True, in real life we’re not headed for Mars anytime soon. America doesn’t even have a spacecraft to get us there, let alone a habitat to keep us alive while we’re there. But if and when we do go to Mars, it’s probably going to look a lot like you’ll see in The Martian, according to a panel of NASA scientists and engineers who spoke at Columbia University on Sunday....

The Fingerprint Slide Scanner is an $80 device that both gathers and stores your (or anyone else’s) fingerprints. Once it’s memorized your prints, the Fingerprint Slide Scanner can be placed into query mode: your stored fingerprint is matched against a valid swipe and a unique ID number is spit out of the scanner through a TTL output. But that’s only half of the excitement. When this TTL output is coupled with a suitable Bluetooth modem, the resultant fingerprint ID number can be sent wirelessly to an awaiting PC....

This has been a long time coming. Right to Repair advocates, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and iFixit, have been fighting for greater access to official parts for years, and they’ve finally found success with the Biden administration. An executive order signed last July called on the FTC to hold smartphone manufacturers accountable for “making repairs more costly and time-consuming, such as by restricting the distribution of parts, diagnostics, and repair tools....

The company says the Roomba j7+ uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to watch out for solid pet waste, recognize if an unwelcome surprise happens to be in its way, and make moves to avoid it. This marks a new milestone in the company’s use of AI, building on the iRobot Genius Home Intelligence platform it launched in 2020 to provide customers with more customizations, including enhanced mapping, scheduling, and automation features....

RSV, a seasonal respiratory virus that causes cold-like symptoms, has been around for centuries. Today, it is the leading cause of severe respiratory illness in babies and infants. What makes the current outbreak so alarming is that most hospitalized children are older than 2. “We’re seeing a tidal wave of RSV,” says Sharon Nachman, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “And we’re not seeing it just in those first two years of life that we typically expect but in school-aged children who should have already had their RSV exposure....

Made by Swedish defense giant Saab, the Carl Gustaf is a venerable weapon, a sophisticated and durable rifled tube that first entered military service in 1948. With this latest type of ammunition, called High Explosive (HE) 448, the rifle can pull off a new trick: It can automatically program the round with information from the rifle’s fire control software, promising faster, more accurate firepower on the move. In other words, the weapon and its ammunition are able to communicate with one another while the round is loaded in the weapon....

Although it’s unclear exactly what the newest Samsung Galaxy tech will offer, we’re big fans of the current models for their aesthetics, multitasking capabilities, and more. The preorder page teases “A new way to selfie” and “the next small thing is coming,” all of which will most likely be unveiled at the company’s Galaxy Unpacked event August 10. Expect $100 of Samsung credit by reserving the next Galaxy smartphone, $50 by reserving the next Galaxy Watch, and $30 for the next pair of Galaxy Buds if you don’t want to reserve all three....

Even though the LHC’s twin beams will travel in protective isolation through 17-mile-long, two-inch-wide pipes sucked to a near-perfect vacuum, some of those protons—potentially billions—will inevitably wander off the track. When they do, they will slam into the magnets that steer and focus the beam, or hit other hardware, gas molecules or protons. These collisions will generate a mess of secondary radioactive particles, explains Mike Lamont, an LHC machine coordinator, filling the tunnel with a field of radiation roughly equivalent to that of a full-body CT scan....

Wrong, research says. A team recently studied a set of very lucky Labrador retrievers (a breed known for its playfulness) in kennels, letting them spend 30 second intervals with several different toys. The dogs would get one type of toy, then another, completely different one, with the team measuring when the dogs decided to quit playing with each. The study measured several factors, going as far as determining if color or odor had anything to do with the pups’ preferences....

And now scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and life-science company Amazentis believe they have found a way to do so with a highly pure Urolithin A supplement called Mitopure. “We have identified a breakthrough molecule that activates an essential cellular renewal pathway,” says Chris Rinsch, cofounder and CEO of Amazentis. “It repairs and renews the energy factories inside our cells, translating to improved muscle strength and endurance....

