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Most Wi-Fi hot spots work by taking a hard-wired Internet connection and distributing it over a 300-ft. radius from a wireless hub. This works fine for a single location, but what if you want to blanket a large area with wireless access? Municipal Wi-Fi projects, such as those in Philadelphia and in Portland, Ore., cover whole cities using mesh networking, which “throws” the signal from one repeating access point to the next, eliminating the need to supply each hub with a hard-wired connection to the Net....

Last month, Popular Mechanics covered the exciting prospect of the first ever commercial moon landing, which could launch by December 2017 if everything goes according to plan. That mission involves Moon Express, a company that hopes to build a number of commercial lunar landers, and Rocket Lab, a launch vehicle company that recently conducted its first flight test of the Electron rocket. Yesterday, Moon Express unveiled design details for its lunar spacecraft at a hearing held by the House Science, Space and Technology Committee....

The Dawn spacecraft was never one of NASA’s most widely known missions, but it helped expand our understanding of the solar system. Dawn spent almost a decade studying a pair of asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, learning as much as it could about those strange worlds. Now, an announcement from NASA confirms what we’ve been expecting for a few months: Dawn has run out of fuel, and the mission is finally over....

Yesterday’s blockbuster IPCC global warming report sent a shot across the world, one filled with dread and panic. For those looking for any sliver of good news on the environmental front, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has it in a new report: renewable energy is on pace for rapid expansion across the globe, making up 40% of global energy consumption growth over the next 5 years.The report looks into three areas of power use: electrical power, heating, and transportation....

If you want to talk about Russia’s Sukhoi Su-34 strike fighter, you could start with all the standard specs like engines (two Saturn AL-31FM1 turbofans) or top speed (Mach 1.8, fully loaded), but its coolest feature might be the roomy flight deck which sits pilot and co-pilot side by side. And the neatest part about it? The mesmerizing retractable control panel. A video from the Russian TV channel “Star” gives us a great look inside one of Russia’s most modern fighter, which just officially entered service in 2014, nearly 25 years after its first flight in 1990....

Quantum jumps were first theorized by Niels Bohr and detected in the 1980s"Schrödinger’s Cat" is a thought puzzle based on these jumps being instant and unpredictableA new study has shown it is possible to predict, and even reverse, quantum jumps. The cat can be saved.One of the first times quantum mechanics entered popular culture, “Schrödinger’s Cat” remains a puzzling thought experiment in which a poor cat’s fate remains unknown inside a box....

A lot can keep solar panels from generating electricity, from cloud cover blocking the sun to simply being nighttime. But according to recent research, one of the biggest obstacles facing solar farms is smog and haze from air pollution.It’s not surprising that air pollution can make solar panels less effective since it can cut down on visibility and reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ground. In the past, researchers have found that air pollution can lead to dust buildup on solar panels that can dramatically reduce their effectiveness....

Researchers at North Carolina State University have built a prototype fitness tracker that measures the metabolites in your sweat to give an overall picture of your health. Devices typically used to measure sweat metabolites in the lab are four times as large as the analytical equipment built to fit inside the wearable. Right now, just four kinds of tests have been conducted: those to measure glucose, lactate, pH, and temperature levels....

Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire, the company’s first electric design, seemed like a one-off prototype when it appeared in 2014. But the bike is very real, and it just made a public appearance at the EICMA motorcycle show in Milan, Italy, where loads of new information was announced.The bike will get power from a permanent magnet electric motor, specifically designed to “produce a tone that increases in pitch and volume with speed.” The idea, I gather, is to have some audio indication of the power the bike is producing, which will make for a more-thrilling ride while also attracting people who might be skeptical that an electric bike can replicate what they like about gas-powered Harleys....

The U.S. military would like commercial satellites to aid in detecting an enemy hypersonic weapon attack. Speaking at a Washington D.C. event, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, suggested placing sensors on commercial satellites, enabling them to track weapons traveling above Mach 5. The Vice Chairman also suggested distributing military capabilities among civilian satellites, to enable the military to use them in emergencies....

