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Following its historic visit to Pluto, New Horizons has spent the past four years heading to a distant place only discovered in 2014: Ultima Thule. On New Year’s Day, it flew past that object and took a number of photos, and the first of those photos has just been revealed. Say hello to Ultima Thule, the farthest solar-system object ever visited by a spacecraft.This photo is a dramatic improvement on the images we’ve had in the days before the flyby, and it answers one of the biggest questions scientists have had about the asteroid: Is it one object or two?...

A typical toaster costs $15, and does a fine job of crisping your crusts. But for just $285 more dollars, you can watch your bread burn from behind a double-paned glass window. Unnecessary? Definitely. But boy is it fun watching the bread brown. Here’s the toaster of the future—and three other expensive, over-the-top, but still awesome kitchen gadgets.Magamix Vision ToasterMedia Platforms Design Team$300When images of a transparent toaster hit the Web a few years ago, they went viral, proving that there was a definite desire amongst consumers to see their bread brown before their eyes....

Media Platforms Design TeamNASA’s network of precipitation-tracking satellites is now so robust that it can track rain and snowfall in real time and create stunning visuals such as this new video.The clip below, made from images by 12 satellites of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, shows storms drifting around the globe between April and September of 2014. As the project scientist says in the video’s narration, the system of satellites can image the weather every half hour and at a resolution of about 10 km by 10 km, enough to get a detailed picture of what’s happening at the regional and the global level....

There are few sights in the solar system as awe-inspiring and breathtaking as Saturn and its system of rings. But nothing lasts forever, and Saturn’s rings are no exception. A new NASA study found that the iconic rings are disappearing even faster than we thought. In just a few short hundreds of millions of years, the majestic rings of Saturn will be gone.An animation of what Saturn’s rings will look like in a few million years....

BikepackingIt’s bike touring after the pavement ends. Explore forgotten logging roads and wooded single tracks, or even ride the Continental Divide (give yourself six weeks). Bikepacking centers your gear within, in front, and behind the bike to give you clearance around rocks, logs, and trees.Get started: Master tire repair, says Gabriel Amadeus, director of the 670-mile Oregon Timber bikepacking trail. “Tubeless tires will prevent minor flats, but be ready to use spare tubes and patches....

Media Platforms Design TeamTo make their fertilizing plans for the season, many home gardeners turn to store-bought soil-testing kits, which can help them determine whether to add chemicals such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash. While these tests are helpful for large-scale farmers, soil scientists say they’re often unnecessary for backyard gardeners. For example, nitrogen levels can fluctuate daily, requiring retesting throughout the growing season to gain information you can act on....

A German air defense frigate was damaged in a missile-firing incident off the Norwegian coast last week. A SM-2 missile somehow became trapped in its launcher, and the resulting rocket exhaust inflicted serious damage to the ship’s bow. Two German Navy sailors were injured in the incident.On June 21st the FGS Sachsen, the first of four Type 124 air defense frigates in German Navy service, was attempting to launch a Standard SM-2 air defense missile....

Some people spend years hunting animals that almost certainly don’t exist. These people set up camera traps for the Sasquatch, examine goat carcasses looking for signs of the chupacabra, or hunting for a yeti on the slopes of the Himalayas. But perhaps the holy grail of crypto hunters is the Loch Ness Monster, and while multiple explorations of Loch Ness have been conducted over the years, none of them have ever turned up a single conclusive trace of the monster....

Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun, recently burst forth with one of the most powerful flares ever seen for a star its size. The small red dwarf is generally invisible to the human eye, but this flare may have lit it up bright enough for some naked eye observers to see the event—at least under the right conditions, according to Allison Youngblood, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center....

It all started with a bowtie. Back in the 1950s, John Garver, a high school teacher in Northeast Ohio and an inveterate tinkerer, had been trying to figure out how to make a perpetual motion Christmas ornament powered by the thermal air current generated by incandescent lights on the tree.Harnessing the heat of the incandescent bulb wasn’t a new idea, but Garver was close to something that would soon appear on thousands, if not millions of Christmas trees around the United States....

