These square codes are quick and easy to use, and since Android and iOS users can scan QR codes with their phone’s default camera, people don’t need any special software or update to make use of your code. On top of that, QR codes require no physical contact for you to interact with them, so it’s not surprising that they’re now taking off. If you’ve ever wanted to make your own QR codes, know that it doesn’t require any great degree of technical know-how or a huge amount of time....

When you’ve got a photo to show off, you don’t necessarily want to plaster it all over your Twitter or Instagram accounts for the whole world to see. For example, you might want to display a photo of your adorable tot for his grandparents—without giving Facebook the opportunity to record his facial features for posterity. Luckily, plenty of apps will help you share a picture with only a select group of people....

Indoors vs. outdoors If you’re thinking about your health, getting on a treadmill or dropping in on a spin class is a good idea any time of the year. But gyms are controlled environments, and that makes for a different workout, both physically and mentally. “It’s easy to zone out by watching a show or listening to music on the treadmill,” says Christine Luff, author of Run for Good: How to Create a Lifelong Running Habit....

From a basket of warm focaccia on the table at a restaurant, to flat loaves of naan accompanying a curry, bread is incorporated into many, if not most, meals around the world. Everyone loves carbs, especially bread. So, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could literally live off of this beloved food group? The short answer is yes, yes, it would, but the larger question is; is it even possible?...

If you just felt a wave of stress reading this, you’re not alone. As tough as it is as an adult, the children in your life are looking around at the world and probably getting overwhelmed by the constant march of bad news. They might turn to you for answers—or you might need to step in to help them cope, especially if they struggle to know exactly how to communicate the emotions they are feeling....

How to turn on eco-friendly routing When on, Maps will suggest fuel-saving routes by default when arrival times are similar to less-efficient paths. If you turn it off, you’ll still see the leaf-stamped option on the screen, but Maps will suggest the fastest route instead (or whatever meets the other parameters you’ve set, such as avoiding tolls, highways, or ferries). Sometimes, the fastest and fuel-efficient routes will be the same. Those little leaves only appear on screen when you choose your destination in the free Android or iOS app, tap Directions, and select the car icon to get driving instructions....

What to do before you sleep You won’t need to do much preparation to get your Fitbit to track your sleep. Assuming you’ve already set up the device and connected it to your phone, all you’ll have to do is wear it when you turn in for the night—the wearable will automatically detect when you doze off and when you wake up. If you have one of the two top-end Fitbit smartwatches—either the Fitbit Sense or the Fitbit Versa 3—as well as Fitbit Premium, you can also access snore detection, a feature that listens for snoring and other noises at night....

Reverb has no hands-free option, so you’ll need to click on the app’s interface—a black circle—each time you want to say something. There are other limitations, too, including a lack of support for radio and music playback. Google Assistant At the time of writing there’s no way to get Google Assistant on a Windows or macOS computer, at least not in its full form. As far as desktops and laptops go, Google seems to be saving Google Assistant for Chrome OS computers, which often have a dedicated button that launches the utility....

The issue is extremely complex, and it will play out at various levels of government in the coming months. Here are answers to some common questions about how this started, what’s happening, and what it might mean for social media users. Why is this executive order happening? On Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted some negative remarks about voting by mail. Members of Twitter’s third-party fact checking program reportedly flagged the tweets as potentially misleading to readers, and Twitter added a fact checking link below the tweets in question....

In 2020, during her re-election campaign, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo set out plans to make the French capital a “15-minute” city. The goal: to offer city dwellers easy walking or biking access to most of their daily activities, from shops and leisure activities to schools and even workplaces. The plan came complete with promises for more pedestrianization, the creation of bike lanes on every street, and the elimination of 60,000 parking spaces across Paris....

“There’s a lot of people at their wits’ end,” says Heather Leach, a spotted lanternfly specialist with Penn State University. And for good reason. In a five-year span, the plant-hopping pest has spread from its native Asian range to Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland—causing serious damage to crops, homes, and other property along the way. Now researchers think a pair of native fungi could join the arsenal of controls on the polka-dotted insects, according to a study out last month in PNAS....

But as a relative beginner to the motorcycle world, I didn’t ride it anywhere near its maximum speed when I had the chance to check it out for about a week in November. I’d never driven an electric motorcycle before, and a sense of curiosity coupled with pandemic-induced boredom urged me to try it out for rides in Manhattan (while another, very present feeling of caution urged me to do so carefully)....

DISPATCHES FROM THE ARCTIC This series explores the science and implications of global warming in the North Atlantic Arctic. Boulder-based writer Susan Moran is filing live reports from the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, Norway. Marine biologists and climate-modeling scientists are following their trail seeking answers. That trail emits a scent of money to fisheries operators. Although no commercial fisheries exist yet in the Arctic Ocean and adjacent continental shelf seas, operators know that could change....

Odisha, the east Indian state likely to be hardest hit by Amphan (pronounced UM-PUN), has plenty of experience dealing with environmental disasters. Mongabay India reports that experience prepared them to handle the medical disaster caused by this pandemic. But now, they face a battle on two fronts: getting people out of Amphan’s way and keeping them uninfected as they do so. India has been planning for an extreme weather season in the context of COVID-19 for some time, says Loretta Hieber Girardet, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s chief for the Asia-Pacific region....

Authorities buried 26 containers in a nearby landfill, but the rest of the refuse still languishes in the harbor as the countries feud over who should take out the trash. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now saying that a 2016 legal ruling means Canada could, theoretically, reclaim the privately-owned garbage—which is what Duterte wants. In a statement last week, the Canadian government said that it is “strongly committed to collaborating with the government of the Philippines to resolve this issue,” but officials have yet to take action....

I’ve been living with Apple’s flagship iPhone as my main device for roughly a week now. And while its new features don’t profoundly shift the overall experience, it feels like a different phone in many small, but impactful ways. Some of that comes from iOS 16, the new iPhone operating system, but the device itself offers a few hardware tweaks that ripple throughout the entire iPhone experience. So far, I like them....

The researchers set up participants in three office settings: one with a glass window on a natural vista, one with a 50-inch plasma screen playing a live HD video feed of the same scene, and a third with a blank wall. They noted how quickly the settings brought down participants’ heart rates after a stressful set of social interactions and cognitive tests. The real window, as you might imagine, was the most restorative....

A large team of researchers conducted experiments on human lung cells and on live mice to see how different cannabis compounds affected the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. They found that cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive compound also known as CBD, and one of its metabolites, 7-OH-CBD, seem to hamper infection. These compounds hinder the coronavirus from hijacking host cell machinery, which it uses to replicate its genetic material. The new paper was published last week in Science Advances....

Team members built their airplane from polystyrene and carbon fiber, so it weighs only 81 pounds. Its wingspan stretches 117 feet, which is about half that of a Boeing 747, notes AFP. The craft is called Gokurakutombo, which means “happy-go-lucky” and apparently also “happy dragonfly” in Japanese. The team–whose members all work for Yamaha–wants to fly it 75 miles over the Pacific Ocean in Japan. The plane can take advantage of thermal air currents to help it get around, but that’s a double-edged sword, because even a light ocean breeze can also work against it....