The first locally designed Russian narrowbody aircraft since the fall of the Soviet Union, the MC-21, is preparing to make its first flight by the end of the month. Hopes are high for the plane, which the Russian United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) hopes will propel a return to the global commercial aircraft market.It’s been a long road for the MC-21, first conceived of in 2003 to replace the aging Tupolev Tu-204....
Media Platforms Design TeamAre gel-alcohol fireplaces any good? My wife and I are more interested in ambience than in heat. Of course, if we can get a little warmth, too, that’s a bonus.I’m a wood guy, but I understand that it isn’t for everybody. It’s satisfying to cut, split, and burn wood, but it’s intense work. And there’s a lot of cleanup at every step in the process. If you’re not counting on the fireplace to provide heat, maybe the cozy, clean, and pleasant appearance of a gel-alcohol fireplace would be a good fit, even though the flame lacks the depth, complexity, and hypnotic beauty of a wood fire....
Mazda Motor, Yamaha Motor, and Suzuki Motor have all admitted to using falsified emissions data to inspect their new vehicles. The news is the result of internal investigations at all three organizations ordered by the Japanese ministry of transportation.“The inspection of exhaust emissions and fuel efficiency are important processes to guarantee environmental performance related to carbon dioxide and harmful gasses. It is extremely regrettable that the process was done inappropriately," said Keiichi Ishii, the minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, in a press statement....
Media Platforms Design Team(Still Courtesy of Pixar)With WALLE, Pixar appears to have done it again, creating a character that’s painfully cute, but not so precious that you want to step on his animated neck. He’s the spiritual heir to R2-D2–mute but vocal, heroic while pathetic–with a more cuddly, humanoid body, reminiscent of Short Circuit’s Johnny Five. In the tradition of some of the best robots in film and television, WALL E is a loser....
The Space Race of the 60’s surface a whole ton of wild ideas: getting past the Van Allen belts, landing on the Moon, coming back from the Moon, showing how science could fundamentally change humanity for the better. But one of the most impressive ideas of the era never got built: a massive rocket called the Sea Dragon, which would have been launched from the middle of the ocean. A two-stage rocket, the Sea Dragon was, on paper at least, capable of “putting 1....
Three companies that have purchased crude oil from the United States now claim the oil contained unusually high levels of poisonous chemicals, according to Reuters. Internal Energy Department emails obtained by Reuters show that Royal Dutch Shell, the Australian bank Macquarie Group, and PetroChina International America (the U.S. trading arm of a Chinese state-owned energy firm) have all been dissatisfied with the quality of oil purchased from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)....
Planetary scientists have created a geologic map of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Covered in rivers and lakes filled with liquid methane, mountains, flat plains and sandy dunes, the moon has a rich, varied topography.NASA plans to send a small drone, part of the Dragonfly mission, to Titan by 2034.Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is covered in a vast array of fascinating features including flowing rivers of liquid methane and sandy dunes made from organic materials....
Two Navy Corps helicopters have collided off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. Originally reported by the Marine Corps Times, the ensuing search and rescue operation has been since been confirmed by the USMC. View full post on TwitterThe two CH-53 choppers belong to the Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463, Marine Aircraft Group 24, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing from Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Each had six people aboard when the pair collided early this morning, leaving a debris field floating just over two miles off the coast....
Media Platforms Design TeamBased in Oklahoma, KFOR’s Emily Sutton is part of a special league of storm chasers. It’s a region that sees frequent and intense tornadoes. She was on the ground for the infamous and lethal May 2013 tornado outside of Moore, Oklahoma. She grew up seeing thunderstorms, but, she says, seeing Twister at a tender age solidified her affection for this profession.Did you get into this after Twister, or before?...
For years now, asbestos has been a building boogeyman. We know people used to use a lot of this stuff, we know it’s bad for people, and we know we’re still finding it in old building, requiring careful cleanup.Now, the much-maligned material is getting something of a comeback: The EPA is reportedly easing up on asbestos regulation. While the agency is maintaining a ban on the substance, it could allow for asbestos to be used on a case-by-case basis in construction....
