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Since 1987, we’ve been celebrating the many accolades and triumphs that women have contributed to the scientific discourse as we know it today. Women’s History Month runs all throughout March, so let’s take a moment to honor some of the women who have bestowed indelible breakthroughs to our understanding of the world. Like Women Scientists? You’ll Love These Space Juggernauts.19 Famous Women Who Explored SpaceThese women continue to inspire people of every gender, race, and ability, achieving in the face of ever-daunting odds....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph by Merle Henkenius)There are few subjects that can incite an argument as quickly as how best to grill food. It seems that everyone has a preferred, surefire method for grilling the perfect meal. And that’s especially true of guys. There’s just something about cooking outdoors over an open flame that fires up our machismo and stirs our competitive caveman spirit, even while wearing a bib apron and saying less-than-manly things such as “Honey, I can’t find my tongs!...

Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph by Getty Images)Few people like vacuuming. It’s tiring, repetitive and about as far from fun as any household task can be. Perhaps that’s why so many pay top dollar for Dyson vacuums: They look great, and the bag-free chamber allows you to see what you suck, as you suck. Of course, when James Dyson invented the bagless vacuum nearly 25 years ago, he created a new product category, and the most lustworthy line of cleaners since the first Hoovers....

Update 10/15: NASA released a statement signifying that the source of Chandra’s gyroscope problem was an unexpected computer glitch, which has since been fixed. The glitch created three seconds of corrupted data that led the telescope’s onboard computer to inaccurately estimate its position. The malfunctioning gyroscope has been temporarily deactivated while NASA’s engineers attempt to repair it.Original Post: Last weekend, news broke that NASA’s Hubble Telescope was suffering from an equipment malfunction....

LAS VEGAS — Bill Gates has taken the stage, he says that he’s got one more year keynoting CES, but after that, he says they may not want him, since he’ll want to talk a lot more about infectious diseases than technology (I said in the last blog that no one here wants to hear about sick kids). The theme of this speech seems to be “Connected Experiences.” Bill’s observations seem to jibe with what we’ve seen here so far: American’s are now surrounded more than ever by sophisticated digital devices—multiple computers, HDTVs, digital cameras, etc....

Media Platforms Design TeamShortly after dawn breaks on a crisp March morning, ironworkers Paul Atherton and Clint Richard climb onto the trussing of a roller coaster’s steel skeleton, strap themselves into safety harnesses, and wait. Legs swinging, Atherton lights a cigarette; 11 stories below, a crane rumbles to life, and its operator begins to lift a 31,000-pound piece of curved orange track into the air. At 121 ft., this will be the highest point of Fahrenheit, a goliath new ride at Hersheypark in Pennsylvania....

Norwegian F-35s are fitted with a special parachute pod for shortening landings on icy runways.The pods are failing more often than they’re supposed to.The manufacturer is working on a fix, which the Norwegians want before the winter of 2020/2021.A drag parachute designed to shorten the amount of runway that Norwegian F-35s need to land is failing more often than it’s supposed to, necessitating a redesign before next winter. Lockheed Martin developed the F-35A Drag Chute System to allow the jet to operate in wintery arctic conditions....

When you think about how in the world an antiperspirant is tested, you might wonder: Well, what if you had people sweat in a really hot room and then analyzed how effective the product was? As it turns out, measuring sweat through a “hot room” test is actually a part of the process. To be “efficacious,” antiperspirants—which work by way of aluminum salts, the only material approved by the FDA to effectively and safely prevent sweat—must deliver a 20 percent reduction in sweat, explains Melissa Torres, Lead Senior Scientist for North America Deodorants and Antiperspirants at Unilever, the parent company that owns Degree Men....

Media Platforms Design TeamMaterial: In wind-packed snow, shovel a trench to facilitate cutting the first block. Using a snow knife or snow saw, cut a block 12 inches wide, 24 inches long, and 18 deep. Remove the block from the trench and repeat. Foundation: Mark the center of the igloo with a stick or ski pole, then trace a circle 6 to 10 feet in diameter. Position blocks along it, using a snow knife to miter the ends for a tight fit....

Dedicating years of schooling to pursue higher math degrees may help solve certain problems, but does it make any difference for something as simple as cutting your grass? To find out, I spent the week discussing the mathematics of lawn mowing with my colleagues at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Our thoughts generally split into two directions: If your lawn is simple enough, then you can do some fairly specific calculations to figure out the most efficient way to mow it....

