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Police in Paraguay found an unpleasant surprise while inspecting their cache of weaponry. It seems that thieves plundered more than 40 rifles from a law enforcement armory in Capiata, a town near the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion. Police didn’t notice because the criminals replaced the stolen guns with wooden and plastic fakes.View full post on TwitterThe police started to think something was amiss when the FN FAL battle rifles began to show up on the black market, where they can fetch upwards of $10,000....

Like lots of people, we were captivated by Nintendo’s new Switch gaming console, and are counting down the days until we can get our hands on one. But for now, this incredibly convincing fake Nintendo Switch will have to hold us over.This non-Nintendo Switch isn’t very functional—at all. Maker Frank Sandqvist, of CNC Design, built a replica Switch out of some glass and 3D-printed plastic, and it looks almost indistinguishable from the genuine article....

As if brown dwarfs weren’t already weird enough, researchers at Caltech spied a distinctly planetary feature on LSR J1835+3259. The dwarf, located just 20 light years away, showed evidence of aurora activity, which is typically more associated with planets than stars. This is the first aurora found outside our solar system.A brown dwarf is a kind of failed star, somewhere between a small, cool star and a massive gas giant planet....

Just about everyone loves a hardwood floor. Whether it’s a simple oak or maple strip installation or a complex parquet pattern, the rich variation in the color and the texture of wood add warmth, character and a feeling of substance to any home.And, with a little care, a good hardwood surface can last as long as the house it serves. The type of maintenance your floor will require depends on the amount of use it sees....

When most people think of cloning, they picture biological cloning, where two organisms are given the same DNA. But to a physicist, cloning means something else: replicating an entire object down to the subatomic level.If a physicist were to try and clone you, they would need to produce an exact copy, precisely replicating the position and momentum of every single particle, down to the smallest electron. Unfortunately, it turns out that due to the intricacies of quantum math, cloning is pretty much impossible....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: Sept. 1, 2013Base Price (est.): $34,000 to $40,000 Competitors: Ford E-Series, Ford Transit, Nissan NV, Ram ProMasterPowertrains: Turbocharged 2.1-liter diesel I-4, 161 hp, 265 lb-ft; turbocharged 3.0-liter diesel V-6, 188 hp, 325 lb-ft; seven-speed automatic or five-speed automatic, RWD. EPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): N/AWhat’s New: A new 2.1-liter turbocharged four-cylinder diesel is now the standard engine. The power output drops compared to the previous generation’s, but that decline is offset somewhat by the increased flexibility of the new seven-speed automatic transmission....

Whether you’re backpacking through remote locations, visiting a foreign country, or surviving the apocalypse, having access to clean drinking water is vital for staying healthy. Even when water looks clean, it can be rife with bacteria, microorganisms, and viruses that could cause sickness or even death. Tech to the rescue. Here are some lightweight, portable gadgets to keep you healthy and well-hydrated.LifeStraw Buy NowOriginally designed as an inexpensive and dependable way to provide clean drinking water for developing countries, the LifeStraw filters out 99....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere is no leather or felt in Apple’s new iOS 7. There are no fake reflections on the app icons. Instead of unnecessary design flourishes, there are beautiful, clean lines, an embrace of white and translucent backgrounds, and new app icons that are simple yet informative.Behind the welcome aesthetic changes—announced today during a two-hour presentation at the tech giant’s Worldwide Developers Conference—are functional changes, too, including swiping from the edges to navigate forward and backward in apps, faster access to common settings, multitasking that’s like a mix of Ubuntu and Android, and intelligent scheduling of CPU usage and updates....

Media Platforms Design TeamTo drive west through Amarillo, Texas, is to be confronted by a litany of billboards luring passersby off the freeway to sample the town’s famous 72-ounce steaks and a bit of the cowboy culture that put the Texas Panhandle, flat as a rodeo arena, on the map. But Amarillo, a far-flung dusty urban island between Albuquerque, N.M., and Oklahoma City, is also helium country—for now.Amarillo has been called the helium capital of the world because the area is home to the Federal Helium Reserve, a vast underground storehouse operated by the U....

