In a new video from the U.S. Air Force, you can see the monstrous C-5M Super Galaxy slowly swallow an entire Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite as if it were a snake eating a big ol’ rodent. The huge cargo plane then ferries its delicate cargo across country for liftoff from a Florida spaceport.View full post on YoutubeThe loading took place on July 26, 2018, at Moffett Federal Airfield in Sunnyvale, California....
Of all the places in the solar system aside from Earth and our moon, humans have a more complete understanding of Mars than any other world. NASA’s robotic rovers have been combing the calm sands of our red neighbor for more than two decades to uncover the secret history of the planet, and two and a half short years from now, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will launch its fifth rover to Mars....
NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase II winning proposals—NASA’s most far-out, pie-in-the-sky, preliminary dream plans—are out, and they detail ways we could explore the really the most distant and forbidding areas of our solar system. We’re talking long term exploration of Venus’ surface, going deep inside lunar caves, traveling to the edge of the solar system, and yes, getting humans to Mars. All of these are currently on-paper proposals, a few with small scale prototypes made....
Grasshoppers are flocking to the Vegas Strip in droves, thanks to the above average rainfall the area has seen this year.The insects don’t present any health hazards or danger, other than being a nuisance.Thankfully, experts say this is not the beginning of the apocalypse.The grasshopper population has blown up across Nevada in recent days, particularly on Las Vegas’ strip, due in part to the higher-than-average amount of rain the area has received so far....
Scientist Alan Turing will be the new face on the £50 note, England’s highest value note.The note is set to enter circulation toward the end of 2021.Alan Turing, WWII codebreaker and overall multi-hyphenate genius, will be the new face on England’s £50 note, which is set to enter circulation at the end of 2021.“Turing was an outstanding mathematician who has had an enormous impact on how we live today,” said Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, as reported by the BBC....
Back in the 1950s, George Jetson’s flying car was the transportation tech promised to be right around the corner. Now, it’s self-driving vehicles. Google has cars piloting themselves around California, and have been doing so for years. General Motors and its Cruise Automation subsidiary are preparing to launch a self-driving taxi service sometime this year. But promises of reading a book or napping while your car ferries you off to work remain unfulfilled....
America has over 600,000 bridges. Steel girder bridges, among the most common, could face serious infrastructure problems thanks to man-made climate change. Rising temperatures would mean increased stress on joints holding up bridges, which would put increased pressure on joints keeping the bridges in place. That makes a collapse more likely.America’s infrastructure as a whole needs serious work.Rising temperatures due to man-made climate change could present a major challenge to American infrastructure....
HBO’s Chernobyl is over, but if you’ve seen the series, you’ll remember it for a long time.Coming on the heels of the mega-hyped Game of Thrones series finale, the five-part miniseries—created and written by Craig Mazin, and directed by Johan Renck—quickly overtook the fantasy story with its astonishing performances and commitment to its immersion in a world that Americans never really understood.The focus in the discussion around Chernobyl lies where the miniseries has gone: nuclear reactors meant for peaceful energy....
Diving deep off of the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, scientists have discovered ancient giant wolves and bears that they didn’t previously know lived in North America.Searching through the submerged cave site of Hoyo Negro, the scientists found a diverse range of ancient megafauna, as well as a nearly complete human skeleton. The animals include short-faced bears known as Arctotherium wingei and the wolf-like Protocyon troglodytes. Despite its name, there was nothing short about A....
Media Platforms Design TeamJust because alt-fuel cars are good for the environment doesn’t mean they have to be pokey. No, driving green can still mean burning rubber, and two new, hydrogen-powered land speeders have been built to break records at next month’s Bonneville Speed Week.Ford’s Fusion Hydrogen 999 (pictured above) was built in Michigan by Roush, but it’s a group of wired-up Ohio State University students who provide the juice. After their electric Buckeye Bullet hit 315 mph for an unlimited speed category record at the Salt Flats in 2004, the students are back with more experience and more power—ready to tackle not one but two land speed records....
