“There are so many ways in which this will not work,” he says. “I am absolutely doing everything that I can to not be hubristic.” Lake Tahoe is the third location where Keats has installed a millennium camera—the first was placed in Tempe, Arizona in collaboration with Arizona State University, and the second overlooks the Holyoke Mountain Range near Amherst College. While his earlier projects have involved a single camera, this time around he has installed four cameras each with a unique perspective of the lake....

Throughout the book, Bisney and Pickering explain the images, shedding light on little details few would notice let along think to ask about. (My personal favourite was the explanation behind the red helmets on Apollo 9 — I never knew that the Lunar EVA helmets were red and covered with white beta cloth for the lunar landing missions. Scott and Schweickart’s helmets just didn’t have that covering!) You don’t have to be an Apollo fanatic or even a space person to appreciate the story this book tells through its selection of images....

Picture this: you’re half an hour in your TikTok doom scroll when your phone alerts you that you have 10 percent of battery left. You scramble for your charger, only to find out that it’s hogged by your sibling who refuses to budge. The result? An all-out war over a piece of wire. Make it your mission to restore peace in your household by gifting everyone their own charger. The Fast Mag Wireless iPhone Charger makes for a great stocking stuffer, and the best part is it’s on sale for a limited time....

Read more on the perils of America’s aging dam infrastructure here. The Karuk people define themselves by the Klamath River, just as the Romans did the Tiber or the Egyptians did the Nile. The word “Karuk” means “upstream,” a reference to the waterway, which runs from Klamath Lake in southern Oregon, across the mountains of northern California—where the Karuk live—before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. Every year, at the end of summer, the Karuk celebrate the river, the mountains, and the forest in their “making the world right” ceremonies....

Barnacles and mussels filter water and shape the shore, and their numbers can reveal the health of the whole coast. The best way to calculate these shifts, Menge found, was to sample the populations a few times a year, just as their larvae began settling. With barnacles, collecting the samples had been pretty easy: He and his lab had found that the anti-slick surface used on boat decking worked well....

“Walking in Color” won the Expert’s Choice award for Photography in the 2016 Vizzies. See all 10 of the winners. This article was originally published in the March/April 2016 issue of Popular Science, under the title “The 2016 Vizzies.”

2. BAG A set of several-hundred-dollar clubs deserves some protection, which the Chamber bag provides. To prevent clubheads from moving and nicking one another, designers inserted molded plastic fingers at the bottom of the bag and a slotted silicone membrane at its top. OGIO Chamber bag $300 3. IRONS Callaway’s new irons work around a simple idea: increase speed, increase yardage. A deep groove behind the clubface allows it to flex on impact and fling the ball like a catapult....

Researchers say a new, portable tool that takes air samples in the same rhythm as a human breath, could provide a better understanding of what people are exposed to every day, and how that exposure might affect our health. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers attached the device to 15 people so it could keep tabs on their daily lives. It turns out that every person seems to have a distinct exposome, which is what researchers are calling the combination of bacteria and other microparticles we ingest daily as we breathe....

A bacterium could prove to be a hero for these animals. On Monday, scientists reported that bats sprayed with the probiotic microbe Pseudomonas fluorescens before hibernating are more likely to survive the winter and beat the infection. “There’s a number of treatments [for white-nose syndrome] that are being worked on currently,” says Joseph Hoyt, research scientist at Virginia Tech and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports....

In a study out today in the journal Nature, an international group of scientists discuss their new examination of a Triassic-era fossil that was first discovered 100 years ago in Scotland. Computed Tomography (CT scanning) helped create the first accurate and whole skeleton reconstruction of the non-avian Scleromochlus taylori, revealing physical features that show that it’s a close pterosaur relative. The specimen is within a group known as Pterosauromorpha, an extinct group of reptiles called lagerpetids (which means “rabbit-reptiles”) that are grouped together with the pterosaurs....

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 i5-4300U 4GB 128GB W10 Pro (Model 1631) – Silver (Refurbished) Equipped with a 12″ ClearType touchscreen, this tablet offers a high-res viewing experience. Additionally, it’s only 1.76 pounds making it a viable option to use in classes or take it on the road. Lastly, the Intel Core i5-4300U is useful for multitasking as well as for energy efficiency and battery life. Usually retailing for $249, it’s on sale for $236....

TikTok’s For You feed offers up a never ending stream of suggested videos. Its algorithm bases its recommendations on lots of different factors, including the people users follow, the videos they like, interact with or watch, and the kind of content they create. But largely, TikTok has been cagey regarding the specifics of what goes into their secret formula. However, leaked reports to the New York Times suggest that the app might also be taking into account what users are sending to each other on private messages....

Presented last month at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Hamburg, Germany, the paper “Row-bot: An Energetically Autonomous Artificial Water Boatman” by a team of academic researchers in Bristol, details the design and development of the tiny garbage-eating machines. The initial goal was to create a machine that could forage, like a wild animal, so it wasn’t dependent on humans to constantly recharge and reenergize itself....

Thanks to the simultaneous lockdown DIY boom, “catios” (that’s patios, but for cats) are everywhere you look. The outdoor wood-framed and wire-walled enclosures are ideal for cat owners—or “guardians,” as Alan Breslauer of Los Angeles’ Custom Catios calls them—looking to give their feline friend a safe outdoor space for play and relaxation. Indoor living provides cats a longer lifespan—10 to 15 years on average, as opposed to two to five—but lacks the rich stimuli of the outside world....

I won’t sugarcoat it: it’s complicated. But it’s also doable. My first flight with my now-4-year-old was intimidating, but I’ve learned a lot from the dozens of subsequent flights. Now I hope those trips to the end of the earth, more than half of the 50 US states, and 14 countries—plus tips from child health experts—will help you understand what may be going on inside your toddler’s mind and body when traveling by plane....

Finding the right prompt strategies, however, can take time—time you may not have given it can take up to three minutes for Craiyon to generate an image. Thankfully, in the weeks since the project went viral, users have started to figure out what makes this entertaining little program tick, and there are plenty of tips available now that we didn’t have earlier this month. These prompts are typically successful, though occasionally the AI will simply recreate a well-known painting by whatever artist or style you’ve plugged into the text box....

This article was originally published in the March/April 2016 issue of Popular Science.

This story originally featured on the Texas Observer. Dawn Cockrell worried she wouldn’t make it in time. It was the middle of the night when the call came, and she sprung out of bed and threw on the scrubs she’d hung up the day before. She piled boxes with oxygen tanks, medications, and other supplies into the trunk of her gray Hyundai and set off from her home in Alpine....

The authors of the study built on previous research dubbed the “frontier of the new global carbon cycle” that demonstrated how significant tree stem methane emissions can be. Wetlands have been identified as one of the most methane producing areas on the planet. That’s because the flooded soil conditions lead to a depletion of oxygen, causing organic matter to decay and release their methane. However, the study found evidence to suggest that even riparian trees, which thrive along rivers and streams, seemed dry as the water table receded but were still releasing significant amounts of methane....

However over the last few decades researchers have begun to better understand how head injuries—particularly concussions—happen. In tandem, helmet companies have used that new knowledge to innovate, creating models that account for more than just a simple slap against the blacktop during a fall. The latest, is a new set of helmets out from the cycling giant Trek, using a technology they call WaveCel. The key component is a honeycomb-style insert that unlike its competition, absorbs rotational energy, which is largely responsible for dangerous concussions....