tourist attraction....

Russia’s only aircraft carrier, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov, could be headed to the scrap heap if a new drydock isn’t found. The old drydock, the only one in western Russia capable of supporting major repairs to an aircraft carrier, sank in October 2018, leaving Moscow without a place to park the massive ship while it undergoes a refit. With a replacement, the old carrier’s future is in jeopardy....

Scientists have presented an experimental technique for rapidly increasing the production of magnesite, a mineral which naturally stores carbon.For all the human efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, magnesite can do so naturally. A carbonate mineral, its chemical makeup at the atomic level is MgCO3, meaning that it’s one part magnesium, one part carbon, and three parts oxygen. One metric ton of naturally forming magnesite can remove around half a ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere....