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View full post on TwitterA small aircraft with three Boy Scouts aboard made a hard landing in Belen, New Mexico, a community about 40 miles to the south of Albuquerque. According to KRQE-TV, the thee scouts—Levi Jensen, Talon Bennett, and Jacob Brooks—were flying with a pilot they knew from their church group, as part of an activity to gain an aviation badge. Something went wrong with the plane, and the pilot made the decision to make a forced landing....

Most likely to eat a rat2. Most likely to be in your garden now 3. Most violently toxic plant in North America 4. The plant that killed a president’s mother5. The best plant to murder a dinner guest with6. Most gruesome killer7. Most animal-like8. The most likely plant to turn a person into a zombie 9. The most enticing poison10. Best home-security system Mala Mujer: Cnidoscolus angustidensMedia Platforms Design TeamStewart describes this garden plant as more painful than poisonous....

Yamaha engineers have taken the guts from their Grizzly 660 4x4 ATV and added Jeep-like bodywork with side-by-side bucket seats for two adults. The result looks like a cross between the Kawasaki Mule that professional gardeners use and some goofy new ride at Disney World.Don’t be fooled. The Rhino 660 is as serious as a 30-06 round, as much at home in the woods as Crocodile Dundee. It can go anywhere a regular 1-man ATV can go, while carrying two people plus 400 pounds in the cargo bed....

One of the largest hurdles to widespread adoption of pure electric vehicles is charging. City dwellers need a convenient and safe place to charge their car. Often, that means hunting for one of the few public chargers spread around the town or finding a parking garage that was forward-thinking enough to install chargers and muscling out all the other EVs to grab that plug. Inductive charging could eventually change all that....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Japanese Shinkansen, or bullet train, has been one of the world’s most successful high speed railways. (Photograph by Ren Zhenglai/Xinhua/WPN)Gazing at the verdant blur of mountains zipping by noiselessly as you ride on the Japanese Shinkansen (bullet train) is enough to make anyone fall in love with high-speed train travel. When you couple that appeal with concerns about energy consumption and global warming, a mass-transit rail system that can whisk passengers along at speeds in excess of 300 mph seems like an obvious solution to today’s transportation woes....

Finding a Jupiter-sized planet has never been a problem for astronomers. But what’s been harder to find is a Jupiter-sized world that doesn’t orbit at just a fraction of the orbit of Mercury. But now a Jupiter-sized gas giant has been found around a sun-like star, and it orbits just around the same spot as Jupiter. Just two such systems have been found before.In fact, by all appearances so far, the star HIP 11915 is as old as the sun....

Media Platforms Design TeamSeveral years ago a workplace accident left 42-year-old Michael Gore paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. Now he’s able to walk again, thanks to the Indego Exoskeleton, a pair of strap-on robotic legs that uses motion sensors to determine where Gore wants to go. Using crutches for support, Gore leans forward to tell the Indego legs to stand and move forward; he leans back to make it sit....

A new electronic camouflage inspired by octopus and squid skin can alter its appearance to match its surroundings.Octopuses, squid and cuttlefish are cephalopods—sea creatures that can quickly change the color of their skin to hide or to communicate with others. Materials scientist John Rogers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign teamed up with marine biologist Roger Hanlon at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and others to devise a device that could mimic cephalopod skin for the Office of Naval Research....

Just think of what could have been. We could have had a combined Comcast / Time Warner company, bringing the greatest possible customer service to the United States. But alas, that’s a distant dream. Bloomberg reports that Comcast is dropping the proposed measure.The $45 billion merger deal appears to be dead, though Comcast won’t officially comment until Friday. The proposed merger faced intense scrutiny from the FCC and the Justice Department, who for some reason didn’t believe that two of the largest telecoms should become one monolithic company....

Media Platforms Design Team"Did you forget your glasses?" I asked the driver as politely as possible, hoping to hide my frustration under a joke. (The other choice was to throw my helmet, which is frowned upon but not unprecedented.) “I left them at home,” she said, her right foot planted firmly on the accelerator, and traffic cones flying everywhere. “I can’t see a thing!” I prayed, poorly, and said under my breath the motto of right-seat driving instructors everywhere: “Today’s a beautiful day to die....

