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Could Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, harbor alien life underground? Scientists have just come one step closer to finding out. Images taken by NASA’s Cassini mission show active bands of icy material erupting like geysers above the south pole of Enceladus, leading scientists to what they call a “radical” conclusion: Liquid water, they say, lurks just below the surface. Because other moons in the solar system, such as Jupiter’s Europa, also may have liquid-water oceans covered by an icy crust, this discovery may not seem like that big of a deal....

The artificial retina Argus II—a tiny array of electrodes that stimulate the optic nerve, restoring partial sight to patients with degenerative retinal diseases—has been a success in clinical trials, and may be available to patients in Europe as soon as December. A camera, taking in the view, sends its feed to a processor the patient wears, wirelessly transmits data and power to the implanted retina, and then uses small electrical pulses to stimulate cells in the eye that send their signals onto the brain....

Here’s a plane that’s pretty in pink. Sorry, “rose gold.“Around this time last year we got a first good look at the Valkyrie, Colbalt founder David Loury’s vision for a sleek and sexy private plane. After a decades of work and prototypes, Cobalt finally debuted a piston-driven canard-style aircraft. Back then, Loury was set to sell the black bird for a cool $699,000. But if you desperately need a plane to match your pink iPhone, this version from Neiman Marcus’s 2016 Fantasy Gifts will run you $1....

Twenty-five years ago today, the World Wide Web announced that it was for everybody. On April 30, 1993, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) put the web into the public domain a decision that has fundamentally altered the past quarter-century.While the proto-internet dates back to the 1960s, the World Wide Web as we know it had been invented four year earlier in 1989 by CERN employee Tim Berners-Lee. The internet at that point was growing in popularity among academic circles but still had limited mainstream utility....

Media Platforms Design TeamTwo days after Christmas, a pair of vessels labored through heavy seas in the Gulf of Alaska. In the lead was the Aiviq, a $200 million tow ship with four 5444-hp engines. A thick line connected that ship to the Kulluk, a floating oil rig that wallowed behind. Owned by Royal Dutch Shell, the rig measured 266 feet across and was shaped like a squat, nearly round funnel....

The U.S. government is preparing to revive production of a banned missile system after the treaty prohibiting their use expires later this year. The 1987 INF Treaty banned medium to intermediate-range land-based missiles, but the U.S. is leaving the treaty due to what it claims are Russian violations of the treaty. Moscow denies the charges.The report, an Aviation Week & Space Technology exclusive, states that the U.S. government plans to begin fabricating parts for new ground launched cruise missiles after the INF Treaty officially expires in August....

Generally, indoor stationary cycling is safer than biking on roads, since you’re not out there dodging car doors. But a recall has been placed on an indoor trainer that has been reported to cause bodily harm.The RacerMate CompuTrainer Flywheels are indoor cycling trainers that attach your road bike to simulate a stationary exercise bike. There have been reports of blue flywheels manufactured before 2008 shattering and inflicting lacerations and bruises to riders and bystanders....

Army foot soldiers in remote areas often rely on aircraft to deliver precision strikes to support their operations. For fire­power, soldiers must depend on warplanes or helicopters, which sometimes cannot help because of weather or poor communications. The other option for infantry, artillery, lacks the precision guidance that steers missiles delivered from F-16s and Apache helicopters. Enter the newest piece of Army gear: the Non-Line of Sight Launch System, already nicknamed “missiles in a box....

Media Platforms Design TeamBob Falk is one of those lucky guys whose day job–research engineer with the U.S. Forest Service in Wisconsin–coincides with his passion for salvaging building materials. His book Unbuilding (Taunton Press) offers step-by-step instructions on projects ranging from reintegrating an old doorframe in a new remodel to taking an entire house apart. Salvaging can be lucrative: In one kitchen, Falk netted cherry cabinets, granite counters, a $3000 Dacor cooktop and a Sub-Zero refrigerator, “all of it for free,” he says....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis time of year, fireworks are even more American than apple pie. But about halfway through every Fourth of July display, don’t you sometimes wonder how the heck anyone could pull of such a blazing light parade? Turns out, a lot more goes into a typical fireworks show than meets the eye—intense preparation, computer choreography, solid science and hand-me-down secrets that stretch back across two millennia.“It can take anywhere from 10 hours to two weeks to set up a show,” says Marcy Zambelli, executive vice president of Zambelli Internationale, a 114-year old company that counts Disney theme parks, the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl among its clients—and even holds the world record for launching fireworks from the highest altitude ever....

