Science, Spoken

Yanny or Laurel—could the secret to which word you hear be in your DNA? It’s a notion someone pitched at 23andMe headquarters Thursday, during the consumer genetics outfit’s annual Genome Research Day. (Spoiler: The company is not going to roll out a survey to see if the latest meme has a genetic component. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This is pretty cool—an electric car pulling a full size commercial aircraft, apparently for the first time ever. In particular, it is a Tesla Model X pulling a Quantas Boeing 787. There are a million reasons this is cool, but I think we should just jump to the coolest ones: the physics questions. Does the mass of the plane matter? The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner has a maximum takeoff weight of 254,000 kg—but this one was empty and had a mass of 130,000 kg. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Some people heard the word “laurel” in a short audio clip that became internet-famous this week, while others heard the not-word “yanny.” This proves that we will all die alone. Thanks to some sleuthing by my colleague Louise Matsakis, people interested in following up can learn that regardless of what they heard in the clip, the person speaking was, in fact, saying the word “laurel. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Don't even worry about Dyret the robot. At first glance, the scrawny quadruped looks pathetic, as it struggles to walk without collapsing. But keep watching, and you’ll see it start to improve—walking slowly, yet ever more proficiently. Dyret the robot is teaching itself to walk. Or even, according to a new class of robotics researchers, evolving. Machines like Cassie the biped or SpotMini the robot dog are quickly mastering locomotion, thanks to line after line of meticulous code. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Modern robots are not unlike toddlers: It’s hilarious to watch them fall over, but deep down we know that if we laugh too hard, they might develop a complex and grow up to start World War III. None of humanity’s creations inspires such a confusing mix of awe, admiration, and fear: We want robots to make our lives easier and safer, yet we can’t quite bring ourselves to trust them. We’re crafting them in our own image, yet we are terrified they’ll supplant us. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For some people, summer means warmer weather and outdoor activities. But what about the kids that are out of school? What will they do all summer? For most parents, they just want their kids to do something other than video games or watching endless videos. So for you, I'm going to give a few suggestions for summer activities—some of my favorites. These are just suggestions, this is not a to-do list. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Sending a rover to Mars is cool—but sending one to Mars along with a helicopter is even better. Yes, that is the plan for the next NASA Mars rover, scheduled for 2020. The idea is to have a driving rover that brings along a small coaxial helicopter. The helicopter will be self-powered and fly for a few minutes a day. The main advantage of the helicopter is that it can scout ahead of the rover and take pictures and stuff—maybe some epic rover selfies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Among the more modern anxieties of parents today is how virtual assistants will train their children to act. The fear is that kids who habitually order Amazon's Alexa to read them a story or command Google's Assistant to tell them a joke are learning to communicate not as polite, considerate citizens, but as demanding little twerps. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In recent years, scientists have suggested that images from the Hubble telescope show plumes of icy water spewing from the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Others have doubted the claim—which is fair enough, because the images are kind of fuzzy and the satellite's instrument couldn’t always capture them. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 1989, two MIT artificial intelligence researchers made a terrifying prediction. “Within a few years,” wrote Rodney Brooks and Anita Flynn, “it will be possible at modest cost to invade a planet with millions of tiny robots.” Their paper “Fast, Cheap and out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System,”, argued that small, autonomous “gnat robots” would soon become cheap enough to solve problems en masse. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices