Jamie Condliffe

Ebola Virus in Sierra Leone Mutated at a Normal Rate

Since the Ebola outbreak occurred in West Africa in 2014, researchers have feared that the virus had been able to evolve at a more rapid rate than usual. Now, an analysis of the virus reveals that it mutated at a perfectly normal rate in Sierra Leone, alleviating those fears. A team of Chinese researchers, that…

Why Data Mining Is So Important

Data mining, to the uninitiated, sounds like the kind of monotonous computational activity that requires a big computer, a mass of information and little human oversight. But in fact it’s a discipline that blurs the lines between artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and other cutting-edge disciplines to unearth the golden nuggets that lurk within data.…

Wolfram’s New AI Will Try to Identify Any Image You Give It

Artificial intelligence image recognition is already powerful, but it’s getting better week by week. Now, Wolfram Research has opened up a new website that will try and identify what’s depicted in any image you toss its way. The new tool takes an image and attempts to work out what it shows. The algorithms used by…

How Google Decides If You Have the “Right To Be Forgotten”

It’s a year since the EU ruled that people have the “right to be forgotten” online, in the process ordering Google to remove links when people ask it to. Here’s how they decide who deserves to have their requests granted. At a data-privacy conference in Berlin, Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer explained how the…

This Magnetic Shield Will Push the Boundaries of Particle Physics

This chamber might not look empty—but in fact it’s missing something that usually permeates every space on Earth: magnetic fields. And it will help physicists in the quest for a unifying Theory of Everything. In fact, it’s the first magnetic shield to be built that provides a space with an extremely low magnetic field over…

This Lamp Was Inspired By Italic Typography

If this lamp looks somehow familiar, that’s because it’s based on something you see hundreds of times every single say: a single italicized letter i. The brainchild of COORDINATION Berlin, the lamp is constructed from a solid lump of polished marble, with an anodized alumium shade that flips up when you need some light. Inside…

Who Most Likely Makes Your Sandwich, Mapped

The sandwich is a delicious and convenient way to ingest your favored form of nutrition—but where do you get them from? This maps shows the dominant sandwich store across the entire country. Guess which color represents Subway. Nathan Yau of Flowing Data put this visualization together using information from AggData. He explains how it works:…

The Sun’s Light Is Way Older Than You Think

You probably know that it takes about eight minutes for light travel from the surface of the Sun to our humble planet. But sunlight is far older than that—in fact, it’s thousands of years old. In this neat little video, Sten Odenwald describes the physics explains why our sun’s light is so old—and it involves…

Facebook Now Puts Full Articles From Big Publishers in Your News Feed

Facebook has just launched a new service called Instant Articles, which allows media organizations to create interactive pieces which are hosted on Facebook’s servers and embedded in your news feed. The new service was apparently born out of a desire for speed. Facebook claims that news articles take an average of eight seconds to load…

Verizon’s $4.4 Billion Bid for AOL Is All About Mobile Content

Verizon is buying AOL for a cool $4.4 billion in cash, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today. This major media acquisition is a sign that the carrier’s making a major push toward mobile-first video and advertising content. The deal will provide “access to advanced technology AOL has developed for selling ads and delivering high-quality…

How Photography’s Changed in the Last Decade, in Three Simple Numbers

Time was, each click of the shutter button was precious and you pored over the resulting photographs—good or bad—at length. Now you post them to Instagram and then forget about them forever. And don’t even mention photo frame sales… [Truth Facts]

This Tiny Battery Could Make Small Chips Entirely Independent

While chips have gotten increasingly smaller, even low-power silicon usually uses off-chip power supplies because shrinking batteries down is difficult. This new super-small battery could finally put power supplies on the chip—and tiny computational systems anywhere you can imagine. The new battery has been produced using a combination of 3D holographic lithography and 2D photolithography…

Sony’s New LED Bulb Is Also a Bluetooth Speaker

As David Bowie well knows, sound and vision are a wonderful pairing. Now, Sony is following in his footsteps: its latest LED bulb is also a Bluetooth speaker. The 360-lumen bulb pairs with a smartphone via Bluetooth allowing you to adjust volume or brightness. It also comes with a dedicated remote control which can be…

You can now sign up to Periscope using just your cell number—no need for a Twitter account if you’re not that way inclined.

Illinois Police Won’t Dare Call Its Drones ‘Drones’

The Illinois State Police was recently lucky enough to receive Federal Aviation Administration to use drones. But the police department clearly senses societal tensions over their use, because it’s trying very hard not to use the D word. Indeed, Ars Techinca points out that the police department old the Sun-Times Media Wire that the word…

This Is How You Inspect an Exotic Spacecraft Heat Shield

When NASA’s Orion crew module re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in 2014 tests, it did so covered in 180 small squares of an advanced heat-shielding material called Avcoat. Now, NASA’s research scientists are inspecting them to find out how they worked. Yes, that does appear to be a vacuum cleaner. The 16.5-foot-diameter heat shield is being inspected…

This Is the World’s First 6TB 2.5-Inch SSD

If you need masses of storage but like your laptop’s performance super-fast, then this new SSD may scratch your itch. With 6 terabytes of storage, this is the world’s largest capacity 2.5-inch SSD (for now). The Fixstars SSD measures just 9.5 millimeters in thickness, and offers read speeds of up to 540 MB/s and write…

Could a Medieval Law Help Govern the Internet?

Algorithms increasingly work together to help automate our digital lives—but not every result is perfect, positive or even predicted by their creators. Now, researchers are wondering if the revival of Medieval law could help work out who pays up when things go wrong. New Scientist reportsthat Kate Crawford from Microsoft Research wants revive something known…

How to Use the International Space Station’s Toilet

Ever wondered what astronauts do when they need to evacuate their bowels and bladder? In this video, Samantha Cristoforetti explains how a trip to the toilet works aboard the International Space Station. Of course astronauts need to pay a visit to the John, just like we all do—perhaps more than ever, now there’s an espresso…

Apple’s Teaming Up With World Wildlife Fund to Save Chinese Forests

In its ongoing quest to do good—or at least, better—Apple has announced that it’s joining forces with the World Wildlife Fund to help protect and create sustainable forests that produce the paper used in its product packaging. With the WWF (sadly not that one), Apple plans to protect and build capacity in up to one…