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Since 2000, the power plant at Chernobyl has been inactive. Even after the infamous meltdown in 1986, the other nuclear reactors at the facility continued operating until the turn of the century. But for 18 years, Chernobyl has been nothing but an abandoned wasteland. A newly-completed project changes that, however, and thanks to 3,800 installed solar panels Chernobyl can supply Ukraine with power once more.Two years ago a handful of companies proposed a solar farm in Chernobyl....

Somewhere out in space, a pulsar is acting strangely. It’s emitting infrared radiation—and nothing else—in a way that’s making scientists reconsider what they known about these cosmic phenomena.After a large star goes supernova, the leftover material is typically a neutron star. These are usually around 12.4 to 14.9 miles (20 to 24 km) in diameter, but contain tremendous amounts of mass. The only known phenomena with a higher density than a neutron star is a black hole....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Wednesday, Dell launched a slew of new devices, including tablets, laptops, and even a tablet/laptop hybrid. At a press event in New York City, the company showed off its Venue 7 and Venue 8 Android slates, Venue 8 Pro and Venue 11 Pro Windows 8.1 tablets, its newly refreshed XPS 15 and XPS 13 laptops, and its foldable ultrabook called the XPS 11.The Venue 7 and Venue 8 tablets came as a bit of a surprise reveal, as Dell dipped back into the Android market it appeared to have left behind....

Apple scrapped plans to let its customers fully encrypt backups of their phone to iCloud after the FBI said it would hamper investigations, according to a Reuters report.U.S. Attorney General William Barr called on Apple to unlock two iPhones used by a Saudi Air Force officer who shot and killed three people on a Florida naval base last month.End-to-end encryption is meant to stop hackers, but it would also have meant that Apple would no longer have the encryption key to read a person’s data....

Facebook’s prolonged struggle to nullify the spread of misleading information on its platform took a bold step on Thursday, when the company scrubbed over 800 pages for promoting what it calls “inauthentic behavior.” The social network’s reputation for fake news blew up during the 2016 presidential election, when it was overrun with political spam deployed in large part by Russian trolls and foreign profiteers. But the company’s newest efforts indicate that the Russian boogeyman has given way to something far thornier: fake news of a homegrown variety....

Media Platforms Design Team that crashed into the Hudson River yesterday has been towed to a dock in New York’s Battery Park, but it is missing both CFM-56 turbofan engines and divers, thwarted by strong currents and cold weather, have been unable to recover both the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) from the tail of the aircraft. The US Airways Airbus A320 All 155 passengers and crew members survived the emergency water landing after the U....

Media Platforms Design TeamFord CEO Mark Fields, right, with executive chairman Bill Ford and the Ford GT.Last week we reported that Silicon Valley was coming to the Motor City—Google is building its self-driving cars in Detroit. Now, we’re hearing that the opposite is also true: Detroit’s Ford Motor Company is building a big innovation lab in Silicon Valley, further illustrating the growing connection between the car and tech worlds.The New York Times reports that Ford is opening the lab in Palo Alto, CA, near Stanford in the heart of Silicon Valley....

Peanut-Butter-of-the-Month Club /// $215.40 for 12 monthsDo you know someone passionate about peanuts but who thinks Peter Pan is so passé? Are you willing to spend $17.95 a month on peanut butter? Each jar selected for this club is chosen by “a panel of gourmet experts,” and many of them have been “awarded the highest honors at prestigious culinary festivals around the world,” according to the club’s Web site. Just who are these “experts” and where are these “festivals”?...

Media Platforms Design TeamIn-car infotainment systems are at weird place right now. While automakers continue to improve performance, increase fuel economy, and revamp styling, a solid, intuitive, and robust infotainment system remains elusive.Some automakers just want to get out of the way and create a seamless link to the smartphone already in your pocket, while others—like Cadillac’s Cue system or Ford’s maligned MyFordTouch—want to create an all-inclusive system the removes the mobile phone from the equation....

Media Platforms Design TeamLeft to right: Tim Hemmes, Michael Boninger, Andrew Schwartz, Wei Wang, Mike McLaughlinTim Hemmes, of Butler, Penn., has been paralyzed from the neck down for eight years following a motorcycle accident. He is able to speak normally and looks like a regular, if thin, 31-year-old, sitting about a foot taller than the scientist around him because of his mobile chair. His arms have been resting at the sides of that chair for eight years....

