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If you wake up hungry and achy every morning, one man might have all the answers you need: Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. At the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Kellogg, who is famous for creating Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, introduced the so-called Incandescent Electric-Light Bath. That innovation, which used electric bulbs as light therapy to apply heat to the body, laid the groundwork for the modern infrared sauna.

The purported benefits of an infrared sauna offer plenty of promise—from limbering up our limbs to detoxifying our bodies—and the market is surging these days with expanding options inside wellness clinics and for the home. But can infrared saunas relax muscles, reduce stress, and detoxify?

Results may vary, depending on what you’re using them for, said Dr. Vivek Babaria, a board-certified interventional spine and sports medicine physician at DISC Sports & Spine Center, who has seen interest in saunas—both traditional and infrared—rise post-COVID.

What is an infrared sauna, and how should it be used? 

Infrared light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum that can’t be seen by the human eye, but can be sensed as heat, as NASA explains. Like a traditional sauna, infrared saunas create heat, but there are some key differences.

Infrared saunas don’t get as warm, usually reaching no more than 140 degrees Fahrenheit compared to a traditional sauna, which can reach as much as 212 degrees.

[Related: The best infrared saunas]

Unlike traditional saunas, infrared versions also don’t use a wood-burning stove or electric or gas heater to warm the air. Instead, they rely on lamps that emit specific infrared wavelengths of light to warm the body, with the potential to penetrate deep into the skin. “What science is trying to do is study how deep that wave actually goes,” Dr. Babaria said. 

Based on the research that exists, such as this 2013 study, and his own opinion, Babaria suspects the answer is about one to two inches at most.  

Do infrared saunas actually work? 

But why do we need infrared wavelengths penetrating deep into our skin? In the field of regenerative medicine and biohacking, experts are exploring how energy, including infrared light, can stimulate mitochondrial activity, a process that could support the body’s ability to heal and regenerate, Babaria said. Mitochondria, often referred to as the powerhouses of the cell, play an important role in how our cells function and replicate. 

The science is still in the early stages, but there is growing interest in how infrared light might activate these cell components, Babaria said. Some believe that if infrared energy can penetrate up to two inches deep into the body, it might stimulate mitochondria, enhance cellular activity and promote faster recovery for our aching muscles and joints. 

“We can’t directly correlate infrared rays into stimulating mitochondrial activity because the science is limited in the research papers,” Babaria said. “In theory, it makes sense. If the cells are less than two inches deep and you stimulate them, potentially the mitochondria are more active.” 

What benefits do infrared saunas provide? 

What we do know, however, is that heat offers therapeutic benefits for our bodies. A 2021 meta-analysis found that heat therapy can reduce blood pressure and improve the ability of blood vessels to expand and contract properly. Small studies, published in 2022 and 2015, have found that heat from infrared saunas can help sore muscles post-workout. And a 2009 study found that infrared saunas can improve short-term pain and stiffness for those with rheumatoid arthritis.

Time spent inside a sauna could also potentially make us more limber. A 2019 study of older adults practicing yoga inside a sauna found they enjoyed improved flexibility. “If you can do 15 to 20 minutes in a hot sauna, where you can move your legs and even do some stretching exercises, it might help improve your range of motion,” Babaria said. 

As far as the sauna’s alleged detoxification benefits, however, Babaria is a bit more skeptical. The lymphatic system and the liver are the body’s primary organs that are responsible for detoxification, he said. While sweating through the skin in the sauna might help the appearance of pores, true detoxification happens inside our bodies—not through our skin.

Should you use an infrared sauna? 

Saunas—infrared or otherwise—aren’t for everyone. People who have difficulty sensing temperature changes or how hot something is due to thyroid or heart issues, autoimmune conditions, or peripheral diabetic neuropathy should avoid them altogether. And be careful not to get dehydrated. Babaria recommends no more than 15 to 20 minutes a day inside an infrared sauna and pairing it with water or electrolyte drinks.

But whether it’s looser joints or better blood flow, there are plenty of reasons to sit inside an infrared sauna, Babaria said — even if it’s just to relax in a warm, cozy space and reset our mental health. “If it could just put you in the right mind frame,” he said, “the rest of the body will follow suit.”  

