Posts

With Russian President Vladmir Putin’s plans to turn Roscosmos Federal Space Agency into a state-run corporation finalized in the next two days, some of its announced ambitions were sure to fall by the wayside. The first victim? Space Policy Online reports that Russian plans for a crewed moon landing will be pushed back into the late 2020s. The move also tones down the ambitions. For instance, Roscosmos initially planned to create a launch complex and base on the Moon, and now those plans are scrapped in favor of a more straight-forward landing....

You’re coming to the end of a gas tank’s worth of superslab, the pavement as fresh and as smooth as your brother-in-law’s balding pate. A quick trip to the Men’s and a tankful of gas get you rolling again, this time on a secondary road that’s not so smooth. With the new bumps comes a minor rattle that starts under the dash. Within an hour it’s as annoying as myelin being flayed from the nerve endings in your inner ears....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe are drawn to conspiracy theories because we’re drawn to explanations—the cause and effect that brings us, even temporarily, certainty and order. Ben Mezrich knows this. He also knows the power of the chase—the perilous trails hewn by risk-embracing adventurers. His previous books include nonfiction thrillers that have been made into big movies— became the 2010 Oscar-winning movie and became starring Kevin Spacey. In , his first novel, he gives us slick archaeologist Jack Grady, hot botanist (and possible love interest) Sloane Costa, and conniving billionaire Jendari Saphra, all of them on a quest for the unknown: the Garden of Eden....

Media Platforms Design TeamTo materials scientists and fashion designers alike, silk is a highly desirable paradox. Its smooth, soft, shimmery folds have made it a mark of luxury since ancient times. Silk is flexible and elastic, and yet it is extraordinarily strong—the strongest natural material known. In fact, its strength rivals that of Kevlar, says Fiorenzo Omenetto, a biomedical engineer at Tufts University. Silk also manages to be both durable—able to persist for long periods of time once it’s been spun—and entirely biodegradable....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis story is brought to you by Gas 2.0.At noon today, nascent auto-maker CODA announced a new electric car available in California in fall 2010. The fully electric sedan will have a range of 90-100 miles on a fully-charged battery.Speaking during a webinar, the company also formally announced a global joint venture between CODA and battery manufacturer Lishen Battery Co., located in Tianjin, China. Lishen is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of lithium-ion cells for companies like Apple, Motorola, Samsung, and Vodafone....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn limbo for nearly 25 years, Red Tails—George Lucas’ sweeping aerial epic about the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II—finally hits theaters today. Red Tails spends much of its time in the cockpits of P-51s as the Airmen fight and dodge their way through a flurry of fire. And because Lucas spent a quarter century and millions of his own dollars to bring to the movie to life, it’s no surprise that his team obsessed with getting the World War II–era details just right....

Extras playing dead on Law & Order and patients undergoing an MRI have one thing in common: It’s incredibly difficult to lay flat without moving. Fortunately for the latter, researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new MRI machine that can still capture images even if the patient moves. Currently, MRI machines scan ten frames per second. This new one, developed by the Bioimaging Science and Technology Group, is ten times quicker, which is fast enough to record the 100 muscles used for singing....

Twenty quadrillion bytes. Twenty million gigabytes. Twenty petabytes. That’s how much data the Large Hadron Collider produces per year. This Fermilab demonstration tries to contextualize just how much information that is. So it starts with a 2-by-2-foot tile on the surface of the Earth that represents a single bite. At that scale, a terabyte is the size of Thailand. To get one petabyte, you would need to coat the entire planet in these data tiles....

Media Platforms Design TeamView full post on YoutubeThis badass new teaser for the upcoming sci-fi film Ex Machina proposes that, “to erase the line between man and machine is to obscure the line between men and gods.” The promise and the film seem dark and unsettling, but we’re already burning with curiosity about this movie.Ex Machina is the directorial debut of screenwriter and producer Alex Garland (28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Dredd), who brings us a film about the future of artificial intelligence and the blurring line between man and machine....

Media Platforms Design TeamDo any car repair or maintenance and you’re most likely left with two things: DIY satisfaction and a couple of grease-stained paws. The latter can be a problem if your shop doesn’t have a sink or you’re working in a racetrack paddock. How do you get the grime off?We’ve tried several methods over the years, from latex gloves to abrasive cleaners applied with a rag that left our hands raw....

