Scientists still don’t know what causes these enormous bursts of energy, but they have a lot of ideas. Cosmic strings, stellar birth, collapsing neutron stars, evaporating black holes, and of course, aliens, are just a few. Most Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) aren’t discovered until months or years after they occur, when scientists are sifting through the data deluge from telescope observations. But in a study just published in Nature, a team of scientists developed a way to detect the bursts swiftly, then alert other telescopes that can help study the phenomenon....

The material could be infused with drugs, then shaped to fit perfectly inside a wound. “When a drug can flow into a cavity as a liquid and then conform to the shape of the cavity and stay there as a solid (gel), it offers unprecedented opportunities [in the] delivery of drugs,” researcher Dan Luo says in an email. The material is actually a hydrogel, one of those matrices of organic molecules that are filled with empty spaces....

To make the most of your images, it’s important to share them at their very best quality, and knowing where to tweak these settings on any app will give you the freedom to adjust them in every situation. You get three options: Auto (recommended), Best quality, and Data saver. WhatsApp hasn’t gone on record saying exactly what specs the auto mode uses, or how it decides which settings to pick in any given occasion....

Between December 2018 and June 2021, researchers randomly assigned 2,275 Kenyan girls and women between 15 and 20 years old to receive a dose of either the HPV vaccine or a different vaccine unrelated to HPV. They found that just one dose of an HPV vaccine was around 90 percent effective at preventing several strains of HPV after 18 months. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine Evidence on Monday....

The VitalSleep Anti-Snoring Mouthpiece will easily fit into your mouth for a more quiet and restful sleep for yourself and your entire household. To best understand, let’s explain what causes snoring in the first place. When you sleep the muscles in your neck and throat relax. This relaxation can sometimes cause the tongue to fall back causing the airway to narrow resulting in the partial obstruction of the upper airway causing you to snore....

But looks can be deceiving—and the snow that seems to put life on pause actually sustains it. Beneath the snow lies the subnivium, a busy microclimate where plants thrive and animals scurry to and fro. This microhabitat turns traditional thinking about snow on its head. Once upon a time, the white, fluffy stuff was known only for making food scarce for above-ground animals, forcing many into hibernation, and turning into life-sustaining water after melting....

Some preliminary research presented at the annual meeting of the British Ecological Society on December 20 shows that the animals that perceive time the fastest can fly, are small, or are marine predators. The to-be published study looked at 138 species and analyzed temporal perception, or the rate at which they perceive changes in the world. The team found that animals who have more fast-paced lifestyles are equipped with visual systems that can detect changes at higher rates....

Keto is hard. If it’s not hard, you’re probably not doing it right. The diet gets billed as a miraculously enjoyable diet—eat all the fat you want, just cut out the carbs. But the ketogenic diet (also called keto) was never supposed to be fun. It was supposed to treat severe epilepsy. And as a medical treatment, it was only intended to be administered under the supervision of trained nutritionists and physicians....

On September 15, for the first time in history, the United States successfully sent four non-astronaut space travelers into orbit with the historic Inspiration4 mission, operated by SpaceX. The foursome traveled through space for three days in the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Florida, on Saturday night. The spacecraft lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carried by a Falcon 9 rocket....

“This exoskeleton personalizes assistance as people walk normally through the real world,” Steve Collins, an associate professor of mechanical engineering heading the Biomechatronics Lab, said in a Stanford news release yesterday, adding that recent tests “resulted in exceptional improvements in walking speed and energy economy.” To put some concrete numbers to it—people who wore the exoskeleton boots were able to walk 9 percent faster while simultaneously expending 17 percent less energy per distance traveled, according to Collins, who later explained their developments present the “largest improvements in the speed and energy of economy walking of any exoskeleton to date....

So our concerns are evidently far from new. The Victorian era experienced not only the extraordinary upheavals of the industrial revolution, but also the arrival of gas and then electric lighting, turning night into day. The creation of an international telegraph network similarly revolutionized systems of communication, establishing global connectivity and, for groups such as businessmen, financiers, and politicians, a flow of telegrams at all hours. Such shifts brought new patterns and expectations of work....

