Biologists know a lot about how life works, but they are still figuring out the big questions of why life exists, why it takes various shapes and sizes, and how life is able to amazingly adapt to fill every nook and cranny on Earth. An interdisciplinary team of researchers has discovered that the answers to these questions may lie in the ability of life to find a middle ground, balancing between robustness and adaptability.
Part-organic invention can be used in bendable mobile phones
Engineers have invented a semiconductor with organic and inorganic materials that can convert electricity into light very efficiently, and it is thin and flexible enough to help make devices such as mobile phones bendable.
Research affirms the power of ‘we’
New research has greatly magnified the body of evidence asserting that the pronouns we use foretell good relationship outcomes.
New details of HIV life cycle
The discovery of a small molecule that plays an important part of the HIV life cycle may lead to the development of new treatments for the virus.
New cancer vaccine platform a potential tool for efficacious targeted cancer therapy
Researchers have discovered a solution in the form of a cancer vaccine platform for improving the efficacy of oncolytic viruses used in cancer treatment.
This robotic finger attachment for your smartphone will gently caress your hand
Our smartphones are cold, passive devices that usually can’t move autonomously unless they’re falling onto our faces while we’re looking at them in bed. A research team in France is exploring ways to change that by giving our smartphones the ability to interact with us more (via New Scientist). MobiLimb is a robotic finger attachment that plugs in through a smartphone’s Micro USB port, moves using five servo motors, and is powered by an Arduino microcontroller. It can tap the user’s hand in response to phone notifications, be used as a joystick controller, or, with the addition of a little fuzzy sheath accessory, it can turn into a cat tail.
MobiLimb is a research project by PhD student Marc Teyssier and his team across from French…
The Magicians season 4 gets a release date and an ominous new trailer
The Magicians — Syfy’s TV show adaptation of the novels by Lev Grossman — is coming back for a fourth season. And at New York Comic Con, we finally got the exact date: January 23rd, 2019. We also got an ominous first look at the upcoming season, which teases just how much aspiring magician Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) and his friends will have to go up against.
The events of last season saw our heroes succeed in their quest to bring back magic (which, all things considered, is probably a good thing in a show called The Magicians). But it was at a cost: a seemingly unstoppable monster is on the loose, and all of our would-be heroes are stuck in our boring, mundane world, believing that they’re fashion editors and DJs instead of…
Hey, u up?
Welcome to Fav’d For Later, a Friday roundup of our favorite memes, trends, and all-around good internet content. This week IS A TEST. NO ACTION IS NEEDED.
On October 3rd, aka Mean Girls Day, the first FEMA Presidential Alert lit up phones across the US. Right on time! By that, I mean the memes. The memes were right on time.
The punchlines are pretty hit or miss, but what I love about this very predictable joke (if you text it, they will meme) is the unity, you know? We all got the text* so we all get the meme. How often does that happen? Usually, the teens do something funny to Kermit or SpongeBob, and we all sort of laugh and nod until we actually get it, at which point the wave is already long over, and we’re just reheating the…
The Insane Physics of Airbags
In a collision, a car’s airbag has a tiny fraction of a second in which to inflate—which is why airbags use explosives.
Our 25 Favorite Features From the Past 25 Years
From an epic account of the online drug market Silk Road, to a poignant tale about a man seeking intimacy with his robot clone, these stories will blow your mind. Again.