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In her free time, Esmée Kramer, a network and engineering systems student at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, constructed a fully mobile raptor costume.The body works like a seesaw—both the neck and tail are roughly the same weight—and she acts as the fulcrum.The most challenging part to build, she noted in a LinkedIn post, was the head. The costume looks like something out of Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks. A network and engineering systems student at the The Hague University of Applied Sciences named Esmée Kramer crafted a giant, mobile raptor costume made from PVC pipe and foam....

The technology used to study the brain has improved by leaps and bounds over the last few years, but some aspects of neuroscience are still frustratingly tied to giant machines that we use to pick up brain activity. One of these techniques, Magnetoencephalography, or MEG, generally puts subjects into a seat in a massive machine where they must sit completely still while the brain scan is in process. This is not idea for studying how the brain acts in most situations in our lives, when we’re not sitting perfectly still....

Blazing a Trail Toward a Better BarbecueMedia Platforms Design TeamThe world-record time for barbecue ignition is three seconds flat, and Purdue University Professor George Goble won the 1996 Ig Nobel in Chemistry for setting it. His trick was to use liquid oxygen, a fuel typically utilized by NASA to propel rockets into orbit. Goble piled 60 pounds of charcoal onto a grill and doused it with three gallons of liquid oxygen....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn February 2012, Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, returned from a brief visit to Syria where it had showed the Russian flag in support of the Syrian regime. The three-month voyage was par for the course for the Russian carrier, but then things went awry: Kuznetsov lost propulsion on the way home and began drifting in the Bay of Biscay off the coast of France and Spain....

Q: When I set up my wireless network, my computer gave me the option of setting up an “ad hoc” network. What is this and what would I use it for?A: “Ad hoc” is a method by which multiple wirelessly enabled devices may communicate without needing a central hub, or base station. It’s not the way most people use Wi-Fi in that it connects computers directly without the need for a router....

Planets and their stars are usually alike: Large planets orbiting large stars and small planets orbiting small stars. This makes sense, because more gas and dust available means there is the potential for both larger stars and larger planets.That’s why the most recent planet discovered by researchers from the University of Warwick is so surprising. They found a giant planet about the size of Jupiter orbiting a star that’s not much bigger than that....

Now that Apple has finally embraced Qi wireless charging technology, there’s really no excuse not to have a sleek wireless charging pad in your life. These simple desk accessories free up space, eliminate unsightly wires, and add an unmistakably cool aesthetic to your nightstand or workspace.But not all wireless charging pads are created equal. This Ziistle Triangle Foldable Wireless Qi-Certified Charger is a supremely stylish and affordable pad that can be used with any Qi-enabled device, and it’s currently available for over 20 percent off at just $35....

NASA’s current plan for manned space exploration focuses on establishing a base on the moon, as a vital stepping stone for a visit to Mars. The initiative has been trumpeted by the Bush administration, which wants the first mission to launch by 2020. But trouble is brewing as a growing group of former mission managers, planetary scientists and astronauts argues against any manned moon mission at all. One alternative, they say: Send astronauts to an asteroid as a better preparation for a Martian landing....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn May 30, 1997, patrolman Gregory Gallagher got out of his squad car in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood and approached a young man who was acting suspiciously. The man started running, and Gallagher chased him down an alley and over a fence. When the patrolman landed on the other side, the man grappled with him and took his handgun, opening fire as Gallagher scrambled back over the fence. One round hit Gallagher’s bulletproof vest; another found flesh, hitting him in the leg....

Insiders in Brunei and Japan say they’ve made the first international hydrogen supply chain. Japan is also involved in liquid hydrogen, but this technology involves an organic carrier.Hydrogen is combined with a petrochemical for transport and then dehydrogenated.The energy industry could have a new way to get hydrogen around the globe. A consortium of energy industry players in Japan and Brunei have safely moved hydrogen that’s bonded with another chemical for transport before being dehydrogenated at the destination....