Britain wants to build an air fleet of drones designed to overwhelm an enemy’s air defenses, allowing other aircraft to slip through and strike targets with impunity. U.K. Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson has said the unit, composed of hundreds of drones, will be operational by the end of 2019. Truth be told, though, that’s too optimistic for the world of defense procurement—especially a program that relies on bleeding-edge drone-swarm tech.Williamson says he wants to create a “concept unit” within the Royal Air Force equipped with hundreds of flying drones “capable of confusing and overwhelming enemy air defenses....

Q: I cannot open the back door of my 1999 Sienna van. The outside door actuator flap under the license plate light cover on the outside of the door is no longer connected to anything and will not release the door. There is no actuator on the inside of the door. Can you tell me how to get the door open so I can work from the inside to fix the problem?...

Antonello Tievoli, headwaiter on the Costa Concordia, stepped onto the bridge of the cruise ship at 9:15 pm on Friday, Jan. 13, of this year. From the wide windows, Tievoli could see the glittering lights of his home, Giglio Island, drawing closer. Capt. Francesco Schettino knew that Tievoli’s sister lived on Giglio, and invited him to the bridge as they cruised past. With its 13 brightly lit decks, the ship was more brilliant than anything on the island....

A Marine Corps F-35B Joint Strike Fighter caught fire in mid-air, causing at least two million dollars in damage to the aircraft. The aircraft landed safely and the pilot was unharmed. It’s the third fire for the controversial jet. The incident took place on October 27th, when a F-35B part of Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 caught fire in the internal weapons bay. The F-35 has two internal bays, meant to hide weapons inside the aircraft’s bulk and preserve the plane’s stealthy form....

Puerto Rico is still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria last year. Around five percent of the island still doesn’t have power even six months after the hurricane first made landfall. But as recent news makes clear, these numbers don’t mean Puerto Rico is nearly recovered, and it certainly casts doubt on the island’s ability to weather another hurricane.Local news outlets are reporting that a downed tree caused a power outage that affected nearly 900,000 Puerto Ricans....

The Skil worm drive circular saw is well-known among contractors as a tough, high-torque tool that doesn’t back down from tough cuts in construction or pressure treated lumber, stacks of plywood, or even big hardwood beams. It makes perfect sense to incorporate that basic design into a table saw–and it’s something many contractors have already done by inverting one of these beasts under a scrap piece of plywood. (We’re not advocating that—we’re just saying that it happens)....

Media Platforms Design TeamTwo explosions went off near the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)Even as the police and doctors treat the wounded, the forensic investigation into the explosions at the Boston Marathon will begin.“The forensics start as soon as people realize there’s been an explosion,” says Tom Thurman, of Eastern Kentucky University.Thurman knows a lot about bomb investigations....

For something that’s literally as old as the universe, dark matter doesn’t get much attention outside scientific circles. Maybe that’s because, other than a short-lived SyFy series and a late-period Randy Newman album, this nebulous star stuff has had a tough time breaking through the pop-culture barrier.But the truth is that dark matter has never mattered more. Our own Milky Way is embedded in a massive cloud of it, we’re looking for its interactions deep inside Earth, and there are whole galaxies without it....

Mount Agung in Bali has been thrusting ash thousands of feet into the sky for almost two weeks. Lava is burbling at the volcano’s peak. Indonesian authorities have ordered evacuations around Agung, while tourists are stranded at the closed airport. The volcano’s flanks are bulging from magma trying to push its way out, and earthquake frequency has been increasing. Heat from the magma has melted snow and ice at Agung’s summit, causing volcanic mudflows called lahars....

No vehicle, not even your own feet, can take you farther with less energy than a bike. And when a bike has multiple gears—two or three chain rings up next to your pedals and up to 11 cogs on your back wheel—it makes riding even easier. And faster.The size of the gears, and how they’re combined, determines how many times the rear wheel turns—and how far you travel—with every pedal stroke....