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Media Platforms Design TeamThirty-two-year-old Dmitry Itskov made a dot-com fortune in Russia, founding what eventually became the online media company New Media Stars. And now that’s he’s part of the one percent, he aims to give back to humanity in a big way. In 2011, he announced his 2045 Initiative for taking humanity to the next evolutionary level. The Initiative’s goals include extending the human life span, augmenting our native intelligence, and extending our minds into machines....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s a cold and rainy day in Sindelfingen, Germany, as Stephan Wolfsried, the head of electronics and chassis development for Mercedes-Benz cars, stands on the roof of a two-story control tower overlooking a damp parking lot.On the asphalt below, a Mercedes-Benz S-Class and an E-Class cruise around the perimeter before veering toward a crossroads painted in the middle of more than 20,000 square meters of pavement. On cue, the cars accelerate past 40 mph, apparently destined for a massive collision—yet as their paths intersect within a split second of each other, they narrowly avoid disaster....

In southern Vietnam, an unusual house cat-sized deer relative has escaped the efforts of wildlife biologists. While local lore suggested it was still around, attempts to find one alive had failed—and even a dead specimen hadn’t been seen in 30 years.But in research reported today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, the borderline-apocryphal silver back chevrotain (or Vietnam mouse-deer) has been spotted in the wild. But due to the prevalence of snare hunting in the area (basically wire traps, described by a CNN report as “barbaric”), the paper’s authors are being tight lipped as to where....

Media Platforms Design TeamFrom its perch 250 miles above the earth, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory will refine scientists’ understanding of the Earth and its rain and snow systems. This new satellite, a partnership between NASA and Japan’s space agency JAXA, will provide accurate global precipitation data, help meteorologists make more accurate predictions during severe weather, and even improve your local forecast.GPM, set to launch in February 2014, is a next-generation weather satellite building on its predecessor, the Tropical Rainfal Measuring Mission (TRMM), which launched from Japan in 1997....

Media Platforms Design Team CHICAGO — At what was by far the most jam-packed unveiling of the entire show here so far, Navistar International today took the wraps off its new flagship truck, the LoneStar. This monster is the big-rig equivalent of a Harley-Davidson dresser, with a huge chrome grille and lights galore. But there’s some green poking through that smoke: As part of Navistar’s Advanced Classics line of Class 8 trucks designed with advanced aerodynamics, the LoneStar is projected to be 5 to 15-percent more fuel efficient than traditional trucks....

Media Platforms Design TeamTheir needles hanging precariously over thousands of spinning files, portable hard drives can be fragile vessels—always just an accidental drop away from irrecoverable loss. We took four 250 GB models—including two that are considered “ruggedized”—and loaded them with video, audio and text files before dropping them from subsequently loftier heights. Then we hooked each one up to a computer after every fall to make sure that the drives would load and that they hadn’t corrupted the data....

When you see a plane with a 385-foot wingspan that can launch rockets mid-flight, it’s hard not to get excited about human ingenuity when it comes to reaching space. Now Stratolaunch Systems, the maker of that beastly megaplane (also named Stratolaunch), is giving the world a closer look at the rockets it will launch —and one of them will even carry humans.A New Kind of CargoStratolaunch SystemsStratolaunch’s design is perfect for launching satellites....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn a hot and bright California day, the red steel frame of a half-built house, its footprint a jagged stamp on the landscape, glints in the sunshine beaming down on Santa Clara University. Crawling around the crescent-shaped structure, workers holler measurements, fasten sheathing and snap chalk lines. They’re wearing hard hats and tool belts, and the noise of steel swatting plywood sounds unmistakably like a job site. But this is hardly a construction crew out of central casting....

The F-35A has practiced unleashing its hellfire barrage on the ground, but yesterday it did its first tests in the sky. And as you can see, it just rattles off some 30-round bursts from its internal gatling gun like it ain’t no thang. View full post on YoutubeAll three of the F-35 variants (the traditional takeoff and landing F-35A, the hovering F-35B, and the aircraft carrier-based F-35C) are tricked out with a four-barrel GAU-22/A gatling gun, but only the F-35A actually has it completely built into the frame for maximum stealth....

