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In This Article:Why concrete cracksHow to prevent cracksHow to fix cracks once you get themWhy Concrete CracksConcrete cracks. The reasons for that are the stuff of engineering seminars, Ph.D. dissertations, and contractors’ worst nightmares. Here’s a short list:Differential Settlement: Concrete needs to be placed over soil that is firm and undisturbed, or over some form of base, such as crushed stone, that is firmly and evenly compacted. If the base settles uniformly, the concrete is liable to sink as a slab....

DNA offers the best information storage device scientists have ever discovered. But accessing it is incredibly complex. That’s why scientists set out to create an amazing result with a somewhat simplified method of DNA storage.The researchers were able to show that theoretically, the entirety of YouTube could fit on a teaspoon.If ever there were sprawling website, it would be YouTube. The video-sharing site that was launched in 2005 has become one of the dominant forces of the Internet, both for good and for, well, less than good....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis morning the Federal Aviation Administration loosened its regulations on gadgets aboard planes, paving the way for airlines to allow their passengers more leeway in using electronic devices. But that doesn’t mean you’re now free to use all your gadgets gate to gate.In a nutshell, the FAA’s ruling means you won’t necessarily have to turn off all your devices for takeoff and landing (presuming you actually listen to the flight attendant’s admonition to do this, and some of you don’t)....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn an old aircraft hangar in Suffield, Ohio , a crew of eight to 10 mechanics and manufacturers is working to assemble Goodyear’s next generation of airships. Its carbon fiber and aluminum skeleton pokes out from under its gray envelope, which is completely deflated and awaiting many months of construction and testing. But by this time next year, an American icon will become noticeably more German. The result of a joint operation between Goodyear and ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, three new zeppelins, called Goodyear Blimp NTs (“new technology”), will slowly replace the company’s current model blimp, the GZ20-A....

As far as old media formats go, few get the bad rap that VHS does. Sure the format has been memorialized countless times over in fan Instagrams and tribute Tumblrs, but for nostalgia, not quality. No one is preserving old cassettes for posterity like old film strips, or claiming that they’re actually better than digital, like vinyl records. VCRs only stopped production earlier this year, but the cassette tape itself has been trapped in the low-res past for decades....

The time it takes hackers to download records depends on how large the files are. A photo contains a heck of a lot of data; a text file listing your name, address, social security number, etc., would be far smaller—especially given that the data could be compressed. “If the name ‘Sam’ appears a million times, I don’t need to store it every time,” explains Vyas Sekar, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University....

The exact age of the universe has long been up for debate. A new entrant into that debate claims the universe is significantly younger than previous estimates. Scientists used what’s known as “gravitational lensing” to track the movement of stars through their gravitational field’s distortion, causing them to bend light. The scientists caution that they only had access to two gravitational lenses. There’s a large margin for error here. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany now believe that the universe is actually 2 billion years younger than we previously thought....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis belt, obviously past its prime, ran for 115,000 miles, and it was still within the tension limits specified. It’s toast, regardless.There’s a squeal emanating from underneath your hood—and it doesn’t sound good. The noise started a few months ago, on a gray and rainy morning, but it went away before you even pulled out of the driveway. Problem solved, right? Sorry pal. Unfortunately, the noise was back the very next morning, and this time it lasted all the way to the corner of your block....

Media Platforms Design TeamHere’s an obvious but fundamental difference between people who learned to drive stick and those who’ve driven only ordinary automatics (a growing number, as traditional manuals disappear): Stick drivers are used to shifting while in motion. In an automatic, you shift only when stopped. Perhaps because of that, many drivers greet the idea of shifting while in motion with terror, fearing that they’ll somehow blow up the engine or cause some awful mechanical shriek by sticking the car in neutral....

Media Platforms Design Team With the w700ds, Lenovo had a clear goal: To build a mobile workstation that would give photographers as much performance and power as any desktop station. To do that, the company gave the w700ds gave it a wide color gamut screen, a built-in color calibrator and a Wacom capacitive digitizer for touching up photos. Of course, the laptop’s much-anticipated feature is its slide-out screen (hence the “ds” in the computer’s name), which abeds the primary 17-inch monitor with a secondary 10....

