Elon Musk has created one of the world’s most valuable motor companies by doubling the price of electric vehicles and wowing consumers with a high-performance, luxury electric vehicle. Now he wants to use that cachet to enter the mass market – in home energy systems with solar and storage. While the…
“For over 5 years, and perhaps even longer, servers around the world running Linux and BSD operating systems have been targeted by an individual or group that compromised them via a backdoor Trojan, then made them send out spam, ESET researchers have found. What’s more, it seems that the spammers…
Lyndon McLellan, who owns a convenience store in Fairmont, N.C., is trying to recover $107,702.66, which was seized by the I.R.S. last year even though he was never charged with a crime. Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times Under mounting pressure, the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice…
Tip Credit Illustration by Radio “A polygraph is nothing more than a psychological billy club used to coerce and intimidate people,” says Doug Williams, a former Oklahoma City police detective and polygraph examiner who for 36 years has trained people to pass the lie-detector test. The first step is…
What do a frying pan, an LED light, and the most cutting edge camouflage in the world have in common? Well, that largely depends on who you ask. Most people would struggle to find the link, but for University of Michigan chemical engineers Sharon Glotzer and Michael Engel, there is a substantial…
Credit and debit card skimmers secretly attached to gas pumps are an increasingly common scourge throughout the United States. But the tables can be turned when these fraud devices are discovered, as evidenced by one California police department that has eschewed costly and time-consuming stakeouts…
Apple has been leveraging its power within the music industry in an attempt to push music labels to stop licensing freemium tiers offered by Spotify and other streaming music services, according to The Verge . The company has also reportedly offered to pay YouTube's music licensing fee to Universal…
Credit: FRANCOIS MORI AP Photo It's a dog-eat-dog world—and now a drone-eat-drone one, too. At a February demonstration in La Queue-en-Brie, France ( right ), Malou Tech showed off the Interceptor MP200 and its “antidrone strategy”—capturing smaller unmanned copters with a net. The…
Every idiotic schoolboy you know is likely a member of a Facebook group titled 'I always wear sunglasses because the sun never sets on the British empire'. "Other countries could write similar books – but they would be much shorter. I don't think anyone could match this, although the Americans had a…
To the average person, words and phrases like polymer synthesis and olefin metathesis reaction represent little more than good Scrabble scores.
But to Lt. Col.
A protester faces police in riot gear in Baltimore.Photograph: Shawn Carrié T he last time that riots hit the streets of Baltimore was in 1968 , following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. As the 2015 uprising continues, fueled by the anger at Freddie Gray’s death in police custody , the…
Picture: Tesla's lithium-ion home storage system. In the previous article , we have seen that many life cycle analyses (LCAs) of solar PV systems have a positive bias. Most LCAs base their studies on the manufacturing of solar cells in Europe or the USA. However, most panels are now produced in…
Millions of Americans get tests, drugs, and operations that won’t make them better, may cause harm, and cost billions. Credit Illustration by Anna Parini It was lunchtime before my afternoon surgery clinic, which meant that I was at my desk, eating a ham-and-cheese sandwich and clicking through…
While most of us have been binge-streaming or strapping computers to our bodies or wrapping our heads around the ins and outs of net neutrality, an international team of academics and some of the world's biggest technology companies have been quietly pondering how to rewrite the basic structure of…
In what is one of the most prominent financial commitments that an American city government has made toward universal broadband, the De Blasio administration is committing $70 million to bring affordable high-speed Internet to city residents. Even though cities like New York and San Francisco are at…
The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941 by Roger Moorhouse Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signing the Nazi–Soviet Pact, with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop directly behind him, next to Stalin, August 23, 1939…
Paul Allen last year. In 1975, he and Bill Gates built Microsoft’s first software product. Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times SEATTLE — Looking at Microsoft’s sprawling product line and 118,000 or so employees, it’s easy to forget that the company started with one modest product made by two…
Op-Docs ‘Rent-a-Foreigner in China’ In this short documentary, housing developers in China hire ordinary foreigners to pose as celebrities, boosting flagging property sales. In China, it’s hard to find a city that has not built ambitious new districts on its rural periphery. But overbuilding has led…
So you’re a parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend’s neighbor’s sister. It’s prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the…
The End of California? A buoy stuck on the bottom of a bone-dry Lake McSwain. ANGELS CAMP, Calif. — IN a normal year, no one in California looks twice at a neighbor’s lawn, that mane of bluegrass thriving in a sun-blasted desert. Or casts a scornful gaze at a fresh-planted almond grove, saplings…