With the seventh generation of the mighty Mustang revealed on September 14, Ford is once again reaching out to the youth market, but this time with technology instead of price and novelty. Well, there is some novelty in the gamified digital dashboard sprawling across the cockpit, but it’s a new iteration of the Mustang. Let’s take a look at the tech inside the vehicle and under its hood. Techy interior Starting with the base model Stang, the overhauled cockpit is illuminated by a 13....

So, this week is all about accountability. Hasbro sent us a copy of its new Lie Detector party game and our contestants faced off against it with a barrage of questions intended to draw out our greatest digital shames. The game is, well, just a game, and it doesn’t monitor your vital signs or anything like that to try and determine if you’re telling the truth, which is already pretty sketchy science....

And for the first time since anyone can remember, the winner was a unanimous choice, according to Motor Trend. “Not a single judge had any doubts about the 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year,” the magazine said. The Model S–now Tesla’s only offering after it ceased production on its Roadster–beat the Ford Fusion, the Porsche 911 and nine other finalists. It was one of the most efficient cars ever tested, but that was hardly its most important factor....

Associate professor of biological sciences Rick Relyea exposed gray tree frog and leopard frog tadpoles to small doses of 10 pesticides (insecticides and herbicides… so, agricultural pesticides: the same stuff that’s harming the bees. See below) that are used world-wide. Following the pesticide bender—exposure to all 10 chemicals– 99 percent of the leopard frog tadpoles died. Back in August, I wrote an article here on PopSci.com about pesticides and bees; in a nutshell, the combination of pesticides that bees pick up outside of their hives is proving to contribute to Colony Collapse Disorder....

These presents require no wrapping paper, won’t gather dust if they sit unused, can be bought from the comfort of your couch, and—even better—they can be delivered instantly, so they’re perfect for last-minute holiday shopping. Digital movie and TV subscriptions If you’ve been loaning a family member your Netflix username and password for months, break that dependence and help them start their own account. Netflix sells gift cards loaded with amounts that range between $25 and $200....

Besides telling time and displaying notifications, an Apple Watch functions primarily as a health and fitness tracker. Right out of the box, the Series 4 to Series 7 devices can monitor your heart rate, count steps taken and calories burned, record physical activities from yoga to swimming, remind you to take breaks from work, and more. And that’s not all. Add in some dedicated apps, and the wearable becomes capable of boosting your health even more....

Victrola Stream Onyx Sonos-enabled turntable Last year, Victrola announced its Stream Carbon turntable. It simplified the process of playing records through Sonos-connected wireless speakers. Its $799 price tag, however, was a little steep. At CES 2023, Victrola announced the new Stream Onyx turntable, which still works with Sonos, but drops the price to $599. The differences between the two seem to lie mostly in the materials. The more expensive Carbon model has a carbon fiber (hence the name) tonearm compared to the Onyx’s aluminum, for instance....

Best overall: McCulloch MC1275 Heavy-Duty Steam CleanerBest for floors: Bissell PowerFresh Slim Hard Wood Floor Steam Cleaner SystemBest portable: Handheld Pressurized Steam CleanerBest upholstery cleaner: Hoover ONEPWR Spotless GO Cordless Carpet and Upholstery Spot CleanerBest multipurpose: Bissell SteamShot Deluxe Hard-Surface CleanerBest budget: LIGHT ‘N’ EASY Floor Steamers Steam Mop How we picked the best steam cleaners A steam cleaner does what it sounds like: heats up water until it vaporizes, then uses that water to disinfect and sanitize....

Still, even with the best intentions, many of us, especially the pale folks among us, end up with that dreaded lobster look. In consequence, the market offers tons of treatments for sunburn relief—and equally as many old wives’ sunburn remedies claim that they provide the best treatment for sunburn. But the scientific answer is surprisingly simple: Just cool and moisturize your burned skin. Why you fry A sunburn happens when the sun’s ultraviolet radiation damages the DNA inside skin cells....