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On Saturday morning, the hulking Stratolaunch aircraft took to the skies for the very first time in a brief but majestic test flight. Designed to eventually carry rockets between its twin fuselages for high-altitude launch, the 385-foot wide, six-engine craft took off without cargo for its maiden voyage, reaching speeds of 189 miles per hour, and soaring to heights of 17,000 feet in the two-and-a-half-hour flight. The tests come after a long series of taxi tests that always stopped just short of acheiving actual flight, but now that threshold has been crossed, and the engineers seem pleased with the results....

Russia claims a new missile gives its tanks a decisive advantage over Western tanks, the M1 Abrams in particular. The new missile can allegedly penetrate twice the armor of on the Abrams tank. Given the grandiosity of Russia’s claim, it’s one worth investigating. The answer: Maybe. Sort of.For decades, Russian tanks have had the ability to fire missiles from their main gun tubes. Russian tanks fire shaped charge and armor piercing shells to kill enemy tanks, but at very long ranges enemy vehicles become more difficult to hit with unguided rounds....

The U.S. Marine Corps has released a wishlist of specs for a drone that would basically act as F-35 lite, carrying all the weapons of the $120 million dollar fighter while being cheaper and unmanned. The drone would fly from airfields and the decks of amphibious ships, performing a wide variety of combat duties. Defensetech is reporting that the Marine Corps wants a new drone named MUX, or Marine Air Ground Task Force Unmanned Aircraft System-Expeditionary....

The U.S. Air Force plans to field a mix of manned and unmanned tactical aircraft–think fighters–in the near future.Unmanned aircraft are cheap and can also take risks manned aircraft cannot.A mix of manned and unmanned warplanes could help the Air Force field the numbers and lethality it wants to win future wars.The U.S. Air Force is planning to field low-cost, unmanned “disposable” warplanes in the near future, designed to complement manned aircraft in the aerial battlefield....

Media Platforms Design Team(Illustration by Gordon ChapmanTo a large extent, it’s the walls that define your home. They’re what you see day after day, at all hours, in any weather. Your diploma hangs on them, or maybe your honorable discharge, and then there are your kids’ baby pictures. Your walls have dents and cracks, or freshly rolled paint. They may be covered by the wainscoting you put up one weekend in a burst of DIY creativity....

If you’ve ever taken a drive in rural America, you’re probably familiar with the country roads that go on perfectly straight for miles on end. These roads crisscross the country like a grid, intersecting at perfect right angles.View full post on VimeoWell, almost. If you drive north or south, occasionally you’ll come to a point where the road shifts left or right by a few dozen feet. In a place where the roads are otherwise perfectly straight, why are there random skews in the roads?...

An archeologist discovered a green, mummified baby hand attached to a not-so-mummified skeleton, with bones so small it could have been mistaken for a rat. By investigating its origin and history, researchers not only uncovered a story, but a rare new form of mummification. Researchers stumbled upon the hand in a box after an excavation of a cemetery in Nyárlőrinc, a village in southern Hungary. The had yielded over 500 graves from between the 12th and 16th centuries, but the mummy hand stood alone....

Wolfram Research is moving beyond computational searching and into something considered a big step for AI: image recogntion. In other words, upload a photo and the Wolfram Language Image Identification Project can tell you what’s in it. So far, the system can recognize around 10,000 objects. With input from users, the database will grow and get better.I put a few objects through the ringer to see how well Wolfram would perform....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: March 2013Price: TBD. Expect starting prices of $36,000 for the two-door and $40,000 for the four-door.Competitors: Toyota FJ Cruiser, Land Rover LR4 (though this Wrangler really has no direct competitors).Powertrains: 3.6-liter V6, 285 hp, 260 lb-ft; five-speed auto, six-speed manual; 4WDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): 17/20–21 What’s New: The 10th Anniversary Edition of the Wrangler Rubicon adds a unique red leather interior and a few off-road features that Jeep fanatics will appreciate....

All the tech in Back to the Future II looks pretty cool, but if we’ve learned anything over the past few years it’s that replicating its tech isn’t easy. Hoverboards turned out to be exploding deathtraps that don’t even really hover, as just one example. And here’s another: In 2015, Nike made the movie’s “self-tying shoelaces” a reality, and released the Nike Adapt line the following year. Fast forward to 2019, and Nike’s newly released Adapt BB smart sneakers are currently useless paperweights after a recent update bricked the shoes for Android users....

