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Media Platforms Design TeamFor the first time ever a computer has passed the Turing Test, convincing humans with whom it conversed that it is a human and not a machine. At the 2014 Turing Test, held at the Royal Society in London, a third of the competition’s judges believed the computer program, designed by Vladimir Veselov and Eugene Demchenko, was actually a 13-year-old Ukranian boy.To pass the test, the program named Eugene Goostman had to engage in a string of 30 five-minute typewritten conversations and convince the judges it was a human more than 30 percent of the time....

The oldest known periodic table in world has been discovered at the University of St Andrews. Dated back to 1885, the table was created only 16 years after Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev introduced the concept in 1869.Discovered by chemistry professor Alan Aiken in 2014, the historic document had apparently been left in a storage area. Aiken was cleaning out unneeded chemicals and outdated supplies when he discovered the chart, which apparently had been there since 1968....

This is my 1967 Camaro. It’s a Pro-Street car that I drive to all the local car shows, and just for fun. It’s got a 427 with steel rods, crank and Arias 7:1 pistons. They breathe through a dual 850-cfm Holly carbs sitting on a Littlefield 8.71:1 blower. The valve train is made from GM Winters aluminum heads with Crower stainless steel rockers and a Competition Cams stud girdle. The engine is running at 14% underdrive....

Wireless headphones, drones, phones, and electric cars all rely on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. As demand for these batteries skyrockets, the materials used to make them get harder to find. That battery competition hasn’t escaped the attention of Apple, which is now looking to buy those materials directly to secure its supply.According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple is in talks with several mining companies to purchase several thousand tons of cobalt over the next five years....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow did you get involved in Battle: Los Angeles?It was actually a phone call from Neal Moritz, an old friend of mine, who had done the Fast and Furious series and SWAT with me. He just called me up and said, “We’ve got the need for a tech sergeant in this project that I’m working on, would you be interested?” And I said, what’s it about? And he told me, “Los Angeles is invaded by aliens!...

Media Platforms Design TeamIn this week’s episode, a boatload of bodies is pulled from the coast of Boston–all Chinese refugees, all dead–except one. As FBI Agent Olivia Dunham greets mad scientist Dr. Walter Bishop and his son and caretaker Peter, she asks, “Did you eat?” It’s clear this is something we’re glad didn’t air after dinner on Thanksgiving. The victims’ killers are the large, multi-tentacled parasitic worms that emerge from their mouths....

The idea of scaling up a drone to carry passengers isn’t new. Who among us hasn’t gazed up at a DJI Phantom and wished that we could be up there with it, soaring amongst the birds and transmitting data back to China? Well, batteries are the obstacle standing between us and our glorious LaunchPad McQuack future. Current battery technology would offer limited range in a human-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, even when burdened with only the skinniest of rich people on their way to Montauk....

America’s infrastructure is in a sorry state. Bridges are crumbling, airports and seaports are falling into disrepair, and our roads are covered in potholes. This sucks for everyone, but especially Domino’s, which is so tired of potholes ruining its pizzas that it has taken to fixing them itself.The pizza chain said in a press release that it’s tired of potholes ruining “great-tasting pizza,” so it’s begun repairing these potholes in a handful of American towns....

I’m a little off-schedule this week due to work responsibilities. Yes, I actually get paid to ski… sorta. My day job is eastern editor at Skiing magazine, and when the snow’s good, it’s incumbent on me to be on the slopes conducting “research.” Very top secret sort of stuff; I’m sure you understand that I can’t say anything more about it;) The switch has flipped on the sun and temps; the past few days have featured brilliant sunshine and above-freezing conditions....

If a truck carrying 1000 apples leaves Washington State at 6 am and a train carrying a ton of shrimp leaves Baton Rouge at 8 am, when will they meet in your refrigerator, rot and begin to reek? Sound impossibly difficult to figure out? Well, it’s not.A group of University of Florida engineering students have developed a sensor that measures the vital statistics of shipped perishable goods and wirelessly transmits the information....

