Science, Spoken

Find yourself adrift at sea, surrounded by undrinkable water, and you will parch to death. Find yourself lost in a desert and you will meet the same fate, also surrounded by water, also undrinkable. That’s because, even in the driest of lands, the air is loaded with water molecules—they just won’t do you any good. Devices exist that can pull that water out of the air and convert it into liquid, but they are bulky and use a lot of energy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

What happens when you see bad physics in the world? Does it make you angry? Does it make you laugh? Do you have to hold back a tidal wave of "well, actuallys" because of the overwhelming wrongness? Some might feel that way, but I think about it a little differently. In my mind, there are different categories of incorrect physics—and I deal with each one with its own particular strategy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For 10 years, Andre Igoudala slept terribly. Back in college, the Golden State Warriors forward would play videogames late into the night. Eventually he'd crash, sometimes as late as 4 am, only to wake up a few hours later for practice. Then came class. When he was lucky, he'd squeeze in an afternoon nap. Later that night, it'd be back to videogames—either that or Fresh Prince reruns. Igoudala's brutal sleep habits followed him to the NBA. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee died in December of 2017; the election to replace him was Tuesday. No one knows who won. Partially that’s because the votes are still trickling in. Mail-in ballots merely had to be postmarked by election day, and as I write the city is reporting 87,000 votes yet to be processed. But that’s not the only roadblock. The other problem is math. See, the San Francisco mayoral election isn’t just another whoever-gets-the-most-votes-wins sort of deal. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Westworld is a hell of a show, but the sense of dread it elicits is nothing new. Pygmalion sculpted a woman who came to life. Same goes with the Golem, only with mud. The amalgamated Frankenstein jolted awake to get all murderous. Humans creating life in their own image is a cornerstone of the realm of fiction. And until recently, they’ve stayed there. But today, ever-sophisticated robots are graduating from Disneyland-style animatronics into increasingly realistic, intelligent beings. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Today is the first day of the rest of your (storm-tossed, wind-swept, blacked-out, hot, humid) life. Which is to say, June 1 is the official start of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season. According to most forecasts—at least 26 groups issue them, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Colorado State University—it’s going to be pretty average. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Monday at its annual developer's conference, Apple unveiled several new features designed to help users understand and manage the time they spend on their iOS devices. There's new time-and location-based Do Not Disturb modes; a suite of notification-management tools; and a clever lock screen feature that organizes your push alerts into tidy little topic-specific bundles. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Consider the following physics problem. An object with a mass of 1 kg and a velocity of 1 m/s in the x-direction has a net force of 1 Newton pushing on it (also in the x-direction). What will the velocity of the object be after 1 second? (Yes, I am using simple numbers—because the numbers aren't the point.) Let's solve this simple problem two different ways. For the first method, I will use Newton's Second Law. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The bets on liquid biopsy keep getting bigger. Last month, Silicon Valley unicorn Grail Inc. raised a third round of financing to develop its blood-based tests for early cancer detection. That brings its total up to $1.5 billion since 2016, putting it among the top three most heavily funded private biotech companies in the US. While investors might be bullish on the risky venture, many oncologists have been more skeptical about how well Grail’s technique might work. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Bijunath Patla’s experiment sounds like a real bore: Gather 12 of the most accurate clocks around the world, and watch them tick. It’s like a physicist’s version of watching paint dry. Patla’s team, based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, began monitoring the clocks on November 11, 1999. And they’ve kept watching for some 4.5 billion seconds—over 14 years. But their patience paid off. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices