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On the afternoon of May 11, a Tesla Model S rear-ended a fire truck stopped at a traffic light in South Jordan, Utah. According to the local police, the 28-year-old driver admitted she was speeding at the time of the collision and, more disturbingly, she was checking messages on her phone.A simple case of driver stupidity, driver distraction, right? Not so fast. The driver had engaged Tesla’s Autopilot mode just prior to the incident, trusting the car’s onboard tech to take care of all the driving....

An F-35A fighter plane cuts across the sky, dead-set on destroying an enemy bunker protected by a network of radar and antiaircraft missile batteries. A flock of wingmen tag along to help the pilot defeat these defenses. But none of those companion planes have a person inside. They are semiautonomous drones the pilot must trust with his life.This scenario can be seen in a recently released “Call to Action” video made by the Air Force Research Lab....

Scientists have developed a genetically modified tomato plant with shortened vines and clusters of fruit. The researchers used CRISPR gene-editing technology to alter three genes within the plant’s DNA, according to a paper published in Nature Biotechnology.These advances could make it easier to grow tomatoes in extremely challenging conditions like space.It’s 2050, and you’ve just arrived on Mars. Your first meal awaits: a plate of spaghetti marinara made from fresh vine-ripened tomatoes....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ: I want to finish my basement but the refrigerant lines for the central air-conditioning system are fastened to the bottom of the joists. I’d like to run the lines through the joists, instead. The joists are engineered lumber shaped like an I-beam. Electrical cables already run through them, but can they accept a hole large enough for refrigerant lines?A: Yes, you can bore relatively large holes through I-joists to run refrigerant lines, pipes and ducts....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ:I want to hang a large picture in my living room but I can’t seem to find heavy-duty hooks to attach to the frame. My local hardware and art-supply stores don’t have anything that looks up to the job. My best idea is to drive two large eye screws into the frame and hang the picture off a thick piece of wire stretched between them. Will this hold?...

Media Platforms Design Team"Dad! Hold the tail down!" David Barford shouts to his 73-year-old father, Paul, who shuffles along the grass while supporting a slender spar that connects the rear stabilizers to the cockpit and wings of a fragile aircraft that balances on two inline wheels. David’s 20-year-old daughter, Charlotte, supports the starboard-wing spar with his best friend, Paul Wales. David’s 17-year-old son, Chris, marches alongside the port wing, while David, 44, coordinates the action from the nose of the plane....

Media Platforms Design TeamPublished on Jan. 9, 2009WASHINGTON–A group of renegade space vehicle designers, including NASA engineers bucking their bosses, today got their chance to make their case to the next presidential administration. During a morning meeting at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. with Obama administration transition team members, a handful of advocates today pitched an idea to scrap NASA’s existing post-shuttle plan. Instead, they want to create a different launch vehicle from space shuttle parts that could reach the International Space Station and, eventually, be used for a return to the moon....

You point out that colonial Americans preferred rifles to muskets. How do they differ?The primary advantages of a musket are that it loads quickly, hits hard and is very easy to learn to use. The whole point of 18th-century tactics was to bunch your guys together and send the proverbial hail of lead toward the enemy. But the rifle, from the very beginning, was the tool of specialists. It was made by craftsmen and used by an individual....

As it turns out, launching and controlling a swarm of 50 drones is no easy task. Who knew?Advanced Robotic Systems Engineering Laboratory (ARSENL), a team of students at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, successfully launched a swarm of 50 drones on August 27th. Perhaps more impressive than just the number is the fact that they were controlled by a single operator.View full post on FacebookThe team had previously launched 30 UAVs and controlled them simultaneously back in July, but 50 is a much more impressive number....

Media Platforms Design TeamSooner or later, every dishwasher wears out. The coating on the racks breaks down, the door gasket shrinks or the control panel develops a mind of its own. You may be able to coax a few more months from an ailing dishwasher, but when the motor seizes or the pump leaks, replacement is your best option.Performance is another reason to upgrade. Today’s best units out-clean yesterday’s, and if your current dishwasher is a $150 builder’s-grade model, you’ll be amazed at how much performance another $200 buys....

