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One of Africa’s most iconic landmarks is the strangely-shaped baobab tree, its large trunk a prominent landmark on the savannah. But scientists have found that many of these ancient trees are dying, and while the exact cause is unknown. it seems like the culprit is climate change-related.Baobab trees grow in the savannah, and are known for thriving and even producing delicious fruit despite the hot, dry climate. If anything, we would expect that baobabs would be the most capable of weathering the effects of a changing climate....

Joerg Sprave has somehow survived into adulthood despite a wide collection of really, really dangerous ideas. This wooden machine gun, for example, is powered by a chainsaw and shoots marbles. As you can see from this video, he is both still alive and in possession of both of his hands despite the odds. Media Platforms Design TeamIf you’re sitting at home and thinking to yourself, I’ve never thought of that and it is something I should definitely do, don’t....

Of all the modern miracles enabled by spaceflight, global positioning satellites are among the most useful and ubiquitous. Military and civilian users across the globe depend on the 31 satellites, in six different orbital planes above Earth, to provide continual navigation signals.And the newest member of this constellation, a spacecraft called called GPS III, is the next generation of these vital navigation satellites. Launched on December 23 by a SpaceX rocket, GPS III is now in the hands of ground control crews at Lockheed Martin who are maneuvering the GPS satellite into its final orbit, a task that will be wrap up sometime next week....

Back in the summer, Netflix released a short, 50-second trailer quickly teasing all six episodes of the upcoming season of Black Mirror. In that clip we saw a brief few seconds of an episode called “U.S.S. Callister” that looked suspiciously similar to everyone’s favorite space-faring TV show—Star Trek. Now, Netflix is giving us a much closer look with a trailer for just this episode:View full post on YoutubeThe trailer follows Lt....

Quantum teleportation moves one quantum state to another.Usually done with two-dimensional pieces of information called qubits, scientists were able to transport 3-dimensional qutrits.These qutrits could allow quantum computing to expand into the next generation.Scientists have successfully teleported a three-dimensional quantum state. The international effort between Chinese and Austrian scientists could be crucial for the future of quantum computers.The researchers, from Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vienna, and University of Science and Technology of China, were able to teleport the quantum state of one photon to another distant state....

Disney finally released the last trailer for ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ during Monday Night Football tonight, and…there’s a lot going on. Voiceovers from Luke, Leia, Palpatine, Finn, and Rey all have something cryptic to say while every. single. ship. in the galaxy shows up to fight some massive fleet of Star Destroyers.Surprisingly, it looks like The Rise of Skywalker may feature the end of C-3PO, who we’ve seen in a previous trailer with red eyes in what appears to be the same scene....

Media Platforms Design Team1. Use sharp blades and bits. A dull cutting edge not only leaves an inferior surface, it takes more power, strains the tool and takes longer to do the job.2. Clean wood pitch. Soak your cutting tools in mineral spirits or turpentine. Then wipe the residue away and let the blades air-dry. Soak paper towels or rags in water before you throw ’em out.3. Clean up your grinder wheel The wheel on a bench grinder is designed to be dressed with a diamond tip or high-carbon steel dressing tool so that metal glaze gets gone....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamYou’re going to see this headline a lot in the coming months: Dawn spacecraft takes the best-ever view of Ceres. The NASA spacecraft is currently approaching its close encounter with the dwarf planet, which is also the largest object in the Asteroid Belt, and taken unprecedented images of a body once believed to be a new planet. Here’s the freshest one, courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory....

UPDATE: While the FBI investigation continues, Ars Technica reports that Roberts allegedly claimed at a 2012 conference that he had hacked into the International Space Station sometime around 2004, claiming he took control of the temperature system. “We got yelled at by NASA. If they’re going to leave open shit that’s not encrypted that’s their own damn silly fault,” Roberts said at the GrrCon hacker conference.——-The investigation into a security researcher who tweeted about vulnerabilities in airplane networks has turned up evidence that he used his know-how to commandeer a plane....