In the auto bailout’s plans to mandate fuel-efficiency, the fight rages on over where to draw the line between State and Federal mandates. But the real question is: At current rock-bottom gas prices is fuel economy what consumers want? What if the companies kept alive with public-funded loans are forced to produce cars that they’ll have to sell at a loss? Of course we need to use less gasoline, but current government policies are misguided....

Research from DARPA has shown that General Motors’ OnStar system is easily hackable, and can give attackers control over many automotive systems including braking and acceleration. Furthermore, an investigation by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) revealed how woefully inadequate the safeguards from automakers are. DARPA’s experiment, as shown on “60 Minutes,” last night, hacked a last-gen Chevy Impala. DARPA inserted a malicious code string into the on-board computer, giving them control of the car....

On Wednesday, things were looking relatively rosy for the Rosetta mission and its Philae lander. The lander made history by reaching the surface of comet C-G, provoking an outburst of joy from the European Space Agency team and around the world. But all was not well.As the team re-established contact with Philae today, they found that the facts were looking grimmer by the minute for Earth’s first and only comet-landing robot....

The world isn’t fair to lefties, even when they’re rock gods. Jimi Hendrix had a hard time finding left-handed guitars, so he flipped over and restrung standard right-handed Fender Stratocasters. That changed the string tension and microphone location and produced Hendrix’s signature mix of bright highs and delicate lows. This month Fender is releasing a Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster (for $900) that will mimic the legend’s modifications. Here’s how it works:Media Platforms Design TeamA: The rear pickup on the traditional Stratocaster is slanted to capture the higher strings near their base, where they have a more piercing tone....

Media Platforms Design TeamA. LEDsLEDs in other bulbs are usually placed near the heat sink so that most of the light is cast upward. Switch’s LEDs are positioned roughly in line with the bulb’s equator; the light shines multidirectionally for more uniform illumination.B. Volume Compensation MechanismAs the silicone expands and contracts from heating and cooling, respectively, a piston moves down or up (also respectively) to regulate overall pressure inside the bulb—so it doesn’t, you know, explode....

Media Platforms Design TeamStorms at sea are harrowing experiences. Towering walls of water, driven by powerful winds, slam into the ship. A major storm can batter even the largest, sturdiest vessels. And they’re an unavoidable part of life on the water.Storms are part of life at sea, however. “If a ship is in the ocean, you’re going to have heavy weather,” says Fred Pickhardt, chief meteorologist at Ocean Weather Services. Captains can’t dodge every storm, because, as Pickhardt explained, “ships are typically on a very tight schedule....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe have a low-hanging light fixture over the kitchen table, and we’re constantly hitting our heads on it. How easy is it to shorten its chain and raise it up?Access the electrical box by removing the lock ring holding the canopy in place and sliding the assembly down the chain. Disconnect the wires and, while holding the fixture with one hand, use your free hand to loosen the chain retainer from the nipple....

Media Platforms Design TeamFrozen pipes can burst and cause thousands of dollars in damage. So what exactly do you do if you need to thaw your pipes and avoid major problems? Calling a plumber might seem like the only option, but don’t pick up the phone just yet—there are a couple of tricks you can try first to see if you can fix the problem on your own (and save quite a bit of money in the process)....

Parasailing may no longer be just for your Caribbean vacation. This month, a commercial cargo ship will become the first to go into service employing a large parafoil lashed to its bow to provide a cheaper–and cleaner–way across the waves.If the 459-ft. vessel, built and operated by the Bremen-based Beluga Group, demonstrates the practicality of its SkySails system, the global shipping industry might have a new way to mitigate its environmental impact–for every single vessel–as the world’s biggest contributor to greenhouse gases....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Asian tiger mosquito menace has been a long time coming. The bug hitched its way across the Pacific inside a shipment of tires from Japan to Hawaii in the late 1800s. It managed to make it to the mainland around 1985, and from there the black-and-white-striped insect spread throughout the United States, bringing disease with it. Here’s what you need to know about the invaders.Disease Carriers"They’re very good at spreading a number of viral pathogens," William Walton, a professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside, tells PM....