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Another first for naval aviation, courtesy of the X-47B: An unmanned aircraft has executed a mid-flight refueling.The Navy’s X-47B demonstrator aircraft flew over Chesapeake Bay on April 22 and connected with a refueling tanker during flight. This capability greatly extends the range of an unmanned aircraft and further increases its ability to hover over a target area.Air-to-air refueling, as Popular Mechanics found during a B-2 flight, takes a lot of hands to go right....

Toyota has announced that its humanoid-size robot, the T-HR3, has been controlled successfully through a wireless connection. An improvement on previous generations, a wirelessly controlled T-HR3 is one step closer to people controlling human-size robots remotely.A user controls a T-HR3 through the Master Maneuvering System (MMS), which according to Toyota “allows the entire body of the robot to be operated instinctively with wearable controls that map hand, arm and foot movements to the robot,” like something straight out of Gundam, Avatar, or Real Steel....

I grew up in Alaska 15 miles from the base of a ski mountain in a small town where skiing wasn’t so much a winter activity as it was a measure of social capital. Swap “skiing” for “in church” in that traditional Southern greeting, “We didn’t see y’all in church Sunday, hope everything’s all right,” and you’ll get an idea of the kind of place it was.I loved skiing, but I started getting less of a thrill out of winter when, in 1993, a new kind of ski took over the downhill market....

Here’s a worry question about Japan’s missing-and-presumed-lost F-35 fighter jet: What if China finds it first? The U.S. government isn’t worried, or so it says. Washington believes the joint Japanese-American recovery effort will locate the remains of the aircraft before other countries, particularly China and Russia. The U.S. has chartered a deep sea diving support vessel, the Van Gogh, to assist in locating the aircraft.The Japan Air Self Defense Force F-35A was part of a four-aircraft group that took off from Misawa air base in northern Japan on a routine training mission earlier this month....

Action star Arnold Schwarzenegger has own tank, and he’s not afraid to crush limousines with it. Even better, Arnold and his tank, 331, have history: It’s the exact same tank he drove in in the Austrian Army, decades before, when he was a draftee.This video, shot for CNBC’s “Make It” show, has comedian and late night TV host Jay Leno visiting Schwarzenegger and 331 to crush a limousine. The two board the tank, reverse the turret to protect the barrel, and turn a four foot tall limousine into a two foot tall limo....

The crusher is hungry; it must be fed. Its hardened steel maw opens to accommodate an American sedan. The jaws begin to close, and the crusher rocks softly side to side as it brings its full force to bear. The car emits high-pitched rending noises and then – pop! – the windshield blows. And – pop! pop! – the headlights explode. In a matter of seconds, the sedan is less than 2 ft....

It seems so obvious: we have all this garbage on Earth—including incredibly dangerous radioactive waste—so why don’t we just launch it into space and be rid of it? In fact, why don’t we just launch it into the sun where it would be consumed in a fiery blaze to never trouble us again? Well, for one thing rocket launches aren’t cheap, so launching to space is not exactly the most cost-effective way to deal with waste....

Chewing gum is a grand human tradition, as archeologists have discovered. A new study shows that the first people to settle in Scandinavia over 10,000 years ago left traces of themselves behind in ancient gum—the oldest Scandinavian DNA on record.They didn’t have Wrigley’s, but ancient Scandinavian and Nordic cultures were big fans of chewing on tree bark. In 2007, a boy in Finland found chewing gum made from birch bark that was 5,000 years old....

DETROIT SPY TEXT AND GRAPHICS BY JIM DUNNEGiven the extent of the camouflage on this Silverado prototype, you’d think Chevy was hiding huge secrets. Actually, the changes are subtle. Close examination of the photo, taken near GM’s Michigan proving grounds, reveals the headlight complex is larger and wraps around to the rear of the fender. The fronts of the front doors butt against the windshield glass. It appears that the cargo box walls are a couple of inches taller than the current model’s....

Getting caught in the dark of a cold winter night without a reliable flashlight can range from annoying to deadly. That’s why we’re glad to see the newest military-grade flashlight from FirstLight, the Torq ($89 to $99).This is a light that’s earned its stripes. Its manufacturer supplies U.S. Army tank crews and medics with flashlights, meaning its features and rugged construction are authentic and battle-tested, not the product of a fanciful design team....

