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As winter approaches and the days get shorter, many drivers find respite from the dreary snow-covered commute by finding a nice, clean parking lot and destroying every square foot of the powdery white stuff. But this bush pilot makes snow donuts like you’ve never seen.View full post on YoutubePart-time Alaskan bush pilot Bobby Breeden has made a name for himself doing unique and outlandish aviation antics in the remote state. For four consecutive years, he’s won the Valdez short takeoff and landing competition as part of the airshow and fly-in at the Pioneer Field Airport in Valdez, Alaska....

Media Platforms Design TeamAntarctica’s Lake Vostok is buried 2 miles beneath a sheet of ice, where it’s been isolated from the surface for more than 14 million years. No sunlight reaches the lake, organic matter is few and far between, and the temperatures go as low as 27 degrees Fahrenheit. For years, Russian scientists have been drilling toward the lake, hoping to find out whether life could exist in a place cut off from Earth’s surface—and what that life would be like....

When MH370 went missing in March of 2014, among the first details to draw scrutiny was the contents of the cargo hold: The Boeing 777, bound for Beijing, was carrying a large shipment of lithium-ion batteries. Boeing has just taken the unusual step of warning its airline customers that large shipments of the batteries—used throughout the world in cellphones, laptops, and other indispensable gadgets—could cause fires intense enough to destroy a commercial airliner....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Large Hadron Collider demonstrates its power in many forms. It’s huge 17-mile circumference, buried under the Franco-Swiss border, has the power to inspire awe. The scientific colossus has the power recreate the conditions of the Big Bang by hurling particles at each other at close to the speed of light. And in 2012, LHC had the power to become either a saving grace or a death knell for modern physics....

The United States is a thirsty nation: We use about 150 trillion gallons of water a year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey—to grow food, generate electricity and run our homes. The collection, transport, storage, treatment and eventual return of most of this deluge back to nature requires significant amounts of energy. The Environmental Protection Agency calculates that the energy spent countrywide to supply drinking water and process wastewater releases 116 billion pounds of carbon dioxide annually, on par with the emissions of 10 million cars....

Media Platforms Design Team Jesse James is a Dead Man, a new, weekly series on Spike TV, will premiere this Sunday, May 31 (10:00 – 11:00 PM, ET/PT). Motorcycle daredevil and Monster Garage veteran Jesse James most recently appeared on Celebrity Apprentice, where the most dangerous thing on display is The Donald’s haircut. But now he’s back to more daring work with his new show Jesse James Is a Dead Man, which comes with the tagline “Jesse James proved he could live fast, but was he ready to die young?...

This month Lockheed Martin released a 280-word statement from its radar research headquarters in New Jersey announcing a breakthrough test of an advanced radar platform. And while the tech world shrugged, people watching the evolution of radar saw another step for a system that could have a dramatic effect on future world affairs, from American missile-tracking platforms in the Czech Republic to the ship-based defense of the Taiwan Straits.The new radar system, called digital beamforming, could become a game-changing technology that may help defeat an overwhelming attack on U....

Media Platforms Design TeamThese days, millions of people are accustomed to tweeting their daily minutiae and friending anybody who asks on Facebook. But as our personal digital audiences grow beyond our close, real-life friends, these services transform from convenient ways to stay in touch with friends into a too-loud stream of digital babble. In many ways, these social networks have fallen trap to what Groucho Marx was warning about when he said: “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member....

Media Platforms Design TeamIMAX screens have long been known for their massive size and sharp picture, but they’ve been missing out on the digital revolution—until now. While theaters are increasingly ditching old analog filim projectors for digital ones—about 10 percent of movie screens have made the transition—IMAX films are still screened from film. That will soon change, now that IMAX has announced a partnership with Texas Instruments, whose DLP chips power more than 99 percent of all digital cinema projectors in America, to switch over to digital....

There’s been a bit of a backlash against 3D. I’m curious what you make of it.There are two aspects of this. One is they’re ignoring the fact that all the 3D movies are still making a lot of money. It’s sort of leveling off instead of making three times multiple, they’re now making a two times multiple of 2D. But I do agree that there’s a consumer backlash and I actually think it’s a good thing, because what they’re lashing back against is some pretty crappy stuff....