Children who grow up in some places go on to earn much more than they would if they grew up elsewhere. Related Article Worst in U.S. Best Gender All kids Boys Girls Income percentile 25th 50th 75th 99th How much extra money a county causes children in poor families to make, compared with children in…
Facebook says it will allow more websites and other online services to join its "free mobile data" Internet.org scheme. The announcement follows a backlash against the initiative. Opponents suggest it compromises the principles of net neutrality, because it favours access to some sites and apps over…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission says she’s largely given up hope of reining in abuses in raising and spending money in the 2016 presidential campaign and calls the agency she oversees “worse than dysfunctional.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Ann M.…
Now Playing: Theodore Roosevelt's Personality Play Theodore Roosevelt's Personality Play Eleanor Roosevelt and the Red Cross Play Ep 4: FDR Recovery More Videos The Roosevelts : An Intimate History Premiered September 14, 2014. Check local listings for repeat broadcasts. THE ROOSEVELTS: AN INTIMATE…
The anonymous artists put a bust of Edward Snowden on top of a revolutionary war memorial in Fort Greene park on 6 April. It was taken down within hours.Photograph: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork The mysterious artists who planted a bust of Edward Snowden on an American revolutionary war monument now…
“They have lost their freedom for the truth, so they remind us how important it is to know the truth,” Italian sculptor Davide Dormino told the media in Berlin's Alexanderplatz. The life-sized statues of the three whistleblowers stand upon three chairs, as if speaking in an impromptu public meeting.…
1868 - 1934The BriefScience may belong to the world, but scientists can still stubbornly belong to one country. Born during a blooming of German nationalism, Fritz Haber was a brilliant chemist who tried to shed his Jewish heritage to serve his country. He served in peace by inventing a way to feed…
1626 - 1873The BriefFor 51 years during the 18th century, a thriving slave market hummed at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets in Manhattan. In June, the city will commemorate a dark period of its history that horrifies many of its modern residents.But it’s true: humans were sold on Wall Street.…
Saudi airstrikes against Houthi rebels killed 46 people in Yemen Monday, and further strikes continued Tuesday in a bombing campaign that has gone on for nearly a month. The Houthis, who overthrew the pro-Saudi government, are reportedly backed by Iran, though Tehran denies this.The animosity…
1905 - NOWThe BriefUS presidential contender Rand Paul announced his candidacy at Louisville’s Galt House hotel last week. One columnist saw the choice of venue as a “dog whistle” to fans of Ayn Rand’s fictional hero John Galt, recalling Paul’s own nickname change, from Randy to Rand.Lauded on the…
1881 - NOWThe BriefBrontosaurus lovers unite: The long-necked dinosaur did exist after all. For over a hundred years, scientists thought that Brontosauri were a pop culture myth, but a fossil study published Tuesday concluded that Brontosaurus, indeed, were a distinct species of dinosaur.Dinosaurs,…
1769 - NOWThe BriefNow well into its fourth year, the drought currently afflicting California is the worst in the region’s history. But California has been arid since long before it became a state. It is only through huge feats of engineering and the occasional act of violence that it has been able…
It was just a handshake and not even the first between Barack Obama and Raúl Castro , but when historians come to select the images that best reflect the legacy of the two leaders, this may be among the pictures that define their efforts to end half a century of Cold War animosity. The widely…
Carolyn Drake An apartment complex in Kashgar for Uighurs displaced by development projects, 2009 (click images to enlarge) Xinjiang is one of those remote places whose frequent mention in the international press stymies true understanding. Home to China’s Uighur minority, this vast region of…
James Grissom | Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog | Knopf | March 2015 | 26 minutes (7,038 words) Below is an excerpt from the book Follies of God , by James Grissom , as recommended by Longreads contributing editor Dana Snitzky . Dana writes: “James Grissom wrote a letter…
In “How to Write a Thesis,” Umberto Eco walks students through the craft and rewards of sustained research. Photograph by Martine Franck / Magnum “How to Write a Thesis,” by Umberto Eco, first appeared on Italian bookshelves in 1977. For Eco, the playful philosopher and novelist best known for his…
Compared with Americans' digestive tracts, Yanomamis' teem with life, like a lush, tropical rain forest. Maria Fabrizio for NPR Looks like many of us don't have the right stomach for a paleodiet. Literally. Two studies give us a glimpse into our ancestors' microbiome — you know, those trillions of…
YouTube The Calbuco volcano in southern Chile erupted this week for the first time in four decades. Quiet since 1972, it's blown twice since Wednesday, generating striking images and concerns over the effects of both the lava and a mammoth cloud of ash. That column of ejected ash measures nearly 7…
Alkaline