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Technology has done a pretty good job of relieving Spot of his morning newsprint duties, and you can watch live video of swimming fish from around the internet without ever buying and filling a tank. So it’s fair to question whether that purring little ball of fluff on your lap really, truly, needs to be a living creature. If you make a list of everything you love about cats, you’ll probably find that you’ve left off feeding them, worrying about their health, or receiving a dead bird in your lap first thing in the morning....

Decontamination work began immediately after the accident. An exclusion zone was created around the plant, and more than 350,000 people were evacuated from the area. They never returned. And severe restrictions on permanent human settlement are still in place today. The accident had a major impact on the human population. Although there are not clear figures, the physical loss of human lives and physiological consequences were huge. Estimates of the number of human fatalities vary wildly....

It takes a ton of technology to make all of that happen but is it worth it for you as a consumer to plunk down your platinum card and bring one home? Unless you have a Scrooge McDuck vault full of gold coins, probably not. Here’s why. What are your 8K options? While the 88-inch LG is the first 8K OLED on the market, it’s not actually the most expensive—or the biggest— commercially available 8K screen on the market at the moment....

But there’s another, effective way to screen for colorectal cancer: fecal immunochemical tests, or FITs, which detect blood in stool (an early sign of cancer). The tests can accurately identify cancer, according to a review and meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. If the FIT comes back negative, the patient is in the clear until their next annual test. If it comes back positive, only then would they have a colonoscopy, says study author Thomas Imperiale, researcher at the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research....

In Maine’s Acadia National Park, visitation has more than doubled in September and October since the early 1990s. Tourists book leaf peeping cruises, bus trips, and lodging packages, all scheduled to coincide with what’s traditionally been the somewhat predictable fall foliage season. But Earth’s climate is changing. A big question is how climate change’s impacts on the timing, duration and vibrancy of fall foliage will affect the tourist season....

Composting PLA takes more than a backyard bin In the greenwashed world of food service products, it’s important to understand that not all labels are equal, says Sego Jackson, a waste management strategic advisor and policy liaison for Seattle, Washington, one of the few cities in the country that requires businesses to use recyclable or compostable products. You might come across a clear cup labeled simply “biodegradable,” or encounter labels that say things like “made from plants” or “plant-based”....

But according to a study published this month in PNAS, the mouse has been around this whole time, living it up on several islands in Western Australia. The study, which was conducted by researchers at the Australian National University, used 184-year-old museum specimens to sequence the genomes of eight extinct Australian rodent species and then looked at 42 of their living relatives. “We compared the DNA of Gould’s mouse, thought to be extinct, to all living species of native rodents....

You can deploy all of your resources to track down those coveted presents or lower your standards just so you can cross stuff off your list. But sometimes you have to admit you’ve been beaten. Worry not, fellow giver—it’s not really defeat if you make a gift yourself. And there’s still time to whip something up for your loved ones. Look no further for 14 simple ideas from our archives that can prevent you from showing up to an end-of-year party empty-handed....

RAVPower has two items on sale today. Save 33 percent on a 30-watt USB-C power bank with a 26,800mAh battery. It’ll provide up to six charges for an iPhone X. The charger recognizes which device—like Android or Apple—you have plugged in and provides the fastest charging speed possible. It has two USB ports and one USB-C port. $54. Their USB PD charger is a five-port charging station with four USB inputs and one USB-C port....

Today, you can save 24 percent on a Rocketbook Everlast Smart Notebook bundle, which includes two notebooks—each has 36 reusable pages—and five Pilot FriXion pens. Write on the notebook paper with the Pilot FriXion pens and then scan the notes with your smartphones camera to Dropbox, iCloud, or Google Drive. After your finished, wipe down the pages with a damp cloth and reuse. Get the bundle for $45. Stanley vacuum-insulated bottles and cookware are on sale for up to 50 percent off....

At $199, the iPod is the cheapest new device that Apple sells with a touchscreen. It hadn’t been refreshed since 2015, and the new version now implements the A10 chip. That gives it the same processor that powers the iPhone 7, currently the cheapest phone that Apple makes, at $449. (The chip in the previous-gen model was an A8.) The A10 is two generations behind the most current chip in an Apple smartphone, but remember—a device need not have the latest and speediest silicon in it to work just fine for what it needs to do....

1. Their Interests Ex.plode.us indexes user profiles from sites like YouTube and Flickr and lets you search for people either by name or the interests they list. Enter a friend’s name to find out what he’s into—say, badminton or turducken—or plug in your own interests to find kindred spirits. 2. Their Social Networks Instead of making the rounds on a dozen social-networking sites to see if so-and-so has finally signed up, let wink....

Unfortunately, breast pumps have not experienced this dramatic evolution. A necessity for 85 percent of postpartum parents, this gizmo looks pretty much the same since 1991, the year when the first electric-powered pump was introduced to the US market by Swiss manufacturer Medela. This would be okay if there was nothing to improve, but the perfect pump still eludes us. As someone who has breastfed and pumped for four children and reviewed most of the pumps on the market, I can certainly say that I hate them all—and statistics suggest I’m not alone....

Your smartphone is supposed to make life easier, and automating various tasks is one of the best ways to make that promise of convenience a reality. With these seven automated commands, you’ll get to spend less time fussing with your device and more time on the stuff that really matters. 1. Receive reminders at certain locations Timed reminders can be handy, but they really shine when they, say, pop up at the exact moment you were about to walk past the place the grocery store....

Over his #YearInSpace, Kelly has dazzled us with hundreds of pictures, giving people a new perspective of the world we live on. The world he showed us was bright with colors, some of which were even bold and beautiful enough that they qualified as #EarthArt. His pictures showed us how thin and electric our atmosphere is. How bright our nights can be. And how even in an age of Instagram and Facebook, the sun rising and setting really never gets old....

There are some insanely tempting deals live right now on audio gear I’ve auditioned and loved. If I wanted an all-in-one streaming audio system and had $2,299 to spend, I’d buy the KEF LS50 Wireless II bookshelf speakers in a heartbeat. If I wanted an immersive Dolby Atmos experience at home and had $1,399 in my budget, I’d snatch the Samsung HW-Q990B 11.1.4-channel soundbar with wireless subwoofer & rear channels....

Robert Flitsch is the inventor of the Addibot, a 3D-printing robot that uses raw material to build surfaces up layer by layer, much like a boxy, desktop 3D printer would, but without the same space constraints. It can steer itself, or be driven via remote control. “One of the main limitations with 3D printers is you typically have it printing inside this box, and you can really only print objects of the size of the workspace you’re printing in,” says the 22-year-old Flitsch, a mechanical engineer who graduated from the Harvard John A....

Is it difficult to catch a hairy ​wood ant? No, says Ellis. The one-centimeter-long ants are easy to spot—they move on self-cleared roads—and are not very fast. He picks up an ant by the legs with his bare fingers. “They’re quite obliging,” he says. “They grab on with their teeth.” How does he get a radio tag onto a squirming ant? First, he dabs glue onto the ant’s back with a matchstick....

Satisfit Weight Care Technology has completed pre-clinical trials showing that adding it to food can help keep weight gain down; animal studies showed a 7 percent reduction in weight gain for equivalent diets. So while the label showing 20g of fat per serving means men everywhere will allow it in their pantry (the labels wouldn’t change), the inclusion of Satisfit might mean women will actually buy it at the grocery store....