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Steffensen is an indigenous specialist in fire management. He teaches classes about the best ways to set controlled fires to communities in five states in Australia as well as parts of Canada. He says he feels frustrated watching the megafires this year, which have, as of today, burned over 12.35 million acres and killed 24 people, as well as more than 800 million animals. Forestry management is a complicated, controversial, and region-specific art, especially as the stakes become higher as human-driven climate crises worsen....

“Time dilation has been in science TV shows and movies like Interstellar so often that I’ve just accepted it without understanding why it was true. So when this challenge came around I thought this area was a great one to dig into,” the 18-year-old Ohio native explains in an introduction to his video, available on YouTube under the title “Some Cool Ways of Looking at the Special Theory of Relativity....

Smaller LEDs are better mini LED displays rely on a field of tiny (hence the name) LEDs behind the panel to provide the backlight. That’s opposed to older displays, which relied on light sources around the edges of the screen or OLED, in which each pixel produces its own light. The latter typically shows up in high-end TVs. In the ROG Swift’s case, the 32-inch monitor has tiny LEDs arranged into 1,152 independent zones that can adjust their brightness independent of one another....

The Green New Deal, a resolution introduced by Congress members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, is the most recent national proposal to transform our energy system. As part of its 10-year plan, the text includes the goal of “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources, including— (i) by dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources; and (ii) by deploying new capacity....

Over the past two days, however, Apple has quietly updated some of its most-popular products with little to no fanfare. The iPad Air, iPad Mini, and now the iMac all have new options available, and buying an iPad just got a lot more complicated. iPad Mini Smartphones were a lot smaller back in 2012 when the iPad Mini, which made its 8-inch screen a reasonable middle point between a phone and the 9....

This isn’t exactly the biggest surprise. For decades, astronomers have observed a twisting pattern of hydrogen gas out in the far reaches of the galaxy. But since that gas layer extends so far out, it was never really clear whether individual stellar bodies in the galaxy were exhibiting the same kind of warping, and whether there was a consistent warp throughout the Milky Way. This new 3D map wasn’t even intended to trace the galaxy’s warp....

The most awesome aerospace innovations of this past year aren’t just cool contraptions designed to cruise through air and space at breakneck speeds. They’re hints at what might be mainstream in the future. From an experimental craft that could help usher in a new period of quiet supersonic flight to a drone destined to fly on Mars, these machines are made to push the edges of our engineering envelopes. These mind-bending vehicles are bringing wings, rotors, engines, and humanity to new heights....

This isn’t the first VR system to do something like this: Oculus Rift, which requires a powerful PC to operate, uses separate, external infrared LED sensors to track your motions. The Quest does something similar, without the need for a PC or those separate sensors. Here’s how Oculus Quest fits into the VR landscape, and how it works. It’s a big step up from the Go device The Oculus Quest follows another self-contained VR device from the company: the Oculus Go....

But we don’t know that for certain just yet—here’s why. What the Polar Vortex Is—And Isn’t Though we might associate the polar vortex with anomalous cold weather and Nor’easters, it’s not unusual at all. “Sometimes you see headlines like the polar vortex is coming,” says William Seviour, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Bristol. “In fact, the polar vortex is always there.” Every fall, as the Arctic loses light and becomes especially cold, the greater disparity in temperature between the North Pole and equator leads to the formation of the polar vortex....

But there are also plenty of very real sightings of animals you might not expect in the urban jungle. Coyotes have been spotted throughout San Francisco, even taking naps in patches of green spaces in the city. In the coastal Welsh town of Llandudno, a herd of mountain goats stomped through the streets, munching on vegetation and climbing walls. In Boulder, Colorado, mountain lions have been prowling residential streets—one even took a nap in a backyard tree....

But no two reusable items are created the same, and no two reusable kitchen items are maintained the same way. Researchers at the University of Michigan compared the lifetime environmental impacts of widely used kitchenware products. They looked at both single-use plastics and their reusable counterparts—including drinking straws, sandwich bags and wraps, coffee cups, and forks. The researchers calculated the payback for each item to understand how many times one product is reused before beating out the environmental impacts per each use of the same single-use product....

Experts disagree about how fast the US can replace coal and gas-fired power plants with zero-carbon electricity. Some say we can shift to 100 percent clean power by 2050 with little friction and minimal cost. Others say that’s unrealistically optimistic. Scientists on both sides of the argument agree that it’s possible to get to 80 or 90 percent clean power. The debate centers on that last 10 or 20 percent....

That first iPod was groundbreaking—who can forget the “1,000 songs in your pocket” marketing—but it wasn’t necessarily the most important or revolutionary model. It was a good MP3 player, nicer and easier to use than what Apple’s competitors were making at the time, but it would take a few years to become a true pop-culture icon. Now though, since the age of the iPod has truly come to a close, let’s reflect on a few of those revolutionary models—the ones that we feel truly carved the iPod’s place in history....

In 2019, a parasitology lab at the University of California, Riverside, was tipped off by a breeder whose tarantulas were ravaged by a mysterious infection. Side effects included “lethargy, anorexia, and tip-toe behavior,” along with “a white discharge in the oral cavities,” according to the researchers’ recap of the incident. They had the breeder send them a few dead specimens and dug in. Necropsies revealed that the hairy victims were infected with nematode worms....

A decade later, researchers are finally closing in on some of the answers to the questions Kepler raised. Earthlike planets are probably rare, but not exceedingly so. Roughly one in five yellow stars could have one, according to a new analysis of Kepler’s data published in May in The Astronomical Journal. If the researchers’ conclusions are correct, that would mean the Milky Way might be home to nearly 6 billion Earths....

But how can lizards, whose lungs are developed for good ole air, manage to hold their breath for so long? Well it appears they don’t have to. According to a recent study conducted by evolutionary biologists at the University of Toronto, these water-loving reptiles employ their own form of scuba diving researchers aptly coined “rebreathing.” Previously, ecologists have only observed this technique in arthropods like spiders and bugs. The study, which was published this month in Current Biology, found anoles have a unique ability to breathe underwater thanks to an air bubble sitting atop their snouts....

Tiredness, sadness, and relief all feel very different, and yet sighing somehow seems to complement each emotional state. But why do we do it? There have been lots of theories, but no one is quite sure. Now researchers have filled in an important piece of the puzzle: They have discovered the neurological pathways responsible for the frequency of sighing, independent of regular breathing. The study was published today in Nature....

The most high-profile health helper bot at the show was Samsung’s Bot Care. Revealed during Samsung’s massive press conference, the hip-high robot is part of Samsung’s new robotics platform; others include an automated pal designed to help people in retail shopping environments, and another designed to filter pollution from the air in your home. From the outside, Bot Care looks a lot like the robots we’ve come to expect at CES....

Successfully funded on Kickstarter with $17,700 in pledges, the CARSULE is an easy-to-assemble living space that you can easily attach to your car. You can get it on sale for 26-percent off just in time for Memorial Day. Designed for cars that have a tailgate that swings up, CARSULE quite literally provides you a home on the road. Unlike most tents that are only developed and used for snoozing purposes, it can also function as your living room in the wild, offering mobility since its easy assemble design allows for much flexibility....

Over the past few years, researchers have been working on more convenient and less intrusive ways for people to monitor their diabetes. Now, a group of international researchers led by Dae-Hyeong Kim from the Institute for Basic Science in Seoul, South Korea have created a dual patch that can both monitor blood glucose levels and deliver medication that reduces high sugar levels when they occur. Their work was published today in Nature Nanotechnology....