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A team of German scientists were wondering how to deliver medications into the female reproductive tract and realized, hey, why come up with something new? The human body already produces its own little machines perfectly suited to deliver their goods to that same spot. So, why not tame our little sex swimmers as a means…
You know that feeling when you just really cannot be bothered to do any work? Of course you do! It’s Friday afternoon. You’re staring at the screen, waiting in vain for Twitter to provide some decent distractions, maybe scrolling through OpenTable for brunch reservations, fantasizing about sleeping in tomorrow. Someone who certainly knows that feel…
Yesterday, in our nation’s capital, I spent two hours in a beautiful fantasy. A world where the usual constraints of time and space don’t apply, where almost everyone in our fractured nation is connected, closer than ever, united by technology. No, I wasn’t smoking weed, though it’s legal here: I was at the Hyperloop Showcase,…
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has now withdrawn its outrageous and unconstitutional order demanding Twitter give up user data related to an account frequently critical of the Trump administration. https://gizmodo.com/twitter-sues-trump-administration-over-order-to-unmask-1794088714 On Thursday, Twitter filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, the CBP, and others, arguing that the CPB’s demand to…
It’s one of the biggest mysteries in this global experiment we’re conducting by pouring 10 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year: What’ll happen to the plants? Will the relentless burning of fossil fuels prompt our leafy green friends to suck down more CO2, tapping the brakes on climate change? Or are the…
Following a head injury, patients typically undergo a CT scan to rule out brain bleeding. A new head worn device that scans the brain’s electrical patterns has shown tremendous promise in clinical trials, presenting an inexpensive way for physicians to make a potentially life-saving diagnosis. The device, called AHEAD 300, was developed by BrainScope, a…
Say hello to Califorctenus cacachilensis, a new species of spider found in a remote mountain region of Baja California Sur. This elusive, softball-sized arachnid prefers the dark and cozy confines of caves, which seems entirely appropriate given its gruesome appearance. Also, we are never going into caves ever again. Spiders are an incredibly diverse and…
On Wednesday, Axon (formerly “Taser”) announced its offer to outfit every cop in the US with a free body camera, with rollout beginning as soon as the end of the month. About 20% of police departments use body cameras. The overwhelmingly majority of all police departments have no policies about how best to use the…
Apple just pushed out its newest app, a mobile iMovie for the Snapchat generation—but it’s far from the only lightweight video editor you can get for your phone. Jazz up those clips of your pets and vacations before they hit Instagram and Snapchat with these mobile video editing suites, putting pro tools in your pocket.…
The US military launched a missile attack on a Syrian airbase last night, and the President of the United States announced it by uncharacteristically invoking God three times in his three-minute speech. The baby known as Cold War II was conceived long ago. But last night, President Trump helped give birth. Congratulations! It’s a war!…
One of the few issues uniting the loose coalition of meme obsessed right-wingers, ethno-national, white supremacists, and other fringe political camps we’ve come to know as the alt-right has been the sentiment that our protracted wars in the Middle East were a grave misstep. Many Trump supporters I’ve spoken to went so far as to…
For the past couple of years, mediocre drone videos of dramatic landscapes have littered the internet. Like, we get it, drone pilots. Your camera flies and stuff looks pretty from the sky and the whole conceit is pretty trite at this point. And then I saw these four minutes of magic, filmed in South Africa.…
Celiac disease can be a nightmare, with the slew of gluten-triggered ails it brings. Those includes everything from gastrointestinal symptoms like bloating and diarrhea, to psychological symptoms, anemia, seizures… pretty much everything that can make the body feel bad, combined into one awful mess. At least one in 141 Americans suffer from celiac disease (that’s…
A well-photographed headshot can help make or break an actor or model’s career, which is why performers will often spends thousands of dollars to hire a talented photographer. Your selfies, on the other hand, look like they were snapped in the back of a taxi at two in the morning. Luckily, Adobe says it can…
Twitter just filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection over an attempt by those agencies to unmask an anonymous Twitter account, @ALT_uscis, that is frequently critical of United States immigration policy. From Twitter’s lawsuit: Specifically, on March 14, 2017, they issued and delivered to Twitter an administrative…
If you want to enter the modern age and listen to all your music online then streaming is the only way to go. While iHeartRadio and Pandora have both become the poor man’s Spotify—demanding costly monthly fees for so so music selection there’s still genuine free music available online. Internet radio gives you an endless…
Today, science news writers got excited about a purportedly new species of “worm snail” found by Field Museum researchers. It’s a slime-shooting, finger-length thing that shows up where no one wants it to. Guys, it’s a sea dick. Scientists went scuba diving at the similarly dick-shaped state Florida’s Keys to visit some shipwrecks that have…
By now we’ve seen everything from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to Donald Trump to popular memes processed by neural networks like Google’s Deep Dream. They’re like bizarre drug trips, but without the drugs. But it was only recently that Alexander Reben was curious enough to see what a neural network would make of the…
At times, DNA testing can feel more like horoscopes than science. In many cases, we just don’t know enough about a gene to say what it means for our health. For this reason, the Food and Drug Administration has sought to protect consumers by preventing DNA testing companies from telling them whether or not they’re…
We finally know the specs for Microsoft’s supercharged Xbox One: the Project Scorpio console. They’re impressive. The GPU has nearly four times as many compute units as the original Xbox One and the memory on the console will be 108GB/s faster than the memory in both the Xbox One S and Scorpio’s primary challenger, the…