This story is part of Popular Science’s Ask Us Anything series, where we answer your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the ordinary to the off-the-wall. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Do infrared saunas work? What the science says.  appeared first on Popular Science.

Your emails contain vital information: confirmation number, financial attachments, names, and contact information for business connections—this list goes on. Never misplace another email when you use Mail Backup X, the email management and conversion solution trusted by over 42,000 business and home users. Get an individual edition lifetime subscription now for $49.99 (reg. $179).

Find the emails that you’re looking for

How good does it feel to whip out the phrase, “As per my last email,” and then attach said last email with the critical information your sendee has already ignored? Maybe you even throw some shade by casually cc’ing their boss on it, too. Make it easier to find that email when you have them organized and archived with Mail Backup X.

You can easily backup emails from all of the major email clients, like Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Office 365, Microsoft Exchange, Thunderbird, and Postbox, as well as mail services like Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, Gmx.de, and any other service using IMAP protocol. Once they’re backed up, use the archive file viewer to search and view your emails and pin down the exact one you need.

You can import almost any mail archive, including files like .pst, .ost, .mbox, .olk, .eml, and .rge. Once uploaded, these are compressed to save up to three times the storage space compared to traditional email client storage. All stored emails are encrypted with AES 256-bit encryption, and you have a private key to unlock them.

Use your archived email backups as you see fit. Mirror the backup to cloud storage, such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Restore the emails to your server account. Migrate mail into a new Office365 account. They’re stashed in your Mail Backup X account until you say otherwise.

Keep even your oldest emails on hand when you back them up with Mail Backup X for just $49.99.

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The post As per my last email: Mail Backup X stores all your emails for $49.99 appeared first on Popular Science.

James Cameron wasn’t near the penguins this time around, but he is extremely familiar with their environment.

“When I went to Antarctica myself, I had a Nikon still camera adapted to the cold with special lubricants,” he tells Popular Science. “I went to the South Pole and the film shattered in my hand when I tried to change it. The camera froze up. I took a video camera, I wrapped it in a heating pack and it [died] in two minutes. I have a good sense of what it takes to take conventional equipment into that environment and survive.”

This time, the legendary director of Titanic, Terminator 2, the Avatar series, and more served as an executive producer for National Geographic’s three-part documentary Secrets of the Penguins. The latest in the award-winning series, Secrets of the Penguins represents the culmination of a two-year excursion around the world. Over 70 scientists and filmmakers traversed the globe from Cape Town and the Galapagos islands all the way to Antarctica’s Ekström Ice Shelf to observe these iconic flightless birds. 

On the Ekström Ice Shelf, a three-person film crew withstood a total of 274 days documenting a 20,000-strong Emperor penguin colony. The team captured never-before-seen footage there of chicks navigating drift ice, penguins using their beaks to climb out of a crevice, and even a bonded pair of adults appear to practice rolling a future egg using a snowball stand-in.

While Cameron didn’t endure the subzero temperatures for Secrets of the Penguins, he still helped edit down the resulting hundreds of hours of footage into the new three-part series. And he’s grateful the team came prepared with more than just a Nikon.

“Just getting systems adapted to the cold and the heat in the tropics [required] cutting edge drone technology,” he says. “They used the DJI drones which are very, very good for this type of thing. GoPro, Osmo, Canon—I mean, you name it.”

What particularly interested Cameron—himself a pioneer in underwater and deep-ocean filmmaking technology—were the custom rigs designed to glimpse penguin colonies up close and personal.

[ Related: Poop stains reveal four previously unknown Emperor penguin colonies. ]

“[They have] to be able to get low and to move in amongst the penguins,” says Cameron. “It’s a personal acclamation. They have to get comfortable with some weird new thing in their environment, but after three days they’re kind of over it.”

He also cites the need for lowlight cameras due to the Antarctic’s unique sunlight conditions.

“A lot of stuff for that liminal environment when the sun is just skirting along the horizon and eventually just goes. You’re in kind of a constant twilight for a couple weeks,” Cameron says.

