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Media Platforms Design TeamLast night, with the SpaceX factory in Hawthorne, Calif. as a backdrop, SpaceX CEO and chief designer Elon Musk raised the curtain on the Dragon Version 2. “We wanted to take a big step in technology, really create something that was a step change in spacecraft technology,” Musk said.The spaceship bears only a superficial resemblance to the unmanned Dragon Version 1 that has been ferrying supplies to the International Space Station since 2012....

Media Platforms Design TeamLos Angeles is no stranger to gridlock. But it’s not often the thing stopping traffic is from space. We’ve been following the journeys of the retired space shuttles to their new homes (especially Enterprise, which now resides near the PopMech office in New York). This weekend the Endeavour made a 12-mile trek through the streets of Los Angeles, embarking from Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday and arriving at its retirement home at the California Science Center on Sunday....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: NowPrice: $16,999Competitors: Polaris RZR 4 800, Yamaha Viking FI 4x4 EPSPowertrains: 783-cc single-overhead cam, four-valve, fuel-injected 90-degree V-twinFuel Economy: 15.7 mpg (claimed)What’s New: The Teryx4’s V-twin engine and the suspension have both been upgraded. The engine grew from 749 cc to 783 cc, and clever new fuel-injection programming helps deliver 7 percent more power and 10 percent more torque while returning better fuel economy than the outgoing model....

I’ve been fascinated by true crime for 20 years, ever since I found my grandmother’s paperbacks in the basement recalling the story of John List, a man who murdered his family and escaped capture for almost 18 years. For years, I’ve had to explain to people that being a true crime enthusiast doesn’t mean I’m seeking perverse thrills or that I “love murder.” Recently, though, I’ve been explaining myself less and less—true crime has gone mainstream....

A new startup company called UltraSense has just moved out of stealth mode. Based in San Jose, California, UltraSense wants to make your whole world a touchscreen.TouchPoint, the company’s new sensor technology, can make any surface into a touchscreen, regardless of the material, due to its patented 3D ultrasound technology. The sensor is super tiny and only about the size of the tip of a pen. It’ll be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf you’re a farmer with at least 10 years of experience, you’re not claustrophobic, and you possess intuitive knowledge of the inner workings of a John Deere, then Elon Musk is looking for you. We’re just not sure why.SpaceX has posted a job listing for a farmer to work 50 hours per week in an on-site facility in Texas. Running a farm sounds a little less out-there than most of Musk’s endeavors, but Agriculture....

The latest issue of The Economist makes a pretty bold claim: China will soon have air power rivalling the West’s, noting that “in some technologies, it has surpassed it.” While the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), the official name for the Chinese air force, has blossomed in the last two decades to one of the most powerful air arms in the world, it is still hobbled by serious problems, technological and otherwise....

There’s a lot to love about Red Dead Redemption from the classic western atmosphere to the way it just feels less cartoonishly absurd than its sister series from Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto. Now that the sequel Red Dead Redemption 2 is on the way, there’s never been a better time to reflect on them. Related StoryWhy Red Dead Redemption Was Such a Damn Good GameA new trailer released today shows off just a little bit more of what we’ll have in store when the game actually drops on October 26th, including the details of the Matrix-style “Dead Eye” bullet time mode, and a peek at how first-person view will look:View full post on YoutubeJust like in the original game, Dead Eye mode will be a package of gunslinger superpowers that grow in power over the course of the game, starting with the ability to slow down time and eventually to mark a whole host of targets you can fire on in rapid, inhumanly fast succession....

Media Platforms Design Team1. Flywheel Energy StorageIf we are going to retool our electric grid to incorporate more renewable energy sources, we need to find better ways of storing energy. One solution that has been talked about for decades is the use of flywheels: large, heavy wheels that store energy by spinning rapidly and release it through a generator that converts it back into electricity. The upshot: A utility can swiftly ramp up supply or taper it off to meet demand....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe growing databases of animal genes and falling costs of DNA testing have given wildlife researchers and environmentalists a powerful new tool to identify new species and protect endangered animals. Scientists now know the genetic signatures of some species so well that they can tell what region or population it came from by examining the DNA of an individual animal. But researcher Scott Baker and his colleagues at the Oregon State University have combined this technology with a dose of spycraft to trace the DNA of whale meat bought in Japanese and Korean markets....

