Ten years ago, I received a letter from a man named Bob Shotwell who lived in a small town in Minnesota. He knew that I liked old cars from watching me on television. And he wanted to give me one.He recalled that he asked his father for a car as he was about to graduate from high school in the early 1930s. But his dad replied that if he wanted a car, he should build one....
The investigation into Sunday’s tragic fatal crash of a helicopter carrying retired basketball star Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others, including the pilot, will likely take months, with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigating every aspect of the flight.While it may seem fairly obvious what transpired—the Sikorsky S-76 flew into low-visibility conditions and crashed into a hillside—there could be any number of what the NTSB refers to as “contributing factors” in the accident....
Media Platforms Design TeamWith each new bit of information that came up in “Eggtown,” Thursday’s episode of Lost (Kate’s on trial! Kate has a son! Kate’s son is Aaron!), our jaws dropped. Good thing we’re not Miles Straume, whose tied up in a shed, mouth stuffed with a live grenade that’s ready to explode at the first slip of the lip. Fed up with being left out of the loop and still fighting for to be Alpha Dog, John Locke silences the ghost whisperer from spilling any more secrets by making him chomp down on a grenade....
Media Platforms Design TeamThe 2013 Mercedes-Benz SL550 is loaded with new aluminum underpinnings that help shave 242 pounds from its chassis. And while large bits like the engine bulkhead– the single biggest piece of die-cast aluminum in the production auto biz– certainly play their part in weight savings, there are loads of other unsung details, as well.Take the SL’s floorboard. Replacing the simple steel sheet found in its predecessor, the new application uses a thin-wall, double-plated hollow profile aluminum fused using a friction stir welding technique....
The “Runit Dome” is a concrete structure at Runit Atoll in the Marshall Islands.The dome was built to seal in nuclear waste from atomic testing, but there is evidence it’s failing. The 2020 defense budget directs the federal government to look into and prepare a plan to fix the problem. The U.S. Congress has ordered an investigation into the so-called “Runit Dome,” a concrete dome containing contaminated radioactive debris leftover from nuclear weapons tests....
Whatever year you’re reading this, the new iPhone is awesome. It always is. Same with the new Samsung Galaxy, and Bose’s new noise-canceling headphones. But right now, just before 2020, the improvements between versions are becoming less obvious. In the case of the iPhone 11, the cameras are a big advance. But for the majority of us customers, last year’s model will serve us just as well as the new one....
Media Platforms Design TeamTo you, Pop Mech readers, I present a challenge: Let us coin a term for a thoroughly modern tech problem.The scenario: You are at a concert festival, a convention, a football game … somewhere where the sheer number of people strains the local cell towers beyond their limits, and text messages can’t get through.Then, the minute your service returns to something resembling normal, a dozen or more texts come in at once....
The United States already uses its unmatched fleet of cargo planes to project its influence and move its forces across the globe. But what if they did the same thing with rockets?Thanks to the emergence of the American private space industry, the United States Air Force can consider a wild-sounding possibility: rocket launches that blast cargo into space to land anywhere in the world within half an hour. Last week, at a military conference outside Dallas, Air Force officials confirmed that the service has met with private space companies to discuss the possibility....
The U.S. Army’s next assault rifle and machine gun will have built-in computers to give soldiers unparalleled firing accuracy. The so-called Next Generation Squad Weapons will feature a digital fire control system borrowing many features from today’s main battle tanks, allowing shooters to engage targets faster and with greater precision than their opponents can muster.The Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) program aims to field two new advanced weapons: the NGSW-Automatic Rifle (NGSW-AR) and the NGSW-Rifle....
There is now an official Campaign Against Sex Robots. Launched by Kathleen Richardson, it’s more or less exactly what it sounds like: Richardson wants to ban sex robots and robotic prostitution because they “objectify women and children,” her organization says.While philosophy papers, blog posts, and sci-fi novels have asked the big questions about sex robots, this seems to be the first dedicated campaign of its kind. But as Richardson points out, now is the time—as with all emerging technologies, sex would come to robotics sooner or later....
Tardigrades, sometimes referred to as water bears, have a mythical toughness. The eight-legged microscopic animals can survive freezing temperatures close to absolute zero, pressure six times greater than what’s at the ocean floor, hundreds of times the radiation that would floor a human, and the vacuum of space. Scientists have now decoded their DNA to figure out how they do it.Key to tardigrade survival is their ability to resist desiccation. They can survive states of extreme dryness, like being denied food and water for 30 years....