Apollo 18, out in theaters on Friday, blurs the line between documentary and feature film. Put simply, it’s The Blair Witch Project on the moon: The film claims to contain footage from NASA’s archives of secret and disastrous Apollo 18 mission. The film’s premise should grab the attention of conspiracy theory enthusiasts, but here’s the real deal on the end of the Apollo program. First, yes, NASA did plan an Apollo 18....

Sure, there’s the endless battle between good and evil, space samurai cutting each other’s hands off with beams of light, and the galaxy’s most serious case of daddy issues, but the real highlight of Star Wars is the explosions. You may have seen them in slow-mo, but as it turns out there’s an even better way to witness these beautiful blasts.Here is a collection of 11 of our favorite moments in Star Wars, with the causality tweaked juuuuust a little bit....

Media Platforms Design Team The motorcycle horsepower wars have been raging since the very first Yamaha V-Max was born in 1984 (as an ‘85 model). Back then the V-Max was rated at 145 hp—an astonishing number for the 80s. In many ways, the V-Max was the very first muscle bike. Yamaha paused production of the iconic power cruiser last year so it could focus on building a meaner-than-ever, all-new Max for 2009....

Media Platforms Design TeamA roaring jet engine is one of the loudest objects on earth. At , the noise is on par with gunshots and rock concerts, and can immediately and permanently damage human ears; even hearing protection can stave off damage only for short periods of time. And it’s not just ears that are at risk: Intense sound waves from aircraft engines vibrate the plane’s hardware, causing wear and, potentially, mechanical failure....

DETROIT — Acura’s iconic affordable supercar, the NSX, was never the huge sales success it should have been. It drew raves from enthusiats and owners who felt the mid-engine V6 coupe could run with the world’s most expensive exotics. But sales never justified putting too much refreshing or updating into the car, and so it died a quiet peaceful death. Enter the Acura Advanced Sports Car Concept (ASCC) today in Detroit....

Media Platforms Design TeamDETROIT — The choice between front- and rear-wheel drive has taken another turn in the last month since the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the EPA to regulate (read: reduce) CO2 emissions from automobiles. And in this town, that means smaller engines across the board for cars, trucks and SUVs.Since bigger engines, especially V8s, are a prime attraction on rear-drive vehicles, auto companies are adjusting their plans. GM, for one, has big decisions to make: The General is reconsidering its development of rear-drive big sedans in the Chevrolet and Buick lineups—cars that already are well along in their prototype testing stages....

In about a year, BMW’s first EV-pilot program–the Mini E–will conclude and the Active E will pick up the baton. According to BMW, this electrified version of a 1 Series Coupe represents a place “Where sheer driving enjoyment and sustainability meet.” Heady words, for sure, but the engineers carefully placed the hardware for balanced weight distribution. The 170-hp electric motor resides between the rear wheels and the li-ion batteries are sprinkled under the hood, in the center tunnel....

The JoLoAr pistol was a combination of a poor-selling and unremarkable Spanish blowback semiauto pistol called the Sharpshooter and an idea by a man named Jose Lopez Arnaiz (whose name is the source of the pistol’s name). Arnaiz conceived the idea of mounting a lever (called a palanca in Spanish) onto a pistol slide, to allow the pistol to be charged one-handed. One story of the inspiration for these pistols involves a commander of the Spanish Foreign Legion, Colonel José Millán-Astray....

Media Platforms Design Team Peter Bishop might only be able to handle one mad scientist, but in Fringe episode 18, “Midnight,” we got two—Dr. Nicholas Boone, who had been creating bioweapons for the mysterious terrorist organization ZFT, joined Walter Bishop in his Harvard lab. Thanks to Boone, we know how ZFT reacts when your conscience catches up with you: They kidnap your wife, infect her with a virus and turn her into a spinal fluid–drinking monster....

Let’s get this out of the way: homeopathy is total crap. There is zero (accredited, peer reviewed) science behind homeopathy, and it’s misguided at best and snakeoil at worse. But here’s a concept in homeopathy that doubles down on its path to the cuckoos nest: there are people that believe that drinking a diluted bit of concrete from the Berlin Wall can cure asthma. That’s not all, of course. Drinking a piece of history can cure your headaches, your narcolepsy, your pesky ulcers, stress-related loss of senses, some joint pain, and other ailments....