LighthouseTechnology

The Big Tree at Goose Island State Park was named the State Champion Coastal Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) in 1966. It was dethroned in 2003 by the San Bernard Oak on the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge. Goose Island State Park Hurricane Harvey first made landfall in the town of Rockport, Texas last Friday night. The 108 mph winds and more than 40 inches of rain destroyed houses, churches and schools. But a 1,100-year-old oak tree was left standing at Goose Island State Park. The “Big Tree” has a diameter of 11 feet and a circumference of more than 35 feet. The community of Rockport has appreciated the tree for more than a hundred years, calling in experts like Appel to help care for it. And it’s not the only tree that survived—many younger, less remarkable live oaks survived the hurricane. And, with the way the climate is changing, some of them may thrive there for another 1,000 years. Areas that already have plenty of rainfall, like East Texas, should expect to see mor...

The camera is one of the most important pieces of any modern smartphone. We use it to shoot photos and videos at important (and sometimes stupid-but-entertaining) moments, but they’re also integral to the burgeoning wave of augmented reality apps that mix the digital and real worlds. Because these imaging devices are so important to users, manufacturers have latched onto them as a point of differentiation to try and make one phone stand out in a sea of otherwise similar devices. The truth, however, is that pretty much any current-generation smartphone packs a high-quality camera that meets, or probably even exceeds, your overall needs as a typical user. Flagship phones like the iPhone X obviously have an advantage over older and cheaper phones, but the floor on overall camera quality is remarkably high. Here, I’ll break down a few of the technical terms you’ll hear thrown around in advertisements to help sort the bells and whistles from the meaningful features. Resolution Take a...

Humans have been buddies with booze for thousands of years. Some scientists believe this love affair goes back even further. The so-called drunken monkey hypothesis speculates that our ancestors possessed an unusual knack for consuming ethanol without keeling over dead, allowing them to access the sweet, sweet caloric payloads of rotting, fermenting fruit. But we’ve come a long way from merely tolerating overripe apples. These days, alcohol factors into our social interactions, our most cherished cultural ceremonies, countless classic poems, songs, paintings, and plays. And save for some occasions when we sip an elixir to fulfill a religious rite, we drink alcohol for one main reason: it makes us feel good. But how exactly does it make us feel? According to a study published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal’s BMJ Open, different types of alcohol can actually inspire different emotional responses. Hard liquors made almost half of all participants feel “sexy,” for example, whil...

T he  bellísimo  beaches  of southeastern Italy feature golden sand and azure  waters —but even on a midsummer’s day, you won’t find many people. The reason: Just offshore, thousands of stinging  jellyfish  bob in the waves. Savvy locals warn visitors not to wade in too deep or put their heads underwater. “If you were to run into one while swimming, your face would be red like a chili for three days,” says  Stefano Piraino , a marine biologist at the University of Salento. It’s an increasingly common problem in the Mediterranean, according to Piraino, costing coastal communities  millions of euros  in lost tourism revenue, infrastructure damage, and fisheries losses. And jellyfish aren’t only wreaking havoc in southern Europe. In  Japan , fishermen often find their catch replaced by netfuls of the throbbing blobs.  Sweden  even had to shut down one of its main power plants when thousands of jellyfish clogged its cooling...