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Media Platforms Design TeamA huge, spindly, spiderlike contraption arches over the AstroTurf of an indoor soccer stadium near Toronto, its X-shaped trellis of carbon-fiber tubing so diaphanous that it’s hard to make out. The end of each truss arm terminates in a pair of shiny, fragile rotor blades made of foam, balsa, and Mylar. From the center of this precarious assemblage, 130 feet across, hangs a skein of slender cords that supports a dangling, wheelless bicycle frame....

Scientists used two high-speed cameras to capture the exact moment two liquid droplets touched.The cameras snapped pictures of an elusive—and mesmerizing—surface jet that formed between the liquids. Understanding how fluids interact could have implications for fields like 3-D printing, which rely on the mixture of many different substances. Lights! Camera! Action! Scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds have pointed two high-speed cameras at water droplets in order to catch the exact moment they merge....

Of the thousands of new exoplanetsidentified in the past few years, none has been quite like this one—because it’s still forming. Astronomers led by Stephanie Sallum at the University of Arizona and Katherine Follette at Stanford University have discovered the first planet still in the process of formation.The hatching planet is nestled between a massive ring of dust and gas and a young 2-million-year-old star named LkCa 15. That star is roughly 450 light years away from Earth and is similar in size to our Sun....

Media Platforms Design TeamEverybody’s favorite Canucklehead is back in all his adamantium-clawed, cigar-chomping glory in . The new film follows the fanboy favorite from his tragic childhood as the young James Howlett in the 19th century, through his never-aging adulthood as Logan—a soldier, mercenary and lumberjack—and ultimately, to the sadistic Weapon X program that will turn him into an indestructible killing machine in order to avenge his girlfriend’s death. X-Men Origins: Wolverine PM has been jazzed for the film since we first laid eyes on that incredible Wolverine-versus-hummer-and-helicopter action sequence....

Unusual rock formations like the Devil’s Postpile in California and the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland have drawn curious visitors for generations. For the first time, scientists have been able to recreate the process that led to the strange beauty of these geometric rock columns.The Giant’s Causeway is comprised of around 40,000 interlocking basalt columns that resemble a footpath. Irish mythology holds that it was part of a bridge between Ireland and Scotland created so giants could fight....

Media Platforms Design TeamAfter Glock, there is probably no handgun manufacturer more well known than Walther. This fame is due in large part to the Walther PPK pistol, James Bond’s weapon of choice. Agent 007 preferred the PPK for dispatching bad guys in style, and its slim design also makes it the perfect concealed weapon. The newer Bond films have dabbled with the modern polymer Walther P99, but the PPK in the upcoming Bond film ....

A big, lumbering beast roamed ancient Europe. It was the size of an elephant and ate a largely herbivorous diet. The large Triassic animal wasn’t a dinosaur, though—it was a sort of half-lizard, half-mammal beast belonging to the family of Synapsids.Researchers announced this bizarre beast in a study published today in Science. The creature, given the scientific name Lisowicia bojani, belongs to the dicynodonts, which were some of the first large herbivores....

How high up can I get with a lawn chair and balloons?You refer, of course, to the endeavor known formally as cluster ballooning, in which some yahoo (or, these days, maybe actually a trained pilot) slips the surly bonds of earth in a manner pioneered by the storied aviator Curious George. As that good little monkey and his followers have discovered, grab hold of enough helium balloons and it’s up, up, and away....

.The Decade, Reviewed looks back at the 2010s and how it changed human society forever. From 2010 to 2019, our species experienced seismic shifts in science, technology, entertainment, transportation, and even the very planet we call home. This is how the past ten years have changed us. In February of 2010, North America was hit with a record-setting blizzard. Time discussed climate change extensively in their coverage, taking GOP politicians to task for throwing out the old this doesn’t seem like global warming chestnut in denial of the evidence....

For decades, coral and coral reefs have been dying off at high rates. But a powerful new ally could be emerging: Scientists at Stanford have proven for the first time that the gene-editing process known as CRISPR can work on coral, offering hopes of making stronger breeds in the future.Coral, one of the planet’s most photogenic marine invertebrates, have suffered through for a number of manmade reasons: Overfishing, blast fishing using explosives, urban runoff, and ocean acidification through rising temperatures....

