Coffee plays a key role in our breakfast routines. But the machine we use to brew it—specifically, a traditional coffee maker, not a French press or pour-over apparatus—can cook a lot more than caffeine. How it works: To extract elixir from beans, a coffee maker heats water and runs it through grounds and into the pot. In the process, this device fills the basket at the top with steam, shoots boiling liquid into the carafe below, and heats the burner at the bottom....

But people aren’t the only living things with an internal clock—plants have them, too. And understanding their rhythms could make our food systems more sustainable and productive in the long run, according to a new study by British and Belgian researchers. As our climate changes, the population grows, and more resilient and sustainable food is needed, rethinking the way agriculture works is absolutely crucial for a sustainable and hunger-free world....

Also in today’s links: communities plot their futures, and how we know your best judgment prompted you to read this. Plus, amazing pictures. Reviving uranium mining in New Mexico has the ability to revive the state’s finances, or harm its citizens, depending on whom you ask.As Britain struggles to figure out what to do with all their garbage — half of which is currently buried in landfills — incineration comes up for consideration....

According to new research published in the German journal Angewandte Chemie, violins made by Antonio Stradivari (often known as Stradivarius) and his contemporary, Guiseppe Guarneri, were treated with proprietary blends of mineral salts, which may have forever altered their physical structures. The instruments, known collectively as Cremonese violins after Cremona, the home of their makers, are some of the most sought-after objects on the planet. Stradivarius violins have sold for more than a million dollars....

That was the case in a murder trial that Bruce McCord, a forensic chemist at Florida International University, served as an expert witness in. A woman was murdered shortly after she went through a divorce, and DNA from her ex-husband was found on her body. But it was hard to tell if the DNA was the result of innocent contact between the two, or if it was incriminating, and came from blood....

Anyone who’s walked their dog when temperatures are frigid knows that canines will shiver and favor a cold paw—which partly explains the boom in the pet clothing industry. But chipmunks and cardinals don’t get fashionable coats or booties. In fact, wildlife can succumb to frostbite and hypothermia, just like people and pets. In the northern United States, the unfurred tails of opossums are a common casualty of cold exposure. Every so often an unusual cold snap in Florida results in iguanas falling from trees and manatees dying from cold stress....

This information comes courtesy of a rundown yesterday from Bloomberg, which also cites Dintzer as arguing that Samsung, Apple, and other big name telecom behemoths are essentially offered sums so “enormous” from Google that they can’t refuse its offer. The all-but-inevitable deals subsequently stifle competition and prevent any other search engine providers from gaining a foothold within the industry. Because so many consumers don’t bother to customize or change their default search engines, Google is then allowed to harvest copious amounts of incredibly valuable user data for its own purposes....

Since Southern California doesn’t see too much rain (about 11 inches per year in Los Angeles) the district imports roughly half of its water from the the northern Sierra Nevada mountains and Colorado River via the State Water Project (SWP). The SWP is a very complex system of dams, canals, and reservoirs that many Californians rely on for water. However, the Colorado River is at record lows and the critical Sierra Nevada snowpack is also dwindling, as a 23 year-long mega drought grips the western United States....

After completing a census of the cosmos, a research team based in Sweden thinks that Earth may be more special than we thought. Scientific American‘s Shannon Hall explains: What they concluded was that Earth may be unique, among the universe’s estimated 700 million trillion rocky planets. The other rocky planets’ older ages and locations in foreign galaxies may make our planet one-of-a-kind. But there are a lot of uncertainties, as the researchers themselves admit....

But making a simple, rectangular board can be boring, especially if you’re churning them out for sale, or as gifts. Before you make yet another bland block, think about incorporating one or more of these easy upgrades to start setting your work apart. To start, use your table saw to cut a few strips of walnut the same length and height as your board, each around a quarter-inch wide. If you generally make face grain cutting boards, cut an inch-wide piece off of each long side of your existing cutting board, but don’t throw it away....

Generally, those scenarios involve massive, life-threatening trauma of some kind (and hence you can’t really kick back and enjoy the morphine-like ride). But via tDCS–which basically allows very small amounts of current applied precisely to the outside of your scalp to manipulate the neurons inside your brain–the researchers were able to trick the brain into releasing the opioids at will, no trauma necessary. The research could do some serious good for those suffering from chronic pain and other ailments....

Unless you’re an engineer or calculus teacher, you probably aren’t going to be able to help your high school senior with math homework. Nor will you likely teach a 5-year-old to speak a foreign language fluently. Let’s face it, few of us are teachers and even fewer are trained to teach whatever grade level and subject matter your suddenly homeschooled student is trying to learn. But you might be qualified to teach outdoor skills....

A Red Dot Design awardee, the Mymanu CLIK S are earbuds that can translate conversations in real-time. Pop them in your ear, and you’ll receive a live translation of virtually any conversation in your preferred language. Today’s the last day you can secure a pair at a special discounted price. Language barriers can spoil your overall experience when traveling, and the CLIK S aims to change that by empowering you to communicate with more than 2 billion people in 37 languages across the globe....

Knot tying has always been one of those key outdoor skills that the inexperienced take for granted. The experienced outdoorsman, however, has had enough success and failure to know that there are right and wrong knots for certain jobs. But first, it helps to know a few strange terms. Put it simply, a knot is some kind of fastening or splice made by intertwining one or more ropes or some other flexible material....

This op-ed originally featured on Undark. On Sunday, December 22, 2019, a barge holding 600 gallons of diesel fuel overturned after being struck by a crane and descended into the waters off the coast of San Cristóbal Island, one of the 19 Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Although it’s unclear how much fuel leaked, the Galápagos National Park Service and Ecuador’s Coast Guard instantly began efforts to clean up the environmentally delicate area, sharing photos on Twitter of their swift response....

Dispersed throughout the exhibition space are rooms with projected movies, desktop computers for users to try the online experience, silk prints, fake fog and laser lights (emulating the birth of stars), and conceptual sculptures inspired by interstellar travel. At the center of the exhibit’s main room is a spot reserved for the virtual reality aspects of the experience—a digital gallery modeled after the images of galaxies and other celestial bodies from JWST....

Extreme diets are just the nutritional version of 30-day fitness challenges. Nearly everyone tries them at some point, but they don’t generally turn your life around. We seek out both for the same reason: because making a change isn’t good enough. We also want to feel like we’ve made a change. Consuming more fibrous veggies and fewer simple carbs doesn’t seem like the path to shedding 50 pounds. It feels better to do something drastic, like get 70 to 80 percent of your daily calories from fat, or eat no fat at all....

Electric motors send current though copper coils embedded in a steel ring, generating a magnetic field that spins an electromagnetic rotor inside. The ring is typically a single piece of metal. Copper coils are inserted through a gap into slots on each side of the ring, and then slid into place. DeWalt instead uses a four-piece steel ring and assembles it around larger coils, eliminating the need for a gap and making room for more power-producing copper....

Snow “guns” were used to cannon the discolored snow out onto the trails, where some people noticed the fake snow was a little, um, unconvincing. The resort’s manager told the New York Times that the color was caused by “rusty residue in the new snow-making equipment” that’s piping the snow in from a nearby sewage treatment plant. The government’s environmental officials haven’t confirmed or denied that. The snow does contain small amounts of chemicals–hormones, antibiotics, etc....