While Past Secrets of series entries focused on octopuses, whales, and elephants, Cameron says the themes are part of what sets this new series apart from previous entries.

“Look, you can’t study penguins without bumping up against climate change… [but] thematically, we wanted to present the wonder of nature and not beat people over the head with a guilt trip about our behaviors as human beings,” he said. “[But] they’re always being encroached upon, they’re always being negatively impacted.

Although Cameron says they tried their best not to be “too Cassandran” about the situation, he admits that the effects of warming temperatures were more striking than in previous seasons.

“Penguins live in these marginal coastal environments. Many are in Antarctica, and it’s being impacted. The polar regions are being impacted first and most strongly by climate change,” he says.

However, Cameron emphasizes the main aim of Secrets of the Penguins isn’t despair at all, but hope.

“The goal of the series is to take a new generation of viewers and cause them to have a sense of love and wonder at nature,” he says. “If we respect nature and we respect its wisdom about how these animals have learned to adapt and survive, maybe that will influence our behavior when push comes to shove.”

For Cameron, the world is still full of people dedicated to conservation and the celebration of nature.

“I like to think that’s the case, that we’re capable of that. I think many people are. Unfortunately, not enough people who are currently in power are,” he concedes. “But you know, you never know. We do our best.”

Secrets of the Penguins premieres April 20 at 8PM EST on National Geographic, with all episodes becoming available to stream the following day on Disney+ and Hulu.

The post Filmmaker James Cameron on penguins, arctic cold, and lowlight cameras appeared first on Popular Science.

Why are PDF apps so expensive? And why are so many of them monthly subscriptions? It’s ridiculous that you basically have to pay a monthly fee just to use one of the most common file formats. 

Instead of shelling out for Adobe Acrobat, replace it with a permanent solution. SwifDoo PDF Pro can do almost everything Acrobat can, but it’s only $29.97 for a lifetime license (regularly $129). 

Basically Acrobat, minus the monthly fee

Getting work done with a PDF editor is much quicker than using old-school printing and scanning, or constantly converting. Just download the file you need, upload it to SwifDoo, and start editing right away. You can fill in text fields, check boxes, and even sign documents with your trackpad or by uploading an image of your signature.

If you need to email or upload a file somewhere, you can compress it, convert it to a different format, or export it for easy sharing. And if you’re mailing it out, just hit print.

SwifDoo gives you all the essential tools you’d expect from a premium PDF app but without the ongoing cost. Unlike Adobe Acrobat Pro, there’s no subscription to worry about. You’ll get full access to SwifDoo’s tools with a one-time payment, and it’s yours to use on your Windows PC for life.

It’s only $29.97 to get a SwifDoo PDF Pro lifetime license through April 27 at 11:59 p.m. PT.  

StackSocial prices subject to change.

 

SwifDoo PDF Pro: Perpetual Lifetime License for Windows – $29.97

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The post A new Adobe Acrobat dupe can save you $20 every month appeared first on Popular Science.

We’re now well used to on-demand content that we can access at the push of a button or a tap on a screen. Netflix, Spotify, and all the other services have vast catalogs of content stretching back decades, all available for a flat monthly fee.

There is still value in creating your own local media library, though. It means the movies, shows, and music you collect belong to you. And it means you can be sure of what’s available, without any of your selections disappearing month to month.

Plex is a suite of software apps that let you create your own library of content on a Windows or Mac computer, which you can then stream to all your other devices—whether that’s a laptop in a different room or a phone in a different country.

The Plex basics are all free, with a Plex Pass subscription (from $6.99 a month) available if you want features like streaming outside your local Wi-Fi network, offline downloads, and more customization controls.

How to set up a Plex server

You don’t actually need any local media to use Plex, because it also comes with hundreds of free movies and shows you can watch with ads, as well as Live TV channels. To create your own personal streaming service, though, you’ll need some video and/or audio files saved on your computer.

We’ll leave it to your own ethical judgment as to how you get ahold of these files. Some services offer legal downloads, while you might consider yourself within your rights if you make a backup of a DVD or Blu-ray you’ve paid for—if that backup is for your own personal use on Plex. Check the copyright laws in your country and act accordingly.

