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Above: These two accounts often tweet the same content. They were created the same month and are linked to Iranian phone numbers. “Roza’s” profile picture is from a hairstyle website.Facebook, Google, and Twitter are waging an unseen but highly charged war on foreign hackers. Just as the Defense Department contracts private companies to build nuclear submarines, social media companies hire digital private eyes to find fake posts meant to influence the way Americans think about certain issues or candidates....

Travis Road is one of a hundred dirt lanes that road crews in this part of southeastern Michigan haven’t gotten around to paving. On this late November day, a cold, steady rain has enlarged the potholes into craters that bounce my car as I approach a large, nondescript metal building. It’s the kind of obscure facility that’s sprinkled across the older suburbs of Michigan, Ohio, and the rest of the car-building belt of the Midwest....

Nikolai Tesla has been pretty popular in his afterlife. After dying the defeated foe of Thomas Edison, his name has stuck out to geeks as someone who consistently thought differently about the world, who refused the status quo. But perhaps most importantly, he lives on in inventions like this Tesla gun, built by the folks at Smarter Every Day. [youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fTC_Ud_k3U&[/youtube]Telsa coils are electrical resonant transformer circuits, and they’re the scientist’s longest lasting legacy....

At 12:50 PM EDT, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, bringing to an end the most ambitious space mission to date. But a question still remains 50 years later—what comes next?It’s the year 2037. A spaceship carrying American astronauts has just embarked on an historic missions to Mars. Rocket liftoff was perfect and everything is going according to plan. Now the spacecraft nears the moon and prepares to dock at a fuel depot in high lunar orbit....

Rebels fighting Yemen’s central government have captured an unarmed U.S. Navy undersea drone. Footage of the drone appeared earlier this week on social media, but the drone was only recently identified as American. The drone was being used as part of meteorological study, according to an unnamed defense official quoted by U.S. Naval Institute News.Video of the drone appeared on January 2nd, 2018 on social media, but the drone was identified as belonging to coalition of Saudi Arabia and the UAE fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen....

A mysterious radar track yesterday prompted Washington D.C. to go on alert.A search of the area turned up nothing.A reporter for CBS News noticed a missile launcher during the alert.A mysterious radar return prompted yesterday that an unauthorized aircraft was flying over the restricted airspace of Washington D.C. A search of the area reportedly turned up nothing, but one reporter located in the city did notice something: a surface to air missile system across the street from the White House....

In 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was planning to observe Mars with a newly powerful refractor telescope installed in Brera, Milan. He prepared extensively, avoiding, he wrote, “everything which could affect the nervous system, from narcotics to alcohol, and especially from the abuse of coffee, which I found to be exceedingly prejudicial to the accuracy of observation.” When his resolutely non-shaking hands maneuvered the telescope into place, what he saw were deep trenches meandering across the red planet’s surface, which he called “canali....

This weekend, a Civil War-era shipwreck was discovered off the coast of North Carolina. But authorities are scrambling to figure out which ship it might’ve been.This much is known: it’s a blockade runner of a type used by the Confederacy. Three of them were lost in the area and still haven’t been found: the Agnes E. Fry, Spunkie and Georgianna McCaw. The steamship, discovered by the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology and the Institute of International Maritime Research in late February, is reported to be extraordinarily well preserved....

.All week long, we’ve celebrated 50 years of the internet as we know it (and we know it well). We’ve explored the brightest, darkest, weirdest, and horniest corners of the web, and told the complete story of this cursed thing we hate to love through its 50 most important sites. Now, as we wrap up Internet Week, it’s time to get personal.Here, the editors of Popular Mechanics wax poetic on our all-time favorite websites—the ones that shaped our internet habits, perhaps changed our lives, or simply served as excellent time-wasters....

President Donald Trump called on Japan to buy more defensive weapons from the United States in order to protect itself from North Korean missiles. The president claimed that the purchase of ballistic missile defenses would make Japan more safe, and that Japan could shoot down Pyongyang’s missiles. The truth is a lot more complicated."[Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe] will shoot them out of the sky when he completes the purchase of a lot of military equipment from the United States," Trump stated in Japan....

