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At the time, scientists were already pretty confident that there is no life on the moon. That left these four explanations: 1.) contamination, either from the astronauts or the handlers on Earth; 2.) and 3.) rocket fuel and solar wind, which contain precursors to amino acids; 4.) asteroids. Now, decades later, scientists may have finally gotten to the bottom of the mystery. “The scientists in the 1970s knew the right questions to ask and they tried pretty hard to answer them, but they were limited by the analytical capabilities of the time,” said NASA astrobiologist Jamie Elsila in a press release....

To catch you up on what’s been happening: Last week, Instagram announced that it was making some sweeping changes that absolutely had nothing to do with TikTok and were in no way copying its features. It added more options to its Remix feature, which allows you to combine your own photos and videos with those from other people into new videos—just like TikTok. It also announced that all videos shorter than 15 minutes would automatically be shared as Reels—the TikTok-like fullscreen video format that pops up in the main feed—rather than as regular video posts....

The solicitation dryly notes that “The current Stinger inventory is in decline,” which is one way to describe the US Army sending thousands of the missiles from its own inventory to Ukraine’s military. The missiles cost $38,000 apiece, which partly explains why units like the 173rd Airborne Brigade had trained with replicas instead of live missiles, a practice that changed this month. These missiles join even older anti-air weapons, like the Soviet-made Strela anti-air missiles Germany sent to Ukraine, in bolstering the defense of Ukraine without actively joining the fight in the sky above....

Most of the scientists Popular Science talked with said they were marching to call for much stronger action on climate change. “There is no point in doing the research if no one is going to listen to the results,” said Allison Jacobel, a paleoclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Humanity “has to survive the next thousand years,” said her colleague Etienne Dunn-Sigouin. Among the non-scientists who joined the science section of the march, a man named Mark told us he was primarily there for the birds, such as the plush blue-footed booby sitting on top of his baseball cap....

Number one is no surprise: the weather. Here we present the other four. Knowing them won’t get your plane moving, but it will make for conversation the next time you’re stranded at the airport bar.

Over the last few years, however, consumer opinions have shifted against this kind of targeting. In the wake of scandals like Cambridge Analytica (although it didn’t actually use cookies), society has broadly started to recognize both how invasive this kind of tracking is—and how it can be used to discriminate and reinforce prejudices. In a 2019 report from Pew Research Center, 79 percent of Americans were reportedly concerned about how much data companies were collecting about them, and 81 percent of Americans felt the potential risks of data collection outweighed the potential benefits....

All living things need nitrogen to survive. The element forms the structure of the proteins that keep us alive and the DNA that codes for them. Luckily, it’s also all around us, making up 78 percent of Earth’s atmosphere. But there’s a catch: most living things can’t use the nitrogen found in the air. Nitrogen gas molecules consist of two nitrogen atoms connected by a triple bond, the strongest type of chemical bond....

When Snow was practicing medicine in London, the germ theory of disease wasn’t fully accepted. Physicians and biologists had suggested at various points throughout the 16th, 17th, and18th centuries that many illnesses might be caused by tiny organisms—they often called these animalcules—but most people we’re buying it. Miasma theory was much more popular. The idea was that “bad air” caused disease, and it wasn’t as crazy as it sounds today....

Indulging in a delicious, home-cooked meal is arguably the best part of Thanksgiving. Arguably. In my opinion, a day of relaxation, merriment, and delicious grub isn’t complete without some amount of strenuous physical activity. Luckily for me, there are many others who share my sentiments. Over the past decade or so, Thanksgiving Day road races—colloquially known as Turkey Trots—have become increasingly popular. They’re a great way to squeeze in some exercise early in the day so you won’t feel so bad later, while you’re stuffing yourself full of dinner and pie and then holding your stomach on the couch for hours....

Julian Barbour’s solution to the problem of time in physics and cosmology is as simply stated as it is radical: there is no such thing as time. “If you try to get your hands on time, it’s always slipping through your fingers,” says Barbour. “People are sure time is there, but they can’t get hold of it. My feeling is that they can’t get hold of it because it isn’t there at all....

If you have an air conditioning unit at home, you may not have a problem at all. But keeping it breezy all night long can be an expensive waste of energy, so you might want to get your bedroom comfortable with as little help from your AC as possible. Pro tip: Get some high-quality black-out curtains. Some claim to be able to deflect 90 percent more sunlight and heat than regular drapes, but that will depend on a variety of factors, such as color, thickness, and material....

Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages) 12min Micro Book Library: Lifetime Premium Subscription 12min helps anyone power through books in just 12 minutes. It boasts a comprehensive collection of 1800 micro books that range from personal development to science and technology, helping the reader explore as many different genres as they want in a short amount of time. It’s usually $399, but you can grab a lifetime subscription on sale for $39....

Not all the results offered by 23andMe are the same now as they were in 2013, as they can only run the tests that have been approved by the FDA. The service will continue to provide customers with, “the chance to find and connect with DNA relatives in a database of more than 1 million customers,” as noted in the press release. But it’s offering some new services, too. In addition to its sleek new user interface, the company offers a genetic carrier screening, a test that can pick up on mutations that prospective parents may pass on to their offspring....

In this day and age, it’s never been more important to make an effort to protect your data online. Getting started is easy and won’t even cost you much money. Your privacy is priceless, after all, and the smart thing to do is exercise caution online. To safeguard your information online, here are some nifty tips: Create strong and unique passwords Using the name of your puppy as your Neopets password when you were younger was cute, but you cannot keep doing the same now that you own accounts with private, sensitive information....

1. Change the watch face You don’t have to settle for the default Garmin look. There are several watch faces to pick from, and all can be customized in various ways, depending on the model you’re using. If you haven’t already, get the Garmin Connect app for Android or iOS set up on your phone, as well as the Garmin Connect IQ app for Android or iOS—these are essential for customizing and configuring your wearable....

Even though the community has become more welcoming to curious onlookers, it’s not easy to find basic information about the hobby. This is especially true if you haven’t given much thought to your keyboard in the first place, or if you still think the flimsy and unresponsive membrane keyboard on the MacBook Air is not that bad. So before you fall down an internet rabbit hole trying to figure out what the colors on switches mean, let’s talk about what you really need to know about getting or building your own customizable mechanical keyboard....

BMander

Don’t believe us? Watch the video below. This article originally appeared in the March 2014 issue of Popular Science.

New data collected in the past decade has highlighted the importance of sleep to lower the risk for heart problems, prompting AHA to issue “Life’s Essential 8,” a new version of its heart guidelines. “Sleep is related to every single one of the other seven elements—it’s closely tied to weight, blood pressure, glucose metabolism, what we choose to eat,” Donald Lloyd-Jones, the AHA president, said in a Northwestern University press release....