The technology relies on a non-toxic additive that encourages anaerobic microbes to break down the midsole. The degradation requires low oxygen, adequate moisture, and high microbial load, so the critters won’t start eating your shoes before you’re ready, unless conditions in your closet are quasi-landfill-esque. Testing, with 200 runners running up to 550 miles each, has showed that the additive doesn’t decrease shoes’ durability. Attention to greening the shoe business isn’t new....

This story originally featured on Undark. On a Wednesday evening in December, four young men, students and researchers at al-Aqsa University, carefully hoisted telescopes on their backs and made their way toward a five-story university building with roof access. Hoping to catch a glimpse of far-off stars, they walked through a Gaza City neighborhood, just over a four-mile walk from the Israeli border. The sky was streaked with electrical wires and the bird-sized Israeli drones used throughout the region to surveil and attack....

Pot-smoking drivers can be charged with a DUI, no matter whether or not recreational marijuana is legal in their state. But it’s more difficult for officers to catch smokers than drinkers—THC exists in the bloodstream at much smaller concentrations than alcohol, so you need a different type of breathalyzer technology to detect it. Plus, marijuana affects the body differently, so field sobriety tests are totally ineffective. For now, police use blood or urine tests to prove that a driver had THC in his system, but those can take days, and can’t assess how recently a person used marijuana....

The newly discovered Baby Boom galaxy is the brightest galaxy of its type, thanks to its prodigious star production. During the 12.3 billion year old period scientists are currently looking at, the galaxy produced between 1,000 and 4,000 stars a year. While impressive as such, that rate of star birth is even more unusual considering the universe was only 1.3 billions years old at the time. Before the discovery of the Baby Boom galaxy, researchers had never seen a galaxy that productive while the universe was so young....

According to Caltech’s recent interview with two of the project leads, the satellite combines three main areas of advances: The development of ultra lightweight, high-efficiency photovoltaic cells “with power-to-weight ratios some 50-100 times greater than even the solar panels currently used on the ISS and modern satellites.”Creating similarly lightweight and low-cost tech with the ability to convert direct current power into radio frequency power, then transmit that power back to Earth in the form of safe microwave radiation....

Fifteen-year-old Brianna K. (known as Kū) loves listening to her family tell stories about the wildlife they grew up with along the shores of west Maui, Hawaiʻi. The stories describe diverse, vital ecosystems. They tell of things that have been lost. “Older generations will talk about different seaweeds or different fishes that they used to see in places that I swim in now. And when I go out there with my dad or my parents or my cousins, you don’t see too much of it,” Kū says....

Stepping back inside to the Garfield Park’s desert house, there’s a familiar yet jumbo-sized amalgamation of greenish-blue agave leaves. The eye wanders up a palm-like trunk rising from their center and reaching the peak of the room’s 25-foot ceiling. And it just keeps on going. This is the conservatory’s beloved century plant, affectionately named Maya. And while she can’t quite measure up to the city’s downtown Willis Tower, she’s clearly a skyscraper in her own right....

As a health tracker, however, the Amazfit GTR 3 smartwatch hits the mark. It has more than 150 unique sport modes and its sensors can tell you about everything from your breathing to your blood oxygen level. That means that if you’re in the market for a workout tracker and you’re excited by an option that doesn’t proclaim to everyone that you have a gym accessory strapped to your wrist, the Amazfit GTR 3 could be the best smartwatch for fitness....

It’s also built on the new Alexa Connect Kit, which the company hopes developers will use to bring more gadgets into the Alexa ecosystem with less friction. A microwave that sends for more popcorn is silly, but a washing machine that re-orders detergent or a dishwasher that orders more soap makes more sense. There are already ways to get Alexa in your car, but now there’s officially an Echo device designed to chill in your automobile....