I recently completed a remodeling project that I’d dreamed about for years. And like most dreams, this one started out innocently enough–and perhaps while I wasn’t thinking very clearly. My dream was to design and build an upstairs bathroom for our 12-year-old Cape. Oh sure, I would call in an electrician and plumber for the final hookups and for any work that I was reluctant (read: scared) to do myself, but I was determined to make this dream a reality....

This student’s “nice purple light” could become a nuclear reactor if you add heavy water and silver.Most plasma fusion research is getting grander and more ambitious, but you can’t buy that on Craigslist.The student is the latest in a legacy of young people building nuclear reactors in their backyards or schools.A college student in New Zealand tried to sell a “potential” nuclear reactor on a local version of Craigslist. The young man says his goal was to raise money for his tuition....

Q: The two decorative posts on our front stoop are starting to rot. Are these easy to replace?-HEIDI R., DULUTH, MINNESOTAA: Yes. Your first step is to support the roof load. Position a scrap of lumber near the post you want to remove. Jack the scrap piece up using a pair of plastic chainsaw felling wedges nested against each other. Next, drive the wedges together just enough so that the old post dangles freely from the roof assembly....

I grew up fishing with my dad from the shore, or sometimes from a rowboat or canoe. We never caught much. Although these were “fishing trips,” I recall spending more time paddling than casting. Getting blown to one side of a lake can quickly turn a leisurely fishing trip into an intense cardio workout—usually for my dear dad. That’s what Hobie had in mind when the company perfected the art of fishing from a self-propelled watercraft....

Lockheed Martin and NASA are poised to bring supersonic travel back to the commercial aviation industry. Earlier this year, the manufacturing juggernaut was awarded a $250 million contract to develop tech for NASA’s Low-Flight Boom program. Now, Lockheed has committed to a timeline for the maiden test flight of its X-59 Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft, a demonstration plane that aims to reduce the noise generated when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier....

Media Platforms Design TeamMotorola’s Moto 360Piracy isn’t just for software and movies. Several luxury watchmakers are going after online outlets offering up likenesses of their watchfaces, much like litigation they’ve had against Apple. The takedown notices have been flocking to user-generated digital likenesses of brands like Omega, Armani and Michael Kors. The likenesses can be used on wearables like the Android Wear, offering alternatives to the pre-installed digital watch faces. But luxury brands have cried foul on the likenesses, charging that they violate trademarks of the companies....

It’s not quite a plane. The Odysseus is a high-altitude pseudo-satellite (HAPS), according to its creator, Aurora Flight Sciences. Aurora, a Boeing subsidiary, has developed a solar-powered, autonomous high-altitude aircraft that its claims “can effectively fly indefinitely.“View full post on TwitterThe Odysseus has a wingspan of 243 feet, a payload capacity of 55 pounds, and can offer 250 watts of continuous power to a payload it might be carrying, such as a satellite....

James Chivers in his son\’s garden last summer, 2015.C.J. ChiversSometime around noon on a late-winter day, as the sun’s steepening angle chased the chill from the ground, I bent to the dirt near the turkey pen out back. Up sprouted neat rows of thick and sturdy garlic shoots. The 2016 crop was beginning to claim its place, its greenery forming the first sign of many harvests ahead. I snipped off an inch-long piece and slipped it into my mouth, like a stick of chewing gum, and let the powerful rush of flavor carry with it a sense of pre-spring satisfaction....

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is preparing to move its Mobile Launcher indoors in preparation for Hurricane Dorian.The hurricane is expected to make landfall as a Category 4 storm on Monday.The crawler-transporter that’s used to move the Mobile Launcher has been in use since the 1960s.NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Dorian, which could make landfall on Monday as a Category 4 storm. The agency tweeted this morning that, in a “precautionary move,” it’s preparing to move its Mobile Launcher indoors to protect it from the elements....

President Trump reportedly wants to investigate using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes.You can’t do that.Meteorologists say that even though nukes are the most powerful weapons ever designed, they’re still no match for hurricanes.The news site Axios is reporting that President Trump has “suggested multiple times” that both national security officials and high-ranking officials at the Department of Homeland Security investigate “using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes.” The report describes two instances of the president’s suggestion, once during a briefing regarding an unidentified hurricane and another that mentions a 2017 National Security Council memo....