The U.S. Air Force this week made it official: They are officially in the market for a new bomber. In wonk speak, the service sent a formal Request for Proposals to defense contractors who will vie for the (at least) $55 billion program.Like any massive, classified national security effort, few things about the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) are exactly what they appear to be. So here’s a cheat sheet.1. Our Bomber Fleet is Old—Very OldThe average B-52 Stratofortress is 50 years old, and the B-1 Lancer fleet has a mean age of 28....
All nuclear plants in the U.S. have run on analog technology—until now. The Purdue University Reactor Number One (PUR-1) has officially transitioned from analog to digital.PUR-1 is tiny, with only enough power to run a toaster. That makes it a perfect test subject for running a plant digitally.The potential for the project includes greater communication for plants, and the ability to incorporate A.I into peaceful nuclear power. While nuclear reactors may still feel futuristic, they’re far from the cutting edge....
Media Platforms Design Team(A blast furnace at a German steel mill. Photo Credit: Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images)A steel mill in Germany was hacked by spear phishing attack, with this digital attack causing large-scale damage to the industrial plant.By spoofing inter-company emails, the hackers gained access to the system and then overrode the controls of a blast furnace. By blocking access and preventing workers from regaining the controls, the hackers were able to cause widespread damage....
The best tasting pizza is cooked in a wood-burning pizza oven built out of brick. It’s been that way for years, but we continue to cook our pizza in standard ovens and settle for soggy or burnt pizza. If you take your pizza seriously, consider building your own brick pizza oven, it’s easier than you think.Mike Senese, editor of Make Magazine, is a pizza connoisseur and has been building pizza ovens for years....
Media Platforms Design TeamComposting has long been recognized as a crucial building block for healthy soil and a successful garden. But gardeners who spend months making should reconsider simply dumping it into the garden, especially at the beginning or in the middle of growing season. Brew some vitamin- and micoorganism-rich compost tea instead.their own natural compostCompost tea is an excellent fertilizer that helps increase the ecological diversity and vigor of soil....
Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph by Chris Eckert/Studio D)Q:A couple of years ago we moved into a house with high ceilings, including light fixtures and decorative beams that are all but impossible to reach. It never occurred to us how difficult it is to deal with dusting, light-bulb changing and painting with all this tall architecture. What’s the best way to handle this?A:Believe me, you’re not alone. These atriums and “great rooms” are designed to wow homebuyers, but homeowners are often less thrilled when they realize that routine maintenance and painting in these areas can require scaffolding....
It’s ice storm season. That means that your car can become frozen and covered in inches of ice within only a few hours. Here are the dos and don’ts of making your car ready to drive after the storm:*Do Brush off any show covering the ice with a show brush, or even a broom.*Don’t brush off snow with a snow shovel, It’s too easy to scratch the paint or chip a window....
A couple of months after I earned my sport pilot certification, we posted an e-mail from John McAfee—the man behind McAfee antivirus software—introducing us to a new, relatively unknown subset of recreational flying: Aerotrekking. Needless to say, I wanted to know a lot more.It turns out that McAfee’s own aerotrekking club, the Sky Gypsies, is one of only two groups in the country that organizes expeditions of ultralight airplanes. These so-called “kite wings”—or “trikes,” depending on who you ask—are basically go-karts bolted to hang gliders, with giant engines on the back driving pusher props....
Media Platforms Design TeamAmerican Supercamp is the brainchild of ex-GP racer Danny Walker and seven-time AMA Grand National Champion Chris Carr. It’s a two-day course in which riders learn the basics of riding flat track—first in the classroom and then on a dirt course. Classroom instruction focuses on body positioning and cornering lines, because good technique is the key to making motorcycles slide predictably. Why the emphasis on sliding? To get through each corner, motorcycle racers must slow down, turn, and accelerate....
Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)Soon your phone may recharge wireless while it sits on your desk, and without any wires or charging pads cluttering your space. Microsoft is working on what it calls the AutoCharge, a system that will use light to power up your device.Autocharge—developed by Microsoft researchers Yunxin Liu, Zhen Qin, and Chunshui Zhao in Beijing—uses a ceiling-mounted charger that automatically recognizes a smartphone in the room a fires a beam of light to charge it (the phone would need some kind of photovoltaic panel)....
