The case for robot umpires in baseball got some new interest this week — especially for Silicon Valley’s baseball fans. As America settled in to watch the final inning of this year’s National League Division Series, the Washington Post reports that (human) viewers saw a (human) umpire “call a third Read more…
The Los Angeles Times reports that homemade (usually 3D-printed) “ghost guns” have contributed to more than 100 violent crimes this year, according to a report released Friday by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).” Detectives have linked the untraceable weapons to 24 killings, eight attempted homicides and dozens of assaults Read more…
Even before the launch, President Bukele’s push for Bitcoin was not popular at home or abroad. The IMF refused to help fund the rollout, warning of “macroeconomic, financial, and legal issues.” And Salvadorians took to the streets to protest the Bitcoin project before and after the launch. One Central American Read more…
Less than a month ago Bitcoin’s price was $40,683. Last night it reached $61,369 — a gain of more than 50% in just 24 days. CNN attributes the October surge to “hopes that the Securities and Exchange Commission will soon approve a bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund.” Bitcoin prices, which rose Read more…
Even as the Covid-19 pandemic forced companies around the world to reimagine the workplace, researchers in Iceland were already conducting two trials of a shorter work week that involved about 2,500 workers — more than 1% of the country’s working population. They found that the experiment was an “overwhelming success” Read more…
The dwindling populations of the American bumblebee and their complete disappearance from eight states has led to a call for the bee to be placed under the Endangered Species Act before they face extinction. Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon each have zero or Read more…
The world’s first drone delivery of lungs has gone down in history as a success. Unither Bioelectronique, a bioengineering firm focused on organ transportation, recently completed a “proof-of-concept” flight in which a pair of human lungs were shipped via drone to the transplant site in about six minutes. The lungs Read more…