Net neutrality was successfully repealed last week despite impassioned arguments in favor of the crucial regulation. And while reinstating regulation will get tougher with each passing day, there is hope at a quick fix. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling for a Senate vote that could reverse the FCC’s decision with a simple majority. But while the possibility is tantalizing, it could still be an uphill climb. Battle for the NetThe Twilight of the Internet’s Golden AgeWatch This Powerful Defense of Net Neutrality According to The Hill, Schumer intends to force a vote this week using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which gives the House and Senate the ability to veto a regulatory body’s decision within 60 days on a simple majority vote....

Airplanes are amazing machines that revolutionized how the world gets around. They’re also loud. Much time and investment has gone into fine-tuning planes so that humans can live in harmony with their wondrous flying contraptions, and now one company has a clever new idea to make takeoff and landing even quieter.ATA Engineering was commissioned by NASA to design a drag-management device that would allow aircraft to make quiet approaches and landings to airports with sensitive noise requirements....

Chances are that you connect to Wi-Fi every day, but you might not realize that “Wi-Fi” is in fact a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, a non-profit that promotes the use of wireless technology and sets voluntary safety standards for all wireless devices. At CES this week, the non-profit announced a safer successor to the Wi-Fi currently in place and they’re expected to roll it out by the end of the year....

The Air Force has chosen three aircraft designs to participate in a series of demonstration flights this summer, and one of them could be selected for a new light attack aircraft to serve as a partial replacement for the A-10 Warthog. The Air Force hopes the OA-X program will lead to smaller, lighter airplanes capable of providing air support in low-threat conflicts.The three planes—the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverine, and Textron Scorpion—will fly this Summer at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico....

Motor: Bafang geared hub motor, 750 watts (US), 500 watts (Canada), 250 watts (Europe) / Drive: Single speed (1) or 7-speed (Plus) / Tires: Kenda all-terrain semi-fat, high capacity, 20-inch by 3.5 inch /Load capacity: 300 pounds total, 120 pounds on rear rack / Battery: 48 volts, 14 Ah / Range: 25-45 miles / Top speed: 20 mph (faster coasting downhill) / Base price: $1,199 for Radrunner 1, $1,699 for Radrunner PlusYes, the Rad Power Bikes RadRunner, a $1,199 e-bike, has pedals....

There are few pains worse than stepping on a Lego. Non-fatal ones, at least. It hurts. A lot. But why does it hurt so much?It’s a combination of biology and physics. The tissue on the bottom of your foot is filled with nerve endings – rightly so, given that we want to know if our feet our in danger, and pain receptors are the way to do that. So when it hurts there, it hurts a lot....

An international team of scientists have, over a period of four years, discovered 95 new exoplanets. The discoveries will allow scientists to better understand how solar systems are created, including our own.While the scientists have been analyzing data from 2014, the story of these 95 new planets discovered outside of the solar system begins in 2009, when NASA’s Kepler spacecraft was launched with the specific goal of finding exoplanets. It’s found over 100,000 stars and 2,300 planets in the process....

The chemistry of explosives is a delicate matter. A little less carbon, a little more nitrogen, and the right amount of oxygen can transform a relatively inert substance into quite the showstopper. For more than 100 years, TNT has been the premier combination of chemicals for blowing things up, and it’s even used as a metric to measure the yield of nuclear explosions and other monumental blasts. But new research out of Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Army Research Laboratory has discovered a new chemical, bis-oxadiazole (C6H4N6O8), that has many of the advantages of TNT, is thought to be less toxic to produce, and makes a bigger bang....

As long as we’ve been launching spy sats into space, we’ve been trying to find ways to hide them from the enemy. Now, thanks to the small sat revolution—and a growing amount of space junk—America has a new way to mask its spying in orbit.One of the emerging trends of the 21st century is the shrinking size of space satellites, and the hope of replacing large spacecraft with constellations of smaller ones flying in lower orbits....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat are my options for using my phone to send money to a friend?There’s been a boom in mobile payment apps recently, so you have a few options. The leaders in the game are Venmo, which launched in the U.S. in 2012; PayPal, a pioneer in the field, cofounded by Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk; and Square, the payment service started by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey. Square Cash takes the fewest steps to use and is free....