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President Trump has just approved a new 30 percent tariff on solar panels. The decision came after consulting with the bipartisan U.S. International Trade Commission, which recommended the tariff.“The President’s action makes clear again that the Trump Administration will always defend American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses in this regard,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.While a tariff would boost domestic solar panel manufacturers, the truth is that few solar panels are actually built in the United States, and the world’s boon in cheap solar energy comes via panels made elsewhere....

A grim report released by the United Nations Environment Programme revealed that our current pace of global greenhouse gas emission has us reaching as high as a global temperature increase of 3.9 degrees Celsius (almost 7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.The report states that global greenhouse gas emissions would have to be cut by 7.6 percent annually for the next decade to meet the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming goal set by the Paris Climate Accord....

USS Ford is the first of a new class of aircraft carriers for the U.S. Navy.Ford has encountered serious problems, largely stemming from the adoption of many new, unproven technologies.The Navy is working hard to get the ship fully up and running, something that may not happen until 2021. The U.S. Navy is eager to show off progress in turning the new aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford into a real fighting ship....

“Schrödinger’s Cat” was originally meant to mock quantum theory.However, quantum scientists have long seen the thought experiment as a challenge.Now researchers have built the experiment on the quantum level using qubits.Quantum mechanics often has difficulty breaking through to the general public, which is where the importance of “Schrödinger’s Cat” lies. The thought experiment captured the general imagination, with scientists today still working to answer its challenges. Now a new study looks at how the cat in the famous puzzle could exist through a bit of quantum trickery....

Officials on Wednesday confirmed that at least 31 people died when the French-made ATR-72 operated by TransAsia spiraled out of control shortly after takeoff from Taipei, clipped a bridge, and crashed into a river —all of which was captured on dramatic video taken by passersby. The plane was bound for the Kinmen Islands off Taiwan and was carrying several groups of Chinese tourists. Another 17 passengers were still missing and feared dead....

Media Platforms Design TeamLife on Mars! H.G. Wells got a good story out of the idea, and while the Martian life of Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and (more recently) Robert A. Heinlein and S.M. Stirling is exciting, it is also fictional. Still, many people hope that we’ll find some sort of life on Mars for real, and that would be exciting, too–even though theselife forms probably wouldn’t look much like Burroughs’s “Princess of Mars,” Dejah Thoris....

Media Platforms Design TeamFully charged on a brisk March morning, the all-electric Mitsubishi i’s range meter estimated that the battery pack had enough energy to travel 56 miles. That’s plenty, I thought, for the several-stop route I planned to a neighboring town and back. But as I pulled out into traffic, I flicked on the heat and watched the range meter recalibrate, dropping the estimated range down to 37. I did a quick mental calibration: A few miles to the first stop, 12 miles on the highway, 12 to return, another five to the next location, and so on....

Media Platforms Design TeamBefore we get into why the Nantucket Diddy Bagg is such a useful tool bag, let’s talk about that name. A ditty bag is a generic term for a drawstring bag, usually a small one. And the Nantucket Bagg Company is a small, Nantucket-based bag maker with one product. So why “Bagg” with two g’s? No idea, but this, um, Bagg is a rugged tote with 36 pockets, a drawstring enclosure and a single, heavy-duty zipper....

On August 12th, 2004, the University of Toronto’s Blue Sky Solar Racing team was taking a victory lap–a long one, with six schools touring Ontario and Quebec to show off each of their solar-powered race cars. Andrew Frow, a U-of-T mechanical engineering student, was driving Blue Sky’s Faust II, a single-seat, wedge-shaped vehicle, covered in photovoltaic cells. At around 4:30 pm, witnesses report, Frow began swerving. For reasons that have never been fully determined, he pulled out of the convoy and into oncoming traffic, striking a Chrysler minivan head-on....

In the Pacific Northwest, as higher temperatures trigger more blazes, yearly wildfires are becoming more common than people wearing Patagonia. These wildfires rage across thousands of acres and devastate entire ecosystems like clockwork (kind of the opposite of those people in Patagonia). Not too far away, a similar tragedy is unfolding, except this one is underwater.A recent report from Oregon’s Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Council found that the state’s coastal waters have such low levels of oxygen that many organisms are actually suffocating....

President Trump claims that there was a “robot” on the raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.Trump claims the raid unfolded too quickly for the robot to be deployed.The U.S. military is conducting extensive research into operating drones in caves and tunnels, and yes, there probably was a robot present. President Donald Trump claims that U.S. forces brought a “robot” with them when they raided the hideout of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi....

