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Media Platforms Design TeamJune 1946Test pilot Max Stanley flies the XB-35, the distant grandfather of the B-2. It will take decades of engineering progress before flying wings are stable enough to fly in combat.November 1981Northrop Grumman wins a contract to research a flying-wing bomber. February 1982The Tacit Blue test airplane begins flights. The Air Force uses the data it generates to shape the B-2. July 1989The B-2 flies for the first time in the skies of California....

Media Platforms Design Team"I’ve always been in love with coachbuilding and what that means," Galpin Auto Sports President Beau Boeckmann told Popular Mechanics at The Quail Gathering during Monterey Auto Week. “It’s so romantic to buy a Duesenburg chassis and design a car around yourself. What could possibly be better than that?“Though the bespoke possibilities for Galpin’s just-unveiled GTR-1 have yet to be seen (Boeckmann admitted he’d “love to find out” how far the individualization can be taken), the mid-engine coupe was unveiled in the appropriately outlandish, champagne-soaked Quail Gathering where stunning one-offs are sprinkled like bird seed....

Last summer the United States Air Force Museum officially opened the doors on their fourth hangar featuring some very exotic aircraft like the XB-70 Valkre Supersonic bomber. All the museum exhibits are open to the public free of charge, but if you can’t make the trip to Dayton, Ohio, this massive composite image is the next best thing.View full post on IframeThe photo spans over 190 degrees from left to right and is compiled from 115 separate images stitched together to create a panoramic experience at a resolution of over 1 gigapixel—1,030 megapixels to be exact....

Harley-Davidson has long been the standard bearer of loud, booming engines, but at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Showcase on Monday, the motorcycle company showed off its first-ever pure electric bike.We caught glimpses of the company’s sleek LiveWire electric motorcycle late last year, and were quickly intrigued by everything so defiantly un-Harley-like about it. At the time, there were more questions about LiveWire than there were answers, but Harley has finally released details on the bike, which will reportedly retail for $29,000 when the company starts fulfilling orders in the fall....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs astronomical records go, one is in constant jeopardy: Last week, headlines trumpeted yet another galaxy as the . Light reaching us from this latest galactic-distance champion, which bears the unfortunate moniker of z8_GND_5296, left there 13.1 billion years ago. That means the picture we see of it now comes from just 700 million years after the big bang.most distant—and therefore oldest—ever seenSimilar announcements seem to crop up every few months, bringing up the question of just how much further back in time and deeper into space we will ever be able to look....

Research has found that a slightly coarser espresso grind can produce better, faster shots.Commercial burr grinders already make uniform grinds, but too fine and the espresso is slow to make and bitter to drink.The researchers used a complex mathematical model to cover all variables of espresso brewing.Scientists have identified the golden ratio for ground espresso beans, or more aptly, the Goldilocks ratio: not too small, not too large, but somewhere in the middle....

Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland have found the first experimental evidence for the odderon, an exotic particle predicted by quantum theory. The odderon has been hypothesized for decades, but until now there was no proof that it actually exists. While this new discovery doesn’t completely prove the particle’s existence, it is strong evidence supporting it.The LHC is perhaps most well-known for smashing particles together at extremely high energies....

Meteorite hunters who flocked to Detroit from across the U.S. after a meteor exploded are finding the fragments.The 6-foot-wide meteor broke apart Tuesday about 20 miles over Earth, NASA scientists said. Most of the fragments landed in Hamburg Township.The first fragments were located Thursday by professional hunters Larry Atkins and Robert Ward of Arizona, according to the American Meteor Society. Atkins owns Cosmic Connection Meteorites, while Ward operates Robert Ward Meteorites....

The “house of tomorrow” has made regular appearances at trade shows and fairs since a prefab building component called “brick” was shown off at the big Mesopotamia Expo in whatever, B.C. At Orlando’s International Builders’ Show, the NextGen home displayed energy-efficient appliances, new spray-in insulations, and a pretty easy-to-use home automation system being sold through Best Buy for $15,000. That’s steep, sure, but it comes with the XBox 360! Beyond that, there are cameras over the front door, flat-screen TVs, and lots more hardware, including an HP Media Center PC loaded with LifeWare software from a company called Exceptional Innovation....

