“It’s probably just a nesting tendency to keep lawns neat and presentable,” he says. “It could also be someone’s response to a previous year when they did not remove leaves, and there was turf loss in the spring.” According to Schlossberg, unraked foliage can mean an unsightly lawn by spring. When fallen leaves are covered by snow during the winter, they get wet and matte together, forming a permanent layer of shade over the grass....

Here are some celestial events to keep your eye on while closing out 2022. December 7-Full cold moon The last full moon of the year will reach its peak illumination at 11:08 pm EST on December 7. The Old Farmer’s Almanac recommends looking for it just before sunset as the moon begins to peek above the horizon. December’s full moon will will also be above the horizon for longer than most full moons, due to its higher trajectory in the sky....

“I think that the tactile sense and interpersonal touch is something that’s very important for us humans, but it’s not studied very much,” says principal study author Rebecca Böhme. Touch is the first way humans know other people: even before birth, later-stage fetuses feel the inside of their birth parent’s womb. Even later in life, she says, social and interpersonal touch is a key part of how we navigate the world....

The TopSpinPro training aid will help you perfect your (you guessed it) topspin and all you’ll need is your racket. It’s perfect for recreational players or those who need to get back in touch with basics. Portable and easy to assemble, it’s great for taking with you to the courts or setting up in your living room. The screens set up around the stationary tennis ball will force you to adjust the angle of your racket so as you practice your stroke becomes increasingly accurate....

The answer, experts tell Popular Science, is that while drinking can dull a person’s recollection significantly, traumatic situations can indeed leave a lasting imprint no matter the level of intoxication. Alcohol spares no part of the brain, including our memory. “It’s a systemic effect,” says William Barr, director of neuropsychology at NYU Langone Health, “So the alcohol is elevated in your blood levels and that’s going to all parts of the brain, so general brain functioning is reduced....

“There’s a lot of demand for these lenses around the holidays—when people dress up for Halloween, they want to look as authentic as they can,” Matthew Bourke told Popular Science. Bourke is a spokesperson from the Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, working in collaboration with ICE and the Food and Drug Administration to crack down on the sale of these products. “They’re also very popular among youth—they’re in movies, on TV, in music videos....

Murphy is a watch captain for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, the oldest and best-known group dedicated to the wayfinding methods that first brought humans to Hawaii as early as 300 CE. Originally from Waimea, a small community on the Big Island, Murphy’s been navigating thousand-mile stretches of open sea without so much as a compass for decades. In 1997, as an 18-year-old undergrad at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa on Oahu, she attended a lecture by Nainoa Thompson, the Voyaging Society’s chief navigator....

The Montane Yukon Arctic Ultramarathon is no ordinary foot race. The 430-mile winter trek across Canada’s Yukon Territory can last up to two weeks, with temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve been studying how participants’ bodies respond to this extreme haul since 2015. You can’t go into this unprepared—even if you’re just collecting data. I pack additional warm clothes, sleeping bags, and food because lots of things can go wrong in such an extreme environment....

Scientists peered back through time to further examine the last known common ancestor between humans and cephalopods. Our shared cousin is a primitive wormlike animal that had simple eyespots instead of real eyes and wasn’t very intelligent. Roughly 600 million years ago, the animal kingdom split into vertebrates (animals with backbones) and invertebrates (those without backbones). The vertebrates went on to develop the large and complex brains that we see today, while the invertebrates didn’t....

Modern ballooning’s roots can be traced to Swiss-born engineer Jean Felix Piccard. In 1913, he made his first balloon ascent with his twin brother Auguste at the age of twenty-nine. Twenty years later, he led the research team that designed the stratospheric gondola “Century of Progress” that launched as part of the Chicago World’s Fair. Ascending to almost 58,000 feet, the gondola served as a platform from which Piccard could study cosmic rays and test liquid oxygen systems....

Along with higher resolution and a brighter lens, Samsung now sells cases for the Galaxy S7 that double as lens attachments. We took some untouched photos with and without the case on Sammie’s new phone. Here’s how they compare:

By 2035, computers around the world will have one less cause for glitching based on human time. Schoolchildren will have one less confusing calculation to learn when memorizing the calendar. Our days are continually changing: Tiny differences in the Earth’s rotation build up over months or years. To compensate, every so often, authorities of world time insert an extra second to bring the day back in line. Since 1972, when the system was introduced, we’ve experienced 27 such leap seconds....

Any smartphone must give its users a way to unlock it, whether that’s through typing a passcode, a biometric system, or both. Current-generation iPhones have front-facing Face ID sensors, while older ones have a fingerprint reader built into the home button. Cameras and buttons, however, take up precious space, or require a notch in the display. One alternative is to put biometric sensors on the back, which is where last year’s Samsung phones, for example, had their fingerprint sensors....

“It’s mostly male butterflies who puddle, and you often see them in large groups,” says Nathan Brockman, butterfly wing curator at Iowa State University’s Reiman Gardens. The more males at a location, the more likely other males will stop to see if there’s something they should be getting. Watering areas are often muddy soil or… other sources of fluid. David Mizejewski, naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation and author of Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife, said many people “have an image of butterflies being magical creatures that flit around drinking flower nectar....

1. Subwoofer To push out bone-rattling bass, the cone on the front of the 12-inch ­Alpine X-W12D4 subwoofer moves as much as 2 inches back and forth, displacing enough air to blow out a candle. 2. Receiver Audio from MP3s will never sound incredible because compression sacrifices some data to keep files small. The Kenwood DNX695S receiver supports high-​­res formats such as DSD. 3. Absorption Apply some thin ­Dynamat ­Xtreme matting in key places in your ride, like under the door panels....

In addition to cloud storage, Google Drive gives you access to an office suite that includes text editor Docs and spreadsheet program Sheets. Although these web apps emphasize speed and simplicity, you can add to their features with two types of tools: scripts and macros. Written in JavaScript, scripts are simple add-ons that give an app extra features. For example, a script in Sheets might let you automatically fire off invoices, while a Docs one might quickly convert your files into PDFs....

What we do have some control over is what happens to our body after we go. Whether you go for a traditional embalming-burial combo, a greener burial, or a mushroom suit that will use your body as fertilizer, you can always plan to make something meaningful out of your inevitable demise, especially if you decide to donate your body to science. It sounds a little macabre, but it makes a lot of sense....

We may not know much about allergies, but gosh darn it do we have some great drugs for them. In the United States, the allergy medication aisle in a typical pharmacy is a veritable Baskin Robbins of drug options. Nasal sprays. 24-hour non-drowsy pills. Sleep-inducing, decongesting, grape-flavored serums. We’ve got it all. But how do you choose? Ask your friends, and you’ll probably get five different recommendations on which is absolutely the best....

I immediately assumed Google’s new affordable earbuds were the culprit. After all, there have been reports of connectivity issues. But I was wrong. This is not a Pixel Buds problem—it’s a macOS problem. How to know you’re the victim of a macOS audio balance bug To start, remember that (sadly) we live in a world where it’s totally normal for Bluetooth speakers, headphones, and earbuds to freak out from time to time....

Hopefully you’re never in situations like those, but if you are, fixing the problem will be much easier if you prepare now. Each of your accounts has some kind of recovery process, so it’s important to find out what those steps are and confirm that the information they’re using is up to date. Perhaps you’re setting up a new device and can’t remember your password because it’s been so long since you actually had to log in somewhere new....