More than 17,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth known today as Kik wandered far and wide across Alaska during his 28 years of life. When Kik was young, he spent most of his time in the Alaskan interior, a less mountainous area. Then, when he turned 15, his patterns of movement shifted, spending much more time to the north, where the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and National Petroleum Reserve are found today. During some years, Kik migrated with the seasons. Other years, he largely stayed put in the same area all year around. In the last couple of years of his life, his movement slowed, and he was con ..read more

Everyone knows conventional wisdom about metabolism: People put pounds on year after year from their 20s onward because their metabolisms slow down, especially around middle age. Women have slower metabolisms than men. That’s why they have a harder time controlling their weight. Menopause only makes things worse, slowing women’s metabolisms even more. All wrong, according to a paper published Thursday in Science. Using data from nearly 6,500 people, ranging in age from 8 days to 95 years, researchers discovered that there are four distinct periods of life, as far as metabolism goes. They als ..read more

Early in “My Unorthodox Life,” the Netflix reality series about Julia Haart, the fashion executive who turned her back on her strict religious upbringing for the high life in Manhattan, Batsheva, her elder daughter, strolls onto the set in a trim pair of jeans. “What are you wearing?” Batsheva’s husband, Ben, asks dourly. “I got used to you not covering your hair. But pants?” She has upended not just his sense of decorum but a stringent, and oft-misunderstood, dress code dating from biblical times. Ben, who has been slower to abandon the traditions of his Orthodox upbringing, pleads for time ..read more

As Lucie Marie Kretzschmar, a beach handball player for Germany, was competing in a tournament in Romania, she noticed a front-row spectator filming intently with his phone. When she was off the court, she saw that he was zooming in on the bodies of female players, who were clad in small bikini bottoms as the sport’s federation requires. She then saw him at two other games, recording players again. The 2019 tournament left a question for Ms. Kretzschmar and her teammates: Were the spectators there to watch them play as elite athletes or to gawk at their bodies? “This made me really think, ‘O ..read more

An internal presentation circulated within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month, and eventually obtained by news organizations, offered clear advice for countering the contagious Delta variant: “Given higher transmissibility and current vaccine coverage, universal masking is essential.” But the recommendation issued by the agency was considerably more nuanced, advising Americans, vaccinated or not, to wear masks in indoor public settings in areas with “substantial” or “high” virus transmission. At the time, that included at least 80 percent of Americans. As infection rat ..read more

A California surfing instructor confessed to killing his two children with a spearfishing gun after abducting them, telling investigators that his belief in the conspiracy theories known as QAnon made him do it, the authorities said on Wednesday. The father, Matthew Taylor Coleman of Santa Barbara, drove his 2-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter to Mexico over the weekend and fatally shot them on Monday, according to an F.B.I. investigator. In a nine-page criminal affidavit that was filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, the F.B.I. special agent wrote that Mr. Colem ..read more

For the foreseeable future, most hydrogen fuel will very likely be made from natural gas through an energy-intensive and polluting method called the steam reforming process, which uses steam, high heat and pressure to break down the methane into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Blue hydrogen uses the same process but applies carbon capture and storage technology, which involves capturing carbon dioxide before it is released into the atmosphere and then pumping it underground in an effort to lock it away. But that still doesn’t account for the natural gas that generates the hydrogen, powers the st ..read more

Smartphones also remain a test bed for useful inventions, particularly for photography and for software features such as voice recognition. So hooray for the smartphone companies that keep perfecting their products. That doesn’t mean that we need to care a jot about Google’s odd looking new Pixel phones — they really do look weird, though — or Apple’s coming iPhone … 13? 12S? Whatever. The latest phones will be lighter, faster, better and maybe more expensive than the old ones. The cool new features will be there when you’re ready. You don’t have to care until then. Tip of the Week Don’t give ..read more

Reddit, the virtual town square of the consumer internet, has raised a fresh $410 million in funding, valuing it at more than $10 billion, the company said on Thursday. The financing, which was led by Fidelity Investments, increases Reddit’s valuation from the $6 billion it achieved six months ago, when it raised $250 million. Reddit said it expected existing investors to participate in the latest financing as well, so the round is likely to grow and close out at around $700 million. The latest funding wasn’t planned, but “Fidelity made us an offer that we couldn’t refuse,” Steve Huffman, Re ..read more

Gaming peripheral company Razer announced today that it will be entering the customizable keyboard market, releasing keycaps, cables, and wrist rests, allowing owners of its keyboards to add some personal flair if they desire. The Phantom Keycap Upgrade Set features translucent walls, meaning the RGB lighting will offer a more direct and stronger glow when lit. The Phantom Keycap Upgrade Set is available as a $35, 128-keycap set, comes in black or white, and is compatible with all of Razer’s Mini, Tenkeyless, and full-sized mechanical/optical keyboards that have either a US or UK layout. Razer ..read more