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Media Platforms Design TeamEarly next year, the most powerful Camaro ever—the ZL1—will roll from GM’s Oshawa, Ontario, factory. Under a new bulging hood will reside a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 that produces 580 hp and 556 lb-ft of torque. That’s 30 more horsepower than is available in the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 and enough, we predict, to launch the car to 60 mph in around 4 seconds. But power is far from the only feature of this enticing ponycar....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith predictions of a thirtyfold increase in mobile data demand by 2015, Tod Sizer, head of wireless research at Bell Labs, knew something had to give. “There’s no way we can put up 30 times as many cell towers as there are today,” he says. So he did what any high-tech engineer would do—he went to his wood shop. Sizer cut a 60-mm cube, attached an aluminum plate to represent an antenna and handed it to his team, telling them to rethink everything....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen the lights went down in New York Comic Con’s IGN Theater to debut the teaser trailer for the movie’s cast members got up from their table and moved to the edge of the stage to get a better look. It was their first time seeing it, too. “It was sweet!” said Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who plays helicopter pilot Derek Jameson.The Thing,During the panel, the cast, along with director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr....

The U.S. Navy’s flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels, may be getting new planes. According to Flightglobal, the Navy wants to replace the existing F/A-18 Hornet fighters with the newer F/A-18 Super Hornet. However, the Blue Angels may be less than enthusiastic about the switch. The Blue Angels currently fly a variety of Hornet strike fighters. The team flies three of the oldest -A models, 10 of the relatively newer -C models, and three two seater models....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ: Every time I get in and out of my new car, I get a giant electrical shock. Since the car is under warranty, I took it back to the dealer, who treated the seats with some potion, which was very effective. But a month later, the shocks came back with a vengeance. My daughter won’t ride in the car anymore – and the dog just runs away and hides....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Corvette ZR1 is shaping up to become the beastliest of just about any supercar. Chevrolet just announced that the ZR1’s supercharged 6.2-liter V8 would deliver a whopping 638 hp and 604 lb.-ft. of torque. That’s 18 more ponies than the original estimate back at the Detroit auto show in January (click here for video, here for more pix and here for history). And that makes this Vette’s LS9 the most powerful automotive production engine General Motors has ever produced....

If you think getting to Mars is going to be a tough proposition, try this on for size: getting the next star over. Even with something like the Space Launch System, it would take hundreds of thousands of years to make it a little more than four light years to Alpha Centauri. So we’re going to need bigger, better ways to get there.This video, from PBS Space Time, outlines five ways we can do it in a lifetime....

Sorry to say it everyone: the CST-100 will not be called the Boeing Going. Instead, Boeing’s commercial crew resupply vehicle to the International Space Station will be named Starliner, a name to separate it a little from the Crew Dragon, Space X’s vehicle. Both will serve as a sort of replacement for the space shuttle, with NASA renting seats on the vehicles from each company to ferry astronauts and supplies up to the ISS starting (hopefully) in 2017....

Ideally, doctors and airport security personnel would scan your body with devices that balance contrast, resolution and penetration capabilities–and that don’t kill you after prolonged exposure. And while X-rays do a pretty good job, a new portable scanner for medical imaging and security screening suggests we may soon have a better option: T-rays.Terahertz radiation is a band that lies between microwaves and infrared, with a short wavelength that gives it better resolution than microwave imaging....

Media Platforms Design TeamEthanolWe create a lot of ethanol in this country, and most of it goes into our cars. Seventy percent of the gasoline sold in the U.S. has 10 percent ethanol–E10. This practice began when the petroleum companies needed to replace the oxygen-bearing MTBE and ETBE added to improve air quality. When MTBE started showing up in the groundwater, probably from leaking gasoline-storage tanks, alcohol was the logical choice....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow did you first observe the hole-punch-cloud phenomenon? Three years ago during a field project in Colorado, we saw this very narrow band of precipitation that we had never seen before. It was very unusual for winter. It looked like it could be lined up with the flight path of two turboprop planes that had just flown by above us, and, sure enough, it matched. And you happened to be in a plane with instruments that could study the precipitation?...