View full post on VimeoMotorcycle-focused television shows have developed a bit of a bad name for themselves: between stereotypical biker gang fiction (“Sons of Anarchy”), shenanigans-driven spectacle (“Nitro Circus Live”), and family custom builder soap operas (“American Chopper”), the vast majority of two wheeled entertainment seek mass appeal by choosing titillation over soul.Taking an altogether different approach is Neale Bayly Rides Peru, a new series hosted by– you guessed it– motojournalist cum philanthropist Neale Bayly....

style=“border:thin solid #cccccc;">The Canadian Oil Rush* Alberta’s Oil Sands* Alberta’s Oil Sands Slideshow* Using Nukes To Extract Oil: Time Machine 1960The sky is blue and cloudless and north-country sharp, but you can barely see it from the cab of John Martin’s Bucyrus 495 shovel. We are elevated three stories above a sea of mud and dirt and sand; a sulphurous stench permeates the air. Sitting in a chair similar to Kirk’s in the Starship Enterprise, Martin, 54, flicks his wrists, both hands working video-game-like toggles to maneuver a shovel that weighs 3 million pounds....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe U.S. has a weather satellite problem: The current fleet of 90 government-funded Earth-observing satellites—used for everything from detecting changes in sea levels to providing the raw data for weather forecasting and storm tracking—is aging, and the number unless funding for replacing them is increased. We may be about to lose our eyes in the sky even as storm intensities and the need for more accurate predictions seem to be increasing....

Pinball modding has a long and rich history. During World War II, when the country’s manufacturing infrastructure moved over to the war effort, pinball companies devised a clever way of putting out new games without relying on their war-occupied factories. Basically, they would sell “conversion kits” that allowed pinball operators to swap in new playing fields and art, transforming an existing cabinet into a new machine. These days, pinball modding is a much more personal affair, with DIYers taking on tasks that range from adding a few bells and whistles to a beloved machine, to hand-building an entire pinball machine from scratch....

Media Platforms Design TeamIllustration by Brian StaufferDaniel H. Wilson’s first book, How to Survive a Robot Uprising, poked holes in our Hollywood-supplied anxiety over automaton-on-man violence, while quietly educating us on real-life robotics. Now the renowned author – and PM’s resident roboticist – is taking on the jetpack-commuting, Smell-O-Vision-scented future that never happened. His new book, Where’s My Jetpack? ($14.95, Bloomsbury, due out in April), is funny – but it also turns out to be a tribute to the far-fetched ideas that often drive progress....

Media Platforms Design TeamClick to Enlarge. (Photo Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)Scientists at the European Space Agency have just released a mosaic of photos showing the ill-fated touchdown and tumble of the Philae comet lander. The collage was captured from about 10 miles away by the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on board the Rosetta spacecraft that carried Philae out to comet C-G.The series of shots shows the hearty lander drifting slowly toward the shade of a giant cliff, bounding unanchored across the low-gravity comet....

Just two weeks after Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas and parts of the Gulf Coast, another monster hurricane has made landfall. Hurricane Irma grew into a dangerous Category 5 storm on Tuesday and showed no signs of losing strength. The National Hurricane Center called Irma a “potentially catastrophic” storm with winds that extend 50 miles from the center. So far the hurricane has hit small Caribbean islands, reaching record wind speeds of 185 miles per hour....

My house is heated with a gas-fired furnace. How can I seal the house’s ducts to prevent carbon monoxide (CO) leakage?First, let’s clarify this. Ducts carry heated or cooled air. Under normal operation, they don’t carry combustion byproducts and are sealed as a matter of energy efficiency, not combustion safety. Sheetmetal flue pipes, on the other hand, carry combustion gases from the furnace or the boiler to the chimney. They are not sealed to the same extent that ducts are....

When the editors of POPULAR MECHANICS asked me to take readers behind the scenes and into the booth during a New York Yankees broadcast, the assignment seemed simple enough. Especially compared to some of the other articles I’ve written for this magazine, in which I’ve done everything from revealing how baseball players cheat by corking bats to explaining how a breaking ball breaks once it leaves the pitcher’s fingers. Yeah, this seemed like an easy one....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe felt a great disturbance in the Force today, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror upon realizing thE Millennium Falcon bed they wanted to buy for their children costs as much as a gently used car. It turns out the Pottery Barn bed that’ll make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs will run you $4,000. Better re-start that smuggling business.That’s not to say the outrageous price doesn’t reflect the build quality....