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We are bopping around the entire universe this week, but our first stop is local—let’s head to Mars. When you think of Mars, you might imagine red-tinted deserts and craggy red rocks. But you should also think of Pac Man. This week NASA released an image of a crater-dune combination …

Yanny or Laurel—could the secret to which word you hear be in your DNA? It’s a notion someone pitched at 23andMe headquarters Thursday, during the consumer genetics outfit’s annual Genome Research Day. (Spoiler: The company is not going to roll out a survey to see if the latest meme has …

It’s national bike month, which means if you have the means, it’s a good opportunity to gear up (see what we did there) and ride your bike to work instead of driving. But if you’re not a regular cyclist, the whole idea can be a bit daunting; so “Bikes” Calore …

It’s always premature to declare the death of a videogame series. The creative seas of the big-budget games industry ride unending tides of stagnation and reinvention, a cycle of death and renewed life that wrings millions of dollars out of consumers every year. If you miss something, just be patient; …

Correction: An earlier version of this story described the voice in question as computer-generated. In fact, the recording originated with a human voice. Not since The Dress has the internet ripped itself in half over a sensory puzzle like this. In case you haven’t been online in the last 24 …

Google’s new digital well-being initiative is aimed at making sure you spend more time with friends and family instead of your screens. Android and YouTube will soon include things like usage stats and notification reductions to make tearing yourself away from your phone easier. Now Instagram is planning something similar. …

Amazon’s (AMZN) cashier-free grocery store is coming to San Francisco and Chicago, and one of the biggest differences shoppers there can expect is an emphasis on foods from local businesses, the Seattle tech giant tells Yahoo Finance. “Here in Seattle, we have a lot of things from local bakeries and …

Somehow, Silicon Valley hasn’t learned from the train wreck that was Theranos. The latest rumors are that Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences, is developing a painless blood-collection gadget “using a system of exploding micro-needles and magnets,” CNBC’s Christina Farr reports. So Silicon Valley is back at trying to fix blood …

A coalition of House Democrats has begun proceedings to force a vote to restore net neutrality protections. The discharge petition, introduced by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), allows the House to force a vote if half the representatives sign on, giving activists until the end of the session in January to …

We’ve been seeing rumblings of Xiaomi’s next flagship smartphone, which would be a regular development, until a video uploaded to YouTube teased that the upcoming device — dubbed the Mi 8 — will have an in-display fingerprint sensor. The Mi 8 is supposed to be the sequel to last year’s …