In a lab at the University of Florida, researchers are giving male jumping spiders a makeover. After knocking them unconscious for a few minutes with carbon dioxide, the scientists paint the bright-red faces of Habronattus pyrrithrix black with liquid eyeliner, or stick false eyelashes to the heads of Maevia inclemens with Elmer’s glue. Welcome to…
Two weeks ago, Hurricane Florence slammed into the Carolinas, unleashing six months of rain in a matter of hours. In inland Cumberland County, the Cape Fear River rose 40 feet1, inundating Fayetteville with the worst flooding the city has seen since 1945. But as the waters receded and citizens returned to their ruined homes, a…
Electronics often don’t mesh well with flesh and blood. Cochlear implants can irritate the scalp; pacemaker wires dislodge; VR headsets weigh heavily on the face. That’s why, for the past six years, Michael McAlpine has been Frankensteining alternatives. A mechanical engineer at the University of Minnesota, he creates prototypes of bionic body parts with nice,…
Surely the Greeks weren't the first to ponder the nature of the universe. Just think about it. Aristotle and his friends were having discussions about physics in the 350 BC time frame. But beer and wine were first created thousands of years before that. Thousands. It seems plausible that there were some other humans sitting…
Click:小型辦公室 Suppose you are an astronaut out in space. You have nothing with you except your wits and … a fire extinguisher? Why a fire extinguisher? Because that's what Sandra Bullock's character has in the movie Gravity. Because a fire extinguisher shoots out gas (normally to put out a fire), it can also be used…
This story originally appeared on Mother Jones and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Americans love chicken, but it doesn’t always love us back. We eat way more of it than any other meat, and it triggers more foodborne disease outbreak-related illnesses than any other food, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and…
Stephanie LaMassa did a double take. She was staring at two images on her computer screen, both of the same object — except they looked nothing alike. The first image, captured in 2000 with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, resembled a classic quasar: an extremely bright and distant object powered by a ravenous supermassive black…
Starbucks has divided the world of coffee enthusiasts into two categories: those who actually want cake but feel bad about eating cake first thing in the morning so they drink dessert coffee instead, and those who want artisanal pour-overs (no room for cream). Still, even those who wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks in…
We humans envy birds for their seemingly effortless ability to fly, and for their ability to extract endless amounts of bread from old people in parks. But there’s a middle ground between those two states—soaring and ambling around on two feet in pursuit of crumbs—that we tend to overlook: Birds are a kind of hybrid.…
You, like me, may sometimes (or all the time!) feel that the world is spiraling out of control—trade wars and political strife. And, oh right, climate change, arguably the greatest threat our species has ever faced. Or maybe artificial intelligence and robots will put us all out of work before the world actually ends. But…