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5G networks are already here, and more are coming. This advanced form off wireless connection could possibly reaching speeds 100 times faster, support 100 times more devices, and feature five times lower latency than today’s 4G networks. Early versions of 5G are rolling out at a small scale with parts of Chicago and Minneapolis playing guinea pigs with mixed results, but there’s been an unexpected hitch: some scientists are worried that 5G networks could interfere with weather satellites used for crucial Earth observations....

Media Platforms Design TeamAll that energy you burn during your workout ought to do more than just shrink your waistline. One designer from South Korea wants your calorie-burning to power your clothes-cleaning.This combination treadmill-washing machine called Wheel is the brainchild of student designer Si Hyeong Ryu. He submitted the idea to the Electrolux 2014 design competition.The components for washing and rinsing the laundry are tucked away inside the bottom of this oversized hamster wheel....

Media Platforms Design TeamGetty Images.Listen up, iPhone 5 early adopters. For some of you who bought the phone in its first few months on the market, between September 2012 and January 2013, Apple is now offering a free battery replacement.RELATED: 10 things you didn’t know your iPhone could do.Apple says this replacement is for only a small subset of the phones it sold. So if your iPhone 5 battery won’t hold juice and you want to get in on Cupertino’s offer, you have to check your serial number....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis summer’s drought has now touched more than half of the contiguous 48 states, The New York Times reports, with no sign of relenting. And with the dry conditions threatening to drive up the price of food, Colin A. Carter and Henry I. Miller propose in a Times op-ed today that the U.S. pull back the EPA’s renewable fuels mandates and ease the pressure on America’s food supply....

As animals and invertebrates adapt to rising ocean temperatures, their brains might be changing, too. A recent study by a group at Macquarie University in Sydney studied the effects on Port Jackson sharks, a migratory species that lives in the warmer waters off the Australian coast, after they had been raised in water temperatures 1 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than normal. (That’s the anticipated shift in ocean temperature by the end of the century, assuming climate change maintains its trajectory, which it probably will....

According to new research out of Purdue University, atmospheric air particles penetrate meteors’ porous interiors as they hurtle towards the planet. Once inside, the devilish air particles create pockets of high pressure that cause eventually cause the space rocks to explode from the inside.“There’s more going on than what had been thought before,” says Jay Melosh, a geophysicist at Purdue in a statement. “Bottom line is that the atmosphere is a better screen against small impacts than we had thought....

Media Platforms Design TeamI have an unofficial, ongoing competition with my colleague Jason Harper which consists of figuring out who has a more kick ass time testing cars around the world… juvenile, I know, but everyone needs a hobby, right?Thing is, Jason often takes the cake in glorious fashion– whether it’s piloting an ultra rare Group B Lancia 037 in a vintage car rally or flinging a 1972 Fiat Cinquecento around the cobbled streets of Rome, the dude is privy to some pretty extreme, jealousy-inducing automotive experiences....

A huge, dangerous invasive flower has been spreading across America. In June, the plant made its first appearances in Virginia, intimidating residents. “We’ve been getting calls and emails with parents afraid to let their children outside,” Elaine Lidholm, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Agriculture told Wired. The plant is the giant hogweed: up to 15 feet tall, with white flowers that bloom to the size of an umbrella, and sap that can cause third-degree burns if not treated immediately....

Two weeks ago, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 broke from peacefully orbiting an asteroid 200 million miles away to perform the mission it was made for: The spacecraft briefly stopped, descended to the asteroid’s surface, and fired a bullet at the ground. That bullet kicked up a bunch of dust and small rocks, and Hayabusa collected some of that material. Now, the spacecraft is going to start to make its way back to Earth so scientists can study what it brings back....

Media Platforms Design TeamBeyond Pluto there is a vast number of objects still waiting to be discovered—even new (dwarf) planets. Today, researchers from the Carnegie Institute in Washington D.C. and the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii announced they had found a new small world called 2012 VP113, a distant potential dwarf planet twice as far away from the sun as Pluto. And it could be just a taste of what else is out there....