Plex works best if you can get all of your content organized into folders on Windows or macOS, so we recommend having folders for specific TV shows or music artists, for example. The software uses the metadata stored with the files and information from the web to keep everything correctly labeled and accessible.

With some content you work with, you’ll need to download the Plex Media Server software for either Windows or macOS. Follow the instructions on screen to get it set up, and register for a free Plex account if you haven’t done so already. You’ll be taken to a web-based interface that lets you pick the files you want to make available, split into libraries (such as Music and Movies).

You then click Browse For Media Folder to tell Plex which folders all your media files are stored in, and the software gets to work. If you’re adding a lot of content at once, it may take some time for everything to be properly organized. To edit your library (to add more file folders, for example), click your profile picture (top right), then choose Libraries.

How to connect to Plex

Note that you’ll need to leave your media server computer turned on and the Plex media server app running; otherwise you won’t be able to get into your library. The streaming quality is going to vary based on your home internet, and the quality of the signal you’re getting on your other device—you might want to consider plugging your media server laptop or desktop directly into your home router if you can.

With your media server created, you can then think about streaming the video and audio content in your library to other devices. Part of the appeal of Plex is that it has official apps for a whole host of devices, including Android and iOS, Playstation and Xbox consoles, and streaming boxes such as the Apple TV 4K and the Google TV Streamer. You can find the full list here.

Launch the Plex app on any device, and you’ll be prompted to sign into your account—this connects the app to the media server you’ve already created. The various interfaces for all the Plex apps are easy to get around and pretty consistent across platforms: You’ll notice you can access the free movies and shows offered by Plex as well as your own library.

On Plex for iOS, for example, you can access your movies, shows, and music by tapping on the Libraries button at the bottom of the screen. You can switch between your libraries using the drop-down menu at the very top of the screen, and use the filter buttons immediately below that to control what’s shown. Tap Categories, and you can browse through different genres.

All the features you’ll be familiar with from other streaming services are included in Plex. You can create a watchlist of what you want to watch next, for example, or mark items as watched or unwatched. Plex uses online databases to match the content you’ve added too, so you’ll get plenty of information about the movies, shows, and music in your libraries as you browse around.

The post How to use Plex to create your own private Netflix or Spotify appeared first on Popular Science.

Look over there! That’s a Three-Waddled Bellbird! Oh, snap. Did your binoculars not zoom in enough for you to see it? It makes a huge difference owning a reliable pair of binoculars, but if you’re still toting around the ones you took from your grandpa, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

These double-barrel binoculars aren’t your standard pair—they come with night vision, so you can spy on wildlife even in complete darkness, and they even let you take photos and videos of your discoveries. Grab your pair for only $104.97 (that’s 64 percent off)!

Your second pair of eyes 

Your eyes might be good enough to spot that robin perched on a high branch or a coven of deer grazing a few yards away, but they’re no match when nighttime falls. When the sun starts setting, whip these bad boys out, look through the 2.3-inch HD screen, and adjust the infrared brightness until the animals look crystal clear.

Ah! Did you think you saw a buck in the forest? Keep quiet and use the 4X zoom feature to get a closer look. If you want to share your buck sighting or any other discoveries you made, hit record or snap a photo. Everything is saved to the TF card that’s included with the binoculars, so all you need to do to post your flicks on Instagram is pop the card into your computer and transfer content to your phone.

It’s time to ditch your grandpa’s binoculars and go digital.

Pick up a pair of night-vision binoculars while they’re on sale for just $104.97. 

Sale ends April 27 at 11:59 p.m. PT. 

StackSocial prices subject to change.

 

Double Barrel 720p Digital Night-Vision Binoculars – $104.97

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What makes this deal special

These double-barrel digital binoculars are a major upgrade from your standard pair. They can see in pitch black and still zoom up to 4x magnification. There’s even a built-in camera and video recorder to capture all your adventures, and they’re only $104.97. 

The post Time to retire those old binoculars because these one’s have night vision appeared first on Popular Science.

