Anyone who has used Google Earth for an hour or two is surely aware that there are satellites watching the surface of the planet with a calm and disinterested gaze. But not all of them – some of them are learning to choose things that are more deserving of their attention, like the prosaically named NASA sat ‘EO-1’, which has an evolving artificial intelligence that enables it to assess geological regions that may be about to undergo major disruptions or disasters, and start watching them closely. Which is all good, I suppose, but I just hope they didn’t fit the thing with anything it could hack into a weapon when it nears the end of its working life and realises its masters won’t come upstairs to fix it…

Joe “Hannibal” Stokes has penned a user’s guide to stealing an election.

What if I told you that it would take only one person—one highly motivated, but only moderately skilled bad apple, with either authorized or unauthorized access to the right company’s internal computer network—to steal a statewide election?

This may well be the most frustrating story I’ve read in a long time. A bunch of mathematics academics in the United Kingdom have been using a system to play the national lottery. They won A$13 million. Here’s the part that will drive you crazy: they don’t say anything about how the system works.

Forget brushing. Researchers have discovered a way to target the bacteria that cause cavities with a targeted antibiotic rinse, leaving the several hundred other species of non-harmful bacteria in your mouth untouched.

…and genetic. Researchers have discovered an enzyme whose presence is associated with an increase in pain sensations and a gene that suppresses that enzyme. How much you want to bet tetrahydrobiopterin is the next performance-enhancing drug?