NASA has announced that they will be accepting applications for their new class of astronauts from March 2-31.The application requirements and process are rigorous, but if you’ve ever dreamed of taking off towards the stars, this is your chance to (maybe) make a dream come true.This new class of astronauts will be members of the Artemis Generation and will train to reach several locations throughout the solar system, including the moon and Mars....
How to Drink AquavitAquavit is traditionally consumed neat. But its unique botanical flavor profile also makes it an ideal spirit for mixologists looking to innovate.The Cocktail: “Notes of a Dirty Old Man"Place a large ice cube in a rocks glass. Add six drops of bitters.Add ¼ oz honey simple syrup (combine equal parts honey and water).Add 2 oz Devil’s Head aquavit.Run the pith side of an orange peel around the rim of the glass....
Media Platforms Design TeamThis past June at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Boris Sofman introduced Anki Drive, a demonstration of advanced robotics stuffed inside a small car no bigger than a Hot Wheels toy. Although this creation was overshadowed by the announcement of Apple’s new OS, the technology behind Anki Drive is impressive. In fact, it’s an idea on a micro scale that some automakers are trying to replicate in full-sized cars....
LOS ANGELES — As hurricane season ramps up in the south, General Motors is weathering a rough storm of its own these days. GM’s stock price is hovering at barely double-digit levels, the profitable truck market has significantly eroded, and there’s a general malaise blanketing the auto industry. You’d think America’s largest automaker would be loading up on Lexapro. But officials from the General were hopeful at a meeting here yesterday....
Before Yeti coolers became so popular that owners began chaining them to their truck beds to prevent theft, before copycat products filled the shelves and web stores of Bass Pro Shops and REI, before the cult of Yeti made incredibly expensive coolers so desirable that it left us looking at our old Igloos and Colemans with distaste and distrust, there was a man standing on a cooler aboard a boat, casting for a wily redfish....
This is a really weird playlist, but it should help you get through cleaning the garage. It might even make cleaning the garage enjoyable, something you’ll make an excuse to do again next weekend. You can use this playlist any way you want. The first half is a little mellower, for when you’re just kind of putting around, which is always the way it is with cleaning the garage—you putter around for awhile, doing the easy stuff....
Media Platforms Design TeamThese days, every fan knows what Lost’s Smoke Monster is: The Man in Black’s immortal soul, wrenched from his body when Jacob tossed him down the Island’s glowing well of goodness. But when visual effects artists were creating the Island’s really big bad guy, they were as much in the dark as the castaways—and the show’s fans—were. “The producers were vague about the details, as you can imagine,” says John Teska, who created the smoke monster while working at Eden FX....
AsBoeing and SpaceX rev up to start flinging actual human beings into space, NASA is making sure it’s ready for a worst-case scenario on the ground. Meet the MRAP, the beefy escape van that will shuttle astronauts away from the launchpad if things get dicey. If the MRAP looks like it was built for war, that’s because it was; NASA got four of the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles from the US Army as a gift....
The beans that made your morning cup of joe are probably from one of the two species of coffee: Arabica or Robusta. Those two are responsible for most of the commercial coffee in the world, but they are just two of hundreds of inter-related species of the coffee plant in the world—and many of those species are in danger.A new study published today in Science Advances states that 60 percent of wild coffee species could go extinct in the coming decades—and some rarer plants may already be gone....
Seven years ago, Microsoft founder Paul Allen started a company with a bold idea: build one of the biggest aircraft ever to fly, and then use it to launch satellites into orbit. Now just months before the airplane flies the first time, some are wondering where the customers are for such an aircraft. Could the airplane end up flying secret missions for the military and intelligence community? Built by aviation firm Scaled Composites, Stratolaunch is the largest aircraft in the world by wingspan....
Media Platforms Design TeamAfter years of waiting for one of to improve safety on its own, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed new rules on Thursday aimed at reducing the number of fatal medical helicopter crashes.America’s most dangerous industriesAir ambulances killed 264 people between 1972 and 2008. If passed, the proposed regulations would require new safety technologies onboard medical helicopters, and new practices on the ground to help pilots fly safely....
In the early 1950s, with powerful rockets developed in the war effort, space travel was a tantalizing possibility. Naturally, PM reported on how it might work. We got pretty close.We might use nuclear-fusion-powered jets to move other planets closer to the sunIn 1952, the article “Shall We Move to Another Planet?” highlighted what were, at the time, the most promising ideas about how mankind might explore the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere....
Even cruising through the sky, the possibility of a digital privacy invasion remains. Two entertainment systems used by Singapore Airlines and American Airlines were recently discovered to have outward-facing cameras. Both airlines failed to notify passengers that their aircraft entertainment systems were equipped with such devices, but the carriers insist the cameras were never activated, BuzzFeed News reports. A recent discovery was made by a savvy passenger, who spotted the small lens immediately beneath the screen monitor on the seat in front of him on a Singapore Airlines flight....
In this episode of the Popular Mechanics series “MADE HERE,” Cárdenas brings viewers into the Bamboocycles workshop and shows you how his bikes are made by hand using bamboo and carbon fiber.Diego Cárdenas made his first bicycle at the end of 2007. “I started because I wanted to have a bike, just to move around the city.” After seeing reactions of others to his new ride, the engineering student founded Bamboocycles in Mexico City in 2008....
Number of parts: 180 Model: eMicro one Produced: Guangdong, China Time to disassemble: 2 hours, 14 minutes eMicroWhen the Razor scooter craze started in the early 2000s, the lightweight, foldable scooters were mostly just for kids. But the design has proved enduring, even for adults, because it offers some of the efficiency of biking while being easier to stow. And perhaps because the technology has improved: Back when the scooters debuted, acceleration assistance meant looping your dog’s leash over the handlebars and chucking a tennis ball....
Nostalgia is running high. With the popularity of shows like Netflix’s The Toys That Made Us—and its predecessor Toy Hunter on the Discovery Channel—people are looking to reconnect with the toys that defined their childhood playtime. It also helps that they’re much more fun to collect than stamps or coins because you get to finally follow that childish dream of getting everything you want. Choosing a Toy LineHow do you choose which toy will be the first in your collection?...
Media Platforms Design TeamI just built a cedar deck railing. I was going to paint it and call it a day, but now my wife wants me to stain it to show off the wood’s texture and color. That sounds like a lot more maintenance later. What do you think? Unfortunately, there’s no simple this-or-that answer. Paint the railing and you won’t have to refinish it any time soon, but you’ll hide the wood’s color, grain pattern, and texture....
The Perseid meteor shower, one of the brightest and most active meteor showers of the year, began Monday, July 17. That means the Earth has moved into a trail of debris left in the wake of the comet Swift-Tuttle. For more than a month you will be able to catch sight of meteors in the night sky as chunks of rock and ice in that debris trail enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up....
China Eastern Airlines flightMU587 on its way to New York from Shanghai dumped 30 tons of fuel last week in order to make an emergency landing to provide medical attention for a passenger. The 60-year-old passenger, who had been having trouble breathing and had lost consciousness prior to the landing, was rushed to a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska where the plane touched down and was discharged the following day. According to the Chinese outlet CGTN, the plane’s 282 ton weight was over the tolerance for the runway at Anchorage airport....
Media Platforms Design TeamWelcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today.Media Platforms Design TeamJust when you thought Facebook couldn’t get creepier: Not only does The Social Network own our nostalgia, it is also manipulating our emotions. In a new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers tested whether they could affect nearly 700,000 Facebook user’s moods by more positive or negative content in the users’ timelines....
