Smart TV specs can seem confusing, but once you understand what each number, measurement, and bit of jargon means, you can buy with confidence. Consider its size One of the primary considerations for any new TV is simply how big you want it to be. The answer depends on the size of your budget—and the physical space where you plan to install it. Dig out a measuring tape and write down the dimensions of the living room or bedroom where the television will live....

The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) maintains lists of tropical cyclone names around the world. Each ocean basin has its own running list of names, which are submitted by countries that border those bodies of water. The Atlantic Ocean is currently assigned six lists of 21 names each. The names are organized alphabetically and alternate between masculine and feminine. Each list of names is used once every six years....

When the Wright brothers made the first powered flight in 1903, they inaugurated basic principles that survive to this day, including thin wings for lift and a vertically mounted propeller to provide forward thrust. But two centuries earlier, Swedish inventor Emanuel Swedenborg had already dreamed up a flying-saucer-shaped aircraft. Countless designers around the world have since envisioned round planes. Because of their shape, circular aircraft can theoretically move anywhere—up, down, and side to side—without needing to point in that direction....

Football and the military have a lot in common: they both rely on strategy, training, and, maybe especially, technology. The comparisons are so apt we couldn’t help but compile a list of some instances when military technology crossed paths with organized football (modern or old-school). Not all of these inventions started with the military, but it’s fair to say that without the military advancing them, football wouldn’t have put them into use....

Space radiation consists mainly of charged solar particles and galactic cosmic rays–high-energy protons and ions streaming in from outside the solar system. Astronauts on the International Space Station are mostly protected from these particles by Earth’s magnetosphere. But as we venture to Mars and beyond, we will leave behind Earth’s protective bubble. Now, a small, short-term experiment in mice indicates that prunes may protect our bones from the damaging effects of space radiation....

It wouldn’t be the first time. Cyclists, runners, and football players have been allegedly popping the little blue pill to improve their athletic ability for years–but does it help? The short answer is that no one knows for sure. Correlations between Viagra and better performance (on the field) have been found in some studies, but not in others. Here’s the theory of why it would work: Viagra chemically relaxes muscles and opens arteries to help blood flow more easily....

Never before had I seen this much foam and, given that this was New York City, I wondered if perhaps it was not a natural occurrence. Could grotesque quantities of sea foam form naturally, or was it a sign that the city’s overburdened wastewater system could have, once again, been splurting raw sewage into the ocean? According to a 2011 paper by several Austrian scientists called “Foam in the Aquatic Environment,” the answer is–somewhat unhelpfully–yes, and yes....

The review, published on the CAT website last week, reveals that only one government is really aiming toward the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping long-term temperature increases “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” Those two degrees mark a critical tipping point for a livable, yet somewhat still unstable world. As the CAT writeup points out, though, current emissions trends and practices need to change by 2030....

Canabalt is a browser and mobile game where you control a character being flung across urban rooftops. You jump and try not to fall down any chasms for as long as you can, evading furniture, jumping through glass, and watching for crash-landing spaceships. It’s fun, and as an example of modern quick-and-dirty games, probably worthy of a spot in the MoMA collection. There’s just one weird thing about it. Canabalt only exists in ones and zeroes....

Some strategies are free, but a good spread of decent free food, a few drinks, and a quick shower are all worthwhile even if you have to spend a bit of cash—especially when you compare it to the cost of an average meal in an overpriced airport restaurant. If you’re flying business or first class, your ticket nearly always includes lounge access. Even if the airline you’re flying doesn’t have a lounge in the airport you’re departing from, ask at your check-in desk and they’ll almost certainly direct you to a lounge they’ve partnered with to serve their premier guests....

The only setback? A license can be expensive, especially if you’re the one shouldering the fees instead of your company. If you wish to have access to the suite for personal use, you either have to pay recurring fees for a subscription or cough up hundreds in one go for an annual license. If none of these options appeal to you, maybe this Microsoft Office Home and Business: Lifetime License deal can....

Advocates are looking for new ways to combat this problem. On February 26, 2019, Toledo citizens passed the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, which gives the lake the right to “exist, flourish, and naturally evolve” and awards citizens the right to a “clean and healthy environment.” They join a growing movement—referred to as “Rights of Nature”—providing legal personhood to natural entities. In theory, this action could make it possible to hold corporations and governments liable for polluting the lake....

Amit Singhal, Google’s head of search, announced he will be retiring at the end of February, and will be replaced by John Giannandrea, the current head of Google’s machine learning and artificial intelligence push. Giannandrea (who told PopSci about his plans for the future of Google’s A.I. in the fall) was brought into Google in 2010, after the company acquired his startup Metaweb. That technology became the underlying structure of Google’s knowledge graph, which uses machine learning to pull in information and answers based on user searches....

The precise way Earth formed is still an “outstanding question,” says Zachary Sharp, a geochemist at the University of New Mexico and an author of the study published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Typically, scientists think the proto-Earth and other planets in the early solar system formed gradually as dust accumulated, clumping into larger and larger chunks, he says. But ancient helium trapped deep in Earth could indicate a different story....

Anyway, everything is going quite well for you, except that the USDA keeps poking their big government nose into your operations, sending inspectors over to your ranch to have a look around, and the inspectors are not liking what they’re finding. They keep telling you that you need to provide “adequate veterinary care” for your goats and that the animals’ facilities must be “maintained in good care,” and soon enough, they’re filing a complaint that lists 17 of these little violations and alleges that you have “willfully violated the Animal Welfare Act....

Chocolate bars and cocoa powder appear cheap to consumers in the United States and Europe, but Jeff Luckstead, an agriculture economist at the University of Arkansas, says child labor is just one of the costs hidden beneath the wrapper. Luckstead wanted to know: What’s it worth to Americans to change it? In a new study in the journal PLoS ONE, Luckstead and his colleagues found that increasing the price of cocoa by a mere 2....

Google Maps To blur your home on Google Maps, find it on either the web or the mobile app, then switch to the Street View mode—you should be able to do this by clicking or tapping on the picture that comes up when you view the property. There is something to bear in mind before you do this, though: you may not be able to reverse the process. The blur could be there for good....

But let’s step back a bit and answer some key questions: What is the Meta Pixel, how does it work, and why are hospitals’ installing it on their websites? And since they are, is that likely to be a HIPAA violation? The Meta Pixel is a free ad tracking tool from Facebook. According to research conducted by The Markup, approximately a third of the 80,000 most popular websites have the Meta Pixel installed....