Tech News

Can You Solve the Creepy Crypto-Puzzle That’s Consuming the Internet?

There’s a sinister cryptographic puzzle sweeping the Internet, with forums abuzz with people trying to decode the clues held within a creepy video. Can you help work out what it all means? The whole thing started when Johny from GadgetZZ.com posted a video online from a CD he received in the mail. The disc had…

This Is the Most Important Tool in Your Toolkit

Because it’s only a matter of time before you realize you need the help of someone who actually knows what they’re doing. [Truth Facts]

If you use Amazon’s grocery service, brace yourself for a price-hike: the you now need a $300 Prime Fresh subscription before you can get produce delivered to your door.

An MIT Algorithm Can Provide Better Human Intuition Than Humans

Computers have a reputation for being able to churn through numbers with limited intuition. Now, though, an algorithm developed by researchers at MIT to find predictive patterns in unfamiliar data has performed better than two-thirds of human teams. The researchers, from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, are trying to take some of the…

How Neurosurgeons Can Now Look at Your Brain Through Your Eyes

For many years scientists have been trying to find a way to measure the pressure in a patient’s brain without having to drill a hole in the person’s skull. Although this remains the most reliable way to measure pressure in the brain it is invasive, expensive and comes with the risk of infection and bleeding.…

Apple Admits That Delaminating Screens Might Actually Be a Problem

It’s taken 6,000 pissed-off customers, a Change.org petition, and an entire website named Staingate, but Apple has finally agreed that yes, a coating peeling off Retina Macbook displays is not good. The problem is with the anti-reflective coating on some Macbook and Macbook Pro models, which can delaminate from the screen, causing some fairly awful-looking…

These Giant Magnets Are About to Start the Journey to Absolute Zero

Among many other things, General Electric makes the MRI machines that peek inside your body when something’s broke. To do so requires one very cold, very big magnet. These magnets are fresh from production at GE’s magnetic resonance facility in Florence, South Carolina. In order to function properly, the magnets inside MRI machines have to…

Fatal Shooting Erupts At Zombie-Themed Art and Music Festival in Florida

A 20-year-old man was killed and five other people were injured just before midnight on Saturday at “ZombiCon,” an undead-themed art and music festival in Fort Myers, Florida. As of Sunday night, the shooter was still at large. The event is billed as Florida’s “largest gathering of zombies and those who love them.” News reports…

Amazon is Suing 1,000 Fake Five-Star Reviewers

As well as promising the entire world in a FedEx box, Amazon also trades on the quality of its reviews. So it’s actually not surprising that the company is taking 1,114 unknown reviewers to court. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-is-starting-to-sue-sellers-of-fake-five-star-rev-1696953966 It’s not the first time that Amazon has taken legal action against fake reviews: back in April, it sued…

Rainwater Tanks and Green Roofs Could Be the Best Way to Avoid More of Last Week’s LA Mudslides

Water management experts say decentralized techniques like rainwater collection tanks, green rooftops, and even absorbent pavement could be the best way to manage water from storms and prevent the kind of runoff that caused flash floods and mudslides in southern California last week. The mudslides trapped 200 cars on southern California freeways on Thursday night,…

The Internet Really Isn’t A Permanent Archive

Welcome to this week’s Reading List, our weekly collection of interesting science and technology stories from around the internet. This week, we’ll delve into the seedy world of online gambling, consider the transitory nature of the internet, and more. We tend to think of the internet as a worldwide repository of instantly accessible information and…

This is How Plants Become Zombies

It sounds like a bizarre video game mashup, but farmers have reported “zombie” plants since the early 1600s: plants that took on a sickly yellow look and grew strange leaf-like structures or bushy growths instead of flowering and reproducing. Since 1967, we’ve known that this is the work of a bacteria called phytoplasma, which infects…

Now We Can Grow Kidney Structures from Stem Cells

Two research teams in the last two months have published studies on kidney structures grown from stem cells, which might be a step toward personalized replacement organs grown from patients’ own cells. “We have converted skin cells to stem cells and developed a highly efficient process to convert these stem cells into kidney structures that…

If You Send a Sloth to Space, You Better Expect it to Nap

Would a sloth make a good astronaut? Probably not, but it’s damn cute to watch one try. This little creature headed to NASA’s Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) for International Sloth Day, a plush mascot to raise awareness for our tiny friends while demonstrating what it would be like to go on a deep space…

This Video Explains the Most Disturbing Fashion Trend in Human History

17th century Icelanders were a cold, hungry, light-deprived lot. And it’s under these miserable conditions that imaginations dreamt up the most disturbing wearable ever: Leggings, made of the skin of your dead friend. They’re called necropants, and today, their macabre history is preserved at the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft. Here’s how the skinny…

Why Do We Smell the Change of Seasons?

Colorful foliage is autumn’s hallmark, but humans can also smell the change of seasons. What exactly is that familiar scent that hits our noses every October? Turns out, it’s a lot more complicated than wood smoke and pumpkin spice lattes. Most familiar aromas are a concoction of numerous odiferous molecules. The scent of a rose,…

The Plan to Make California Wet By Spreading Beavers Up and Down the State

Ending the drought in the West will require rain—not too much rain—and smarter ways to collect and store that water. But something else that can keep things moist? Believe it or not: Beavers. According to a story in Water Deeply, a group of ecologists have a plan to help repopulate the Central Coast of California…

In Space, “Up” is a State of Mind

September 9, 2015: The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station for a ten-day mission, providing visual proof of a little bit of every day magic: in space, “up” is optional. The Soyuz spacecraft carried ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Aidyn Aimbetov to the space station. The mission…

The Beautiful DiY Rebar Art That Still Decorates Ex-Socialist Buildings 

If you happen to be wandering the countryside walking the streets of ex-socialist towns and villages in Central or Eastern Europe, you may notice a similar decor on houses built in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. What you’re witnessing is DiY rebar art in its finest form. Just like the case of the cabins beside…

Washington DC is Turning Our Nation’s Poop into Power

The next time you pay a visit to our nation’s capital, flush the toilet with a little extra pride. Your excrement is now helping contribute to America’s clean energy future. Yep, you heard that right: In September, D.C. Water became the first utility in North America to convert treated sewage sludge to electricity. At its…