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Media Platforms Design TeamSolar energy technology is enjoying its day in the sun with the advent of innovations from flexible photovoltaic (PV) materials to thermal power plants that concentrate the sun’s heat to drive turbines. But even the best system converts only about 30 percent of received solar energy into electricity—making solar more expensive than burning coal or oil. That will change if Lonnie Johnson’s invention works. The Atlanta-based independent inventor of the Super Soaker squirt gun (a true technological milestone) says he can achieve a conversion efficiency rate that tops 60 percent with a new solid-state heat engine....

When the Baltic Ace hit another container ship in December of 2012 and promptly capsized and sunk it was carrying 1,400 cars and over 100,000 gallons of oil. For most of the past four years, all that has just been sitting at the bottom of the North Sea inside the already considerable wreckage of the ship itself. Not an easy mess to clean up. But an important one! Since the wreck threatened to leak thousands of gallons of oil and sat dead center in the middle of a well-traveled shipping lane....

What do you picture when you imagine living at a research station in Antarctica? Whatever it is, you’ll probably be surprised by this video tour of the Amudsen-Scott South Pole Station, a U.S. research station located at the southernmost point in the world. The station was originally built in 1958, but since has been torn down and renovated several times. Now, the space resembles a college commons more than the cramped quarters of a secluded research facility....

The U.S. Marines are set to replace existing armored Humvees with the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV. The new vehicles will have some familiar parts though—the Corps is recycling armored gun shields from the Humvees and reinstalling them on the JLTVs to save money.The new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is an armored light utility vehicle designed to ferry soldiers, airmen, and Marines across a battlefield, not only on the front lines but behind friendly lines where the threat of ambush by guerrillas or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) exist....

Part of the beauty of mathematics is that seemingly simple patterns lead to much more complicated questions and theories. The Collatz conjecture, which is the subject of a new video from YouTube channel Numberphile, is the perfect example of a simple problem that even the greatest mathematical minds in the world haven’t been able to solve.The essence of the question is simple. We have an interesting pattern: If you take a positive integer, and then divide by 2 if it is even, or multiply by 3 and add 1 if it is odd, then repeat this process with the resulting number, eventually you will end up with the number 1....

While the British Parliament was debating this week whether to join in airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, one weapon was mentioned repeatedly: Brimstone. In a 36-page report, Prime Minister David Cameron said, “The Brimstone missile which enables us to strike accurately with low collateral damage, therefore increasing the scope for strikes against specific ISIL targets—even the U.S. do not possess this capability.“Indeed, Brimstone proved itself and its capability against tanks in Libya, to the point that the British paper The Telegraph called it the “British missile envied by the U....

Military dogs are an essential part of the modern U.S. Military.Dogs are often exposed to loud explosions and other noises, without the benefit of hearing protection.A new ear protection kit for dogs, CAPS, protects their hearing while working.Military working dogs (MWDs) have become a major part of the U.S. Military. From base security to dogs that accompany special forces on raids, dogs are indispensable assets, capable of running down bad guys on the field....

The U.S. Navy would prefer older ship designs outfitted with new weapons instead of new designs fitted with new weapons. The service, stung by recent difficulties fielding new hulls such as the destroyer USS Zumwalt, could choose to produce the same type of ship but with progressively more advanced technology, including weapons. According to Greek mythology, the hero Theseus owned a ship that was slowly replaced, plank by plank, until every part had been replaced....

Look up at the sky this Labor Day weekend and you might catch a titanic traveler. Asteroid Florence, a 2.7-mile-wide space rock, will be buzzing the planet. NASA says it’s the biggest one to visit the neighborhood since the agency started keeping records.We’re in no danger from this hunk of rock. On Friday, Sept. 1, Florence will pass by at a distance of about 4.4 million miles, much further than the distance from the Earth to the moon....

Uists developed the app to alert users to shaking caused by a magnitude 4.5 earthquake or greater.Even a few seconds of warning could help people prepare for intense shaking.On the 30th anniversary of California’s Loma Prieta Earthquake, which killed 63 people in October 1989, U.C. Berkeley and its partners announced a new update to the MyShake App, which will give users several seconds of warning before they feel the shaking of an earthquake occurs....