Veterans Day, observed every year on November 11th, is the anniversary of the armistice with Germany that ended World War I. This Veterans Day marks the one hundred and second anniversary of the end of the Great War, a global conflict that lasted approximately four years and killed more than 13 million people worldwide. As a form of competition, war supercharges innovation and often brings new, sometimes terrible, innovations to the forefront....

A massive ostrich-like bird fossil has been found in a cave near the Black Sea. The discovery is the first of its kind in this part of Europe.The bird weighed as much as an adult male polar bear and was more than 11 feet tall.Imagine walking down the street and encountering an 11.5-foot tall, 1,000-pound bird. If you didn’t run in terror, you’d probably stare in amazement and wonder, what is that thing?...

Media Platforms Design TeamShun Specialty PartsMechanics at Whiteman Air Force Base gripe about the lack of suppliers for airplane parts—some small firms went out of business 15 years before their parts needed replacing. “Design the system for long-term sustainability,” says one B-2 munitions officer. “Don’t build anything one-off for the airplane; this is one of the curses of the B-2.“Um, Drop Tanks?Dangling disposable fuel tanks from a stealth aircraft is seen as heresy because their shapes on the aircraft’s exterior can be seen on radar....

NASA’s InSight lander, having successfully landed on Mars, is getting to work. The lander has lifted its arm and taken the first pictures of its Martian landing site. Related StoryWhy Mars InSight Will Be a Mission of FirstsThese pictures are crucial to InSight’s mission—they will help NASA decide where to set up InSight’s seismometer and heat-flow probe. These instruments will be the first ever to be robotically placed on the surface of another planet....

The U.S. Air Force is about to induct its second female F-35 pilot. A minimum weight restriction had temporarily prevented her from flying, but the issue has finally been fixed.Back in October 2015, F-35 program managers restricted pilots under 136 lbs. because of problems with the Martin Baker US16E pilot escape system and the weight of the F-35 helmet. These errors created “an unacceptable risk of neck injury during parachute deployment/opening for lighter-weight pilots at low-speed conditions....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Kepler telescope found a massive number of planets from May to September in 2009. What’s the breakdown?William Borucki: We released data on 155,000 stars, including 1235 candidate planets. Of those, 68 are Earth-size; 288 super-Earth-size, which means they’re almost twice the size of Earth; 293 are Neptune-size, about four times the size of Earth; and 165 candidates are the size of Jupiter, 11 times the size of Earth....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images)Hydraulic fracturing is dead in New York State, at least for now. On the heels of a report by the state health department, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that he has significant concerns over the practice’s effects on the environment.The fracking process involves injecting a sand, water, and proprietary chemical slurry into the ground at high speeds to extract natural gas and oil from reserves deep underground in shale rock deposits....

Media Platforms Design TeamFisker has already sold 700 Karmas, the $100,000 hybrid with a turbocharged engine sourced from GM. But this new Fisker Atlantic, revealed last night at the New York Auto Show, bears the same 240-hp, 2.0-liter four-cylinder as the 2012 BMW 328i. That BMW is a good point of comparison for the Atlantic, since Fisker says its new car will have about the same size interior as an Audi A5, with a retail price near expensive end of the 3 Series range....

Roberto Escobar is offering a fully bending smartphone at one-sixth the cost of a Samsung Galaxy Fold.Foldables offer more screen size in a pocketable format, and the market is filling up with options that mostly make a sharp bend, not a soft fold.Please don’t visit the Escobar, Inc. website at work.Pablo Escobar’s brother Roberto has topped off a busy and eccentric year with a surprising announcement: His company Escobar, Inc. has released a foldable smartphone in both 128 GB and 512 GB models....

Drone attacks, including the recent swarm strike in Saudi Arabia, are increasing, and so is the Pentagon’s interest in killing them. Yesterday afternoon, the Pentagon notified Congress of its purchase of a microwave weapon system designed to knock down swarms of enemy drones with pulses of energy. The purchase comes with an intent to deploy the PHASER system overseas for a year-long assessment, making it the first directed energy defense weapon to ever be fielded....