For applied scientists—that intrepid cadre who get their hands dirty in the sometimes dangerous world beyond the ivory tower, participating in difficult decisions with little time and major consequences—getting the right answer is only half the battle. The other half is successfully explaining what they’ve found, and what it means. This winter’s debris flows in […]
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Beth Brunton’s magenta umbrella shields her from the weather on an April afternoon in Seattle. It’s a curious sight, because today is the first day in months without a drop of rain. It’s 75 degrees, and there’s not a cloud in the sky. “It gets […]
Does it matter if you put a video camera near your magnetic compass that is used for navigation? The theoretical answer is "yes." But the practical answer? "Probably not." Now for a detailed explanation! How does a magnetic compass work? So, the Earth is like a giant magnet, just like that bar magnet that picks […]
If nature knows what it’s doing, it sure does a good job hiding it. Like, why would evolution produce an elephant with a shovel for a face? Or a shark with a cookiecutter mouth? Or an insect with a hollow peanut head? For very good reasons, as it turns out. Natural selection is an astoundingly […]
This holiday season, more people than ever before are giving the gift of spit. Well, what’s in your spit, to be precise. Want to know where your ancestors once walked or whether you’re at risk for a genetic disease? There’s a spit tube kit for that. And customers are buying them in record numbers. Between […]
Having the sense to take a shortcut, the most direct route from point A to point B, doesn’t sound like a very impressive test of intelligence. Yet according to a new report appearing last week in Nature, in which researchers describe the performance of their new navigational artificial intelligence, the system’s ability to explore complex […]
Biotech has been betting big on Crispr, the gene-editing technique that promises to snip away some of humanity’s worst diseases. But last May, a small case study suggested the much-hyped technology might actually be quite dangerous—and pop went the Crispr bubble, briefly tanking shares of Crispr companies like Editas Medicine, Intellia Therapeutics, and Crispr Therapeutics. […]
My mom doesn't believe in the impossible. A Chinese immigrant and physics teacher, she arrived in the US with big dreams and limited English. During her first six months in the country, she would visit English-speaking friends to help her write checks—and when she got tired of that, she enrolled in an English class from 7 […]
Along with the roar of a grizzly bear and a crack of lightning, the sound of a tornado is among the most terrifying natural sounds on Earth. Depending on the twister and where you’re standing, it can sound like a hiss, a buzz, a rumble, or even a freight train. It’s the auditory manifestation of […]
Most people use Google's search-by-image feature to either look for copyright infringement, or for shopping. See some shoes you like on a frenemy's Instagram? Search will pull up all the matching images on the web, including from sites that will sell you the same pair. In order to do that, Google’s computer vision algorithms had […]