8x The wide angle provided by the Vortex Viper HD 8×42 allows you to spy a hummingbird in your backyard, but will make the blur of its wings appear eight times closer. To prevent fogging, ­engineers filled the two ­optical barrels with argon gas, then sealed them with rubber gaskets. 10x You’ll want a bit more power when checking out soaring hawks from a summit. The components on Bushnell’s 10×42 ­Nitro have a protective layer that improves clarity, repels fingerprints, and resists scratches....

Follow-up studies of the same kids as teenagers revealed a remarkable divide. Those who could wait longer were far better off. The planners were more confident, attentive, respectful, trustworthy, and calm under pressure. They were more eager to learn and, in fact, earned SAT scores that were more than 200 points higher than those of the hedonistic gobblers. The psychologist Philip Zimbardo, a colleague of Mischel’s, uses the elegant experiment as a hook for his new book, The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life....

Last year, it came to light that there was only enough plutonium-238 to make three more batteries for NASA missions, a potentially devastating shortfall, and one that NASA has been working to remedy. Now, it seems like there is hope. This week, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that in collaboration with NASA, they have succeeded in producing plutonium-238, the first time the substance has been made on American soil in 27 years....

The wide headset, which looks like a hammerhead shark’s face if it was a sports car in the late 1980s, uses two Raspberry Pi Camera Modules, which pivot in little clear domes. They give the viewer at least 180 degrees of vision, and feed that vision through a Raspberry Pi computer module into a viewing screen, which splits vision down the middle so each eye gets its own field of vision....

Researchers Steven Turgeon and Robert Creaser were alerted to the prehistoric blast when they found specific levels of osmium isotopes (indicators of volcanic activity in sea water) in black shale rocks off the coast of South America and in the mountains of central Italy. According to Turgeon and Creaser, lava fountains from the ancient eruption changed oceanic chemistry, triggering widespread extinction of marine life. This happened in a two-step process: First, as the volcano erupted, nutrients were released into the ocean, encouraging the growth of vegetation and the feeding and reproduction of marine organisms....

Here are some Stock Up & Save eligible items: Here are some other essentials on sale to make going home—or hosting—easier

While all of our favorite pressure cookers include safety features to keep things from getting explosive, definitely read the included instructions before using one of these. This 4-quart aluminum pressure cooker is a great bare-bones option for beginners. It’s big enough to cook a meal for two, and the durable aluminum is safe for stovetops and your dishwasher. Going camping and looking for an easy portable cooking option? This 3....

Eero Pro mesh WiFi system w/ 3 routers $224 (Was $449) Eero Pro 6E mesh WiFi system w/ 3 routers $454 (Was $699) If you have gigabit internet and want to future-proof your system, the Eero Pro 6E is the most powerful model in the ecosystem It’s also the most expensive. As a WiFi 6E router, the Eero Pro 6E features a 6GHz frequency band; a faster short-range WiFi channel has only been available to manufacturers since 2020....

Our current pandemic likely originated in bats. One of these flying mammals somehow came into close contact with a human, or infected another animal which in turn spread the disease to people. But this isn’t the first or the last time a pathogen will creep over from an animal and into humans. The CDC estimates that 6 in every 10 new diseases originate in animals, and those of concern in the US include coronaviruses, West Nile, rabies, and Lyme....

These poorly understood galactic cores outshine just about every other object in the universe. Visible across unthinkable distances, they could turn out to be just what researchers need to understand certain traits of the entire cosmos, including its expansion. Early attempts to harness the mighty spotlights have been plagued with uncertainties, but a new analysis finds that the objects just might shine consistently enough for researchers to use them to fill a yawning hole in cosmic history....

The smart little toaster A smart toaster might sound unnecessary, but having the extra finesse is actually nifty. You’ll be able to choose what type of food you want to eat—bagel, waffle, Pop-Tart, etc.—and then pick how well-cooked you want it on the device’s touchscreen. You can even note whether bread is fresh, frozen, or just needs to be reheated. Once you’ve made your choice, the toaster will automatically lower the food and trigger a countdown....

These descriptions are no accident. Research shows that weather does, in fact, shape how we feel and how we see the world. Violence can flare when it’s hot. Cloudy weather can make people feel depressed. But weather also can influence people when they are inside —a 2017 study suggested that couch-bound online shoppers are more inclined to buy when the weather is good. Now, new research suggests that restaurant-goers also may be less than thrilled with their dining experiences when the weather is bad — feelings that have little to do with what’s on the menu....

“Today we face the double, interlinked emergencies of human induced climate change and the loss of biodiversity, threatening the well-being of current and future generations,” the authors write in the report. “As our future is critically dependent on biodiversity and a stable climate, it is essential that we understand how nature’s decline and climate change are connected.” The drop measured in this two-year report follows a trend of progressively severe declines....

The chief warbots in iRobot’s portfolio are the FirstLook and Packbot families. FirstLook is a 5 pound throwable robot, with cameras and tracks that make it a nimble little scout. The PackBot family (later rebranded as “warrior“) are tracked camera-toting robots with grabber arms used in bomb disposal by both military and police customers. These robots were a major part of America’s war effort in Iraq, a high-tech answer to the low-tech bombs used by insurgents....

The six-wheeled rover is expected to land on the Red Planet the following year to search for clues as to whether or not there is, or has ever been, life on Mars. Rosalind Franklin’s work in X-ray crystallography contributed to one of the biggest discoveries of the 20th century: the double helix molecular structure of DNA strands. It’s common to name rovers after scientists who had a significant role in research related to the space vehicle’s mission....

Russia’s assault on Ukraine is creating a public health crisis. The violence prevents patients from accessing care, and Russia has targeted hospitals and clinics at a growing rate. “We are concerned that this number is increasing daily,” the head of WHO’s office in Ukraine, Jarno Habicht, told the BBC. “Health facilities should be safe places for both doctors and nurses, but also patients to turn to for treatment. This should not happen....

The woman he was speak­ing with at this particular pre-­wedding soiree replied that she felt overwhelmed—­hopeless—about the whole situation: how we can’t seem to stop using plastics, how they crowd landfills, how their microparticles permeate the oceans. Overwhelmed, Johnson thought. Hopeless. “I’m a world away from that perspective,” Johnson says, ­recalling his reaction. That’s because plastics aren’t just happening to Johnson. He’s happening to them. Johnson is a research scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and this past year, he and his colleagues created a biological enzyme that can chew efficiently through throwaway plastics like those that make water bottles and soap containers....

Wood thrush This three-part call often consists of soft, low-pitched phrases flourished with a final, elaborate trill—a complex tune compared with other thrushes. The intricacy makes the tune susceptible to warping when it hits vegetation, so males manage by singing from the lower canopy or midstory of forests, where there’s less obstruction. Northern cardinal This seconds-long song often begins with a loud string of two-part whistles and ends in a slow trill....

[Via Ivoryboy.com] Linear momentum (p) is defined as the product of the mass and velocity of an object. (Mathematically speaking, p = mv). According to the principle of conservation of momentum, if there is a collision between two objects, although the momentum of an individual object can change, the total momentum of the two objects added together remains constant. All of the collisions in Red elegantly adhere to the principle of conservation of momentum....

“It’s a nice quantification of the public health benefits of cleaner air,” says study author Erika Garcia, a postdoctoral scholar in the department of preventive medicine in the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. The team leveraged data from the Southern California Children’s Health Study, a longitudinal research project that collected data on thousands of children in Southern California over the course of more than a decade, to track changes in asthma incidences as air quality improved....