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When it comes to exploring the planets and other bodies of our solar system by landing on them, there’s not a whole lot that works twice. Planets and moons throughout the solar system have different surfaces, different gravity, and all sorts of other specific and challenging features like lakes of strange liquids or spears of ice. In exploring the possibilities, NASA has partnered with 3D design software company Autodesk to build prototype versions of potential landers for the moons of Saturn and Jupiter....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn November 2011, a magnitude-5.7 earthquake rattled Prague, Okla., and 16 other nearby states. It flattened 14 homes and many other buildings, injured two people, and set the record as the state’s largest recorded earthquake. And according to in the journal the event can also claim the title of Largest Earthquake That’s Ever Been Induced by Fluid Injection.“a new studyGeology,In the paper, a team of geologists pinpoints the quake’s starting point at less than 200 meters (about 650 feet) from an injection well where wastewater from oil drilling was being pumped into the ground at high pressures....

Far outside our solar system and out past the distant reaches of our galaxy—in the vast nothingness of space—the distance between gas and dust particles grows, limiting their ability to transfer heat. Temperatures in these vacuous regions can plummet to about -455 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7 kelvin). Are you shivering yet?But understanding how cold is space, and why the vacuum of space is this cold, is complicated.For physicists, knowing what the temperature in space is is all about velocity and motion....

Media Platforms Design TeamGoogle Glass might not be quite ready to hit the shelves at Best Buy, but the apps for Glass keep coming. Pandora is the latest big company to make a Glassware app for the wearable; theirs is aptly named Pandora for Glass. It’s available Wednesday for Glass Explorers.When you’re listening to music on Glass, the tunes can be played through the original device’s bone conduction feature or through the single or double earbud accessory included in the second version of the device....

There’s a new automotive world order. In it, small is good. Small and affordable is even better. More and more drivers are realizing they really don’t need a 5000-pound-plus SUV, and those $50 fill-ups bust the family budget.So a new breed of family vehicle is proliferating, filling the garages and driveways where behemoths once dwelled. Enter the new-school subcompact. These cars are a far cry from the automotive hair shirts that economy hatchbacks were in the past....

Last month Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos State Corporation, began work on a contingency plan that would reshape its future in space exploration. The country could shift its human spaceflight cooperation from the U.S. to China, sources within Roscosmos told Popular Mechanics. One possible scenario includes Roscosmos exiting the International Space Station program early.Russian experts were instructed to put forward ideas by March 15, including concepts for potential contributions to the planned Chinese space station along with a joint Russian-Chinese plans to send humans to the Moon....

Solar Impulse’s plan to fly around the world in a solar-powered plane started this spring in Abu Dhabi. But it won’t finish until at least next year. The batteries overheated during the long trip from Japan to Hawaii, requiring repairs that will ground the aircraft and put the second half of the circumnavigation on hold until 2016.That 5-day journey across the Pacific was the most arduous leg of the trip so far; Solar Impulse had put it off for days because the plane needed just the right weather conditions to make it to Hawaii....

Media Platforms Design TeamAhead of the Geneva Auto Show, today McLaren unveiled the hybrid monster powering its P1 supercar. Alleged to be faster than a GT3 race car, the P1 will carry the same twin-turbo V-8 found in the MP4-12c, albeit with an extra 111 hp McLaren engineers somehow found through added tuning. Add in the 176-hp electric motor located right underneath the engine block and the hybrid powertrain puts out 903 total horses—dethroning the Porsche 918 Spyder as the world’s most powerful hybrid supercar....

It can be deceptively easy to think of the bygone age of computing—the era of vacuum tubes and mainframes and text-only operating systems—as an ancient epoch that’s separate from today’s world of smartphones and touchscreens. In reality, that ancient history informs today’s tech in ways you probably wouldn’t think of, at least until you run into a bug that dates back to 1974. Twitter user Foone regaled us with such a story over the weekend after encountering the following bug, an error message stating that a itty-bitty 9....

