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You don’t just hop in and fly the Dragon Lady.A new video on YouTube chronicles the extensive preparations required to fly the U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane. To cope with the extreme altitudes, pilots wear “moon suits” so large and complex it takes a full crew of technicians to help them put it on. The video then goes on to show the aircraft taking off what was until recently a secret base in the Middle East, fly a mission, and then return home....

View full post on VimeoIn his book Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan gave us a picture of human space exploration and a road map of humanity reaching the stars. The new short film Wanderers by Erik Wernquist is about the fulfillment of that dream, taking Sagan’s hopeful words and setting them against the backdrop of humanity’s exploration of the solar system.The film sees humans launching missions to Jupiter and its satellite Europa; to Saturn and its moons Enceladus, Titan, and Iapetus; to Uranus and its moon Miranda; and to Mars and multiple asteroids....

“We’ve Been Wrong Before” is Popular Mechanics’ encyclopedia of scientific ideas that sounded good at the time but didn’t quite pan out. Today: The Expanding Earth Theory, which argues that the reason the continents have spread apart is that the Earth itself has been getting bigger over the years.Five centuries ago, when Europeans saw their first world maps that included the Americas, they noticed something odd: The coastlines of Africa and South America would fit together like a Jigsaw puzzle if they weren’t separated by the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean....

There’s hope yet for the flying car. Really. The Jetsons-era dream of personal air vehicles (PAVs) has recently received a few gasps of fresh air (click here for an update from Resident Roboticist Daniel H. Wilson). An advocacy group, the CAFE Foundation, has launched a $250,000 PAV challenge for new and interesting flight concepts. Plus, companies from the aviation (Boeing) and automotive (Honda) industries are pursuing mainstream airborne-vehicle technology, though no designs or deadlines have been announced....

Media Platforms Design TeamSpaceflight is an exciting business: There are powerful rockets, inspiring missions, and radically new spacecraft. But that excitement gets buried in layers of laws, regulations, and oversight that determine how Americans can get themselves off the planet. It’s not glamorous, but it’s important.Today, private companies want to kick-start a new industry, one that would carry astronauts and ordinary citizens to the edge of space, into orbit, and into the solar system....

Researchers from NYU have compressed a glacier’s breakdown into a stunning 90 seconds of destruction. The collapse, scientifically known as a calving, shows what global sea-rise looks like in real time.View full post on YoutubeThe event, which in real time lasted around half an hour, shows a four-mile iceberg breaking away from the Helheim glacier in eastern Greenland. The video of the calving, which shows the glacier breaking off into the ocean and took place on June 22, offers a first-hand look at the effects of global warming....

Images on Chinese social media appear to show a hypersonic test vehicle that is a likely prototype for a weapon system. The Jia Geng No. 1 rocket, allegedly built for hypersonic research, appears very similar to an American concept for a hypersonic cruise missile. The images, which recently surfaced in Chinese language media, show the Jia Geng No. 1 rocket, a collaboration between Xiamen University Aerospace Academy and Beijing Lingkong Tianxing Technology Co....

Merging with northbound traffic on Interstate 75 just outside Auburn Hills, Mich., I punch the accelerator, quickly swing left into the passing lane and pull forcefully ahead of the cars around me. In any other ride, on any other gray morning, it’d be just another Interstate moment. But this rush hour, I’m behind the wheel of a preproduction 2009 Volkswagen Jetta, which is powered by a 2.0-liter turbo-charged, direct-injected diesel engine that, even as I leave the speed limit in tatters, is averaging nearly 50 mpg....

Coral across the globe are facing tremendous challenges due to climate change. Scientists in Saudi Arabia have begun looking at a process that changes the regulation of genes called DNA methylation to see if coral can adapt to changing waters.Methlyation is the process of adding methyls, alkylls derived from methane, to DNA molecules. The process can change how DNA information is read without actually changing the strand of DNA itself. It’s a well-known process, one 2010 study looking at methlyation and cancer treatment called it “one of the most intensely studied” forms of genetic modification in mammals....

The Drake Equation, written by astrophysicist Frank Drake in 1961, is a probabilistic equation to come up with an estimate of the number of intelligent, technological civilizations that should be in the Milky Way—and by extension, the universe. It is the foundation for a number of statistical models that suggest intelligent alien life should be widespread throughout the galaxy. Here is the equation: Here’s the breakdown variable by variable:N is the number of intelligent civilizationsR* is the rate of star formation in the galaxyf(p) is the fraction of those stars that have planetsn(e) is the average number of planets that could support lifef(l) is the fraction of those planets that actually develop lifef(i) is the fraction of planets with life that develop intelligent lifef(c) is the fraction of intelligent species that send signals out into spaceL is the amount of time that the average communicative intelligent species is broadcasting its existenceOf course, the values for most of these variables are extremely rough estimates and the subject of much debate....

