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Facebook is closing out 2018 much the same way it spent the rest of the year: by announcing and apologizing for grievous mistakes. The social media giant revealed today that a software bug might have allowed third-party apps to access the photos of 6.8 million users. These photos include shots that users began uploading to Facebook but never posted publicly.In a blog post, the tech giant announced that it has now fixed the bug....

The crew of a EA-18G Growler electronic attack jet were flying a routine mission last month when they got a frosty surprise—and narrowly avoided disaster. The crew suffered severe frostbite after the cockpit’s temperature regulation system abruptly failed. As the freezing crew fought through below-zero temperatures, their cockpit and instrument panels were covered in ice. Only the skill and determination of the pilots, controllers on the ground, and the crew’s smartwatches prevented disaster....

Q: I’ve got oak floors in my house, and I’ve been thinking about refinishing them. I’ve seen some gorgeous floors refinished by pros who used water-based finishes, and I’d like to get the same results. Where do I start?A: Improvements to floor sanders and finishes have made the process easier and faster than it was years ago, although it’s still physically demanding. Can a homeowner handle the job? Definitely. The two most important aspects are getting the floor sanding right and choosing an appropriate finish....

The B-52 has been around for ages, and for good reason. Ever since its inception during WWII, it has been one of the best at what it does: carrying tons—literal tons—of weaponry. With a max load-out of 70,000 pounds or 35 tons, it can hoist ten elephants’ worth of ordinance into the sky. But where does it all go? Under the wings and in the bomb bay, of course, but this video from the Smithsonian Channel is a great illustration of the wide variety of configurations that allow the B-52 to hold nine missiles, bombs, or mines on each of its wings, with an extra cache of 27 weapons inside, or 8 cruise missiles if that’s what you’re into....

You download a silly app off the app store. Some dumb little game about waxing eyebrows. It holds your attention for the two or so minutes you expected and then you’re off to something else. A few hours later, you’ve somehow blown through all the data for the month. What happened? You’ve just been used in an invisible ad scam. A report conducted by Forensiq, a firm that tracks mobile ad fraud, found that hundreds of apps you can find in official app stores engage in this unscrupulous behavior....

Minivans are sooo handy. You can cram most of the Free World in the back. Like, for instance, that 8-ft. aluminum ladder you just bought. You didn’t even have to tie the back door shut–there was just enough room to close the hatch with the ladder resting on top of a pile of stuff. And it rode across town without incident. Except that it shifted backward a couple of inches, into the window and the electrical spade lug that carries current to the de­froster grid, neatly popping it free of the glass....

It happens to everyone. You’re getting ready for a long flight or car ride. When you go to download videos to watch later, you stumble into one of the internet’s most frustrating realities: there is no download button on YouTube.According to YouTube’s Terms of Service agreement, it looks like you really aren’t allowed to download videos outside of any services the company provides:“You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate....

U.S. special forces don’t just ride around in any old truck. Their vehicles, which may appear normal from the outside, are anything but. A new video shows how one company takes civilian pickup trucks and SUVs common in combat zones and turns them into undercover rides for the CIA, Delta Force, Navy SEALs, and other operators. The vehicles are stripped down and then built back up again with special mission equipment and up to a ton of armor plating, all of it nigh invisible to the untrained eye....

In fifteen Ford assembly plants around the world, human workers will equip mechanical exoskeletons that will make their work a little easier. The EksoVests are built by Ekso Bionics (outside of manufacturing, the company also produce robotic exoskeletons that can help people with severe mobility issues start walking again), and are designed to offer passive arm support for workers whose jobs require them to reach overhead multiple times a day. Human workers that have to perform repetitive overhand motions can lead to potential shoulder injuries....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf there’s one thing people like more than talking about the weather, it’s giving weird names to weather phenomena—hence Snowmaggedon, Frankenstorm, and the polar vortex, the blast of frigid air from up north that put the Midwest into a deep freeze this past winter. Right now the Midwest is currently experience much lower than normal temperatures. But whether these current temps are the result of a true polar vortex—or one in name only—has meteorologists slinging all-caps anger at one another*....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Toy Industry Association’s New York Toy Fair is the place where toy store buyers go annually to take their pick of the latest innovations for kids. And ever since the invention of handheld video poker, toy makers have been making classic low-tech toys and games high-tech. This year’s low-tech-gone-wild award would go to the TouchCube, a touchscreen Rubik’s Cube hitting stores later this year. The TouchCube is decked out with six capacitative touchscreens, and if you hit the solve button, it solves itself slowly, using the sound effects of a real (i....

