George Dvorsky

Why Washing Raw Chicken Could Be Hazardous To Your Health

Some two-fifths of people wash raw chicken in preparation for cooking. But health experts say the practice could cause more harm than good. According to the Food and Standards Agency (FSA) in the United Kingdom, washing raw chicken can spread harmful bacteria on to hands, work surfaces, clothing, and cooking equipment through splashed water. The…

NASA Has Figured Out What Titan Smells Like

Good news, everyone! A recent lab experiment by NASA scientists has revealed the precise aromatic quality of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. And like a fine wine, it has a “strong aromatic character.” Unfortunately, NASA doesn’t have a Futurama-like smell-o-scope at its disposal. Instead, its scientists were able to “reverse engineer” the recipe that makes up…

The U.S. Has the Most Expensive, Least Effective Health Care System

A survey released today by the Commonwealth Fund ranks the United States dead last in the quality of its healthcare system compared to ten other developed nations. At the same time, it’s also the most expensive in the world. Frustratingly, the new report (pdf) shows that the U.S. is not improving; it ranks last, just…

Stephen Hawking Interviewed By John Oliver Is Absolutely Hilarious

Physicist Stephen Hawking’s recent appearance on Last Week Tonight was genuinely laugh-out-loud hilarious. Oliver had him kickstart a new segment called “People Who Think Good,” where he was asked about the dangers of AI, time travel — and Oliver’s metaphysical odds of dating Charlize Theron. A must watch.

This Robot Is Going To Hitchhike Across Canada By Itself

Starting next month, a robot named hitchBOT will attempt to hitchhike across Canada. Using speech recognition, speech processing, and social media, it will try to charm its way from one coast to the other. Its journey will commence on July 27th, 2014 at the Institute for Applied Creativity at the Nova Scotia College of Art…

Being In A Group Can Make People Lose Touch With Their Moral Beliefs

Behavioral psychologists have known for quite some time that people are more likely to harm others when they’re part of a group. A new study suggests that “mob mentality'” happens when we stop reflecting on our own personal moral standards. People become more hostile when there’s an ‘us and them’ scenario. Individuals in groups often…

This Machine Can Learn About the World Just by Watching It

It’s a possible step on the road to a total surveillance AI like the one in Person of Interest. Researchers from the University of Washington have developed a computer program that teaches itself everything there is to know about any visual concept — without any human supervision. Called LEVAN (Learning EVerything About ANything), it’s best…

Finally, Intelligent Sliding Doors Like The Ones In Star Trek

Conventional automatic doors are are pretty basic — and a far cry from the the intuitive doors portrayed in Star Trek which seem to know when someone’s coming — and even how fast they’re going. It’s taken a while, but Japanese researchers have now made these doors a reality. These doors only open if you…

These baby red pandas are quite possibly the cutest things on the planet right now. They were born last week at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, which has recently experienced a kind of endangered species baby boom. The facility also welcomed a short-eared elephant shrew, a fishing cat, three loggerhead shrikes, a black-footed ferret, and…

Illinois has become the first state to ban microbeads, those tiny round balls of plastic found in face cleansers and soaps. When microbeads are washed down the drain, they’re missed by filtration systems, ending up in waterways where they become toxic and harm wildlife.

Mind-controlled Exoskeleton Opens World Cup, But You’d Never Know

Talk about dropping the ball. Earlier today, Juliano Pinto — a 29 year-old paraplegic — successfully kicked off the 2014 FIFA World Cup by using a mind-controlled exoskeleton. But sadly, most TV networks failed to show it. After months of hype, the official broadcast of the opening ceremonies showed only a fraction of it, while…

In Desperation, Ukraine Separatists Try To Restart a WWII Tank

If pro-Russian forces in Ukraine are going to be successful in redrawing the map of Europe, they’re going to need some heavy equipment — like this 1943-vintage Soviet tank. Watch — or rather listen — as they try to get this relic going. For you history buffs, that’s an IS-3, where the IS stands for…

12 Futuristic Forms of Government That Could One Day Rule the World

As history has repeatedly shown, political systems come and go. Given our rapid technological and social advances, it’s a trend we can expect to continue. Here are 12 extraordinary — and even frightening — ways our governments could be run in the future. 1. Noocracy Similar to Plato’s “government of the wise,” a noocracy would…

What The Night Sky Would Look Like From Inside A Globular Cluster

Globular clusters are incredibly dense structures often featuring hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a relatively small space. So what would it be like to live inside such a thing? A team of astronomers recently created a simulation to find out. All images by William Harris and Jeremy Webb; used here with permission. For…

Historical Street View Shows How Detroit Is Turning Into Chernobyl

A quarter-century after becoming a radioactive human-free zone, the Chernobyl region has returned to nature. Sadly, Detroit is going through the same transformation owing to it’s shrinking population — as Google’s sobering Historical Street View demonstrates. https://gizmodo.com/these-photographs-of-present-day-chernobyl-are-utterly-5927476 There’s a heartbreaking tumblr dedicated to this subject, GooBing Detroit. Check out this series of photos from 2009…

Why Narcissism Is a Profoundly Misunderstood Psychological Disorder

The word “narcissist” is used so much these days that you might think we’re in the midst of an epidemic. But pathological narcissism is not just about having an inflated ego — it’s a very serious psychological disorder. Here’s why certain people are obsessed with themselves, and the gnawing fear that drives them. As a…

These Are The Most Depressing Jobs In America

Our jobs have a profound influence on our mental health. A new study shows the extent to which certain industries give rise to clinical depression. For the study, Cincinnati researchers Lawson Wulsin and colleagues analyzed care records from Highmark Ltd., a Blue Cross insurance provider for folks living primarily in western Pennsylvania. The data included…

An armed robber caught by facial recognition software has been handed a 22 year jail sentence. His image was captured by Chicago Transit surveillance cameras, and compared to a database of 4.5 million criminal booking images. Biosignatures are increasingly being used by law enforcement. (RHIMAGE/Shutterstock)

Historian Casts Doubt On The Discovery Of Columbus’ Flagship

Back in May, marine archaeologist Barry Clifford made the extraordinary claim that Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria, had been found. But now, a Portuguese historian says this can’t possibly be true — because the ship never sank. Clifford made the apparent discovery off the north coast of Haiti. Among the various bits of evidence provided,…

The Most Extreme Environments Where Alien Life Could Be Found

There may be as many as 100 million habitable worlds in the Milky Way. But just what, exactly, are the requirements for life? And what are the environmental extremes that life can handle? A new checklist for the habitability of exoplanets attempts to answer these questions. Astrobiologists have a really vague and sweeping way of…