Seas rage and the land grows weak. Pollutants cake the air. Fires, droughts, and outbreaks surge with a kind of unsympathetic wildness. The very earth oozes an irreversible, clotting heat. It’s agitated, ailing, and on the brink of complete and ineluctable devastation. From this hellish man-made calamity, one voice ruptures the breach. Sometimes, one voice…

The mantis shrimp is one of evolution's greatest hits—literally. This pugnacious crustacean (not technically a shrimp) cocks back its hammer-limbs and smashes prey with such ferocity, a shockwave blows the claws clean off crabs and crumples clamshells like they were papier-mâché. Really, there isn't much on the tropical seafloor that the mantis shrimp can't destroy…

By most accounts the Nike Pro Women's Hijab has been a success. Launched in December 2017 and targeting female Muslim athletes, the lightweight headpiece has been worn by German boxer Zeina Nassar, American fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, and Emirati figure skater Zahra Lari, all of whom fed into Nike's prototypes. The $35 sports hijab remains popular,…

This story originally appeared on The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.Executives at one of the world’s largest utilities companies knew that families in Flint, Michigan, might be at risk of being poisoned by lead in their tap water months before the city publicly admitted the problem, according to internal company emails.Email…

More than 13,000 artificial intelligence mavens flocked to Vancouver this week for the world’s leading academic AI conference, NeurIPS. The venue included a maze of colorful corporate booths aiming to lure recruits for projects like software that plays doctor. Google handed out free luggage scales and socks depicting the colorful bikes employees ride on its…

For the last 20 years, the future of nuclear power has stood in a high bay laboratory tucked away on the Oregon State University campus in the western part of the state. Operated by NuScale Power, an Oregon-based energy startup, this prototype reactor represents a new chapter in the conflict-ridden, politically bedeviled saga of nuclear…

Amid the tense debate over online political advertising, it may seem strange to worry that Facebook gives campaigns too little control over whom their ads target. Yet that’s the implication of a study released this week by a team of researchers at Northeastern University, the University of Southern California, and the progressive nonprofit Upturn. By…

Xavier Blanco was anxious for change. When I spoke with the 32-year-old New Yorker last week, curious about his motivations for joining OnlyFans after a decade working in a more buttoned-up line of business, he put it plainly, explaining he “needed an outlet for the other parts of me.” Blanco officially joined the subscription platform…

Amazon Alexa can now play podcasts from Apple, making Amazon’s line of Echo devices the first third-party clients to support the Apple Podcasts service without using AirPlay. Before, this level…

As the holiday slowdown looms, the final U.S.-listed technology IPOs have come in and begun to trade. Three tech, tech-ish or venture-backed companies went public this week: Bill.com, Sprout Social…