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At this point, water on Mars should come as no surprise. However, scientists continue to find evidence that water and ice are widespread on the Red Planet. New research published today in Science unveils deposits of water ice at middle latitudes of the planet, some of which descend hundreds of feet below the surface.Mars is a world of conflicting signals. What was once likely a lush, watery world with a thick atmosphere now has a thin atmosphere and cold, vastly dry conditions....

Rod and Reel: Quantum Triax Spinning ComboMedia Platforms Design TeamRod-and-reel technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and the price tends to rise as the action gets better and the weight lowers. But the Quantum Triax combo is affordable and has all the benefits of a modern rod; it’s a lightweight, smooth and versatile rod-and-reel combination. The Triax reel is available in two gear ratios and sizes from 10 to 60, and the complementary rod comes in eight different sizes....

Chinese drones are being used on two fronts in the Middle East, the first time modern, high-tech weaponry by the People’s Republic has been used on the battlefield. The Predator-type drones will likely bolster demand for Chinese weapons, which have previously had a reputation for being unsophisticated and unreliable.After the success of American Predator and Reaper drones post-9/11, China quickly jumped on the unmanned aerial vehicle bandwagon. One result is the CH (Cai Hong, or Rainbow)-4, a medium-altitude, long endurance armed drone....

Metamaterials are composite materials designed to manipulate light, radar, and sonar waves.Objects made of metamaterials could render themselves invisible to most types of sensors—including the human eye.Metamaterials are difficult to make and still a ways from mass production. The development of new so-called metamaterials could lead to dramatic advances in military technology, particularly the ability to hide from sensors—even the human eye. Metamaterials, engineered composites designed to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum, could lead to “invisible” tanks and armored vehicles, submarines undetectable by sonar, and weapons with improved seekers and guidance systems....

Why can’t the world’s car companies make a vehicle that gets 100 mpg? Automotive technology keeps improving and people keep asking the question, but—as with fusion reactors and comprehensible phone bills—the reality always seems to be just a few years away. Sure, student engineers have achieved 2000 mpg in design contests, but those vehicles have been exercises in automotive minimalism, not practical everyday cars.Steve Lapp, a professor from Ontario, says the moment has nearly arrived....

(Published in the June 2004 issue)Plus, how to install a new hard driveThere are a lot of reasons for replacing your hard drive or adding a new one to your old computer, but they all boil down to the need for more space. Perhaps you want to keep all your videos, pictures and MP3s on a drive separate from your operating system. Or maybe you want a hard drive that spins faster than your old one so you can get a bump in system performance....

Media Platforms Design TeamDid you sit your actors down and talk about the multiverse, or the science behind the movie?DUNCAN JONES (director): I think we found our footing in terms of how much of the technology we have to fully understand in order to be able to tell the story. There are a few leaps of faith there, obviously. I think that between hard sci-fi and soft sci-fi there’s a gray area, and for me, this is one that’s close to hard sci-fi....

Part Cyber, Part TruckThis Is Tesla’s New Electric Pick-Up TruckTesla’s Cybertruck Got Meme-RoastedWell, we certainly can’t say we weren’t warned. After all, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hinted for months that his new pickup truck will look like nothing we’d seen before, from this brand or any other. Last night’s reveal of the angular, faceted, clipped, cropped, and generally otherworldly pickup truck in Los Angeles startled those in attendance, the media, and the Twitterverse....

Some staggeringly old stone tools were found in the Turkana region of Kenya, according to a new study out today. They’re so old, in fact, that Homo erectus (the species before our own Homo sapiens) wasn’t even on the scene when they were made, and wouldn’t be for another 1.4 million years.The 3.3-million-year-old tools were found near Lake Turkana, a region that was once replete with pre-human hominins.The finding pushes back the age of first known stone tool use by at least 700,000 years....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe popular roller coaster that furnishes untold amusement for the multitudes that patronize amusement parks during the summer can be easily duplicated in a smaller way on a vacant lot or backyard for the children of the home. Alternatively, the boys of the neighborhood could contribute to a fund and construct quite an elaborate affair, on the same lines as described, for the combined use of the owners....

