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Media Platforms Design TeamThe demand for affordable personal 3D printers has skyrocketed in recent years, with new models and designs popping up all the time. Budget-conscious enthusiasts, designers, engineers, and small-business owners can still choose from plenty of inexpensive and kit options, but the higher-performance, better-equipped designs seem to have gained the most traction. Two of the best and most talked about 3D printers, the MakerBot Replicator 2 and Formlabs Form 1, were on the scene at the earlier this fall, giving us a good opportunity to compare both printers’ features and sample prints....

When the U.S. Air Force was born out of the Army Air Corps just after World War II, the country was experiencing tremendous advances in science, medicine, and military technology. In honor of its 70th anniversary, Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson shares five noteworthy technologies, developed to enable and protect servicemen and -women, that now improve the lives of civilians. 1. The satellite constellation behind the Global Positioning System, which the Air Force manages, enables everything from synchronized bank transactions to smartphones....

British firm Graphene Lighting built a lightbulb that it says will cut energy use by 10 percent compared to ordinary LED bulbs, while outlasting them and costing less. It’s supposedly doing it with graphene, the wonder material of the near-future that maybe, finally is coming into its own. Says the BBC:The dimmable bulb contains a filament-shaped LED coated in graphene. It was designed at Manchester University, where the material was discovered....

Media Platforms Design TeamA fatal crash of a CV-22 Osprey in Afghanistan last week revived fears that the tilt-rotor aircraft is fundamentally unsafe. Three military personnel and a civilian died in the incident, the first operational losses with the aircraft. The initial indications are that the crash was not due to a mechanical problem, but there may still be cause for concern. A source quoted by Flight International says that crash investigators currently believe that the pilot became disoriented during a “brownout,” a dust cloud raised by the aircraft’s rotors, which reduces visibility to zero....

Media Platforms Design TeamYou’re about 60 miles away from the impact site when you happen to glance up. You see a blindingly bright fireball streaking through the sky. Then, what looks like a beautiful sunrise—except it gives you instant first-degree burns. You feel the ground shake, possibly hard enough to knock you off your feet. You’re pelted with chunks of earth and rock the size of walnuts—debris from the newly created 4-mile-wide crater....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn July 14, all eyes in Japan’s Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center turned to the seven-story wood condominium in the center of an enormous room. Deep rumblings and the sound of massive pistons pumping filled the room as the condo began to shake. It moved up and down, left and right, back and forth. Less than a minute later, the violent movement stopped and the surrounding engineers erupted in cheers....

There are several risks that come with shooting video on an unmanned aerial vehicle, none of which as epic as having your gear snatched mid-air by bald eagles. That’s exactly what happened when two eagles spotted this quadcopter filming some gorgeous scenery on their turf. Though to be fair, the seizure appeared to have been handled quite professionally, without any apparent damage to the drone. Details are scarce on whether or not the owner found the device and what condition it was in after the birds escorted it down to what appears to be a nest....

View full post on YoutubeLeave it to a team of chickens to show the rest of the entrants in the National Red Bull Flugtag Homemade Flying Competition how to fly.A team of Palo Alto, Calif., aeronautical engineers—calling themselves the Chicken Whisperers and dressed in bright yellow chicken suits—flew 258 feet in the celebrated competition for homemade craft using no stored energy, ropes, or pulleys. That broke the previous Flugtag (which means “flying day” in German) record of 229 feet set last year by a team in Germany....

Media Platforms Design TeamFrom the other side of a wide glass window on the third story of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world’s largest laser array looks an awful lot like the world’s largest plumbing project. Row after row of 16-inch-diameter pipes are packed into a room like cigarettes in a box—only the box is the size of three football fields. A catwalk thick with miles of cable runs through the center....

When we interviewed the creators of Lost, they hinted at big things to come—and in last night’s Locke-centric episode, “Cabin Fever,” we finally found out this season’s end game: If Locke wants to save the island, he’s going to have to move it. So just how can Locke move the island—and where will he move it, for that matter? Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the Impossible, told us he thinks that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are using the island’s unique properties­—namely its electromagnet and the Casimir Effect hinted at in the Orchid Station orientation video—to open a transversible wormhole to different points in time and space....

