Straightening my hair is typically a two-day affair. I wash all the product out the night before and load my hair with hydrating protectants. I let it air-dry, then I braid it before bed so that the next day, the curls are looser and easier to work through. Then, and only then, can I go…
In March of last year, the pandemic came knocking, and everyone was suddenly obsessed with—of all things—toilet paper. Store shelves emptied out and remained vacant. People were selfishly hoarding, onlookers claimed, or just wanted to feel a sense of control amid uncertainty. Others rightly pointed out that people simply needed more toilet paper than usual…
As a new homebuyer headed down the path of home automation, I knew as much about modern thermostats, smart bulbs, and security systems as my golden retriever. Even after hours of Googling, the smart-home landscape was pretty confusing.Despite all efforts to make the internet of things (IoT) speak the same language, there are still various…
In the fall of 1972, Vance Faber was a new professor at the University of Colorado. When two influential mathematicians, Paul Erdős and László Lovász, came for a visit, Faber decided to host a tea party. Erdős in particular had an international reputation as an eccentric and energetic researcher, and Faber’s colleagues were eager to…
There can be all kinds of reasons you don’t want to send a text message or an email straight away—maybe you know the recipient is busy or in a completely different time zone, or perhaps the information you’re sending won’t be relevant for a while. Today’s mobile and desktop apps are adapting to give you…
The Facebook Oversight Board is on the cusp of deciding whether Donald Trump should be allowed to return to a platform he used to incite racist violence. While the board ostensibly has the authority to make this decision, Facebook itself will make the final call. From the board’s inception in 2018, we’ve noted that its…
As the Biden administration moves on an ever-growing list of policy initiatives, the White House issued sanctions this week for a slate of Russian misdeeds, including interference in the 2020 election, the poisoning of dissident Aleksey Navalny, and the SolarWinds hacking spree that swept United States government agencies and many private-sector companies. The retaliatory move…
Picking out accessories for a new PlayStation 5 is almost as tricky as buying one. That’s because of its new capabilities. The cybernetic clamshell tower of a console is packed to the gills with impressive hardware. It can run games in native 4K, hit frame rates in excess of 120 frames per second, and output…
This story originally appeared on Atlas Obscura and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.The latex glove was a streaky, dirty, yellow-gray, the color of a plastic bag that somersaulted into a tree and got tangled in the branches. When citizen-scientists in the Netherlands spotted it in August 2020 while collecting trash along Leiden’s Oude…
Here’s a riddle: If higher-quality audio sounds better, and better-sounding music is more enjoyable, then shouldn’t you stream music in the highest possible audio quality? The answer is yes. Listen to music in the highest possible quality. You’ll love the shimmering drum cymbals that keep singing out long after they’ve been hit. Hearing fingers sliding…
Despite the hastily called press conference on Tuesday, the late-night meetings, and the growing worry over a potentially fatal side effect, the decision to pause the use of one of the three Covid-19 vaccines available in the United States was a relatively easy one.Figuring out how to unpause, though—that’s going to be a lot trickier.The…
Less than four months after the revelation of one of the biggest hacking events in history—Russia’s massive breach of thousands of networks that’s come to be known as the SolarWinds hack—the US has now sent the Kremlin a message in the form of a punishing package of diplomatic and economic measures. But even as the…