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Antarctica spans almost a thousand miles filled mostly with cold, unforgiving ice. It’s arguably one of the most inhospitable places on the planet’s surface, which is why many people who’ve attempted to explore the interior of the continent didn’t make it back. Recently, however, one man from Portland managed to defy all odds and actually make it across the entire continent on his own.Colin O’Brady is an endurance athlete who decided to cross Antarctica on his own, a feat never before accomplished....

Media Platforms Design TeamYou don’t need a meteorology degree to chase tornadoes, but if everything you know about storm chasing comes from reality TV and movies such as you have the wrong idea. Here are three ways to encounter severe weather on safe terms—and do some good along the way.Twister,Ride Along With the ProsCompanies such as Silver Lining Tours, Tempest Tours, and F5 Tours take groups of tourists on six-to-10-day storm-chasing trips around Tornado Alley....

A Russian TV news report covered by a UK news tabloid is a classic study in fake news reporting. The Sun article is a hot mess, claiming that Russia can “wipe out” the entire U.S. Navy with a single “electronic bomb.” That is not anywhere close to being true. Here’s what is.The Russian TV report is an explainer on Russian Electronic Warfare (REW) troops, which the reporter claims can “neutralize any target” from “a ship’s system to a radar to a satellite....

When sand is put through extreme conditions of heat or pressure, it turns into glass. Typically this happens inside workshops or factories, but it can also happen naturally in certain rare conditions. Perhaps the most extreme of these conditions is a meteor impact, which can turn entire fields of sand into a dense type of glass called shocked glass.Now, a group of scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used an x-ray laser to figure out how that transformation occurs....

Media Platforms Design TeamA tiny red dot appeared on my computer screen a few weeks ago, and it hasnt gone away. Is there anything I can do to make it disappear?Your red dot is a red subpixel thats stuck on, keeping the red liquid crystal activated and therefore turning white light red even when it shouldnt. LCD screens are made up of thousands of pixels, each of which is made of three liquid-crystal subpixelsone red, one green, and one blue....

View full post on YoutubeAs lawmakers and regulators figure out what to do with unmanned aerial vehicles, members of the House of Representatives got to see one up close and personal. Colin Guenn of 3D Robotics brought a small Parrot quadcopter into the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee committee meeting, and flew it around the room to demonstrate its maneuvering and capabilities. The whole meeting was broadcast on CSPAN, the bastion of the mundane and the weird in Congressional day-to-day happenings....

For anyone who went into Rogue One without spoilers, one of the biggest surprises must have been how closely the movie bumped up against Episode 4: A New Hope, even to the extent of getting Grand Moff Tarkin and a young Princess Leia convincingly on screen. Despite the facts of, you know, Peter Cushing being dead for decades. But ABC News got an inside look at how they brought an award-winning actor back to life....

Scientists studying Antarctic ice have made a surprising discovery: manmade chlorine remains at unusually high levels within parts of the ice.The chlorine stems from nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s.Studying chlorine levels lets scientists paint a picture of the Earth’s climate history. The team wants to drill deeper and discovery if there are any other surprises in the past.We still have a lot to learn about how ice stores radioactivity....

Q: I recently read that Comcast was caught reducing the quality of its high-definition channels in order to fit more stations onto its network. Do other cable or satellite services intentionally lower the quality of their HD? How can I get the best HD?A: All high-definition television signals are compressed from their source material–often multiple times as the signal makes its way through various fiberoptic networks, cable switching stations and analog-to-digital converters....

Showing someone else what’s on your screen can be just as important as being able to see it yourself. So whether you’re new to Macs or are an old veteran who just never picked up the skill, here’s how to take a screen shot.The screen capture that macOS comes with are both fairly simple to use and surprisingly versatile. There are three main options you can choose from: a screen capture of your entire desktop, a cropped image of any given area, or an automatic screen grab of an individual window or menu....

With Dorian making its way up the East Coast, here’s what you need to know about dealing with an impending natural disaster.Before the HurricaneBring in lawn furniture and ornaments, umbrellas, bird feeders, toys and loose sports equipment.Bring in gas or charcoal grills. ⚠️ If you own a gas grill, you’ve got a tough decision to make. The propane tank is not safe for indoor storage; in the event of a storm-created house fire or other calamity, the propane tank could explode....

