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The female menstrual cycle is a rite of passage into womanhood that for centuries has been shrouded in mystery and taboo. Pliny The Elder, for one, believed that menstrual blood could turn crop fields barren. Just last century, one scientist floated a theory that menstrual blood contained a poison that caused women to turn wine…
On Tuesday, President Trump is expected to begin the process of dismantling Obama’s environmental legacy, including his signature climate action policy, the Clean Power Plan. According to Reuters, Trump will sign an executive order compelling the Environmental Protection Agency to review and rewrite the plan, which calls on states to reduce carbon emissions from power…
Over the past few years, people have been freaking out about a plan to release genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys, concerned that in addition to combatting the spread of Zika virus and other mosquito-borne illnesses the mosquitoes would usher in some sort of sci-fi catastrophe. Now, the British biotech company behind those mosquitoes…
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced a new venture called Neuralink, a startup which aims to develop neural interface technologies that connect our brains to computers. Musk says it’s the best way to prevent an AI apocalypse, but it’s on this point that he’s gravely mistaken. As reported in The Wall Street Journal,…
If you’ve got a debt to pay, a bill to split or a reward to give, you no longer need to dig out your wallet or bother with notes and coins—your smartphone is perfectly capable of sending money to friends and relatives with just a few taps. But the apps that let you send the…
On a recent trip to Disney World, I had an unusual experience. I rode a ride. It broke. We were evacuated, and a few minutes later, I got a picture on my phone. It was an empty raft sliding down Splash Mountain, taken at precisely the moment I was walking down the emergency stairwell. It…
In an interview on Friday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made a joke about everyone sending their kids to go see Lego Batman, a movie that he helped produce. So now Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, is calling for the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Mnuchin for violating ethics rules. It’s almost as…
The need for more blood donations is a seemingly never-ending problem. Between interruptions to the donation process, fear of needles, rare blood types, and a general lack of awareness, life-saving blood supplies are difficult to keep stocked. But a team of researchers has found a way to manufacture artificial blood that could make a major…
Period films are the bane of movie producers’ existence. They cost a ton of money, limit locations, require elaborate costuming and are always fighting against the very existence of the modern world. But when it all comes together, the films function as one of the closest things we have to a time machine. Filmmaker Vugar…
A proper Steadicam rig that can capture smooth tracking and chase shots usually requires thousands of dollars (not including the camera) and a highly-skilled operator. As a cheaper workaround, these filmmakers used a gyro-stabilized camera drone that they held in front of them like a traditional film camera. The approach by Brazilian production house Space Criative…
Remember David Cameron, the failed Prime Minister of Great Britain who slunk away from public life last year amid the chaos of Brexit? The man who will be remembered for being, among other things, the utter git who reportedly decided to hold the Brexit vote in a Chicago airport pizza restaurant? Well, he’s in the…
Climate change is bad, beef is bad, everything is bad, yadda yadda. But Americans ate less beef between 2005 and 2014, which kept a lot of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, according to a new study. Maybe cutting back on those hamburgers is actually doing something good for the environment. The Natural Resource Defense…
After you watch this video of an adorable little girl named Rayna greeting and hugging a new robot friend, you’ll come to the realization it will never hug or love her back—because it’s actually a discarded water heater. (Sad!) Shortly after that, you’ll also come to the realization that kids clearly aren’t being raised with…
The common house mouse is one of the most recognizable creatures on the planet, yet we know surprisingly little about the origins of this crafty rodent. New research shows that house mice first entered human settlements far earlier than previously thought—but they had to fight a rival species to maintain their status as one of…
In February, Gizmodo reported that many Discord users were facing abuse and were given no clear recourse. Among the issues endemic to the voice- and text-chat platform was the anonymous and unsolicited dissemination of child pornography, a problem which seems to have only gotten worse. https://gizmodo.com/how-a-video-game-chat-client-became-the-web-s-new-cessp-1792039566 Though there has been no official statement on the…
You no longer have to worry about your laptop’s bright screen disrupting your sleep schedule. Apple just released Night Shift—a feature that reduces blue light from the display in the evening—on the newest version of macOS Sierra (10.12.4). The update has been in testing since January 24, but only developers have been able to download…
After the horrifying terror attack in London last week, the familiar debate over government access to encrypted communications has reared its head again. This time, Britain’s home secretary Amber Rudd—who deals with security, terrorism, and policing, among other things—pointed the finger of blame at companies that make encrypted communications possible. “We need to make sure…
Believe it or not, Amazon is having a little bit of trouble with its “super futuristic store with no employees” idea. The latest report out of Seattle claims that the Amazon Go concept is being delayed due to some technical struggles. Basically, the computers get really confused when people shop. Honestly, the idea of an…
For a decade now, one of the biggest factors in choosing a computer has been the choice between traditional hard drive and solid state drive. The former is cheap, bulky, and slow. The latter is expensive, light, and fast. There has been zero middle ground. You’ve had to compromise between price and speed. But Intel’s…
The Galaxy Note 7 is a huge black mark for Samsung—an exploding embarrassment that cost the company tons of money and kicked off one of the biggest PR nightmares in recent memory. But despite the global recall, the jokes on late night TV, and the fact that the FAA and other agencies banned the phone…
