The Fantastic Four reboot, set to come out in August, is known to have a darker tone and a shift in origin, with the new movie loosely tied to Ultimate Fantastic Four. So far, though, we’ve seen only a peak at what the film might look like. Now, in a foreign teaser, we get to see just a bit more. For instance, Johnny Storm, played by Michael B. Jordan, lights up his powers a little bit more and takes flight....
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — It’s not uncommon for a robot to offer you a water bottle. In fact, in the main media center alone there are four different types of bots roaming the hallways, minding their own business unless you are in need of something. Lost? Mechanical guides got you covered. Spill something on the ground? A massive “maid” bot continually cleans the halls. The 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea are all about modern and efficient amenities, starting from the moment you touch down in the country and a brand-new 186-mph bullet train whisks you from Seoul’s Incheon airport to Pyeongchang....
Media Platforms Design TeamThe Fish FinderThe first Inuit kayaks were designed to hold gear, move efficiently through the water, and help their owners find a lot of seals. The Hobie Mirage Sport Fisherman ($1399) probably won’t be seen bouncing off icebergs, but it is exceptionally well designed to help modern-day fishermen land their quarry. This 9-ft.-7-in., 52-pound boat has plenty of storage for bait, tackle and gear. You’ll also find molded-in rod holders and even a mount for an optional sail....
It’s 2025, and Vladimir Putin (yup, he’s still in power) wakes up in a historically bad mood. He decides—and everyone around him agrees—that it’s time to launch an all-out nuclear assault on the United States.This is the nightmare scenario laid out in the latest Nuclear Defense Posture Review. It’s also the war envisioned by Putin himself. Last week he took the stage before the Russian Parliament and rattled off a litany of new nuclear weapons to be delivered by silo, submarine, and aircraft—weapons he claimed to be unstoppable....
Back in 1990, a Corvette cost $31,979 and the ZR-1 option added another $27,016. What that bought you, mostly, was the most fearsome engine ever bolted into an American car. Instead of the pushrod, two-valve heads used in the standard Corvette engine (and every other Corvette engine before and since), the ZR-1 had a 5.7-liter V-8 with quad overhead cams and four valves per cylinder. This allowed it to rev high and breathe deeply, spinning out 375 horsepower back when a Ferrari 348 TS made only 300....
Media Platforms Design TeamFusion energy, simply, is the exact opposite of , which comes from splitting an atom and is widely used to power nuclear plants and weapons. Fusion occurs constantly , which produces most of its energy via the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. When nuclei fuse, they create a heavier nucleus and produce a little leftover energy in the process. fission energyon our sunFusion doesn’t produce runaway chain reactions the way fission can, so there’s no need to worry about meltdowns....
On an otherwise unremarkable day in March 2013, an American MQ-1 Predator drone was flying in international airspace off Iran, conducting a routine surveillance flight over the Persian Gulf. But the U.S. Air Force knew trouble might be lurking ahead.Several months earlier, a pair of Iranian Sukhoi Su-25 attack planes had attempted unsuccessfully to shoot down another patrolling Predator. After that, the Pentagon decided subsequent drone patrols would be escorted, either by F/A-18 Hornets from the USS John C....
Media Platforms Design TeamThis six-seater tax, which should be available in India next year, is powered entirely by a tank filled with compressed air.India’s largest automaker is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008....
Media Platforms Design TeamOver most of the last decade, there has been one benchmark when it comes to automotive fuel efficiency: the Toyota Prius. Its reputation is so strong, in fact, that Toyota decided to create an entire family of Prius vehicles, beginning this year with the Prius V. Since 1999, Honda has been producing its own line of hybrids. Its first, the Insight, was a fuel economy champ itself. But no Honda hybrid since has been able to match the Prius....
If all goes as planned, there could be a new bridge between from Virginia Beach, Virginia and Bilbao, Spain by October 2017. Backed by Microsoft and Facebook, it will span the Atlantic for some 4,100 miles and will exist in the form of a cable. A big one, both in physical size and in bandwidth. Dubbed “MAREA,” the cable’s 160 terabit-per-second bandwidth would be enough to send about 4,500 two-hour HD movies from one coast to the other in a single second....
