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Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has been erupting since May 3, and it briefly added a new island off the coastline. On Friday morning, researchers at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory noticed a new island of lava while flying over the region.The island, located a few meters offshore, measures around 20 to 30 feet in diameter and is itself oozing lava. The U.S. Geological Survey notes the island appeared on Thursday, July 12. USGSThe running theory is that the island was a submarine tumulus created when the pressure of slow-moving lava lifts the crust above it....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS — Yes, you read that correctly: This Mercedes-Benz R500 cost a cool mil to build. And it’s such a flawless, over-the-top execution of a pure show car that we actually dig it.“If we had to do it again, that’s what it would cost to duplicate,” said Gary Bell, whose Alpine Electronics comes out each year and creates a show car that’s over the top—way over. “We unbolted everything we could unbolt—except the engine, transmission and roof....

View full post on YoutubeUp and down, up and down—riding in an elevator is so boring. The next generation of elevators will be able to travel sideways.German engineering company ThyssenKrupp has created the world’s first rope-free elevator system. Rather than cables, the multi-level brake system uses a new magnetic technology it’s calling MULTI to move elevators in a loop rather than on a single trajectory, similar to a train system. The design makes it possible for several elevator cars to be running on the same track at once, ensuring you get an elevator faster than is possible with traditional systems....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe E3 video gaming expo hasn’t even opened its doors and there are already news releases coming out of it. Microsoftannounced todaywhen we were first told about it at CESToshiba’s HD-A1 a new Xbox 360 accessory that enables the machine play HD-DVDs. We’ll go out on a limb and rank as the least surprising product announcement of the show, heck, PM was talking this Xbox 360 HD-DVD player up back in January, ....

Two oil tankers came under attack by unknown forces today, the second set of attacks in two weeks. A U.S. Navy warship rescued nearly two dozen sailors from one of the stricken ships. The identity of the attackers is currently unknown.The incident took place earlier today in the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Persian Gulf. According to Reuters, the crew of the M/V Front Altair, a Norwegian owned-tanker, abandoned ship after a source quoted by the news agency said the ship was likely the victim of a mine attack....

Robots go where people can’t: collapsed underground mine shafts, on one-way trips into deep space and down into the bone-crushing bottom of the sea. With inhuman strength and smarts, robots routinely explore inhospitable territory in which high radiation, extreme temperatures or complete lack of atmospheric pressure would cause human beings to suffocate, freeze solid, explode into tiny chunks or all of the above at the same time. Even so, robots are far from invincible....

Russian efforts to protect one of its most important military bases in Syria is causing GPS headaches in the surrounding Middle East—even in nearby Israel. GPS jamming and spoofing designed to overpower legitimate GPS signals and replace them with fake ones is meant to protect Khmeimim Air Base, but is causing problems as far away as the island of Cyprus.According to the Times of Israel, pilots flying throughout the Middle East began encountering GPS disruptions in the spring of 2018....

The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov has lost a second fighter plane in just three weeks. The latest incident, involving a Su-33 Flanker air superiority fighter, is also the second to involve a failure of the ship’s arresting wires. The elderly carrier has experienced a string of malfunctions and equipment breakages in the past several years. According to The Aviationist, on Saturday December 5th the twin-engine Su-33 Flanker fighter was on its second attempt at landing on the carrier flight deck....

Twenty new moons of Saturn were announced yesterday, bringing the sixth planet’s moon count to 82.The ringed planet’s new moon count surpasses that of Jupiter (which currently has 79 moons), the current record holder for most orbiting bodies in the solar system.It’s likely that these new moons were once part of a larger parent moon, and then split off after collisions around Saturn. Jupiter has long held the record for the number of satellites orbiting a planet in the solar system, but that title has now gone to another planet: Saturn....

If you’ve ever made pasta, then you’ve probably tried to break a long noodle like spaghetti or linguine. And when you did so, you probably noticed the pasta doesn’t cooperate when you try to break it in half. Instead, dry noodles will almost always break into three or more pieces. But why? The exact explanation has been a historically difficult problem for physicists, even perplexing Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman. Now, researcher say they understand not only why this happens but also have developed a technique to prevent it from happening....

