Posts

Plastics come in all kinds of different types with all kinds of different properties, making them some of the most versatile and durable materials ever produced. But that durability comes with a cost, as discarded plastic piles up on land and in the oceans.We can sometimes recycle plastic and use it again, but the recycling process is expensive and limited. One group of researchers may have accidentally found a better way, developing an enzyme that can break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the type of plastic used in water and soda bottles....

Moscow sent two of its most advanced fighter jets to Syria yesterday. The Su-57s flew into Khmeimim air base yesterday, representing a major escalation of Russian air power in the region. The deployment is a chance to test the jet in real-world conditions, but Russia risks losing the aircraft to guerrilla warfare—particularly drone attacks.View full post on TwitterLast night, video circulating on social media purported to show two Su-57 jets landing at Khmeimim, Russian’s main air base in Syria....

One of the smallest countries in Europe is set to become the latest country to buy the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Slovakia will soon operate the most advanced F-16 fighter in existence: the F-16V, or Block 70.The F-16 was borne of the U.S. Air Force’s lightweight fighter program from the Cold War era. Developed in the 1970s, the fighter jet was meant to be a maneuverable, relatively inexpensive plane to complement the Air Force’s larger, more capable fighters, and to fill the inventories of smaller air forces worldwide....

The Japanese macaques (or “snow monkeys”) bathing in the man-made hot springs at Jigokudani in Japan has become a regular sight for locals and tourists. They’re the only group of monkey who take hot baths, but why? A team of researchers from Kyoto University in Japan went to investigate. They found that the hot soak helped monkeys stay warm in colder months, and the springs also gave the monkeys another unexpected benefit: it helped them lower their stress hormone levels....

Over the weekend, a Tesla Model X caught fire on the frozen surface of Lake Champlain in Vermont. The fire happened around 8 p.m. on Sunday, and the fire almost completely consumed the vehicle. A few news reports had mentioned the burned-up Tesla. So, we decided to walk out onto the lake and have a look:Avery Thompson/Popular MechanicsThe Shelburne Police Department tells Popular Mechanics that the owner of the vehicle took their Tesla onto the ice to go fishing, and that at some point during the expedition the car hit a rock....

A large, lonely tract of land belonging to Davis-Monathan Air Force Base is what they call the Boneyard, a sun-baked retirement ground where old aircraft sit and wait until the military decides what to do with them. There Pentagon has way too many retired warplanes to store indoors, so they come here to be parked in the warm, dry Arizona desert to avoid rust and corrosion. Approximately 1,000 aircraft sit on 2,600 acres....

My dad, like many dads—at least in the kind of suburbia I grew up in outside Sacramento, which is to say the transiently comfortable, wistfully aspirational milieu that rings most American cities—spent a good deal of his time pontificating about the great ideas he’d had and failed to capitalize on. A programmer, he’d conceived of a novelty product called Computer Bug Spray long before wiseguys got rich selling Y2K Bug Spray ahead of the impending apocalypse....

The F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, the world’s first purpose-designed stealth aircraft, was recently sighted high in the skies over Death Valley, California. The fighter, part of a fleet of jets retired in 2008, was sporting a brand new camouflage paint job and accompanied by a NASA jet and aerial refueling tanker. What was it doing? That’s anyone’s guess.View full post on TwitterThe F-117A was spotted on by plane spotter Steve Lewis on July 11....

A “duck-billed weirdo” dinosaur fossil has resurfaced after being discovered in the 80’s.The primitive skull provides insights as to what early members of the Saurolophidae family looked like.Scientists have discovered the fossilized skull remains of a dinosaur with an incredibly distinctive face in Big Bend National Park, Texas. Aquilarhinus palimentus, or “Eagle-Nose Shovel-Chin,” the non-scientific name scientist have given the dino, looks just like that. It has a duck-bill mouth that more closely resembles a tool that you’d find in a workshop than on an 80-million-year-old dinosaur....

At the risk of the stating the obvious, there are many things in space. Black holes, white dwarfs, asteroids, planets, moons, just to name a few. But there are more bodies in space that scientists are still discovering. What happens when a moon turns into a planet, for example? Researchers have a new word for the phenomena: It becomes a “ploonet.“To understand a ploonet, you must first understand moons outside Earth’s solar system....