Researchers at the XENON dark matter observatory have spotted something incredibly rare. Unfortunately, it’s not dark matter, but it is the next best thing. The detectors at the observatory have spotted the decay of xenon-124, the rarest event ever recorded in human history.The XENON experiment is designed to detect dark matter, which is not an easy task. The reason that dark matter is so mysterious is that it pretty much never does anything, which makes it hard to spot....

The life of a U.S. Navy submariner is not easy. These sailors live for months in a steel tube cruising through freezing cold water, surrounded by explosives, flammable materials, and even nuclear weapons. In peacetime they run the risk of terrible accidents. In wartime they risk being hounded to destruction by enemy ships and helicopters. But they eat famously well. If you don’t believe me, then check out this out-of-print book on feeding submarine crews....

Algorithms play role in so much of what we see online and in our day-to-day lives, helping out with everything from setting bail to finding recipes. But while the algorithms of the past were painstakingly coded by humans, the algorithms of the future will be built by robots. They’ll be better, more efficient, but also nearly impossible for humans to understand. Machine learning algorithms don’t know anything when they’re first created....

When you’re trying to engineer a giant man-made structure, it can be incredibly helpful to make use of the tricks of nature, just on a soaring, sky-scraping scale. Few structures are a better illustration of this than the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world despite the lack of tricks much other tall buildings use to stay up. As this episode of Real Engineering explains, the Burj Khalifa borrows its most important trick from a flower—a shape that allows the wind to blow by it without creating a vortex that would make the building sway:View full post on YoutubeMany buildings can naturally dissipate this sway due to friction in their construction, though some mega-structures need artificial dampers to stay up....

To understand the monumental task of flying an aircraft on Mars, one needs to consider the atmosphere. The Red Planet’s average atmospheric pressure at the surface is about 6 millibars (0.09 psi), less than 0.06 percent of the air pressure at sea level on Earth. To put it another way, the atmosphere on Mars at the planet’s surface is as thin as our planet’s air at 100,000 feet of altitude. Helicopters have never flown that high....

Media Platforms Design TeamLOS ANGELES — Kia knows that great design is the key to getting buyers into its cars, and that distinctive style has the power to move the budget brand up-market. With the pint-sized Kue concept being brought to production over the next year, Kia’s larger KND-4 concept made its North American debut here today.Sculpted with large, flat surfaces of sheetmetal, the KND-4 explores style and technology directions that might find their way into a Kia crossover SUV....

A group of scientists has finally managed to capture a recording of something called “volcanic thunder,” which is about as epic as the name suggests.The researchers, from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Volcano Observatory, set up an array of microphones around Alaska’s Bogoslof volcano, located in the Aleutian islands. Bogoslof spent the better part of 2017 erupting almost constantly, and during two of those eruptions, on March 8 and June 10, the researchers managed to capture what those eruptions sounded like....

Over the weekend, Vice President Mike Pence announced that NASA had completed work on the Orion crew capsule, which will carry both male and female astronauts on the upcoming Artemis 1 mission to the moon. After that, NASA plans to use the Orion crew capsule to get astronauts to Mars.“Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of NASA, and of American industry, the Orion crew vehicle for the Artemis 1 mission is complete and ready to begin preparations for its historic first flight,” said Vice President Pence in a press statement....

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, and here’s another way its legacy lives on. There are lunar sample the Apollo missions brought home that still haven’t been study. Now, NASA has decided to study these samples in full detail.View full post on TwitterThese three lunar samples, from Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17, will have nine teams of scientists focused on them. Six of these groups will be focused on just one of the samples: 800 grams (1....

BAE Systems has unveiled a new aircraft design that could be a major advance in stealth technology. The new MAGMA drone does away with aircraft control surfaces, resulting in an aircraft whose shape remains constant throughout its entire flight. The small demonstration aircraft, which has completed a successful first flight, uses blown air to change direction instead of complex mechanical controls.Most airplanes look unmoving in flight, like a wing hanging off a giant tube plowing through the sky....