Gizmodo

Good news! Conservationists at a national park in Borneo have provided new details about Alba, the world’s only known albino orangutan, one year after she was released back into the wild. Not only is Alba still alive—she’s thriving.Read more...

There’s a lot happening on social media, more than any one person can safely keep up with. Do you need to know about it? At Hall Monitor, we provide you with a digest to help you make up your mind.

Australia’s forests burned over the summer, but now its underwater ecosystems are in trouble, too. The Great Barrier Reef is facing some severe stress due to extreme heat and faces a “widespread bleaching event,” according to an update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch.

As countries attempt to contain the spread of the disease COVID-19 and the accompanying virus, SARS-CoV-2, scientists have produced a high-resolution image of how the virus attacks cells.

House Democrats on Wednesday signed a letter urging President Trump to restore two teams within the national security apparatus dedicated to global health threats, calling the administration’s response to the outbreak of the new coronavirus “dangerously inadequate” and “frankly frightening.”

Simply sitting in a cinema to watch a movie can expose people to the equivalent of one to 10 cigarettes’ worth of secondhand smoke, according to a new chemical analysis.

Well folks, it’s finally happened. Everyone’s favorite former mayor Michael Bloomberg has officially dropped out of the race for the 2020 presidency, following a cringeworthy turnout among supporters during Super Tuesday, during which he nabbed only one win, in the American Samoa caucus.Read more...

An ugly fight in 2018 saw Amazon and other business interests strong-arm the Seattle City Council into repealing a small tax meant to alleviate the city’s homelessness crisis. Today, in a bold challenge to Jeff Bezos and other oligarchs of the Pacific Northwest who call Seattle their corporate home, Seattle …Read more...

The European Commission’s released its long-awaited climate law proposal in Brussels on Wednesday. It would commit the 27 nations in the EU to become carbon neutral by 2050. To pass, the law needs the approval of the European Parliament and the EU’s 27 member states. But it’s got some pretty serious shortcomings.

Video game adaptations have had a rocky history—so rocky, that it’s practically a revelation when we get big blockbuster movies such as Detective Pikachu and Sonic. They wind up feeling like huge celebrations simply because they manage to be basic, fun family movies. But Netflix’s Castlevania has carved out a niche…Read more...

You can cover yourself from head to toe in fatigues or dark clothing, but it’s nearly impossible to hide from a thermal camera that can see the invisible infrared radiation your body emits. Or is it? Researchers from the University of San Diego have created a new kind of thermal camouflage that can make the wearer…Read more...

The centrists’ Hail Mary worked: While Mike Bloomberg set hundreds of millions on fire to win American Samoa, it turns out former Vice President Joe Biden’s win in South Carolina was a far better investment. His rivals dropped out and endorsed him, and he surged on Super Tuesday.

The coronavirus has struck Hollywood and a very special agent.

Back at CES, Google teased a new feature that allows the Google Assistant to read web pages aloud in more than 42 languages with just a simple voice command. Now Google’s Read It feature is finally ready to roll out.Read more...

As more cases of coronavirus infections have been identified and reported around the world, the organizers of conventions expected to draw massive crowds—like Google I/O and Mobile World Congress—have begun canceling the events in order avoid them becoming hotbeds for viral transmission. While the upcoming Emerald…Read more...

Castlevania games are mostly remembered as popular titles for Nintendo’s classic 8- and 16-bit consoles. And while a version was created for the Sega Genesis, one of the most memorable and beautiful Castlevania games was actually released for the original PlayStation—and 23 years later, it’s now available on iOS and…Read more...

Warning: This fiction story contains descriptions of self-harm.Read more...

A Kindle sale, Philips Hue bulbs, Honest Company Gold Box, and a Seagate SSD lead off Wednesday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

As storytellers are fond of reminding us, living forever usually only sounds awesome until you try it. This list includes only movie characters who were born human and then somehow became immortal—that’s why there aren’t any gods, unless Phil Connors counts—and then realized how long eternity really, truly is.

The Sesame Street movie gets a wild premise. Lord of the Rings adds another mysterious major star. William Shatner says his time as Captain Kirk is well and truly over. Plus, The Flash upgrades another series regular, what’s to come on the St. Patrick’s Day-themed episode of Into the Dark, and more footage from No…Read more...

The unfortunate truth is that your data is likely to leak somewhere, sometime, especially as you sign up for more and more apps and services. You’re basically at the mercy of the security protections put in place by the companies you’re dealing who have leaked your data, and those protections aren’t always going to be…Read more...

The Ouroboros—which symbolizes the cyclical nature of life and death and the divine essence that lives on forever—was first recorded in the Egyptian Book of the Netherworld. Alchemists then adopted the symbol into their mystical work of physical and spiritual transformation. After chemistry supplanted its more…Read more...

The U.S. reported 21 new coronavirus cases during the past 24 hours, as the number of infected continues to climb. At least nine people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S., all in the state of Washington, and there are currently at least 129 cases of the disease across the country, according to an online tracker…Read more...

