Science Activity

It's safe to say most of us know the dangers of online security. We know there are people trying to steal our most sensitive information, and we try our best to prevent that theft. But new research is showing what we're doing might not be enough, as the sensors in our phones m ...more

Responding to the emergence of Zika in the US, researchers investigated what type of repellent works best to reduce your odds of a mosquito bite from Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species that spreads the Zika virus. Scientists from the Department of Biology at New Mexico State ...more

Cake decorating is one of those activities that used to leave my hands sticky and my spirits dampened. No matter what I seemed to do, the final result always ended up looking like a preschool art project. Thankfully, I've discovered a few tips that make the whole mess a bit m ...more

My morning just doesn't start without a cup of coffee and an incredibly hot shower. There's nothing better than sloughing off sleep with a dose of warm, cleansing water. Except, as scientists are pointing out, our habit of showering daily isn't exactly the healthiest choice. T ...more

Who's ready to let future Facebook augmented reality smartglasses read their brain? Well, ready or not, the tech giant is making progress in the area of brain control interfaces (BCI) by funding research. This week, Facebook shared some of the progress its Facebook Reality La ...more

More than one in ten people in the US have type 2 diabetes — that's over 29 million people. It's characterized by excessive sugar (glucose) in the blood due to the development of resistance to insulin, the hormone that normally metabolizes glucose. Deposits of folded and clum ...more

Coronaviruses are common viruses, and most of us catch one at some point — they cause about 30% of all common colds. A new accidental discovery could help fight these viruses, even the deadlier, emerging ones. Coronaviruses are the cause of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (M ...more

Activating the body's own immune system to fight cancer is the goal of immunotherapy. It's less toxic than chemotherapy and works with our body's natural defenses. The trouble is, it doesn't work for most patients — only about 40% of cancer patients get a good response from im ...more

As summer mosquito season approaches, researchers are warning people with previous exposure to West Nile virus to take extra precautions against Zika. A new study found that animals with antibodies to West Nile in their blood have more dangerous infections with Zika than they ...more

Seagrass may help your favorite beach stay a little less toxic. A new study, led by Joleah Lamb, a postdoctoral researcher in the Harvell Lab at Cornell University, found that coastal seagrasses reduce levels of pathogens dangerous to humans and marine organisms in near-shore ...more

Using mathematical modeling, researchers suggest weather and warming created the "perfect storm" that drove the Zika outbreak in 2016. Carried by mosquitoes, Zika is a Flavivirus first identified in Uganda in 1947 by scientists conducting research on yellow fever. Zika forest ...more

One thousand feet under the ground, extremophile microbes that have not seen the light of day for four million years are giving up some fascinating facts to scientists who go the distance. Geomicrobiologists are scientists interested in life at the crossroads of geology and m ...more

Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! As I mentioned in earlier posts, the best hackers (or at least those not behind bars) have a keen understanding of digital forensics. If I am tasked to intrude upon an enemy's file server to retrieve war plans, such as in this tutorial, it i ...more

I'll admit it: I've spent many eight-hour workdays stuck at my desk, staring at my computer as my breaks slip past unnoticed. I frequently tell myself I'll take one in a few more minutes—but somehow, the entire day will pass and I won't have taken a single break. It's common ...more

There are many, many home remedies out there for relieving itchy mosquito bites. Everything from mud to banana peels and basil leaves to Alka-Seltzer tablets can help curb the itch. But before you even have to resort to any of those methods, you should be thinking about preven ...more

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the commu ...more

What does mainstream augmented reality look like? I'm not talking about the stuff you see in concept videos and science fiction films. No. What does it really look like? If you ask anyone working within the AR space today, the future of AR is wherever the immediately realizab ...more

In 2018, augmented reality went from the vague promise of interesting things in the near future to tangible developments in software and hardware, proving that immersive computing is indeed the future. Traditional mobile apps on smartphones continued to maintain user attentio ...more

Young girls, especially those who live in areas where HIV is epidemic, like sub-Saharan Africa, are particularly vulnerable to becoming infected with HIV. A vaginal ring containing the antiviral agent dapivirine has been shown to decrease the chance of developing HIV-1 in adul ...more

By connecting the dots between theory and real-life effect, two new studies offer more proof that neonicotinoid insecticides are causing extensive damage to honeybee colonies. Research studies have linked neonicotinoid insecticides to damage to honeybee colonies, while agricu ...more