Over at Hack-a-Day, there’s a neat (literally) little project for people with an older Android phone sitting around. A trinket model TV made of scrap wood and cardboard becomes a perfect tiny TV when paired with a Samsung I9000. Of course, no tiny console TV is complete without a clunky remote. In this case, the remote (which was basically the size of the whole set) was outfitted with a Bluetooth chip and a microcontroller to enable easy channel flipping – or whatever way you might control video on this....
For millenia upon millenia, humans knew that certain objects in the sky moved while other stars stood still. These are the objects we now know as planets. But precise calculations on their movements remains a fuzzy area of history. But a new clay tablet from ancient Babylonia shows that they may have used advanced geometrical techniques somewhere between 350 BCE or 50 BCE, pushing back the “discovery” of these principles back as far as 1750 years....
Media Platforms Design TeamWhat if all the UFO sightings over the years weren’t weather balloons or top-secret military planes, but alien scout craft doing reconnaissance for a future invasion? That’s the premise of , an on-the-ground view of a worldwide invasion from the perspective of one Marine battalion. It hits theaters March 11. “It’s like meets meets ,” says Michelle Rodriguez, who plays Air Force tech Santos. “That’s the best way to explain it....
Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamPopular Mechanics’ Investigative Report: How the BP Oil Rig Blowout HappenedThree Mile Island, Challenger, Chernobyl—and now, Deepwater Horizon. Like those earlier disasters, the destruction of the drilling rig was an accident waiting to happen. Here, engineers in the growing science of failure analysis identify seven fatal flaws that led to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and draw lessons on how to prevent future catastrophes....
Groundwater is one of the most important resources on Earth. People use around 77 billion gallons of groundwater every day, nearly all of it originating in bodies of permeable rock known as aquifers. A new scientific study shows that if climate change wreaks havoc on the Earth’s groundwater, it would present an environmental “time bomb” with global consequences. And we might not know until it’s too late. Over 2 billion people around the globe use groundwater as their primary source of water....
Media Platforms Design TeamNASA is getting closer to taking 3D printing to the final frontier. Along with manufacturer Made in Space, the space agency has been developing a zero-gravity printing model for the International Space Station. The finished product could produce its first part as early as next year. The 3D Print Experiment performed well during microgravity flight tests this summer, but one last battery of tests remains. The printer must go through vibration, environmental, and vacuum trials to make sure it can withstand fluctuating pressure levels....
IllustrisTNG has run its most complex simulation of the universe to date, with tens of thousands of galaxies.Simulating the universe gets more sophisticated as computing power increases, and scientists can glean tons of insights from more detailed data.Illustris hands its data over to scientists and the public for use in research and interactive tools.Live Science reports that a team called IllustrisTNG has unveiled the most detailed simulation of our universe ever to exist....
Media Platforms Design Team(Illustration by Gil Ahn)Know a good way to remove a mirror glued to a wall? Neither did I, so I asked Mark Stypczynski, manager of technical development for Liquid Nails construction adhesives. “Use windshield removal wire,” he said. “Start at one corner and then work it down the length of the mirror, between the adhesive and the wall. We do it all the time in the lab.” Just be prepared for some drywall repair when you’re done, and if you want to save the mirror, you have to be careful not to damage the silver on the mirror’s back....
Scientists have confirmed a long-theorized idea about cells with multiple cilia.Cilia are found throughout our bodies, but only a small number of kinds of cells have more than one cilium apiece.Researchers found that, contrary to previous theories, cells don’t need deuterosomes or centrioles in order to make many cilia.Specialized cells in our bodies have custom genetic Xerox machines to make a ton of fibrous cilia, scientists at John Hopkins University School of Medicine have found....
On a 10,500-ft.-high mountaintop above the New Mexico desert, construction has begun on a $45 million array of telescopes that will reveal enlightening details of stars and black holes. The Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI), named for its mountaintop perch, will capture distant light in as many as 10 movable 1.4-meter (about 4 1/2-ft.) telescopes. When these light beams are combined, they will create images that will be hundreds of times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope, according to Chethan Parameswariah, the lead electronics engineer on the project....