Common advice says that if you’ve dropped your smartphone into the toilet—or some other body of liquid—all you have to do is toss your afflicted device into a bowl of rice and everything will be fine come morning.💻 Tech can be tricky. We’ll be your support. Join Pop Mech Pro.Sadly, this is more a myth than useful advice. But that doesn’t mean you should give up on your waterlogged phone. Before you try going to a repair shop (and potentially spend hundreds of dollars), there are plenty of DIY hacks you can try out....

Owner: Chris LesserLocation: Westport, ConnecticutFound on: CraigslistPurchase Price: $4,000Years Owned: TwoCole WilsonI picked it up on a hot summer night, and tried the a/c. Not only did it not work, but the fan resistor blew out, and the cabin filled up with electrical smoke. Another time, the ignition switch failed in my driveway. Once, when I was driving to work, a pinhole leak in the transmission cooler bled pink fluid all over the windshield....

Nearly 150 pilot whales were discovered on a remote beach in New Zealand last weekend, having all stranded themselves on the shore for an unknown reason. All of the whales, unfortunately, have died.It’s not clear exactly when the animals beached themselves because the coastline in question is part of Stewart Island, a remote island on the southern tip of New Zealand home to only about 350 people. The whales were discovered by a hiker exploring the beach, but by the time they were found most of the animals had already died....

It’s the time of year when carmakers roll out their biggest guns. In back-to-back Los Angeles and Detroit auto shows, manufacturers unveil everything from gonzo concept cars that will never see a highway to polished production models almost ready for showrooms. PM’s entire automotive team was on hand to produce this report. Despite the dire circumstances that some in the industry are facing, the mood was upbeat–even allowing for some large doses of hype....

Archeologists exploring an ancient Egyptian tomb have made an incredible discovery: They’ve unearthed what appears to be one of the world’s oldest pieces of cheese, dating to more than three thousand years ago.Researchers first recovered the cheese sample during an expedition in 2010, although they didn’t know what it was at first. A group of archeologists recently rediscovered the tomb of Ptahmes, an ancient mayor of Memphis, which had long been thought lost....

Update 7:55 EDT: The Falcon 9 second stage conducted its second engine burn and successfully deployed the TESS spacecraft in orbit. TESS deployed its solar arrays, and it will now use its own thrusters to raise its altitude in preparation for a lunar flyby on May 17, sending it on its way to a final orbit where it will begin its search for worlds beyond the solar system. The Next Phase of Exoplanet HuntingTESS to Find as Many as 20,000 New Alien WorldsUpdate 7:05 p....

The C-5M Super Galaxy could turn into a flying ambulance.The Super Galaxy’s ability to carry huge amounts of cargo would give it an unmatched ability to evacuate those needing medical assistance.The C-5M could ferry in supplies as it ferries out casualties, moving more people and supplies faster when time is the most critical.The U.S. Air Force is taking a hard look at using the C-5M Super Galaxy airlifter in the aeromedical evacuation role....

If you want to build a bipedal robot than can do backflips, you’re probably going to need traditional motors and batteries, but that’s not where robots begin and end. We’ve seen dead simple robots powered by mere moisture and by lasers, but now there’s an even more novel power source taking shape: popcorn. The concept, spearhead by a team out of Cornell University led by Steven Ceron, makes use of popcorn’s characteristic ability to turn heat into mechanical force by its signature pop....

Augmenting nature is an ancient idea that dates back to the earliest hominids and the dawn of agriculture. Here in 2018, the kind of augmentation Harpreet Sareen and Pattie Maes are exhibiting in a project from MIT is a little more high-tech, harnessing the power of naturally occurring circuits in plants. While plants at first glance look like static things, they are in fact very busy transmitting bio-electrochemical signals between tissues and organs....

Two years ago, the Oroville Dam’s main spillway failure forced 200,000 people to evacuate from rural northern California. Yesterday, after the state spent $1.1 billion on repairs, floodgates opened and water poured from a spillway into the Feather River for the first time since 2017.The main spillway is not operating at full strength yet. It started off releasing 3,300 cubic feet per second (cfs), and by the afternoon the flow was up to 8,300 cfs....