America's Fastest-Growing Urban Area Has a Water Problem
This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When Latter-day Saint migrants arrived in Utah in 1847, a verse in Isaiah served as consolation to them in the dessicated landscape: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Lately, the…
The 2009 vs. 2019 Meme Is a Gift From Our Smartphones
You saw it. We saw it. Everyone saw it. Slowly but surely this past weekend everyone started posting current pictures of themselves next to photos from 2009. Largely marked #2009vs2019 or #10yearchallenge the posts flooded Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. As might be expected, the meme quickly got picked up by those looking to make a…
Can Our Phones Save Us From Our Phones?
Hi. My name is Robbie, and I'm addicted to browser tabs. For years, I deluded myself into thinking they were an efficient way to gather information on a given subject. Or subjects. Sub-subjects, too. You see the problem. Which is why, for the past few months, I've been experimenting with a Chrome extension called xTab.…
Cantina Talk: Episode IX Might Feature Lando's Daughter
Sure, we're past the 40th anniversary of the Star Wars Holiday Special by now, but it's still the season of giving. If it wasn't, how would you explain the fact that we might have learned about new characters for Star Wars: Episode IX or new cast members for The Mandalorian? And if that isn't enough,…
You Can Model China’s Tiangong-1 Space Station Crash
At some point this week, the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 is going to crash down to Earth. When and where? We can't know for sure. And for that, we have physics to blame. Tiangong-1 is in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of about 138 miles. At first approximation, there is only one force…
Climate Change Made Zombie Ants Even More Cunning
Raquel Loreto is a zombie hunter, and a good one. But traipsing through dried leaves in a hot forest in Sanda, at the southern end of Japan, she needed a guide. Just a few months before, she’d been on the internet and come across the work of artist Shigeo Ootak, whose fantastical images depict humans…
MIT Unleashes a Hypnotic Robot Fish to Help Save the Oceans
Like a miniaturized Moby Dick, the pure-white fish wiggles slowly over the reef, ducking under corals and ascending, then descending again, up and down and all around. Its insides, though, are not flesh, but electronics. And its flexible tail flicking back and forth is not made of muscle and scales, but elastomer. The Soft Robotic…
Biotech Gets Some Silicon Valley Shine at Illumina’s New Campus
Employees arriving at the Peninsula’s newest, shiniest corporate campus will find it equipped with all the creature comforts now expected in Silicon Valley. There are gaming consoles with stadium-level seating; a tricked-out gym where trainers both real and virtual will kick your butt into shape; well-sod grounds where you can walk off your local, vegan,…
Facebook’s New Data Restrictions Will Handcuff Even Honest Researchers
Last week, when news broke (again) that Cambridge Analytica had allegedly misused 50 million Facebook users' data, it immediately raised a difficult question: When a company possesses information about some 2 billion people, is its chief obligation to share that information, or protect it? The answer's not as obvious as you might think. To social…
The Fundamental Nihilism of Yanny vs. Laurel
Some people heard the word “laurel” in a short audio clip that became internet-famous this week, while others heard the not-word “yanny.” This proves that we will all die alone. Thanks to some sleuthing by my colleague Louise Matsakis, people interested in following up can learn that regardless of what they heard in the clip,…