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Tech NewsMcDonald’s Chickens Going Antibiotic Free Is a Really Big Deal
McDonald’s announced todayit will begin only sourcing chickens raised without medically important antibiotics in the U.S. When a juggernaut like McDonald’s makes such decisions, the food world listens—and sourcing only antibiotic-free chicken is a big deal. For decades, poultry farmers have routinely used low doses of antibiotics to help chickens gain weight. The antibiotics are … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Not Even Science Could Explain the Bacteria In My Apartment
Three years ago, I gently brushed fiber-tipped swabs against the surfaces of my tiny New York apartment. Microbes live everywhere, and I was gathering samples for genetic analysis — I wanted to identify my microscopic housemates. Just as microbes live all over our bodies, they also live all over our pillows and furniture and doorknobs. … Continued
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Tech News
A Perfume That Smells Like Roses—But Is Actually Made from Yeast
A rose is a rose is a rose, except when it’s actually a yeast. A company called Ginkgo BioWorks in Boston is partnering with French fragrance company Robertet to create a genetically-modified yeast that makes the rose oil used in perfumes. Why go through all the trouble of recreating rose oil with yeast? The goal … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech NewsSploid
Rap stars and their uncanny Renaissance art doppelgangers
With their furs and bling and ‘tude, today’s rap stars are a lot like the aristocrats of yore. A hilarious tumblr chronicles the accidental convergences of hip hop and pre-16th century art. B4-XVI (get it?) is the brainchild of Cecilia Azcarate, who has a keen eye for the resemblances between unlikely companions like Henry VIII … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
The Rise and Fall of the World’s Nuclear Arsenal Over 70 Years
Since 1987, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been counting up each country’s nuclear arsenal in its Nuclear Notebook, peeling back the veil of secrecy that often surrounds these numbers. The Bulletin has now gone and made its Nuclear Notebook into a neat interactive graphic. There are nine nuclear states: the U.S., Russia, the … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
What 170-Year-Old Beer Uncovered From a Shipwreck Really Tasted Like
Back in 2010, divers off the coast of Finland stumbled upon some astonishingly old booze: champagne and beer preserved underwater in a 170-year-old shipwreck. Naturally, they had a taste. But now scientists are back with a rigorous chemical analysis of the beers. In the initial taste tests, the beer was so sour no one would … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech NewsThis Skeleton Robot Walks and Swims Exactly Like a Salamander
Pleurobot looks like a salamander skeleton come to life and that’s no coincidence. The robot was engineered to slink around exactly like a salamander. And we mean exactly. When researchers at Switzerland’s EPFL set out to build Pleurobot, they spent hours looking at 3D X-ray videos of a salamanders walking, swimming, and walking underwater. The … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
A Massive Lake Beneath Greenland’s Glaciers Has Collapsed
Under Greenland’s frozen surface is a vast network of channels, crevasses, and basins—its “glacial plumbing system.” A few years ago, the water suddenly disappeared from a subglacial lake, which then collapsed into a funny silhouette that NASA likens to a “mitten,” but I think looks more like a waving Yeti. The subglacial lake, a pool … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
What Would Happen to NYC If a Nuke Exploded Over Manhattan
No question, an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated over midtown Manhattan would destroy the city. But the warhead’s sheer poweris hard to fully grasp: roads so hot it’s impossible to drive for days, superheated hurricane-force winds, and 100 square miles of fire. Over at theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists, three researchers describe the full devastation wreaked … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
This Unusually Short-Lived Fish Could Hold the Secrets to Getting Old
The turquoise killifish is largely unremarkable except for how fast it ages. In just three months, it goes from a spry, young fish (left) to a decrepit, old one (right). For scientists who study aging, the turquoise killifish could be the key to their future experiments. The fish is one of the shortest lived vertebrates … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Fukushima Is Teaching Us How Radioactivity Spreads
After the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, scientists began a massive effort to monitor radioactive contamination of food grown nearby. And one good thing did come out of it—we learned how radioactivity moves through the ecosystem. First, let’s be clear that the analysis confirms extensive monitoring kept food whose radioactivity levels exceeded safety limits from reaching … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Our Chemicals Are Falling On Remote Parts of Antarctica In Snow
You probably haven’t heard of “cyclic volatile methylsiloxanes,” but you’ve almost certainly rubbed them into your skin. They’re widely used in lotions and cosmetics to create that smooth, satisfying feel. And now scientists are finding—to their surprise—these chemicals in remote parts of Antarctica. In 2009, a group of scientists took soil, plant, phytoplankton, and krill … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News10 Addictive Games For Killing Time on Your Phone
Last week, we put out a call for the best games for killing time with your little pocket computer, and you, the time-wasters of Kinja, delivered. Here are some of your favorites—plenty of fodder for anyone who wants to up their subway commute game beyond Threes (which, yes, is still extremely popular). This is by … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
The First People On Mars Could Have One Hell Of A Case Of Jet Lag
A day on Mars—or a “sol”—is 24 hours and 40 minutes long, close enough to Earth’s that for a long time NASA didn’t think much of it. But those 40 minutes a day add up, and sleep scientists now worry that our Earthly circadian rhythms could be one more major headache for the first humans … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Astronomers Discover Mysterious Black Hole As Massive As 12 Billion Suns
In a galaxy far, far away—12.8 billion light-years away to be more exact—is a newly-discovered supermassive black hole that weighs as much as 12 billion of our suns. The most surprising thing about the black hole, though, is not its size but its age. Black holes grow as they age, gobbling up gas and stars … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech NewsGoogle’s AI Is Now Insanely Good at Playing Space Invaders
Since Google acquired the artificial intelligence company DeepMind for $628 million last year, it’s put the software to hard work…playing Atari 2600 video games. But no really, learning how to play 49 different Atari games showcases the promises—and the weaknesses—of DeepMind’s software. A paper published today in Nature details how the AI learned to play … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
This Neuroscientist Says He’ll Do a Human Head Transplant Very Soon
An Italian neuroscientist who has been advocating for head transplants now wants to make one actually happen. He’ll be announcing a project at a surgical conference later this year. Here’s how the proposed human head transplant will work—supposedly. In 2013, Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group proposed that human head transplants could soon … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
What Makes an Image Go Viral? Could Be as Simple as Color
Never before in human history has it been so easy to share, like, pin, reblog, images. That’s, like, totally awesome for teenage girls showing off their prom dresses but also a pretty huge boon for scientists studying what makes images shareable. And it could be something as simple as color. A paper published this month … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Now We Actually Have a Real Reason to Dread Solar Eclipses
Superstitions have surrounded the eerie solar eclipse since time immemorial. And now, for entirely scientific reasons, it turns out we have good reason to fear them. Earth’s biggest solar eclipse since 1999 is happening this March, and it could cause some real disruption—thanks to Europe’s reliance on solar energy. Of course, Europe’s ready adoption of … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech NewsOh God, This Horrifying Sidewalk Sinkhole
If you’re a person with irrational fears of urban horror stories, stay far far away from this real-life video of two people falling into a sidewalk hole in Seoul, where sinkholes are a mysterious and apparently growing problem in the city thanks in part (maybe?) to super tall skyscrapers. They step off a bus—only to … Continued
By Sarah Zhang
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