I can’t sleep without a fan. I’ve tried a ton of white noise and sleep machines, but none of them provide the calming hum of an actual electric fan. You may know Dreo best for its space heaters, but we’re getting into warm weather season. The company also makes a wide selection of fans, air purifiers, and humidifiers for your home. All of them are on sale for clearance prices right now at Walmart during this pre-summer sale. Get the air in your home feeling just right and lock in until fall.

Dreo Tower Fans for Home, 32″ Standing Floor Fan — $50 (was $136)

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Dreo Pedestal Fan for Home, 2-in-1 Oscillating Fans for Table or Floor — $69 (was $299)

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More Dreo fan deals

• Dreo Tower Fans for Home, 36″ Standing Floor Fan with Remote $58 (was $280)
• DREO Tower Fan, 36″ Floor Fans for Home, 24ft/s Velocity $60 (was $279)
• Dreo Poly Fan 306 for Bedroom, 80° Oscillating Fan with Remote $70 (was $100)
• Dreo Tower Fan for Bedroom, 42 Inch Bladeless Fan, 90° Oscillating Fan $75 (was $359)
• Dreo Pedestal Fans for Home, 8 Speeds, 3 Modes, 120°+120° Oscillating Quiet Fan $80 (was $359)
• Dreo Tower Fan for Bedroom, 42 Inch Bladeless Fan, 90° Oscillating Fan $90 (was $359)
• Dreo Tower Fan 42 Inch, Cruiser Pro T1 Quiet Oscillating Bladeless Fan with Remote $90 (was $359)
• Dreo Pedestal Fan with Remote, 43” Quiet Standing Fan for Home $139 (was $559)

Dreo humidifier deals

• Dreo Humidifier for Bedroom, 4L Cool Mist Top-Fill Ultrasonic Humidifiers $44 (was $159)
• Dreo Smart Humidifier for Room, 4L Top Fill Cool Mist Humidifier $50 (was $200)
• Dreo Humidifier for Room, 6L Quiet Cool Mist Top-Fill Humidifiers with Diffuser $60 (was $240)
• Dreo Cool & Warm Mist Humidifier with Filter, 6L Tank Top Fill Humidifier $72 (was $279)

Dreo air purifier deal

• Dreo HEPA Air Purifier for Home up to 885 Sq.ft $90 (was $359)

The post Walmart has Dreo fans and air purifiers at clearance prices during this pre-summer sale appeared first on Popular Science.

The rainbow may be due for an update. A new, high-tech method for displaying color has allowed five test subjects to see a shade beyond the standard human range. The research, published April 18 in the journal Science Advances, is proof-of-concept for a technique that could allow neuroscientists to probe previously un-answerable questions about visual perception. In time, it might even help color blind people experience the full color spectrum, and enable regularly-sighted people to differentiate between hundreds, thousands, or millions of previously undetectable hues.

“It’s a technological tour de force,” Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist and professor in the department of ophthalmology at the University of Washington who was not involved in the new study, tells Popular Science. “What they’ve been able to do, it almost falls into the realm of science fiction. It’s so amazing– the technology that’s going on here.”

The newly described method and prototype machine is called the Oz Vision System,(a not-so-subtle nod to reaching somewhere over the rainbow. And the new color enabled by Oz is named “olo,” a reference to its theoretical color space coordinates, which are [0,1,0]. 

[ Related: Animals only see in black and white and 5 other color myths. ]

What is Color Space?

Color space is the standard way of charting all the many hues visible to humans. It is based on the idea of trichromacy: that most people have three types of photoreceptor cone cells. We have photoreceptors tuned to short wavelengths, medium wavelengths, and long wavelengths– corresponding to blue, green, and red respectively. With these three types of cones, most can discern somewhere around one million different shades within the spectrum of visible light.

But there are colors even within the visible spectrum that are impossible to actually perceive for trichromatic humans. That’s because the three types of cone cells overlap in their responses to certain wavelengths of light. The middle (m) photoreceptor response, tuned to green, overlaps with both the long (l) and short (s) photoreceptor responses on either side of the spectrum. There is no wavelength of visible light that naturally stimulates only these m cells in human eyes. So, every time you see green, you’re seeing it mixed with a little bit of something else: yellow or blue from the l or s cells. 

