“This season is based on my belief that we have what it takes to get to a real exciting future,” Druyan said in an interview with Engadget. “I base my belief on stories of the courage of our ancestors, the generations of searchers for the truth who have been willing to die, to stand up…
Category: Science and Nature
Lettuce grown on the ISS is as nutritious as Earth harvests, scientists find
The main difference between the two is that the ISS vegetables have more microorganisms, but that’s probably just because of the microflora that live on the space station. None of them, however, are harmful to humans, such as E. coli and Salmonella. The scientists’ findings are significant, because they tell us that we can grow…
Scientists develop neuroprosthetic tech that amputees don’t need to learn
One of the biggest challenges in mind-controlled prosthetics is finding a strong and stable enough nerve signal to attach to the bionic limb. Scientists already know that peripheral nerves – the network of tiny nerves that fan out to the spinal cord and brain — are liable to offer the most precise and intuitive control…
Joanna Russ Was Sci-Fi’s Most Outspoken Feminist
Skip Article Header. Skip to: Start of Article. Illustration: Elena Lacey Joanna Russ, author of novels such as The Female Man and We Who Are About To, was the most outspoken feminist in the history of science fiction. Gwyneth Jones spent five years researching a book about Russ, which was recently published as part of…
Data Sharing and Open Source Software Help Combat Covid-19
On February 27, a teenager in the Seattle area was diagnosed with Covid-19. Shortly after, researchers at the Seattle Flu Study shared genomic data about his strain of the virus with other researchers on an “open science” site. Armed with that data, researchers involved with a second open science project determined that the teenager’s strain…
DIY Rockets, Daredevils, and the Tragedy of Mad Mike Hughes
“Mad Mike” Hughes died on February 22 when the parachutes on his homemade steam rocket failed to deploy and he augured into the sagebrush near Barstow, California, like a giant lawn dart plummeting at more than 300 miles per hour. I helped to kill him. Not because I designed or built the rocket, and not…
How Social Distancing Became Social Justice
Covid-19 has brought the science of epidemiology into public discourse in ways that not even SARS or Ebola outbreaks did. The merits of hand washing are now unprecedentedly appreciated, and the citizen-science public has an increasingly strong handle on how Covid-19’s contagiousness and lethality influence our prospects. Our understanding of Covid’s contagiousness is best captured…
Dyson Corrale Hair Straightener: Features, Release Date, Price
My hair is curly, coarse, and thick. Some days that feels like a blessing; other days it’s a curse. Taming it by flat ironing isn’t fun. It’s tiring and can hurt. Cheap designs—which don’t always have a cheap price—pull strands of my hair as I pass the iron through. I can’t count how many times…
Panic, Pandemic, and the Body Politic
Infections don’t just attack weaknesses in the human body. They also exploit weaknesses in human society. Some disasters are small, and some disasters are just very far away. Covid-19 is neither. It’s big, and it’s here, and it’s fast. Infection rates are currently doubling roughly every three days. It’s going to be bad, and it’s…
Forget Chess—the Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D
Fans of games like Dungeons & Dragons know that the fun comes, in part, from a creative Dungeon Master—an all-powerful narrator who follows a storyline but has free rein to improvise in response to players’ actions and the fate of the dice.This kind of spontaneous yet coherent storytelling is extremely difficult for artificial intelligence, even…