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The Problem With Big Data Is That Nobody Understands It

The concept of Big Data—the practice of acquiring, analyzing and interpreting ridiculously huge data sets—is something much of the technology and business world is extremely excited about. But excited is about as far as it goes because, currently, there just aren’t enough practitioners to make it work. While there’s much fuss made about the endless…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Why is our skin waterproof?

It’s something we all just take completely for granted: no matter how hard it rains or how much our clothes get soaked, our skin will keep the water out of our bodies. But until now, nobody knew why this was. The waterproof nature of our skin is a basic fact of life – indeed, it’s…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Chewing gum can mess with your mind

Teachers who make classes stop chewing gum might be right — it can mess with your mind, research suggests. As it turns out, walking and chewing gum at the same time might be more difficult than we ever suspected. Usually, trying to do more than one thing at once impairs at least one of those…

io9 Charles Choi

Science Explains Why So Few People Are Left-Handed

Left-handers aren’t very common. In fact , they only represent about 10 percent of the human population. But a new study suggests that the reason lefties are in the minority isn’t anything suspect—rather, it boils down to the fact that the human race cooperate more than they compete. A pair of researchers from Northwestern University…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

One Kidney Has Been Inside Three People In Just Two Weeks

When Ray Fearing received a kidney from his sister, Cera, after a long battle with a disease which forms scar tissue on the kidney, he was extremely relieved. Sadly, his condition worsened and the doctors had no choice but to remove the kidney—but it went on to find itself inside a third patient. It’s the…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Would you drop $10,000 a year to stop yourself from getting HIV?

Thanks to advances in fighting HIV/AIDS over the last decades, these diseases are no longer the death sentences they once were — and some drugs offer the chance to protect against infection in the first place. Considering the huge price associated with these pills, would it make sense to do so? And for whom? The…

io9 Tim Barribeau

Childhood Violence Causes Premature DNA Ageing

People sometimes quip that children who have a tough time growing up are old beyond their years. New research, however, suggests that could be literally true: children who have suffered violence at a young age, it appears, actually suffer from premature ageing of their DNA. At the end of all the chromosomes found in our…

Health Jamie Condliffe

Cocaine Literally Rots Your Brain

Cocaine turns anybody that takes it into a bit of a douche—we all know what. But while there’s plenty of evidence that the drug affects heart function and screws up the brain’s natural reward system, here’s another reason to avoid it: scientists have found that it, quite literally, rots your brain. A study carried out…

Health Jamie Condliffe

Exercise Will Help You Quit Smoking

If you’re trying to stop smoking, get down to the gym. A new study has shown that people who exercise are 55 per cent more likely to quit—and 43 per cent less likely to relapse into smoking, too. The study, carried out in Taiwan, examined healthcare data from 434,190 people in order to reach the…

Health Jamie Condliffe

Polar Bears Aren’t Descended From Brown Bears After All

For a long time, it’s been thought that polar bears are recent descendants of brown bears and that their white coats and webbed feet evolved into being over the last 150,000 years. A new study proves that incorrect: in fact, polar and brown bears share a common ancestor, making polar bears 600,000 years old. The…

Biology Jamie Condliffe

The FCC Wants to Stop You Being Shocked By Your Phone Bill

Most of us have had that horrible experience of opening a phone bill only to find that it’s way, way more than expected. Fortunately the FCC has taken pity, and is now working with carriers to instigate a customer alert scheme to warn you about additional charges before they happen. The plan is to send…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Toxic oceans created the greatest explosion in biodiversity Earth has ever seen

About 600 million years ago, life on Earth was pretty much just a homogeneous bunch of simple, soft-bodied species. But in an evolutionary blink of an eye, that all changed. A longstanding geological mystery could explain why our distant ancestors suddenly developed skeletons. In less than a hundred million years, life on Earth shifted away…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Breast Cancer Is Actually Ten Different Diseases

For years, we’ve been treating breast cancer as a single disease. But a new study has reclassified it into ten separate sub-diseases, all with different genetic features—which could transform the way women are diagnosed and treated. The research, conducted at the University of British Columbia and published in Nature, analyzed the DNA and RNA of…

