In December last year, the UK’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, visited Singapore General Hospital, regarded as one of the best in the world. What he witnessed there surprised him: “Patients arrive having already registered their appointments via an app. They check in on touchscreen kiosks awaiting them at reception. …
Read More »Hurricane Beryl Isn’t a Freak Storm—It’s the Exact Nightmare Meteorologists Predicted
Hurricane Beryl’s record-shattering intensification into a scale-topping Category 5 storm has stunned even the most seasoned experts. This storm is the nightmare scenario that meteorologists were worried about heading into the 2024 hurricane season. All the warning indicators were blinking red in the weeks and months leading up to Beryl’s …
Read More »Sexist Myths Are a Danger to Health
In 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration made an unprecedented recommendation, advising that women should receive a lower dosage of the insomnia drug zolpidem than men. The rationale behind it was that medication seemed to affect women for longer periods, which could become a safety issue. However, in 2019, …
Read More »The Hunt for the Most Efficient Heat Pump in the World
Outside a 100-year-old house on the edge of the Peak District in northern England, a heat pump’s fan blades are swiftly spinning. They’re drawing outdoor air over coils of refrigerant, harvesting warmth from that air. All air-source heat pumps do this—and they can glean heat even on cold days. But …
Read More »Not Everyone Loses Weight on Ozempic
Danielle Rosas had tried all the usual avenues to lose weight—modifying her diet, increasing her exercise—but the weight always came back. In 2020, she turned to Ozempic. She was 225 pounds at the time. “My weight has fluctuated a lot throughout my adulthood,” says Rosas, now 36. After three months …
Read More »Leading Lab-Grown Meat Company Cuts Dozens of Jobs
Cultivated meat firm Upside Foods has cut its workforce as the industry continues to struggle with bans from legislators and a significant downturn in venture capital funding. In an email sent to employees, Upside CEO Uma Valeti wrote that 26 people would leave the company and that executive and leadership …
Read More »Climate Change Has Fried Earth So Badly Trees Won’t Save You Today—But I Will
The deadliest environmental threat to city dwellers worldwide isn’t earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, or fire. It’s heat. By June this year, more than 1.5 billion people had spent a day in life-threatening temperatures above 103 degrees Fahrenheit, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. In Phoenix, Arizona, where almost 400 …
Read More »Cryptographers Are Discovering New Rules for Quantum Encryption
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Say you want to send a private message, cast a secret vote, or sign a document securely. If you do any of these tasks on a computer, you’re relying on encryption to keep your data safe. That encryption needs to …
Read More »Extreme Hail Storms Are Wrecking Solar Farms—but Defending Them May Be Easier Than It Seems
This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When a baseball-sized hailstone slams into a solar panel at more than 90 mph, the result is not pretty. We saw this in March, when a hailstorm decimated parts of the 350-MW Fighting Jays …
Read More »The US Wants to Integrate the Commercial Space Industry With Its Military to Prevent Cyber Attacks
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The US military recently launched a groundbreaking initiative to strengthen ties with the commercial space industry. The aim is to integrate commercial equipment into military space operations, including satellites and other hardware. This would enhance cybersecurity for military …
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