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It’s happened to the best of us: there’s a home project you’ve been dying to complete, you’ve finally found the time for it, and you head off to your local hardware store and buy far too much paint. “One bucket can’t be enough for one room, right?“You love DIY projects. So do we. Let’s make cool $#*% together. Needless to say, you probably don’t need that extra half-bucket of cerulean blue paint you used in your backyard pool area for … pretty much anything else....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamA resistance-type battery tester can tell if your car battery is up to snuff.Q: My minivan has failed to start a couple of times recently, because of a low battery. It turns over, but won’t spin fast enough to catch. My mechanic says he tested the battery and it’s bad. But it’s only a year old. I checked the voltage at idle, and it’s 13....

In 2012, astronomers announced a tantalyzing find: the closest exoplanet to our solar system, an Earth-sized world orbiting Alpha Centauri B in a close orbit. As the closest star to the sun, That put a planet in our cosmic backyard just 4.3 light years away, around the closest star system to our own. Except … there is no Alpha Centauri Bb. The news has been a few years coming, as detailed in this Planetary Society blog post by Bruce Betts....

Media Platforms Design TeamEver since man went to the moon—and still today as America plans to go back—there have been those who said we never actually made it there in the first place. Instead, they say, the whole moon landing was a massive conspiracy perpetrated by NASA using elaborate sets and special effects. And they support their claims with what they believe to be irregularities in photography and film taken on the moon....

ChitoGauzeMedia Platforms Design Team(Photograph courtesy of HemCon Medical Technologies, Inc.)HemCon Medical Technologies manufactures bandages and wound dressings that harness the power of the sea. The company’s products use chitosan, a biopolymer made from a component in the exoskeletons of crab, shrimp and other crustacean exoskeletons. The positively charged chitosan attracts the negatively charged outer membranes of red blood cells; when the two come into contact, localized clotting occurs. HemCon’s chitosan-coated bandages are already in use in Iraq; its latest product is ChitoGauze....

Media Platforms Design TeamPrice: $999The Montague Paratrooper Pro bike is built like a tank, folds like a Swiss Army knife, and weighs less than body armor. Backed by a DARPA grant, David Montague designed the original Paratrooper bike in 1997 to be used by the U.S. Marines. The result was a cycle that a paratrooper could unfold as soon as he hit the ground. The Paratrooper line hasn’t been changed much for civilian use, but the expanded line now includes the Paratrooper Pro, a bike that’s great for the daily commute but truly excels at extreme-terrain trail riding....

Two Polish explorers claimed to find it, the Polish government rushed to confirm it, and the Polish military claims to have radar imaged it. But it seems that all three groups were duped: there may be no Nazi gold train after all. Sure to top many year end lists as the “biggest vaporware” of the year now, many outlets are reporting that searches in the supposed resting place of the Nazi loot have come up completely empty....

Serpentine robots can now scale sandy slopes, an advance that could allow slithering droids to go where no bot has gone before.The potential use for these robots “that is nearest and dearest to my heart is urban search and rescue — I want to enable rescue workers to identify survivors in collapsed structures as quickly and safely as possible,” Choset says. “We’re also interested in getting these robots into pipes, such as in nuclear power plants and in sewers....

Media Platforms Design TeamDENVER —Nowhere is it more apparent that sustainable building products are hitting the mainstream than in the conference’s exhibit hall, which is packed full of more than 700 vendors. Strolling through the aisles, I encountered everything from low-flow toilets and soy-based insulation to forestry-certified wood flooring, pervious concrete and, my personal favorite, the .GreenBuildBig Ass FanSome of the companies take the definition of sustainability to a higher level, designing not only for the intelligent manufacture of products but for how materials will find new life at the end of the products’ lifespan....

Media Platforms Design TeamBefore we get started on the TSA’s new body-scanning machines, I want to talk a little bit about the design of airport security in general, because it can be a stressful area for travelers.Temple Grandin: One of the problems is that when airports were originally built, they were not designed for security. The newer airports are laid out a whole lot better. I fly all the time, and what frustrates me is you get in there and it’s the morning rush7 o’clock in the morning on a Mondayand they don’t have enough agents on staff and there’s empty machines that aren’t manned, and they’ve got a giant line there....