In Australia, the debate has taken an interesting turn. Professor Ross Garnaut, a government adviser on climate change, is urging his fellow Aussies to serve kangaroo meat in place of beef or lamb, because the marsupials produce negligible amounts of environmentally damaging methane gas. On the other hand, cattle and sheep, according to Garnaut’s 620-page study, produce a considerable amount of methane gas through belching and flatulence, and are among the millions of livestock responsible for approximately 67 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions....

They’re also some of the earliest fossils to be recognized as dinosaurs. Paleontologist Richard Owens coined the term ‘dinosaur’ in the 1840s to describe iguanodontians and other creatures dug from the cliffs of southern England. Since then, the huge herbivores have been found across Europe, in rocks spanning six million years. But despite that long history, paleontologists only recognize two species of iguanodontians. Now, according to an analysis of an overlooked iguanodontian skull excavated in 1996, there may be a third type....

These worms are different from their European and North American cousins that gardeners are typically happy to stumble across. The clitellum (the ringed band) of jumping worms is grayish and closer to the worm’s nose. They stay in the top few inches of soil, rather than digging deep into the earth, and their length ranges from 1.5 to over 8 inches. And as their name suggests, they also move in a jumpier, jerkier fashion....

“We’re thrilled to bring the first driver’s license and state ID in Wallet to Arizona today, and provide Arizonans with an easy, secure, and private way to present their ID when traveling, through just a tap of their iPhone or Apple Watch,” Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, said in a press release Wednesday. To upload an ID, Arizona residents first need at least an iPhone 8 running iOS 15....

I’m on the dock, waiting to see what today’s catch looks like. I’m traveling the northern Norwegian coast with a group of journalists from Denmark, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands to see how climate change is impacting industries in the Arctic. Fisheries is our first stop, and here, sustainability is key. The three workers aboard the small fishing boat went out about 5 PM last night and haven’t slept since....

Astroneer’s creators, System Era Softworks, today posted an update on the game’s official website explaining that they are pushing the release of the “early access” edition of the game from its initially planned timeframe of “late March or early April” 2016 to “the end of summer, beginning of fall.” However, there’s some good news along with the delay: System Era says it has received outside funding allowing “the entire team to come on to the project full time,” instead of working on it part-time and funding it entirely independently....

On the luxury EV side, the new Audi RS e-tron GT is twice as much as the average EV cost at close to $150,000. But wait: We have good news. Motor companies from Chevrolet to Jeep to Honda are announcing a range of new EV options, with prices that are mass-market friendly. Chevrolet electrifies the Equinox Coming to the rescue is Chevrolet, which just revealed its shiny new 2024 Equinox EV....

The exercise was operationally simple: the unmanned X-47B took off from the carrier’s deck, followed by a manned F/A-18 Hornet. Then the X-47B landed on the deck, folded up its wings, and an operator on the deck steered the drone aside, while the Hornet landed on the same deck. It might be a simple concept, but successfully integrating both manned and unmanned aircraft into the same flight patterns, especially on the confined space of an aircraft carrier, is essential for future operations....

Humans have been exploiting S. cerevisiae‘s fermentation prowess for thousands of years. Without it we wouldn’t have beer, bread or wine. In addition to its uses in food production, S. cerevisiae is also an amazing tool for molecular and cell biology, one that is helping scientists suss out the rules of how our cells work and gain clues to what happens at the molecular level when things go wrong. Much of what we understand about eukaryotic cellular processes and eukaryotic gene expression, we learned by studying S....

Best for nitro-coffee: GrowlerWerks uKeg Nitro Cold Brew Coffee MakerBest easy-use: Dash Cold Brew Coffee Maker Best for smooth flavor: Toddy Cold Brew System Best for coffee variety: Ninja Hot and Cold Brewed System Best budget: OXO Good Grips Cold Brew Coffee Maker What to consider when shopping for the best cold brew coffee makers When selecting the best cold brew coffee maker for your home, it’s a good idea to take into account factors such as how much counter space you have, if you want a quick or a more time-consuming brew time, what flavors you prefer, and if you want to make a variety of beverages with your system....