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On Wednesday, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt signed an order to ground over 800 drones, citing cybersecurity risks.Back in October, the Interior Department announced that it would soon ground Chinese manufactured drones as part of a review of its drone program.Drones involved in critical safety missions, like putting out wildfires, will still operate.The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) just signed a no-fly order to officially ground all of its drones—around 800 or so—due to cybersecurity concerns with drones manufactured in China or made from Chinese parts....

From smartphones all the way up to Boeing Dreamliners, machines large and small trust lithium-ion battery technology. lithium-ion batteries are entrusted to power some of the world’s most commonly used items. While most of the devices hum along without an issue, some have made headlines for catching fire. That’s a big concern as the batteries become more ubiquitous, so scientists at the University College London are studying exactly what happens when the batteries overheat....

Scientists who want to study the effects of weightlessness have always had precious few options. There’s the “vomit comet,” NASA’s Weightless Wonder plane that creates a few seconds of weightlessness during parabolic flights. Or they could convince the space agency to actually launch their experiments into the great beyond. But there might be an easier and cheaper way: levitation. In a recent study, physicist Richard Hill and colleagues used superconductive magnets to levitate fruit flies for an extended period of time, allowing them to study the long-term effects of weightlessness on the insects’ biology....

When this year’s Super Bowl game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals hits the end of its second quarter, sit back, put on your stereoscopic glasses and get ready to immerse yourself. No, 3D football isn’t here yet. But a stereoscopic first is coming to Super Bowl XLIII in the form of a 3D commercial break. The debut of Dreamworks Animations’ 3D trailer for Monsters vs. Aliens, out March 27, and a 60-second 3D Sobe Lizards commercial will be playing at halftime for the viewing pleasure of those who purchased a Sobe drink (with free 3D glasses) before the Super Bowl....

Earlier this year, reports suggested that Apple might kill its proprietary Lightning port by transitioning its next iPhone over to the USB Type-C port that virtually all Android devices (and some computers, including new Apple MacBooks) use. Such a move would be a cross-compatible dream come true, and the beginning of the end of Apple’s dongle-based hellscape. Alas, new and reliable reports suggest Lightning is here to stay. It’s a shame, but it’s not much of a surprise....

For the briefest of moments last week, it looked like the search for MH370 might be over. Sonar images from ocean depths of nearly 13,000 feet revealed “multiple small bright reflections in a relatively small area of otherwise featureless seabed,” said Peter Foley, director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.Evidence of any kind of manmade objects delivered a much-needed lift to the team investigating the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which is nearing the end of a nearly year-long, and thus far futile, underwater quest for the remains of the Boeing 777 and the 239 people aboard....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: March 1, 2013Base Price: $29,785 to $63,990Competitors: Ford Explorer, Volkswagen Touareg, Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes-Benz ML, BMW X5, Land Rover LR4, Lexus RX, Infiniti FX Powertrains: 3.0-liter diesel V-6, 240 hp, 420 lb-ft; 3.6-liter V-6, 290 hp, 260 lb-ft; 5.7-liter V-8, 360 hp, 390 lb-ft; 6.4-liter V-8, 470 hp, 465 lb-ft; eight-speed automatic, RWD or AWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): 21–22/28–30 (diesel), 17/24–25 (V-6), 14/20–22 (5.7 V-8), 13/19 (6....

A Turkish Airlines flight journeying from Panama City to Istanbul, Turkey, took the brazen step of flying an additional 800 miles outside its usual flightpath, but passengers onboard might have otherwise been oblivious.The re-route was a huge divergence from its usual trajectory across the Atlantic and through the Mediterranean, but thanks to excess windspeed harnessed by the jet stream, Flight 800 touched down on Turkish soil on time and unscathed. Wired first noticed the Airbus A330’s arch-shaped journey on the website Flight Radar....

A video shows the dramatic flying conditions near a Australian air baseAustralian military transports are seen flying in zero visibility conditions.The orange light is created by a combination of sunlight and smoke from the Australian bushfires below. A dramatic video released by the Royal Australian Air Force shows military transport aircraft trying to land in zero visibility conditions caused by local fires. The fires are just two of hundreds burning across the island country, as high temperatures and drought conditions provide ideal conditions for wildfires....

In 2007, the city of Chicago broke ground on an ambitious project to build the largest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere: the Chicago Spire. Designed by world-renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, the Spire was to stand 2,000-feet tall and house 1,193 luxury condominiums on 150 floors. But the plan went awry in 2008 after the recession hit, and all that remains of Chicago’s dream tower is a gaping eyesore of a hole in the middle of a construction site, 110 feet across and 76 feet deep....