Oz enables researchers to circumvent that inherent limitation of human vision. The protocol allows scientists to stimulate individual, pre-selected sets of photoreceptors, including just m-cells, on their own. In response, subjects get a peek at a green (or blue-green, depending on who is describing it) so intense and pure that it’s long been classified as an “imaginary color”. 

Welcome to Oz

The first step with Oz is to create a detailed map of an individual person’s retina: classifying every single cell. That  personalized map is then used to program an eye-safe laser to deliver a focused beam of light so precise that it can hit just one cell at a time. To achieve this, a computer has to detect and correct for the tiny, but unavoidable movements of a person’s eye in real-time. Stimulating just a single cone cell doesn’t create any perceivable color, so Oz goes a step further and rapidly moves its laser in a zig-zag pattern across a predetermined patch of cells. Oz only sends out its beam when it passes over a target cell. In the case of the newly published study, these target cells were cones classified as m photoreceptors in the mapping stage. 

Normally, humans perceive color based on the particular wavelengths of light reaching our retinas and stimulating our photoreceptor cells in a particular ratio and pattern. But with the Oz Vision System, a single wavelength of light can be used to create the perception of innumerable different colors because cells can be so selectively stimulated. 

The current prototype includes an array of sensors, laser light sources, mirrors, and photon counters, and combines multiple advances–years in the making–into a single system. “It’s really the culmination of all these technologies that have been developed over decades,” says Sara Patterson, a neuroscientist and assistant professor in ophthalmology at the University of Rochester who was not part of the new research team. “I just think it’s fantastic,” she adds.

The study authors tested this process out with five human subjects, and took multiple steps to verify that what these participants were seeing was truly new. “It’s a very well controlled experiment,” Patterson says. They stimulated the perception of olo against different color backgrounds, with moving overlays, and also directly up against some shades on the edge of (but still within) the normal human color space. In this final type of trial, they asked subjects to use a dial to modify the olo square until it matched the non-imaginary color square. In all cases, the participants had to dilute olo with a significant amount of white light until they reported a match. 

The green machine

So, what is this new color like?

“Olo looks like a blue-green color that is just the most saturated blue-green or teal that I’ve ever seen,” Ren Ng, a computer scientist and visual computing expert at UC Berkeley and one of the study co-authors, tells Popular Science. 

In addition to being part of the research team, Ng was also among the study test subjects who got to witness olo firsthand. “It’s very nameable. It’s very perceivable,” he says, but it’s simply more intense than any natural color. He compared the experience of olo to the first time he saw a green laser pointer. “I probably would have said in the moment, ‘wow, that’s the greenest green I’ve ever seen,’” but now, olo trumps it. 

To view the color, subjects had to keep very still, with their eyes positioned exactly in place– facilitated in part by a bite-bar. Then, they fixed  their eyes on a point in space, while the laser stimulated a square of cells off to the side. With that stimulation, olo appeared in a patch about twice as large as the full moon looks in the sky, says Ng. Blinking would reset the motion correction system, and so olo was only visible for seconds at a time before disappearing and then flashing back. Nonetheless, even that limited experience was “so cool,” says Ng. “I’m just so tickled about it.” 

A rainbow of possibilities 

He’s even more excited about the future. Olo is evidence that this type of precision photoreceptor activation is possible. Now that the method is proven, there’s much more that might be done. 

The research team is currently exploring whether or not Oz can be used to enable color blind people, who are functionally dichromats (i.e. missing one cone type) to temporarily see the full human range. Theoretically, this is possible by artificially classifying a subset of cone cells as the missing type of photoreceptor, and selectively targeting them with laser stimulation, out of sync from the rest of the cells, Ng explains. So far, he says the work is progressing well. 

It’s not the first attempt to reverse color blindness. In a landmark 2009 study, Neitz and a team of colleagues used gene therapy to introduce a third type of photoreceptor cell in color blind monkeys. The experiment was a success according to all of their tests, enabling the monkeys to discriminate between objects they previously couldn’t tell apart. 

