Don’t worry if you’re not an expert mechanic—there are basic steps you can take before each trip that will ensure smooth cycling wherever you are. Not every component is high-maintenance—some parts only need attention after you’ve logged long miles. And at the end of every year with your trusty two-wheeler, it’s worth considering a checkup from a professional. Before every ride A quick check of key components (air, brakes, chain, and quick-release elements) can take less than a minute if everything’s in working order, and if something’s not up to snuff, you’ll thank yourself for catching it before you take a tumble on the road or trail....

Scientists at Columbia University found that drought and heat waves dry up soils, hurting the ability of plants to pull carbon from the atmosphere. And periods of wet weather don’t make up the difference, according to the study, which appeared today in the journal Nature. “It’s no surprise that during a drought or heat wave vegetation is not going to store as much carbon,” says Julia Green, the lead author of the study....

The Rafale is a multi-purpose aircraft: It can carry out air-to-air combat, or can drop bombs on targets in an air-to-ground mission; or, thanks to its cameras, radars, and other sensors, it can be employed for intelligence gathering. It comes in single-seat and dual-seat variants and is pronounced “Ra-faal,” with the accent on the second syllable. The jet, originally designed for the French Air Force and Navy, has also, over the past seven years, made its way to Egypt, India, Qatar, Greece, Croatia, and the United Arab Emirates....

Spore is the brainchild of legendary designer Will Wright (The Sims), poster child for an entire generation of joystick-addled MENSA dropouts since 1989’s SimCity. On the one hand, the outing represents a watershed moment for user-generated content, allowing you to give birth to nearly any organism the mind can conceive. But seven years in the making, nearly five times the average 18-month game development cycle, Spore also serves as the genesis for a host of technological breakthroughs....

Welcome to the final round of our bout! There was no shortage of impassioned debate when we gathered to anoint the top 25 innovations in the history of Best of What’s New. But a dozen editors locked in a room can only get you so far. How do you rank the best of the best – the iPhone versus the Large Hadron Collider, the TiVo versus the Chunnel? How do you name the one product that has affected more, lasting change than all others?...

Although the dinosaur in question is long dead, signs of this sickness are preserved in its neck bones as lumpy growths. These abnormal structures may have been caused by a fungal infection similar to those seen in birds today, a team of paleontologists, veterinarians, and other anatomy specialists have determined. The growths represent the first evidence of a dinosaur respiratory infection and could shed light on certain aspects of dinosaur physiology, the team concluded on February 10 in Scientific Reports....

Also, the Mach-E is technically only one model, but it will arrive in late 2020 and early 2021 with a glut of different options for drivers who demand different things from their EVs. Depending on the trim level and options, the Mach-E can offer between 255 horsepower and 459 HP if you go all the way up to the GT version. The battery can last anywhere between 235 miles per charge with the standard option, all the way up to 300 miles on the extended model....

Allergies are unpleasant. Just ask anyone who equates the advent of spring with a runny nose or the presence of a cute puppy with itchy eyes. Unfortunately, most allergy treatments—which tend to involve lots and lots of needles—are as unpleasant as the allergens themselves. But there’s a new option on the market: Allerdent, an allergy desensitizing toothpaste. While it’s not as widely available as traditional methods, the toothpaste seems to offer an easy (and poke-free) alternative to the age-old problem of respiratory allergies....

Researchers conducted an online survey consisting of 49 statements pairing five cat colorings (black, white, orange, bi-colored, and tri-colored) with 10 personality traits (active, aloof, bold, calm, friendly, intolerant, shy, stubborn, tolerant, and trainable.) Survey respondents assessed statements like, “Tri-colored cats are friendly,” on a seven-point scale. Orange and bi-colored cats are rated high in friendliness, tri-colored cats are high in intolerance, and white cats are high in aloofness. However, the researchers concluded that black cats weren’t rated significantly higher or lower in any trait than other color groups....

What did contribute to the power outage–and the resulting 34-minute game delay-—is not entirely clear. Entergy Corporation, the utility that provides power to the Superdome, and SMG, the managing company at the stadium, released a vague joint statement, saying “a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality.” As a result, the equipment opened a circuit breaker, cutting power to parts of the Superdome to isolate the issue....

Have enough room to bring dirty laundry and then some with the Monos Check-In Large suitcase, on sale for $294, down from its $417 original price tag. A polycarbonate shell keeps it protected from rough baggage handlers, and a TSA-approved lock keeps all your valuables safe. Quiet wheels and a telescopic handle keep you on the move when running to your gate, and an included anti-microbial laundry bag separates your worn clothes from the packed outfits....

While I personally recommend Series 7, it is not the only Apple Watch on sale. There are also solid discounts on the Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 3, as well. Whether you’ve been toying with the idea of trying an Apple Watch or want to upgrade from one of the original models, Prime Day has given you a great opportunity to jump. (And if you’re accessorizing for a triathlon or a backcountry trek, also consider the amazing Garmin watch deals going on right now....

These versatile little devices range in price from $5 for the cheapest Pi Zero model, to $55 for a top-of-the-line Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM. Each arrives as a circuit board with no case or accessories, so you’ll need to “BYOC” (bring your own cables), along with a power supply, monitor, enclosure, and, depending on your setup, an SD card. That means the price to actually use your Pi can be well above what’s listed, but it also means you won’t be paying for accessories you don’t need or already have....

The evolution of gigantic dinosaurs and how they carried their enormous stature has been a topic of debate among paleontologists for more than a century–that, until now, had no concrete answer. “What is exciting is that our research finally resolves this 120-year-old hypothesis by providing, for the first time, biomechanical evidence to show how gigantic sauropods could support their weight on land,” says Andréas Jannel, a research associate at The University of Queensland and lead author of the study....

Bacteria are inescapable, wherever life exists. That includes all built environments, from houses to the International Space Station. However, scientists have only started to study how microbes adapt to these living conditions. “There are a lot of questions about how space flight and space conditions will affect organisms including microbes,” says Erica Hartmann, Northwestern University microbiologist and environmental engineer and author of a new paper that holds answers for at least some of those questions....

The company hides some of these offers behind menus in its apps, so you might miss out on free movie rentals, Android games, or other treats if you don’t check in occasionally. If you haven’t opened any of your Google apps in a while, you should take a peek to see what might be available. Grab Google One benefits My family uses Google Photos religiously, which requires paying for some extra storage with Google One....

What’s New It’s the newest Nexus phone. The Nexus line is the ideal of Android–it’s what Google wants Android to look like, without the skins and app bundles and rearranged buttons and all kinds of garbage that, left to their own devices, Samsung and HTC and Motorola and LG just can’t stay away from. This particular Nexus is made by LG, a riff on the older Optimus G, with a 4....

As with Apple and its chiips, Google’s new chip strategy isn’t about brute force power, but rather maximizing efficiency across internal systems to make much better use of the hardware. By tightly linking the CPU, GPU, the image signal processor, the machine learning engine, and the rest of the systems, Google believes it can create a system that runs fast and more efficiently while enabling AI features that were previously out of reach....

Back in August, Google announced that it would reorganize as Alphabet. With no shortage of projects to work on or companies to acquire, the search engine behemoth decided to shift gears. Under Alphabet, each company could get its own CEO and report its own financial results at the end of the year. Each company also gets assigned its own letter: G for Google, for example. Bloomberg received word of Google’s plans to spin-off its driverless car division into its own company from an unnamed source briefed on the company’s strategy....