I’m at The Boring Company’s unveiling of their prototype tunnel in Hawthorne, California, waiting to take a ride on Elon Musk’s moon-shot solution to the scourge of traffic congestion…and I’m preoccupied. There are placards with the press tent’s Wi-Fi password placed everywhere, but I didn’t need it to log on. My phone just automatically joined the network. And in the moment, I kinda want this to mean something. I want it to mean something the way Elon Musk means something to the guy who tried to sneak into the press tent earlier....

Near the Furka Pass in the Swiss Alps is the beautiful Rhone Glacier. For the last several years, locals in central Switzerland have taken an unusual path towards saving the Rhone. They’re covering it in blankets. The billowing white blankets are an attempt to reflect sunlight and maintain what has become a popular tourist attraction in the area. While ironic at first blush, the blankets only warm you up because your body, unlike a glacier, is constantly radiating heat....

Jupiter sees your Northern Lights and raises you this absolutely stunning aurora that is larger than our entire planet.It’s going to be a big month for the biggest planet in our solar system. On Monday, the 4th of July, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter and study it from closer than any spacecraft has ever gone. As a prelude to that arrival, NASA released this gorgeous shot by the Hubble Space Telescope in which you can see the Great Red Spot, the bands of furious gases, and the lovely aurora over the north pole captured in ultraviolet....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhile most of the world’s timber trade deals in legitimate lumber, at least 32 million acres of forest are lost to illegal logging each year—and much of that wood ends up in the U.S. As detailed in Simon Cooper’s special report for PM, pockets of the industry rely on paper records and middlemen, making forgery and big bucks all too easy to come by for international smugglers. Here’s the good news: New technology exists that can help the timber industry curb poaching, and help you make sure those new cedar-based Adirondack chairs aren’t made out of an endangered species....

Just after 10:45 pm on Oct. 12, Los Angeles County fire inspector Ron Haralson received a call alerting him to a multivehicle pileup in the southbound tunnel of a truck bypass on I-5 about 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Fifteen minutes later, he saw the flames as he sped north on the state’s major north-south interstate, with the narrow, two-lane truck tunnel crossing below. “It was all orange and all fire,” he recalls, “like a blowtorch out of both ends....

Passwords are a scourge of the internet. Annoying to come up with, annoying to remember, and often just a huge waste of time to have at all. But the passwords that protect your most vital information like bank accounts and personal emails are extremely important, and this demonstration of how password hacking works will scare you into making them very, very strong. When you think of password hacking (or just guessing) you probably think of a “brute force” approach, one where computers just guess “aaaaa” and then “aaaab” and so on, but do it extremely fast....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere are some animals just a bit too troublesome to care for in your house. Like a zebra, a tiger, or a giant squid. But a new Kickstarter aims to make it just a little easier to keep one beasty in your house, and grow them like sea monkeys while you’re at it. The problem with most previous jellyfish tanks is hard-to-control temperature variations. This tank reportedly addressing those, while also correctly filtering the water and creating wave patterns inside similar to ocean currents....

Media Platforms Design TeamDesmond is special. Or at least that’s what we’ve been hearing since he made his miraculous reappearance after blowing the Hatch at the end of Season Two. In last night’s episode, “Happily Ever After,” we found out why—sort of. Our favorite Scotsman has been brought back to the island by father-in-law Widmore, who wants to stop Fake Locke from escaping to the outside world. “[Desmond is] the only person I’m aware of in the world who has survived a catastrophic electromagnetic event,” Widmore tells Jin....

Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today. Media Platforms Design TeamResearchers recently announced that this year’s dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is 5,052 square miles—around the size of Connecticut. It’s actually an ordinary size compared to dead zones of recent years, but it’s three times the size of a 2015 goal set by an Environmental Protection Agency task force.So how does a dead zone form?...

Welcome back, welcome back. For this week’s riddle we take a look at two people trying to outwit each other. A scheme is concocted, realized, and then countered. One man ends up lying dead on the floor. Problem In a faraway kingdom, there is a mysterious herb. The poisons brewed with this herb break down in the body for a number of minutes, and then they cause sudden death. But there is a catch: If you drink a stronger poison brewed with the same herb while the first poison is still breaking down in your system, then it will neutralize the weaker poison and act as an antidote, saving your life....