AUKEY PA-D02 Surge Protector with 8 Outlets and 2 USB Charging Ports | $15 | Amazon | Use the promo code MDXHJHYI

Philips Hue White & Color Starter Kit (3 A19 Bulbs, Hue Bridge and Hue Dimmer Switch) | $120 | Dell | Bonus $50 Dell Promo eGift Card IncludedRead more...

Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project has been heading full steam at a global financial regulatory system-sized iceberg for a while now. But it might be trying to change course after finally realizing that the iceberg will win.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials rigged a system called Risk Classification Assessment (RCA) that uses algorithms to determine whether immigrants in custody should be released to always say no, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed against the agency by the New York Civil Liberties…Read more...

Warner Bros. is heading to the weird Wild West for a new movie. The studio has announced it’s picked up a spec script for a supernatural revenge thriller called The Pinkerton, written by F9's Daniel Casey for J.J. Abrams Bad Robot production company.

Ever since Mike Bloomberg planted his well-worn penny loafers onto the debate stage, he’s all but ensured that a policy-focused, forward-looking 2020 Democratic presidential race will be a faint twinkle in the rearview mirror. This is to say that the email fiasco is here, and the culprit is Bloomberg, and there’s no…Read more...

As the United States braces for the novel coronavirus that has seen tens of thousands of confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths globally, gig economy employers have begun contacting their independent contractors about basic precautionary measures they should take to avoid spreading the virus. So far, these…Read more...

Even though COVID-19 has already put hurt Apple’s bottom line and forced the company to temporarily close stores in China, according to a new report, the coronavirus hasn’t put any dampers on Apple’s plans to release new devices: specifically, six new products with mini-LED displays over the next two years.Read more...

A tiny skull mistakenly attributed to an ancient feline has been re-identified as belonging to an ancestor to modern weasels, wolverines, minks, and otters.

Google I/O is the latest tech event to be canceled due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.Read more...

Another era of Star Wars has drawn to an end.

Less than a year after being declared drought-free, California is in trouble again.Read more...

There’s an ever-growing list of ways mobile devices can be hacked, which means we have to be increasingly vigilant about security. But now even something as innocuous-seeming as leaving your phone sitting on a table can result in a hack. Researchers just demonstrated that someone can gain access to your phone by…Read more...

Scientists studying kea, New Zealand’s alpine parrot, revealed that the famously mischievous birds could understand probabilities, an impressive mental feat.Read more...

There’s a lot happening on social media, more than any one person can safely keep up with. Do you need to know about it? At Hall Monitor, we provide you with a digest to help you make up your mind.Read more...

With over 90,000 cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed worldwide and over 3,000 reported deaths—seven of which have been in the U.S.—scientists are zeroing in on how deadly the virus is and who is most at risk. The latest research suggests the fatality rate is anywhere between 1.4 and 2.3 percent, but the true…Read more...

Polling has shown that Republican voters, by and large, buy Donald Trump’s repeated and baseless claims that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are systematically trying to hound right-wingers off the internet. But it isn’t clear what exactly they think is going on behind the scenes beyond a…Read more...

A feature that’s long been requested on WhatsApp has finally, officially arrived.Read more...

Tribit XSound Go Bluetooth Speakers | $23 | Amazon | Clip the coupon on the page and use the promo code KINJABLK20Read more...

Naturalists carry a lot of expensive toys out into the wilderness. We’ve got our binoculars to see the details and field marks of distant animals. We carry bulky DSLR cameras with telephoto lenses in case any photo ops present themselves, or in case we stumble upon something rare. Sometimes we carry a portable…Read more...

Twitch clips are one of the streaming platform’s best features, allowing any viewer to quickly save a section of a stream and share it elsewhere. The system is engineered to help them go viral. A simple interface makes it easy to cut only the best bit, with a maximum length of 60 seconds. The clips tend to autoplay by…Read more...

During his State of the Union address in February, President Donald Trump reiterated a promise he had made a year earlier: By 2030, the United States would bring an end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that first took root nearly 40 years ago. It’s the sort of sweeping assurance that seems too good to be true, given Trump’s…Read more...

Syfy is not moving forward with another season of The Magicians, meaning the series will come to an end with the current season five.

Right now, when shopping on one of the many of the online marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart, products that look legit sometimes end up being fakes. A new bipartisan bill could help prevent this from happening by making marketplaces liable for bogus goods.Read more...

Business conglomerate and defense contractor Honeywell announced today that it will bring what it claims is the most powerful quantum computer yet to market in the next three months.Read more...

The YouTube algorithm is responsible for many a video-viewing rabbit hole—one that critics have pointed to as an effective digital megaphone for spreading wonky conspiracy theories. In January 2019, however, YouTube announced it would begin cracking down on “borderline content” in its recommendations. Well, a new studyRead more...

The threat of dangerous weather hangs over the southern United States as voters head to the polls for Super Tuesday. Residents in Nashville awoke to tornado damage after a twister swept through the city early on Tuesday. The National Weather Service is forecasting more heavy rain and potentially severe weather from…Read more...