Scientists are using an old-school method of shooting protons past each other to gain new insight into the inner workings of high-energy protons.For years, scientists have aimed to prove the existence of a theorized phase of matter called color glass condensate, which can allegedly be found in high-energy protons and heavy nuclei.Photons produced in these experiments can go through a proton’s core without damaging it, creating new particles and a snapshot of the charged particle’s insides....

An aging airliner carrying more than 100 people crashed shortly after takeoff in Cuba, killing almost everyone aboard. The airliner, a Boeing 737 taking off from Havana’s Jose Martí International Airport, crashed at 12:08 p.m local time. There were three survivors.Firefighting crews and ambulances quickly arrived at the scene, and at least four people were taken to the hospital. One of those people, a man, later died of his injuries. According to the state-run Granma newspaper, all 105 people on the plane were foreigners, although it is still not clear which country or countries they were from....

Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today.Media Platforms Design TeamHello, Dave.Weeks of rumors came to fruition this weekend as Nest, a home automation company that Google acquired in January, dropped $555 million to bring Dropcam into the fold. For years, Dropcam has offered the best in affordable Wi-Fi security cameras and released its Pro camera in October last year.Nest’s long-term plan for Dropcam seems to be product integration....

Any franchise with a dedicated fan base rests between a tug of war of what’s new and what’s familiar.Take Star Wars, for example. With the trilogy wrapped up, the three films exemplify this back-and-forth perfectly. The Force Awakens is A New Hope by a different name, The Last Jedi is maybe too new for many people’s liking, and The Rise of Skywalker is mostly an unimaginative rehash or The Return of the Jedi....

Horseshoe crabs have never quite fit in with the rest of the ocean’s animals. Considered living fossils, their circular bodies and sharp tails are often presented as frightening. But horseshoe crabs aren’t scary, they’re just misunderstood. A new scientific study has created a definitive family tree for horseshoe crabs, showing that they’re best classified as arachnids. Scientists have long known that horseshoe crabs, scientifically known as the genus Xiphosura, were related to arachnids in some way....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat does it take to be a big-league pitcher?Experts in the best position to observe, like catcher Jim Hegan of the world’s champion Cleveland Indians, generally agree that speed and control are the biggest factors. The game’s great have varied widely in size, shape and temperament, and many were famous for a particular kind of pitch, but every one had better-than-average speed and fine control.Hegan knows how star hurlers perform....

General Motors CEO Mary Barra appeared in Washington D.C. today to answer questions pertaining to the company’s ignition switch recall, which now covers 2.6 million vehicles. It did not go well, even by the low expectation of congressional hearings.Barra repeatedly deflected inquires about specific details regarding the ignition switch issue, stating only that there is an ongoing investigation within GM. Yet most of these questions should be fairly easy to answer....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt is the first of its kind: a graph representing every single space launch, starting with Sputnik 1 on Oct. 4, 1957–6039 spacecraft in all. The heights of the lines indicate apogee (maximum distance from Earth). Lines that extend off the page show craft traveling a million-plus miles. Launch site countries are color coded, but note: A rocket launched in Russia that boosts a Chinese satellite counts as a Russian launch....

Coral reefs are known for stunning visuals. But sound is just as important to the creatures that live here, and a new study shows that the sound quality here has taken a turn for the worse. Degraded coral reefs are quieter than they were five years ago, which could mean bad news for younger fish trying to find a home. The symphony of the sea is being silencedYoung fish find their ways to coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, through the cacophony of sound that emanate from these environments....

The MIL-STD-1553 data bus standard for vehicle computers was invented before hacking was a problem.Hackers could potentially gain access to an airplane, tank, or spacecraft’s main computer system through the data bus.The Cyber Anomaly Detection System monitors a data bus for anomalies and quickly reports them to pilots or maintainers. A new anti-hacker system is designed to monitor military and civilian aircraft, looking for signs hackers have tampered with a plane’s computer system....

Inside every living cell are molecule-building factories called ribosomes. These tiny machines read blueprints of genetic information and fabricate the molecules that make up all life. They are hugely important to genetic engineers and researchers, because controlling ribosomes could be the way to synthesize the custom-made biological nano-machines of the future—ones that could make anything from therapeutic human antibodies to the next generation of unfathomably complex super-materials.There’s a problem: Engineering a ribosome to do interesting tricks often means paralyzing and killing its parent cell....