It’s Halloween season, the time of the year when it is acceptable—and even expected—to scare the living tar out of the children in the neighborhood as they come to your house asking for candy. Here, we compile 14 projects from Instructables that will make your haunted home the envy of all others on the block.The Ultimate Haunted House Control UnitEric Wilhelm, president and co-founder of Instructables, describes how to build an incredibly innovative and complex solid-state controller that can manipulate lights, fog, animatronics and sound in a glorious choreographed Halloween production....
One of the dangers of floating in a space station is that you really have to worry about leaks. After all, there’s only a thin metal shell standing between you and the vacuum of space, and even a small hole can quickly prove disastrous.That’s the reality the astronauts aboard the International Space Station awoke to yesterday, when it was discovered that a small leak in the station was causing the air pressure inside to drop....
Boeing is going to kill its most iconic plane. Not right this second, but in the coming decades. In a 20-year forecast of the aviation market, the company has decided not to set aside a place for the world’s jumbo jets. Boeing has completely dropped the category of large, four-engine planes like its 747 and the competing Airbus A380 in its predictions, estimating that this type of plane will soon become obsolete....
After arriving at Ceres in March, the Dawn probe is now officially in its closest orbit and is ready to shed new light on our nearest dwarf planet. While it may have arrived in the neighborhood of Ceres more than a month ago, a series of complicated orbital maneuvers boomeranged it into its current orbital arrangement. Media Platforms Design TeamEssentially, it first had to enter the gravitational pull of Ceres, before continuing far enough out to whip itself into a return....
Update: Sunday afternoon, October 14, Felix Baumgartner finally got the green light to attempt his dive from 120,000. Now he’s a record holder. This afternoon, Baumgartner jumped from his balloon-lifted capsule after it reached an altitude of 128,100 feet. During the dive, he reached a speed of nearly 840 mph, becoming the first skydiver to break the sound barrier. He reached the ground in a little less than 10 minutes. Relive it here:View full post on YoutubeMore about Baumgartner and his attempt:Space Dive: The Race to Jump From 120,000 Feet, our August 2010 cover story....
Media Platforms Design TeamIn the direct aftermath of disasters such as yesterday’s devastating tornado in Oklahoma, time is very much of the essence. While crews and trained canine units dig through the wreckage of collapsed buildings, the search for survivors quickly turns into a search for bodies.Engineers hope that someday more robots will help out after a disaster, finding more victims in time to save more lives. Robots so far have played only a limited role in disaster recovery, but a paper published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that a new generation of search-and-rescue robots could take a cue from an invasive pest—the fire ant....
Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced a crazy-sounding, ambitious holodeck for your face. The HoloLens is a computer on your head, but it’s not a virtual reality headset and there are no wires nor a bulky PC to tether yourself to. Instead, HoloLens puts its floating windows and holographic dogs into the real world. Into your living room.It sounds awesome. It looks awesome. But how exactly does it work? Microsoft shared some of the broader details when it announced the device in January....
MARIO DI MARTINO/INAF OSSERVATORIO ASTROFYSICO DI TORINOThe Hypatia stone is only a few centimeters across, broken into pebble fragments, but it may very well be the most interesting rock in the world. Named for Hypatia of Alexandria, the first prominent Western woman astronomer and mathematician, the colorful rock was found in 1996 in western Egypt by Aly Barakat, a geologist working for the Egyptian Geological Survey. Barakat was studying Libyan desert glass, which appears to be similar to sea glass from the ocean, except geologists believe it might have formed roughly 28 million years ago in a meteorite impact....
The U.S. Air Force has indefinitely barred people and cargo from riding in the back of the new KC-46A Pegasus. The action is yet another strike against the KC-46A and Boeing, which has seen quality control problems since entering service last year. In the latest incident, cargo locks have opened, leading to concerns that cargo in the big jet’s hold could break loose and injure passengers.The KC-46A Pegasus is the Air Force’s latest tanker....
In recent years, Mars has looked more and more like a place where past life might have flourished. Now, some researchers believe the Red Planet may have the ingredients for life to exist in the present. You just have to go underground.“We wanted to change that dogma"In research published today in Nature Geoscience, a JPL-led team looked at the amount of oxygen in Martian soil, and their findings were influenced by two key recent discoveries....
