It does make several enormous assumptions about the future that now seem perilously flaky.

Up until now mask-wearing had only been an unenforced suggestion by the company.

Big Tech is coming for your transaction data.

As a very ugly standoff develops between legacy cinemas and legacy studios, Disney appears to be playing its cards close to its chest.

While this experiment may sound odd, it could represent the start of a whole new field of research.

X-37B? Sorry, I thought you said your name was X Æ A-12.

Alison Roman’s latest comments about Marie Kondo have not sparked joy.

In an interview with The New Consumer about her increased popularity and the avenues she might pursue to capitalize on it, the popular food columnist discussed her hesitance to put her name on a product line—citing the Japanese organization maven and Chrissy Teigen as examples of what she did not foresee in her own future.

“I have a collaboration coming out with [the cookware startup] Material, a capsule collection,” Roman said. “It’s limited edition, a few tools that I designed that are based on tools that I use that aren’t in production anywhere—vintage spoons and very specific things that are one-offs that I found at antique markets that they have made for me.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Roy “Captain Roy D” Davis has devoted much of the last three years to the QAnon conspiracy theory, writing books pitching the concept to new fans and getting his car repainted with an enormous “Q” on the hood. Through it all, he’s been utterly convinced that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn—a central figure to much of the Q community—was the victim of an anti-Trump cabal orchestrated by the leaders of the deep state. He corresponded with other Flynn supporters following his legal case, and donated proceeds from one of his books to Flynn’s legal fund. 

So when Davis saw on Thursday that the Justice Department would drop its charges against Flynn for lying to the FBI, Davis was euphoric.

“He’s a hero of mine,” Davis said. “I wouldn’t do all of these things just out of the blue.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Just after the prosecutor assigned to the case resigned on Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that it dropped the charges against Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor who’d already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. 

President Trump forecast this before it happened. Last week, he insisted that Flynn had been exonerated.  Apparently referring to his pardon power, Trump suggested that if the court did not do something he would use “a different kind of power.”

And now it’s happened. While the president has the broad power to pardon, he should not control individual prosecutorial decisions, especially those concerning a political ally. It is extremely unusual for the government to dismiss charges after a guilty plea. This is a sign that the historic independence of the Justice Department has been compromised. 

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Adele posted a message to her social media channels this week thanking those on the front lines fighting COVID-19. In the process, the celebrated singer unveiled a thinner frame—and the internet had a lot of thoughts about it, almost all trash.

Enter Bill Maher, noted #MeToo skeptic, with perhaps the most garbage take of them all.

On Friday night, during the interview portion of his HBO show Real Time, the comedian began by placing the bulk of the blame for the high amount of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. compared to other countries on America’s obesity problem—not, say, the fact that the Trump administration didn’t do a single thing during the month of February to contain the spread of the virus.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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“HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.” 

That’s how epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding began a since-deleted 14-tweet thread on Jan. 25 warning about the “thermonuclear pandemic level bad” infectiousness of the coronavirus that broke out in Wuhan, China.

The first confirmed U.S. case had been announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) days earlier outside Seattle. But the disease was not widely understood to be a potentially nightmarish pandemic. Many infectious disease experts had been ignored despite warning for years that the U.S. was not prepared for a seemingly inevitable health crisis. Feigl-Ding, a visiting scientist at Harvard’s Department of Nutrition, wanted to help ensure their message was heard.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Being at home this long, or really, just in one place for this long, has led me to see how much waste I produce. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot more than I thought. But I’m not here to shame anyone, in fact, quite the opposite. I think there are plenty of small ways we can cut down our carbon footprint, from driving less (check), to not using a washing machine or dryer (also, sadly, check), but gardening is what I’ve been doing, and is something that I’d recommend everyone give a shot now that we all have a little more times on our hands.

