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When a bacterium gets stressed out, it stashes some of its DNA in a hardy structure called a spore, which can stay dormant for years before reactivating. Back in 2006, I started studying the spores made by ­Bacillus subtilis ­because a colleague told me they expand significantly in size when they come into contact with moisture. I wanted to ­harness that mechanical power. First, to see how much the subtilis grew with water in the air, I put some spores in a special microscope that can measure minuscule movements....

This five-gallon compost bin can live on a countertop and comes with liquid Bokashi, which can ferment and break down your food waste into soil and compost tea. Compost tea is a liquid that fertilizes plants and can be dispensed from the nozzle at the bottom of this SCD bin. Bokashi composting is especially great for the indoors, because it minimizes odor. With a tight lid and carrying handle, you can easily transport this bin to your outdoor compost pile or compost drop-off site....

That was the question, asked by a local police officer who had motioned for me to lower the window of a supercar I was driving not long ago. Indeed, where can a car nut properly exercise thoroughbred machinery that is built to go 200 mph? The answer is, “Where there are no police officers handing out speeding tickets; the race track.” Driving on a track can be a daunting experience for drivers whose speed background is limited to beating a red light....

No full-scale prototype exists yet, but Bevirt and his team have built about two dozen 10-pound models to demonstrate their concept works. NASA has taken notice and is now funding the development of a 55-pound unmanned aerial vehicle. Supercomputer simulations of a full-scale, 1,700-pound S2 suggest it could fly two people about 200 miles (New York City to Boston) in an hour on 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity, or roughly equivalent to 1....

The space industry has blossomed in recent years, with commercial rocket launches sending more craft than ever into orbit. But for private companies to explore destinations beyond Earth, which could catapult the space business into its golden age, a major step is underway: A privately funded lander is headed to the moon to attempt the first commercial soft landing on the lunar surface. The Tokyo-based Japanese space exploration company ispace built the small, hot-tub-sized lander destined for Earth’s satellite....

The varicella-zoster virus is highly contagious, but usually mild. Most folks will develop the usual itchy rash for up to a week, feel generally ache-y and tired, and have a high fever for a few days. Most parents who intentionally expose their children to chickenpox by having them interact with sick friends or family expect them to get that version of the disease. Here are the complications you might not see coming:...

Picking the right bra size for you is easier said than done, but knowing what to look for can help you avoid garments that look nice but do little, and go for the ones that will take a load off your shoulders—literally. It’s not about fashion—it’s about health Bras are definitely an iconic fashion item: they can be haute couture, made out of precious jewels, come in myriad colors, and even have your favorite cartoon characters all over them....

Notification settings on Android Over the years, Google has steadily added options for managing your notifications on its mobile operating system. Now, you have a lot of control over which Android apps and events can send you prompts, and how these messages appear on the screen. Fortunately, our phones can help. No matter what operating system you use, it will allow you to set Do Not Disturb times, control which apps have permission to interrupt you, and more....

The JBL Flip 6’s design Available in grey, red, black, and blue, with teal coming soon, the Flip 6 immediately announces its intentions with its bold, exclamation point-emblazoned JBL logo (much bigger than the Flip 5’s small badge branding). The compact JBL Flip speaker is a powerful and versatile to-go music buddy, easy to toss in your gym bag for workout tunes, your suitcase for impromptu hotel dance parties, or in a daypack to keep the tunes or the podcast going wherever you go....

The best last-minute Black Friday MacBook deals MacBook Pro 14-inch M1 laptop $1,599 (was $1,999) If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, you know how rarely the company’s products see deep discounts. Apple’s machines offer incredible power within enviable industrial design, but these things typically come at a price. So the chance to save $400 on a 14-inch M1 Pro Apple MacBook Pro (with 8‑core CPU and 14‑core GPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) should not be ignored....

The huddling is known as social thermoregulation, and penguins do it more often when temperatures plummet and winds get stronger. The most extreme examples of social thermoregulation, as the paper notes, are done by emperor penguins. They are the only animals that breed during the frigid Antarctic winter, and thus need to keep warm. The researchers found that emperor penguin huddles lasted from about 12 minutes to several hours, and individual emperor penguins spent an average of 50 minutes in a huddle....

She won the award—which includes a $700,000 check—for her significant work in two major mathematical concepts: gauge theory and geometric analysis. The former deals with how various forces and particles can behave within Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which handles the relationship between space and time: The laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating systems and the speed of light in a vacuum is the same regardless of the light source....

This is a classic, no-frills baby wrap designed to keep its contents stable and comfortable. It utilizes soft, stretchy fabric that shapes around both you and your child, but also offers plenty of lift and support. It holds up to 35 pounds and is one-size-fits-all. With its simple wrap design, there are no buckles and snaps to fuss with, making it a quick and easy accessory to take on and off....

Retire the Rabbits You don’t have to be an animal-rights activist to object to tormenting bunnies for the sake of new mascara. Now Episkin, an artificial skin grown from human cells by scientists at L’Oréal, could eliminate such experiments. Researchers can rate a chemical’s toxicity by how many lab-grown cells it kills. There are no plans to bring Episkin to the U.S., but the tech could prove vital for the cosmetics industry in Europe when a ban on animal testing takes effect next year....

Keep wet clothes from getting tangled in your dryer with these hedgehogs, whose round bodies and prickles will help your laundry dry faster by separating it. Let these hard plastic hogs rough and tumble and stop buying fabric softener altogether. If you don’t have a washer/dryer in your apartment, you’ll know that hauling your laundry bag down a flight of stairs to your car or neighborhood laundromat can be heavy and unwieldy....

Researchers tracked levels of the deadly metal in more than 1,000 eagles from 38 US states, and found that “unexpectedly high” proportions of birds from the two species suffered from both chronic and recent poisoning. Almost half of the eagles the team inspected showed signs of repeated lead exposure in their bones, raising concerns about the impacts on bald and golden eagle populations around the continent. The findings can inform future eagle conservation efforts, the researchers reported on February 17 in Science....

For a limited time, a lifetime subscription to Mondly covers your learning experience for up to 41 different languages, all for the one-time cost of $99.99. The days of this deal are numbered, so savings on a plan that is typically priced at $2,199 won’t stick around much longer. Mondly earned a store rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 based on more than 200 total reviews, and its tools have benefited more than 80 million users worldwide....

Optogenetics treats disease by directing light at neurons to temporarily turn them on or off. But for that technique to work in mice, researchers have had to make two big modifications to their biology. First, researchers have to tweak mice’s genes (and would have to for human’s genes as well) since neurons don’t naturally respond to light. Second, they need to direct light deep into the brain, which has traditionally been done with obtrusive implants that require major surgery to put in place....

“Not only are they not animals or plants, they aren’t even fungi. They’re protists, a simpler form of life,” says Joseph Burchett, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of the new slime mold-inspired study. And an algorithm based on those simple life forms seems to have succeeded where other computer simulations fall short. It has predicted the precise form of the intricate web of largely invisible matter strands that astrophysicists believe spans the entire universe, according to research published recently in The Astrophysical Journal Letters....

A deep dive from The Markup and The Verge published this morning explains in detail how some of the country’s most popular tax prep software makers, including H&R Block, TaxSlayer, and TaxAct, utilized the popular Meta Pixel tracking tool to amass sensitive data including names, email addresses, incomes, refunds, filing statuses, and even dependents’ college scholarship amounts from annual filings. Designed and made freely available by Facebook, the code marks a tiny pixel on participating websites that subsequently sends a host of information regarding people’s digital activity to the Meta....