The latest analysis from the European Space Agency predicts Tiangong-1, a Chinese prototype space station, will reenter the atmosphere and burn up as soon as Friday. “The current estimated reentry window remains between 30 March and 2 April; this is highly variable,” says ESA.Astronomers have known the uncontrolled space station is going to crash back into the planet since 2016, but predicting exactly when has been tricky. The station is currently orbiting between 201 and 221 kilometers in altitude, descending about 4 kilometers per day, according to Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe following statement was recieved from Volvo Ocean Race Headquarters in Portsmouth, England: 18 May 2006 — Portsmouth, UK: A crew member aboard ABN AMRO TWO, one of the yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06, died earlier this morning after failing to regain consciousness after being swept overboard from the boat. The crew member has been named as Hans Horrevoets, 32, of The Netherlands. ABN AMRO TWO was sailing in five metre [15 foot] seas and 30 knot winds about 1,300 miles from Land’s End, England when Horrevoets was washed overboard at 02....

United Launch Alliance is building a new rocket, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is going to build the engine for it. The Washington Post is reporting that ULA, a rocket company run jointly by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, have awarded a contract to Blue Origin company to build the first-stage engine for its upcoming Vulcan rocket.ULA has long been the primary—and for several years the sole—contractor for U.S. military satellite launches, and the venerable Atlas V rocket the company built has put dozens of spy satellites into orbit....

Media Platforms Design TeamAt the rim of a jungle pond near the Sudanese border of the Congo, a dozen silent soldiers—personal guerrilla warriors of the war criminal Joseph Kony—hide in the shadows with AK-47s. When an unaware forest elephant slips through the foliage for a drink, they shoot it in an instant. They will strip the twin tusks and trade them to middlemen for weapons and supplies. The middlemen will then covertly move the ivory through container ships at one of several East African ports and onto the black market in the United States, China, or one of several Southeast Asian nations....

Want to browse the web in quiet anonymity? Incognito mode can only go so far. A new study shows that something as seemingly innocent as your phone’s battery level can be used to surreptitiously track you even if you’re trying to hide.We’ve seen how battery power can help give away your physical location, but this paper from four French and Belgian security researchers outlines how a feature of theHTML5 specification can be used to track you across the web as well....

Early this morning, local time, the Seabed Constructor recovered the last of eight sea drones it had sent to scour a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean. Then, with little fanfare, the ship set off on a course for Dampier, Australia. Thus came the end of the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, an epic feat of undersea exploration that lasted nearly four years, covered a total of some 85,000 square miles (an area larger than Great Britain), and cost on the order of a quarter-billion dollars....

Imagine this: You click on a news clip and see the President of the United States at a press conference with a foreign leader. The dialogue is real. The news conference is real. You share with a friend. They share with a friend. Soon, everyone has seen it. Only later you learn that the president’s head was superimposed on someone else’s body. None of it ever actually happened.Sound farfetched? Not if you’ve seen a certain viral video from YouTube user Ctrl Shift Face (take a look at the clip above)....

Q: How is the Cash for Appliance program different from Cash for Clunkers?A: Unlike the national Clunkers auto program, this rebate varies state by state. Expect the first announcements of the 56 states and territories’ DOE-approved plans to roll out around Earth Day in April or around Presidents Day in Februrary, but no earlier than the beginning of December 2009. Regardless of the fine print, don’t expect any “up to $4500” levels of generosity here....

The F-117 Nighthawk, the first purpose-built stealth aircraft to enter combat, was retired in 2008 after a relatively short but eventful flying career. Aviation enthusiasts still catch glimpses of the “retired” jet flying from time to time. The latest sighting took place last week in the skies over Nevada, prompting the question: What are they doing?View full post on YoutubeIf the clip doesn’t load, watch it on YouTube.According to the YouTube video description, the video was taken on July 26, 2018 at the top secret Tonopah Test Range in Nevada....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: NowPrice: $89,950–$95,100Competitors: Audi R8, Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Porsche 911 TurboPowertrains: 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6, 530 hp, 448 lb-ft; six-speed dual-clutch automated manual EPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): 16/23 mpgWhat’s New: As if the first-gen GT-R wasn’t steroidal enough, the 2012 update injects even more testosterone into the all-wheel-drive beast from Japan, boosting horsepower to 530 and torque to 448 lb-ft. The GT-R can now blast to 60 mph in 3....

When it comes to DIY skills, my husband and I are so-so, but we want to do something to boost the look of our bathroom. It’s not in bad shape, and we don’t want to remodel. The room just needs to look 10 years less dingy. What’s quick and easy?Whiter sinks and caulk and shinier fixtures can make all the difference. All it takes is an afternoon, starting with a quick trip to the home center–and the grocery store....