January 10, 2020

Today, January 10, is the third and final day of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the largest digital technology exhibition in the world. CES takes place every year in Las Vegas, Nevada, drawing thousands of tech companies large and small from all corners of the world. Such tech giants as Amazon, Google, and Samsung exhibit their latest products alongside those of small tech manufacturers, developers, and suppliers hoping to grow or get noticed. More than 4,400 companies are represented at this year’s CES, including 21 different companies whose names begin with smart, from Smart Adserver USA to SmartyPans, Inc.

Robots stroll the floor of the Haier booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, 2018. Haier is an electronics company based in Qingdao, China. Credit: © Kobby Dagan, Shutterstock

CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association, the standards and trade organization that represents the massive U.S. consumer technology industry. This year, CES sprawls over 11 official venues covering nearly 3 million square feet (280,000 square meters). About 170,000 tech professionals attend CES each year (including more than 60,000 people from outside the United States) to display and market, but also to attend conferences and see and play with the latest tech gadgets. Attendees need maps to navigate the venue groups—Tech East, Tech West, and Tech South—and patience to wade through the throngs of people distracted by massive video boards, robots, and a host of other electronic bells and whistles.

A woman plays an Xbox One video game console in 2013. Microsoft unveiled the first Xbox console at the January 2001 CES. Credit: © Xbox

The first CES took place in New York City in June 1967. It proved popular and grew quickly along with the consumer technology industry. From 1978 to 1994, CES had two shows per year—a winter exhibition in Las Vegas and a summer show in Chicago. CES has concentrated on just one major Las Vegas event per year since 1998. Numerous consumer electronics have made their debuts at CES, including videocassette recorders (VCR’s) and laser discs in the 1970′s; camcorders and compact discs (CD’s) in the 1980′s; and interactive and satellite technologies, digital versatile discs (DVD’s), high definition television (HDTV), and satellite radio in the 1990′s. Since the early 2000′s, Microsoft Xbox, plasma televisions, blu-ray DVD’s, HD radio, tablets, notebooks, Android devices, smart appliances, driverless cars, 3D printers, wearable technologies, and varying levels of virtual reality have all been seen for the first time at CES. This year’s CES features more than 200 new products as well as innovations in artificial intelligence, cloud services, cyber security, digital health services, drones, mobile payments, and 5G wireless technology.

December 26, 2016

Some people are brave enough not to scream when they find a creepy, finger-sized house centipede in their home. However, the sight of a forearm-sized Amazonian giant centipede skittering along the wall would cause nearly anyone to shriek and run away. Growing to about 1 foot (30 centimeters) long, the Amazonian giant centipede is the largest living centipede on Earth. Its segmented body is coppery red to dark maroon in color, and its 42 to 46 legs are red or yellow. It lives in the Amazon rain forest and other tropical forests of South America. Like other centipedes, its body does not retain water very well, so it prefers to spend time in humid, moist places, such as leaf litter, rotten logs, and damp caves.

Amazonian giant centipede (Scolopendra gigantea). Credit: Katka Nemčoková (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Most centipedes feed on insects and spiders, but the Amazonian giant centipede is so large that it also eats such vertebrates (animals with backbones) as lizards, snakes, mice, birds, and frogs. The massive centipede uses its front legs as sharp claws to catch prey. Once an animal is caught, the centipede delivers a terrible bite with its mandibles (jaw structures) and injects a dose of powerful venom that paralyzes its victim, allowing the creepy hunter to enjoy a fresh meal. The Amazonian giant centipede is even known to hunt bats in their roosting caves. With its back legs anchored onto the cave ceiling, the centipede dangles itself upside-down and waits in the darkness to catch a bat in mid-flight.

For people, a bite from an Amazonian giant centipede is extremely painful and can cause swelling, fever, weakness, and vomiting. Luckily, humans are too big for even the biggest centipedes to eat, so Amazonian giant centipedes do not attack humans unless threatened. In fact, many farmers and gardeners in tropical South America are happy to have these many-legged monsters around, because they help to keep pest populations under control.