The Piltdown Man became a starring figure in the human evolutionary tree over the next 40 years. (Popular Science even published a feature in 1931 about the “man-ape.”) But the discovery was actually an incredibly successful hoax: In 1953, chemical testing and microscopic analysis revealed that the bone fragments had been filed down and stained with an iron solution and chromic acid to look more ancient. The Piltdown Man was actually a mix of medieval human skull, orangutan, and chimpanzee....

By the age of 17, he had built his first prototype using old Rollerblade boots, steel tubing, and bungee cords. Then, he built some 200 more. Today, Seymour’s Bionic Boot can propel him forward at 25 miles per hour. “You really feel superhuman,” he says. Eventually, Seymour hopes to boost the speed to 40 miles per hour, perhaps by enhancing the boots’ springy heels with electrical actuators. That, he expects, will take a few more prototypes....

This flight was one of the final three flybys planned for Cassini and Enceladus. The next will happen October 28, and will take the spacecraft a mere 30 miles above the surface in the south polar region. This trip will take Cassini through the geyser plume so it can sample some of what might be brewing under all that ice. The final Enceladus flyby is planned for December 19, which scientists hope will help measure the heat emanating from inside the moon....

The research could bolster efforts to include sex addiction in the updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an instruction manual of mental conditions that has criteria for diagnosing everything from autism to schizophrenia. The manual is undergoing its first major revision in more than a decade, prompting heated debates over which disorders should and should not be included, sex addiction among them. But what exactly is sex addiction?...

Specifically, the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) granted approval to a team of scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London CRISPR to modify the DNA of human embryos, according to a press release. This is the first such project to receive government approval, as Nature News reports. Developmental biologist Kathy Niakan plans to use CRISPR to better understand a gene called OCT4, thought to play a key role in the earliest stages of an embryo’s development....

The findings, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, signal the whales’ return to their historic feeding grounds, and hint that the species—Earth’s second largest behind blue whales—are on the rebound after whalers hunted it to the brink. Similarly, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List‘s most-recent assessment of fin whale populations in 2018 moved the species’s status from Endangered to Vulnerable. Seeing this volume of whales in the Southern Ocean has been unheard of for decades....

Your Google account includes email, photos, Drive documents, YouTube videos, and maybe even a Google Maps review or two. Among all those features, you’ve got a lot of important information packed away behind a single password. If it falls into the wrong hands, you’re looking at a lot of unwelcome consequences. The good news is that Google takes online security just as seriously as you (should) do. The tech giant offers a variety of account protection and security measures designed to keep unwelcome visitors out while letting you easily log in....

First we needed to understand what was causing the browning to take place during the cooking process. All plants contain chlorophyll, which is the molecule that allows them to absorb sunlight and then use its energy to transform carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen, a process known as photosynthesis. The first pigment change occurs when the gases between the cell walls expand, collapsing the cell walls and allowing the chlorophyll pigment to become more clearly visible....

1. Rocky paths Stones and boulders threaten your feet with jammed and bruised toes. Salomon covered the fronts of the X Ultra 3 boots with molded rubber, creating an additional layer of protection between your tootsies and rocks or roots that come outta nowhere. The chevron-­shaped lugs on the soles give you plenty of grip for ­ascending and descending. 2. Beach or riverbed Go wading with socks and shoes on, and the wet stuff will make your feet all-too hospitable for blisters and bacteria....

Get rid of temporary junk you don’t need Start by clearing out the cruft that doesn’t have to travel with you: business cards, extra receipts, that long-expired coupon for tacos—you know, the junk. I’m not saying you need to trash everything, but you don’t need to keep it in your wallet. Those receipts can go in a folder in your house, and business cards can go in a business card book—or, better yet, you can go all digital....

Now researchers have found that low doses of a non-addictive opioid could treat acute suicidal thoughts, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Psychiatry and reported by New Scientist. Emotional pain and social rejection are the underlying cause of most suicides, and it had not yet been well-established that opioids (long prescribed to treat physical pain) could treat emotional pain, too. The researchers chose to use an opioid called buprenorphine because it’s less risky than other opioids—after a certain amount, a person taking the drug doesn’t feel a greater high, so there’s less incentive to abuse the drug or to overdose....

The British Museum and others are trying to make artifacts and archeology more accessible by digitizing their collections and making them available to the public, and now a new software named Presious in development by the European Union could help make the laborious task of fitting the pieces of the past together much easier. A digital copy of an artifact has some advantages that a physical copy doesn’t. It can be enlarged or shrunk to show details, making it easier to compare artifacts found at different sites or in different countries, and be transported all over the world without risking sanctions....

A good step forward is the new Satis toilets from Lixil, which connects to an Android smartphone via Bluetooth so you can tell it to do all those amazing things Japanese toilets can do. Tap to extend the oddly phallic bidet hose. Scroll to lift the toilet seat or flush. Select your favorite song to play it through the toilet’s stereo, because the toilet has a stereo. Perhaps the weirdest feature is that “you can set up a ‘toilet diary’ to monitor your visits to the can and check on your health,” according to JapanTrends, which adds that it includes “cute euphemistic symbols for what you managed to achieve on different days....

The first, Boom Blox (released last month), embraces his fun-for-the-whole-family side. This action-puzzle game challenges players to destroy structures made of building blocks, using the Nintendo Wii remote control to hurl onscreen objects with a flick of the wrist. (The special effects make it irresistible to kids, of course, but we had to be politely asked to surrender the controller and let someone else play during our preview.) Next up is a more ambitious undertaking, a highly secretive project that promises to push the boundaries of gaming to an emotionally arresting level....

But thanks to technological advancements, there are charging solutions that can help you avoid dealing with wire spaghetti altogether. The MagStack Foldable 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Station is designed to juice up to three devices in your tech collection simultaneously, and ahead of Black Friday, you can score it at a price point you’d be thankful for — a 43 percent discount. This item rarely goes on sale at this big of a discount, but you can score it until November 23, 11:59 p....

A surgical team implanted two stimulators, each about the size of a deck of cards, below Finstad’s clavicles. They threaded wires up her neck, just beneath the skin, to four probes implanted in her brain. Doctors programmed the device to deliver a constant flow of electricity to electrodes on the probes. In deep regions of the brain, such as the thala­mus and the hippocampus, this current affects the electric signals that neurons use to communicate....

It may also make the uninitiated driver want to vomit. This is what my handler told me as she guided me toward a fleet of Mini Es—electric Mini Coopers—parked in the basement of the L.A. Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. See, regenerative braking starts to slow the car as soon as you let off the gas, as the braking system harvests the energy emitted by the decelerating vehicle. The experience can be unsettling at first—it can trick you into thinking you’ve been driving with the parking brake on....

Luckily for those folks, some companies are selling “3D-ready” TVs. Basically, these are 3D-capable sets that wary consumers can cart home without feeling they’ve been suckered into buying a feature they don’t want (at least until Avatar comes out on Blu-ray 3D, when they’ll suddenly feel an intense need to tap that capability). These 3D-ready TVs are sold without the active-shutter eyewear necessary to enable 3D viewing. In some cases, you need to separately buy both the eyewear and an external emitter that syncs the active-shutter lenses with the left/right images being displayed onscreen....

You don’t need to stuff your house full of smart gadgets to surround yourself with cool gear. Sure, this list features an omniscient light that matches the sunshine streaming through your window—but there’s also a super-rugged tape measure, as well as a stroller that’ll do some of the pushing itself. Mix and match however you please. For decades, multitool users have had to swallow their angst while struggling to lift out tightly tucked can openers and knives....