Media Platforms Design TeamThe two species march to war across an arid landscape. When they meet, it is an immediate mixture of carnage and chemical warfare. Both sides swarm the front lines, spewing corrosive venom and dying by the thousands. But while the melee may look uneven at first glance—one species has reigned this foreign soil uncontested for decades, while the other is a smaller and weaker newcomer—the odd newcomer is the clear victor when the dust settles....

Media Platforms Design Team1. The StoryboardIf you want filming and editing to run smoothly, it’s essential to write a script for your story with a three-act structure (i.e., it must have a beginning, middle and end). Sketching out each scene in a comic-book-like storyboard will help you visualize your shots.Media Platforms Design Team2. On-Set TechMurky lighting and muddy sound are the twin banes of most homemade movies. But both are easy to fix....

The Leatherman took the idea of a multitool to its logical conclusion, jamming screwdrivers, knives, saws, can openers, pliers, and just about any other extension you could think of into a fold-up kit. Now, it wants to do the same thing, but on your wrist.The new Tread bracelet contains all the tools of your trusty Leatherman but in a compact design you wear on your wrist—the individual links turn into miniature tools....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen the crew from The Madagascar Institute fired up their Jet Ponies at , it was hard to ignore. From afar, the sound of the Brooklyn-based arts combine’s pulse-jet-powered carousel engulfed the grounds outside the New York Hall of Science in a constant high-amplitude drone. Up close, the thousands of small explosions propelling the post-apocalyptic DIY ride sent acoustic shock waves that violently rattled eardrums and vibrated the ribs of onlookers....

Las Vegas News BureauArms spread apart, blond curls bobbing in the wind, joyful bright red lips, and a cotton mushroom cloud affixed to her white bikini. The image of Miss Atomic Bomb is unforgettable, and it’s one that has been absorbed into our pop culture lexicon, from Halloween costumes to a hit rock song to a dud of a musical. Yet there’s very little known about Miss Atomic Bomb herself besides her stage name, Lee A....

An aborted rocket launch is a frustrating thing to watch. From a causeway linking Merritt Island to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, I watched with a small crowd of other journalists at the blearingly early hour of 4:55 am, waiting for the launch of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket. The early launch time was one of the narrow windows available to line up the Dragon with the orbit of the International Space Station, where it was scheduled to dock four days from now....

The skies over California’s Sierra Nevada mountains are set to be a young man’s dream over the next month. Among the attractions: a scientifically unrivaled aircraft, whirling breakneck winds, and a T-REX.The aircraft is the HIAPER, a Gulfstream V outfitted with advanced weather-measuring tools. The winds are rotors, highly dangerous turbulent gusts that form over the mountains beneath cresting waves of air. The T-REX is not a dinosaur, but the Terrain-Induced Rotor Experiment, a research project being conducted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research....

Media Platforms Design TeamPrice: $180My ancient Hamilton Beach countertop contact grill died a while back. And as the months passed, I increasingly missed sear marks and sizzle. Looking for a new apartment grilling solution, I found the OptiGrill by T-fal.The Hamilton Beach I’d been using all those years had a lone control: a spring-wound timer with a few icons on the side bearing suggested cooking times. Over time I’d gotten the hang of it, but I was stoked to test T-fal’s stylish new OptiGrill with Automatic Sensor Cooking, which promises “perfect grilling results from rare to well-done....

If you want to get technical about it, the title of the Guinness World Record is “Tallest structure built with interlocking plastic bricks.” But let’s be honest: There’s no need for the non-branded lingo (unless K’Nex is planning a skyscraper I don’t know about). We’re talking about the biggest damn Lego tower in the world, which Lego Italia built this summer. It stood at 35.05 meters tall, or about 114 ft and 11 inches....