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A Matryoshka diamond, the first of its kind, was discovered in a diamond mine in Russia. An air pocket nestled inside the diamond contains an even tinier diamond that rattles when shook.Scientists believe the diamond to be about 800 million years old. Russian miners unearthed a gemological oddity—a type of rare diamond called a Matryoshka diamond. It is thought to be the only one on the planet and the first of its kind, but has not yet been assigned a monetary value, according to a statement....

Media Platforms Design TeamOf all the facts about last week’s deadly train derailment in the Bronx, one of the most jarring, especially for people unfamiliar with New York’s Metro-North Railroad, was the abrupt slowdown the driver was supposed to make. Trains zooming along a long straightaway with a speed limit of 70 mph, and often traveling faster than that in reality, need to slow to 30 to safely navigate the curve at Spuyten Duyvil on their way into New York City....

(Image: The U.S. Air Force’s X-37B unmanned spaceplane that orbits for hundreds of days at a time on classified missions.)President Trump today announced that he is directing the Department of Defense to create a sixth branch of the military: the Space Force. “I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces,” Trump said during a meeting of the National Space Council in Washington D....

Rivals are preparing for a showdown in the South China Sea. On one side is the world’s second-largest economy and most populous nation. On the other is a scrappy country that has taken on world powers—and won. And the way it is now preparing for potential conflict is a textbook study in how a smaller military should defend itself from a much larger one. David and GoliathVietnam and China haven’t exactly enjoyed a happy relationship over their thousands of years of being neighbors, with China often culturally, politically, and economically dominating smaller Vietnam....

When you have six legs, walking can potentially get pretty complicated. So many insects, including ants, simplify locomotion by moving their legs in two groups of three. It’s called an alternating tripod gait: The front and back legs on the left side of the ant and the middle leg on the right side move together. While one leg trio contacts the ground, the other swings forward. It’s like having two really big feet, says Reinhard Blickhan, chair of the motion sciences department at Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena, who studies the locomotion of ants and other small animals....

Crows are incredibly intelligent animals, capable of all kinds of feats of cleverness, like solving problems with multiple different steps. Some groups are seizing on that fact to enlist crows in helping to solve human problems as well. Specifically, the problem of too much litter.A year ago, a startup launched with a unique twist on cleaning up the streets. The idea was to enlist crows in picking up small pieces of trash like cigarette butts that are a pain for humans to clean up....

For the past five years, small groups of strangers have been cramming themselves into a small white dome on a volcano in Hawaii for months at a time. Their mission is to conduct experiments on a crucial piece of equipment for future trips to Mars. The equipment? The astronauts themselves. After all, humans can malfunction and fail, just as technology does. These simulated astronauts act exactly as real astronauts would: that includes eating freeze-dried food, preserving water, and sleeping in cramped quarters....

For 103 years after the disappearance of Australia’s AE1 submarine, nobody could find a single trace of the ship. The sub disappeared off the coast of Papua New Guinea during World War I, and 13 separate retrieval missions over the decades turned up nothing. Many believed that the sub would be lost forever, but just this week an expedition discovered the wreck almost a thousand feet below the ocean’s surface.The HMAS AE1 had been sent to capture what was then German New Guinea in 1914....

A NASA engineer has proposed designs for an in-space rocket engine that is propelled by a massive particle accelerator instead of fuel.The engineer, David Burns believes the technology—while far-fetched in its current state—could potentially power future large spacecraft.The designs were posted to NASA’s Technical Reports server earlier this summer.Imagine a world where we didn’t need fuel to propel rockets through space. Fuel is expensive, it’s dangerous and it needs to be refilled....

India is returning to the moon. A decade after Chandrayaan-1, the historic probe that first discovered water molecules on lunar soil, the country is poised to send Chandrayaan-2 back to the Earth’s only permanent natural satellite. View full post on TwitterAccording to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the mission has three modules: an orbiter, a lander named Vikram, and a rover named Pragyan. The mission, initially expected to launch in April, will now leave Earth’s orbit during a window between July 9 and July 16....

