During the past 75 years of its existence, duct tape has become a staple product for “fix-it-yourselfers” from every walk of life. This wonder tape has been used for jobs that the original duct tape developers never imagined. The versatile product can mend, bind, patch, repair, and replace many of the items we would need in a survival situation. And best of all, you don’t need any specialized tools or training to use it....

There are communication lines to the outside of the capsule so that Felix can stay in constant communication. But as the balloon rises up into position, we’ll disconnect all the communication lines from the capsule and back away. The balloon will go vertical, and the crane holding the capsule with Felix on board will move under the balloon. Once it’s in full extension, we’ll go ahead and call for a release....

It begins when you stop sweating. Perspiration usually cools you down by releasing heat into the air as sweat evaporates, but eventually, if your body becomes dehydrated or the external mixture of hot air and humidity gets too high, you can no longer push the salty liquid through your pores. You flush all over as blood moves toward your skin—an attempt to shuttle warmth away from your core. Muscles cramp up as your salt reservoirs deplete....

But if we’re going to have any shot at meeting these goals and averting some of the worst consequences of climate change, we need look within—within our buildings, that is. Buildings are the source of 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and more than a third of those emissions comes from heating, cooling and ventilation. Heating our indoor spaces is responsible for a tenth of annual emissions. Most structures today use natural gas, oil, or propane to stay warm, creating millions of small sources of carbon pollution with a big cumulative punch....

The paper, titled “The universal decay of collective memory and attention,” is an ambitious attempt to turn the slow slippage of cultural memory—the way a hit song lingers, or doesn’t—into a quantitative method for measuring the way our attention to various cultural products declines. It seeks, in other words, to turn the most abstract cognitive phenomenon into a cold, hard equation. The first step was finding a viable proxy for memory....

But contrary to what plenty of January advertising campaigns and fitness influencers will tell you, you don’t need intense new training regimens, expensive membership fees, or watches that buzz angrily at you to get up and get moving. Studies suggest that consistently doing modest amounts of moderate-intensity exercise, like walking and slow-paced yoga, is actually a more reliable path to better physical and mental health than large quantities of vigorous movement....

New astronomical images published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on November 28 reveal three such interacting twin planetary disks in stunning detail. The team took these photos using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. Although this is not the first time these disks have been imaged, advances in astronomical technology offer a new, more comprehensive vantage of the dramatic cosmic scene. The stars are all in the Milky Way, fairly nearby by galactic standards....

When I hit my plateau, I spent a week monitoring what I ate and discovered that, regardless of how healthy my diet was, I was eating enough to sustain two men. Tracking provided the data I needed to make better decisions, which allowed me to enjoy steady progress. Whether your fitness goal is fat loss or muscle gain, nutrition tracking is easy, and you can count on several tools to make the best of your journey....

In particle physics, a given boson or lepton tends to occupy the most favorable energy state. If it’s a force-carrying boson–like a photon, a W boson or a Higgs boson–there’s no limit to how many particles can share real estate in that state. But if it’s a fermion–like a quark, or an electron or proton–then only a certain number can be in the same place at the same time. Algorithms should take this approach and function according to the rules of fermions rather than bosons, according to Stanislao Gualdi of the University of Fribourg and colleagues....

But. A new study of racism in OkCupid messaging finds a little bit of hope in a sea of largely same-race interactions. To examine how racial prejudice affects our romantic decisions, Kevin Lewis, a sociologist at the University of California at San Diego, analyzed messages sent by more than 126,000 OkCupid users over a two-and-a-half month period. He only included heterosexual interactions between users who self-identified with the site’s five largest racial categories: Black, White, Asian (East Asian), Hispanic/Latino and Indian....

A team of scientists at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus are now better understanding how animals know where they are in relation to their environment—and how to find their way back on the path they were taking. A study published December 22 in the journal Cell details how a region called the hindbrain helps animals determine location and use that information to plan where to go next....

Weaponized Unbreakable Umbrella: I love This umbrella, which has a shaft of rigid steel. On my walk to the office today I, not it, was the weak link as rainy storm winds blasted through midtown. Really the umbrella’s designed to be wielded in self-defense against an attacker on the street, but nobody seemed inclined to fight me this morning. New Yorkers really pull together in a crisis. Hario Skerton: Wasn’t there a Twilight Zone episode in which a guy had pounds and pounds of fantastic shade-grown coffee beans and no electric grinder?...

One customization option you might not be aware of is the ability to remap the buttons on your controller. If you’ve found a way to use your controller that feels more natural than the default settings, or you can’t press the buttons or move the sticks in the way the manufacturer intended, you can change what each input does. Keep in mind that we’re not reconfiguring the controls in any individual game....

Android and Apple mobile devices require different apps, offer different features, and work best with different brands of computers and smart hardware. All of this makes it difficult to use them together, but that doesn’t mean you have to restrict yourself to one company’s approach. For example, you might want an iPad for streaming your favorite shows and an Android phone for communication. Or perhaps you dislike the idea of walling yourself into a Google-only or Apple-only tech ecosystem....

With summer right around the corner and the thermostat ticking up, it can be tempting to reach for the coldest looking thing in sight to quench your thirst. But when it comes to hydration, not all drinks are created equal. Usually, when we’re feeling thirsty, we’re trying to combat symptoms like dry mouth, tiredness, headaches, and dizziness. But dehydration is not solely due to the loss of water in our system....

This summer, on the first day that reached above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, three of my iron cross begonia’s largest leaves grew brown patches and died over the next few days. Turns out that the sweat-inducing extremes we experience in the middle of the year are not only annoying to us, but can negatively affect plants. That includes the summer heat, and the artificial cold blast of your trusty air conditioning unit....

And while using a wireless charger is simple, picking the correct one can be surprisingly challenging. Variables like design, form factor, and power level can make a huge difference in the efficacy of your new power setup. Here are some of the key things to consider when making the jump to wireless power, as well as some insight into how the tech works in the first place. How does it work?...

Although the economic contribution of dive tourism is notable, it’s just as important to acknowledge how the industry can contribute to the degradation and loss of marine life. Fortunately, there are several ways for recreational divers and policymakers to minimize scuba’s environmental impact. Dive tourism may harm marine life The negative effects of dive tourism can be separated into two categories: the direct effect of recreational diving, and the equally serious and perhaps greater effects of building and maintaining tourist infrastructure, says Howard Lasker, research professor in the University at Buffalo Department of Geology....

You may have heard that the Biden administration warned US companies to be on alert for potential Russian cyber attacks, but even if you’re not likely to be targeted by a state actor, it’s still important to take your email security seriously—scams of all kinds have thrived during the pandemic. Take this textbook example of phishing from 2017, targeting Google Docs users: People received emails with what looked almost exactly like a shared document, tricking them into granting access to a not-particularly-nice piece of software....

In case you didn’t know, a lot of newer devices store that kind of information, known as EXIF data, in images. EXIF data is helpful in providing details about a photograph’s provenance. Remember when that now-famous photo of the Situation Room during the Osama Bin Laden raid started making the rounds? EXIF data revealed the camera’s model and settings, plus the editing software used on the image. Cool stuff to know about one of the most iconic photographs of the decade....