The skies are getting crowded.The FAA says that reports of near-misses between drones and planes have surged since 2014, with as many as 650 cases as of August 2016. Last month an airlinernarrowly avoided hitting a drone near London’s tallest skyscraper. Dubai airport has been repeatedlyshut down by drone activity, and low-flying drones are increasinglydisrupting firefighting aircraft in the western U.S.Sooner or later, those near-messes are going to become hits. So experts from the U....

A few years ago I was backing an SUV into a parking spot in a Boston garage, listening for the telltale beeps of the ultrasonic parking sensors to tell me I was getting too close. Even though the parking-assist system was active, the chirps never came, so I got out to see what was the matter. Good thing I did, because I was about six inches from slamming the top of the rear hatch into an overhead concrete beam about five feet off the ground....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith the announcement that General Motors and the Penske Automotive Group have broken off negotiations to transfer ownership of the Saturn brand between them, the Saturn saga sadly ends. Over the next few months, GM will implement the “wind-down” agreements it has with Saturn dealers and start closing up the division. As you read this, the last bundles of Saturn sales brochures are likely being heaved into dumpsters around the country....

Media Platforms Design Team ARLINGTON, Va. — The final panel of this innovation celebration today may the most pressing—and the most futuristic. An esteemed group of structural engineers, from the brains behind the new Minneapolis bridge to a couple of up-and-coming geeks from Georgia, sat down (and linked up over satellite) to discuss earthquake-proof spans, underestimated construction costs and the future of building materials. Have your own question for our panelists?...

Media Platforms Design TeamDespite the slew of new wearable tech devices, including the hyped entry from Google, Adidas says it can offer something new. The $399 miCoach Smart Run touchscreen watch, launching Nov. 1, combines GPS, Bluetooth, an accelerometer, and an optical heart rate sensor to creative a workout-tracking smart gadget. It’s “a product that doesn’t exist,” Paul Gaudio, head of Adidas Interactive, tells PopMech.Adidas says it took 18 months to perfect the fitness smartwatch....

You could put a big inflatable pumpkin in your front yard, or maybe a scarecrow. Or, if you’re like Elevator mechanic Nick Meyer of Parma, Ohio, you could spend about $1,500 in plywood and foam to build a two-story AT-AT to defend your house. Meyer, who characterizes himself as a bigger fan of Halloween than of Star Wars, built the installation with some help from his friend Anthony Paroda over the course of a half a year of 10-hour working weekends....

Last winter the entire surface came off part of our concrete sidewalk. Can it be repaired, or will that part of the sidewalk need to be replaced?The condition you describe is known as scaling. When water freezes inside the concrete’s top surface, the ice crystals can exert a pressure so great that it breaks the surface away. If the damaged area is an oval, that indicates a puddle formed there. In the trades, this low area is known as a birdbath, and it’s a sign of improper concrete finishing....

Media Platforms Design TeamMost people associate Escherichia coli with food-poisoning scares. Just this month, for example, a frozen-food company recalled millions of pounds of food that could have been tainted with the bacteria.But while one particularly harmful strain of E. coli has caused illness and even death in humans, the microbe is ubiquitous and mostly benign—plenty of E. coli lives in the gut and helps us to digest food. And scientists use it for all kinds of research....

A dream of Carl Sagan’s, solar sailing uses the sun’s photons for traveling.Now The Planetary Society has successfully executed the idea with the LightSail 2 spacecraft, which launched earlier this month.LightSail 2 is now orbiting the Earth solely on the power of the solar wind, but the future of the technology remains uncertain.The Planetary Society has declared “mission success” on LightSail 2, its crowdfunded solar sailing CubeSat traveling around the planet....

Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs, better known as Skunk Works, has released concept images of its MQ-25 ‘Stingray’ design, an unmanned carrier-launched tanker plane. The refueling drone will compete against designs from Boeing and General Atomics for a Navy contract to build a fleet of the aircraft.The Navy’s MQ-25 program seeks a refueling drone that can perform catapult-launched takeoffs and arrested landings on aircraft carriers. The tanker should be capable of passing 14,000 lbs....