On Wednesday, the United Nations International Telecommunication Union agreed to devote part of the air traffic radio spectrum to satellite flight tracking. The new plan is the UN’s response to global pressure for more comprehensive flight tracking after the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March 2014. The decision was reached at the World Radiocommunication Conference being held this month in Geneva.Radio frequencies between 1087.7 and 1092.3 MHz will be allocated for aircraft to send Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast transmissions to satellites and space stations for flight tracking purposes....

One of the coolest possibilities for a drone future is having a little flying buddy that can follow you around automatically while filming aerial footage of skiing or kayaking or skateboarding or even hiking. Folks are already planning for that, but one of the biggest challenges is making sure the drone won’t hit anything. This new high-speed dodger developed by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) is a big step in that direction....

On April 26th, 2017, the shipyards of Dalian, China were buzzing with activity. The Chinese Navy was about to launch a new warship, one that would cement China’s status as a major naval power. As nearby vessels blew their whistles in celebration, a Chinese official smashed a bottle of champagne against the gray hull, blessing it in the mariner’s tradition. China’s national anthem played as confetti and streamers shot into the sky surrounding the 66,000-ton ship—tentatively known as Type 002....

Since its founding in 2016, Neuralink has remained one of Elon Musk’s quieter ventures. It’s mission of linking human and computer technologies has been, compared to Musk’s work at SpaceX, Tesla, or The Boring Company, relatively quiet. No longer. Speaking at a press conference in San Francisco, Musk announced that the company has made serious progress in animal testing.“A monkey has been able to control a computer with his brain,” Musk said at the press conference, which was livestreamed on YouTube and can be seen below....

Lots of people love the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, one of the most advanced, stealthiest warplanes on the planet. And lots of people loathe it, pointing to the ballooning costs and arguing America’s newest fighter is more flash than function. But what’s it like to fly it?Despite all the public acrimony about the plane, we haven’t heard much from the men and women who will strap into the cockpit. So, with F-35s now entering service in the U....

The founder of Machination Studio, Michael Sng, has designed and crafted the most spectacularly detailed war toy you’ve ever seen. It’s part of Codename Colossus, which is Machination’s “artisanal, made to order, kinetic toy line set in Europe in an alternate history during The Great War.” It’s basically a heap of cannons and swiveling gun turrets that wouldn’t be out of place next to the eponymous building in Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle....

In 2005, the USS Ronald Reagan met its match in the form of a single, diesel-powered Swedish submarine. During war games, the plucky submarine was able to sneak through the passive sonar defenses of the Ronald Reagan and its entire accompanying group to score a few precious torpedo hits, (virtually) sinking the cruiser and getting away without so much as a scratch. How? As Real Engineering explains, it’s all thanks to a very old-school engine....

Drone, drone on the range? At least one American cattle ranch is turning to some 21st century tech to modernize the cowboy’s job. In this video, fifth-generation cattleman J.D. Russell of the Matador Cattle Company takes us through how drones changed the way he runs Koch Industries’ Spring Creek Ranch in Kansas. Drone technology certainly makes it easier to tend to 10,000 acres and account for 2,000 head of cattle, Russell says: “With the drones, if you have a concern about a cow, you can fly over to check it out if you have one with you....

Chris Eckert / Studio DFinding just a bit more table space in a hallway or living room, only when you need it, isn’t easy. A classic solution is the drop-leaf table, a 16th-century design still useful today because it’s so efficient. Lift the leaf when you want more surface area. Drop it when you want a slimmer, neater look. There are several variations on these tables–and we chose the simplest one, with a single leaf and a fifth leg that swings out to support it....

Whether you’re signing an I-9 document for a human resources, sharing workout tips with your best friend, or putting together documentation for a patent application, it’s terrifically important that the recipient of your files can actually open them, make edits, or save them. Enter the PDF, those files that aren’t quite Word documents. Here’s how to master the PDFWhat is a PDF, anyway?Ann E. Yow-Dyson//Getty ImagesPDF stands for Portable Document File....

A lot of the files on your computer or phone are precious, from family photos to that report due in next week. If you accidentally erase something you wanted to keep it’s one of the worst digital disasters imaginable.Before you completely despair though, check out the tips we’ve outlined below, because there are ways of getting those deleted files back, if you’re lucky.First steps to undeletingWhen computer systems delete files, they don’t actually erase the 1s and 0s of the data, they just mark the space as free for new files....