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All that dust changes the climate. Light-colored sediment can reflect heat back into space, while dark, iron-rich dust soaks up heat. When a plume of Saharan dust traveled over the southern United States this summer, it tinted the sky orange, a lot like the haze from wildfire smoke. But the cumulative result of dust’s effect is a mystery. “We don’t really know whether mineral dust heats or cools our planet,” Robert Green, a senior scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the principal investigator of the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) project, said Wednesday....

Unfortunately for us humans, the universe is a messy place. Approximate values work well for day-to-day life but aren’t sufficient for scientific measurements or advanced technology. Take years: Each one is 365 days long, right? Well, not quite. It actually takes the Earth something like 365.25 days to rotate around the sun. That’s why approximately every fourth year (except for years evenly divisible by 100 but not by 400) is 366 days long....

The ground beneath researcher Stephanie Kampf’s boots was black and burned to a sooty crisp in June 2021 as she walked across the burn scar left by the Cameron Peak Fire of 2020. A summer after the fire engulfed over 200,000 acres in flames, there was no snow to be found in its footprint—despite being almost 10,000 feet above sea level, where snow often persists in Colorado. In a nearby stand of unburned trees, however, Kampf noted, some “nice snow” did appear....

After their launch, these utilities gained a cult following among a nerdier, geekier subset of Windows users—those who wanted to tinker and explore beyond the Windows wall. The original PowerToys let you, for example, play CDs from the taskbar, edit right-click context menus, and access the command prompt from anywhere. The popularity of the add-ons continued with the arrival of Windows XP and a second version of PowerToys in 2001, which included a new set of utilities for creating custom keyboard layouts, and adding different time zones to the system clock....

Fred Kaufman begins his new book Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food by identifying a troubling paradox of modern food production. In 2008, “farmers produced more grain than ever, enough to feed twice as many people as were on Earth. In the same year, for the first time in history, a billion people went hungry.” How could we produce more food and more hunger? The answer, Kaufman writes, is that food became virtualized, or in this case “financialized....

The first 104 games include previous Halo, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Fallout titles, as well as some late-to-the-party games like South Park: The Stick of Truth. Starting tomorrow, discs on all of the approved titles will be recognized in your current-generation console, and digital downloads will be accessible through your download queue. Xbox One will launch a 360 emulator app to support these games, and it’s free to download both the emulation update and any titles you already own....

Drinking human blood can make you very sick For starters, a lot of blood you’ll encounter on the street carries some kind of pathogen. Drinking infected blood is a great way to get your very own infection. And unlike animals who’ve evolved to live on blood, humans can actually wind up with iron overdoses if they overindulge. There are people feel compelled to drink the blood of others, and even follow rules to make sure they’re doing it safely and consensually....

Here’s how to turn it off for now. iOS: Go into your settings, locate FaceTime, and flip the toggle at the top to turn it off completely. MacOS: Open the FaceTime app, go to preferences, and uncheck “Enable for this account.” As The Verge points out, this feature has been in place since October of 2018, but the company doesn’t know exactly when the bug started happening. I’m not going to share the instructions on how to do it here, but you’re already here on the internet, so you can find them if you’re curious (or a real jerk)....

But there are tons of upgrade options out there, which can make the whole process seem too daunting to attempt. We’re here to simplify it, laying everything out so you can make the best choice for you. Gamer or casual viewer, laptop or desktop owner, first-time modifier or seasoned PC builder—here’s the background information you need to upgrade your computer’s graphics. Review the graphics basics Your computer powers its on-screen visuals with two parts: the central processing unit (CPU) and the graphics processing unit (GPU)....

In the industry, manufacturers often say devices are reaching end-of-life (or EOL) when they’re a certain age, though there can be some confusion over what exactly is behind that label. It doesn’t mean you need to stop using your gadgets straight away, or that they’ll suddenly cease to function properly. But you’ll run into some issues that you’ll need to be aware of. While there might be variations in how companies use these terms, and even between individual products under the same brand, there are some broad themes that almost always apply....

Last August, the UHD Alliance—an industry group that pulls members from movie studios, creative guilds, and even display manufacturers—announced the development of a new TV mode called Filmmaker Mode. It’s designed to standardize the picture across any TV in a way that makes the origina l content look more like the filmmaker intended. It had a breakout moment at CES this year when LG announced that all of its 4K and 8K TVs for this model year will include the mode....

What did Apple announce? There were three new features, set to be implemented at some point in 2021. One feature involves scanning photos sent on the iMessage app for sexually explicit materials. Parents can opt into a system where they would be warned if their children were sending or receiving sexually explicit materials, like nudes. While the parents would not be able to see the materials, they would be informed if the child decided to view them anyway....

It’s enough of a taste just to whet the appetite before the full trailer debuts later this week at the company’s annual Warcraft convention, Blizzcon. In the decade that it will have taken Blizzard to finally get its world onto the big screen, the project has gone through massive changes, including directorial departures. Ultimately, the film was directed by Duncan Jones, who is known for his critically acclaimed sci-fi sleeper hits like “Moon” and “Source Code”–he’s also the son of David Bowie....

Still, Intel’s drone stunt was stunning. Flown at an airport near Hamburg, Germany, the 100 drones danced to an orchestra performing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The drones carried multicolored lights, and were controlled by computers using Intel software. The drones moved and their lights changed creating a spectacle halway between laser light show and robot fireworks. Neat! Watch and listen below: Gizmodo

But there are lots of bots—they’re not all necessarily bad and they can be pretty useful, too. Yes, they’re automated and scripted, but they can have specific purposes, such as downloading a video from a tweet or collecting threads together for easy reading. Enlist the help of a few good bots and you’ll find they can seriously enhance your Twitter experience, adding functions and features that are missing from the native app....

Yegevny Salinder was walking his dogs alongside the Yenisei river bank, when he smelled the mammoth’s heels. That’s right, smelled ’em. The “unpleasant” odor led him to a 30,000-year-old giant fossil that had a skeleton, ears, a tusk, some facial features and even a 1.5-meter long penis intact. Mammoth experts from Moscow’s Zoology Institute dug up the mammoth, which is now on his way to Moscow for further study. Alexei Tikhonov, director of the Institute’s Zoological Museum, suggests that geneticists might try to clone him....

These apps have become popular, in part, to their simplicity and ease of use—just tap to ride—but even though almost everyone has them installed, not everyone will have dug deeply into all the features the ride-hailing apps have to offer. General tips Get away from the crowds If you’re just leaving a gig, a sporting event, or a busy restaurant, walking a couple of blocks can make pick-up a lot easier for both you and your driver....

The 3Doodler is a slightly more professional and feature-heavy version of the 3D pen, right down to its overall look, feel, and presentation. It’s not just for creating cool designs, they also encourage you to figure out ways to repair things or “hack” them to make them work better with a few quick handmade accessories. The pen itself is small, feels natural in your hand, and has six interchangeable nozzles....

You might not want to be grilling outside all winter, but it’s hard not to miss the succulent flavors of grilled meats and veggies. Luckily Philips’ indoor smoke-less grill is on sale for 46 percent off. It can reach up to 446 degrees Fahrenheit in six minutes and features a dishwasher-safe drip tray underneath the grill, making cleanup super easy. You can get the cooking gadget for just $150. Today only, you can save up to 35 percent on Crayola kits....

Whether you need to take medication three times a day or just want to make sure you have a sip of water every 60 minutes, these apps for Android and iOS will help you reach your goals. What you can do with your phone Chances are the shortest interval you can set between alarms on your device’s built-in clock, calendar, or reminder app is 24 hours. But there are some haphazard workarounds....