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Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek was optimistic back in 2012. After all, he’d just won a wager after scientists had just announced their Higgs boson discovery at the Large Hadron Collider particle physics experiment in Switzerland. He made another bet—but he’s doesn’t feel as confident today. Wilczek made his new bet with Swedish physicist Tord…
What you’re seeing is a valuable painting being partially dissolved on purpose. Fine art is often coated with varnish for the same reason furniture is: it provides a protective barrier to the elements. But varnish turns yellow over time, and an even less attractive color after a few centuries—which is why art restoration experts need…
As long as there has been a Joker—and we’re going on eighty years with this guy—there has been, as well, a Joker venom. It debuted alongside him, in 1940s Batman #1, and has been a part of his arsenal ever since. Though its side effects have varied over the years, it has remained in each…
The first mammals emerged during the reign of the dinosaurs, adopting a nocturnal lifestyle to stay safe. It was only until the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the planet that certain mammals began to assert themselves during the daylight hours, according to new research. New evidence published in Nature Ecology & Evolution suggests…
Do you remember when Twitter stopped limiting the number of usernames you could tag in a post and suddenly for a few days people started tagging dozens of users at once just to be annoying? Well, if people start duplicating this hack, it’ll make your timeline a hell of a lot worse than that. https://gizmodo.com/oh-please-why-no-1818820995…
Uber announced on Sunday that it’s taking new steps toward preventing sexual assault and domestic violence, starting with a $5 million donation to its partners—Raliance, National Network to End Domestic Violence, No More, Women of Color Network, Casa de Esperanza, A Call to Men, and The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs—along with an employee training…
In the competition to supply the world’s ever-increasing demand for wireless modems, a bid by Broadcom to purchase Qualcomm announced on Monday could result in a major shift in power. With an offer of $105 billion (plus another $25 billion to cover net debt), Broadcom’s purchase of Qualcomm would be the biggest tech acquisition in…
Galaxies didn’t always take on the beautiful spiral shape we’ve come to associate with Andromeda and our own Milky Way. Looking far away into deep space—and into the past—ancient galaxies mostly look like giant blobs. But thanks to gravity’s light-bending properties, scientists have spotted a confounding thing in the distance: what appears to be the…
Did you see that photo from yesterday of President Trump with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the koi pond? It purportedly shows Trump crudely dumping fish food into the pond as Abe looks on in horror. The photo went viral last night as people ridiculed Trump for being such a buffoon. But the photo…
As authorities named Devin Patrick Kelley as the shooter in a horrifying massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas which resulted in at least 26 deaths on Sunday, Google once again served up misinformation and posts from conspiracy theorists at the top of search results for his name. On Sunday evening, Googling “Devin Patrick Kelley” delivered results…
Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world’s richest individuals and a major investor in firms including Citigroup, Euro Disney, Apple, Twitter, 21st Century Fox, and Lyft, was arrested on Saturday night as “part of a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown that included detaining 10 other Saudi princes, four country ministers and dozens of other…
What’s going on here? Numerous Twitter users have noticed that searching for the terms bisexual or bisexuality (with or without a hashtag) and clicking on the fields for photo, video, or news results returns nothing but a message stating, “The term you entered did not bring up any results. You may have mistyped your term…
President Donald Trump has headed to Japan at the head of an 11-day Asian tour, with last-ditch efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis before it spirals out of control at the top of the agenda. And, true to form, the guy is not exactly being a confidence builder with respect to his understanding…
Google, Facebook and Twitter, three of the country’s most prominent tech companies, all testified before Congress this week that they had unintentionally been part of an alleged Russian operation to spread misinformation and propaganda during the 2016 presidential elections. On Saturday, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested that the companies involved could make good…
The planned merger between T-Mobile and Sprint is not happening after the two telecom giants “were unable to find mutually agreeable terms,” both companies confirmed in a statement on Saturday. T-Mobile CEO John Legere wrote that he believed the merger would have been beneficial, though somewhat cuttingly added “a deal with anyone will have to…
Staffers for Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai, who has made rolling back Barack Obama-era rules on net neutrality one of the top priorities of his tenure, met with representatives from Comcast this week to hear them out on a plan to prevent states from issuing their own neutrality rules. According to Ars Technica, the…
Silicon Valley has decided to throw its support behind the so-called Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 (SESTA) that is sure to have enormously damaging consequences for the internet. Previously, most big tech giants opposed the legislation. But this week, Congress started intimating that they might need to bring more regulations to tame the…
Speaking at a science conference in Ottawa on Thursday, Canada’s newly appointed governor general, Julie Payette, directed some harsh comments towards climate skeptics, astrologists, and believers of “divine intervention.” Critics complained that it’s not the governor general’s place to get involved in such matters, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended the speech. That Julie Payette,…
Equifax discovered on July 29th that it had been hacked, losing the Social Security numbers and other personal information of 143 million Americans—and then just a few days later, several of its executives sold stock worth a total of nearly $1.8 million. When the hack was publicly announced in September, Equifax’s stock promptly tanked, which…
You can pretty much set your watch to the latest tech trends by following the release of Bjork albums. Following her previous iPad app album, and various forays into VR, she’s now apparently including a little bit of cryptocurrency for anyone who buys her new album. Let’s hope the SEC doesn’t have any issues with…
