Sapphire is the flagship simulator, and the most impressive with its huge white bubble atop six moving hydraulic supports, which themselves mount to longitudinal and lateral slides that travel over an area of 4,300 square feet. The bubble contains an actual car, in which a driver applies steering, throttle, and brake inputs just as if they were driving. A virtual world is projected onto the inside of the white dome covering the car, and the hexapod support system and slides fling the apparatus around its field of travel....

Frampton, a professor in the department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, is the expert on Fraser firs, the most popular Christmas tree. Their conical shape, superb needle retention and sturdy boughs make them perfect for keeping both ornaments and tree bits off the floor. But Frampton is trying to make them even better, helping growers fight a worsening root fungus problem and to grow more trees more quickly....

A new study published today in the Journal of Insect Science asks a question about the yellow fever mosquito that’s never been asked before: just how many can you fit in a syringe? The answer: more than you probably think. Researchers from New Mexico State University and other institutions found that male yellow fever mosquitoes tightly packed in a syringe (240 mosquitoes per cubic centimeter, or about 1,200 to a teaspoon) can survive for 24 hours, and go on to fly again....

Some languages explain the entire color spectrum in two or three words–eschewing everything except maybe “light” or “dark”–while others might classify more than 60 relatively obscure colors. The World Color Survey is a global database of color names and interpretations, and Fradet mined this data for his infographic. The results are grouped by geographic area and show the most-used words nearest to the center, reaching out to the most obscure variations at the end....

A model of human species and climate change published Wednesday in the journal Nature proposes a way of understanding why that might be: The most widespread hominins—including us—were those that had adapted to changing climate. The team began building the model by looking at how the climate has fluctuated over the last 2 million years in response to small wobbles in Earth’s orbit. Then, they overlaid the locations of fossil and artifacts belonging to different species on top of that climate model to estimate the habitat conditions that each species could clearly survive in....

Capt. Sean Conderman, of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment’s combat logistics battalion at MCBH, told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser that it’s in essence a small dehumidifier paired with a purifier. “We can mount it basically on any vehicle, and what it does is it pulls water out of the air to give us potable water without having to connect to an actual water source.” He further elaborated to The Star Advertiser that this device would be ideal in humid environments like the ones across the United States Indo-Pacific Command....

But instead of gambling on properly stocked shelves and short delivery times, you can take measures to get what you want when you want it. This prevents storage availability from limiting manufacturers, allowing them to make more and better stuff for less money, and get it all on the shelves faster and more efficiently. But like any tightly networked system, one delay cascades through and can ruin everything. And the pandemic has caused not one, but thousands of those....

When you pull up an emoji menu, you’ll find a lot of options to sort through, and these numbers just keep increasing—the Unicode Consortium adds new ones each year. This can make it hard to dig up the exact image you need. Luckily, most programs give you shortcuts so you can quickly pull up the perfect reaction. And if no emoji suits your exact conversation, you can craft your own....

Learn in a structured way Most people know the basics of how to play chess: Knights move in an “L”, castling is the thing where a rook and a king switch around, and en passant is the pawn rule everyone forgets. The problem, then, isn’t learning how to make a move, but figuring out how to make the right ones—and there are many to choose from in most situations. Learn Chess with Dr....

Waiting times are also uncertain, and not every request will be granted. But if you want to try your luck, here’s what to know. This isn’t exactly new: the social media site debuted its verification program back in 2009, aiming to provide a seal of quality for high-profile accounts that would make it easier for users to tell them apart from impersonators and parodies. But the platform sparked confusion by unilaterally granting blue badges to any accounts they deemed prominent....

Turning those delicious daydreams into sugary realities falls to food scientists like Daniele Bwamba. A candy researcher at The Hershey Company in Pennsylvania, the shop that supplies some 45 percent of the nation’s chocolate, she experiments with tastes and colors to craft new varieties, including delectables like Key Lime Pie Kit Kats, Apple Pie Kit Kats, and Salted Caramel Cookie Hershey’s Bars. “The possibilities are endless,” she says of her palette of chocolate pastes, inclusions (think chips, sprinkles, and cookies), and liquid taste notes developed by Hershey specialists (such as fruity flavors or essences of baked goods like doughnuts)....

However, each operating system comes with a variety of features and tricks to keep these windows organized, and you may not be aware of all of them. Plus, if there’s something you want to do that isn’t built in, you can often find a third-party tool that will add the functionality for you. How to organize open programs on Windows If you’ve upgraded to Windows 11, you’ll get a choice of window layouts when you hover the cursor over the maximize/restore down button....

This daily puzzle has almost everyone testing their ability to guess a five-letter word in six or fewer tries. But Wordle is just the latest iteration of a trend that goes back to the classic Sunday crossword puzzle and includes new classics like The New York Times’ Spelling Bee. While all of these word games are easier if you have a robust vocabulary, there are some logical, strategic tricks that can help you solve some of the toughest puzzles....

But most houseplants, including pothos, can be propagated from a small piece of an established plant. Plant cells have a capacity known as totipotency: even a single cell can grow into a full-fledged organism. This type of reproduction isn’t relegated to a laboratory or conservatory, either—you can make it happen in your own home. Grow a new pothos in water Although you may not have 20, 30, or 40 feet of space to grow a mature pothos, you probably have water, and this plant is one of the easiest to propagate in good old H2O....

Someone grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the tear gas, saying, “Come with me.” Tirado was herded into an old 1970s-style van, where a street medic bandaged her eye, which had been directly hit by a rubber bullet, shot from the direction of the police. Within an hour of her injury, Tirado’s eye underwent intensive surgery. The impact of the projectile bullet had lacerated her eyebrow and detached her retina, as well as caused serious trauma to her eyeball....

Make your choice If you search the web for “3D printer” you’ll find a variety of models with prices ranging from less than $200 to well over $1,000. There is, of course, some difference in quality among printers at each price level, and you’ll want to consider specifications such as resolution, the materials it can print with, print speed, and print area, which determines how big of a print you can make....

You don’t need an expensive name-brand chair Too many people sit slouched over a laptop, leaning forward to see their monitor, or perching their arms on a too-high desk. These habitspostures can wreak havoc on your body. To prevent them, some people invest in expensive ergonomic chairs from Herman Miller, Steelcase, and Humanscale. But you don’t have to pay through the nose to fix your posture. “When you’re looking for a chair, it doesn’t necessarily have to be from one of those big brand names,” says Karen Jacobs, a board-certified professional ergonomist and clinical professor of occupational therapy at Boston University....

We spend a lot of computing time inside web browsers, which means that a couple good productivity tips could help you get back a substantial amount of time each day. We’ve got the best of the bunch below, no matter what browser you use. To see these links on Chrome, open the menu (three dots, top right) then choose Bookmarks and Show Bookmarks Bar. On Firefox, click the menu button (three lines, top right) and select Bookmarks, and Show bookmarks toolbar....

Snoring versus sleep apnea You probably didn’t need science to tell you this, but “snoring can affect your quality of sleep as well as your bed partner’s,” says Neil Kline, a sleep physician with the American Sleep Association. If you don’t believe us, take a look at this 2006 study, which found evidence of sleep disruption in children and adolescents who snored, or this 1999 one, which found that people slept an entire hour longer each night after their spouses stopped snoring....

1. Find the right angles No one wants to gaze at the top of your head or stare straight up your nose. So keep your phone up at face level or slightly higher. Make the camera angle as level as you possibly can, using an outstretched arm (or a selfie stick—see below for more on that). However, the exact angle also depends on what else you’re trying to fit into the shot (besides your face, of course)....