The U.S. Air Force just sent one of its most advanced electronic warfare aircraft to South Korea. The EC-130H Compass Call, originally designed to jam enemy radio signals, was recently upgraded with the ability to identify and attack enemy wireless networks. The EC-130H was spotted traveling from Yokota Air Base, Japan to Osan Air Base in South Korea and reported on Twitter by @AircraftSpots.View full post on TwitterThe U.S. Air Force operates 14 EC-130Hs, all by the 55th Electronic Combat Group out of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona....
NASA announced a big contest for Mars habitat designs in May, with the stipulation that the structures had to be 3D printable. Now, the competition finalists are out on the 3DP Challenge Tumblr.Some of them look straight out of the American southwest. Others like a bizarre loom explosion. There’s also another that’s one-part construction equipment, one part radiation shield. But perhaps my favorite is the one from Team Staye, a gradually inclining, subterranean corkscrew building that winds below the surface of the equator, providing shielding from radiation, water from glacial deposits, and warmth from its regions, which can reach a high of 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the Martian summer....
While battling the largest fire in California history, the Santa Clara Fire Department recently faced an unlikely hurdle: data throttling. The fire department’s service provider, Verizon, slowed down cell service of command and control vehicles despite the fire department’s unlimited plan and requests indicating an crisis. Verizon now claims the throttling was “a customer support mistake.“The throttling has emerged as an addendum in a lawsuit filed by 22 state attorneys general, the District of Columbia, Santa Clara County, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and the California Public Utilities Commission, as noted by Ars Technica....
What happens when you put snow in a vacuum chamber? In this video from Cody’s Lab, we find out. At first, the results don’t seem very exciting. But if you know what to look for, there’s a fascinating phenomenon to observe here. Namely, the fact that when snow melts at such a low pressure point, it can’t turn into liquid. Instead, it turns directly from ice into vapor, a process known as sublimation....
Sixteen years after Stanley Kubrick’s death, fans are still enamored with the director’s life. That’s especially true of filmmaker Cameron Beyl. As part of Beyl’s ongoing Directors Series, he delved into Kubrick’s iconic life with a three-hour long video series.It’s split into five parts, beginning with his early independent features like the 1956 film The Killing. Then there’s the Kirk Douglas films (Paths of Glory and Spartacus) followed Peter Sellers comedies (Dr....
A U.S. Reaper drone shot down another with a missile, the Air Force revealed yesterday. The incident, which took place last year and involved an unmanned target drone, was the first case of a drone shooting down another another aircraft. The event ism a watershed moment in the history of aerial warfare, as unmanned aircraft begin to muscle in on air-to-air combat—previously the exclusive domain of manned aircraft.Colonel Julian Cheater, commander of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, revealed the incident in an interview with Military....
A 68-story skyscraper inspired by a Beyoncé music video has been approved in the west end of beautiful Melbourne, Australia. The building’s form was inspired by elastic fabric-covered dancers in the music video for “Ghost,” from Beyoncé’s self-titled 2013 album. Media Platforms Design TeamThe building’s shape isn’t just sex appeal. The curvaceous Premiere Tower’s bulges are designed to make it structurally efficient and enable it to withstand strong winds. “The complex form – a vertical cantilever – is actually the most effective way to redistribute the building’s mass, giving the best results in terms of structural dispersion, frequency oscillation and wind requirements,” says Australian firm Elenberg Fraser....
Blending whiskeys is not a new idea. The Canadians and the Scottish have been doing it for years. And the Japanese, because they’re obsessed with the Scotch process, blend whiskeys, too. But American distilleries have only recently started touting their blends. The shift comes down to three big changes: 1) A new and deepening appreciation for American “straight” whiskey (which must be aged two years in charred oak barrels) by not only Americans, but the world....
California has taken another step towards having the most aggressive environmental legislation in the country. Its legislature has passed a groundbreaking bill that would first make it the largest state to demand completely carbon-free electricity generation by 2045.“When it comes to fighting climate change and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, California won’t back down, ” said state Senator Kevin de León in a statement. “We have taken another great stride toward a 100 percent clean energy future....
