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Media Platforms Design TeamIllustrations by Andres RiveraLicense-Plate ReaderMedia Platforms Design TeamMany casinos know who you are before you even walk through the door. At the self- and valet-parking areas of the Mirage, for example, cameras scan the license plates of vehicles as they enter. Pictures of every plate are then run through optical character-recognition software. If your plate matches a database of undesirables, the security personnel may hand back your keys and suggest you take your business elsewhere....

If you were a wasp and needed someone to look after your larvae, you might want to consider hiring Anelosimus eximius. This spider will selflessly abandon its own family and build a specially designed silken cocoon just to keep your pupa safe. It’s the Mary Poppins of the Arachnid class, crossed with a Dawn of the Dead ending.Parasitoids are known for manipulating the behavior of their hosts to gain an evolutionary advantage (think tapeworms, fleas and ticks, barnacles, Chinese liver flukes)....

You know Pac-Man as that happy little yellow pie-chart-lookin’ dude who gorges himself on pellets and then has a few ghosts for dessert. And while that is how it looks on a screen, behind the scenes Pac-Man, just like any video game, is actually a boatload of math. This is what that looks like: View full post on TwitterWhat hacker Michael Fogleman has done here is go behind the scenes of the NES version of Pac-Man using an emulator to look at the math that’s hiding back there....

Captain Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III—the pilot who made that incredible emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in 2009—is getting his own biopic and Clint Eastwood is directing. The announcement comes hot on the heels of Eastwood’s exceedingly popular biopic American Sniper, which covered the life and times of prolific Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be based of Sullenberger’s 2010 memoir Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters and will presumably cover the climatic landing of an Airbus A-320 in the Hudson River as well as the formative events that made Captain “Sully” into the kind of cool-under-pressure operator who could pull off a precarious water-landing that would ultimately save some 155 souls....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe mad scientists at the Pentagon love a challenge, and this week they’ve got two. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, announced new projects this week intended to find new answers about what goes wrong during brain disease and to build computer systems that could patch their own networks for incredible real-time IT security.The smaller of the endeavors, money-wise, is the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC)—a name meant to echo the vehicle grand challenges the agency has staged in the past....

In less than 30 years, humanity has discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, and to celebrate the milestone, NASA created a map that puts that number into a more visual perspectiveView full post on YoutubeThe video assigns a sound and color to the method used to detect each planet, whether radial velocity, transit method, imaging, or microlensing. Watching these previously unknown celestial bodies blink into our observed existence makes for a deeply moving video about space exploration and discovery....

Chinese’s first prototype space station, Tiangong-1, is falling back to Earth and could reenter the planet’s atmosphere before the end of March. A new analysis from the European Space Agency (ESA) predicts that the station will reenter Earth’s atmosphere between March 29 and April 9. ESA says the estimate is “highly variable,” with a margin of error of about a week on either side. It’s hard to know exactly when, but the station will imminently fall from the sky....

If you’re looking for a soothing way to end the week, may we suggest Frank Klausz and his delightful DIY dovetails. Klausz, who owns and operates a cabinet shop in Pluckemin, New Jersey, takes viewers through a very calm version of what he calls “the European way” of making half-blind dovetails. Nearly as strong as a through dovetail, they’re perfect for something smaller like a drawer. While he doesn’t specify what exactly makes this method “European,” it’s safe to assume that the native-born Hungarian knows what he’s talking about....

As if Tesla and SpaceX and neural lace tech and Hyperloop and SolarCity weren’t quite enough simultaneous projects for Elon Musk, the man who longs for Mars has also been fiddling with a boring company. Now, we’ve gotten a glimpse of its first tunnel digger, perhaps earlier than intended.The image was posted to Instagram by a SpaceX employee whose account is now suddenly private. The boring machine, which clearly displays the logo for Musk’s company is one in the typical tubular style, destined to dig tunnels for traffic and Hyperloops alike, if all goes well....

Black holes are some of the most destructive things in the universe. These collapsed stars have the power to break down and compress matter in mind-boggling ways we don’t totally understand yet. But a little bit of matter is just the beginning, because some day black holes might delete the entire universe. We all know that black holes eat matter, but none of us knows what happens on the inside. You can’t peek inside a black hole and live to tell about it....