Clouds play a significant role in the heating and cooling of the planet. They warm the Earth’s surface by absorbing the sun’s infrared radiation, and they cool it by reflecting sunlight back into space. Clouds are at the core of the water cycle, forming when warm air rises and cools, condensing around dust grains and other particles in the atmosphere, then releasing their heavy loads in the form of precipitation. Clouds cover two-thirds of the planet’s surface at any given time, and their behavior helps create the conditions that make life as we know it possible....

The upcoming Boeing 777x is set to be the largest twin-engine jet in the world, with a 108-foot-wide wing that will make it more efficient and cheaper to operate than its predecessors. To make this increased size work however, Boeing needed to rely on novel folding wingtips to make sure the 777x could actually fit into airports. Now, according to Bloomberg, the FAA has given its OK on the design, with a few regulatory caveats....

Boston Dynamics Atlas robot can now add Parkour to its already impressive slate of jarring tricks.The company released a video on Thursday showing the humanoid traversing an obstacle course, leaping over a thick log and then jumping onto three separate wooden platforms. It’s an indication that Atlas can now chase you up some stairs in addition to performing gymnast-level backflips. View full post on YoutubeAtlas has come a long way since the company first debuted its ability to march through the woods like the humanoid answer to Big Foot....

China is building a 1.2 mile (2 km) stretch of solar highway, meaning solar panels on the road will be powering the towns surrounding it. Engineers hope that soon it will wirelessly power electric cars driving on the road as well.The Jinan South Ring Expressway starts off in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan, home to nearly 7 million people. Known as a tech and transportation hub, it is home to Sinotruck, the county’s state-owned heavy-duty truck manufacturer....

Media Platforms Design TeamNASA’s Curiosity rover has found its first meteorite on Mars. Named Lebanon, the chunk of iron is about two yards wide and similar to meteorites found by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. Iron meteorites seem to be more common on Mars than Earth, NASA says, because iron is particularly well suited to surviving the red planet’s erosion processes.Curiosity captured images of the meteorite with its Remote Micro-Imager, part of its Chemistry and Camera system....

With the exception of some vintage station wagons, once you get beyond homemade go-carts and the Pinewood Derby, wood ceases to be a popular material for automobile construction. Toyota, however, seems to be questioning that situation with its Setsuna EV concept, a boatlike machine that’s made largely of dead trees.Wood is used for the exterior panels (cedar), the frame (birch), as well as the floor and seats. The two-seat electric roadster was created for Milan Design Week, which takes place next month....

Banksy, the enigmatic street artist and provocateur, intentionally sabotaged one of his famous paintings at a Sotheby’s auction last week, using a paper shredder hidden in the frame to chew the canvas into bits.The stunt was only a half-success: The frame-mounted shredder hit a literal snag when the painting, Girl With Ballon, got stuck in the hidden shredder. Only half of the painting, which was sold for the absurd final price of $1....

Engine: 449-cc single cylinder with liquid cooling, fuel injection and titanium valves / Transmission: wide-ratio six-speed manual / Top Speed: 91 mph / Weight: 289 pounds / Brakes: 10.2 inch front, 9.4 inch rear /Suspension: Showa inverted telescopic fork with adjustable rebound and compression (front), Showa Pro-Link mono shock, adjustable for preload, rebound and compression (rear) / Price: $10,399The first time I went to a World Rally Championship event in Spain, I saw some things I expected: turbocharged AWD hatchbacks blitzing back roads at 120 mph, banged-up cars limping into the pits at the end of stages, rabid fans watching the race from wherever they could find a spot, including up in trees....

There is potentially millions of gallons of water ice on the moon. NASA wants to explore it. It’s going to send a rover called VIPER to explore the ice with a drill 3.2 feet long. The ultimate goal of the exploration is extracting the ice, with the hope that it could be used as rocket fuel. There’s water ice on the South Pole of the moon, and NASA wants to see it up-close....

So you’re interested in lyophilisating some goji berries? In the mood to cryodessicate rutabaga? So maybe you’re going camping. Maybe you’re a prepper. Maybe you like buying in bulk. Whatever the reason, you’ve got a few options. For foods with high water content, freeze-drying—the process of removing water content at low temperatures—may be your best option. It’s extremely low maintenance, and it preserves nutrients. The only real downside is the amount of time it takes, depending on the technique you use....