Media Platforms Design TeamFerdinand Alexander Porsche, the third generation of the Porsche family to guide the famous sports car brand and the man responsible for the styling of the legendary Porsche 911, died on April 5, 2012 in Salzburg at the age of 76. Son of former Porsche Chairman Ferry Porsche and grandson to the company’s founder Ferdinand Porsche, F.A., or “Butzi” as he was known to friends and colleages, penned the Porsche 911 in 1963 as the head of the design department....

Last week, Maine Gov. Paul LePage, issued a moratorium on all wind energy projects in the state. Citing tourism concerns while saying the state “must act judiciously to protect our natural beauty,” LePage established a committee (with no public accountably) that will examine wind power’s economic impact and suggest potential regulatory change.The move threatens to bring Maine’s burgeoning wind power industry to a screeching halt. Stats from 2016 showed the state ranked 8th in the nation in annual installed wind energy capacity, adding 288 megawatts of utility-scale wind, according to the U....

“A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car, producing only water, not exhaust fumes.” That was George W. Bush in 2003, proposing $1.2 billion to research fuel-cell automobiles. Six years later, President Obama killed that funding, nudging the hydrogen car onto the list of technology that was, and always would be, about ten years away. Meanwhile, over in Japan, Toyota and Honda have been at work, spending millions in R&D to make the new hydrogen-powered Mirai and Clarity....

Engine: 2.3-liter turbo four-cylinder, 270 horsepower, 310 lb-ft of torque Transmission: 10-speed automatic with two-speed transfer case in 4x4 models / EPA Fuel economy: (4x4) 20 mpg city, 24 mpg highway / Tow Rating: 7,500 pounds / Ground Clearance: 8.9 inches /Base price: $26,140It seems inevitable that Ford will build a Raptor version of the new Ranger. After all, the full-size F-150 Raptor is a hit, and Chevy makes the ZR2 version of the Colorado, which would be a Ranger Raptor’s natural foil....

French scientists have discovered what they believe to be the first known evidence of a Marsquake. While scientists had long believed seismic tremors on the Red Planet to be a possibility, new readings from a seismometer known as SEIS have shown definitive movement.View full post on TwitterThe Martian seismometers is a product of CNES, the French space agency. It traveled to our neighboring world as part of NASA’s InSight lander, which landed on Mars in November 2018....

A commercial plane that skidded off a runway after landing in northern Turkey dangled precariously off a muddy cliff with its nose only a few feet from the sea.Some of the 168 people on board the Boeing 737-800 described it as a “miracle” that everyone was evacuated safely.Images show the aircraft on its belly and at an acute angle just above the water. If it had slid any further along the slope, the plane would have likely plunged into the Black Sea in the Turkish province of Trabzon....

Media Platforms Design TeamBoston’s Big Dig is the most expensive highway project in U.S. history. Riddled with cost and time overruns, it has been widely considered a nexus of mismanagement and messy politics. Beantowners have spent the last 14 years negotiating byzantine redirections of traffic with mounting frustration, despite assurances that one day the city will be rewarded with an engineering marvel. Now, the crucial Central Artery/Tunnel is open to traffic–and it leaks....

The U.S. Navy’s EA-18G Growler electronic attack plane may get its own pet drone in a future update, FlightGlobal is reporting. The Dash X drone could be deployed by Growler aircrews over hostile airspace, collecting electromagnetic signals and sending them to the waiting jet for analysis. The Growler/drone dynamic duo would be used to identify, locate, and take down enemy air defenses. The project, funded by the Office of Naval Research, involves stuffing a Dash X drone in a bomb-like capsule designed to hang off the hardpoints of a EA-18G Growler....

From transmissions to mechanical computers, gears are a simple piece of machinery that can accomplish a whole host of goals, depending on the context and its particular design. Sometimes, that can mean deviating from the more traditional circular format your mind probably jumps to. There are plenty of variations, some with practical applications and others without, but this series of rectangular, tetrahedral gears are some of the most ridiculous and impressive we’ve ever seen....

Missile maker Raytheon has unveiled a new scramjet-powered weapon designed to minimize the reaction time of enemy air defenses. The unnamed weapon would travel at speeds in excess of Mach 5, or 3,800 miles an hour, blazing past existing anti-air defenses to destroy high-value targets. Aviation Week & Space Technology first reported on the unnamed weapon, describing it as a “waverider-like missile design powered by a relatively compact booster stage.” The missile design popped up on the Raytheon website as part of a discussion of hypersonic weapon systems, and its appearance coincided with the start of the Paris Air Show....