“Drink our beer and get maced in the mouth!“It’s an rough sales pitch if you don’t have a sense of humor, but that’s what the Dogfish Head Brewery will be offering at this year’s Extreme Beer Festival. Yes, the beer does include oleoresin capsicum, the food-grade chili oil and primary ingredient in Mace pepper spray. In fact the beer, named In Your Mace, was brewed in collaboration with Mace Security International....

When an oceanographic team took a shark tracking robot to the Gulf of Mexico, they didn’t expect that the sharks would fight back. But that’s just what happened in this video, unearthed by Gregory L. Charvat at Hackaday, in which a shark goes after its stalker. The team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who took the video and allowed it to be used as part of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, think the shark may have mistaken the sub drone for a seal....

An asteroid will pass unusually close to the Earth today. Known as 2018 CB, the asteroid will get as close as 44,000 miles from our planet around 5 p.m. EST. It will not hit the Earth.Somewhere between 50 and 130 feet (15 and 40 meters) in size, 2018 CB is too small to be classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA). That designation is reserved for objects larger than 500 feet in size, but it’s still coming pretty close to Earth....

PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 21 — The Automotive X Prize appears to be taking shape. We spent some time at the competition’s headquarters here and met with Executive Director Mark Goodstein to find out the latest developments since we last talked. The Automotive X Prize comes from the same folks who developed the Ansari X Prize. This time the purse may well be double that of the $10-million space prize payout. The challenge?...

UPDATE, 5:45 PM ET: Google didn’t waste any time in trying to change the conversation about its self-driving cars. Today, not long after the AP released this report about the accidents, the director of Google’s self-driving car program took to Backchannel with a post explaining all the crazy things Google cars see out there on the road. Chris Urmson doubles down on saying that the self-driving cars were not at fault in any of the accidents they’ve been a part of, going back much further than what was included in the AP report:Over the 6 years since we started the project, we’ve been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1....

The battery backup Elon Musk built to win a bet has saved South Australia tens of millions of dollars.The record-setting “battery” is made of Tesla PowerPacks and helps stabilize the local grid.Rural South Australia experiences bad blackouts each summer.More than two years after winning an electricity bet, Elon Musk’s resulting Australian solar and wind farm is an almost total success. The facility powers rural South Australia, whose population density falls between Wyoming and Alaska, the two least dense U....

Traditionally, tanks have three main attributes: speed, protection, and firepower. To survive on a battlefield teaming with everything from other tanks to infantrymen with handheld anti-tank weapons, a tank needs some seriously strong and sophisticated armor to survive. This has driven a long and relentless quest for the most effective armor possible.Early tanks invented during World War simply had slabs of steel protecting them from machine gun and the occasional cannon fire....

October 12, 2018: Although Hurricane Michael’s worst days are over, its death toll has risen to 11 as several smaller towns on Florida’s panhandle lie in near-total devastation. FEMA Administrator Brock Long expects that number to rise in the coming days.Officially classified as Post-Tropical Cyclone Michael, the storm has moved to northeast, now drenching parts of South Carolina and Virginia with rain and winds reaching up to 60 MPH. Infrastructure remains a crisis in the southeast, where approximately 1....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s not often you see a modern muscle car sitting next to its classic inspiration. But Dodge parked a new Challenger next to Its vintage brethren at the LA Auto Show to highlight some fun new old-school options.Both of these Challengers wear a classic engine-mounted Shaker hood scoop. instead of being mounted to the hood itself, the Shaker is mounted to the engine and protrudes through a whole cut in the hood....

NASA knows where it’s going on Mars in 2020. Out of 60 possible candidates, the space agency has chosen what’s known as the Jezero Crater as its landing site for the Mars 2020 mission.The choice of landing site fundamentally defines the mission. Of chief concern to NASA is the relationship the Red Planet has with life. “The landing site in Jezero Crater offers geologically rich terrain, with landforms reaching as far back as 3....