When people talk about carbon emissions, it’s often on a national and international scale. The EPA reports that in 2010 the U.S. generated nearly seven billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. That number is difficult to contemplate, and for most of us, it’s hard to see how our everyday activities fit in with it.Scientists from Arizona State University wanted to study greenhouse emission not on a large scale, but down to the level of a single building or street....

Nuclear war is generally not very pretty, except for maybe in War Games and that War Games-inspired game Defcon. Now you can add this wonderful, minimal, enthralling simulation from Simon Swain to the list. Block out a good 15 minutes, because you’re about to spend it watching the world end over and over. The simulator is simple: You start with two nation-states that have some factories and some fighters and some bombers and some ICBMs....

Star Trek is a show of feast and famine. Since it aired on CBS in 1966, Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi franchise has more than once slipped into obscurity only to beam back into the public consciousness.Case in point, Star Trek: Discovery. When the new series launched in fall 2017, it was the first new Trek show on TV in a dozen years. Now Discovery is the standard bearer for a new age of Trek in the streaming era, with its second season set to air beginning in on January 17, 2019....

Game Boy has a long history—and that’s both a blessing and a curse. As Nintendo developed its handheld hardware it also evolved the cartridges that pack in all the code needed for all your favorite games. But if you’re like me, that means tons of games are languishing in a dusty corner of your closet because you no longer have the old hardware necessary to play them. That’s where the Analogue Pocket comes in....

The U.S. Navy has purchased its first new anti-ship missile in more than 30 years as it tries to keep with growing foreign navies brandishing their own ship-killing missiles. The Navy on Thursday announced a contract for the first 23 Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, an agreement worth $68 million. More missiles will undoubtedly follow.Since 1977, the U.S. Navy relied upon the Harpoon missile as its go-to ship-killer. Launched from the deck of a cruiser or destroyer, the Harpoon could strike targets at distances of up to 67 miles, flying at sea-skimming altitudes of 30 feet or less to avoid enemy radar detection....

As anyone in the Midwest could testify, this past week has been spent in the throes of the freezing cold polar vortex. NASA has documented the phenomena as it moved southward from central Canada into the U.S. from January 20 through the 29th. A polar vortex is a natural part of nature gone wrong: It starts off as a standard low-pressure system over the Arctic, but when the jet streams keeping these low-pressure systems in check weaken, their freezing cold winds can fall down right onto midwestern America....

Yesterday, the identity of the inventor of Bitcoin was reportedly revealed as Craig Steven Wright, a secretive Australian man. Today, a lot of people find themselves with the question: What is Bitcoin? It’s a good question. Bitcoin is a confusing topic, a “Cryptocurrency” that is mined through computers helping run encryption math problems, with coins rewarded per solution discovered. But there’s a lot of terms around it: hash, mining, wallets, cypherpunk, and more....

On January 21, 2019 the United States and some other areas of the world got quite a show: a total lunar eclipse, lasting for an hour in totality, the moon appearing an eerie red hue. Those impressed with the show may be wondering, “When’s my next chance?“For those in North America, the answer is a little disappointing: there’s not another eclipse in North America until July 5, 2020, and it’ll be penumbral, which involves an entire area of the Moon being covered by the shadow of the Sun, but not the total sphere due to a misalignment between the Sun and the Earth....

The rapid spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus, while not particularly threatening outside China, could involve the Pentagon.The U.S. military can operate within the U.S. only under certain conditions.The Pentagon is designed to fight wars abroad, a mission that lends itself to quickly responding to public health emergencies, both at home and abroad.The World Health Organization’s declaration that the coronavirus represents a “global emergency” highlights the growing danger the virus poses to public health....

Do you live near a river? Is it clogged with trash? If you’re like most people, you’ve probably answered yes to both questions. Pollution in our waterways is a serious problem, and plenty of people have spent plenty of money trying to solve it. But perhaps a low-cost solution is the best one, and now such a solution is almost here.A year ago, a team of scientists and engineers at the Chicago startup AltruBots—formerly Urban Rivers—revealed a project to build a cheap robot to clean up trash in the Chicago River....