News and Updates from WonderHowTo: Page 8

When you think ticks, one of the first things to come to mind is Lyme disease. However, as terrible as Lyme disease is, there's another threat from ticks rising in rank in Connecticut and the Northeast — one that is spreading and that hospitals are not prepared for — the Powassan virus.

Researchers have been studying the blood meals of flies to understand the flow of infectious pathogens in wild animals.

It's about time people acknowledged that judging drug users would do nothing productive to help them. In the US this week, two new programs are launching that should help addicts be a little safer: Walgreens Healthcare Clinic will begin offering to test for HIV and hepatitis C next week, and Las Vegas is set to introduce clean syringe vending machines to stop infections from dirty needles.

Every party has a pooper, and that's why you're reading this article. We don't mean to be a downer on such a fun day as 4/20, but it's important to make sure you know about the source of your pot, especially if you're one of the 2,299,016 people who use medical marijuana in the US.

Electrical impulses course through our heart and keep it beating. That's why a jolt from an automated external defibrillator can boost it back into action if the beating stops. But new research says there may be more to keeping a heart beating than just electrical impulses.

Chinese search engine giant, Baidu, has just announced its own autonomous car platform which is intended to speed up the development of driverless vehicles.

Reports of Zika-related birth defects are coming in at shockingly low rates in Puerto Rico. While that might be something to cheer, one former US government official is saying there could be a nefarious reason for the low numbers.

Uber's driverless car program lead has quit after just one year working for the ride-hailing company.

You would think most people would agree that you shouldn't use your smartphone while driving. Apparently, most people would be liars, according to recent data from the National Safety Council (NSC) and Zendrive.

Our quest to find novel compounds in nature that we can use against human diseases —a process called bioprospecting — has led a research team to a small frog found in India. From the skin slime of the colorful Hydrophylax bahuvistara, researchers reported finding a peptide — a small piece of protein — that can destroy many strains of human flu and can even protect mice against the flu.

From a quick, passing glance at a photograph, you may not notice that Jon Almeda's impressive displays of ceramics mastery are actually the size of coins. It's well-documented how much tiny art is loved by WonderHowTo, but this petite pottery may take the cake as the most impressive display of craftsmanship.

Antibiotics used to prevent diseases in livestock are creating a world of hurt for humans and the soil we depend on for food. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a global health issue. The overuse, underuse, and poor use of these life-saving drugs is rapidly removing them as a treatment option for serious infections in humans—plus bacteria are naturally adaptive.

General Motors Co. (GM) is set to expand their fleet of driverless cars in San Francisco, Detroit, and Scottsdale, according to documents filed by the company.

Reddit user Mr. Squishy recreated the entire Game Boy Pokémon Red Version game in Vanilla Minecraft, i.e., a Minecraft server without gameplay modifications. Instead of using mods, he used 357,000 commands blocks—blocks that execute commands in the popular sandbox game. How long did it take him? Almost two years.

The race to the driverless finish line just got more challenging as Apple seems to have joined the pack. Friday, the global superpower secured a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles that allows them to test autonomous cars in the state.

A new study published on April 12 in Medscape gives us an update on the Hantavirus genus of pathogens, which spread viruses via rodents that can cause fatal diseases in humans, such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS).

Texas has become only the latest state to face an unfortunate outbreak of mumps, but so far seems to be the hardest hit. On April 12, two days before the CDC's report was released, the Texas Department of State Health Services released a health advisory indicating this is the highest instance of mumps reported in 22 years.

We've had to resort to actual spying to get information on the highly anticipated Tesla Model 3, but today Elon Musk himself gave out some exciting news. The Model 3 is going to be officially unveiled in July, according to Musk's Twitter.

A federal judge wants answers after an Uber engineer accused of data theft pleaded the Fifth in the ongoing Waymo versus Uber battle. This privilege would protect the accused, Anthony Levandowski, of self-incrimination and handing over specific documents demanded in a previous subpoena and forthcoming deposition.

Uber has been in the hot seat for awhile now, for many reasons, especially for being sued by Waymo over stolen LiDAR designs. But now, perhaps the attention will be taken off both Uber and Waymo as a new contender enters the LiDAR arena; A small, independent company called Luminar has finally let the world in on what it has been cooking up.

