Two foods are left out on the counter – fresh tomatoes and a bowl of sugar. Within a week or so, one will develop black spots and the other remains pristine, albeit perhaps a little clumpy depending on the humidity of the air. But why? Read more…
Continue Reading:
Why Sugar Doesn’t Spoil
We’ve all received that email at least once before. A kind prince/princess/spambot in Nigeria has millions of dollars, and better yet, they want to split it with you . Just hand over your social security code and wait for them to arrive on American soil. As the above newspaper clipping shows, these types of scams were going on even before email came around—in this case, as early as 1876. Read more…
A bug in the service that delivers Google ads to thousands of websites went down this morning, producing acres of blank pixels where banner ads once resided . It was a little ad-vacation. Read more…
Losing your hearing can be a frighteningly isolating experience. But instead of trying to replace the audible landscape he began losing at age 20, science writer Frank Swain decided to find a way to listen in on something humans can’t hear: the hum of Wi-Fi all around us. Read more…
Live in a Microsoft bubble? Then you might be able to make good use of its new Work & Play Bundle, which wraps up all its subscription services in one place for $200 a year. Read more…
Amazon Studios just announced its next slate of television pilots, which will debut sometime in early 2015. Once they’re released, feedback will help decide whether Amazon will order them to series, the same as previous pilot rounds . Read more…
Even when the elderly are being tended to by a caregiver, it’s almost impossible to keep an eye on them 100 percent of the time. So a Japanese company has developed a pair of LED light bulbs featuring built-in laser-based radar to track the movements of someone in its vicinity, and automatically send alerts when they have fallen or suddenly stopped moving. Read more…
Listen to it! That’s Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko singing. This cosmic song was just discovered by the European Space Agency, which released the soundtrack for our enjoyment. It’s totally new and unexpected, say the scientists who will remotely land a probe on the rocky surface of the comet tomorrow. Read more…
Here’s a fun but depressing Saturday afternoon fact: taking and sharing photos of the Eiffel tower at night is a copyright violation that could land you with a hefty fine (not that it’s stopped the selfie-snapping masses, of course). Read more…