For a Halo 3 sneak preview, the scene on Friday was pretty calm. There were no lines, no overly push reps from Bungie or Microsoft, and enough booths stocked with Xbox 360s and 50-in. LCDs and plasmas to accommodate everyone. Within two minutes of walking into the bar, I was playing what Microsoft is calling the most anticipated game of all time. And it’s true: Even compared to Spore, the upcoming evolutionary epic from the creator of The Sims, the release of Halo 3 this fall will be a messianic event....

Media Platforms Design TeamA pocket door is a great way to pick up usable floor and wall space that normally would be occupied by a door’s swing. You can buy and install a pocket door for as little as $100, and the kits are readily available at home centers and lumberyards. There is one catch, though: You’ll have to tear out a portion of the wall to make room for the split studs that replace the wooden ones and for the track on which the new door hangs....

NASA is no stranger to see people bash its plans for human spaceflight. The latest target: the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a new space station to succeed the ISS. The Trump administration has said this new station could be in place as early as 2024, and is expected to ask industry for power and propulsion ideas soon. NASA says the gateway will enable exploration of the solar system, but critics call it a colossal waste of money and effort....

Patagonia’s new Arbor collection of packs may borrow its looks from the company’s history, but the way this gear gets made is nothing but forward-looking.The newly announced Arbor Pack line, intended for city life or light hiking, includes a 15-liter Arbor Market Pack ($79), 20L Arbor Day Pack ($89), 25L Arbor Classic Pack ($99) and 28L Arbor Grande Pack ($129). All four packs are made entirely from recycled materials, which involved reusing 8....

Scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch just successfully transplanted lab-grown lungs into pigs — an exciting development towards being able to bioengineer lungs for humans someday, too.To create these lungs, researchers first made a lung skeleton. They used sugar and detergent to remove the cells and blood from pig lungs, leaving them with a protein structure. They created four protein scaffolds, each of which was soaked in a tank containing a mix of nutrients....

Machine gunners, mortarmen, and other soldiers that carry heavy equipment on the battlefield could soon get a little help from FORTIS. The FORTIS Knee Stress Release Device (K-SRD) boosts leg capacity, increasing the amount of weight a soldier can carry with his legs. The result is soldiers that are capable of carrying their loads much farther while suffering less fatigue.Developed by Lockheed Martin, FORTIS consists of a powered exoskeleton wrapping around the wearer’s lower extremities....

Brighton-based artist Richard Wilkinson created a stunning series of imaginary insects based on Star Wars characters. In Arhropoda Iconicus, recognizable characters become transformed into realistic, lifelike bugs, including Chewbecca, R2D2, Darth Vader and Han Solo trapped in amber.Wilkinson has always been fascinated by natural history. “There is something about the way scientists categorized and classified the chaotic and vast world of nature that really resonates with me,” Wilkinson told Fast Company....

The Air Force’s “Base in a Box” plan is in trouble, according to Military.com, the victim of “vague deadlines and insufficient oversight." Also known as the Deployable Air Base System, or DABS, the meme-prone system would be critical for keeping the Air Force flying in a conflict with a so-called “peer” or “near peer adversary." Think Russia or China. Created in response to a militarily resurgent Russia, the DABS system is supposed to be up to 24 sets of equipment designed to allow the U....

Media Platforms Design TeamEngines are like people: The harder they work, the more air they need to breathe. When an engine is revved high, like when accelerating on the highway, its valves must open wide and for long durations. Conversely, at idle, that engine requires just a trickle of air to operate. Variable valve timing and lift systems continuously alter the way a valve operates, depending on engine speed and load, to increase fuel efficiency and power....

Going to the moon is impressive, full stop. But the Apollo missions only get more impressive when you look at the details. There were its computers, which were smarter than widely accepted. Even something a mere foil coating needs to be supercharged to be spaceworthy. Amy from Vintage Space has a piece to prove it:[youtube ]https://youtu.be/NF_2Io7g9fE[/youtube]This wasn’t the only example of foil used in Apollo missions. The Solar Wind Composition Experiment on Apollo missions 11, 12, 14, 15, and 16 where made of aluminium foil as well....