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Media Platforms Design TeamGetty ImagesFingerprints may be uniquely yours, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be hacked. According to a presenter at the Chaos Communications Congress, all it takes is a few photographs.The presenter, Starbug, demonstrated an experiment that involved intercepting German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen’s fingerprints using only close-up photographs. Through just a few images of her taken from a press conference, a composite thumb print was built....

When you strap on a football helmet, part of you feels as if you’re going to war, like some medieval knight of old about to wage hand-to-hand combat. The reality is that football is just a game, but one that comes with the risk of physical injury. That’s why the players wear helmets.It’s no secret that quarterbacks Troy Aikman of the Dallas Cowboys and Steve Young of the San Francisco 49ers retired because of repeated head injuries....

The Gold Beak /// Beauty /// Bald EagleShe’s not the first bird to receive a prosthetic beak, but Beauty might be the luckiest. The 9-year-old bald eagle was found in Alaska three years ago, emaciated and unable to eat because a poacher had shot off 90 percent of her upper beak, leaving her tongue and sinuses exposed. Birds of Prey NW near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, volunteered to care for Beauty; her handlers fed her daily with forceps and the center’s founder, Jane Fink Cantwell, took the bird to educational speaking engagements....

Earlier this month, an object called WT1190F was spotted on a trajectory that will bring it right to Earth. It came here from far beyond the moon, and its hollow nature and cylindrical shape suggest that it’s human-made and not an asteroid or meteorite. It won’t cause any major problems on the ground, but there’s still something troubling: Astronomers don’t know what the heck it is, or why it’s only now coming up on their radar....

Media Platforms Design TeamNeurologists at Washington University in St. Louis play space invaders–with a joystick.Bringing new meaning to the term “hands-free technology,” a 14-year-old from St. Louis has mastered the first two levels of the Atari video game Space Invaders—without using a joystick. The teenager, who suffers from epilepsy, is using only the signals from his brain.His arcade abilities were developed by neurologists at Washington University in St. Louis, who developed a new brain-computer interface (BCI) system to split the monitoring of signals coming from electrode grids implanted directly onto the patient’s brain....

Media Platforms Design Team1. Avoid Decoys>Decoy:E-2C Hawkeye:Media Platforms Design Team The first step in killing a carrier is to confuse the escorts that protect it. The cheapest way to do this–decoys. Covert teams in fishing trawlers, for example, can drop buoys that are programmed to emit delayed radio signals to misdirect a carrier group’s defensive ships and aircraft.Media Platforms Design Team To defeat decoys, carrier-launched surveillance airplanes with high-power radar can confirm the presence of approaching enemy ships and aircraft....

Singapore is experiencing a boom in its food culture, but a bust in its service industry: The country faces a shortage of 7,000 service staff due to a social stigma against working in the food industry and tightened immigration laws. To narrow the gap, one company is turning to a unique solution: drone waiters.Infinium Robotics will unveil a drone waiter later this year that’s capable of navigating via infrared sensors and carrying up to 4....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhy did you decide to write a whole book about FIRST? I learned about FIRST through my nephew who was on a team. It changed his life in the sense that it gave him a place in high school, and gave him a career direction, and just was an overwhelmingly positive experience for him. I thought it would be interesting to maybe do an article about it. I went up to Manchester, N....

Media Platforms Design TeamYou designed the virus in the film, which is a hybrid of pig and bat viral strains. What inspired you?There had been recent reports about the Nipah virus, which can spread from bats to pigs to people. Reports were coming in from Bangladesh that there was human-to-human transmission going on, too, and concerns that the virus might have evolved to become more virulent. And it causes not only respiratory illness, but encephalitisand seizurestoo....

This post was originally published on August 15th, 2017. It’s been updated for the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones. Say what you want about Daenerys Targaryen’s other qualities, one thing is beyond question: She is one hell of a dragon rider. In years past, we’ve seen her learn to fly aboard her reptilian “children.” Last season her aerial prowess accelerated. During Daenerys’ attack on the Lannisters, she rides mighty Drogon with ease as the beast cuts through aggressive aerial turns to fry her enemies with fire....