Does painting an electric guitar change the sound? It’s a question that’s been on the mind of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, who’s been catching flak among gearheads on the internet for suggesting that paint color affects guitar tone. Corgan recently unveiled his signature model Reverend for Guitar Center, and said “I’ve found through the years that certain paints sound different, so the white Reverend, I think, sounds better.”People who believe this idea typically talk about the type of finish used on a guitar, with nitrocellulose, polyester, and polyurethane being the three most popular....

Let me begin by saying something nice about one of America’s most loathed companies: Comcast has just announced Stream, a $15 per month streaming TV service for people who don’t want to buy a cable package. You need to be a Comcast internet customer to sign up. The service launches in Boston this summer, will go to Seattle and Chicago soon, and get rolled out to everybody in 2016.That’s the good....

Media Platforms Design TeamLocal journalists wait in front of a TransAsia reservations desk at the Sungshan airport in Taipei. Credit: Getty Images.At least 47 are dead after a TransAsia Airways flight crash-landed in XiXi village in Taiwan today. The flight was headed from Kaoksiung, a major city on the east coast of Taiwan’s main island, to Magong, one of two airports on the Pengu Island. Pilots attempted to make an emergency landing in stormy weather before crashing....

The rescue effort to save the 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped in a Thai cave has turned tragic with the death of a diver returning from bringing the boys oxygen.Former Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan was exiting the cave when overtaken by a flash flood. Kunan, 38, was a triathlete in excellent condition. While the trapped survivors received their payload, he did not have enough oxygen left over and succumbed to the powerful water....

Raytheon’s new Peregrine missile is designed for U.S. fighter jets and would likely replace the 30-year old AMRAAM missile.Peregrine is smaller than existing missiles, allowing the Air Force and other services to stuff more of them in the internal weapons bays of stealth fighter jets like the F-35. The missile is also cheaper to buy and maintain than existing missiles, making it easier to maintain large inventories.U.S. defense contractor Raytheon has pulled the curtain off a new missile designed to boost the firepower of fighter jets....

View full post on VimeoSaurabh Datta of Copenhagen’s Institute of Interaction Design has the perfect way to teach you how to draw: a wearable device that guides your hand through a personal art lesson. It can also teach you piano basics or other simple tasks.The device, called the Forced Finger, guides the hand and fingers through haptic feedback, guiding the muscles through robotic levers. The idea is to instill muscle memory in the wearer....

Harley has been scoring product placements in Marvel movies for years now, but the iconic comic book publisher and America’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer just took their relationship a step further by teaming up to build 25 custom choppers tricked out with superhero decals. View full post on YoutubeThe Super Hero Customs were made to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Captain America, who burst onto the superhero scene in Captain America Comics #1 back in 1941 before the United States entered the Second World War....

On July 25, an asteroid measuring somewhere between 87 and 427 feet wide got unusually close to Earth. No scientists had even detected the asteroid until a few hours before it passed by the planet. While never a true threat, the rock known as Asteroid 2019 OK is still raising questions about Earth’s readiness for a space-born natural disaster. View full post on TwitterView full post on TwitterScientists spotted OK 2019 just a few days before its close encounter with Earth....

Nature is full of horrors, including zombie wasps and parasites that sound too cruel to be real. One of the most vicious and twisted is the blister beetle.The beetle lures in male bees with the promise of sex, only to eat the bees’ offspring—and anything else they can find. New research highlights just how these beetles’ parasitic behavior developed and how they pull in their unsuspecting prey.##A blister beetle’s life cycle is like that of most other beetles—for the most part....

A new, cutting-edge flight chamber has let Stanford researchers study bird flight in unprecedented detail.The surprising study reveals birds tilt and angle their wings to accelerate using drag and slow down using lift.Bird flight has long fascinated even classical scientists like Leonardo da Vinci, and this information could change how we teach aeronautics.Researchers at Stanford University have discovered counterintuitive ways that birds use drag and lift when they fly. The findings may influence future research into how to “repurpose” drag and lift in aeronautics....