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The U.S. intelligence community’s new worldwide assessment of threats to the United States and its allies issued a stark warning about space warfare: Russia and China will be able to shoot down our satellites within two to three years. Related StoriesDoomsday Satellites and the Space Wars To ComeThe Air Force Is Flying at Red Flag Without GPSThe capability would seriously jeopardize the U.S. fleet, including Global Positioning System satellites, military and civilian communications satellites, and spy satellites....

One of the biggest penguin colonies in the world was hiding in poop sight. Thanks to a whole lot of guano showing up in pictures from space, researchers have discovered an unknown group of 1.5 million Adélie penguins. Their study about it appears in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) wanted to get a better handle on the population of Antarctic Adélie penguins, which were believed to have been in decline over the past 40 years....

As the U.S. moves away from fossil fuels with renewable energy like wind and solar taking its place, one cleaner alternative has been largely ignored: nuclear power. Over the last 20 years, only one new nuclear plant has finished construction in the United States.There are many different reasons for this, but one of the biggest by far is that nuclear reactors are extremely expensive and complicated to build. The single power plant constructed in 2016, Watts Bar 2, began construction in 1973 and ultimately cost $4....

Media Platforms Design TeamCars 2, out June 24, features 150 new Cars characters from around the world, with 1050 variants for background scenes. And to scout out car designs for inspiration, art director and car buff Jay Shuster says, there’s nothing quite like an epic road trip. “We took a 12-day, 15-city tour of Europe as a research trip. We took motorcycle rides through Paris and London, Stuttgart, Switzerland, Turin, Portifino—and we saw Fiat and Giorgio....

Price: $100 on contract with AT&T, TBA for Verizon and Sprint, $500 unlocked for AT&T and T-MobileRelease Date: Pre-orders available now for AT&T and unlocked models, ship date TBAFrom the moment you power on the Moto X, you’re reminded of Motorola’s immediate past and murky future. Right there, behind the home screen, is a wallpaper that’s blaring the Google colors—all red, blue, green, and yellow.Intentional or not, it’s a reminder that Google’s influence permeates the second-generation Moto X....

The U.S. Army is working on a new generation of land mines and mine-like battlefield munitions. The weapons, all of which are designed to be left unattended on the battlefield, have to fulfill the sometimes competing interests of being useful against high-tech enemies while at the same time not becoming a long-term hazard to civilians. The U.S. Army utilizes a wide variety of battlefield munitions. As Army Times writes, the service’s inventory runs from the Vietnam War-era Claymore mine to the new Gator anti-tank/anti-personnel mines....

The K-2 submarine, designed as the Soviet Union’s next generation heavy submarine, would have combined many of these technologies into a weapon worthy of a James Bond villain. From V-2 rockets to tank-carrying midget submarines, the super sub could have done it all. Although the K-2 class was never built, it remains a window into the triumphant visions of the Soviet Union and Stalin itself in the aftermath of the most destructive war in history....

Scientists discovered that a mummy labelled as “mummified hawk with linen and cartonnage” is actually a stillborn human baby with a rare medical condition, carefully wrapped and buried in a tiny coffin. Researchers from Western University made the discovery when they started to CT-scan a female mummy from the Maidstone Museum in 2016. The museum decided to scan its animal mummy collection at the same time, unveiling the surprising discovery that a tiny mummy labelled as a bird was actually a human baby....

Recent photos from a shipyard in China sum up the news about Beijing’s navy: it’s growing, and fast. The sight of five brand-new guided missile destroyers shows China’s determination to field a fully modern navy to rival—or perhaps someday best—the U.S. Navy.Foreground: 2 Type 052D destroyers. Perpendicular to them, in the water, is a third Type 052D. Farther away with the pyramid masts are two Type 055 destroyers. Longshi via China Defense BlogThe photos, posted online by China Defense Blog, were taken at the Dalian Shipyard in northern China....

“They either got it early one morning or at night,” says George Bowie, a farmer and hardware store owner in Colonial Beach, Va. “It was only a little ways from my house.” Bowie stepped outside one morning last summer to find that someone had made off with $15,000 worth of aluminum irrigation pipes that fed 1000 acres of vegetables, soybeans, corn and wheat on his spread along the Potomac River. Bowie’s pretty sure he found it later–cut into 4-ft....