The future of forests looks dreary in the face of a warming climate, but scientists are exploring the relationship between soil microbes and the ability of trees to move to higher altitudes, a key component of their survival. With the rate of ice melting and sea level rise ha ...more

Are you someone who always struggles to wake up in the morning, no matter how much you've slept? For most, the thought of getting out of bed any earlier sounds horrific. Yet dragging yourself out of bed and towards the coffee maker a few hours earlier each day can have benefit ...more

For a hacker, there are a lot of advantages to creating a fake network. One advantage forces nearby devices to use their real MAC address if you happen upon a network that's stored in their preferred network list. There are a lot of tools out there for creating fake access po ...more

Your smartphone is likely full of COVID-19 news and coronavirus panic. These are scary days, and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. If you're having trouble coping with the stress and anxiety the virus brings with it, know that your iPhone or Android device can actuall ...more

What if you could easily visualize which access point every Wi-Fi device nearby is connected to in a matter of seconds? While programs like Airodump-ng can intercept this wireless information, making it easy for hackers to use and understand is another challenge. Fortunately, ...more

Open-source data scraping is an essential reconnaissance tool for government agencies and hackers alike, with big data turning our digital fingerprints into giant neon signs. The problem is no longer whether the right data exists, it's filtering it down to the exact answer you ...more

For the novice cook, fungi can be weird because, well, they're fungi. However, if you've been afraid to get acquainted with mushrooms, you've been missing out. Vegetarians love mushrooms and with good reason. Their rich, savory flavor comes a close second to umami-rich meat. ...more

Let's say that you've got the look down, and you have your Steampunk props all ready to go. Congratulations! You're a Steampunk! But now what do you do with yourself? You can sit there, patting yourself on the back, but that gets lonely after awhile. Your props will look nic ...more

If you made a resolution for 2020 to get healthier, it's essential to concentrate on your mental health just as much as you do on physical fitness. Running and exercising is great, but a sound mind is integral to a healthy and balanced life, and you can improve your emotional ...more

The year 2019 was filled with all the normal peaks and valleys of the tech business cycle, but this year was particularly important in a space as relatively young as the augmented reality industry. What once seemed like a vast fertile bed of mobile AR apps, powered by Apple's ...more

Why do you need augmented reality? Because enterprise, they say. And while that's certainly true for several disciplines, there's still that mainstream use case hanging out there waiting for users to discover beyond the realm of enterprise and gaming. After much thought — and ...more

Apple Watch owners know the struggle — it's the end of the day, and those rings aren't met. Whether you forgot your watch before hitting the gym, let the battery run out, or just didn't move enough, you could feel the sting of fitness failure. But it doesn't have to be this wa ...more

Despite legends to the contrary, it appears that the saliva of a Komodo dragon is not teeming with pathogenic bacteria that kills their prey. Its reputation to survive while colonized with lots of horrible disease-causing bacteria, true or untrue, has made it the subject of re ...more

When you need to take notes, sketch out projects, brainstorm with others, create mood boards, or map out ideas without constraints, look no further than Freeform, Apple's new collaboration-friendly digital whiteboard. Each Freeform project has an infinite canvas to give you f ...more

The latest film addition in the American-produced Millennium series, The Girl in the Spider's Web, was just released on Blu-ray a few days ago. As you could expect, the movie has many hacking scenes throughout, just like the previous English and Swedish language movies centere ...more

Unlike VR, when you're talking about augmented reality, describing what an experience is like can be incredibly difficult — primarily because the experiences are even more contextual than relatively static virtual worlds that don't involve real-world settings. In AR, everythi ...more

Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your ...more

On July 20, 1969, humans set foot on the moon for the first time. But some say our microbes beat us there. With the Space Age came new questions about microscopic invaders from outer space and concern about where we are leaving our microbial footprints. The questions are even ...more

What appears to be an ordinary MP4 may have been designed by an attacker to compromise your Linux Mint operating system. Opening the file will indeed play the intended video, but it will also silently create a connection to the attacker's system. Understanding the Attack Whi ...more

The last iOS software update was a modest one, but iOS 17.4 has a lot more for your iPhone, including changes to emoji, Podcasts, security, Safari, widgets, Apple Cash, CarPlay, and more. Many of the exciting changes in iOS 17.4, as well as iPadOS 17.4, apply to users in the ...more