Most people take an Uber to cross their neighborhood, or maybe their city. And then there are the brave, free-spending few who ask the ride-sharing service to carry them across states.A few days ago, the New York Post published the tale of Janis Rogers. This 64-year-old Uber driver picked up a rider in Williamsburg, VA, who wanted to go to her boyfriend’s place in the Brooklyn, NY neighborhood of Bed-Stuy. That’s a trip of nearly 400 miles and eight hours that amounted to a fare of $294....

UPDATE, 5:12 p.m.: Here’s the statement from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk:“SpaceX is deeply honored by the trust NASA has placed in us. We welcome today’s decision and the mission it advances with gratitude and seriousness of purpose. It is a vital step in a journey that will ultimately take us to the stars and make humanity a multi-planet species.“UPDATE, 4:15 p.m.: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden confirmed that the NASA contracts for commercial crew will go to Boeing and SpaceX, which will deliver astronauts to orbit by 2017....

For decades inventors have been trying to make guns that can be fired only by their owners, without sacrificing reliability. Stuffy industry types call them personalized weapons, but everyone else just calls them smart guns. Most smart-gun prototypes so far have depended on biometrics (voice, palm, or fingerprint scans) to verify the owner, but none have made it to production. With the possibility of sweat or blood blocking a sensor, dependability remains a concern....

A lone diver can disable a warship from below the waterline using an explosive charge. The last time a frogman struck an American ship was in 1964, when a single Vietnamese diver sank the USS Card. The threat resurfaced almost 40 years later when the military disclosed the schemes of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The mastermind of Al Qaeda’s deadly suicide boat attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, Nashiri apparently also trained recruits to plant explosives under docked ships in the Persian Gulf, although all his known attacks used suicide boats....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis week the CIA said that its agents with an undetectable underwear bomb. Although the plot failed, it may mean that an infamous bomb-maker is up to his old tricks—and remains a threat, and a top target for U.S. terrorist hunters. This attempted attack is also a reminder that Yemen is on the front lines of the cat-and-mouse struggle the U.S. once called the war on terror. foiled a plot to bomb airlinesThe Bomb-makerThe probable bomb builder is Ibrahim al-Asiri, and he’s a fanatic....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design Team The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) announced on Wednesday night the winner of its annual award for Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement. This is arguably the most prestigious of the various awards presented by the ASCE—past recipients have included highly visible projects like New York’s JFK Airport and the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, as well as lesser-known efforts, such as an addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum....

A Chinese submarine stalked the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan for “at least half a day” on October 24, according to a US official quoted by CNN. The incident occurred off the coast of Japan, where the Reagan is based. The official did not state how close the submarine got to the Reagan. In 2006, a Chinese Song-class submarine surfaced within five miles of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, apparently without being detected....

UPDATE: Russia has abandoned plans to rescue the craft. It will instead re-enter the atmosphere in a few week’s time.View full post on TwitterA Russian resupply mission en route to the International Space Station is now in an uncontrolled spin, with Roscosmos scrambling to get it back under control in time to save the payload. The Progress 59 failed to deploy navigational antennas shortly after separation, with the craft experiencing errors in propulsion as well....

Media Platforms Design TeamA car with a solid power-to-weight ratio can be hard to find these days­—all those extra safety features and options add pounds. But if you’re willing to forgo the supped-up luxury autos, PM offers a historical solution: so-called “midget” race cars, the speedy precursors to modern go-karts.“With their motors winding up in high-pitched snarls, half a dozen of the little racing machines give spectators a combination of thrills and excitement,” PM wrote in the June 1950 issue....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Alessandro Rizzi/Getty Images)Quantum computing, hailed as the internet of the future, has a problem. While it has the potential to blow away the speed of today’s web, researchers are still trying to figure out how quantum computing could reliably move mass quantities of data across vast distances.But some researchers in Tokyo have figured out a way that old technology could bridge this gap in emerging technology....