Media Platforms Design TeamWorld leaders are meeting in London this week to discuss new sanctions against Iran to discourage that country’s nuclear ambitions. The controversy comes 62 years after the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and just a month after the release of a new book, , in which historian Robert Norris explores the early days of the program to develop nuclear weapons. It began in New York City (hence the name), not at the famous Los Alamos site where the first atomic bombs were eventually built....

If you’re up for a next-level puzzle challenge and want to put your spatial, tactile, and motor skills to the test, you should pick up one of the Wood Trick DIY Mechanical 3D Puzzles.Unlike the 2D options you’re accustomed to, working with these sets is like a rigorous mental workout. On top of flexing your imagination, you also get to sharpen your problem-solving skills and improve your focus and concentration.Check out the amazing models you can piece together:WindmillStack CommerceAmerican TruckStack CommercePlaneStack CommerceCarouselStack CommerceThe best part?...

Media Platforms Design TeamClick here to post this video on your blog or website.Media Platforms Design TeamClick here to post a photo of this winner on your blog or website.Hod Lipson didn’t set out to revolutionize manufacturing. He just wanted to design a really cool robot, one that could “evolve” by reprogramming itself and would also produce its own hardware–a software brain, if you will, with the ability to create a body....

The University of Pennsylvania has moved its 25,000-pound Sphinx.The move required months of planning and a huge team of people to safely accomplish the feat. The Sphinx is now in Penn Museum’s Main Entrance Hall, where it will reside permanently. It will be available for public viewing later this year.Moving a 25,000-pound ancient Sphinx from one side of a museum to another isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Just ask the guy responsible for leading the effort, part of the team of engineers, contractors, and museum employees at the University of Pennsylvania tasked with hauling the massive artifact from Penn Museum’s Egyptian Exhibit to the Main Entrance Hall....

Over 250 apps available across the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store were programmed to be able to listen for audio through a phone’s microphone, according to a report from The New York Times. Using code from a company called Alphonso, the apps would listen for audio from television shows or ads to more precisely target advertisements after displaying a warning message. The apps would not listen for human speech, and require explicit, affirmative approval from the user before listening in....

“Unauthorized laser activity” in the tiny African country of Djibouti has prompted the U.S. Military to warn pilots in the area to exercise “extreme caution” there and notify authorities if it happens to them. The language almost certainly means laser strikes, in which lasers on the ground are pointed at aircraft to harass or injure pilots. The coordinates for the attacks are close to a Chinese military base.NOTAM, or Notice to Airmen messages, are issued by aviation authorities to warn military, commercial, and private pilots of navigation hazards that could impact flight plans....

Hamilton embraces its U.S. military heritage—one million U.S. Armed Forces timepieces in the 1940s—with the Hamilton Khaki Field Camouflage collection. The automatic powering H-30 movement includes an extended 80-hour reserve and comes rugged in American military style and Swiss precision. The water-resistant models include day and date function dials in khaki green, clay gray, or black with straps in green camo, khaki, or brown camo. A red-tipped second hand highlights the nickeled hands....

For the first time ever, researchers have captured footage of an Icelandic puffin using a stick as a tool to scratch and itch.The adorable video has created speculation that there are several other species that may be using tools for purposes other than foraging for food—we just haven’t captured it on film yet. This also creates new opportunities to study seabird cognition.What do elephants, chimps, rats, and octopuses have in common?...

Welcome back to Popular Mechanics’ Riddle of Week. We return to a mysterious island with knights, who always tell the truth, knaves, who always lie, and spies, who can be honest or dishonest at will. Problem On the island of knights and knaves and spies, you are approached by three men. One wears blue, one wears red, and one wears green. You know that one is a knight, one is a knave, and one is a spy....

Gore Verbinski, director of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and Steve Conrad, writer of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” are teaming up for a new movie about a driverless car race from Europe to China, according to Deadline. In the untitled pitch, software companies are tasked with creating the driverless car of the future. But it turns into a competition and then a race, and passengers stuck inside the cars must figure out how to take control as the cars begin to go off-road and off-the-grid....