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News: Starve E Coli of Copper to Cure Aggressive UTIs

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) drive over eight million people to seek medical attention every year. Almost all — as many as 90% — of those infections are caused by Escherichia coli. Copper can kill bacteria, but E. coli has found a way to capture the copper, preventing its antibacterial action. Now, researchers have found that, in a cruel irony, the bacteria use the copper it grabs as a nutrient to feed its growth.

News: Like Peaches? Protective Virus Could Save Millions of Dollars in Fruit from Fire Blight

Peach trees and other related plants are susceptible to the devastation caused by fire blight, a contagious bacterial disease. Once contracted, infected trees have to be burned to contain the disease and prevent spread to nearby trees. Increasing resistance to antibiotic treatment has sent scientists in search of alternative ways to deal with the bacteria and prevent its catastrophic damage.

News: Mumps Outbreak Leads to Health Alert for Boston

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) issued a health alert for a Boston mumps outbreak, on Monday, June 5th, to healthcare providers and local boards of health. There have been 12 reported cases of mumps during the recent outbreak. The affected residents' symptoms occurred between March 24th and May 31st, and 10 of the 12 had symptoms after May 9th. There have been 35 confirmed cases of mumps in 2017 in Massachusetts, and "nearly 300" suspected cases in the continuing outbreak.

How To: Install the Google Play Store on Your Kindle Fire Without Rooting

Deep down inside, Kindle Fires are actually Android tablets — the only trouble is, Amazon has layered so much of a skin on top of it all that you can't normally use Android's main app store, the Google Play Store. The Amazon Appstore, which comes bundled with Kindle Fire devices, only has about 600,000 apps, so it would be great if you could access Google Play's library, which boasts 2.8 million.

How To: Gamify Diagnostics on Your Android Phone

Running diagnostics on your Android phone can be a very tedious process. More often than not, you need to key in dialer codes to see if your device's hardware is functioning properly, though you can also download apps — but these are often hard to understand for a layperson. When a smaller component like a proximity sensor fails, you're often left with no other choice but to take it to a professional.

News: World Malaria Day Reminds Us That The Fight Isn't Over

The theme for 2017's World Malaria Day, which is today, April 25, is "End Malaria for Good." For many Americans, this might seem like an odd plea. Especially since Malaria is seemingly an obsolete problem here. However, on World Malaria Day, it's important to remember the danger of malaria is still very much present in the US. And around the world, the disease is at the epicenter of a global crisis.

News: Antibiotics Could Be Contributing to Dramatic Drop in Bee Populations

Add antibiotics to the possible list of culprits responsible for honeybee decline around the world. While it may come as a surprise, antibiotics are commonly mixed into feed used by commercial beekeepers to maintain their hives. In a recent study published in PLOS Biology, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found antibiotics used to treat honeybees may be a contributing factor in individual bee death and colony collapse.

News: Hino Motors Leads the Way to Japan's Planned 2020 Rollout of Commercial Truck Platooning

Japan is in the process of curbing its aging population and mature workforce. According to The Diplomat, the country's population has been declining at a steady rate. To meet future productivity demands in commercial and industrial sectors, local officials are turning to self-driving technology, including truck platooning, where three or five vehicles travel autonomously in a string formation. This practice, according to a study by MIT, can reduce fuel consumption by up to 20% (more about thi...

How To: Golden Milk Is the New Fall Superdrink

There was once a time when everyone scoffed at the turmeric tonic tea sold at the coffee shop I work at. Funny, because as of recently, we seem to be selling out. How can this be explained? Beyoncé must have been spotted buying turmeric beverages on the cover of some celebrity magazine. That's got to be the only way to explain its sudden popularity, right?

Cooking with Booze: Brunch Edition

Ah, the joys of bottomless brunch. Paying a flat rate for endless mimosas while having a long gossip over eggs Benedict is exactly how many of us love to spend our Saturdays. However, in practice, this isn't the sophisticated affair we all like to imagine. After refill number four we sway in our chair, doze off into our porridge, and end up tipping 50% because math is too hard. In short, not a very successful brunch.

News: What the Heck Was Stuxnet!?

As many of you know, I firmly believe that hacking is THE skill of the future. Although the term "hacking" often conjures up the image of a pimple-faced script kiddie in their mother's basement transfixed by a computer screen, the modern image of the hacker in 2015 is that of a professional in a modern, well-lit office, hacking and attempting to development exploits for national security purposes. As the world becomes more and more digitally-dependent and controlled, those that can find their...

Food Tool Friday: Cut Your Cooking Time with a Pressure Cooker

Kitchen tools are a personal thing. One hard lesson for me to learn is that just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's right for me. Take the slow cooker, for instance. Many rave about it, but I never cottoned to the thing. However, the more research I do, the more I think the pressure cooker might be a game changer for my cooking style.

How To: Short Attention Span? Use These Browser Plugins and Mobile Apps to Summarize Long News Articles

Our attention spans have vastly shortened thanks to the Internet and our subsequent procurement of information from it at a rapid pace. It's tough to pay attention to something for a good amount of time, unless it's ridiculously interesting and stimulating. It's gotten so bad for me that I keep checking my phone every ten minutes—I even did it during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.