The 23andMe Data Breach Keeps Spiraling
More details are emerging about a data breach the genetic testing company 23andMe first reported in October. But as the company shares more information, the situation is becoming even murkier and creating greater uncertainty for users attempting to understand the fallout. 23andMe said at the beginning of October that attackers had infiltrated some of its…
Paris climate goal of less than 2°C of warming is within our grasp
WHEN the 2015 Paris Agreement anchored the goal to keep global warming “well below 2°C“, most people I spoke with at the time thought it was dead on arrival. I was at the COP21 summit in France and, despite the can-do spirit, many people felt achieving this was effectively impossible. Conventional wisdom says we are…
Fake Taylor Swift Quotes Are Being Used to Spread Anti-Ukraine Propaganda
The second site pushed by Doppelganger bots targeted Germans. In October 2022, an investigation by the German newspaper Die Welt found that the author of content on the EuroBRICS site was being paid directly by InfoRos, which is registered as the operator of the EuroBRICs website by the German domain registrar. Many of the same…
The 13 best new science fiction books of 2023
This year’s sci-fi spans many genres, and is often tinged with noir Artur Debat/Getty Images OUT of ideas for a gift? However your friends or family see life, you can be sure that this year’s crop of science fiction contains a gift (or even a gift set) that will confirm their world view. The pessimist in…
Women Buy More Cars, So Why Are the Designs So Macho?
Building design elements into cars that make sense for dogs and kids and groceries isn’t sexist, or buying into a stereotype—it’s a nod to the invisible labor women do every day, regardless of whether they work full-time, stay home, or something in between. And, incidentally, plenty of men do that labor, too, and might appreciate…
How to perfectly wrap gifts of all shapes and sizes using maths
WRAPPING gifts in paper involves converting a 2D shape into a 3D one, which presents plenty of geometrical challenges. Mathematics can help with this, in particular by making sure that you are using just the right amount of paper, with no wastage. When you are dealing with a box-shaped gift, you might already wrap the…
QR codes can be phishing scams in disguise, warns the FTC
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warned the public against scanning any old QR code in a consumer alerts blog last week. Naturally, the warning comes down to security and privacy — bad actors can put QR codes in inconspicuous places or send them via text or email, then just sit back and wait for a…
Picturing life in the dust bowl remains of the once mighty Aral Sea
A portrait of a lone fisherman catching Artemia (a primitive arthropod also known as brine shrimp) Kristina Varaksina ONCE the fourth-largest freshwater lake in the world, the Aral Sea has now shrunk from 68,000 square kilometres to just 10 per cent of its former size. Photographer Kristina Varaksina travelled to the Republic of Karakalpakstan, an…
26 Gifts Teens May Actually Like
Teenagers are intimidating. They speak their own language, blurt out confusing jokes, and somehow have always already seen the TikToks you send them. It can be hard to keep up with the absolute coolest kids around, and that’s especially true when it comes to holiday gift-giving. For the past few years, we’ve informally polled some…
Governments must stay in it for the long haul on long covid research
Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto/Shutterstock IT HAS been nearly four years since the covid-19 pandemic began, and many of us would love to forget all about it. But there are millions for whom that is impossible. For them, covid-19 still looms large due to lingering symptoms that remain months, even years, after the initial infection. Thankfully, interest…