I could tell you the location of Randy Ema’s Duesenberg garage, but then I’d have to… well, actually, I couldn’t even really tell you where it is. I’m standing right outside, and I need to call Ema to verify I’m in the right place because there’s no sign indicating that this nondescript Los Angeles industrial building houses the world’s premier Duesenberg restoration shop. When you’re working on cars that sell for millions of dollars, discretion is the order of the day....

It’s the B-52 that’s most often the butt of jokes about its age, with onlookers noting that airmen could be working on the same planes their grandfathers flew. But another long-serving aircraft could hit the century mark: It’s now looking like the KC-135 tanker fleet could mark 100 years in the air before its replacement is finally ready.Tankers are an essential component of American airpower. They supply U.S. and allied warplanes and support aircraft with the gas to cross oceans and fly longer over battlefields....

The U.S. Air Force’s Vietnam-era Huey helicopters badly needed replacement.The service picked the Boeing/Leonardo AW139 in 2018.The new helicopter is called “Grey Wolf” and will equip Air Force security teams protecting ICBM silos.The U.S. Air Force’s Global Strike Command took possession of its first new security forces helicopter yesterday, during a ceremony that also saw the new rotorcraft named “Grey Wolf.” Grey Wolf will carry quick reaction forces consisting of Air Force security personnel, ready to rapidly respond to an incident or attack at one of hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missile silos spread across the American West....

The U.S. Navy is developing weaponized, synthetic slime to stop enemy vessels on their journeys, inspired by the real life hagfish. The hagfish fills its potential attackers’ mouths and gills with goo. When the slime comes in contact with sea water, it swells to up to 10,000 times its initial volume. “Researchers have called the hagfish slime one of the most unique biomaterials known,” said Materials Engineer and co-creator of the slime, Ryan Kincer....

Ready for part-robocop? The U.S. Army is developing an exoskeleton that fits over an arm to ensure that the wearer’s gunshots are dead-on accurate.The Mobile Arm Exoskeleton for Firearm Aim Stabilization (MAXFAS) is an intricate system involving cables and sensors to survey movement and release the wearer’s arm “like a marionette,” writes Popular Science. Gyroscopes, accelerometers and sensors are used to judge the arm’s movements to determine the direction of the gunshot....

Two years ago, a new spacecraft entered orbit around the planet Mars. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter was a joint project between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, designed to study the red planet’s atmosphere. After two years of maneuvering, the TGO is finally in position to start its primary science mission, and it began by sending back an incredible photo of the Martian surface:ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSISThe primary mission of the TGO is to study the gases of the martian atmosphere to learn more about the history of Mars....

The quest continues to learn more about the TRAPPIST-1 system, seven roughly Earth-sized planets orbiting a dwarf star about 39 light-years away. Whether life could exist on these planets is a matter of speculation at the moment, but scientists are honing in on measurements that could tell us if some of these alien worlds are habitable. The planets are rocky and some are the correct distance from their host star for liquid water, but they are probably tidally locked with the star, meaning the same hemisphere of the planet always faces the star, casting one half in perpetual daylight....

Wind turbines are vital for sustainable power, providing cheap electricity without producing any sort of pollution. But they can be deadly for birds, and new research shows just how deadly: Wind turbines kill so many birds that in ecosystems where they are placed, the turbines effectively take on the role of a top predator.We’ve long since known that wind turbines are a danger to birds. A typical wind farm can kill thousands of birds every year, including raptors like falcons and eagles....

New Cassini orbiter images reveal a surprising feature on the surface of Tethys: miles-long streaks, their origin unknown. It’s baffling researchers at NASA and is just the latest in a long line of discoveries from the craft that’s been traversing the Saturn system since 2004. The Cassini scientists are investigating a series of explanations for the streaks, including outgassing from the interior of the moon and exposed ice mixed with “impurities....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Tesla Model S may be the darling of the EV world, but it’s currently by federal auto-safety regulators after multiple fires involving the 60- or 85-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that powers the car. under investigationThe battery pack can send the S flying to 60 mph in just 4.4 seconds (in the top-of-the-line Performance variant) by taking advantage of the beneficial qualities of lithium, a relatively lightweight material that can release a lot of energy quickly....