How often do you, outside the requirements of an assignment, ponder things like the workings of a distant star, the innards of your phone camera, or the number and layout of petals on a flower? Maybe a little bit, maybe never. Too often, people regard science as sitting outside the general culture: A specialized, difficult...
Over the past five decades, standard computer processors have gotten increasingly faster. In recent years, however, the limits to that technology have become clear: Chip components can only get so small, and be packed only so closely together, before they overlap or short-circuit. If companies are to continue building ever-faster computers, something will need to...
Seriously cold: The ‘bomb cyclone’ freezes a fountain in New York City. AP Photo/Mark Lennihan Damage from extreme weather events during 2017 racked up the biggest-ever bills for the U.S. Most of these events involved conditions that align intuitively with global warming: heat records, drought, wildfires, coastal flooding, hurricane damage and heavy rainfall. Paradoxical, though,...
Software developers are working to release fixes and updates to protect computers and mobile devices from two security flaws discovered by a team of researchers from Google Project Zero working with academia and cybersecurity firms. The flaws, known as “Meltdown” and “Spectre” affect computing devices with chips from Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., and...
Every day about 100 people die in car crashes on U.S. roads. That death toll is a major reason why both Congress and the Trump administration are backing automotive efforts to develop and deploy self-driving cars as quickly as possible. However, officials’ eagerness far exceeds the degree to which the public views this as a...
The aviation industry produces 2 percent of global human-induced carbon dioxide emissions. This share may seem relatively small – for perspective, electricity generation and home heating account for more than 40 percent – but aviation is one of the world’s fastest-growing greenhouse gas sources. Demand for air travel is projected to double in the next...
In Canada and around the world, legal cannabis producers face many challenges: Varying government regulations, high security requirements and a lack of reliable information on how to grow their crops. Growing cannabis has been illegal for so many years that scientific research on how to best produce this crop is limited. Much of the knowledge...