The world is still processing the sheer awfulness of Russia’s new Poseidon long range torpedo. The multi-megaton weapon, like something from a science fiction film, is designed to attack coastal targets, creating radioactive tsunamis and rendering entire regions uninhabitable. Once thought a possible hoax, we now know Poseidon is very real, prompting the question: How do you stop it?Poseidon torpedo. H.I. SuttonPoseidon was first noticed outside of western intelligence in November 2015, when a picture of it was “accidentally” shown on Russian state television....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf you use Microsoft Windows and have a headset microphone, as many gamers do, you could probably double your typing speed immediately by using a little-known Windows feature.Microsoft is low-key about the fact that Windows has a full-blown speech recognition system. But instead of hunting and pecking while trying to remember what you wanted to write, you could use Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) to decide what to say, say it, and see the words appear on the screen....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs much as I like motorcycles, I’m not about the black-leather, tough-guy, motorcycle-gang image that seems to have strong appeal here in America—you know, that “Yo, bro” kind of thing, riding into town and making noise. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve always admired the British and European version of motorcycling, which celebrates bikes as a superior and—certainly in the ’20s and ’30s—a faster form of transportation....

MORE NEWS ON CERN’S LARGE HADRON COLLIDER* PLUS: 5 Things You Need to Know About the Large Hadron Collider* HOW IT WORKS: Large Hadron Collider Aims to Unlock ‘God Particle’* PM NEWS: Large Hadron Collider Rap Teaches Particle Physics* EARLIER: Heat of a Light Bulb Could Shut Down Large Hadron ColliderThe only data the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has produced thus far is a powerful (but debunked) urban myth–that the particle accelerator buried under the Swiss-French border will generate apocalyptic black holes....

Media Platforms Design TeamBecause of those pesky reflections, windows are great for blurry selfies but not so great for capturing what’s beyond the glass. With a new algorithm from MIT researchers, though, a through-the-window shot will be just that: a photo of what you see through the window, without a partial reflection of the photographer.When a window sends a reflection back to a camera lens, it’s actually sending two slightly different reflections, one from one side of the glass and another from the other side (this is more apparent with double-paned windows)....

Another storm, another cold snap. It seems as if the Northeast is insistent on making good on winter. I spent Saturday skiing at Mad River Glen in 20-inches of fresh snow; on Sunday, there was another foot. Wow. And now we’re setting up for sub-zero temps over Tuesday night. I was intrigued by this story (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17650675/), especially in light of the fact that $3 gas already exists in some US markets....

Just when you think all hope is lost in the world, along comes Vincent, a 3-year-old cat who is now walking thanks to the amazing work of his doctors. Vincent was born with a congenital deformity that left him without rear tibias. The cat was only a month old when Cindy Jones found him at an animal shelter in Story County, Iowa and instantly fell in love. Who could blame her?...

Apple is now allowing third parties to fix iPhones with genuine Apple parts. The move is a significant turn for Apple, which has been criticized for lobbying against right-to-repair bills.Store technicians can become certified to fix iPhones at their stores for free. Dropping your iPhone is a gut-punch for two reasons: 1) I mean, you just dropped your iPhone.2) Now you have to take it to the damn Apple Store. For years, you’ve had to wait and wade through long lines to hand your cracked screen and hard-earned money to a Genius, which makes Apple’s announcement Thursday morning a potential game changer: Now the tech giant will give repair shops large and small all the hardware—and permission—they need to fix your iPhone for you....

Media Platforms Design TeamA Russian missile test quickly went haywire after a launch north of the Arctic Circle. The supersonic anti-ship missile spiraled out of control, striking an apartment building. There were no casualties on the ground. Russian defense contractor NPO Mashinostroyeniya launched a P-800 anti-ship missile from the Nenoksa testing range on December 15th, 11n a.m. local time. The testing range is near the city of Archangelsk, roughly six hundred miles north of Moscow....

After his buddy traded a trained dog team for the services of an Alaskan bush pilot, photographer Ken Tape found himself following his friend’s progress in the 1000-mile Yukon Quest dog race—from the air. The mushers started out from Whitehorse, Canada, on Feb. 10, and are making their way towards Fairbanks, Alaska. Tape will be filing reports here from checkpoints along the trail.EAGLE, Alaska, Feb. 17 — Temperatures have plummeted to -38°F, and an incredible dog-mushing race is underway on the Yukon River....