Astronomers at the Very Large Telescope in Chile have captured the first ever image of a planet in the process of forming. The image shows a planet about four times the size of Jupiter orbiting a young star and clearing away a region of the dust and debris surrounding the star system.Since 2014, the VLT has been using a planet-hunting instrument called the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument, or SPHERE for short....

In the 1910s, the Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company was the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. Indian motorcycles swept the Isle of Man TT in their earlier years, and the bikes were in fierce competition with Harley-Davidson through the first half of the 20th century. Then, after a series of poor business decisions, the company went bankrupt in 1953. A number of organizations have tried to revive the brand over the years with limited amounts of success....

Thirty years ago, in the book The End of Nature, Bill McKibben proposed the idea of nature—like a species—going extinct. “Our comforting sense of the permanence of our natural world, our confidence that it will change gradually and imperceptibly if at all, is the result of a subtly warped perspective,” McKibben wrote. “Changes that can affect us can happen in our lifetime in our world.” One of those changes has been brought to the fore in an alarming study published in the journal Biological Conservation, which claims that more than 40 percent of the world’s insect species could go extinct in the next three decades....

If you’ve ever been curious what it looks like to be in a swordfight, look no further.Richard Marsden of the Phoenix Society of Historical Swordsmanship in Arizona recently sparred using sabers with Lee Smith of the Blood & Iron martial arts school in Canada. Marsden was at the school to give two sword-based seminars, one of which was on Polish saber fencing. How much does Marsden know about the Polish saber?...

Hand-crank generators are, well, handy. It’s always a good idea to keep a backup battery on hand when you’re traveling, in case you need to make an emergency call—but if you’re in a place without a reliable source of electricity, it can also be useful to have the means of making your own power. Hand-crank chargers are simple to use and relatively speedy; the problem is, almost every single one is bulky and awkward-looking—the kind of thing you stick in a drawer so you don’t have to look at it, then forget to grab when you really need it....

Two F-16s crashed after a midair collision in Georgia last night, according to a statement released by the Air National Guard.According to the statement, two pilots from the 169th Fighter Wing were engaging in routine night training over Jefferson County when they collided at approximately 9:15 p.m. local time. Both pilots ejected safely, and were treated at and released from a local hospital with no injuries. View full post on FacebookThe jets appear to have crashed to the ground in two separate locations, and the Guard reports that no injuries were sustained either in the air or on the ground....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s official: The very first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is here. The highly-anticipated short teaser was released today more than a year ahead of its December 2015 release date. The essentials are packed into the 88 second trailer (along with a lot of black screen): X-Wings blasting over water, new Stormtroopers, what looks like several shots on Tattoine, a new astromech droid with a soccer ball body, and the glorious return of the Millenium Falcon....

Let’s face it, not everyone uses Microsoft Word anymore. What you really need to know is just how to create a document. Google Docs, released in 2006, is free to use, web-based, and not only for text documents; you can create slideshows and spreadsheets, too. Here’s how to use it. Setting Up a Google AccountFirst things first, you have to have a Google account to take advantage of its products. You probably already have a Google account of some sort, but in case you don’t, here’s how to get one....

Thousands of little black balls are floating in water reservoirs out in California right now. The reason? They’re throwing shade.This video by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District shows a truck full of shade balls getting dumped into a reservoir near Calabasas, California back in June, and they’re not the only California city to do so. According to NPR, Los Angeles deployed 96,000,000 of its own to cover a reservoir this year....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe simplest water-harvesting system is no more than a single barrel equipped with a valve for a garden hose. (Photograph by Dan Chavkin)Using rain barrels is an old concept that has come around again, and with good reason. Water that washes off your roof does nothing but over-water lawn areas near the downspouts, or burden a house’s foundation drain system. It also contributes to runoff that carries pollutants into waterways....

Idiots with laser pointers have been an increasingly prevalent danger to pilots in the sky, but it looks like they’re starting to get some competition. Christmas light lasers, those projectors that just throw some colorful laser spots up on your house so you don’t have to rig up LEDs, run a serious risk of blinding pilots if they miss the mark and fly off into the sky. Related StoryWhy You Don’t Shine a Laser At a Police HelicopterAccording to KRON 4 in Alameda, Texas, errant holiday lasers hit a pilot flying over Houston at 13,000 feet last week, and a similar incident blasted a helicopter over Sacramento last month....