Author: quannd
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emailsSeveral people were injured in a shooting at a primary school in Finland early on Tuesday, Finnish police said in a statement.Authorities responded to the incident at the Viertola school in Vantaa, a suburb to the capital Helsinki, shortly after 9am local time.Police are urging people nearby the school, which has around 800 students from first to ninth grade, to stay indoors.“Police are at the scene investigating the incident. Bystanders are asked to stay away…
Imagine a person’s face. Now imagine that whenever you looked at that face, there was a chance it would appear distorted. That’s what life is like for a person with prosopometamorphopsia, or PMO. Now, thanks to a new study, you can see through the eyes of someone with this rare condition. Relying on feedback from a 58-year-old man who has had PMO for nearly three years, researchers at Dartmouth College altered photos of faces to mimic the “demonic” distortions he experienced. This is believed to be the first time that images have been created to so closely replicate what a…
It’s still early, but the weather maps for next Monday’s total solar eclipse path across the United States favor cloudy skies along the majority of the path. Solar eclipse path April 8NASAThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s latest Global Forecast System model run (see the top of this post) shows cloud cover across most of the eclipse path in the U.S. The best chance for clear skies appears to favor the northeast U.S. Monday afternoon next week. In the Twin Cities, we’ll have an eclipse where the moon covers about 74 percent of the sun.The eclipse peaks at 2:02 p.m.…
The Eye of the Sahara, also known as the Richat Structure and the Eye of Africa, is a geological feature in the Sahara Desert’s Adrar Plateau, located in west–central Islamic Republic of Mauritania. The structure is an eroded elliptical dome of sedimentary rock, that ranges in age from the Proterozoic (2500 to 538.8 million years ago) within the centre, to Ordovician (488.3 to 443.7 million years ago) sandstone around its periphery. The dome has a diameter of 40 kilometres (25 mi), with an interior comprised of intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks, including rhyolitic volcanic rocks, gabbros, carbonatites and kimberlites. The…
General Motors has filed a patent application for battery cells with unusual shapes designed to aid cooling. Instead of the rectangular shape of the automaker’s current Ultium cells, the patent application, first spotted by Motor1, discusses Lego-shapes that leave channels when the cells are assembled into modules. These channels could be used for cooling, helping to extend battery life, GM claims in the application. The idea seems to be that cool air will flow directly onto a larger surface area compared to current GM Ultium modules, in which a cooling plate is placed underneath a solid mass of cells. A…
For desert ants, Earth’s magnetic field isn’t just a compass: It may also sculpt their brains. Stepping outside their nest for the first time, young ants need to learn how to forage. The ants train partly by walking a loop near their nests for the first three days. During this stroll, they repeatedly pause and then pirouette to gaze back at the nest entrance, learning how to find their way back home. But when the magnetic field around the nest entrance was disturbed, ant apprentices couldn’t figure out where to look, often gazing in random directions, researchers report in the…
Apple has patented a modular battery system for phones and computers.It would standardize user-swappable batteries—kinda.The main problem with non-removable batteries is one of repairability, not convenience. Removing swappable laptop battery. Tomasz Majchrowicz / Getty Images Apple has designed a modular battery that can be swapped between devices, and of course, it is a typically slick Apple idea. There is currently no Apple device that has a user-removable battery. You can sometimes get to them with the right tools (iPhone, Mac), and sometimes not (Air Pods Pro). But Apple’s new patent introduces a modular, standardized battery that could be swapped between…
Now you can chat with an AI chatbot without having to create an account before you do it. Been a little worried about providing your personal information to create an account so you can chat with ChatGPT? No worries, OpenAI is taking that barrier to use away. In a blog post today, OpenAI announced that it’s making ChatGPT free to use to everyone, without the need to sign up for an account. The company said it wants ‘to make AI accessible to anyone curious about its capabilities.” That doesn’t apply to other types of paid OpenAI accounts (premium ChatGPT account,…
The one-off 1964 Pontiac Banshee coupe concept is once again for sale, this time in a listing at Hemmings. The asking price is a cool $1.2 million. The Banshee was an early attempt by General Motors to counter the Ford Mustang. Known internally as the XP-833, it was the brainchild of John Z. DeLorean, who was head of Pontiac at the time. More sports car than pony car, it featured sleek fiberglass bodywork that resembles the later C3 Chevrolet Corvette and Opel GT. Instead of a bespoke sports-car platform, though, the Banshee borrowed mechanical hardware from the first-generation Pontiac Tempest.…
More than halfway through the current two-year Congress, the “lawmakers” there bring to mind the old schoolyard quip about slacker students: They’re really good at recess.This pre-Easter week is the first of two that the House and Senate are taking off, though it seems like only yesterday they recessed for two weeks to mark Presidents Day. Lucky for them, members of Congress get recesses regardless of how well they perform — just like kids in elementary school. And they haven’t been performing well at all, which explains the quotation marks above: The “lawmakers” aren’t doing much law-making. Opinion Columnist Jackie…