Month: August 2016

An artists' rendering of an eclipsed Io, lit by its own volcanic activity. (credit: Image Courtesy of Southwest Research Institute)

Jupiter's innermost large moon, Io, is one of the most dramatic bodies in the Solar System. It's the most volcanically active thing we've ever seen, and its surface is spotted with pools of liquid sulfur and punctuated by some of the largest mountains in the Solar System. The Jovian environment bombards it with intense radiation, and the giant planet's magnetic field sweeps away material from Io and sends it on to other moons.

Now, researchers have found evidence that the moon's thin atmosphere has its own dramatic behavior, condensing and collapsing to the surface whenever deprived of sunlight. In making this discovery, we've probably also learned where the atmosphere originated.

The atmosphere of Io doesn't make it the sort of place you'd want to draw a deep breath. For one, it's incredibly thin, so nothing like a deep breath would even be possible. But the kicker is that its major component is sulfur dioxide, which would react with the water in your lungs to form a strong acid.

Numbers mean everything, especially when dissecting automobiles—and BMW's new 340i xDrive is a confusing and sometimes nonsensical number-fest.

First, the nomenclature is all numbers, but both BMW and Mercedes have spent so long tweaking their numbering schemes that nothing adds up like it used to. The 1984 BMW 318i actually had a 1.8-liter engine, but now the 2016 BMW 328i has a 2.0-liter engine. The 1998 Mercedes-Benz C43 AMG? A 4.3-liter V8. Mercedes' 2016 C300? Two liters. These manufacturers abandoned the meanings behind those numbers for market positioning, designating a 2.0-liter that performs like a 3.0-liter, for example.

So this year, BMW revamped its 3-series lineup and changed the names again. The former 335i becomes 340i, even though its engine displaces the same 3.0 liters and is still turbocharged. But it generates an additional 20hp (14.9kW), now up to 320hp and 330ft-lb of torque (239kW and 449Nm), while on paper returning 22/33/26 mpg city/highway/combined. We saw 24.4 mpg over the course of our time with the car.

It's not often that I sit down to play a video game with my significant other. Oh sure, we'll play through Until Dawn together, taking turns to steer characters to their deaths, or turn into a crack crime-fighting detective duo to solve the mysteries of Her Story. But there's only so long that you can sit and watch another person play a game before it gets, well...boring.

Worldwide, simultaneous online multiplayer might have made playing games a more exciting experience for the lonesome couch competitor, but for the guy or gal that wants to sit and play a game with someone in the same room, the options are a tad limited.

Which is why I'm so enamoured with Overcooked. It is the quintessential couch co-op experience, a game with a simple premise that's easy to pick up and play, and that brings out the absolute best and worst in those who play it. Oh sure, you'll start out as best friends, gently encouraging each other as you laugh off early mishaps. A dropped onion here, a mishandled plate there—who cares right? But then the washing piles up. No one is chopping lettuce. There's a batch of french fries in the deep fat fryer that a certain someone was supposed to be watching and now they've caught fire. Tempers fray, panic ensues, expletives are hurled.

(credit: Paramount)

Next Tuesday is the day Australians must fill in—correctly—their census forms, or face a fine. However many may be willing to take that risk as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), rather extraordinarily, will be storing personal names and addresses in addition to the usual census results.

In the past, census forms have collected this information, and respondents were allowed to opt-in to having personally identifiable information retained. This time, the ABS wants to keep the information on record until 2020. This has provoked both privacy and security concerns. The bureau's former chief statistician Bill McLennan called it “the most significant invasion of privacy ever perpetrated on Australians by the ABS,” and even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak weighed in saying the data retention plans were “unethical.”

Others claim the ABS cannot adequately protect that sensitive data. According to reports the ABS has had 14 data breaches since 2013.