Per a post on the Grand Canyon National Park Service’s Instagram alongside an article yesterday from The New York Times, Katie Sigmond—a popular TikTok and Instagram influencer who frequently uploads modeling, workout, and golf-related content—posted a clip on October 26 to Snapchat of her smashing a golf ball off a ledge of the Grand Canyon. As The New York Times reports, the TikTok star was initially charged with littering, tossing items into the canyon, and creating hazardous conditions with disorderly conduct—all of which carry a combined maximum fine of $5,000 and up to six months in prison....

It is true that we have fewer ships today than we did in 1917, but Romney misses the point entirely about the capabilities of the modern Navy and what other countries’ capabilities are. This does not just include the number of carrier groups currently deployed (or planned), but also an improvement in strike capabilities of the modern fighter-bomber (or drone) versus those of World War II. (There wasn’t much bombing in WW I, so that’s a pointless comparison to make....

This 80-second jaunt surpassed even what Ingenuity was capable of during tests on Earth, flying farther, further, and faster than ever before. Setting off at 4:31 a.m. EDT, the sprightly helicopter rose 16 feet into the air, matching the height of its second flight. Under the watchful eye of the Perseverance rover, it then sped off downrange for 164 feet, or about half a football field, reaching a top speed of 6....

Viewing an object through water causes it to appear displaced because of water’s refractive index. A negative refractive index means that displacement is backwards — if water’s refractive index were negative, underwater objects would appear to be out of the water entirely. Up until now, scientists have only been able to successfully manipulate light wavelengths in two dimensions. Also, previous metamaterials in the optical range had to vibrate at certain frequencies to achieve negative refraction, which resulted in high energy absorption....

Quite a few tech giants and government organizations are investing in quantum computing. And many of them, including Google, NASA, and Lockheed Martin, are working with the commercial quantum computers built by D-Wave. The idea is that these devices can harness the counterintuitive effects of quantum mechanics to solve problems faster than conventional computers, which could potentially improve artificial intelligence, materials science, space exploration, and even Google web searches. (Skeptics, however, have suggested these practical applications are far-fetched and that quantum computing would most likely be applied to a less glamorous business: proving the theories of quantum mechanics....

Still, the narrative is irresistible. And for some people, it can be pretty easy to fall into, even with simple decisions like what kind of burger to order. For Ricardo San Martin, the co-founder of the alternative meats lab at UC Berkeley, this is unfortunately the case for certain plant-based businesses that have cropped up in recent years to dethrone the fraught meat and dairy industries. “They’re very eloquent,” San Martin says of plant-based meat company leaders....

Except that’s not what the release said: it said, “terror sites and operatives in the #Gaza strip, chief among them #Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets.” Because this announcement was made on Twitter. The Israeli Defense Forces has a spokesperson, and that spokesperson has a Twitter feed, and that Twitter feed is where information from the Israelis is being disseminated.It’s a mix of news (“The IDF has seriously damaged Hamas’ long-range missile capabilities (40 km/25 mi range) & underground weapons storage facilities....

Water bottle rockets illustrate a multitude of relevant physics principles, and they’re fun to build too. You can construct them using plastic soda bottles as a fuselage, plastic or balsa wood fins, and some PVC piping for a launch pad. Then all you need is water and (compressed) air for rocket fuel. There are a multitude of websites that explain how to build simple water bottle rockets. Just make sure you pay attention to the safety precautions....

Update 2: We have extended the deadline to Sunday, June 30, by 11:59 p.m. EDT. Hooray! Update 3: Our 24 finalist projects are now live and ready for crowdfunding at popularscience.rockethub.com! Take a look and contribute to the projects you’re excited about in exchange for cool rewards. Popular Science has celebrated the world-changing work of scientists, thinkers, and makers for more than 140 years. We’re always tickled to learn how many of these great minds read the magazine, yet are bummed to hear how often sparse funding impedes their progress....

Astronomers have gazed at Jupiter’s gaseous swirls for centuries, but for the first time, Juno, which launched into orbit around the planet in 2011, is giving them a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface of the planet’s great storm. In doing so, it could give researchers a window into the inner workings of the solar system’s behemoth world. One study used gravitational readings and the other microwave data from Juno’s Microwave Radiometer instrument during recent flyovers of the storm....