While the touchscreen revolutionized mobile, it also inspired a quest for more screen to touch, leading to the unwieldy, inevitable phablet. But what if you could expand the touchscreen beyond the limits of your phone with just a phone case?This is the idea behind Fuffr, a phone case that uses outward-pointing sensors to read finger gestures outside the phone, freeing up screen real estate and expanding the canvas upon which you can interact with your phone....

View full post on YoutubeWhether it’s the prohibitive price tag, the nerdy look of the glasses, or the social awkwardness of talking to a headset, Google Glass has some problems to overcome before the ambitious technology becomes widely adopted. Today the search giant made a major move to address one of those: With four new titanium-crafted frames made by Google, wearing a piece of computing on your face has become a little more inconspicuous....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere are jobs that bring you face to face with mankind at its ugliest: cops, social workers, garbage men. Add video game engineers to that list. At Bungie, the studio behind the games, including the upcoming (available exclusively for the Xbox 360 on Sept. 14th), the developers who work on competitive multiplayer have seen it all. There are the cowards; the players who pull off a streak of successful matches and then retire to keep their standings at the top of the leaderboards....

The highlight of the American-led Rim of the Pacific exercises (other than the ones that involve sinking vessels) is the international parade of ships. Held at the conclusion of each RIMPAC, the parade is a sweeping view of ships from 25 nations across the Pacific Rim. This year more than 50 naval vessels participate in the exercise, including 46 surface ships and five submarines.View full post on YoutubeFirst held in 1971, RIMPAC happens every two years off the Hawaiian islands....

The Obama administration will unveil a Clean Power Plan later today, one meant to push for renewable energy while also creating a carbon credit program. It also strengthens the legal defenses of the EPA in the wake of a series of lawsuits against the agency, and calls for stronger carbon capture programs in existing coal plants.The proposed rules will reduce emissions by 32 percent, according to EPA head Gina McCarthy. The plan gives states credits for use of nuclear power, though not for under-construction nuclear plants....

Media Platforms Design TeamA satellite has always been a one-shot deal. Once a satellite enters orbit, it operates either until the equipment fails or until it runs out of propellant and burns up into the atmosphere. Humans have been launching satellites for more than a half-century, and we’ve yet to come up with an effective way to visit them and extend their lives. “Our space infrastructure is an incredibly fragile thing,” says Steve Oldham, president of Space Infrastructure Services (SIS) at MacDonald, Detwiler and Associates (MDA)....

Boca Chica Beach, Texas — The rocket ship stands gleaming in the South Texas sunset, the dark sky reflected off its aluminum skin. It’s called Starship Mark 1 and its owner, Elon Musk, is standing at its base to fill in the public on its progress. “This is the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen,” Musk told the crowd. “I’m so proud to work with such a great team.”Laying Out the DreamSpaceX CEO Elon Musk during the September 28, 2019, Starship event....

The Dutch have a tendency to do things differently. Take their levees, which are giant storm-surge barriers specially made with synthetic textiles to keep the earth from eroding. Their bike paths are placed on equal footing as automotive roads. And their town planning, which merges private and public life by combining terraced houses with amenities like shops and sports facilities, is a far cry from the way American suburbs are planned....

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Frances H. Arnold, George P. Smith and Gregory P. Winter. While they’ve worked on distinct projects, the Swedish Academy says in a press release that all three have been “inspired by the power of evolution and used the same principles – genetic change and selection – to develop proteins that solve mankind’s chemical problems.“View full post on TwitterArnold’s work began after a switch in career paths....

The FCC is accusing a California startup of launching satellites into orbit without permission from the agency. If this accusation is correct, it would be the first instance of an unauthorized satellite launch ever.For obvious reasons, it’s pretty hard to sneak a satellite into space. It’s also a bad idea, because space is pretty crowded. If two satellites collide in orbit, it could cost millions of dollars to launch new ones....

Media Platforms Design TeamU.S. Navy photo by Jim BrooksWindow and door manufacturers are churning out costly impact-resistant products intended to protect you during severe storms. But do you know what these super-windows really protect you from? In a recent post, I wrote that impact windows primarily protect homes from flying debris in a storm. That’s only part of the story, however. If the only danger to worry about was the small chance that a stray 2 x 4 would come hurtling through the window like a timber missile, many of us would just play the odds and pass on the expensive windows....