science

We’ve heard a lot about how thin and powerful the new iPhone 7 is. We’ve also heard a lot about how waterproof it is. But one question remains: Is this thing Acid Proof?

Good question, which is why TechRax poured the world’s most corrosive acid on the world’s most popular cellphone to find out.

via jjjjjjjjjjohn

Taking several crystals of Fluoroantimonic Acid and dropping them on a working iPhone 7, TechRax tests if the phone can withstand the acid for a day. The acid begins to eat away at the casing but does little to destroy the phone's battery. so The host then adds some hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid. Things get fun from there.

The results and the strength of Apple’s phone are very surprising, especially considering that most people break their phones by dropping them in the toilet. The phone actually turns on in the end, but what the acid does to this thing physically is really cool.

If it often feels like that the bad guys won and the Empire’s strike back was the final one, keep in mind that good things still happen on our little blue marble.

Case in point: This HIV vaccine, which will be released on Wednesday, could be the “final nail n the coffin” for the virus. Set to enroll over 5,000 sexually active men and women between the ages of 18 and 35, the study will be the “largest and most advanced HIV clinical trial to take place in South Africa, where more than 1,000 people a day are infected with HIV,” according to TIME.

Doctors are very optimistic about the effectiveness of this vaccine, which was found to be 31.2 perfect effective at preventing the virus.

“If deployed alongside our current armory of proven HIV prevention tools, a safe and effective vaccine could be the final nail in the coffin for HIV,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. government’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

“If an HIV vaccine were found to work in South Africa, it could dramatically alter the course of the pandemic,” said Glenda Gray, South African Medical Research Council CEO.

TIME reports the success of South Africa’s treatment program:

South Africa has more than 6.8 million people living with HIV, but the country has had remarkable success in rolling out an HIV drug treatment program, which the government says is the largest in the world.

Life expectancy, which sank as the epidemic grew, has rebounded from 57.1 years in 2009 to 62.9 years in 2014.

Even in a world overrun by bad news, people are still doing good work.

Let’s just put this out there: Gravity is the worst.

You know why gravity’s the worst? Because it prevents us from really reaching our ping pong potential. Sure, we can bask in the glory that is Forrest Gump playing table tennis against a wall, but are we really doing something meaningful?

Chinese astronaut Chen Dong thinks we can do better. So when he was on a local TV show in China, he showed off just how far humanity could reach without dumb gravity holding us down. What do you think of that, Sir Isaac Newton?

Check out these gifs from Mashable and say that gravity's worth it:

via Mashable

via Mashable

Or check out the whole video from CCTV on China Daily.

Chen plays it by himself, but he still has some catching up to do with NASA’s Scott Kelly, who plays “water ping pong.” Still, they are both strikes against gravity, which stinks.

You hear it every year:

“Turkey makes me sleepy because I’m a wittle baby.”

You’re probably so sick of hearing that, and not just because you invited a giant talking baby to your Thanksgiving again, but also because it’s not necessarily true.

via GIPHY

Wired has taken umbrage with the idea that the tryptophan-heavy turkey is what causes the Thanksgiving tiredness. In fact, as they point out in this bite-sized video, it’s the whole meal that makes you tired.

From soup to nuts, or whatever Thanksgiving metaphor that works better for this article, the whole meal delivers a hardy mixture of tryptophan and carbs. Ugh, not them again. Basically you get tired because all the food you eat contains these chemicals and all the carbs in potatoes and stuffing you cram down your gullet on Turkey Day force your body to slow down and digest.

Check it out the video and be the smartest person at the table.

The island of Ta’u in American Samoa is about to see their energy bill slashed in half.

Apparently, in addition to acquiring SolarCity this week, Tesla decided to power a whole island on their micorgrid of solar energy panels and batteries. Now, the system provides almost 100 percent of the power the power needed for Ta’u’s 600 residents. Hey, Tesla: 

via GIPHY

According to The Verge, Tesla’s system boasts some pretty impressive stats, like solar panels that can run without the sun for a full three days on a single charge and can recharge in seven hours. Compared to the 109,500 gallons of diesel required to power the island before, this is a pretty big argument in favor of solar energy. Again, quit showing off, Elon Musk.

Wait, no, continue showing off.

Check out the video above and hope that Elon Musk decides to show off in your town soon.

The word “cryogenics” is normally reserved for science fiction, but it’s not just fiction anymore, and one British girl has proved it. 

The Associated Press reports that a 14-year-old girl, who recently died of cancer, won her fight to be frozen in hopes of being revived when science can achieve such a feat. The High Court Judge Peter Jackson granted her final wishes “in what he called the first case of its kind in England — and possibly the world.”

"I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up,” she wrote.

The family’s name has not been released for legal reasons, but the girl’s parents disagreed with the $46,000 procedure, with her mother “for” and father “against.”

AP writes, “The girl asked the court to designate that only her mother could dispose of her remains so that she could be cryogenically preserved, an unproven technique that some people believe may allow frozen bodies to be brought back to life in the future.”

The procedure has been met with skepticism from the medical community, writes AP.

"It is no surprise that this application is the only one of its kind to have come before the courts in this country — and probably anywhere else," the judge said. “An example of the new questions that science poses to the law.”

Ugh. You know, some of us are just trying to enjoy the party that is life, and along comes Stephen Hawking to lets us know just how close we are from total extinction. 1,000 years? Come on, dude. We’re trying to party over here.

This is humanity, ok?

via YouTube

The Washington Post reports that during a hour-long speech at the Oxford University Union in England, Stephen Hawking ruined what was probably a really cool party by telling the audience that even if we make it through “the rise of artifial intelligence, the ravages of climate change, and the threat of nuclear terrorism in the next century,” we’ll still be facing mass extinction. Dude, you're harshing my mellow.

“I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet,” said Professor Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time and eternal party pooper. “We must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity.”

Look, we’re just trying to sit back, have a cold soda pop, and wear these rockin’ shades. Meanwhile, we didn’t expect Professor Hawking to come home so early and tell us all that “Earth’s dominant species will continue to eat through the planet’s resources at an alarming rate, leaving Earth battered and bruised and quickening its inevitable end,” according to The Daily Express. *record scratch* Yeesh. Who brought that guy?

Fine. You know what? We’re tired anyway. We’re going to sleep. We’ll clean up the party in the morning.

via GIPHY

Despite being promoted as a largely social experience that would get users up and out of their seats, Pokémon Go might be promoting antisocial tendencies. New studies are finding that the game is giving players “pavement rage,” meaning feelings of anger spike when they run into other players on the street. 

“Analysis showed players experience unconscious spikes in anger and frustration when they encounter other members of the public while hunting down the fictional characters in the game,” according to The Daily Mail. “The research also revealed just how immersive the game could be — with one participant in the study almost walking into the path of an oncoming truck.”

via Reddit

Basically, the study found that people think that they are being social and active when playing, but as neuroscience analyst Adam Simpson say, “On an unconscious level, they were so engrossed in the game they missed out on stuff that was going on in the real world around them.”

"When they encountered a large group of people in their way, for example, they showed a lot of frustration as members of public were disrupting their playing experience.”

Word to the wise: You can become the best Pokémon Master in the land, but remember, it’s lonely at the top.