Most locks are good for little more than keeping honest people honest. They’re a deterrent that’s strong enough to keep someone from stealing your stuff on a whim, but no match to a dedicated and purposeful criminal with a pair of bolt-cutters or similarly serious tools at hand. The Sargent & Greenleaf 833 aims to thwart even that second kind of thief, and with a price tag of nearly $900, it better follow through....
Two researchers at Columbia University recently released a paper (PDF) with the fantastic title, “Computational Design of Twisty Joints and Puzzles.” In it, they detail a new method for transforming any 3D object into a Rubik’s Cube-style brain teaser.What you’ll need is a 3D printer and a copy of their software. If you have those, you’ll be able to design a toy bunny made of rotating pieces that can be scrambled into formlessness before being returned to its original shape....
Next time you sit down to binge-watch old episodes of Futurama on Netflix, stop for a second to consider this: Netflix’s giant video-streaming network is so mammoth, so absurdly huge, that it actually sends more data than the entire global internet could ever support. Technically, Netflix is bigger than the internet.Netflix’s VP of content delivery Ken Florance explained the situation in a fascinating interview with Wired. “Our peak traffic is more than that … ....
Scientists at the University of Maryland have, through chemical treatments and crushed polymers, found a way to make soft woods over 10 times as strong as their natural form. They’re calling it “super wood.“Lightweight woods, like pine or balsa, already have a number of common uses in woodworking but they’re just not fit for applications in industrial strength projects. The research team is hopeful that their chemical treatments could change that....
Two Russian military planes on a training flight near the U.S. caused a scare over the weekend, when when at least one news outlet claimed the nuclear-capable bombers “entered American airspace.” U.S. and Canadian forces took the unusual step of clarifying the situation on social media, assuring the public that no, in fact, the bombers did not leave international airspace.The two Tu-160 bombers (NATO codename: Blackjack) were on a training mission and flew into Canada’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) somewhere over the Arctic....
One “lucky” passenger caught a truly astonishing clip while pointing a camera out the window of a Sky Airlines flight from Santiago in Chile to Copiapo. Instead of a routine takeoff, this rider got to record the engine cover of an Airbus A320 rip right off. Fun!View full post on Youtube While it certainly looks terrifying, the engine covering that tore off here wasn’t completely essential, as Pilot Patrick Smith told The Daily Mail....
We’re smack dab in the middle of CES 2016 right now, and there’s no shortage of new laptops. But if you’re in the market and looking to get the most for your money, Razer’s new Blade Stealth is the one to look at. With its base model, the Stealth boasts a great (touch)screen with a quad-HD 2560 x 1440 resolution. That is to say a damn sight better than 1080p. There’s also an optional (more expensive) option to upgrade to 4K, a resolution so high you’ll be hard-pressed to find videos that can actually make full use of it....
Our last riddle of 2016 might throw you for a loop at first, but once you know it, the answer seems beautifully simple. Mull it over for a while and you won’t regret it.ProblemYou sit at a sprawling table with hundreds of thousands of quarters in front of you, but you don’t know exactly how many. You have a blindfold on, so you cannot see the quarters, but you do know that exactly 20 quarters are tails-side-up, and the rest are heads-up....
A new portable system small enough to mount on a personal firearm provides its user with the ability to quickly locate the source of hostile gunfire. The PEARL system, created by French defense contractor Metravib, uses acoustic sensors to determine the source of gunfire during the confusion of combat. The PEARL system detects the shock waves generated by muzzle blasts from small arms fire. These shock waves travel through the air, radiating from all directions, like radar or sonar waves....
Last night, Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, suffered serious damage when the floating dry dock in which it was being repaired sank. According to reports from Radio Free Europe, 71 shipyard workers were evacuated when the dry dock suddenly began to fill with water. Four workers were injured, one seriously, and a fifth is missing. The carrier, or what was left of it, anyway, was later towed out of the dry dock to a nearby shipyard, the 35th Repair Plant....
