For 17 years, I went to doctor after doctor, undergoing scans, physical therapy, and just about every “alternative” treatment that promised relief. Despite some amazing doctors and the expensive tests at their disposal, they could never see anything wrong, so I never got a diagnosis. That is, until a couple of years ago, when a routine CAT scan finally caught a structural problem with my spine. Because of that, I qualified to have a spinal cord stimulator, an electronic device used to treat chronic pain, implanted into my back....

Logic gates are the tiny switches that actually store and route the digital ones and zeros that make up binary computer code. They are, at a fundamental level, the mechanisms that enable microchips to process information and are the cornerstone of chip performance. The more logic gates you can cram onto a chip, the better speed and capacity the chip is going to have. More speed and more capacity in smaller chips mean electronics can do more with smaller form-factors, and that’s why over the past five decades or so our gadgets have continued to get smaller, faster, and better–a trend we’d like to see continue....

It’s brilliant work, really, especially in a field of wide-net clunkers like “You gotta put Mercury on your list” and Saturn’s awkwardly loaded plea to “Rethink American.” VW clearly hopes imparting some performance sparkle by association will pay off in differentiation and sales. And among the V-dub faithful, calling anything “The GTI of…” rivals Proust’s madeleines for sheer cognitive resonance. But how far is VW stretching the relationship? The Tiguan indeed rides on a similar platform as the GTI, derived from Volkswagen’s flexible Group A modular architecture....

While some pizza ovens can put you out thousands of dollars, others are cheaper than your average microwave. This rotating pizza oven gets the job done while only taking up a fraction of your counter space compared to the more ambitious alternatives. The device rotates to ensure a consistent crispness, and you can control the top and bottom heat to give you more choice in baking level. This oven is also more efficient for your energy use than firing up your conventional oven....

After Victor Vescovo climbed the Seven Summits—the highest mountain on each continent—he skied to both the North and South poles. Only 66 people have accomplished this dual feat of human performance, dubbed the ­Explorers’ Grand Slam. When Vescovo finished, in 2017, he certainly could have hung up his gear and felt pretty good about his place in the annals of adventure. But the 53-year-old private equity investor from Texas was not done....

This week’s episode is about all things tasty—providing just a quick taste of the sorts of stories you’ll find in the latest issue of Popular Science. We’re now a digital-only magazine, which means you can access it right here and now. FACT: A study ‘proved’ White Castle is good for you By Corinne Iozzio The hamburger business was having a hard time in the 1930s. Sales were way down after a wave of public attention around unsavory, unappetizing, and downright unhygienic practices are meat processing facilities came to light in the decades following the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle....

Come back each Wednesday for upcoming stories that will include product reviews you won’t find in PopSci, movies, TV, books and the arts in general, and insider secrets. In this installment, a sneak peek at how you’ll be commuting in 2012.

According to the study, temperatures in Europe have risen over the past 28 years far faster than could be explained by the greenhouse effect alone. After looking at the aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere in six spots, the authors of the paper realized the temperature rise was assisted by more sunlight penetrating the newly pollution free skies. It seems that the stricter pollution standards, adopted in part to slow global warming, may have sped it up....

A group of biologists from universities around the world discovered the phenomenon when one of them happened to catch video evidence while on vacation in Singapore. It was such a surprise that geckos could run on the surface of water that they decided to study it in more depth. They published their results in the journal Current Biology, and to really understand why they’re so unusual we have to geek out a little....

Ever since the charges of spreading “inexact, incomplete and contradictory”information have been levied, the scientific community has been eyeing this case closely. They’ve argued a conviction would set a dangerous precedent for scientists in the field–there’s not even a way to predict major quakes, they said, along with the scientists’ defense. In protest, a petition was signed by more than 5,000 scientists. They were concerned then–and likely are even more-so now–about a “chilling effect” that could be started by a conviction: If this is the end result of working in the field, then who is going to want to be there, much less share their results?...

It also had another unintended impact on the animals, scientists reported this week. Female elephants without any tusks became much more common after the conflict. When the researchers examined population records and genetic material from park-dwelling elephants, they found that this trait rose swiftly as a response to poaching, and they pinned down several genes that may cause it. “This study highlights the ubiquity of human influence across the tree of life,” says Shane Campbell-Staton, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University, who published the findings on October 21 in Science....