GETTING STARTED

Composting is a natural way to recycle all of the organic materials in your house through decomposition. Compost can improve your soil’s water retention, which saves you money on your water bills, and helps keep excess garbage out of landfills, too. To get started you need two things. The first is a compost bin for your kitchen. This is great whether you want to start a compost at home or if you have a compost center you can bring them to. You want something sleek, designy, yet simple because after all, it’s really just a trash can. This is an excellent one.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

THE CORONAVIRUS lockdown is now causing serious damage to the UK's economy, Tory MP Steve Baker has warned - stressing he was now "gravely concerned" at the situation

CORONAVIRUS has forced people to re-evaluate their finances as income takes a hit and budgets are stretched. One of the first port of calls for change has been direct debits and new research reveals that some people may find themselves with more cash available once this all ends.

APRIL saw 20.5 million job losses in the United States, the biggest rise in the jobless rate since the Great Depression.

Huge constellations of satellites like SpaceX’s Starlink could make ground-based astronomy impossible, and we’re running out of time to deal with the problem

A strange supernova that’s 100 times brighter than it should be has long been a mystery, but it may be explained by the explosion slamming into a cloud of gas

Astronomers have spotted a star that is exploding with a brightness 100 times less than expected – and it’s a mystery exactly why the explosion is so dim

The International Astronomical Union has concluded a review of satellite mega constellations such as SpaceX's Starlink satellites and found they will have a major impact on large telescopes, but not naked eye astronomy

There’s nothing like crash-landing on an alien planet. Journey to the Savage Planet doesn't always get it right, but it has echoes of classic Metroid Prime, says Jacob Aron

A huge black hole in a distant galaxy caused the largest explosion we have ever seen, with the energy of 10 billion suns – and it isn't clear why it was so big

In the early universe, particles called neutrinos had a starring role in determining where galaxy clusters formed and which elements were created when stars exploded

Proxima Centauri b, a planet orbiting our nearest stellar neighbour, is being blasted with cosmic rays and solar flares – which could make it warm enough to host life

A tiny meteorite found in Antarctica doesn’t match any asteroid or comet we know of. Instead, it must have come from a mystery parent body that’s full of water

An explosion 4.6 billion light years away has released 10 times more energy than the sun will put out in its lifetime, making it the most extreme supernova ever found

Strange orbits of distant space rocks have been used to infer that the solar system has an unseen ninth planet, but those orbits may be less strange than we thought, meaning there is no need for a new planet

The coronavirus pandemic is making life feel slower than ever, but observing timescales across the universe can bring us some comfort, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Extraterrestrial oceans are an obvious place to search for alien life, but getting there and having a look won't be easy, says NASA's Kevin Hand in his book Alien Oceans

Astronomers found a star that appeared to be orbiting nothing at all – but it’s actually the closest black hole ever at just 1000 light years away

The country faces the same problem today it did two months ago: There are not enough tests to contain the virus.

Skybot F-850 will spend a week on the ISS charming astronauts with its sense of humor

Startup Cerebras has built a wafer-size chip for AI, but it isn’t the only one possible

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

Beam now belongs to a Danish robot venture factory

It'll take more than having its fingers chopped off to stop this robot hand

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

Job postings from a NASA contractor suggest that a new humanoid robot is under development

For the first time, NASA's Astrobee robot has demonstrated autonomous free flight in space

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This cozy little box provides a remote home for Skydio's fully autonomous obstacle-avoiding drone

Experts representing a diversity of views on autonomous weapons systems collaborate on a realistic policy roadmap

Spacecraft propulsion systems are ready for China’s daring touchdown attempt on the red planet

Shannon's said: “OCRO HLI RGWR NMIELWIS”

This robot dog can scale ladders that a real dog would struggle with

The fastest, safest, and most exciting way to launch a quadrotor may be ballistically

Experts discuss technological inequality and the “reskilling” problem at an MIT conference

The SnotBot project uses drones, data, and deep learning to tell us about the health of whales and the oceans