Here’s how to make sense of it all. A key point to understand is that artificial intelligence isn’t just synonymous with a voice assistant. Those voices, like Alexa, make use of AI, to be sure—but there’s much more going on in the world of artificial intelligence. Under the umbrella of AI is the large, dynamic field of machine learning. Frequently, when you encounter artificial intelligence in a product, it’s because it’s employing machine learning under the hood to do something, make a decision, or both....

Xiao, now an engineering professor at the University of Southern California, scoured textbooks and the Internet, hoping to find historical precedent for structural bamboo. His research had urgency. Most of China has been stripped of timber-worthy trees, so rural buildings are often made of shoddy concrete, which is exactly what led to the catastrophic school collapses during the earthquakes in Sichuan province in May. What Xiao found wasn’t terribly useful: a wealth of arty one-off projects, but nothing a contractor could ever build with....

Keurig’s My K-Cup filters work with all Keurig machines. If you have a machine at home or in the office, all you have to do is have ground beans to toss in the plastic filter. The BPA-free device has two lines to fill your grounds to—one for a cup at home and another for a travel mug. The lid snaps tight, so grinds won’t spill into your machine. Delibru’s K-Cups work with first- and second-generation Keurig machines....

This week, we investigated whether you can survive by eating a single type of food. While we wouldn’t recommend this as part of a healthy diet—and why would you when there are so many delicious foods out there—we made sure to answer the question accurately and scientifically. While you’ll have to listen to the entire episode for proper context, I will say that it’s not easy and it would take a lot of that single food item....

While the top of this 14 x 11-inch cutting board is oak or walnut, the bottom is made of non-slip silicone. The combo makes the board bendable, which is great for putting chopped veggies in a pan without a major spill. It is not dishwasher safe and should be treated like any other wood cutting board—protected with oil and hand-dried. It’s flexible, sure, but the wood can snap if bent too much....

From the simple bamboo fire sticks to the elaborate glass vases, you can mix and match your outdoor illumination to create unique spaces for big parties and quiet nights. While you can pick up a few cheap tiki torches at the grocery store, don’t ignore the potential of specialized troches only available online and in home stores. Learn the pros and cons of these new ambiance staffs and find the very best tiki torches for your yard, deck, event or campsite with this guide....

The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, most of it from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus. The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a home or business would be to simply keep infected people away. But this is hard to do when an estimated 40 percent of cases are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people can still spread the coronavirus to others. Masks do a decent job at keeping the virus from spreading into the environment, but if an infected person is inside a building, inevitably some virus will escape into the air....

The images are entertaining, and the program is gaining traction online for its funny art. Users can type in a phrase—any phrase—and then see the AI-generated image they have written burst into creation. Dall-E Mini is an open-source project based on the original Dall-E technology from OpenAI, an AI research laboratory, which generates realistic images and art from text. Much of the art that Dall-E Mini has produced has been received with laughter....

Research conducted at Auburn University suggests the sandals significantly change the gait of their wearer. The data, presented last month at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference in Indianapolis, showed that while wearing flops subjects had a shorter stride, exerted less downward force, and didn’t lift their feet as high as when wearing athletic shoes. The study analyzed 39 men and women using a force plate and video analysis....

Each camera has a lens for directing light and a sensor for capturing it, both of which affect the quality of the finished shot. In recent years, manufacturers have added more and more lenses to the back camera, spawning designations such as “dual-lens” and “triple-lens.” The upper end of the spectrum is occupied by phones such as the Nokia 9 PureView, which has five, but is more really better? What exactly do these extra lenses do?...

But these household scavengers are glimpses of history before mammals or dinosaurs—peeks at the mysterious first insect, which paleontologists believe looked something like a silverfish. That primordial creature couldn’t fly, either. Flight transformed insects, launching them on a trajectory to abundance: Today, across nearly every corner of Earth, some 10 quintillion insects hunt, pollinate, and digest. When insects first existed, though, such vastness wasn’t the case. Wings—and winglessness—can explain why....

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been around since the early 1980s, and have proven popular enough with farmers that by 2004, genetically modified crops were being grown by 8.25 million farmers in 17 countries. Although the general scientific consensus is that GMOs are safe, and have many benefits (including increased yield and better food security, especially for third world countries), GMOs have their opponents. Anti-GMO advocates are concerned that they have not been tested enough and may be harmful to humans and animals....

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Haribo Goldbear gummies are now one of the top-selling candies in the world, spawning dozens of copycats and filling hundreds of fingerprint-smudged waiting-room jars. The company has grown out of Riegel’s home city of Bonn with 16 factories across Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. It’s slated to break ground on its first US production facility in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, in fall or winter. The company cooks up 100 million gummy bears a day—on top of numerous other mouth-puckering chews....

This year, the convertibles took a nostalgic turn, with a few automakers bringing back old nameplates with new designs. Here are a few of the highlights. Fiat 124 Spider The 124 Spider designed by Pininfarina was originally sold in the United States in 1968 with a 1.4-liter engine and a 5-speed manual, and it had a good run until 1985 with few changes besides a power boost. The new 124 Spider also has a 1....

The documents confirmed that the company had nothing to hide—including toxic chemicals. In fact, thanks to Molland’s influence, the next generation could actually know what’s inside their tampons, pads, cups, and period underwear—and have easy access to products that put the safety of people with periods first. Right now, the call for ingredient transparency in menstrual products is gaining momentum across the nation. For decades, periods have remained a taboo subject largely dismissed by lawmakers—and evaded by manufacturers (the NYC subway even once tried to stop Thinx from displaying ads using the word “period”)....

The Kuiper Belt is home to Pluto and thousands of other worlds of varying size. Most of the bodies there are made from the building blocks of our solar system, long since cordoned to distant cold-storage. Visiting the Kuiper Belt could unlock clues as to how our planet and its neighbors formed, why water is so abundant here, and other mysteries. Uranus and Neptune are also quite mysterious in their own right....

The Boudin Bakery in San Francisco, the city’s oldest and one of the best-known purveyors of its famous sourdough bread, was delivering a key piece of its history to its newest outpost. Since 1849, the bakery has relied on a bacteria-and-yeast-rich “starter”—a small amount of dough that bakers regularly “feed” by adding flour and water—to breed the living organisms that make the bread rise and give sourdough its tang. Properly cared for, a starter can birth bil­lions of chewy loaves across decades and even centuries....

In this case, the health topic could refer to diabetes or lung cancer awareness; sexual orientation could refer to same-sex marriage and LGBT culture; and religion could refer to practices and groups such as the Catholic Church or Jewish holidays. According to the Facebook for Business help center, detailed targeting allows organizations to “refine” the audience of users that Facebook shows their ads to based on demographics, interests, and behaviors....

Although much of our approach to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has changed over the past two years, masks remain one of the best ways to protect yourself and others against infection. But now that the highly contagious Omicron is officially the dominant variant in the US, it is crucial that you wear the right one. That’s why epidemiologists recommend you ditch your bandana or leopard-print cloth mask and upgrade to an N95, KN95, or KF94....