Science & Technology
/Knowledge
/ArcaMax

Gadgets: Portable TV
If there is just one gift you want to get your dad for Father's Day, it's the Skyworth Companion Portable 24P100 TV. And yes, I said portable. Dad can watch in the garage, on the sofa, in the yard for outdoor movie nights, camping, while grilling -- wherever he wants for on-the-go entertainment.
Everything is built-in, so there is no cable ...Read more

Review: SCUF Valor Pro offers the best value for elite-style controllers
Although the basic form of the video game controller hasn’t changed much since the Xbox 360, innovations in how players interact with games are still alive. It just comes in the form of elite-style controllers, and the company at the forefront of it is SCUF.
The peripheral maker is responsible for developing paddles on the back of gamepads,...Read more

Commentary: Why public lands should stay public and protected
Thanks to a recent blizzard of executive orders and late-night congressional maneuvers, the nation’s public lands have become the latest target in the giant sucking vortex of current American politics. The current administration is proposing that we the people sign away our invaluable citizen estate, ostensibly to “create jobs, fuel ...Read more

Inside Google's plan to have Hollywood make AI look less doomsday
For decades, Hollywood directors including Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron and Alex Garland have cast artificial intelligence as a villain that can turn into a killing machine.
Even Steven Spielberg's relatively hopeful "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" had a pessimistic edge to its vision of the future.
Now Google — a leading developer in AI ...Read more

SpaceX Starship avoids explosive fate of last 2 launches, but still suffers demise midflight
ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX managed to send its developmental Starship back into space surpassing the explosive fates that befell its last two attempts, while also for the first time flying with a reused Super Heavy booster. But not everything went well with the upper stage, which lost control during its suborbital trip halfway around the Earth.
...Read more

Groundwater is rapidly declining in the Colorado River Basin, satellite data show
As the Colorado River’s giant reservoirs have declined during the last two decades, even larger amounts of water have been pumped and drained from underground, according to new research based on data from NASA satellites.
Scientists at Arizona State University examined more than two decades of satellite measurements and found that since 2003 ...Read more

Supreme Court clears way for massive copper mine on Apache sacred land
The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an Apache religious challenge to the construction of a massive copper mine on Oak Flat, a swath of untouched federal land in Arizona that tribe members consider sacred and irreplaceable.
The decision, which leaves intact a lower court's ruling against the tribe members, marked a major loss for Apache ...Read more

Aiming for less explosive end, SpaceX targets Starship launch this evening
SpaceX looks to get its developmental Starship back into space, this time with less explosions, and for the first time flying with a reused Super Heavy booster.
The massive combined rocket and spacecraft is targeting liftoff from the company’s Texas site Starbase during a 60-minute window that opens at 7:30 p.m. EDT (6:30 p.m. CDT).
This ...Read more

Michigan bands 3 peregrine falcon chicks from nest in Mount Clemens
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. —Two decades after Macomb County officials first noticed a peregrine falcon nest atop the Old County Building in downtown Mount Clemens, the species continues to come back to nest and now three newly born chicks have been banded so they can be monitored.
Over the holiday weekend, Macomb County officials successfully ...Read more

The world's best-preserved fossils are right outside Chicago. But there are no dinosaur bones at Mazon Creek
CHICAGO — Sixty-five miles southwest of Chicago, a small hill that looks like a prop from an Indiana Jones movie breaks up the flat, monotone landscape. Consisting of shale, sandstone and rocks from an old coal mine, the waste pile — located on a massive river delta from another era — is an unremarkable remnant from the region’s once-...Read more

Illinois coal plants get Trump exemptions from Biden-era rule limiting mercury, other toxic air pollution
CHICAGO — For nearly four decades, owners of the Baldwin power plant in southern Illinois managed to avoid the most stringent requirements of the federal Clean Air Act.
The gargantuan coal burner, built during the early to mid-1970s, became the nation’s largest source of sulfur dioxide, which creates acid rain and lung-damaging soot. It ...Read more

Florida bill would ban 'chemtrails' and 'geoengineering.' But what are they?
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently said he’d sign into law a ban on “weather modification activities” — such as spreading tiny particles into the air from aircraft to control sunlight — it raised long-standing controversies over “geoengineering” and “chemtrails.”
“I think it’s kind of caricatured as kind of kooky,” ...Read more

Bay Area lawmaker pushes back against Trump cuts after $50M loss threatens efforts to rein in coastal erosion
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-San Jose, lashed out at President Donald Trump’s cuts to programs combating climate change on Friday in Pacifica, where local officials and residents have been left scrambling to protect critical infrastructure after a long-anticipated $50 million federal grant to address severe coastal erosion along ...Read more

Fate of $20 billion US home solar market lies in GOP Senate hands
The troubled, $20 billion U.S. residential solar market’s future rests on whether Senate Republicans will challenge their brethren in the House of Representatives and change provisions of the massive tax and spending bill that executives and analysts say would devastate the industry.
The bill passed by the House this week would strip away tax...Read more

California turns on water to create new wetlands on the shore of the shrinking Salton Sea
LOS ANGELES — Water began flowing from a pipe onto hundreds of acres of dry, sunbaked lake bed as California officials filled a complex of shallow ponds near the south shore of the Salton Sea in an effort to create wetlands that will provide habitat for fish and birds, and help control lung-damaging dust around the shrinking lake.
The project...Read more

If you want to understand Trump's environmental policy, read Project 2025
Throughout his 2024 campaign for president, Donald Trump strongly and repeatedly denied any connection to Project 2025, the political platform document authored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said during a debate with former Vice President ...Read more

FAA OK's SpaceX to launch Starship again after last flight's destruction
SpaceX’s last two efforts to make progress on its Starship and Super Heavy rocket ended with streaks of debris hurtling across the sky. The Federal Aviation Administration, though, is now satisfied it’s safe for SpaceX to try again.
The FAA on Thursday announced the in-development rocket that launches from Starbase, SpaceX’s Texas site, ...Read more

Trump's R&D funding cuts create job drought for scientists
U.S. job openings in research and development are plunging as the Trump administration ramps up funding cuts to government agencies, private contractors and universities, leaving some of the nation’s brightest minds scrambling to find work.
Scientific research and development job postings are down 18% since President Donald Trump took office ...Read more

Fans can't get enough of this unique springtime fruit
SAN JOSE, Calif. — On a recent warm May day, bundles of small sun-kissed-colored fruit droop from a towering tree in Raffy Espiritu’s backyard in Milpitas. They soak in the light and ripen in the heat before suddenly splitting from the branches at the slightest tug of Espiritu’s hand.
At first glance, the harvest looks like a puzzling ...Read more

Jim Rossman: You can keep using Windows 10 after October, but security updates will cost you
I really like it when something I write starts more conversations.
A while back I wrote about Windows PCs and antivirus software. In that piece, I included a line that read in part, “If you’re running Windows 11 (and you do need to be running Windows 11)…”
I received more than a few emails from readers asking why I wrote that ...Read more
Inside Science & Technology
Popular Stories
- Preview: ‘Anno 117: Pax Romana’ may satisfy Roman Empire obsessions
- Gadgets: Pool safety device
- Jim Rossman: Planning is the key to buying the right portable power station
- Racing to save NJ island before it's swallowed by rising seas
- Minnesota issues 'rare' air quality alert as Canadian wildfire smoke spreads