​Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.. Today’s NYT Strands puzzle could be tricky for some. First off, it’s an unusual topic. And some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.. I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.. Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far. Hint for today’s Strands puzzle. Today’s Strands theme is: Spring fever.. If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A resilient, metal device.. Clue words to unlock in-game hints. Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:. CORN, DELT, WEND, REND, GORE, GORY, LARD, CAPS, PAIL, PAILS, DRIP, DRIPS. Answers for today’s Strands puzzle. These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:. COIL, GYRE, HELIX, SPIRAL, CURLICUE, CORKSCREW. Today’s Strands spangram. The completed NYT Strands puzzle for March 20, 2026. NYT/Screenshot by CNET. Today’s Strands spangram is TWISTANDTURN. To find it, start with the T that is the bottom letter on the far-right vertical row, and wind up.. Toughest Strands puzzles. Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest.. #1: Dated slang. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.. #2: Thar she blows! I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.. #3: Off the hook. Again, it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.  

​Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I had to jump between the ACROSS and DOWN clues in order to solve them all, because some answers came to me easily and others … not so much. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.. Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword. Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.. The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for March 20, 2026. NYT/Screenshot by CNET. Mini across clues and answers. 1A clue: Cable channel that airs March Madness games. Answer: TBS. 4A clue: Rapper with the 2026 #1 album “The Fall-Off”. Answer: JCOLE. 6A clue: Review thoroughly, as taxes. Answer: AUDIT. 7A clue: “Darn it!”. Answer: CRAP. 8A clue: Annoying things to realize you’ve left in the house. Answer: KEYS. Mini down clues and answers. 1D clue: Yesterday, tomorrow. Answer: TODAY. 2D clue: Radar screen dots. Answer: BLIPS. 3D clue: “On your marks … get ___ …”. Answer: SET. 4D clue: Playing card historically called a knave. Answer: JACK. 5D clue: Medical success. Answer: CURE  

​It’s been a long winter, but spring is close. On Friday, the vernal equinox arrives, signaling the astronomical start of spring (and the end of winter!) in the Northern Hemisphere. Though equinoxes might not get the same attention as solstices, they’re a lovely way to observe the shifting of the seasons. Let’s get to know the vernal equinox, what it is and why it happens.. When does the vernal equinox happen?. The spring equinox has a specific time, occurring at 10:46 a.m. ET/7:46 a.m. PT, on Friday, March 20.. What is the spring equinox?. You’ve no doubt noticed the lengthening of daylight as winter winds down, especially with the time change this past weekend. The vernal equinox marks the tipping point into longer days.. The word “equinox” comes from the Latin words for equal and night. Daylight and night are roughly equal during the equinox. We experience two each year — the vernal equinox in the spring and the autumnal equinox in the fall. The word “vernal” traces to Latin and references spring.. Enlarge Image This National Weather Service graphic shows Earth’s tilt, how our planet orbits the sun and when the equinoxes and solstices occur in the Northern Hemisphere. NWS/NOAA. The Earth spins on an axis (think of it like a line running from pole to pole) with a 23.5-degree tilt. Some parts of the planet get more direct sunlight than others. That’s how we get our seasons, and how it can be summer in the Northern Hemisphere while it’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere.. “The spring equinox is when the Northern Hemisphere transitions from being pointed away from the sun (during winter) to being pointed toward the sun (during summer),” says Emily Rice, associate professor of astrophysics at the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. “The tilt is lined up with Earth’s orbit for just a moment.” That’s when we get nearly equal amounts of daylight and night.. How are equinoxes different from solstices?. Solstices are the extremes of days and nights. The summer solstice is the longest day, and the winter solstice is the shortest. In 2026, the summer solstice for the Northern Hemisphere occurs on June 21, and the winter solstice happens on Dec. 21.. Solstices get more love than equinoxes.. “The extremes are easier to mark and to visualize than the inflection points, which are more subtle changes, so the solstices get all the attention,” says Rice. All of them are related to Earth’s tilt and the sun, so think of solstices and equinoxes as siblings that each have their own seasonal connection.. What the equinox looks like from space. It can be challenging to visualize the Earth’s tilt and what happens during an equinox from down on the ground, so NASA put together a video showing the Earth as seen by a satellite.. It tracks our planet through its seasons. Watch how night and daylight shift over time.. How to celebrate the spring equinox. Perhaps you’ve heard that the only day you can balance a raw egg on its end is on the equinox. Th  

​The soft ping or buzz on your phone that lets you know a new message has arrived is hard to ignore. But it can mean trouble when it’s time to concentrate on a task, according to a new study that will be published in the June issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior.. The study found that whenever we receive a message notification, it interrupts our concentration for 7 seconds. It turns out that the type of information that we see in the notification also matters. The more personally relevant the notification, the larger the distraction.. “This interruption likely arises from several mechanisms, such as [a notification’s] perceptual prominence, the conditioning acquired through repeated exposure, and the possible social significance,” Hippolyte Fournier, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and the study’s first author, told CNET.. While 7 seconds may not seem like much, we get a lot of notifications throughout the day, and those seconds can add up.. “We observed that both the volume of notifications and how often individuals check their smartphones were linked to greater disruption,” Fournier said. “This pattern suggests that the fragmented nature of smartphone use, rather than simply total usage duration, may be a key factor in understanding how digital technologies influence attentional processes.”. Attention hijack. The study used a Stroop task, a test that measures how quickly you can process information and how well you can focus. Colored words flash across a screen for the test. The font of each word is one color, but the text of the word is a different color. So the word “blue” might be written in green font.. You have to identify the font color and ignore the color that the word spells out. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. You can take the test yourself using this YouTube video.. The researchers recruited 180 university students for the study. The students were randomly split up into three groups. All students received a Stroop task, and notifications popped up on the screen as they completed the test. But the researchers slightly changed the experiment for each group.. The researchers told the first group that the screen was mirroring their personal phones, so the students thought they were seeing their real notifications.. The second group saw pop-ups on the screen that looked like real social media notifications, but the group knew they were false. This helped the researchers test how learned habits impact attention, without personal relevance.. The third group saw only blurry notifications, with illegible text. The researchers used this test to determine how the visual distraction of an unexpected pop-up affected the group’s attention.. The notifications slowed students’ ability to process information by about 7 seconds across all three groups. But for students who thought they were getting real notifications, the delay was more pronounced.. “Although it is well documented that notifications can  

​Choosing a smartwatch that checks all the boxes is harder than it should be. I tested dozens from Apple, Google, Garmin and Samsung to find the ones that actually deliver on durability, accuracy, battery life and performance.. The Apple Watch Series 11 faces steep competition from within its own family, but it’s a step forward because of its versatility with a wider range of pricing options, sizes and features. It takes an already great Apple Watch (the Series 10) and adds subtle but meaningful improvements, like six hours more battery life, 5G connectivity, and potentially life-saving hypertension notifications.. Jump to details. Pros. FDA-cleared hypertension alerts. 24+ hour battery life and fast charging. More reliable cellular connectivity and 5G. 2x more scratch-resistant screen. More cohesive UI and seamless compatibility with iOS. Cons. Same processor as older models. Minimal design changes. No dual-band GPS. Gesture control is still limited to pre-selected options. The Pixel Watch 4 hits a sweet spot between universally appealing design, seamless Android integration, potentially life-saving safety features and robust health tracking through Fitbit.. Jump to details. Pros. Emergency satellite connectivity. Dual-band GPS. Hands-free Gemini voice assistant. Ultra-fast charging (50% in