Flash used to be the way to watch animations and play games on the internet. These days, it’s less useful than ever, riddled with security holes, and can chew through your laptop’s RAM and battery. It’s for that last reason that future versions of Google’s Chrome browser are going to start “intelligently” disabling it. According to a post on the Google Blog, the new Chrome feature will pause Flash elements and animations that “that aren’t central to the webpage” (read: bad, annoying ads) while leaving any more important things untouched....

Melting could be one of the most important phenomena of the 21st century. Thanks to man-made climate change, Arctic ice levels have hit a record low this year. Among the many profound changes that could stem from ice melting across the world, according to a new study from an international group of scientists, is the release of deeply buried radiation.The international team studied 17 icy locations across the globe, including the Arctic, the Antarctic, Iceland, the Alps, the Caucasus mountains, and British Columbia....

If you assassinate a senior political leader in 1914, you can expect a traditional war to follow. If you assassinate a senior political leader in 2020, it would be foolhardy to assume that only a traditional war will follow. So as the U.S. prepares to deal with fallout from the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, we must assume, anticipate, and expect that a primary mode of retaliation from Iran will be a cyber attack....

One of the big problems holding back wind energy is that turbine blades must be transported by road, which limits how big they can get.GE designed a new blade called Cypress that can be moved in two parts, which could lead to bigger and more powerful wind turbines.Just north of Amsterdam, one of the world’s biggest—and most important—wind turbines has just switched on. It is a demonstration of a new type of blade developed by General Electric called Cypress, whose clever design could lead to bigger and more efficient turbines....

Media Platforms Design TeamNewly released data from the Sewol, the South Korean ferry that , show that contrary to early reports, the ferry did not change course abruptly before it began to list and ultimately sink. Instead, the vessel made a more gradual, J-shaped turn just before disaster struck. That’s according to full data released from the automatic identification system (AIS), which functions much like a plane’s transponder and is used for tracking purposes....

The front lawn — like the picket fence — is an iconic piece of property for many Americans across the nation. Despite its venerable status, though, more and more people are ripping it up. California’s drought is getting dire with regulators practically begging citizens to just let their lawns die or get rid of them entirely. Maybe it’s about time for you to consider it, too. When grass gets greedyIf you’re in California or any other water-starved state, reducing your water usage is the number one reason for replacing your lawn....

Satellites lead a double life.Our sats are designed to survive in two very different environments: the microgravity of orbit and the intense forces of a rocket launch. But the extensive support structures they need to endure the brutal trip off-planet are useless once the launch is over. And what’s more, having to build satellites this way limits their effectiveness in orbit because it restricts the size of components like transmitters and solar arrays, as well as the choice of materials that can be used in construction....

Geese and ducks use down the same way we do: to insulate. The biggest difference is that they grow theirs, and we take ours—from the clusters of soft, fine feathers under their bellies.But how do those feathers make their way from the belly of a bird and into your jacket or sleeping bag? And why is one type of down more valuable than another? We asked Los Angeles–based Allied Feather & Down, the largest supplier of down in the outdoor industry (to companies including Patagonia, Arc’teryx, The North Face, and Eddie Bauer), to explain the process....

Independence Day is just around the corner, which means it’s time for fireworks. And if you’ve ever tried to snap a pic during the big show, you already know capturing bright pyrotechnics lit up against the dark sky can pose quite a challenge. But if you have a DSLR, or any camera that gives you access to manual settings, then taking the quintessential July 4th pic is within your reach.Find The Right SpotArguably, this is the most important step....

Media Platforms Design Team(Illustration by Eleftheria Alexandri)Tyvek and Tape1. Woven polyethylene Tyvek house wrap makes a fine, if heavy, kite-skin substitute for standard nylon spinnaker cloth. Tyvek fastens with 2-inch tape instead of stitches. Cut two Tyvek cells to 12 x 82 inches. Join them into a circle. Fold the edges over 1/4 inch to prevent fraying. Dowels2. Cut four 36-inch-long 1/4-inch-diameter dowels and eight 18-inch-long 1/4-inch-diameter pieces. Short dowels span the kite as spars....