While You Were Offline: But (Ivanka's) Emails …
It's Thanksgiving Week, which means that the tryptophan haze has caused us to produce a shorter look back at online chatter in a week during which the stock market tanked, romaine lettuce was revealed to be potentially poisonous, and California remained on fire. There was, as that list might make clear, a lot going on…
DNA-Repairing Sunscreen: Legit or Not?
Click: Having grown up in Tucson, Arizona, one of the sunniest cities in the world, I consider myself well-versed in the carcinogenic threat of UV exposure, the skin-sparing sanctity of shade, and the redeeming qualities of the sartorial atrocity that is the broad-brimmed hat. I am also a compulsive sunscreensplainer. "Well, actually, SPF 30 lotions…
How Trumpy Bear Divided the World—and Conquered the Internet
Trumpy Bear’s two-minute commercial begins with a prophecy. A baritone voice intones it: “The wind whispered through the forest, ‘A storm is coming. You cannot defeat the storm … I fear nothing.'” When the wind’s monologue concludes, the ad offers up campy endorsements of Trumpy Bear from salt-of-the-earth archetypes: firefighters, law enforcement officers, pizza shop…
NASA Just Proved It Can Navigate Space Using Pulsars. Where to Now?
Half a century ago, astronomers observed their first pulsar: a dead, distant, ludicrously dense star that emitted pulses of radiation with remarkable regularity. So consistent was the object's signal that astronomers jokingly nicknamed it LGM-1, short for "little green men." It wasn't long before scientists detected more signals like LGM-1. That decreased the odds that…
While You Were Offline: That's One Way to Stop Trump's Wall
Even by 2019 standards, this last week has been a doozy; we've had police allege Empire actor Jussie Smollett faked his attack in an attempt to promote his career, a new election called in North Carolina, and another potential government revolt in the UK over Brexit, which has also resulted in the formation of a…
NASA’s Jim Bridenstine Agrees Humans Are Responsible for Climate Change
It's no secret that the Trump administration has filled cabinet positions and other senior staff jobs with people who reject or ignore established climate science. On Monday, for example, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington that he’s “not going to get into the climate debate.” He also said…
Making a Stormtrooper Out of Bodies Is Easier Than You'd Think
If the work of Pilobolus looks familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen them on the Oscars. Or on YouTube. Though the dance troupe was founded in 1971 at Dartmouth College, the group’s most recent spate of notoriety comes from its projected shadow play routines, multi-person performances done behind a screen that give the illusion that…
With Some Structure, Stem Cells Might Still Stop Vision Loss
Getting older is supposed to give you perspective. But for one out of five people over the age of 65, it does the opposite. Macular degeneration is a common progressive eye condition, one that thins and breaks down a tissue behind the center of the retina. Without that tissue, the light-sensing cells it supports atrophy…
Frozen 2 Trailer: Twitter Asks, Where Is Elsa's Girlfriend?
One hour. That's all it took for the tweets to start coming in. No sooner had Disney dropped the trailer for Frozen 2 than the question started popping up: Where was Elsa's girlfriend? Was she gonna be a lesbian, or nah? Disney fans and LGBTQ advocates alike were demanding: Make Elsa Gay, Dammit. Related Stories…
Researchers Restore Elusive Sixth Sense to Lost Limbs
The bionic hand closes slowly. Its slender metal digits whirr as they jitter into a loose fist, as though they are wrapping around an invisible baton. "OK, closed," says the test subject. The test subject is Amanda Kitts. In 2006, a Ford F350 hit her Mercedes sedan head-on. The collision rent the truck's tire from…