A physicist and citizen scientists collaborated and discovered a new type of aurora borealis, which they’ve dubbed the ‘dunes.’ The new aurora seems to be caused by mesospheric bores which could be a result of Joule heating. Further analysis will be needed to reach a more definitive conclusion.In early October 2018, Minna Palmroth, a Finnish physicist and professor of computational space physics with the University of Helsinki, was wrapping a guidebook called A Guide for Aurora Borealis Watchers when she—along with some Facebook citizen scientists—discovered something unexpected....

Owner: Paul HohvartPurchase price: $12,250Years owned: OneLocation: Bayside, New YorkFound on: eBayWhen I was ten years old, a neighbor’s friend came by with a Grand National and did a burnout in the middle of the street. That was it—love at first sight.I found one on eBay, but missed the end of the auction. Then, for some reason, the same car was up again a week later. I went and got it that day....

When you ask a Maine lobster-boat racer what kind of horsepower he’s running, the first answer will always be a dutiful recitation of the factory specification, usually delivered with a smirk. Ask again, and the second answer might be more like the truth. Like if his 18.1-liter CAT diesel was rated for 700 horsepower before he made a few mods—free-flowing intake and exhaust, at the very least—maybe he’d acknowledge it’s more like 800 horsepower now....

Yesterday, Instagram announced Boomerang. It’s a new app for making really, really short animations that run forward and then boomerang back again. It’s quirky. It’s frivilous. It’s fun. It’s also a whole new app you have to download separately even though you’ll just share what you make back into Instagram anyway.This isn’t the first time, either. Hyperlapse and Layout, Instagram’s app for making photo collages, are like that too. What a pain!...

MIT researchers with the university’s Tangible Media Group have teamed up with New Balance to develop a truly breathable garment. While many outdoor gear manufacturers apply various chemical solutions to their clothing to make it breathable and resistant to the elements, bioLogic from MIT and New Balance has actual vents that open automatically to allow maximum airflow when an athlete sweats. The trick to making the vents open is a bacteria called bacillus subtilis natto....

Near NASA’s Marshall facility in Huntsville, Alabama, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center has long been a must-see for space flight fans. While the Center has some exquisite relics of NASA’s past (including the Apollo 16 capsule and an entire Saturn V rocket), a new exhibit lets visitors step inside the ISS, and touch and feel a scale replica of our orbital outpost in low-Earth orbit. ISS: Science on Orbit just opened as a permanent exhibit at the center....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Sale Date: 2012, but for commercial and government fleets onlyPrice: N/ACompetitors: Nissan Leaf, Chevy VoltPowertrain: 150-hp permanent magnet electric motor, 50-kwh (estimated) lithium-ion battery pack, FWDRange: 80 to 120 milesWhat’s New: Last year, Toyota invested $50 million in Tesla, and many wondered what would arise from this unlikely partnership. Now we have an early answer: an electrified RAV4 that uses a Tesla-supplied battery pack and electric motor....

Indirect GrillingMedia Platforms Design TeamApplying too much heat can make tough cuts like brisket or ribs even tougher. Instead, brown them over a hot burner. Then slide the cuts over an inactive adjacent burner but keep the first one going, says David Kamen, a professor at the Culinary Institute of America. Let the meat roast slowly until the inside reaches the target temperature. This technique requires multiple burners, so look for a unit with at least four, like the five-burner, 60,000-Btu Ducane Affinity S 5200 ($1000, ducane....

The pros know it’s often the simplest household item that can make an existing tool work better–or substitute in a pinch for a more expensive piece of equipment you might only use once in a lifetime. You will also learn that one tool can often fulfill a completely different purpose than that for which it was originally intended. Keep an open mind to the possibilities, but remember: safety first. Don’t use any tool in a reckless manner just for the sake of improvisation....

An iPhone or an Apple Watch is undoubtedly made by Apple, but of course that doesn’t mean that all its components were. For years, Apple has relied on its competitor Samsung for various chips, as well as the OLED screens for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X. As a result, Samsung may pull in more profit on the ludicrously expensive handset than Apple will. But according to new reports, Apple doesn’t intend to keep things that way, and has a “secret” factory where it’s working on building its own screens....