Dutch airline KLM is jointly working with Delft University of Technology to reinvent the modern airplaneDubbed the ‘Flying-V’ because of its bizarre shape, the plane will seat passengers on the wings where the fuel and cargo will also be stowedThis fall, a prototype will be unveiled and a portion of the interior will be on display but the plane won’t be available for commercial use until approximately 2040-2050.In an effort “to make aviation more sustainable,” KLM Airlines has revealed the design for the aerodynamic ‘Flying-V’ plane that takes the shape of, you guessed it, the letter V....

Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today. Media Platforms Design TeamLots of obstacles exist for average consumers looking to upgrade their normal, drab homes to certified smart homes, perhaps the biggest one being how to connect all these devices together when they come from a variety of manufacturers. A consortium of companies including Samsung, ARM, and Nest Labs announced a new wireless protocol yesterday to address this looming question....

Media Platforms Design Team"Annotate the world," say the founders of the website formerly known as Rap Genius. “The internet contains multitudes,” they say (in an allusion that somehow turns Walt Whitman into the internet). And they want those multitudes, Whitmanesque or otherwise, to be annotated. Hence the new name and premise of the site, now called Genius, which is no longer just for lyrics but is, in theory, for everything.The site began in 2009 as RapExegesis, a place for people to annotate rap lyrics....

KELT-9b is not a pleasant place to be. Every one and a half days, the Jupiter-sized world zips around its home star—a star that straddles the line between a B-type and an A-type star, making it one of the largest stars known to have a planet. The big star heats up this planet to temperatures upwards of 7,820 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s nearly as scorching as the outermost layers of the sun....

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is analyzing tiny pieces of hair to build individual, nearly unique protein profiles.Hair forensics has been subjective and error riddled, but protein profiles could change that.The most likely initial use for this information is to confirm a suspect, not to identify them on its own.Science reports that scientists have identified people using short lengths of a single hair strand, without attached follicle or skin cells....

Scientists say they’ve created the world’s smallest engine: a single calcium ion.The engine is 10 billion times smaller than a car engine.The physicists behind the ion already made the previous smallest engine in the world, which ran on a single atom, in 2016.An international team of physicists have created what they’re calling the world’s smallest engine. How small is it? The entire engine is a single calcium ion, making it around 10 billion times smaller than a car engine....

LONG BEACH, Calif.The rocket equation has always had one frustrating yet inevitable consequence: For every pound of payload headed for, say, the lunar surface, NASA needs hundreds more pounds of hardware and propellant during low Earth orbit—and many times that on the launchpad. For example, NASA’s planned Ares V vehicle (a modern-day replacement for the Saturn V that delivered our first visitors to the moon over 30 years ago) will weigh more than 3500 tons prior to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla....

Media Platforms Design TeamSlowly but surely, change is coming to military space launches, as the monopoly that has cornered the market may be about to give way.Since 2006, the United Launch Alliance — a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing — has been the only provider sending national security satellites into orbit. But Elon Musk’s SpaceX, in the midst of sending cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, is trying to get into the military launch business....

German steelmakers have successfully powered a steel blast furnace using just hydrogen.Steel is highly renewable once it’s manufactured, so removing reliance on coal is a huge step.Hydrogen is not available enough yet to replace coal, but scientists are researching new ways to make more hydrogen.Steelmakers in Germany have taken a big step toward carbon neutral steel production by using hydrogen to power a blast furnace, reports Renew Economy. This is the first demonstration of its kind....