One of the world’s greatest museums has a special permanent collection that receives constant care and attention though it is never officially on display. It’s a gaggle of cats—70 to be precise—first invited by the Russian Queen Elizabeth Petrovna in the 18th century to murder mice in her Saint Petersburg castle.
Derrick Watson, a judge for the US District Court for the District of Hawaii, issued a temporary restraining order on March 15 barring the Trump administration from blocking the US entry of travelers from six majority-Muslim countries.
For those averse to numbers, math may not seem like much of a muse. But an artist who wasn’t a good math student in school is proving in painting that figures needn’t be intimidating. They can be inspiring, easy, and pleasing to the eye.
You probably first met pi—the number used to calculate the circumference of a circle—when you were in school. If you aren’t mathematically inclined, you probably haven’t thought about it since then. But pi has practical applications for everyone as a real tool to better understand the universe and life itself. Without doing a lick of math.
Usually when people worry about machines and work, they are concerned that automation will take away their livelihoods, not their lives. But a new lawsuit claiming a rogue robot is responsible for killing a human colleague reveals additional nightmarish possibilities.
A year ago today—on March 13, 2016—the British Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), asked the public to help it name a new ship. The web responded enthusiastically, hundreds of thousands of people voted, and there were 32,000 suggested names, some more dignified than others.
For years scientists considered humpback whales to be some of nature’s biggest loners. That is, until observers started spotting throngs of these creatures hanging out in supergroups and feeding frantically en masse. It turns out that humpback whales, like humans, enjoy eating at parties.
Ask not what you can do for your country but what you can do for yourself.
Wild boars are tough and scary animals—mean, omnivorous, highly adaptable, and prone to charge when enraged. In Japan, they have also taken on a new nuclear twist… and taken over towns.
We all know we’re supposed to stop and smell the proverbial roses, to just take a moment to appreciate simple things. But when you’re busy trying to survive it’s easy to forget.
There is one source of marijuana for clinical researchers in the US. Ironically, it belongs to the federal government, which classifies cannabis as a Schedule 1 substance with no medical use and high potential for abuse.
The Azure Window, a limestone arch on Gozo island in Malta, crumbled into the Mediterranean Sea after heavy storms this morning (March 8). It was not only a national landmark but beloved worldwide, the setting for dramatic scenes in film and TV, most recently in Game of Thrones.
If you look closely, the US government doesn’t seem as intent on thwarting marijuana development as the rhetoric espoused by some politicians would have you believe. In fact, cannabis seems to be slowly but surely gaining legitimacy, even in federal government circles, despite its Drug Enforcement Administration classification as a schedule 1 substance with no medical use.
Much of what intelligence agents do is no doubt quite gruesome, but a collection of tips from CIA declassified documents shows that the sinister business of spying can seem cute, too, especially in retrospect.
Amicus curiae briefs from interested outside parties—the Latin words mean “friends of the court”—inform appellate judges about what’s at stake in a case. But they also serve another, more subtle purpose, working as a public relations tool for corporations.
Coffee and cigarettes are the classic duo. But in 2017, in many parts of the world, smoking a joint and drinking a cup of joe is seen as a healthier combo. But if you want to streamline your daily intake, there’s a new, bottled cold-brewed blend that mixes artisanal java and marijuana for fancy caffeination and a smoke-free high.
Time travel is possible, in a way. Astrophysicists are about to make the sci-fi fantasy a reality using a giant infrared telescope that can peer at star formations 13 billion light years away, seeing them just like they were that many years ago, and illuminating the recipe for the soup that is the universe.
Languages need advocates: people who speak up for them and get others interested in speaking them. ”Each new course we add to our platform is made because someone pushed for it,” says Luis Von Ahn, founder of the language learning app, Duolingo.
During oral arguments this week in a case before the US Supreme Court, the justices mostly seemed to agree that access to social media is worthy of constitutional protection.
As part of a bold effort at bail reform, the state of New Jersey replaced bail hearings with algorithmically informed risk assessments this year. Anyone’s eligible for release, no money down, if they meet certain criteria. To ensure unbiased, scientific decisions, judges use a machine-generated score.
Lompico is the rough jewel of Santa Cruz, California—high in the mountains and deep in the redwood forest, population 1,140. Weather providing, it takes less than an hour to get here from Silicon Valley, where technologists are hard at work designing our brave new world.
Death is different, according to the US Supreme Court.
Marijuana is transforming into the darling of daring investors, and the nascent legal weed industry is excited about the prospects for profits. But there are many risks to investing in this tricky business. Canopy Growth, a Canadian cannabis holding company, is representative of the hope and potential woes that go with buying stock in an industry still negotiating existence.
Back in the day, British kings claimed that God chose them for the throne, and no one could remove them… at least not legally. So in 1787, at a convention in Philadelphia, the framers of the US Constitution debated whether American law should include a process for removing presidents who had “rendered themselves obnoxious,” in Benjamin Franklin’s words.
