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Levin and Malahmeh are on top of a non-profit network of technologists, aid workers, and entrepreneurs that are trying to hack some of the challenges Syrians, inside and outside of conflict zones, encounter every day, from connecting to the internet to fighting barrel bombs. The consortium, “Refugee Open Ware (ROW),” ties together several different initiatives and groups and has received political, financial, and technological support from numerous diverse backers, everyone from a particle physicist at CERN to even the Royal Hashemite Court (the leadership of Jordan)....

“If you have to choose one food, if you’re one of the people that’s getting sent to Mars, choose potatoes,” says Taylor. “I’m not trying to be evangelical about potatoes, but it was a really good experience for me.” First and foremost, it’s not a good idea to only eat one kind of food. To survive, we need 20 amino acids—of which nine are essential, meaning we can’t make them ourselves and must get them from food—as well as a plethora of minerals and vitamins....

The slight silver lining to outbreaks like the ones this past year, though, is that they are often closely followed by new proposed laws that make those exemptions harder to get, according to a new analysis published today in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. “We saw a clear signal where more disease outbreaks prompted legislators to propose bills that would limit the ability to exempt,” says study author Neal Goldstein, an assistant research professor of epidemiology at Drexel University....

His doctors weren’t sure how to diagnose the man—the cells looked and behaved like cancer, but they weren’t the man’s own cells. The cancer seemed to be from another multi-celled organism. The disease progressed and 72 hours after he was admitted to the hospital, the man died. Doctors determined that the man died from his tapeworm’s cancer—the first such case ever reported, according to the study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine....

Passing at a distance of 3,106 miles, the Saturn-orbiting vehicle snapped these great photos and helped to add more detail of our maps of Enceladus. Though Cassini will still be able to see Enceladus until its mission ends in 2017, the closest it will come from here on out is about 12,000 miles. Luckily, as some of the photos above show, you can still snap some pretty great photos from that distance....

Citizen Band (or CB) radio is a unique way both to listen in the present—and to start conversations in your immediate locale. Truckers, recreational vehicle drivers, and outdoor enthusiasts can all find community and information on the airwaves. Choose one of these three excellent radios (you’ll also need to get an antenna that works best for your vehicle), and stay in tune with your neighbors at home or on the road....

Customize your controller The PS4 had a thriving community for custom controllers designed for different types of games and gamers. While the PS5’s DualSense controller is an improvement over the old design, if you’re going from a custom PS4 controller to the base-model PS5 one, you might see better performance that still doesn’t quite fit what you want. However, you can still customize your own PS5 controller and get all the hardware improvements plus the individually catered designs you’re used to....

This week, in a blog post, the company’s CEO and founder, Eric S. Yuan, tried to provide users with some context about the sheer volume of Zoom’s sudden growth. Total meeting participants across all of the platform’s users topped out around 10 million in December 2019. March 2020 saw 200 million daily participants across the free and paid tiers. Over the same time period, Facebook says that its Messenger platform saw video chat growth grow by 100 percent....

International conventions like the 1998 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons ban the use of lasers and blinding weapons used against people; however the optical and thermal sensors on vehicles, aircraft and robots are still fair game. For example, the PY132A laser is one of the systems displayed at a domestic Chinese police expo, presumably for usage against rogue and terrorist drones. Chinese defense contractors are also marketing the Low Altitude Guard laser turret for shooting down small UAVs as a police and law enforcement tool (though it also has a more powerful military counterpart)....

One of Dorsey’s biggest challenges will be finding a way to grow Twitter’s user base and expand advertising revenue without alienating said users. According to The New York Times, Twitter had an average of 316-million monthly users last quarter, a number which has remained stagnant for some time. Though the social network is certainly a household name and a top source for breaking news, it has yet to gain the following of competitors Facebook, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) and most recently Snapchat, who recently claimed they have 100-million daily users....

“We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity,” said Nicolas Biver, lead author of a paper on the discovery, said in a press release. But alcohol is not all they found. Comet Lovejoy is a veritable cocktail of organic molecules. The team detected 20 other substances on the comet, including the simple sugar glycolaldehyde, which may play an important molecule in building DNA nucleotides and the amino acids that make up proteins....

Pressure cookers are among our favorite culinary gadgets. We like them for things as simple as perfectly steamed beets and as playful as caramelized yogurt. And the days of screeching, squealing pressure cookers, shuddering on your range top and conjuring fears of explosions, are on the wane. Today we have quiet, efficient appliances that are used in both professional and home kitchens. Now you can buy electric pressure cookers, which shorten cooking times, are easy to clean and make a minimal amount of noise....

If you have a sumptuous feast to look forward to on Thanksgiving Day, it might be tempting to share the bounty with your pet. But it’s a bad idea. A lot of ingredients that might show up in your holiday spread (or unguarded trashcan) are dangerous goods for pets. Dogs, being more inclined than cats to scarf down human food, are especially vulnerable. When holiday foods don’t agree with a pet, they often cause vomiting and diarrhea, as well as more debilitating symptoms....

That’s not to say a vehicle launch is in the immediate offing, but the video above–illustrated by an animation of how each technology piece would work within the larger concept–shows piece by piece how the project is moving forward. And there are a lot of pieces to consider. Phoenix will need to be able to rendezvous in space with newly launched satellites, on which smaller “satlets” will hitch rides into orbit....

The first thing you notice about Google’s Daydream VR is that it just doesn’t look like the headsets produced by heavy hitters like Sony or Samsung. Just as Google Home mimics items already around your house, Daydream VR looks like it could go incognito in your wardrobe. It’s wrapped in cloth, which looks great and makes it washable. Much appreciated for the germ conscious who let sweaty friends use the VR headsets....

When methane leaks, which it often does, it can have a hefty impact on the environment. The gas has around 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide for its first 20 years in the atmosphere, and methane emissions from oil and gas basins can be seen from outer space. Methane leaks can also pose a serious health hazard, as they sneak toxic pollutants and gasses like toluene, benzene and hydrogen sulfide into the air....

Hurricane Dorian has cemented its status as a historic storm with several benchmarks, and it’s not over yet. After hitting the Bahamas as a catastrophic Category 5 with sustained winds of 185 mph over the weekend—the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall there and the second strongest to hit the Atlantic basin since 1950—Dorian then crawled just 30 miles in 30 hours, marking it one of the slowest storm trajectories in recorded history....

According to the company’s research, Android users have around 35 apps on their phones garnering between 1,000 and 2,000 tracking attempts each day via surreptitious interactions with over 70 various tracking companies. These businesses, including giants like Google and Meta, compile detailed consumer profiles that include aspects like exact geolocations, email addresses, time zones, phone numbers, travel patterns, as well as even your smartphone’s device make and model, screen resolution, language, and internet provider....

Fender’s Mustang bass is another popular form factor in music history, known for its slick look and for offering a nearly identical tone to the venerable Fender Precision Bass (but in a smaller package). The PJ model is the latest reboot of the Mustang and it’s the first to offer switchable and blendable Precision and Jazz Bass style pickups, allowing players to sculpt and customize unmistakable Fender bass tones. The P pickup provides fat, dynamic lows and the J pickup provides midrange punch—a winning combination in any book....

For several years a part of ESPN’s coverage consisted of middle-aged anchors standing in the studio and demonstrating specific skills, formations, or schemes expected in a key match up. “It used to be just Tom Jackson and the other guys playing flag football. It was four guys in their suits who were in their heyday 20 years ago,” said an EA spokesman. “This gives a whole new reality.” That whole new reality allows the anchors to run through specific motions and schemes with the actual players of interest, while they critique and comment on their motions....