This post has been updated with comments from discoverer Scott Sheppard. Move aside, Sedna and 2012 VP113. There’s a new most distant object in our solar system, and it strengthens the hypothetical case for an unseen large planet at the outer boundaries of our solar system. The object, V774104, was announced Wednesday at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute characterized the potential planet as between 300 and 600 miles in diameter, on par with a medium-sized moon....

Media Platforms Design TeamWelcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today.View full post on YoutubeA video giving a brief introduction to quantum computing and the early days of NASA and Google’s partnership.D-Wave Systems is a company with big ambitions: to produce the first commercially available quantum computer. In May of last year, Google, along with NASA and Universities Space Research Association, launched a new project called the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab based around the $15 million D-Wave 2....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat if your shoes could tell you which way to go? A new pair of sneakers presents turn-by-turn directions in a whole new way: through vibrations. Called Lechal, the athletic shoes buzz the corresponding foot to let you know it’s time to turn right or left. There’s also a set of insoles available so you could get the same experience in your favorite kicks.The high-tech footwear was originally developed by India-based Ducere Technologies as a way to help the visually impaired get around—they often have to rely on audio cues....

Drones are cool and all, but if you’ve never really flown one there’s a downside you might not know about: They have a very short battery life. Flight takes a lot of energy, and the lithium-ion batteries they use for power can generally only keep them aloft for 30 minutes at most. That’s not just a problem for the kiddies playing with their new (and federally registered!) fliers on Christmas days; it’s a big problem for potential drone-delivery services which will have a hard time crossing distances of more than a dozen or so miles....

The small privately held aviation company, Terrafugia, which is aiming to produce a practical flying car, or more accurately a street legal aircraft, is being bought by the Chinese carmaker Geely, a company that also owns Volvo and Lotus.Terrafugia started in 2006 by graduates from the MIT with the goal of building and selling a street legal vehicle with foldable wings that can transition into an airplane. While the flying car utopia of tomorrow still remains a pipe dream to many, the Transition roadable aircraft by Terrafugia has received deposits from hopeful buyers representing potential revenues over $25 million....

The all-electric Tesla Model S P85D became a YouTube star soon after it went on sale last December, showing up at drag strips and spanking muscle cars and exotics alike. I watched those videos and thought, I want to do that. I want to surprise a few guys who think they’re about to dust a glorified Prius. So at the earliest possible opportunity, I procured a P85D and headed for North Carolina’s Rockingham Dragway to hunt some Mustangs and Vettes....

A source at Boeing this morning confirmed that the wing flap that washed ashore on Reunion Island is from a 777 aircraft, based on a component number that conforms with the manufacturer’s records. That makes it all but certain the piece came from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: It’s the only 777 unaccounted for. Still, officials say it could take another day or two before they can state beyond any doubt that this is the first tangible clue to surface since the jetliner vanished last year....

Media Platforms Design Team1) It’s a cheap, creative and scrappy mission. This is what many people want NASA projects to look like in the future. LCROSS is a Class D mission, denoting one with the highest risk of failure. Once-in-a-lifetime missions and those with human passengers are considered Class A missions, and carry a high cost in time and money to ensure that the equipment won’t fail. The extra testing, custom-built gear and redundant equipment drives up costs to levels that give even members of Congress pause....

Yoostar: $170Hollywood wizards use green screens to transport actors to distant planets. Now, you can use the same tech to enter classic films. Sit in front of Yoostar’s green screen and read your lines off a computer monitor. The program uses a camera (included) to digitally insert you in place of Brando or Hanks, allowing you to go mano a mano with some of film’s most memorable characters. Completed clips can then be shared on Yoostar’s site....

Media Platforms Design TeamFor every penny that gas prices go up, Americans spend $1.25 billion more per year at the pump. No one wants to waste that kind of money. So unless you’re hauling the whole ball team, . And you, Honda Element fella, stop smirking: You’re getting only 20 mpg—and driving something even less aerodynamic.[1] IT’S TIME TO UNLOAD THE OLD SUBURBANIf you’re driving something that gets reasonable fuel economy, drive it reasonably....