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The Miami Dolphins will soon toss away the concept of throwing out more than 50,000 plastic cups every time they host a game at Hard Rock Stadium. Instead, through a collaborative effort with concessionaire Centerplate and cup-maker Ball Corp., expect to see disposable aluminum cups. It all starts this Sunday, December 22, when the Dolphins host Cincinnati and extends into 2020, for the Orange Bowl and February’s Super Bowl LIV.“I’d be lying if I said it was not a challenge, but I think we have set fairly realistic goals,” Kevin Mitchell, Centerplate vice president, says about the switch....

Gravity BlanketsGetting a good night’s sleep can be tricky, and finding the right blanket can be just as important as buying the right mattress. That’s why The Gravity Blanket is worth some serious consideration. Much heavier than a normal blanket, this therapeutic cover is designed to weigh approximately 10 percent of your body weight. This tricks your brain into thinking your experiencing a hug and releases compounds like seratonin and melatonin, making you more relaxed....

U.S. Army and special forces units are set to introduce two new small arms rounds in the near future meant to improve the effectiveness of troops in the field. Special operations snipers will replace their 7.62 bullets with a new round favored by civilian precision rifle shooters, while the Army’s next-generation squad machine gun will be chambered in a new caliber using new casing technology. The result will be snipers that can engage targets farther and machine guns that are more accurate and lethal than existing weapons....

Vanilla Ice knows how to keep things cool as ice in a stressful situation. On Wednesday, the “Ice Ice Baby” singer tweeted that he was on board an Emirates flight that landed at New York’s JFK airport and was quarantined after 10 passengers on board were taken ill.His road manager, Chuck Quon, confirms his client was indeed on the plane, but tells Popular Mechanics he was “released with all the other passengers that did not exhibit any symptoms....

Last month, it was reported that Google cofounder Sergey Brin was secretly building an airship in a hanger on NASA’s Moffett Field. Now, the Guardian reports additional details of Brin’s project, including what he’s planning to use the airship for.Ever since the Hindenburg tragedy ended the golden age of airships, inventors have struggled to bring them back. The main problem is lift. With hydrogen ruled out as a buoyant material for obvious reasons, the next best option is helium, which is more expensive and less effective....

This winter, test borings are expected to begin for one of the most audacious tunnel projects ever proposed. One concept calls for a set of three tunnels–two for cars and one for both trucks and high-speed light rail–that would stretch for 12 miles, burrowing beneath the Santa Ana mountain range, and carrying up to 70,000 cars a day between California’s Riverside and Orange counties. The route would run in the same general direction as the 91 freeway, which is one of the most congested thoroughfares in the country....

Galaxy collisions are the largest and most intricate choreography of matter ever performed in the universe. Billions of stars swirl together and fly apart, supermassive black holes collide and combine, and nebulas of gas collapse into thousands of new stars. It’s a dance that takes billions of years to complete, and it’s happening thousands of times over all across the universe.Using the ALMA radio telescope in Chile, scientists have spotted what they believe to be the largest galaxy merger ever discovered....

If you’ve already started shopping for holiday presents for that special nerd in your life, even if that nerd happens to be you, then stop now. These new Oxygenics Star Wars shower heads are the bathroom accessories you’re looking for.As if you needed any more reason to get excited for the upcoming release of The Force Awakens, now you can stare right into Darth Vader’s dark, empty eyes, or R2-D2’s…uh, beeping sensor things, while you shower....

Scientists at Harvard have slowed a chemical reaction to a million times longer than usual using near-absolute-zero temperatures.Researchers continue to develop new and novel ways to manipulate molecules, like extreme mechanical pressure and, now, extreme cold.To observe the reactions, scientists use a powerful array of overlapping lasers, like a photographic flash.For the first time, scientists have watched a chemical reaction happen from beginning to end without any missing pieces. Kang-Kuen Ni’s lab at Harvard University chilled molecules to within a millionth of a degree of absolute zero and used a Kerplunk!...

British politician Sarah King posted a warning to Twitter to look out for an ingenious bike thief trick. While a strong U-Lock can put a little extra time between a bike thief and your sweet ride, it doesn’t matter a lick if they can just slip your bike right off the rack. Apparently British thieves (and probably a few worldwide) have hacksawed their way through some bike racks, putting up gaffer tape to disguise the damage....