However, monkeys can’t explain their experience to human researchers nor definitively confirm that they’re perceiving colors they couldn’t before. “We don’t really know what they [were] seeing,” Neitz says. But color blind humans offered a similar opportunity through Oz could confirm, one way or the other, if a third photoreceptor leads to normal visual perception or something else. “This is actually a fantasy that I had years ago,” he says, and now it seems within reach. 

[ Related: How this computer scientist is rethinking color theory. ]

In the longer term, Ng and his colleagues hope to go even farther. The authors imagine they could eventually use Oz to simulate the experience of tetrachromats: animals (like birds and fish) and exceedingly rare humans that have four types of photoreceptor cells and a 100-fold larger color repertoire. But the technology isn’t quite there yet.

Though Oz is, by all accounts, an impressive achievement– the system is not perfect, notes Gregory Schwartz, a neuroscientist and associate professor at Northwestern University. The research, he says, is “beautiful” and “really exciting.” However, there are still limitations to the tech, which Ng and his co-authors acknowledge and catalog in the study. 

Though Oz is a more targeted photoreceptor stimulation method than has even existed for humans before, it is not 100 percent accurate. There is still a significant amount of “light leakage.” About ⅔ of the photons directed by the laser end up captured by non-target cells. “They were quite honest about that in the paper,” says Schwartz. Despite the leakage, he’s convinced that olo is still outside the normal human color space, “but probably not as far outside as they wanted to go.”

Another other major limitation is the size and scalability of the Oz prototype, Schwartz notes. We’re far away from portable glasses or screens that can track eye movements well enough to deliver a full Oz color experience. And the need for a detailed retina map makes adding study subjects a resource-intensive endeavor (that’s why the number of participants was so small–another limitation). But the possibility of hyper-color virtual reality is closer than it’s ever been before. 

Generally, in the field of color perception research, scientists go back and forth on the same sorts of questions, using the same sorts of methods, says Patterson– debating things like the neural pathways that allow for color vision, or the relative role of the retina vs. brain. But Oz offers an entry point to a total new realm, she notes. 

Already, the fact that all five of the research subjects described the color olo so similarly and that they were all able to perceive it as distinct from normal human color space prompts interesting questions about how flexible or rigid our visual perception is, she explains. Neuroscientists have long been uncertain if humans would even be able to make sense of a new color when presented with one. This adds to the evidence that, in certain contests, our brains can comprehend unfamiliar hues.

“Sometimes, when you push the system way out of its normal operating range, like they’re doing here, then you can really learn new things,” Patterson says. “ I can’t wait to see what’s next.” It’s hard to imagine how colorful it might be. 

The post Five people view a never-before-seen color called ‘olo’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Did you know that approximately 5,100 people between 13 to 24 years-old visited the emergency room for injuries related to using their phones while on the move between 2013 and 2022? Or that around 3,200 ER visits for the same demographic during that time period related to fireworks? These are the sorts of things the Consumer Protection Safety Commission (CPSC) wants everyone to know—it’s a huge part of their job, after all. But a couple years ago, CPSC’s social media specialist Joseph Galbo decided to educate the nation about these and other important safety issues through the power of song.

“Goes without saying, but it’s rare for any government messaging to be an overnight success with young people,” he tells Popular Science.

If any consumer protection PSA has resonated with “the Kids” in recent years, it’s largely thanks to Galbo. Since 2016, the federal employee has overseen one of the strangest and most entertaining outreach messaging campaigns in modern US regulatory history. Through a mix of absurdist internet memes, purposefully clunky Photoshop jobs, and a dedicated social media presence, to convey some of the most mundane aspects of everyday existence: child safety locks, recall alerts, and the importance of regularly replacing your smoke detector’s batteries.

“We’ve had a lot of success from our social media strategy over the years, but one of the things you have to look out for when you’re doing something successfully is getting complacent,” says Galbo. “But we think people want to see more than just the obvious from CPSC. We think people want to see innovation, and extra effort, and a willingness to do and try new things.”

