E-cigarettes are often billed as being great tools for smoking cessation, but they’ve quickly risen to become the most commonly-used tobacco product among U.S. teens—including many youths who never smoked traditional cigarettes to begin with. That’s a troubling trend given how little we know about their health effects, and now we’re facing the consequences: A mysterious lung disease is suddenly striking teens, and appears linked to vaping. There were 39 deaths and 2,000 probable cases tied to the condition as of this week, leading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to recommend that people stop vaping entirely until the source is confirmed....

Beach managers import sand and constantly groom shores with heavy machinery, and a recent study in the journal Ecological Indicators shows these managed beaches have much fewer sand-dwelling critters than nearby natural ones. You may not even realize how much life is hiding there in plain sight. If you’ve ever dug your hands into the wet sand as a wave recedes, you’ve probably uncovered sand crabs, small crustaceans that filter plankton from the surf....

Gather your gear Usually, digital photos capture a mere fraction of a second of whatever’s going on in front of them. The more light there is, the better, as low light photography can leave you with blurry or unrecognizable shots. But if you stretch that capture time to seconds, minutes, or even longer, you can use light in myriad ways. To make your own light painting, you’ll need a tripod, a light source, and a camera capable of taking long-exposure photos....

Plus, it had to be better than The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., a long-forgotten western (I thought it was called Maverick, and had to look it up) that faded quickly from the night’s lineup. The moment in the pilot when Theresa Newman and her classmates are surrounded by light and killed in the woods, I was hooked. I became an X-Files obsessive, the type of person who trekked to NYC’s Forbidden Planet comic book shop to buy X-Files books; the kind of person who dressed up as Fox Mulder for Halloween....

That means you can now indulge in console classics like Super Mario, computer basics like RollerCoaster Tycoon, and arcade staples like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Here are our favorite retro games for your smartphone. 1. Sonic the Hedgehog Classic Few titles scream “retro classic” like Sonic the Hedgehog. This app emulates the 1991 game, the very first one in the series, now remastered for Android and iOS. Your aim, as the titular prickly mammal, is to blitz your way through the colorful levels at high speeds, collecting as many rings as you can....

The last two ingredients there—salt and water—are present in every kitchen and can easily transform ingredients into better versions of themselves, not to mention give you the joy of cooking at its most elemental. We’ve compiled four recipes that use salt or water—and, at most, two other ingredients—to create something new out of the stuff you probably already have in your kitchen. The first two recipes take advantage of salt’s ability to draw out moisture, while the next two use water to create emulsions....

You can share your location with the extension so it can automatically determine the perfect time for the change. But if you value your privacy, you can also set up the time manually. We tried every extension on this list and are confident you’ll find one that suits your needs. But going from dark to light, and back again, is not a revolutionary feat. Macs have long had this functionality built-in and the Chrome for Android app can do it too, as long as you enable an experimental option....

If this sounds like you, know that your worries are common. But that doesn’t mean they’re founded in any actual danger. “Our determination of what feels safe or not has nothing to do with our reasoning qualities,” says Martin Seif, a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety disorders. “Our anxieties are triggered from a part of our brain that’s not rational.” Sief argues that “fear of flying” is a blanket term that encompasses a whole constellation of more specific fears, including that of heights, crashes, terrorism, enclosed spaces, germs, and many more....

But collecting all the tools required can be expensive. Luckily, shopping on eBay is a great way to put together an impressive tool collection without emptying a bank account. Through eBay’s Certified Refurbished Program, you can find the quality tools you need that are in like-new condition and have been inspected, cleaned, and refurbished by the manufacturer or a manufacturer-approved vendor. The tools you purchase arrive sanitized and in brand new packaging....

Tell your aunt her turnips tasted better in the ‘70s Your older relatives will likely talk about how life used to be so much better way back when. At last, something you can agree on! Back their nostalgia with science by mentioning that food may have actually tasted better 50 years ago. Part of the change in today’s grocery quality might stem from high demands for crops like tomatoes, which pressures growers to breed for endurance and longevity rather than flavor....

The treatment, known as CAR T-cell therapy, is now FDA-approved to treat certain blood cancers. It involves engineering a patient’s own white blood cells to attack cancerous cells and then returning them to the body. Since clinical trials and FDA approval, CAR T-cell therapy has already been used to successfully treat and clear certain cancers. However, CAR T-cell therapy doesn’t lead to lasting remissions for every patient, and it can cause serious side effects....

The crack is a third of a mile deep—reaching all the way to the sea below. It’s a relatively new rift in the ice sheet, called Larsen C, but is following in its icy brethren’s footsteps: Larsen A and B both broke away from the main Antarctic sheet in the last two decades in much the same way. All three began with clefts in the ice and eventually floated away to disintegrate....

Dinosaur hunters in the Javkhlant region of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia recently discovered 15 exceptionally well preserved clutches of eggs that came from a species of theropod dinosaur. Through some fantastic detective work, the researchers argue that this fossil site provides the strongest evidence yet that such dinosaurs nested in colonies and protected their eggs. I’m a behavioural ecologist. I study how animals live their lives and how species fit together in ecosystems....

Whereas dolphins and whales rely on thick blubber to help keep warm in cold water, fur seals and sea otters depend on dense fur to trap a layer of air against their bodies. Since air does not conduct heat as well as water, air layers can insulate against heat loss. Now mechanical engineer Alice Nasto at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created artificial mimics of such fur to see how these hairs protect these seafaring creatures....

As I stand there, helmet in hand, admiring the machine idling in the pit lane, Klaus Verweyen, head of Audi’s piloted-driving development program, explains how the ride will go. First Robby will take me on a few hot laps around Sonoma’s 2.5-mile circuit, home to many NASCAR and IndyCar races. Then I’ll hop into a conventional—i.e., nonautonomous—model to try to beat that time. It’s man versus machine, a John Henry-like battle for the postmodern age....

One possible intervention is to strip strip painkiller drugs of their addictive compounds. That brings us to AT-121, a new opioid compound that, according to results from a primate study published in Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday, delivers better pain relief than even morphine—without the sort of euphoric effects that foster drug addiction and dependency issues. Opioids are more effective at relieving discomfort than other types of drugs, especially for people who experience chronic pain of some kind....

In short: Right now is a really great time to try out film photography. Of course, it’s not as simple as your smartphone camera, but that’s the point. It’s a process—and that’s a large part of what makes it great. Of course, the first thing you’ll need is a camera. Luckily, there are still lots of old film shooters waiting to you take you to hipster photography heaven in thrift stores, garage sales, and online auctions....

See PopSci’s updated post for more Wuhan coronavirus news. Scientists at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia, announced Jan. 29 that they were able to grow the Wuhan coronavirus from a patient sample in the laboratory. This was the first time the virus had been grown in a lab outside China. This is good news, since it will allow researchers to quickly develop new diagnostic tests for the virus, which will be essential if scientists want to be able to track its spread across China and the rest of the globe....