Health Jamie Condliffe

Dinosaurs were doomed because laying eggs made them too huge

Sure, an impact event is what started wiping out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But why did some species manage to survive while most of the dinosaurs perished? A fascinating new theory suggests it’s all about laying eggs. To understand what’s going on here, we first have to consider just why so many dinosaurs…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

How We Identify Single Voices in a Crowd

There are plenty of human abilities that we take for granted, but which are actually insanely complex. Like picking out a single voice buried amongst the noise of a crowded environment, a problem which has troubled scientists for decades. But now they’ve worked out how we do it—and it could revolutionize speech recognition technology. The…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Talking to Yourself Makes You Smarter

Talking to yourself is the preserve of mad men, right? Not according to a new study, which reveals that the seemingly irrational act of chatting to oneself actually improves cognitive function. The research, carried out by Gary Lupyan and Daniel Swingley, was inspired the pair’s experiences of seeing people audibly muttering to themselves when trying…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Kangaroos have three vaginas

We interrupt your regularly scheduled news programming to bring you this wonderful piece of trivia about kangaroo genitals. Regular readers will know of my love for Inside Nature’s Giants, the British documentary where anatomists cut up large animals to examine how their bodies work and evolved. It’s a truly incredible show, combining unbridled joy at…

io9 Ed Yong - Discover

Bucky Balls Could Double Your Lifespan

Buckminster fullerene molecules, the naturally occurring spheres made up of 60 carbon atoms, have long been suspected to have biological benefits. Now, a study that set out to establish if they were toxic when administered orally has proven quite the opposite—they almost doubled the lifespan of the rats that they were fed to. The experiments,…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

Spam Rank: The Google-Backed Research Fighting Fake Reviews

Fake online reviews are a pain in the ass: they make interent shopping harder than it already is. But thankfully there are people out there who are developing ways of spotting and blocking rogue five-star reviews, and a new algorithm backed by Google seems to be the most effective yet. https://gizmodo.com/why-online-reviews-make-shopping-impossible-5897727 Developed at the University…

Reviews Jamie Condliffe

Happy Memories Become Less Special If You Talk About Them

When we have a positive experience—a great meal, say, or a wonderfully romantic encounter—it’s natural to want to talk about it. But a new study suggests that word-of-mouth stories blunt our feelings about experiences. In other words, telling people about your best kiss or favorite restaurant will make it feel less special. In fact, Sarah…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

The Problem With Big Data Is That Nobody Understands It

Why is our skin waterproof?

Chewing gum can mess with your mind

Science Explains Why So Few People Are Left-Handed

One Kidney Has Been Inside Three People In Just Two Weeks

Would you drop $10,000 a year to stop yourself from getting HIV?

Childhood Violence Causes Premature DNA Ageing

Cocaine Literally Rots Your Brain

Exercise Will Help You Quit Smoking

Polar Bears Aren’t Descended From Brown Bears After All

The FCC Wants to Stop You Being Shocked By Your Phone Bill

Toxic oceans created the greatest explosion in biodiversity Earth has ever seen

Breast Cancer Is Actually Ten Different Diseases

Dinosaurs were doomed because laying eggs made them too huge

How We Identify Single Voices in a Crowd

Talking to Yourself Makes You Smarter

Kangaroos have three vaginas

Bucky Balls Could Double Your Lifespan

Spam Rank: The Google-Backed Research Fighting Fake Reviews

Happy Memories Become Less Special If You Talk About Them

‘The Mummy 4’ Is Getting the Family Back Together

JD Vance Says UFOs Are Actually Demons

Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine Hits Its Lowest Price of the Year for Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, Cut Your Daily Coffee Costs at Home

Amazon Clears Out Govee LED Smart Light Bulbs (2-Pack) at a Record Low, Each Bulb Costs Just a Few Dollars

The First Proper ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Trailer Is a ’90s Anime Fever Dream

JBL PartyBox Club 120 Speaker Drops Back to Black Friday Pricing for Amazon’s Big Spring Sale Only

YouTuber Resolves Fraternal Disagreement With Excavator and Hilariously Large Sword

Should We Be Hyped—or Freaked Out—About Nuclear Microreactors?

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

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