Unlike cryptocurrencies, which are privately issued, central bank digital currencies—or CBDC, for short—are regulated and can be exchanged dollar-for-dollar with the paper currency in that country. They are not intended to replace banknotes and coins but are expected to complement them. The Bank of Jamaica also notes that CBDCs won’t use the blockchain technology that backs popular private cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Jamaican legislators speaking in favor of the measure said they believe it will be “more efficient” for businesses and help “significantly reduce” challenges for the “many” residents without bank accounts, who might not have the proper documentation to open one or are lacking in funds....

But luckily, it’s getting harder for companies to make unfounded claims of eco-friendliness without getting called out. This week, environmental groups filed the first greenwashing lawsuit against an airline company. KLM, the Dutch subsidiary of Air France KLM, is often touted as a sustainable choice compared to other airlines. But the company is now accused of overselling its sustainability in ads—to the point of potentially misleading consumers. The lawsuit, led by advocacy groups Fossielvrij NL, ClientEarth, and Reclame Fossielvrij, centers around KLM’s “Fly Responsibly” advertisements, released in 2019....

Interphone researchers are pooling and analyzing the results gathered from studies on 6,400 tumors sampled from patients in 13 countries. If the final results mirror the preliminary ones, the world’s three billion cellphone users might want to dial back their talk time. Israeli researchers participating in Interphone found that people who use cellphones regularly are 50 percent more likely than non-users to develop brain tumors. And a joint Interphone analysis from the U....

Last year’s season was historically bad, both in terms of the total number of folks who fell ill and the total number of people who died. There’s no real way of knowing just how severe this year will be, but now that we have data through the end of December we can begin to see how things are shaping up. It’s not a particularly mild year for flu Every so often we have especially tame seasons, with low levels of illness and few deaths....

An obvious disagreement between Senators Obama and McCain on this issue came over 2005’s HR 3010, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, For Year 2006. While the final version of the bill passed with both Senators voting “Aye”, Obama and McCain clashed on amendments. McCain voted against an amendment supplying $5 billion for local educational agencies, against an amendment increasing the maximum Federal Pell Grant award by $200 to $4,250 and against an amendment providing funding to help the education of the disabled....

If you haven’t yet figured out which way to vote tomorrow, (or if you just want a better excuse for voting for Ron Paul), check out CNET’s interactive map of politicians’ voting records on tech-related issues. Otto the octopus causes chaos, juggles hermit crabs. Dell prepares to woo consumers with laptops in their choice of colors, patterns, and textures (but this time without the frustrating delay). When is a sneeze beautiful?...

“The short answer is it’s a bit up in the air,” says Scott Roberts, an infectious disease specialist at Yale Medicine. In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially reported that nearly 35 percent of people infected with COVID-19 take 2-3 weeks for symptoms to go away after testing positive. But new data now estimates that 13.3 percent—nearly one in ten people—who recuperate from illness will take a month to resolve their symptoms....

No, it’s just STEVE. STEVE isn’t your friendly neighborhood alien—it’s an acronym: Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. In simpler terms, it’s hot. Really hot. The purple arc is actually a collection of electrons flying westward through the atmosphere as they reach temperatures of more than 5600 degrees Celsius (more than 10,100 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s hotter than the surface of Sun, making it the hottest place near Earth on the rare occasions when it’s active, said Bea Gallardo-Lacourt, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Calgary and first author on a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters about STEVE....

The base model is $500 for 32GB of storage–twice, Microsoft is eager to say, the amount of storage as the equivalent cheapest iPad. But, you almost certainly don’t want that one, which makes it a weird item to boast about. What you want is the next one up, which throws in the Touch Cover for another $100. (There’s also a 64GB + Touch Cover version, for $700. The Touch Cover might be Microsoft’s best weapon; it looks sort of like the iPad’s Smart Cover (a little cloth-covered metallic flap that sticks onto the tablet with magnets) except it has a keyboard in it....