The researchers describe their system in terms of hills and valleys (picture this). At absolute zero, a group of atoms has no energy and is motionless, and thus all atoms are at the bottom of the valley. As the temperature rises above absolute zero that changes, but not all at once–some particles gain a lot of energy, and some gain just a little, so now the atoms have different energies and are spread along the slope of the hill, stretching from valley to hilltop....

You may even want to do a bit of exploring, which a drone can help you with. The Ninja Dragon Blade X PRO 4K Dual Camera Smart Quadcopter Drone happens to be on sale, and you can snap it up for nearly 50 percent off—no coupon needed whatsoever. Great for hobbyists and any beginner photographer or videographer, this drone packs a 4K HD dual camera that offers a superior shooting experience....

For your walls: Audimute isolé – Sound Barrier and Absorption Sheet One of the top ways noise travels from room to room is through flimsy walls and doors. A simple way to limit sound bleed is to add mass to these barriers. This Isolé sound absorber will do exactly this. It’s a mat that weighs about 30 pounds with three grommets to make hanging it up simple. It’s an easy and flexible solution you can take with you once you move....

“Internal combustion is dirty and complicated,” Schoell says. Steam engines, on the other hand, are simpler and more efficient and can use a variety of fuels. Unlike a regular internal combustion engine, which explodes a mixture of fuel and air hundreds of times a second inside its cylinders to drive the pistons, steam engines burn fuel continuously in a different chamber. And since this combustion is separate from the engine’s moving parts, any fuel that gets steam hot enough to drive the engine’s pistons will do....

Climate change is making hurricanes like Ian and other storms rainier, and scientists are now starting to quantify just how much. A study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds that in recent decades it when it rains in the US, the precipitation falls more fiercely than in decades past. The intensity of rainfall has shifted from lighter periods of rain to more moderate and heavy deluges....

In October, astronomers floated the idea that the star KIC 8462852 could be surrounded by some sort of huge alien structure. While that’s unlikely, scientists are still having a hard time coming up with a good explanation for the star’s strange behavior. Every so often, the star’s light dims by as much as 20 percent. By comparison, a huge, Jupiter-size planet orbitiing the star would block out about 1 percent of the star’s light....

Because no matter how clean a freshwater source seems to be, there’s a good chance it carries pathogens and bacteria that can make you sick. Giardia, rotavirus, and dysentery—all found in waterways contaminated by human or animal waste—are just a few examples of what may be lurking, invisible, in one innocent swig. True—drinking straight from a natural source might not always make you sick, but it only takes one experience with serious diarrhea while camping to convince you it’s not worth taking the chance....

Both McCain and Obama have a strong history of supporting funding for a wide range of government agencies involved in scientific research. In previous installments of this series, we looked at McCain and Obama’s legislative history as it pertains to stem cells, space exploration,alternative energy, genetics research and defense research. In all of those cases, we saw two senators with a history of supporting scientific research at every opportunity. And for those worrying whether Obama or McCain could afford to fund research in the current economic climate, they can take heart that the government spends so little on scientific research that cutting it wouldn’t really make that much of a difference anyway....

Beaded necklaces and jewelry made of hard plastic are tempting tools for a parent with a teething baby. As new teeth grow in, infants’ mouths can get very tender and painful, and chewing on something can really help soothe them. If you, as a busy new parent, can wear the device that eases their pain—or even put it on the baby for easy access while they nap—well, that’s one small convenience in a period of major inconveniences....

So, Start-Ups: Silicon Valley. It’s a show, co-created by a company called Zuckerberg Media (Mark’s sister, apparently), with the same rough format as the Real Housewives series. We follow a handful of pretty people (eight, in this case) who have kind of met before but are now presented as the key members of a tight-knit group, as they go about their daily lives, interacting with one another and pursuing their own dreams, which are often just to be on television....