Einstein’s Little-Known Passion Project? A Refrigerator
Many people know that work on nuclear weapons enabled the development of the first electronic computers. But it’s no less true that the humble refrigerator, in a roundabout way, enabled the development of the first atom bomb. While reading the newspaper one morning in 1926, Albert Einstein nearly choked on his eggs. An entire family…
The Archaeologists Saving Miami's History From the Sea
This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When Hurricane Irma sprinted toward Miami-Dade County, Jeff Ransom couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t just worried about gusts shattering windows, or sheets of rain drowning the highway—that’s far from unusual near his home in Broward County, where extreme weather verges on routine, and patches of U.S.…
While You Were Offline: Twitter Is Sad About McDonald's Changing the Happy Meal
Ever since last week's school shooting in Parkland, Florida left 17 people dead, much of the internet's attention has been focused on that tragedy. But that hasn't been the only thing taking up bandwidth. For one thing, there was internet uproar over a New York Times op-ed writer, Mitt Romney making his expected, if not…
This Year's Sundance Lineup Might Be Its Most Crucial Yet
Click:室內設計 Every year important movies come to the Sundance Film Festival. Documentaries about global warming, narrative features about the trials of incarceration, stories of marginalized communities—they’re all screening from sunup to sundown. Yet this year’s Sundance lineup might be its most crucial, and timely, yet. Related Stories That’s because at a time when less than…
The Education of Brett the Robot
The Berkeley Robot for the Elimination of Tedious Tasks—aka Brett, of course—holds one of those puzzle cubes for kids in one hand and with the other tries to jam a rectangular peg into a hole. It is unhappily, hilariously toddler-like in its struggles. The peg strikes the cube with a clunk, and Brett pulls back,…
Physicists Capture the Elusive Neutrino Smacking Into an Atom's Core
Every second of every day, trillions of tiny particles called neutrinos are raining down on your head. But unlike raindrops, hailstones, or bird poop, these elementary particles go right through your body—and through Earth’s crust, mantle, and core—at nearly the speed of light. After they sail through the entire planet, they fly silently back into…
Thanks to Binges and Benders, Postmates Knows the True You
Uber knows where you live and work; Amazon tracks your spending habits; Facebook logs your Likes. But Postmates—the refuge of homebodies, impulse shoppers, and the lazy, hungry masses—understands the real you: your moods, your flings, your celebrations, and your munchies. We tapped a team of data scientists at the anything-goes delivery company to reveal our…
Beach Culture Versus Tech Money: Fight!
The road to dystopia is paved with errors. It winds and undulates, and its off ramps include avoidable catastrophes like Madmaximum, where a boneheaded energy policy un-terraforms Earth, and the suburban nightmare of the Handmaid’s Vale, with all its orderly fascism. But honestly, the destination that freaks me out the most is the collection of…
How Climate Change Denial Threatens National Security
In a cramped meeting room Wednesday on Capitol Hill, House Democrats hosted a roundtable to discuss climate change with several national security experts. In attendance were two former admirals, a retired general, a once-ambassador to Nigeria, and the former undersecretary to the Secretary of Defense. Over several hours of questioning, they described how climate change…
US Farms Could Suffer as the Arctic Heats Up
Planet Earth is getting hotter. One of the more confusing aspects of this global trend is the persistent, undeniable discomfort of winter. Even more confusing is when that chilly weather continues into April, May, or godforbidpleasenot June. This might clear the confusion (but probably not the frustration): Those colder temperatures in the first half of…