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The report, published on August 24, surveyed 24 federal agencies and found that most of them were using facial recognition technology. A total of 14 of the agencies were using it to unlock their agency-issued smartphones, while two were using it to verify the identities of people visiting government websites. Six of the agencies were using it to generate leads in criminal investigations, and 10 agencies said they were planning to expand its use....

At a press conference Thursday night, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker acknowledged that there were injuries, but didn’t go into specifics. We now know that there was at least one fatality—18 year old Leonel Rondon—and perhaps dozens of injuries. Gas pipelines in the affected areas were depressurized and power turned off as entire neighborhoods evacuated. School on Friday in the area, 25 miles north of Boston, was cancelled. Local authorities called for residents in those three affected areas who get their gas supply from Columbia Gas of Massachusetts to immediately evacuate....

Features How To Build A Hero Humans regularly lose their lives rushing into disaster zones. Now engineers are racing to build robots that can take their place. By Erik Sofge Staying Power ** Extreme storms such as Hurricane Sandy have pushed the U.S. electrical grid to its breaking point. The technology exists to keep the lights on–we just need to implement it.** By Kalee Thompson Plus: How To Create A More Resilient Grid...

Cereal commercials have been telling us for decades that they’re part of a healthy breakfast, and a blueberry muffin staring at you from the bakery case can seem like a smart choice compared to the tempting chocolate croissant beside it—but the truth is, neither of those options is good for you. And sure, we all know a donut isn’t healthy, per se, but what about granola? Or a bagel? Lots of people are unsure, so we decided to demystify it for you....

Ceres, a mysterious world covered with odd bright spots that measures some 606 by 565 miles, is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, about 310 million miles from Earth. (Dawn took a much longer route to get there — some 3.1 billion miles!) Since it arrived at Ceres, the tiny craft (just over 5 feet long) has raised a lot of interesting questions and gathered beautiful imagery....

Kerosene lamps used in off-grid, rural areas are a major problem. They’re bad for people’s health and the environment’s. One startup’s solution is to tap another, greener resource, something we all have in abundance: gravity. The invention, GravityLight, does exactly what the name suggests: It keeps a light going through the power of gravity. As an attached weight falls, it pulls a cord through the center of the light, powering a dynamo....

Led by Kevin Eggan at Harvard and Christopher Henderson at Columbia, the research team announced their first major breakthrough on July 31st in an online issue of the journal Science. In the Science paper, the researchers describe how they were able to induce stem cell formation from the skin cells of elderly volunteers suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease). The researchers then coaxed the stem cells into developing into motor neurons, the type of cell affected by ALS....

That fuel is typically either coal or liquid petroleum gas in textile factories in Asia, according to Vanessa Mason, senior vice president of engineering at PrimaLoft, which is one of the companies that makes the stuff. “They’re very, very humongous ovens,” Mason says. “You can imagine the amount of energy it takes to heat these ovens.” The ovens serve a key purpose: they bond polyester fibers together to create the insulation....

Standing up in a tent is a luxury, and makes doing things like changing clothes way easier. The Marmot Halo 6P is more than 6 feet tall, which is quite spacious in the wild world of tents. It also comes a rain fly that goes over the top to keep you dry on dreary nights. $450. It’s a key rule of camping: Put something between your body and the ground if you want to stay warm and comfortable....

The email service that was released in April 2004 was among the first to offer large storage space for users and robust searching across your inbox. While Google products like Buzz, Wave, and Plus ended up duds that didn’t see much success, Gmail saw large adoption, even when was the service was invite-only (as it was to begin with). Having reported 900 million users in May 2015, spikes in growth can be attributed to numerous efforts, from new apps like Inbox on iOS and Android, to efforts to increase the amount of internet users in places like India....

Want to test the waters of gouache without committing to pricey artist paints? Love to fill up backgrounds of solid color in your sketchbook without worrying about wasting paint? This budget-friendly starter set of 24 12ml gouache tubes is for you. Colors include classic palette options like burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and shades of red or yellow. The paints are rich and vibrant, mix well, and are a great way to start exploring the medium....

But the great Warren Buffett said that when it comes to investing, you must resist giving into fear, otherwise, you’ll lose out on lucrative opportunities. “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,” he mused. If you’re a beginner, however, it can be overwhelming to try your hand at investing in the stock market. In that case, it’s better to seek help from tools that can guide you to make the best investing decisions, like Tykr....

Optimistically, such paired observations of both gravitational waves and light from these neutron star collisions were about ten years off, he had told the audience in his last lecture the previous day. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration had already detected black hole mergers and the Virgo interferometer had just come online in Italy two weeks earlier, so the enterprise was developing smoothly. But when Holz, who works at the University of Chicago, returned to Illinois, he learned the future had arrived early....

Pets give their owners a lot to be thankful for. So, this holiday season, give them something to be thankful for. As a part of our Thankful Deals campaign, you can be thankful for this highly reviewed Allergy Test My Pet Kit that’s available for a super discounted rate and is released ahead of Black Friday. But hurry, because this deal will only be around until November 23rd at 11:59 p....

BDC was initially designed to explore the implications of emerging biotech for the world. It was founded on the belief that young artists and designers could bring new perspectives to the technology, shed light on potential environmental and cultural consequences, and open up new possibilities. For the past academic year, I’ve been traveling between colleges to meet the students. Many hadn’t taken a biology class since high school, and yet they were 3D printing living materials, building ecosystems and manipulating DNA, all as part of their art and design curricula....

The Unlimited Lifetime Learning Subscription Bundle ft. Rosetta Stone offers a unique opportunity to learn anything and everything without breaking the bank. For a limited time, you can grab a subscription on sale for an extra 20 percent with code ROSETTA20. This bundle packs lifetime access to an award-winning language learning software and e-learning platform. For starters, you get access to Rosetta Stone, a language-learning solution trusted by top organizations like NASA, Calvin Klein, and TripAdvisor....

Feature Creature: Frasier the Sensuous Lion Have you ever wondered about the number of lions at your zoo? You probably don’t think about lion reproduction too much. Well, consider this: If one female lion in captivity has a litter of cubs and they all survive and breed—for reference: zoo lions can start breeding before their third birthday—and then those offspring all survive and breed, and then the next generation the same, and so on, it would take about 37 years until that one family tree of descendants from that one lioness needed to eat the entire population of Los Angeles every day just to survive....

An air tanker may fly about 150 feet off the ground at 161 miles per hour and can paint up to a mile-long line of retardant on the ground. A big helicopter could dump as much as 2,000 gallons of water to try to save a house. And smokejumpers fling themselves from airplanes 3,000 feet above their landing area below to snuff out a small fire in a remote area before it gets bigger....

Artificial intelligence is an algorithm-driven system that can do everything from curate your social media feed to drive a car autonomously. Each type of artificial intelligence is designed for its own purpose, and many researchers are looking at how it could be used to both help us fight climate change and be better prepared to adapt to its effects. Priya Donti, co-founder and chair of an organization called Climate Change AI that fosters the use of AI to solve climate-related problems, tells Popular Science that her group is focused on helping people with backgrounds in AI, climate science, public policy and more come together to see how AI could help us in the climate fight....