Ebola is marching rapidly through West Africa. Since it arrived in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in March, the outbreak has infected at least 386 people and killed 350, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, making this the deadliest Ebola epidemic ever. The aid organization Doctors Without Borders is calling the situation “out of control.“As Popular Mechanics reported in March, there is little chance of Ebola reaching pandemic proportions, thanks in part to the virus’ own lethality and the effectiveness of quarantine procedures....

If you’re among the lucky few who actually got an Apple Watch on launch day, you’re probably still figuring out how to get your money’s worth out of your shiny new wearable. I’ve been in the same boat, figuring out how to make this thing a tool, not a distraction. Here are the apps and settings that’ll do that.Picking out the face You select a new appearance by pressing hard on the face, then swiping left and right....

JM & Sons co-founder Mackenzie Duncan wasn’t planning to build a furniture business. The Toronto-based photographer just wanted a sturdy table that would break up the stark white walls of his apartment. And he wanted to build it out of wood that was removed, reshaped, and reclaimed from barns throughout Ontario and Quebec. “Any wood that survives decades and decades in the Canadian countryside tells a story of its own,” Duncan says....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamThis Thursday’s episode of Lost, “Confirmed Dead,” even John Locke, the No. 1 proponent of island secrets, is ready for some answers. So, while we’re not exactly sure who Others-leader Ben knows on the elusive ocean liner, or what the heck is going on with invisible Jacob in that cabin, we do know that those parachuting, sat-phone-using “rescuers” are not there for any rescuing. Also, the helicopter we saw spinning out of control at the end of the season premiere not only landed safely but appears set to lift Jack and the gang back to the freighter....

Media Platforms Design TeamNEW YORK — No one here seemed to take much notice over the past two days, but the Volvo Ocean Race fleet has quietly slipped into New York Harbor for a brief mid-circumnavigation pit stop. Docked at Lower Manhattan’s North Cove Marina, the seven boats are fresh off their shortest leg of the race, a brief hop up from Baltimore Harbor, under 400 miles away. Not that the short distance made it any easier for the 70 foot ocean racing boats: After nearly month-long passages in the washing machine of the Southern Ocean, 400 miles seems like a sprint, and apparently, some crews treated it as such....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf your beloved pooch or kitty will be a regular companion on boating outings, here are some tips that will make your day on the water safe and enjoyable for all the participants.Drinking Water The first thing to do when getting underway is to make sure you have enough water for the dog. Dogs regulate body heat through panting, and while doing so, lose large amounts of fluids....

The classic board game comes to life, complete with aliens and Rihanna, in the 2012 action flick Battleship. In the film, decidedly unfriendly extraterrestrials answer a signal from NASA by invading Earth and wind up locked in an epic naval battle. In the clip below, the filmmakers describe the process of filming with the USS Missouri, the legendary WWII battleship that plays a key role in the movie. Battleship comes out on Blu-ray on August 28, and we’re giving away 10 Blu-ray combo packs featuring the a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download of the film....

Media Platforms Design TeamA massive fire tears through an apartment building, sending timbers crashing to the ground and thick smoke throughout the corridors. A team of sprightly robots enters. Communicating like a group of industrious surveyors, they spread throughout the building taking measurements and, within moments, send a map of the inside to firefighters on the outside, preparing them to tackle the blaze. This is the dream of a team of scientists collaborating with the Army Research Laboratory’s Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) program....

Tests by ComplainTV, a researched group funded by the EU, have run some tests and found out that while Samsung TVs do a good job at reducing power consumption during efficiency tests, those results don’t really hold up in the real world. According to The Guardian, the issue has to do with Samsung TVs’ “motion lighting” feature, which is designed to reduce screen brightness when there’s a lot of motion on screen, saving power....

“It’s going to hit us.“That thought fills my mind as I watch from the cockpit of a DC-8 that’s on a course to observe the fastest man-made object ever to return to Earth–the Stardust capsule.At 1:58 am PST on Sunday, Jan. 15, it blazes down out of the clear Utah winter night 50 times brighter than the brightest star and growing bigger at an impossible rate.I lean forward from the jump seat and tap pilot Frank Batteas’ shoulder....