Scientists analyzed Jupiter with NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which reached the planet in 2016. The probe’s orbit takes it over both Jupiter’s poles and flies only 4,000 kilometers above its surface, mapping Jupiter’s magnetic field—the strongest planetary magnetic field in the solar system—with unprecedented detail. “We now have a close-up view of Jupiter’s magnetic field, almost as good as our knowledge of the Earth’s field, which took hundreds of years to work out,” said planetary scientist Chris Jones at the University of Leeds in England....

First, some impressive statistics: Over 2 billion backers from 90 percent of the world’s countries contributed to projects, for a pledge total of about $320 million. The category with the most funded projects was music, with 5,017, and the category that raked in the most money was games, with $83 million. Awesome Kickstarter projects from 2012 include an open source Geiger counter, an invention kit that can be used to (among other things) make a piano out of bananas, the world’s first pizza museum, and a civilian space suit....

And it’s not just today’s adults who think that. In some way or another, older generations have been lamenting the youth’s decline since the earliest days of civilization. Even Aristotle talked smack about how young folks thought they knew everything back in the 4th century BC. So why all the shade on the next generation? A study out earlier this month in Science Advances shows that negative opinions about kids aren’t always based on their actions; it’s more about how adults laud their past and current selves....

The indigenous people of the Amambay hills treat the surrounding jungle as sacred, and for generations they have decorated their surroundings with rock carvings that are now increasingly disappearing, victim to both natural erosion and the local logging trade. These rock carvings are in danger of disappearing along with the rest of the jungle, so Weaver (inspired by a story written by PopSci’s own Dave Mosher for another publication) turned to the Kinect–whose technology has been leveraged to create everything from invisibility to finger-tracking touchless control interfaces–to create 3-D renders of the endangered art and catalog them digitally....

This week, Snap unleashed the third iteration of Spectacles. It’s a decided jump forward in terms of tech, adding a second HD camera for shooting in 3D and applying augmented-reality filters to the footage you capture. But the styling represents the biggest change. The new $380 fashion-forward frames look like something an Instagram model would wear, and that you’d start seeing knock-off versions of at flea markets and mall kiosks....

An estimated 10 to 50 percent of those infected with COVID-19 will experience long COVID. A new Brookings report released on August 24 finds that anywhere between two and four million Americans are currently not working due to the effects of the mysterious disease. The new report builds on one from January that estimated long COVID is contributing to the country’s labor shortage by 15 percent. Brookings used new data from The United States Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey (HPS), a survey that is designed to gather and implement data quickly and efficiently....

OBSBOT Tiny PTZ 4K Webcam, $215 (Was $269) Before I continue, let me say that the OBSBOT Tiny PTZ 4K Webcam is the best webcam I’ve ever tested and that it’s worth getting at full price. The 60fps 4K video quality (with low-light correction) is superb, its built-in omnidirectional microphones help me sound clear, and its marquee feature is actually really helpful: The AI-powered autofocusing camera is attached to a rotating base, which spins to keep you in frame at all times....

The move is the latest in a series of steps by Democratic governor John Bel Edwards to develop a climate plan for a state battered by 2020’s record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season. Last year, he used an executive order to set a goal to be net-zero by 2050, and assembled the state’s first climate task force. This most recent agreement, called the US Climate Alliance, also includes goals to cut net emissions 25 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, and 50 percent by 2030....

The instrument is chilled to -213 Celsius, about -351 F, to allow for near-infrared observations. That wavelength is important for understanding star and planet formation, as well as observing very distant and very young galaxies. Lucifer has three interchangeable cameras for imaging and spectroscopy in different resolutions. It has a large field of view and high-res capabilities, which allow a wide range of observations. Lucifer is part of the Large Binocular Telescope, which happens to be right next to the Vatican Observatory on Mt....

The pathogen in question is Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), which can impact dairy cows’ milk production. These bacteria also make toxins that cause food poisoning and gastrointestinal illnesses in humans (that includes the usual trifecta of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and nausea). Removing the toxins from dairy products is not easy to do. The toxins tend to be stable and can’t be eradicated by common hygienic practices in food production, like pasteurization and heat sterilization....