Windshield wipers’ overlooked female inventor
Before cars and buses became ubiquitous features of the modern cityscape, many cities installed streetcars to shuttle residents from neighborhood to neighborhood. In the summer months, the journey was a…
Downdetector, Speedtest sold to IT service provider Accenture in $1.2B deal
IT consultant and services provider Accenture has agreed to buy Speedtest and Downdetector owner Ookla from Ziff Davis for $1.2 billion in cash. Accenture plans to integrate Ookla’s data products…
What we can learn from scientific analysis of Renaissance recipes
Forget “eye of newt and toe of frog/wool of bat and tongue of dog.” People in the 16th century were more akin to DIY scientists than Macbeth’s three witches when…
Watch a classified FM radio training video from WW2
It’s worth remembering that one of today’s most commonplace pieces of technology frequently confounded the public when it first hit the marker. While fewer and fewer people are listening to…
LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy
Burner accounts on social media sites can increasingly be analyzed to identify the pseudonymous users who post to them using AI in research that has far-reaching consequences for privacy on…
Smoke Rises Over Big Cypress National Preserve
Earth Observatory Science Earth Observatory Smoke Rises Over Big Cypress… Earth Earth Observatory Image of the Day EO Explorer Topics All Topics Atmosphere Land Heat & Radiation Life on Earth…
Washington state moves to ban forced employee microchips
It’s a common trope in dystopian sci-fi stories: an evil corporation requires its employees to receive microchip implants in order to constantly monitor their whereabouts. While there aren’t any known…
Computer run on human brain cells learned to play ‘Doom’
A biocomputer powered by lab-grown human brain cells has leveled up from Pong to Doom. While nowhere ready to handle the video game shooter’s most challenging levels, researchers at Cortical…
Mystery stone is actually ancient Roman board game
Like many other cultures, the ancient Romans loved their board games. Some of history’s most well-documented examples of tabletop pastimes date back to the empire. Ludus Latrunculorum, aka latrones, was…
Research roundup: Six cool science stories we almost missed
It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. So every month, we highlight a handful of…