A tense new video shows what it’s like in the control room of a seven thousand ton nuclear-powered attack submarine as it breaks through a layer of polar ice. The USS Hartford surfaced in the Beaufort Sea, north of the Canadian mainland, to participate in the U.S. Military’s ICEX 2018 exercise.View full post on YoutubeU.S. nuclear submarines have been transiting through polar waters for sixty years, ever since the first nuclear-powered sub, USS Nautilus, passed under the North Pole in August 1958....

The New England Aquarium and Massachusetts-based engineering firm Draper are developing an algorithm to better monitor whales.The duo aims to use satellite imagery as well as sonar and radar data to track the whereabouts of vulnerable whale species.Whales are a critical part of the ocean food chain and can actually help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Scientists from the New England Aquarium and the Massachusetts-based engineering firm Draper are teaming up to save the whales....

There’s no better day of driving than the first day you bring home your shiny new truck. There is no worse moment than realizing your prize is a few inches shy of fitting in your garage. If you’ve come across this nightmare scenario—which is probably more common now that full-size trucks have grown to comical proportions—fear not. You’ve got a few options before settling on curbside parking.Measure FirstObviously, you should measure the length of your garage before you go car shopping, and be sure to take into account the hinges on your garage door....

The small step for man, the giant leap for mankind, Eagle One, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong—Apollo 11 gets all the glory. Too often forgotten are the missions that came just before the boots on the ground, the ambitious dress rehearsals that were death-defying, hold-you-breath moments in their own right. Especially Apollo 8, the “everything but a landing” mission to the moon.On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 launch, it’s important to remember what this mission gave us....

An environmental group accused three major television manufacturers Wednesday of misleading consumers and regulators about how much energy their high-definition screens devour by designing them to draw less power during government testing than in ordinary use.The Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that the TVs made by Samsung, LG Electronics and Vizio saddle households with an extra $120 million in electricity bills each year and generate tons of additional pollution.The added expense works out to about $10 to $20 per household annually over the anticipated decade-long life of the typical widescreen TV....

Media Platforms Design Team1. NAGGING NUISANCE WARNINGSThe friction of air seeping into the guts of an aircraft leads to overheating. But the F-35B’s sensors are triggering faulty cockpit alarms at temperatures more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit lower than intended. New detectors are being installed. 2. WEIGHED-DOWN WEAPONS DOORSThe doors of the internal weapons bay on the F-35B* are bearing too much of the 5200-pound munition load, leading to testing delays. The warplane can fly with weapons mounted on its wings, but exposed missiles and bombs compromise the airplane’s stealth profile....

Main battle tanks and other armored vehicles of the future could run on electricity or utilize a hybrid drive system. Switching to such a system could not only reduce the demand for liquid fuel on the battlefield, but also avoid risking the lives of truck-driving soldiers delivering fuel to the front lines.Traditional armored vehicles, including tanks, use engines running on diesel or gasoline. The need to drive a 60-ton vehicle cross-country, as well as provide power to fire control, sensors, and environmental systems, requires powerful engines....

Climate change: it’s disrupting our planet, and it’s going to disrupt your future travel plans, especially if you’re planning to fly. Weather disruptions will mean more delays and cancellations, strengthening jet streams at high altitudes means more turbulence, and traveling against the jet stream (like flying from Europe to the U.S.) means your flights will take longer. Heat waves and rising temperatures cause the air to thin , which makes it harder for planes to generate enough lift during takeoff....

The question of how define creativity is one both scientists and artists with have struggled since people started being creative. There’s that myth of the solitary, lone artist, haunted by their ideas and genius, but science is working to undo it. A new study out of Georgetown goes towards proving the idea that creativity is state of mind that a person can reach through the relatively straightforward process of sending electrical shocks straight to the brain....

Perhaps outer space’s most defining characteristic is the lack of air. The vacuum of space, largely devoid of molecules, makes the European Space Agency’s new efforts to build an air-breathing thruster a significant challenge. The space agency recently hit a milestone developing a the new propulsion technology, however, building and testing a thruster in space-like conditions on the ground. The ESA has been studying air-breathing electric thrusters (ABET) for over a decade....