The U.S. Secretary of Defense has committed to maintaining the current nuclear triad.Each leg of the triad will need replacing over the next thirty years, at a cost of approximately $300 billion.Do we still need a triad, and could we save some money while deterring nuclear war?This week U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper spoke out in support of maintaining the nuclear “triad,” the combination of nuclear-capable bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and nuclear missile submarines that form the Pentagon’s strategic nuclear war-fighting capability....

Enceladus is a small moon of Saturn with an ocean under its surface and jets that blast water and ice out into space.Scientists just looked at data from a spacecraft that flew through the plume of water last year and found traces of complex organic molecules.The finding isn’t proof of life elsewhere in the solar system, but it’s a good sign that makes Enceladus even more intriguing for future missions to search for alien life....

In the most distant part of our solar system, past the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, lurks an undiscovered planet. Well, maybe. This hypothetical ‘Planet Nine’ was first proposed by a pair of astronomers in 2016 who were looking at the orbits of distant solar system bodies. According to them, the orbits of those dwarf planets and asteroids suggests a hidden planet is lurking somewhere out there, messing up those orbits with its gravity....

Update: SpaceX’s Starhopper took flight around 5 p.m. CT on August 27 and successfully completed its 150-meter test. The whole flight lasted a little under a minute.Starhopper goes in for a landing.Mission complete.You can watch whole launch right here:View full post on YoutubeOriginal post: After last night’s launch was cancelled just before lift-off, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter that Starhopper’s final launch will be rescheduled for tonight. Last night’s launch from Boca Chica, Texas, was abandoned at T-minus 0....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe enchanting twinkling of the stars is disheartening to astronomers studying distant galaxies. Distortions in the atmosphere such as turbulence and wind shear create those twinkling effect we see while stargazing, but when you look through a telescope, there’s no twinkle—just a big blur. Human eyes also have their own “twinkling” problem. When ophthalmologists and vision scientists try to look deep into our eyes, distortions within the cornea and lens impair light as it travels through the eyeball, frustrating their efforts....

Media Platforms Design TeamMost accident avoidance systems use a combination of optical and radar sensors to recognize cars and pedestrians, but Subaru’s new EyeSight system is simpler: using two CCD cameras mounted on either side of the rearview mirror, the arrangement processes stereoscopic images and uses shape recognition software to perceive potential impact, applying brakes when necessary.Our nighttime test drive through North Carolina’s Outer Banks picked up on cyclists and drunk teenage pedestrians, with the system warning of their presence on the dashboard; though radar-based systems work over longer distances, EyeSight’s 80 meter (262 foot) range served our purposes fine....

After weeks of teasers, Tesla has finally shown the public its new Model Y crossover vehicle at the Tesla Design Studio in Hawthorne, California. The vehicle is based on the core design of the Model 3 sedan, but with a larger body, and a third row, for seating for up to 7 people. It’s a crossover: a tall body sitting on a basic car platform. Crossovers have taken over sedans in sales, so Tesla’s plan to add another one to the lineup, in addition to the Model X, makes sense....

Bye-bye, Beetle. Volkswagen said today it would kill off the current Beetle in July 2019 with no plans to replace it. The model’s swan song will be a Final Edition trim.The re-retirement of the Beetle is remarkable for just how unremarkable it is. An automotive icon rides out on an unloved model, perhaps never to be seen again. How could this happen? The short answer is: By making the car good, they took it too seriously....

Steam power may seem like a relic of the 19th century, but one company wants to bring the tech to the 21st. Specifically, space startup Honeybee Robotics is teaming up with researchers from the University of Central Florida to build a spacecraft that can soar between worlds in the Solar System forever by using steam power.Using steam power for a spacecraft, while unusual, actually makes a lot of sense. The biggest limiting factor around how long a spacecraft can operate is typically how much fuel it has onboard....

Media Platforms Design TeamAudi’s recent $1.1 billion bid for Italian bike builder Ducati raised plenty of speculation about VW honcho Ferdinand Piech’s motivations (a crushing vision of two and four-wheeled world domination?) But recently unearthed interviews reveal another underlying theme: compact, lightweight engine technology.The priority sheds light on the incredible packaging challenges faced– and largely overcome– in superbike design. “A 1 liter engine can produce 200 horsepower,” Piech was quoted in a 2008 article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, as cited in Automotive News....