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“Today’s news is a true ecological success story,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. “Whales, including the humpback, serve an important role in our marine environment. Separately managing humpback whale populations that are largely independent of each other allows us to tailor conservation approaches for each population.” Four populations are still considered “endangered” and one is considered “threatened.” All five of these populations continue to enjoy the protections of the Endangered Species Act....

Nixplay 10.1 Inch Digital Smart Picture Frame $152 (Was $230) Grab this digital smart picture frame for your favorite sentimental friend or family member. Share the pictures you want to display using your phone or email, and use the Nixplay iOS or Android app to fully control the frame. This frame comes with A Nixplay Plus subscription, which provides print discounts, additional storage, and the option to connect to up to 10 frames to share photos with loved ones....

We’re embarking on a nationwide search to find our latest class of innovators, vetting hundreds of researchers from institutions of all stripes and sizes. Our goal is to recognize the hard work, creativity, and potential of those who are shaking up old modes of thinking, defining new disciplines, and laying the groundwork for tomorrow’s most groundbreaking research. From now through April 29, 2022, we’re inviting universities and government agencies to offer up their own candidates for consideration....

But even with its desktop hardware in short supply, Nvidia has just announced the first laptop-specific RTX 3050 and RXT 3050 Ti graphics cards, and they could offer serious performance upgrades to much more affordable computers. Here comes ray tracing with the Nvidia RTX 3050 Today’s announcement includes both the RTX 3050 and the RTX 3050 Ti. As the RTX in the name suggests, these graphics cards enable ray tracing tech when running compatible games....

As of April 21, the World Health Organization has confirmed at least 169 cases worldwide. Young patients in ten states so far—Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina and Tennessee—and multiple European and Asian countries are experiencing many of the same symptoms. Jaundice, diarrhea, and abdominal pain are among commonly reported symptoms, in addition to the liver inflammation typical of acute hepatitis. Other symptoms of hepatitis in children include dark urine, gray or pale feces, muscle and joint pain, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, and stomach pain....

Where the twin towers once stood tall, acre-sized reflection pools now dip deep into the Earth. Opened to the public on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the site is austere, contemplative, and expository, in keeping with other modern memorials. The gaping fountains are forged from black granite; their perimeters lined with the names of the dead. But in one way the site breaks from tradition: it serves not only the eye, but the ear....

As cases fall in the US, schools prepare to reopen in the fall. Booster shots are also being trialed and sniffer dogs could be the new frontrunners of COVID-19 testing. Here’s what else unfolded over the past week. Sniffer dogs could be used to detect COVID-19 Dogs could be our newest line of defense against the coronavirus. A slew of new research indicates that dogs can be trained to detect COVID-19 in the human body as sweat and saliva react to coronavirus infection....

Native to Australia and mainland Tasmania, platypuses are locally extinct in some parts of Australia. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species lists the platypus as Near Threatened, primarily due to threats from bushfires, deforestation, drought, pollution, and predators (including foxes, cats, and dogs). River dams could also be added to that list of threats, according to a study published today in the journal Communications Biology....

Or at least it used to be. When Charon was young, it had a radioactive core to keep it warm. Beneath its icy shell, that warm center may have melted a watery subsurface ocean. Later, when the moon’s radioactive fuel ran out and the center cooled, that ocean may have frozen and expanded, splitting Charon across the middle. The New Horizons team arrived at this hypothesis after finding evidence that parts of the surface ice had melted and re-frozen....

As the price suggests, this isn’t meant for frankensteining your own DSLR, but rather for cool DIY projects. The Official Raspberry Pi Camera Guide (which is available as a free PDF), offers up ideas like building your own security system, setting up a camera trap that automatically captures images of animals as they walk by in the wild, or programming epic time lapses you can export as high-res movies. The projects take varying amounts of experience and know-how, but there’s a vast network of Raspberry Pi experts with tips to share out there on the web, which is part of what makes it such a popular platform for makers in the first place....

