Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today. Media Platforms Design TeamRecently, there’s been news of a humongous solar flare that narrowly missed the Earth in 2012. If it had been one week earlier, one of the largest solar storms in recorded history would have directly hit our world. Just a small reminder that we live near an enormous ball of nuclear fusion....
One of the two candidates to replace the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter has started ground tests. The SB-1 Defiant (styled as SB>1) uses unique rotor layout rather than conventional helicopters, giving it the speed to deliver troops and equipment more quickly on the battlefield. Designed and built by Boeing and Sikorsky, a division of Lockheed Martin, the SB-1 features substantial differences over conventional helicopters. Regular helicopters use their main rotors for lift while the tail rotor stabilizes the helicopter and prevents it from whirling like a top....
Media Platforms Design TeamPM: What are the big automotive segments in the next five years going to be? Henderson: We’re going to face higher fuel prices. We’ve seen fuel prices rise this year despite the deepest, heaviest recession this country has seen in many years.You’re going to see more four-cylinder passenger cars, more fuel-efficient Sixes and crossover vehicles. There are still going to be customers who need a certain amount of utility from full-size pickups and large utilities....
Taking work pressure to a new level, Chief Petty Officer Daniel Jackson set a U.S. Navy diving record in August, descending to nearly 2000 ft. in the Atmospheric Diving System (ADS) Hardsuit 2000. The ADS uses 16 rotary joints and two foot-pedal-controlled thrusters to provide mobility. Its primary mission is to help divers assess submarine damage and to locate survivors.ADS 2000 SPECSMaximum Depth: The 95.5-in.-tall, 1140-pound diving suit can operate for 6 to 8 hours at depths of up to 2000 ft....
Archaeologists in Texas have discovered what they believe are the oldest weapons ever found in North America: spear-point tips from 15,500 years ago. Ostensibly used to hunt game, the weapons offer new insight about the continent’s earliest settlers, according to a new paper published in Science Advances. The weapons, which were found at a site in Texas named for its landowner, Debra L. Friedkin, appear to predate the Clovis people, a paleo-Indian culture believed to have settled North America some 13,000 years ago, during the final stages of the Late Pleistocene era....
Day 2Jackson’s Bistro is the nicest restaurant within walking distance of the Tampa Convention Center, and right now, at lunchtime, it is overrun with soldiers in fatigues. The place is like an anthill. From the elevated bar, where I am waiting for the host to grant me a blessed table, you can see a line of soldiers meandering back toward the convention center, which looks like a toy ocean liner from this angle, all decks of sunny windows propped up on sand-colored columns....
For the past several years, the world’s power have been locked in a supercomputing arms race, one-upping one another with biggest and faster achievements. According to a new announcement, the world’s fastest supercomputer is coming to the United States in 2021 and will be the first to break the so-called “exascale” barrier.Supercomputers measure their performance in flops, or calculations per second. A computer that has ten flops can make ten calculations in a second, which is pretty abysmal for a modern computer....
The way in which we navigate the road is ever-changing. We graduated from paper maps to electronic GPS devices. Then smartphones happened, and now we resort to relying on apps like Google Maps and Waze to tell us where to go. While this is convenient, it doesn’t exactly facilitate safer driving. Smartphone displays are far smaller than old-school GPS units, and you have to crane your neck and squint your eyes to figure out your next turn....
Here’s a fun video. Someone imagining Reddit if it were a shareware program of the 1980s instead of an internet hub of the early 21st century filled with science discussions, amateur porn, and bronies. Created by SquirrelMonkeyCom, who makes a lot of things like it, it’s a fun video of retro graphics, though the ultra-nerd in me can’t help but think that Reddit would probably have been a bit more in line with BBS commands at the time....
The Gi FlyBike is a new E-bike catered to urban commuters that is approaching $300,000 over its original goal of $75,000 on Kickstarter. The name of the game for the Gi FlyBike is convenience—it folds into a compact configuration in less than a second, the smooth belt drive is grease free, the 25-watt electric motor provides pedal assistance to keep you cruising, and there is even a phone mount to charge your smartphone and use GPS....