NASA will be sending yeast cells where no man has gone before. After years of prep work, the agency is planning to relaunch its biology studies with BioSentinel, a project that will carry yeast cells into orbit around the sun.One of the basic questions about space is if people can actually live there. We already know to some extent that we can, thanks to the continued existence of the International Space Station....

State lawmakers on Thursday passed legislation that would bar people from operating drones while drunk.The National Conference on State Legislatures says at least 38 states are considering drone legislation this year, going beyond the Federal Aviation Administration’s regulations.The New Jersey bill would make operating a drone under the influence of alcohol a disorderly person offense, which carries a sentence of up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine or both, upon conviction....

View full post on TwitterPhiladelphia is a city that’s trying. Philadelphia is also a city that can’t have nice things. For every non-Geno’s-or-Pats wonderful cheesesteak, there are sports fans hurling snowballs at opposing players or booing everyone, Santa Claus included. This is why, as a Philadelphia resident, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see a story about a hitchhiking robot getting decapitated.HitchBOT was supposed to be a study in how humans would approach and treat robots—an olive branch from the uncanny valley....

It sounds great. Internet from space! It’s a concept that involves using a series, or constellationm of satellites to beam down continuous internet coverage everywhere across the world, providing widespread internet access to, potentially, billions. SpaceX has a plan for it. Google does too, and upstarts like OneWeb. But over at SpaceNews, Jeff Foust reports on a potential problem with that: satellites in the all important geostationary orbit (an orbit exactly at the equator that stays exactly above a given spot) but get some undue interference from the fleet of satellites below....

A soldier wears a skullcap that stimulates his brain to make him learn skills faster, or reads his thoughts as a way to control a drone. Another is plugged into a Tron-like “active cyber defense system,” in which she mentally teams up with computer systems “to successfully multitask during complex military missions.”The Pentagon is already researching these seemingly sci-fi concepts. The basics of brain-machine interfaces are being developed—just watch the videos of patients moving prosthetic limbs with their minds....

Researchers have gleaned new insight into a trio of exoplanets which they say are roughly the density of cotton candy. The team discovered these “super-puff” planets while using the Hubble Space Telescope to hunt for chemical signatures of water in the Kepler 51 star system. The cloudy masses were so thick, scientists weren’t able to discern any viable water signatures.Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have stumbled upon two very strange exoplanets....

Tesla finally announced its long-awaited solar roof at an event yesterday evening, along with the successor to the company’s Powerwall home battery, the Powerwall 2. The solar roofing tiles—a product of Tesla and Solar City, which Tesla is in the process of acquiring—are made of glass and are designed to completely replace the shingles that are already on your roof, as opposed to solar panels that are designed to be mounted on top of what’s already there....

Some of the best defense news in weeks—or maybe even months—is that U.S. Air Force pilots have nicknamed the F-35A fighter the “Panther.” This follows a long history of American warplanes receiving nicknames that become much more popular than their official names, and is a nice switchup from the plane’s poorly received official name “Lightning II.”6th Weapons Squadron patch. Via Flightline InsigniaAccording to The War Zone U.S. Air Force pilots at Nellis Air Force Base refer to the F-35A as the “Panther....

The Navy refers to its newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, as “4.5 acres of sovereign U.S. territory.” The $12.9 billion warship — the first of the Navy’s next generation of aircraft carriers — is in the final stages of construction after cost overruns and a delay of more than one year.This carrier and those that will follow, including the USS John F. Kennedy and the USS Enterprise, will replace the Nimitz-class carriers, which were first commissioned in 1975....

It’s perfectly fine to save the polar bears. But hybrid cars have long since driven past the planet-saving image of the Prius. For Porsche, a carmaker threading the needle between a legacy of performance and an electric future, the hybrid powertrain must do double duty: making vehicles a little greener while giving them a new kind of go-fast jolt. It’s a new way to think about making the performance cars of the 21st century....