Media Platforms Design TeamOver the weekend, that tree limbs were unexpectedly falling on, injuring, and even killing people in New York City parks. Victims of this branch bombardment were reportedly gathering lawyers and investigators to prove that the city has been negligent in its tree inspections. But how do you know if a tree limb is going to fall? the New York Times reportedMark Chisholm, an International Society of Arboriculture–certified arborist, says that while it might be obvious that high winds and storms knock down branches, no one knows exactly when a tree will drop a limb....

Media Platforms Design TeamBluetooth audio is common in new cars, but if your ride is a few years old you might not be able to stream audio through the radio. Other options exist: Your car may have an auxiliary input that connects any audio source via a 3.5-mm (⅛-inch) minijack; older cars might even take a cassette adapter. But both of these solutions add clutter to the interior. Here’s a cheap way to put wireless audio in any car without adding unsightly cords or even changing the appearance of the factory audio system....

The battle has begun. Here in my home state of Vermont, the legislature is attempting to adopt California’s tough carbon dioxide emissions regulations, forcing automakers to begin cutting emissions in the 2009 model year. By 2016, the regulations would mandate a cut of 24 to 36% in carbon emissions. As you might imagine, the automakers are in an uproar, and the court battle has begun. The automakers’ argument in a nutshell: The proposed regulations are impossibly draconian and would create massive hardship for both the automakers and good, honest, hard-working Vermonters....

The Pentagon says it just targeted and killed a member of the al Qaeda terrorist network who was involved in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Badawi was the target of the airstrike in Yemen.That bombing killed 17 sailors and blew a hole in the side of the ship. The Cole nearly sank as a result of the explosion, but the U.S. Navy destroyer was brought back to the U....

In the beginning, there was a big bang. And then, around 100,000 years later, helium and hydrogen combined for the first time to create a molecule called helium hydride. For the first time in history scientists have detected helium hydride, offering a direct connection to the earliest days of the universe.While it may not present the photo opportunities of a black hole, helium hydride has been crucial in the formation of the known universe....

According to a new study, two well-known creatures from an icier time—woolly mammoths and Neanderthal humans—might have more in common than just when they lived. Research by scientists at Tel Aviv University finds that the two species share several genes that have to do with staying warm in winter.At first, it might seem obvious that Neanderthals and woolly mammoths share genes for resisting the cold. After all, both lived primarily in cold regions during an ice age....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamIt looks like nothing more than a stack of digital Legos—microprocessor, memory storage, USB port, camera sensor, a snap-off LCD screen and Wi-Fi adapter. But by providing the building blocks for users to create their own gadget, this otherwise generic portable device might just become the ultimate supergadget. Smaller than a paperback book (and closer to the size of two iPhones back-to-back), the Bug Base should level the playing field for custom-tailored DIY hardware development when it hits hackers by year’s end—no more electrical engineering and soldering skills required, just a basic understanding of programming code such as Java....

Media Platforms Design TeamHot hatchbacks have long been the perfect compromise for many car enthusiasts, embodying a holy trinity of performance, value, and utility. But while Europeans enjoy a deluge in this segment year after year, Americans have been left to pick between just a few practical pint-sized powerhouses like the Volkswagen GTI. But recently a flood of newcomers have invaded our shores, including the Hyundai Veloster Turbo, the Fiat 500 Abarth, and Ford Focus ST....

Media Platforms Design TeamUnless you get your made-to-order trackside rubber from a MotoGP support truck, your next best bet is the new Dunlop KR451, a bespoke rear tire that could change the way racers adapt to racetracks.The KR451 was developed in conjunction with AMA racers like Roger Lee Hayden and uses a jointless tread application which winds the tread onto the carcass in continuous strips, allowing for reversible (as opposed to unidirectional) usage....

SpaceX has set a date for the first launch attempt for Falcon Heavy: Tuesday, February 6. The demonstration flight will lift off from the historic Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the same launchpad that hosted the Apollo missions as well as multiple space shuttle missions. Falcon Heavy is the the most powerful American rocket since Saturn V and the shuttle, and the most powerful operational rocket in the world....