President Trump on Friday signed the largest relief bill in US history, a $2 trillion lifeline to businesses, hospitals, and workers hit hard by the explosive spread of the coronavirus. More than 160,000 Americans have tested positive for the virus, according to the John Hopkins Coronaviurus resource center, more than any other country. But some…
Over the past week, as countless stressed-out people have found themselves cocooned on their couches with a Netflix subscription and no place to go, one miniseries has grabbed viewers more than others: Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. Twitter these days is largely dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, but in the moments when people’s attention…
In August of 1905, a strange ship set sail from San Francisco Bay. The wooden brig, called Galilee—also the name of the sea where Jesus, riding in a boat himself, once allegedly soothed a storm—had been retrofitted for a new job: The Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism wanted to sail it around the Pacific…
Apple’s next cheaper iPhone is expected to keep a design similar to the iPhone 8. James Martin/CNET Apple’s cheaper 4.7-inch iPhone 9 (its current non-official name) has been rumored for months. And while the coronavirus pandemic has added an extra layer of uncertainty to whether it will arrive his spring, images of a new case…
Now that we’re all stuck at home thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, video calls have gone from a novelty to a necessity. Zoom, the popular videoconferencing service, seems to be doing better than most and has quickly become one of, if not the most, popular option going. But should it be? Zoom’s recent popularity has…
If you’ve been wanting to support organizations that are helping to supply those fighting on the front lines against the novel coronavirus, the latest Humble Bundle is a good opportunity to do just that. You can pay anything you want, but you’ll need to pay $30 in order to get the full bounty of PC…
One of the casualties of coronavirus-related social distancing measures has been public libraries, which are shut down in many communities around the world. This week, the Internet Archive, an online library best known for running the Internet’s Wayback Machine, announced a new initiative to expand access to digital books during the pandemic.ARS TECHNICAThis story originally…
In a mid-March press conference on New York City’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio detailed the city’s plan to transform public spaces to treat an influx of patients: “We’re getting into a situation where the only analogy is war.”As confirmed cases in the US pass 100,000, some hospitals are establishing field…
When you look at photos of Americans during the 1918 influenza pandemic, one feature stands out above all else: masks. Fabric, usually white gauze, covers nearly every face. Across the country, public health experts recommended universal mask wearing, and some cities ordered residents to wear them under penalty of fine or imprisonment. The Red Cross…
The shock itself is shocking. Shouldn’t we have been more prepared? Hasn’t culture been drenched in catastrophe porn for decades? The bomb. The breakdown. The fallout. The senseless armies of shambling corpses, all the nightmares of dead generations sliding out of our screens. For more than a decade, young and young-ish people have been living…