For the first time in more than a dozen years, fans have had a new season of Star Trek to chew on. Unfortunately, it’s a season best forgotten.Star Trek: Discovery’s finale comes off as slapdash, nonsensical, and anti-climatic, employing one of the cheapest nostalgia tricks in the book to keep fans interested. Its hopeful ending feels undeserved considering the show’s tone and the consistently awful decisions of most of its characters....

Researchers used 4D math to determine that airplanes board fastest when the slowest passengers go first.Quality of life on planes already feels low, and slow boarding can even cause flight delays.This research uses 10,000 simulated boardings to rank four boarding algorithms.New research shows letting the slowest passengers board first leads to the most efficient boarding overall. Look for the followup study, “How Exasperating Sighs and Eye-Rolling Slow Plane Boarding.”Trying to determine the best way to execute a chaotic activity like plane boarding is an optimization problem: Scientists choose parameters to try to minimize or maximize, like the time it takes for everyone to board the plane....

Guns work fast, so fast that you miss the strange physics that happen every time you pull the trigger. The Slo Mo Guys decided to slow things down so you can see this strange, violent dance— by firing a .50 caliber sniper rifle.View full post on YoutubeThe recoil on the big gun takes the duo back. Leaves scatter, their bodies push and pull. While .50 cal guns vary in the severity of their recoil, the Barrett M107A1, used here, is certainly a big step up for anyone who has just used an AR-15....

Wireless charging is a convenience for sure. No one likes fiddling with loose wires in the dark to plug in before bed. But it’s also a minor one, and so long as phones continue coming with wired chargers, you might not see much need to make the switch. If you’re looking for excuses though, Google’s new Pixel Stand might be able to win you over with a handful of tricks that make it a little bit more than just a minor convenience....

Most nights, Tim Meadows stays up late. It’s the only time the house is finally quiet. At 3 a.m. he might read a book or take a walk outside, finally able to get a moment to himself—a break from the responsibilities that accompany the daylight. Even in the darkness, though, the 23-year-old is still on the clock. His dad, Jon, could emerge from his room at any time, asleep and wandering....

Some people might become astronauts to experience micro-gravity in the vacuum of space. Other might the revelation of seeing the Earth from above. Me? I want to try out these super cool astronaut cups. Development of these clever cups started last year when engineering firm IRPI started looking into ways to let astronauts drink espresso in space without having to suck it out of a bag. Since there’s no appreciable gravity to keep liquid from flying out of a cup on the ISS, these space cups instead rely on surface tension and are designed in such a way that the main globe of liquid will keep itself glommed to the bottom of the cup while capillary action lets the drinker sip from the giant drop without splattering it....

Amidst a slew of new equipment coming down the pipeline for U.S. Marines is a new designated marksman rifle. The M38 scoped rifle is designed to give Marine infantry squads the ability to hit individual targets at ranges of up to 600 meters with greater precision than Marines equipped with ordinary M4 carbines. According to Marine Corps Times the rifle will be fully issued by September 2018. After 9/11, the U....

Imagine a plant that glows like a flashlight, letting you read in the dark without spending a penny on electricity. We could grow these plants everywhere, lighting up the night without burning fuel to do it. It’s a beautiful fantasy, and one group of MIT researchers wants to make it happen. The only problem: it’s probably not actually possible.A group of MIT researchers have managed to make some plant leaves glow by incorporating a firefly enzyme called luciferase....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn clinical trials last year, scientists showed that a human can control a single prosthetic arm with mind control alone. But many daily tasks, from typing to washing the dishes, require two hands.Researchers led by Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University Medical Center have created a system that allows monkeys to control simultaneously the arms of a monkey avatar on the computer screen using only their minds. The team reports the work in the journal Science Translational Medicine today....

Media Platforms Design TeamBrowse PM’s Complete Coverage from DARPATech 2007:Portable Robot Medic Will Deploy for Testing by 2009Breathalyser Can Detect Breast Cancer, Other DiseasesTop 3 Robots Coming Soon to the BattlefieldTop 4 New Breakthrough Medical DevicesTop 4 New Breakthrough Combat DevicesPODCAST: How Iraq Affects DARPA FundingANAHEIM, Calif. — This year marks the 50th anniversary of DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon research arm whose goal seems to be turning science fiction into battlefield reality....