In a nondescript hangar in California’s Mojave Desert, workers at Scaled Composites are assembling SpaceShipTwo, the first spacecraft expressly designed for tourists. The company, which is owned by engineer Burt Rutan, is also building the four-engine plane that will ferry the spaceship to 50,000 ft. After SpaceShipTwo is released from the mother ship, the six passengers will be treated to a Mach 3 burn, straight up, propelled by a mix of nitrous oxide and solid fuel....

The first scientific results of the Parker Solar Probe mission were released today in a series of four papers published in the journal Nature.The measurements revealed a slew of insight into the sun’s magnetic field, how solar winds flow, and more.Parker Solar Probe has five more years left in its mission to unlock even more secrets about the physics of our nearest and dearest star.Parker Solar Probe has kissed the sun, and now its telling us everything....

Today, at a star-studded event in Cupertino that featured no hardware or gadgets at all, Apple spilled the details on its new suite of products. The new services run the gamut from TV to news to gaming, but one question connects them all: Just how many subscriptions are you willing to pay for? Apple News+ will pull some 300 hundred magazines into the Apple News, with their print articles reworked to make use of the more versatile digital form....

My sister-in-law just replaced her 2005 Chevy Suburban with a 2017 GMC Yukon XL. Twelve years between them, the mechanical parts are the same: 5.3-liter V-8 under the hood, ladder frame under the body, solid axle out back. The electronics, though, are a different story—she went from a CD player to Apple’s CarPlay, from a key fob to remote locking via app. In the last five years, in-car electronics have become the biggest difference between new and old....

With today unveiling of the iPhones XS, XS Max, and iPhone XR, Apple took aim at having the best camera on a smartphone. And all this new technology is exemplary of a greater trend: better photos through software.Depth ControlAppleYesterday, Apple’s Phil Schiller showed off two new key photo features. One is called Depth Control, which can blur or sharpen the background on an existing photo that was taken in Portrait Mode....

The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the most highly mobile military forces in the world. A prime example is this video, which shows a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter lifting ground vehicles—including a 12-ton light armored vehicle—and then taking fuel from an aerial refueling tanker. All of the equipment in the video, from Humvees to KC-130 tankers, are owned and operated by the U.S. Marines, giving the service extraordinary flexibility and tactical agility....

There are some places on earth that humans simply can’t go. Mount Erebus in Antarctica is a good example. The second-tallest volcano in the continent offers a potential treasure trove of ancient DNA in its walls, but they’re off limits to humans. Our lungs simply couldn’t handle the high levels of carbon dioxide within its tunnels. Mount Erebus and places like it are why NASA is building an ice-climbing robot called IceWorm....

Versatility DefinedLook in the dictionary for the meaning of “Crossover” and you should see a Ford Edge.X Factor»>“THE BMW’S 4.8-LITER V8 IS NOT JUST STRONG. IT ALSO GIVES THE X5 THE GNARLIEST SOUNDS OF ANY SUV ON THE ROAD.” –D.C.Almost ThereTruck EvolutionMedia Platforms Design Team Pickups don’t feel like trucks anymore. The jiggly ride and hair-shirt interiors are long gone.We hammered several new Chevrolet Silverados and GMC Sierras over the worst washboards we could find in the Arizona desert: no more axle hop....

Yet another North Korean missile test failed today, the fifth in six months. It’s a setback for leader Kim Jong-un’s nuclear program, which is attempting to build long-range missiles capable of striking the United States.The failure, which happened earlier today, involved the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile. The Musudan is derived from the Soviet Cold War-era R-27 “Zyb” submarine-launched missile and has been adapted to be launched from wheeled, ground-based vehicles. The missile weighs 20 tons and has a range of up to 4,000 kilometers....

When you think of ice, you probably picture the cubes in your freezer, or perhaps an iceberg or frozen pond. But ice can take all kinds of different forms, and recently a group of scientists managed to recreate one of the most exotic kinds of ice in their lab, thanks to a collection of super-powered lasers.The kind of ice we’re most familiar with is a specific type called Ice I. Ice has almost two dozen other types, like Ice II, which forms when you start applying pressure to normal ice....