159 days of solitude: how loneliness haunts astronauts

159 days of solitude: how loneliness haunts astronauts

In 2010, astronaut Cady Coleman left her husband and young son to go into space.Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Space: The Longest Goodbye Greenwich Entertainment Directed by Ido Mizrahy Neither NASA nor the Chinese space agency are probably consulting screenwriters as they develop their plans to send humans to the Moon and Mars. But they need to … Read more

Refurbished Sonos Era 300 speakers are $90 off in a rare deal

Refurbished Sonos Era 300 speakers are  off in a rare deal

Sonos has been excluding its first music speaker designed for spatial audio from previous sales events since it was released last year, so listen up: The company is selling refurbished units of the Era 300 for $359, or $91 less than retail. Yes, it’s not brand new, but Sonos’ refurb program has a good track … Read more

The next iPad Air is rumored to come with a key camera change

The next iPad Air is rumored to come with a key camera change

It shouldn’t be too much longer until we see the sixth-generation iPad Air, and another detail about the tablet has leaked: it’s rumored to be getting a landscape front-facing camera, in line with the 10th-gen entry-level iPad launched in 2022. In other words, the selfie cam is on the top of the tablet when you’re … Read more

New study reveals insight into which animals are most vulnerable to extinction due to climate change

New study reveals insight into which animals are most vulnerable to extinction due to climate change

In a new study, researchers have used the fossil record to better understand what factors make animals more vulnerable to extinction from climate change. The results could help to identify species most at risk today from human-driven climate change. The findings have been published today in the journal Science. Past climate change (often caused by … Read more

Show off your science in Nature’s photo competition

Show off your science in Nature’s photo competition

Nature’s 2024 photo competition is now live, providing a chance to celebrate the diverse, interesting, challenging, striking and colourful work that scientists do around the world. Now in its fifth iteration, the competition is open to anyone who isn’t a professional photographer. It’s looking for images that showcase the work that scientists do — anywhere … Read more

Valve’s strange history of talent acquisitions

Valve’s strange history of talent acquisitions

For Engadget’s 20th anniversary, we put together a package of stories about the most pivotal pieces of technology from the past two decades, and mine was on Steam. It’s difficult to overstate how influential Steam is to PC gaming, or how rich the storefront has made Valve. As a private company with infinite piles of … Read more

OnePlus doesn’t want this new Android ‘norm’ – and it’s made the OnePlus 12 even better value

OnePlus doesn’t want this new Android ‘norm’ – and it’s made the OnePlus 12 even better value

Keeping your phone till it dies has got a whole lot more difficult lately, right? Hardware has reached a point in recent years where for once, it’s more likely that you’ll get bored of your phone long before you kill it and phone companies are starting to steer into this, admittedly positive, skid. That is, … Read more

COVID vaccines are safe for pregnant women and babies, study finds

COVID vaccines are safe for pregnant women and babies, study finds

Landmark study contradicts misinformation about brain development and conditions like autism in children. The COVID vaccine is safe to administer during pregnancy, reports UC San Francisco in an important finding on the safety of the vaccine in infants — despite widespread fear and misinformation. The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is the first scientific inquiry … Read more

China promises more money for science in 2024

China promises more money for science in 2024

President Xi Jinping at the opening of the second session of the 14th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.Credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty China’s spending on science and technology is set to rise this year, despite the country’s sluggish economic growth. The government will spend 371 billion yuan (US$52 billion) on science and technology in 2024 — a … Read more