Month: June 2016

(credit: Arnaud Bouissou- MEDDE/SG COP21)

If anyone thought that December’s historic Paris climate agreement meant the problem of climate change was officially solved, they got the wrong idea. While a critical first step, the emissions cuts pledged cannot be the end of the story if we want to stabilize our unintentional experiment with Earth’s climate.

Technically, the 195 countries in on the pact are agreeing to keep global average temperatures less than 2°C above pre-industrial times. In fact, a late addition to the agreement purports to aim to stay below 1.5°C above. Unfortunately, it now seems that the actual emissions pledges submitted by each nation (which go through 2030) don’t get us there.

A team led by Joeri Rogelj of Austria’s International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has published a close look at those pledges to show us just where we’re at. They compare several scenarios for future greenhouse gas emissions: a baseline “no policy” world in which no cuts are made, a world in which only existing (pre-Paris) policies are in effect, a Paris Agreement scenario, and a more aggressive scenario that would obey the 2°C limit.

The reference board. (credit: Cirrus Logic)

Cirrus Logic has announced a development kit for hardware developers to make Lightning versions of audio hardware designed for the analog 3.5mm tip/ring/sleeve (TRS) or tip/ring/ring/sleeve (TRRS) connector, reports Apple Insider.

The development kit, named the Cirrus Logic CS42L42, is aimed at hardware developers wanting an easy way to quickly develop Lightning-native headsets. The kit includes a reference design circuit board, suitable for embedding into an inline remote or similar, that combines a 114dB digital-to-audio converter (DAC) with a 35mW headphone driver, and supports microphone input. The kit also provides a development board that has headers for logic probes, a 3.5mm audio jack for use with existing analog hardware, and remote buttons, to aid debugging and development. As well as the hardware, it also includes a sample iOS application.

The kit is available to developers registered in Apple's MFi ("Made For i-device") program.

(credit: Johan)

The bushy look is definitely out.

The vast majority of US women—84 percent—engage in some form of pubic grooming, according to the first nationally representative survey on ladyscaping published Wednesday in JAMA Dermatology. Of the private pruners, 62 percent reported going completely bare at least once.

Earlier, smaller-scale studies hinted that such trimming trends would be linked to sexual activity. But, to the study authors’ surprise, hygiene was the most common reason given for nether shearing, cited by 59 percent of groomers. And, while sexy times still dominated the scheduling of said cropping, 40 percent of groomers said they tidy for upcoming trips to their gynecologist.