Drones come in all shapes and sizes. Now researchers at the University of Zurich and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have made a quadcopter that can change its shape and size in flight. View full post on YoutubeThe drone was built with first responders and rescue efforts in mind. Disaster sites rarely conform to logical shapes and sizes. Having a drone that could change its shape and size to fit through tight spaces on the fly could prove extremely valuable....
Mad Max: Fury Road may be a vehicle for Tom Hardy, but the post-apocalyptic thriller’s real star is a car: the Peacemaker.The Peacemaker is a jacked-up Ripsaw lightweight tank built made for the film by Howe and Howe Technologies. A 1,000-hp engine helps the tank tear through the earth and blaze through bumps at speeds of 70 miles per hour. You’ll find few creature comforts at the end of the world, though....
The death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani has brought threats of retaliation against U.S. forces and interests in the region.In response, the Pentagon is pouring forces into the region, including air, ground, and sea forces. The deployments include Army Rangers, an elite infantry unit, and a battalion of U.S. Marines.The U.S. military is pouring troops into the Middle East as it prepares to deal with fallout from the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani....
UPDATE: This week Huffington Post and other outlets are publishing reports of a “strange circular object” beneath the Baltic Sea, which some are claiming to be a UFO. The same team of explorers released a similar image last summer; here’s PM’s original story from August 2011 about why any UFO claims don’t stand up.Swedish treasure hunter Peter Lindberg made headlines around the world after releasing sonar pictures of a strange disk-shaped formation on the bottom of the Baltic Sea last week, saying the shape could be an underwater “Stonehenge....
A routine German flight recently turned out to be an experience in human humility. As powerful as our planes can get, nature can still toss them around with ease. That’s what the unfortunate passengers of Eurowings flight EW9203 from Bologna to Düsseldorf had to learn the hard way. Luckily terrific pilot skill got them all on the ground safely.View full post on YoutubeWorking through the 70 mph winds of Storm Friederike that have been been causing transportation headaches throughout Europe this week, the pilot is able right the plane onto the runaway....
What is Earth made of? Interestingly enough, we don’t exactly know. We can use magnetic fields and seismic waves to measure the densities and movements of material deep in the mantle, liquid outer core, and solid inner core of the Earth, which provides clues about its composition. We know, for example, that the core is mostly iron, and more than 90 percent of the entire planet is iron, oxygen, silicon, and magnesium....
On Monday, a spacecraft called InSight will arrive at Mars and, if all goes well, land on the surface. Insight is the latest in a long line of probe that have been investigating the planet, carrying instruments that will build on what earlier spacecraft have discovered. But this satellite isn’t alone. Its mission is not only redefining what humanity knows about Mars, it is breaking new ground in the way our species explores the solar system....
Media Platforms Design TeamYesterday, Nissan officially launched its overhauled 2013 Pathfinder. Touting the unibody ute as the “next-gen SUV,” Nissan says it delivers the performance expected of a Pathfinder while upgrading its comfort, efficiency, and technology specs.Probably the biggest news is the pricing, which will start at $28,270 (without destination). That’s $1020 less than the base 2012 model and, considering the amount of upgrades, mighty impressive. Nissan says it sees 2013 as a window of opportunity to steal sales from its segment competition, so the aggressive pricing makes sense....
Media Platforms Design TeamHumans don’t “rise to the occasion.” Instead, we fall to our level of training and experience. Archilochus, a Greek soldier–poet, wasn’t thinking about driving when he said this 2800 years ago. But my experience as a race driver, driving instructor, and parent of teen drivers says he could have been. I teach at B.R.A.K.E.S., a nonprofit advanced teen driving school founded by drag-racing champion Doug Herbert after both of his boys died in an avoidable accident....
If we ever leave Earth, framing offworld will be crucial, but Mars, the Moon and other planetary bodies just don’t have nutrients in the ground. A new study from the University of Zurich has an idea to get around the problem: mycorrhiza, when plants and fungi form symbiotic relationships.Mycorrhiza are extremely tiny fungi themselves, made of microscopic threads called hyphae. These hyphae threads are connected through a web called a mycelium....