Media Platforms Design Team>TAM ROCKET BELT %" style=“border-bottom:1px solid #cccccc;">JET PACK H202 More than 60 mphFLIGHT TIME 33 seconds $250,000To some extent, everyone’s in theMODEL %">TOP SPEED 70 mph 30 secondsPRICE $155,000 market for a jet pack. But since Bell Labs built the first rocket belt (the correct, if less exciting, name) in 1953, potential buyers have been stymied by two problems: Rocket belts aren’t for sale, and even prototypes run on modern-day fuel (as opposed to whatever the Jetsons use) — which means rocket belts can weigh upwards of 100 pounds, with only enough fuel to stay aloft for under a minute....

Our brains are highly flexible. With several years of training, we can learn how to do pretty much anything, no matter how difficult or pointless. Nearly any human brain can learn diverse skills like playing piano or doing handstands, and the difficulty and variety of the skills we can learn is a testament to just how impressive our brains really are.A great example of an obscure and difficult skill is speaking backwards....

Mirrorless cameras—those that don’t have a mirror inside that sends the true image from the lenses up to the viewfinder, but instead simulate the image there—are brilliant. They’re smaller, lighter, and cheaper than those DSLRs you see pros and tourists slinging, and for anyone except true professionals, the images they produce can be every bit as good as a DSLR’s. The latest fantastic addition to this category is the Olympus OM-D E-M10, which I got to see a week or so before it was announced....

Media Platforms Design TeamWelcome to the new Facebook. No, the .com website still looks the same. This is a purely mobile revolution. On Monday, on the eve of its 10th birthday, Facebook released an app that re-imagines the popular social platform for iOS, simply called “Paper.“It’s an interested dichotomy, evoking an old medium for something completely brave and new. Yes, brave and new even for Facebook, the company that transformed what it means to “keep in touch....

Media Platforms Design Team ITHACA, N.Y. — With just one semester of school before X Prize qualification rounds begin, a flurry of work by different groups within the Cornell AXP team is progressing here simultaneously. We ordered supplies for transforming our Geo Metro into a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle after our last update, and with much of our hardware in house, we’ve begun work on the mule—and its modified drivetrain. The front-wheel drive 1991 Metro that we’re testing for the competition is a small, fuel efficient vehicle, so a complete redesign of the drivetrain isn’t necessary....

Attosecond physics examines actions that occur in incredibly small amounts of time. Studying atoms that are ionizing, scientists were able to develop a method of tracking electrons as they leave their atomic home.The method could lead to scientists being able to document the exact moment of ionization.While quantum physics studies incredibly small things, attosecond physics studies incredibly small measurements of time. It’s possible to measure the billionths of a billionth of a second through short lasers bursts, and then study the physical processes occurring during that time....

The legendary Cassini spacecraft finished its mission in September last year, but NASA is still releasing Cassini photos, and its latest offering shows Saturn’s sharp rings and three tiny moons. The Cassini snapped the photo 1.7 million miles from Saturn on March 13th, 2006. Cassini launched in 1997 and first arrived at Saturn in 2004. It extended its mission twice, surveying and photographing the planet’s surface, rings, magnetosphere, and moon. It orbited the planet until September 2017, when it dove into Saturn’s atmosphere in glorious, instructive self-destruction....

Over the past six years, the cost of solar energy has dropped dramatically, to the point where it is now even cheaper than wind power in emerging markets like China and India. This may be largely due to rising investments in solar over the last few years. Now, there is electricity being produced in Chile for $29.10 per megawatt hour–half the price of power produced by coal. “Renewables are robustly entering the era of undercutting” energy made by fossil fuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance chairman Michael Liebreich wrote this week....

Sun-grazing comets are frustratingly elusive. As they approach the intense heat of the sun, these dirty snowballs turn to gas in a hurry and put on an impressive show before they disappear. But the intense solar radiation also makes the comet’s death extremely difficult to detect. On July 6, 2011, solar physicist C.J. Schrijver of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center and colleagues became the first to directly witness a comet falling within the solar corona, a sort of blazing-hot atmosphere that surrounds the sun....