CDC says asymptomatic people should get tested for COVID-19 after all

Photo by Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today that individuals who don’t have coronavirus symptoms should get tested, reversing guidance that stirred controversy last month. The reversal follows a report published yesterday by The New York Times which revealed that the initial...

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Tropical Storm Wilfred broke a record as soon as it formed

Satellite imagery of the Atlantic Oceean | Image: NOAA The record-shattering 2020 Atlantic hurricane season just ran out of storm names. A storm that developed in the eastern Atlantic on September 18th was just named Wilfred, the last name on the World Meteorological Organization’s list. With plenty of hurricane season left, any other storms that...

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Lego finally realizes it doesn’t need to use plastic to package its tiny plastic bricks

Image: Lego If you ever purchased a Lego set, you’ll know the box comes with an uncomfortable amount of plastic bags to separate each set of pieces included. Personally, I felt it was way too much plastic for just one product, and it’s nice to now see Lego has finally come to its senses: the company plans to ditch the single-use packaging starting...

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Woman dies during a ransomware attack on a German hospital

A woman in Germany died during a ransomware attack on the Duesseldorf University Hospital, in what may be the first death directly linked to a cyberattack on a hospital. The hospital couldn’t accept emergency patients because of the attack, and the woman was sent to a health care facility around 20 miles away, the Associated Press reported. The cyberattack...

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Production company aims to film space reality TV show, with the winner flying to orbit

Image: NASA A US production company is planning to produce a reality TV show competition, where the winner will receive a trip to the International Space Station as the ultimate prize, Deadline reports. The plan is yet another way to capitalize on the newly developed private human spacecraft, from SpaceX and Boeing, that are opening up ways for...

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Amazon’s first round of climate pledge funding will tackle battery waste and EVs

Amazon van with prime logo in a logistic centre. | Photo by Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images In its first round of funding from its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund, Amazon is investing in the battery and e-waste recycling company led by former Tesla executive JB Straubel, along with four other companies. It’s not clear how much money...

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What the future of Venus exploration could look like following major discovery

With the recent discovery of a possible sign of life on Venus, it’s possible we could see a new surge of missions headed to the cloudy world in the future. Those next-generation robotic explorers may need to take extra precautions than Venusian explorers of the past. Numerous missions to Venus have been proposed throughout the years, but few have actually...

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Please do not use a live snake as your face mask

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Over the last several months, I have seen a great many comparisons of fabrics that can be used to construct homemade face masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, but I have not seen anyone discuss the use of live snakes. I assume it is because of this crucial omission that a man boarded a UK bus using...

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Cheaper air quality sensors arrived just in time for the climate catastrophe

A man crosses a street in downtown Portland, Oregon where air quality due to smoke from wildfires was measured to be amongst the worst in the world, September 14, 2020. | Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images It’s gotten a lot easier for anyone to track wildfire smoke and air pollution  Continue reading…

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Many states aren’t reporting rapid COVID-19 test results

Photo by Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Over 20 states aren’t including results from a type of rapid COVID-19 test in their overall case numbers, according to a survey by Kaiser Health News (KHN). The federal government is sending millions of these types of tests all around the country in an effort to keep up with the pandemic....

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