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: 5/10AGES: 8+BUILD TIME: 2 HoursPARTS COST: About $40PARTS/CUT LIST · One 2 x 4—foot piece of smooth ½-inch plywood (base); the project shown here uses birch, but you may choose to use maple or even pine, provided the surface is level and uniform· 2 pieces of 1 x 4 pine, 48 inches long (long rails)· 2 pieces of 1 x 4 pine, 25½ inches long (short rails; the arched goals will be cut out of these rails)· Two 3½-inch squares of 1 x 4 pine; these are cut in half diagonally to form the corner bumpers· Two 1½-inch squares cut from 1 x 4 pine (goal blocks)· One 2½-inch-diameter circular piece cut from 1 x 4 pine (puck)· Two 12-inch-long pieces of 1 x 4 pine cut to desired shape and size for hockey sticks PREP THE BASE, CUT OUT THE GOALS, AND ATTACH ONE SHORT RAIL1....

Update, July 2018: Since this story was published in August 2016, things have started to look up for the F-35—sort of. The first Joint Strike Fighters have been declared combat-capable. All three variants—the F-35A for the Air Force, F-35B for the Marines, and F-35C for the Navy, are dropping below the threshold of $100 million per plane as the fighter enters full production.But it’s not all good. The F-35 is still dogged by decisions like the one to build the plane using the strategy of “concurrency,” or building the first planes before the experimental design was truly finalized....

At 5:36 pm on March 27, 1964, the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America, and the second largest in history, rattled coastal Alaska for close to 4 minutes. Though the epicenter of the Great Alaskan Earthquake was deep beneath Prince William Sound – 75 miles east of Anchorage and 56 miles west of Valdez – the magnitude 9.2 temblor rippled water as far away as Louisiana and even made parts of Florida and Texas jump a couple of inches....

Former Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson revealed to an audience last week that the X-37B spaceplane can pull off maneuvers in space that drives potential adversaries “nuts.” Although maddeningly unspecific, experts believe she was referring to the X-37B’s ability to change its orbit, throwing off both amateur and professional satellite watchers and making the spacecraft unpredictable.According to Military.com, Wilson was speaking at the Apsen Security Forum when she remarked that the X-37B “can do an orbit that looks like an egg and, when it’s close to the Earth, it’s close enough to the atmosphere to turn where it is....

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have unveiled the world’s smallest self-powered drone, which weighs only 2.5 grams and is the size of a quarter.The tiny drone is called Piccolissimo, after the Italian word for pocket-sized. The drone comes in two versions: the quarter-sized one, and a slightly larger and heavier one that is steerable.The drone can fly and steer because both the body and the propeller work together. A tiny motor spins the body while the propeller spins the opposite direction....

Mark Pompano refers to it as 12/14. Not “the tragedy,” or “the shooting,” or even “Sandy Hook.” Just two numbers, short for December 14, 2012. A date—a terrible date. But a thing of the past.Even in Newtown, Connecticut, life moves forward. A new Sandy Hook Elementary School has been built on the grounds where the old one stood. The old building was torn down in November 2013, and every brick was destroyed—a precaution that ensured pieces wouldn’t be pawned off like souvenirs to internet sickos....

A greasy, dusty laptop or phone isn’t just annoying. Greasy gadgets are easier to drop. Blocked air vents can cause tech to overheat, or can wear down the insides. And anything stuck underneath your keys could mean a trip to the Genius Bar, or some risky at-home surgery. But it’s all preventable. For your phone, laptop, whatever you use, here’s how to clean it up quickly, and without voiding your warranty....

You’re probably not the same person you were five years ago. And even if you are, Twitter definitely isn’t the same place it was in its early days. The once-freewheeling, low-stakes website for throwing bad jokes into the abyss has since transformed into an enormous public forum inhabited by just about everyone who’s anyone.🖥 Tech can be tricky. We’ll be your support. There’s no good reason your tweets of yore should still exist when there’s every good reason to get rid of them....

The largest living organism, not to mention one of the oldest, lives in the Fishlake National Forest in central Utah. Sometimes called the Trembling Giant, sometimes called Pando (Latin for “I spread”), it is a grove of 40,000 individual trees that function as a single organism through the connection of their roots. A new study from Utah State University shows that failed conservation efforts are leaving the magnificent organism “collapsing on our watch....