In the driverless race, technological advances can sometimes just add more tension to an already heated competition, if Waymo suing Uber over their allegedly stolen LiDAR technology is any indication. Now, Sony is offering a new camera sensor, one that should help self-driving cars "see" the road with much more accuracy than any other camera sensors available for vehicles currently.

We've heard a lot about self-driving taxis, as car and ride-sharing companies compete to win the driverless gold rush. But FedEx wants to bring its enterprise into the mix, as the head of its freight division has asked the US government to develop laws for self-driving trucks.

With the British exit from the European Union looming, the UK is looking to the auto industry to help boost their economy and secure jobs through the upcoming years. Today, Business Secretary Greg Clark and Transport Minister John Hayes announced the government investment of $136.7 million (£109.7 million) across 38 different automobile projects, as a part of the Plan for Britain.

Warning: If you are eating and for some reason still decided to click on this article, turn around now. Maui, Hawaii health officials have reported finding at least six cases of angiostrongyliasis, a parasitic lungworm that infects humans. Colloquially, it's known as rat lungworm disease. And if you think that name is awful, just wait until you hear what it does to the human body.

Potbellies don't have to happen as we age, according to two studies done on twins published online in the International Journal of Obesity.

When it comes to global warming, most of us think of carbon dioxide emissions. While carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide emissions have stayed constant for the last three years. On the other hand, methane, the second most important gas, has been steadily rising since 2007.

Not only has there been difficulty finding consensus on a name for driverless, autonomous, self-driving, or automated vehicles, there is also the issue of what we actually mean when we say a vehicle is self-driving, automated, and so on.

Remember back in 2011–2012 when "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men was the bumping new single being played everywhere? Well, thanks to this robot created from a LEGO Mindstorm EV3 kit, and an acoustic guitar, you get to get the iconic "hey!" stuck in your head for the rest of 2017. You're welcome.

In the ongoing search to find better ways to use antibiotics, an extract made from maple syrup has some surprisingly important medical benefits.

Viral infections have been the focus of attention in the development of autoimmune diseases—diseases where the body's immune system reacts to the body's own cells—because they trigger the immune system into action.

Uber wants you to forget about cars and start thinking about fully autonomous flying as an alternative—a more "economically favorable" way of getting to your grinding nine-to-five.

The squiggly guys in this article's cover image are Propionibacterium acnes. These bacteria live in low-oxygen conditions at the base of hair follicles all over your body. They mind their own business, eating cellular debris and sebum, the oily stuff secreted by sebaceous glands that help keep things moisturized. Everybody has P. acnes bacteria—which are commonly blamed for causing acne—but researchers took a bigger view and discovered P. acnes may also play a part in keeping your skin clear.

An advance in the race to stop birth defects caused by Zika-infected mothers has been made by a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. They have identified the process Zika uses to gain entry into the placenta, and published their findings in the journal Biochemistry.

Google's former driverless car boss Chris Urmson raised considerable funds to get his new startup company Aurora Innovation up and running. Axios initially reported that Urmson raised over $3 million to fund his brainchild in the wake of his Alphabet exit, according to an SEC filing.

While it may seem like the Cold War 2.0 is happening, at least some US spies are getting the content Americans need. That's right, Electrek has gotten some new pictures of the Tesla Model 3.

It may seem strange to find the director of engineering at a question-and-answer site all of a sudden pick up and lead a new driverless startup, but to Kah Seng Tay, both engineering tasks require building the right infrastructure to handle large amounts of AI data.

Growing populations and higher temperatures put pressure on world food supplies. Naturally occurring soil bacteria may save crops in drought-stressed areas, put more land into crop production, and produce more food.

After a brief reprieve, Zika fear is back with a vengeance as the US mosquito population booms. And we're just now seeing the true impact of this devastating virus, as babies of mothers infected with the virus are being born.

Mercedes-Benz's parent company, Daimler, announced their intention today to put self-driving taxis on the road in three years or less in a partnership with Bosch.

Having a Clostridium difficile infection means stomach pains, diarrhea, fever, and loss of appetite, and if the symptoms weren't bad enough, the disease often reoccurs. Now, new research has found an increased risk of recurrence in people who take medication to treat their stomach acid, gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, or stomach discomfort.