As marijuana becomes increasingly mainstream, so too does the opportunity for scientists to study its effects on humans. And the news isn’t always good. A new study from Duke suggests that men in their child-bearing years should consider how marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient, THC, could impact their sperm—and possibly the children they conceive during periods when they’ve been using the drug.“There’s something about cannabis use that affects the genetic profile in sperm"Many outside factors can effect sperm....
Using inexpensive parts to build your own drone is a great idea, but the elements are capable of tearing your machine to bits, if they feel so inclined. This is why Ran D. St. Clair, an electronics engineer based in California, built a nine-piece drone that plies the air by flexing and flapping its components, floating along even as wind threatens to derail its path. Borrowing slight inspiration from the already flexible wings of a commercial airliner, St....
Desert Bus, the worst and also very best video game ever created, is back from the dead. Again. A new version called Desert Bus VR resurrects the spectacularly boring title in stunning virtual reality, and is now playable free on Steam. These are some salient facts about Desert Bus:Your task is to drive a bus from Tucson, Ariz. to Las Vegas in real time. It takes eight hours.If you complete the journey, you get 1 point....
A YouTuber built what appears to be a floating table using some basic engineering principles.The table exhibits how tensile strength is applied and has the ability to keep structures upright. James Orgill, an engineer and YouTuber, has created a miniature table that is fully supported by thread. The seemingly impossible feat was done by understanding how to use tensegrity and tensile strength.In this case, Orgill created a tensegrity structure which uses tension as a building tool....
The star HD 163296 is a baby, only 4 million years old. While that may not sound very young, it’s less than a thousandth of the age of the sun—young enough that the star still has its protoplanetary disk. This swirling mass of gas and dust encircling the star is leftover material that was not consumed by the star itself when it coalesced and sparked the fires of nuclear fusion at its core....
Since last fall, the strange phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has killed off a quarter of America’s honeybee population, and threatened 25 percent of our food supply. (A wide variety of crops rely on pollination.) This past spring, a nationwide effort by top DNA scientists determined that CCD is probably caused by a number of factors, including multiple bee-killing viruses. But identifying specific viruses with DNA sequencing is a slow, painstaking process....
In some ways, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are living opposite lives. Earlier this week, SpaceX made the stunning announcement that it would be sending two (likely obscenely rich) investors into orbit around the moon by the end of 2018. Now Virgin Galactic, the company that’s been leading the charge for space tourism for years, is going the other director toward decidedly less flashy space business. It is launching a new company, Virgin Orbit, focused squarely sending satellites into space....
Pretty much every major social network has hit a tipping point where it is widely acknowledged to be Bad. Facebook grapples with the ways that Facebook is bad for mental health amid its many privacy scandals and nightmares. Twitter is a harassment platform for literal Nazis and increasingly unpleasant place to spend one’s time. Snapchat is suffering from a catastrophic redesign (and a Jenner diss). Reddit is growing at Facebook’s expense, yet its scum-and-villainy problem continues to resurface even after repeated purges....
Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS — After testing the , I felt guilty: Sure, it was a nice chair, but wouldn’t a proper evaluation include a comparison to a massage? Of course it would! Sanyo massage chairrealSo—and I’m not sure PopMech will reimburse me for this, but I spare no effort in informing my readers—when I saw the massage booth, I figured I’d better check it out. I got “The Works” (25 minutes, $35), and I can now safely report two things: First, I feel pretty relaxed now....
Media Platforms Design Team>BORN TO BEAT BOMBSCrew Two Marine Corps engineersArmament .50-cal. machine gunArmor Reactive plates explode to mitigate damage from rocket- propelled grenades or hull-penetrating explosive devices.Mine Plough A 5000-pound, sharp-toothed plough digs up to 7 inches into the ground at 10 mph to dislodge explosives.The civilian mechanics at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama usually only fix vehicles for the Army, not design them for the Marine Corps. But as Marines push into contested areas of Afghanistan, their engineers face a persistent threat from roadside bombs....
