Gadgets & Tech – Spoken Edition

If you’re a history buff, you might not know much particle physics. But the two fields share more in common than you’d think. X-rays from a high-energy lab have revealed ancient Greek medical texts that had been stripped and covered with religious writing. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have long been using high-powered x-rays at their Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) to analyze ancient texts.

In a speech to military personnel in San Diego bookended by digs at former political opponent Hillary Clinton and the media, President Trump proposed a new branch of the armed forces, which he offhandedly named the “space force.” “My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” said Trump. “We may even have a ‘space force’—develop another one—space force. We have the Air Force.

It was a black tie evening of glamour, champagne toasts, and lizard flesh at the annual Explorers Club dinner gala this weekend, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was one of the guests of honor. The Explorers Club has been promoting scientific inquiry and adventure for over 100 years and it regularly meets to hand out awards to astronauts, physicists, anthropologists and other pioneers.

You’re looking at an image of an enormous ring of debris, 237 light years away from Earth, orbitinga long-studied, young star called HR 4796A. While the bright white ring of debris may be the most visually striking part of the image, astronomers are more excited about what’s around it: the much larger, less-concentrated area of dust around it. Scientists have long known about the dust and ring surrounding the star.

Let’s be clear, when I say the MacBook has an annoying problem I’m not talking about the paltry number of Thunderbolt ports, the lack of an SD card slot, or the fact that they’re priced way too high for such pitiful processors. The most annoying problem with the MacBook and the MacBook Pro is that the keyboard on each can be brought to their knees by a god dang crumb.

I hope you aren’t making nuclear weapons in your garage. If you are, your bricks know what you’re doing. Researchers have long studied retrospective dosimetry—looking at what kind of radiation was present in a room based on the signature left over in the environment. Frequently, this requires lots of treatment and work.

The life of a president after permanently leaving the White House typically involves charity work, paid speeches, and maybe a little painting. But former President Barack Obama could add a new job to the mix: Media powerhouse. According to multiple news outlets, Obama is in formal talks to produce a series for Netflix that will “highlight inspirational stories.” And while the format hasn’t yet been decided upon, each show could have a different angle and vibe.

On Sunday morning, someone took 13 tortoises, seven birds, seven ring-tailed lemurs, five marmosets, and four monkeys from the We Care Wildlife Sanctuary in Miami, loaded all the animals into a truck, and drove off. The heist occurred shortly after a fake ad impersonating the sanctuary was posted on Craigslist. “Free exotic animals. We’re a sanctuary going out of business. Go around back and help yourself,” read the ad, according to a report from The Guardian.

Your skin cells are constantly regenerating, so how is it that a tattoo can last for decades? Fascinating new research from France sheds new light on how this works: Your skin cells soak up the pigment, then release it when they die for other cells to pick up. This cycle continues ad infinitum—the circle of tattooed life. In the research, published this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, scientists tattooed the tails of mice.

When Microsoft introduced Windows 10S last year, I was deeply concerned. If you didn’t think too hard about it, it kind of sounded like a good idea: a lightweight version of regular Windows 10, designed for systems without a ton horsepower, and a potentially competitive alternative to affordable Chromebooks, which have become a big hit and in the education market. Sounds OK so far, right? But the downsides really add up.