Over the past 150 years or so, the oceans have been absorbing carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The quantities of the gas taken in by the oceans are large enough that now some areas of the oceans have become more acidic, a phenomenon called ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is known to have an adverse impact on sea life, particularly shellfish, whose shells erode in acidic waters. Ocean acidification is harming another group of animals, stunting the growth of coral reefs, which are already under threat from warming oceans....

There are plenty of robots designed to avoid falling, like Alphabet’s surreal animal-like BigDog series of machines. But bipedal robots, or bipedal-ish robots, designed to operate in spaces made for humans, don’t have the luxury of a weird, well-balanced body. As a result, they tend to fall over a bunch. To compensate, Ph.D. student Sehoon Ha and professor Karen Liu created a planning algorithm that lets robots break various kinds of falls, including using arms to protect their head and tumbling sideways to minimize the damage....

The kinetic sculpture, built by Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks, stars a plastic version of the former Corinthian king, pushing eternally against a gently bobbing boulder. The robot walks in place but seems to heave with frustration, a fitting tribute to his eternal torment. Watch Sisyphus below:

A group of biomechanists analyzed measurements from people running on treadmills as well as wearable data from thousands of recreational runners, and concluded that humans have a preferred speed that minimizes calories burned. “A lot of people’s assumption, including our’s going into it, would be that you choose a faster pace when you’re going to run a shorter distance and then slow that pace when you’re going to travel a longer distance,” says Jessica Selinger, a biomechanist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and coauthor of the findings....

Hague, a NASA astronaut, was looking forward to his first trip to the ISS. He tweeted yesterday that he couldn’t wait to see the space station in person. Now, he’ll have to wait for a future mission to take him there. There are currently three crew members on the International Space station. NASA’s Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Roscosmos’ Sergey Prokopyev, and the ESA’s Alexander Gerst were all scheduled to return on December 13, with their eventual replacements launching to the station on December 20....

We’re used to turning televisions off when we’re not actively enjoying content, but Samsung wants to change that with Ambient Mode to make its massive displays less conspicuous. Ambient Mode turns the TV into an information display that also blends into the environment around it. According to Samsung, users and designers are still battling to hide TVs, especially as the screens become bigger. Samsung says roughly 40 percent of the TVs it sold in 2017 were 65-inches or bigger, and it expects that number to jump over 50 percent in 2018....

One team in particular, at Baylor College of Medicine, went so far as to analyze which counties would be most likely to experience these outbreaks. They published the list, along with other analyses, in PLoS Medicine last June. It contained 14 counties—and so far three of them have had outbreaks. And the current outbreaks not on their list are largely being driven by Orthodox Jewish communities. Take a look: If you happen to be familiar with county names (or are just very good at geography), you might notice that these are all counties with cities in them....

But for some individuals and families, the potential discounts they can get are not enough to justify forking out a hefty membership fee. The good news is leading warehouse club Sam’s Club is slashing its membership cost for new members, so more people can take advantage of scoring premium-quality products for cheap. You can get a Sam’s Club Membership + $10 gift card for only $19.99 (reg. $57) during a limited-time price drop....

At the moment of capture, the spacecraft, which entered orbit around Jupiter in July 2016, was hovering about 44,000 miles above the Gas Giant’s clouds, according to a NASA press release. In comparison, Ganymede circles Jupiter from about 666,000 miles away. According to the NASA blog, viewing Ganymede from the top of these clouds wouldn’t be too different from a total solar eclipse—which are far more common on Jupiter than on Earth....

What are the 2nd-gen. Shure Aonic 215 True Wireless Sound-Isolating Earphones? Shure has been making audio equipment since 1925, when the company sold kits and components for AM radio. Since then, Shure has built a reputation for making studio-quality microphones, headphones, and speakers. The company also has a history in personal monitoring systems for live performance and that professional in-ear monitoring background informs the Shure Aonic 215 (Gen. 2) earphones, which bring a secure fit, sound isolation, and a single dynamic driver with a precision-tuned but not fatiguing sound to everyday use....