Experiment

MUNICH, Germany — Maybe you buy the 9-Euro-Ticket to travel from Saxony to Bavaria to go to the Helene Fischer concert in Munich. Maybe you buy it to go hiking, taking the train on summer weekends to villages outside Munich. Or maybe you buy it because you’re an American journalist, but also a little bit of a tourist, used to paying $2.75 to wait 15 minutes for a crowded Brooklyn Q train, like me. Because, really, why not buy it? For 9 euros a month for June, July, August, passengers could buy one ticket to travel…

A screenshot from the Inoculation Science video explaining Emotional Language use in misinformation. Credit: Inoculation Science Short animations giving viewers a taste of the tactics behind misinformation can help to inoculate people against harmful content on social media when deployed in YouTube's advert slot, according to a major online experiment led by the University of Cambridge.…

Our memory tends to get worse as we age, and with a global population that's rapidly skewing older, that's something that scientists are trying to address – to keep us fully functioning for longer and to ward off dementia and diseases such as Alzheimer's.A new study suggests that mild, non-invasive electrical stimulation, applied through a cap with electrodes attached, could be enough to combat the effects of getting older and keep our memory circuits in a better and more robust shape.Technically, it's known as…

For many Indian motorcycle riders, a horn is the most used thing in a motorcycle. Unfortunately, a motorcycle horn is majorly used in India for unnecessarily honking, even at a traffic signal. The continuous honking of a motorcycle horn by Indians is a classic example of a lack of patience. However, some motorcycle riders also use a motorcycle horn to gain attention while on the road. Here’s one such person who has installed not one, not two, but hundred horns in his motorcycle. In an Instagram post uploaded by the…

Two atoms inflated to an almost comical size and cooled to a fraction above absolute zero have been used to generate a robust, insanely fast two-qubit quantum gate that could help overcome some of quantum computing's persistent challenges.  Since a two-qubit gate is the fundamental building block of efficient quantum computers, this breakthrough has huge implications. It could lead to a new type of quantum computer architecture that breaks through current limitations for noise-free quantum operations.Qubit is a…

Cue the Jurassic Park theme song: Scientists in Switzerland appear to have pulled off a remarkable feat, creating sterile and seemingly healthy mice that can produce the sperm cells of a rat. These rodent chimeras weren’t able to make viable rat offspring, but the work could lead to a new method of preserving species on the brink of extinction, the team says.Scientists routinely modify the genetics of animals in the lab to conduct various experiments, even to the point of breeding mice with cells or organs that closely…

YouTube has a program where you can test out new and experimental features before other people for a limited time. It’s an interesting perk, and there’s a new one. For a limited time, you can pinch and zoom into YouTube videos freely.Right now, you can zoom into videos (well, sorta). You can pinch and have the picture fill the phone’s display. This came with the rise of phones with taller aspect ratios. You could pinch to get a bit of a closer look at objects as well, but that’s only a minor zoom-in.YouTube experiment…

It was the shot heard around the world – or at least around the corridors of social media. This week, Warner Bros put a bullet through the head of Batgirl, cancelling the film’s release when it was approaching completion. It was a decision without any real precedent. Almost $100m had been poured into production already; filming was completed. Michael Keaton was set to reprise the role of Batman for the first time in 30 years. Warner Bros attributed the decision to shelve it to a “strategic shift” by leadership; the pivot…

In mammals, blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body's organs and cells. But if blood flow stops, these cells will quickly die and organs are injured.This death can be slowed in organs and tissues removed from the body, buying time for organ transplantation. However, preserving entire organ systems minutes after the heart stops pumping can be a challenge.  Existing methods include what's known as an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation system (ECMO), which pumps blood into a machine that removes carbon dioxide from…

In her introduction to Toni Morrison’s short story, Zadie Smith offers insight into the Nobel prize-winning author’s intentions. Recitatif, Smith explains, was planned by Morrison as “an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial”. In telling the tale of Twyla and Roberta, who meet as eight-year-old roommates in an orphanage, Morrison never reveals which girl is Black and which is white, an omission that forces us to confront…