Over nine months, Galbo, coworkers, musicians, and the CPSC’s public relations partner channeled all that energy into We’re Safety Now Haven’t We: Volume 1, a five-track EP featuring bass-thundering dancehall, electro-beats, and funk-infused songs about… ATV safety, among other important precautions.

“Helmet… Goggles… Boots… Jacket,” a Daft Punk-esque robotic narrator tells listeners on “Offroad Adventure.”

“Push the limits, feel the thrill / but don’t forget, to keep it real”

Then there’s “Protect Ya Noggin’,” a 2-minute-35-second hip-hop throwback focused on that most common (and unfortunately chronically ignored) subject of helmets. The track was actually the first one commissioned by CPSC, and helped dispel any initial worries that Galbo’s team had bitten off more than they could chew—another important thing to avoid, by the way.

“That was a big moment for everyone because it really convinced us that not only could this idea work, but we had the potential to make some actual bangers,” he said.

Creative, bizarre CPSC projects like We’re Safety Now Haven’t We aren’t a luxury for Galbo’s team– they’re a necessity. The Bureau has never had a mountain of discretionary funds, even before the ongoing, (arguably unlawful) federal budget slash-and-burn devastation.

“We’re a smaller federal agency with a limited budget, we try to invest in creative assets that we know will last,” explains Galbo. “We wanted to create an album that would have broad appeal and not sound immediately dated… songs that sounded current to today, but would also still sound great five or ten years down the road.”

The strategy is paying off already. Because while We’re Safety Now Haven’t We may sound like an early contender for the songs of Summer 2025, it’s not a new release. It’s from back in 2023. But as any good social media team knows, you leverage current cultural touchstones to drive home your message—like the second weekend of California’s massive annual Coachella music festival taking place April 18-20.

“Sometimes kids need a bit to figure out how and when they want to use what you make to have some fun,” says Galbo. “The initial success after we released the album was great, but we’re really looking forward to all the ways we can use this music in the years to come.”

Until then, kids: Protect ya noggin’. Oh, and about that title? When asked about it, Galbo offers a classic CSPC-branded explanation.

“We’re Safety Now Haven’t We is a play on the eternal life-saving benefits of being committed to safety,” he says. “We’re safe now and haven’t we always been?”

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Sea slugs don’t shy away from the fish, crabs, sea turtles, or even other sea slugs that might want to take a bite out of them. Instead, the brightest and most patterned sea slugs are more active during the day. The sun’s rays are critical in enhancing the slug’s ability to ward off predators with its flamboyant appearance. The findings are detailed in a study published April 15 in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

A team from the University of Queensland in Australia analyzed sea slug coloration across 45 eastern Australian species. Poisonous animals like some nudibranchs–aka sea slugs–and poisonous dart frogs have evolved very vivid hues. 

“Sea slugs use bright, contrasting colour patterns to send messages to potential predators like ‘Don’t eat me, I’m poisonous,’” study co-author and visual ecologist Cedric van den Berg said in a statement. 

The team used special cameras and software to simulate what the sea slugs would look like to a potential predator. They focused on finding any shared properties in color patterns among sea slug species, which directly correlate with daytime activity. The researchers then used sophisticated statistical methods to combine close to 160 different varieties of color patterns into one single fingerprint. This fingerprint captured the difference in appearance of species more active during the day or night. 

They found that sea slugs use bold visual signals like brightly colored spots, thick stripes, or enhanced body outlines to advertise that they are equipped with stinging cells, chemicals, or other defenses. And daylight is linked to making those signals stronger.

“These tactics are strongly linked to being active during daytime when there’s enough light for these signals to function,” van den Berg said. “It makes sense for these species to avoid the risky and potentially costly experience of being nibbled on or even ingested by a predator whether they are toxic or not. Their bold appearance also educates predators by being distinct from other animals while also increasing the chances of being remembered.”

According to the team, the more nocturnal sea slug species don’t need to evolve bright colors and patterns aimed at signaling to potential predators. Nocturnal sea slug predators are less likely to use their vision to hunt overnight, when the senses of touch and smell are more important.

The team hopes that this new research will lead to more work on understanding how defensive coloration evolved in marine species.

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