What's Inside a Magical (and Flammable) Grease-Lifting Cleaner
In 1954, Italian inventor Carlo Vanoni swelled with patriotic pride when he learned that his fellow countrymen had summited K2, the second-tallest mountain in the world. He was so proud, in fact, that he started naming all his formulas after it: K2a, K2b, K2c, and on down the alphabet. K2r turned out to be his…
Happy 30th Birthday to the Engine That Powered the CGI Revolution
When Pixar president and co-founder Ed Catmull announced his retirement earlier this year, people rightly saw his impending departure as a transitional moment for the animation studio. But it's bigger than that. Catmull's shadow looms large not just over groundbreaking films like Toy Story and Coco, his influence can be traced all the way back…
The Bot-Strewn History of the Best Kids' Show on Netflix
On a late June day in 2012, Gregg and Evan Spiridellis uploaded five videos to YouTube. Each featured a quintet of monochromatic cartoon robots, catchy songs, and an educational slant. Six years, 150 songs, and 500 million views later, StoryBots is now a kid’s entertainment empire. It also just happens to be one of the…
To Protect Genetic Privacy, Encrypt Your DNA
In 2007, DNA pioneer James Watson became the first person to have his entire genome sequenced—making all of his 6 billion base pairs publicly available for research. Well, almost all of them. He left one spot blank, on the long arm of chromosome 19, where a gene called APOE lives. Certain variations in APOE increase…
Helix’s Bold Plan to Be Your One Stop Personal Genomics Shop
Every day you make thousands of decisions, from the imperceptibly quotidian to those that will change your life forever. But what if instead of listening to the little voice inside your head, you listened to your genes? Your DNA makes you who you are, so theoretically, it could help dictate your daily workout or pick…
The Case for Giving Robots an Identity
The first time Stephanie Dinkins met Bina48, in 2014, she worried the thing was dead. “She was turned off,” Dinkins says. Switched on, Bina48 whirred to life, 32 motors animating its facial expressions behind a layer of frubber. Dinkins caught the robot’s stare and knew she’d found her muse. Bina48 had been conceived several years…
Steam's Platform Dominance Takes an Epic Hit
This week, we've got four big stories for you, from Steam's weaknesses and challenges to Facebook's weird ad policies and some huge news for Destiny fans. Eyes up, Guardian. (That's a Destiny reference. Sorry, everyone else.) Division 2 Will Skip Steam—and Head Straight to Epic Game Store That's right, Epic's ongoing attempts to horn in…
SpaceX's Top Secret Zuma Mission Set to Launch
Update: On January 7, 2018 at 8pm EST, SpaceX successfully launched the Zuma mission and landed its Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth. The launch marks the company's first mission of 2018, and its 21st successful rocket landing. Usually, when a SpaceX thing unexpectedly goes boom, it grounds the company for months and raises questions…
The Testosterone Myth
In 1889, at a meeting of the Société de Biologie of Paris, a physiologist named Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard described the results of an experiment he had recently performed on himself. He had painstakingly mixed an elixir of blood, semen, water, and “juice extracted from a testicle, crushed immediately after it has been taken from a dog…
Do Standalone Episodes Hurt or Help Their Shows?
When Amazon’s Forever debuted earlier this month, it announced itself with a kernel of discord hidden within. Viewers reaching the show’s sixth episode found it stripped of its main characters—June (Maya Rudolph) and Oscar (Fred Armisen), a married couple trapped in unchanging circumstances—and instead angling its view in a different direction. “Andre and Sarah,” directed…