Science, Spoken

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Learn From These Bugs. Don't Let Social Media Zombify You Sep 26, 2018

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You’ve heard that social media is screwing with your brain. Maybe you even read about it on social media. (So meta; so messed up.) The neurochemical culprit, dopamine, spikes when you like and get liked, share and are shared. You’ve probably also heard scientists compare the affliction to drug or alcohol addiction. That’s fair. The same part of the brain lights up. Scroll, scroll, scroll. It’s a phenomenon now so pervasive that it’s got a name: zombie scrolling syndrome.

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This Supple, Squishy Robo-Jellyfish Can Explore Ocean Reefs Sep 26, 2018

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Jellyfish float through the ocean like drones of the sea. Their simple nature makes them a natural muse for robot engineers building devices that can squeeze through tight spaces, check the ocean’s health, and eventually, explore the human body. This week, a team at Florida Atlantic University unveiled a new eight-inch wide robo-jellyfish built to monitor marine life and harsh underwater habitats. It's not the first attempt to automate one of these 500 million year-old creatures.

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The Creepy-Cute Robot that Picks Peppers With its Face Sep 25, 2018

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Rejoice! The machines won’t be taking over the world anytime soon, because doing the most basic of tasks still confounds them. I mean, have you thought lately about how hard it is to pick a ripe bell pepper? Fine, me neither. But researchers in Israel and Europe certainly have. They're developing a robot called Sweeper that can autonomously roam a greenhouse, eyeballing peppers to determine if they’re mature enough before sawing them off the plant and placing the produce in a basket.

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Here's the Plan to End Malaria With Crispr-Edited Mosquitoes Sep 25, 2018

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In 2003, scientists at London’s Imperial College hatched a somewhat out-there idea. They wanted to deal with the increasingly pesticide-resistant mosquitoes that were killing half a million people a year by spreading malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. What biologists Austin Burt and Andrea Crisanti proposed was nothing short of hacking the laws of heredity.

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First It Was a Hurricane. Then Pig Poop. Now It’s Coal Ash Sep 24, 2018

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After the storm comes the flood. Hurricane Florence poured 8 trillion gallons of rain onto North Carolina, and now the landscape between the Cape Fear River and the barrier islands of the Carolinas is a waterworld. Because ecological disasters happen in irony loops, that means long-recognized hazards have now become add-on catastrophes. First the floodwaters found thousands of literal cesspools containing the waste of 6 million hogs, and on Friday the waters reached a pool of toxic coal ash.

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New Microscope Shows the Quantum World in Crazy Detail Sep 24, 2018

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The transmission electron microscope was designed to break records. Using its beam of electrons, scientists have glimpsed many types of viruses for the first time. They’ve used it to study parts of biological cells like ribosomes and mitochondria. You can see individual atoms with it. But experts have recently unlocked new potential for the machine. “It’s been a very dramatic and sudden shift,” says physicist David Muller of Cornell University.

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The Rocket That Gave Us GPS and the Mars Rovers Retires Sep 21, 2018

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Last weekend, the Delta II rocket—for 30 years a regular fixture on launchpads in the United States—lifted off for the final time. The vehicle, built by the United Launch Alliance, had long carried the title of the most reliable rocket in service. With a record 153 successful launches out of 155 flights, the 125-foot-tall monolith, with its sporty teal-and-white paint scheme, is now officially a figure of the past.

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The Science Behind Home Disaster Preparedness Kits Is a Disaster Sep 21, 2018

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Helicopters got to Wilmington, North Carolina after a day of isolation; Hurricane Florence made landfall there, and the city, with one foot in the Atlantic and the other in the Cape Fear River, soon became an island. Its main roads underwater, Wilmington went without help until boats and choppers reached it with medical supplies, water, and food. But it only took a day. According to the federal government, that’s actually pretty fast. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept.

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Want a Robot to Really Get a Grip? Make It Like Baymax Sep 20, 2018

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The octopus is unique among animals in that it can essentially turn itself into liquid, Terminator style. Get yourself a 600-pound octopus and leave it unsupervised and the thing will squeeze itself into a quarter-sized tube and melt its way to freedom. And its manipulation superpowers are legendary—cram it into a jar and it’ll unscrew its way out. So it goes when you’ve got no bones. And loosey-goosey octopuses can teach us a thing or two about robots.

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Why Animal Extinction Is Crippling Computer Science Sep 20, 2018

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Dodos. Western black rhinoceros. Tasmanian tigers. Bennett's seaweed. The list of extinct animal and plant species goes on and on. It's a tragedy that's only getting worse, we're told, but honestly, I never cared that much. Recently, though, I've found myself sympathizing with those fighting against species extinction. The reason? I'm a computer scientist interested in algorithms.

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