But, even though the temptation of a true long weekend is strong, we couldn’t keep ourselves away from the studio microphones. So, we present you with this bonus episode of Techathlon, which consists only of the 10-question Decathlon. We’ll be back next week with a full episode of the show, but this week you can expect to learn about upcoming smartphones, self-driving cars, and a new era of Chromebooks. You can listen in the player above, check us out on Stitcher, follow us on Anchor, subscribe via iTunes, or add the show on Spotify....

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The excerpt featured below is adapted from Letters, Power Lines, and Other Dangerous Things: The Politics of Infrastructure Security. It speaks to the current moment and offers a cautionary tale. It uncovers how the security provisions adopted after the 2001 anthrax attacks traded away the health and safety of postal workers in favor of cheap and fast mail. Ryan Ellis is assistant professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. He is the author of Letters, Power Lines, and Other Dangerous Things: The Politics of Infrastructure Security and co-editor of Rewired: Cybersecurity Governance....

A few studies have already analyzed which parts of the world are going to be most affected by a changing climate. Some regions will experience deadly droughts, floods, increasing wildfires, and rising sea levels more than others. But everyone will be burned one way or another. “Climate doesn’t care about political boundaries,” says Heidi Roop, an assistant professor of climate science at the University of Minnesota. “There’s not a corner of the globe that’s not feeling, or going to feel, the negative impacts of a warming planet....

The best classical guitars: Our oicjks Best overall: Cordoba 6 C5-CE CD Classical Cutaway Acoustic-Electric Nylon String Guitar The C5-CE from Santa Monica-based Cordoba guitars is a no-compromises instrument that sports some specific design choices to offer a bump in playability, versatility, and comfort. Unlike traditional classical bodies, the cedar and mahogany C5-CE has a soft cutaway at the 12th fret, allowing players to take advantage of the full range of the neck....

Best for small dogs: Hill’s Science Diet Adult Small PawsBest for senior dogs: Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula Natural Senior Dry Dog FoodBest for sensitive stomachs: Canidae PURE Grain FreeBest for puppies: Taste of the Wild High Prairie Puppy RecipeBest budget: Wag Dry Dog/Puppy Food The best dry dog foods: Our picks It’s a crowded market in the dry dog food section. New recipes and companies spring up seemingly overnight. Keep your dog’s age, size, and medical history in mind as you narrow down the options....

How we selected the best rechargeable batteries In order to select the best rechargeable batteries, we looked at several different scenarios and concerns, and examined impressions from both professional and personal users. The methodology strived to identify products designed to be the longest-lasting with the most minimal impact on the environment. We worked to identify batteries that could spring into action even when stored in a drawer for years, as well as options that come equipped with the latest conveniences, like USB charging that can be done directly to the battery with any compatible cable instead of using a more inconvenient apparatus....

Best smart: eufy BoostIQ RoboVac 30C MAXBest vacuum and mop combo: Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra Robot Vacuum and MopBest self-emptying: iRobot Roomba s9+ Robot VacuumBest with mapping technology: Neato Robotics Botvac D8Best for marathon cleaning sessions: Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T5Best mop-only robot: SAMSUNG Electronics Jetbot Robotic How we selected the best robot vacuums We compared a range of over 50 robot vacuum models for price, brand, added features, mapping technology, reviews, and battery life....

Nearly seven in ten participants said they have not “seen, read, or heard much of anything” about the new number, according to the mental health organization’s findings from a survey of more than 2,000 adults. Amit Paley, CEO & Executive Director of The Trevor Project, said this emphasizes both a need to raise more awareness but also an “opportunity to reimagine our nation’s crisis care system.” “Responses to mental health emergencies must be comprehensive, widely available, and culturally competent,” Paley said in an online statement....

PFAS are not only dangerous because they build up in the environment and in our bodies, but the chemicals are often associated with low infant birth rates and even cancer according to the EPA. In the past year, some research has connected high rates of PFAS exposure to worse COVID outcomes. Despite being such harmful toxins to people, they’re used regularly and are not historically regulated in the U.S. To tackle this dilemma, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a “Comprehensive National Strategy” to regulate the toxic industrial chemical....

Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom recently cut off gas to Poland because the country wouldn’t pay for the gas in Russian rubles. Poland has found other ways to get access to it through Italy and France, and Russia has announced it may retaliate against countries that are supplying Poland with Russian gas. All of this turmoil has caused energy costs in Europe to surge, which is causing major problems for Europeans who now sometimes can’t afford their utility bills....

The heart of the Gambit, as General Atomics says, is a “core platform that encapsulates a single set of common hardware: landing gear, baseline avionics, chassis, and other essential functions. A common Gambit Core accounts for roughly 70 percent of the price among the various models, providing an economy of scale to help lower costs, increase interoperability, and enhance or accelerate the development of variants.” General Atomics, in its announcement, explicitly compares this to the assembly line style of automotive manufacture, in which both luxury sedans and family economy models start from the same base and then deviate only later in production....

Looking for the complete list of 100 winners? Check it out here. Grand Award Winner 1915 Çanakkale by the Republic of Turkey: The world’s longest suspension bridge An international team of engineers had to solve several difficult challenges to build the world’s largest suspension bridge, which stretches 15,118 feet across the Dardanelles Strait in Turkey. To construct it, engineers used tugboats to float out 66,000-ton concrete foundations known as caissons to serve as pillars....

“This will help with developing a new understanding of the benefits of measles vaccines to society,” says Michael Mina, author on one of the papers, published in Science, and an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “The measles virus is much more dangerous than we knew, and that makes the vaccine even more valuable.” In 2015, Mina conducted an analysis showing that, historically, childhood measles outbreaks were closely followed by increases in deaths from other, non-measles illnesses....

Presently, humans pilot military robots into action. This is true for remotely guided drones and for ground vehicles, which are all steered by hand-held tablets. Autonomous features, from navigation to human-set GPS waypoints, help streamline this process, though issuing those commands still requires that a soldier enter them in a tablet or computer so the robot can understand. To more seamlessly integrate robots into the routines of warfare, the Army is testing a range of robot-human communication tools....

In Chester, Illinois, the river gauge of the Mississippi dropped to around zero last week, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. Drone video of the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee also reveals how far the 270-mile long river has contracted in recent months. In Memphis, the river dropped to minus-10.75 feet, a the lowest record ever recorded there, according to data from the National Weather Service. In downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana, resident Patrick Ford found the shipwrecked remains of the Brookhill, a trading vessel dating back to the early 20th Century....

In infectious disease news Zika virus is all over the news, thanks to a pandemic spreading across South and Central America. Most symptoms are relatively benign, but health officials worry the virus may be linked to rare birth defects and other complications, although the connection is far from certain. For now, mosquito control is the only way to curb the virus, although it isn’t necessarily easy to thwart the suckers....

Herewith, we bring you the year’s most memorable cinematic offenses, ranging from excusable infractions to nerd-rage-inducing disregard for grade school-level science. (Spoiler alert: Our complaints will betray the plots of these movies.) _ Click to launch the photo gallery_