Media Platforms Design TeamTrying to impress his future wife, Rick Riley attempted to jump over a log while biking in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The plan quickly backfired; he lost control and tumbled 20 feet downhill, landing with the bicycle on top of his body. As the front wheel continued to spin, an onlooker gasped at the sight of Riley’s leg still attached to the pedal—while the rest of his body lay awkwardly beneath it....
Media Platforms Design TeamLast Friday, Raytheon scored a Navy contract worth more than $12.8 million to create a new warhead for the Tomahawk missile. Program officials with the company say the workhorse cruise missile will be fit with a warhead that can crack hardened targets and that could turn the Tomahawk into an intelligent ship-killer. Currently, the Tomahawk missile is fixed with a 1000-pound explosive that sprays fragments, an ideal configuration to destroy soft land targets, such as stationary infantry formations or unprotected buildings....
It’s hot. Hot enough to make the asphalt parking lot gummy under your shoes, but the car’s a/c will soon have everything under control. The cool breeze is already cranking out of the dash as you back out of the space. As you pull out onto the interstate, you accelerate into traffic–then your engine gives a bump, followed by a brief screeching noise. Immediately, your battery light comes on, and within a block the cool air turns hot....
Media Platforms Design TeamWhat is now being called the Highway 31 Fire has destroyed 70 homes, forced at least 4000 evacuations and blazed through thousands of acres in northeastern South Carolina since it began on Wednesday, April 22. While the fire’s cause is still under investigation, two tickets were issued in the area by South Carolina Forestry Commission law enforcement officers to a man from Conway, S.C., who was burning household garbage in his yard....
Media Platforms Design TeamEngines are complicated, and a lot can potentially go wrong during assembly—malfunctioning machines, faulty parts, and, of course, human error. But at its factory in Tonawanda, N.Y., General Motors has taken a high-tech approach to preventing and catching these problems. And it’s all thanks to a humble little bolt.The 75-year-old factory recently underwent a $400 million upgrade to start building a new line of Gen 5 six- and eight-cylinder engines....
Media Platforms Design TeamRECALLSSince Sony released the first commercial rechargeable lithium-ion (li-ion) battery in 1990, the technology has pervaded our lives. Li-ions have about three times the energy density of nickel-cadmium batteries, making them ideal for powering everything from cellphones to power tools. On the downside, they get hot. And yes, occasionally (very occasionally), they explode.Is there a crisis? Safety has always been an issue for li-ion, since the exceedingly light and reactive lithium-ion metal used in the batteries is inherently fragile, and prone to chain reactions....
Media Platforms Design TeamSafety FirstFalling at home is a leading cause of unintentional injuries and accounts for more than 8 million emergency-room visits each year, according to the National Safety Council. If you plan to paint in high places, invest in a sturdy ladder with a shelf for your paint and tools, or borrow one.Hue Knew?Color selection can be vexing. Consider the age and architectural style of your home. The Sherwin-Williams Historic Collection proposes rustic greens and reds for Arts and Crafts–era homes, while Mid-Century Colours from Fired Earth feature such optimistic hues as Race Yellow and Festival Orange....
Media Platforms Design TeamWas the Paper Published in a Peer-Reviewed Journal?“If it wasn’t, you have no reason to trust it,” says Ivan Oransky, former executive editor at Reuters and cofounder of the blog Retraction Watch. “The peer-review system, as flawed as it is, stands between us and really poor science.” Also, find out if the journal or its publisher is on Jeffrey Beall’s list of questionable open-access journals, at scholarlyoa.com.What is the Journal’s Impact Factor?...
Tardigrades are one of the most fascinating creatures on Earth—and the moon. In 2019, the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet crashed on the moon, spilling thousands of the dehydrated tardigrades that scientists loaded onto the lander (along with human DNA samples).The tardigrades were in “tun” form, a dormant state where they shrivel up into a ball, expel most of the water in their bodies, and lower their metabolism via cryptobiosis until they enter an environment better suited for sustaining life....
New research from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggests that if panspermia really is the transportation system that spreads life in the universe, we might be able to spot it. Not only that, but it would that life itself spreads similar to models of an epidemic outbreak. Panspermia is the theory that the building blocks for life – or even primitive life itself – arrived on planets from comets, asteroids, or other agents and took root on a planet like Earth....
Media Platforms Design TeamHere’s a travel scenario: You’re flying home to visit the parents for Thanksgiving—a short flight, some 500 miles away. You arrive at the airport 90 minutes early—it is, after all, holiday travel season. After showing your ID and boarding pass, you get to the screening area. You pull out your laptop—and your iPad, just because—and place them in separate bins. You walk through a and get the wand....
Media Platforms Design TeamFirst came space exploration. Then came space tourism. But the next big thing in space is the exploitation of resources, specifically precious metals and water mined from asteroids. So says a group of billionaire investors and its crack team of already-successful space entrepreneurs and former top NASA engineers.Planetary Resources, headed by Space Adventures founder Eric Anderson and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, will announce in Seattle today an ambitious plan to identify, explore, tag, and eventually mine some of the thousands of asteroids within 5 million to 10 million miles away and which contain valuable resources....
Media Platforms Design Team"If you can’t measure something, you can’t improve it." So said this year’s Breakthrough Leadership Award winner and founder of X Prize Foundation Peter Diamandis. “And I believe that this next decade will have fundamental breakthroughs in the ubiquity and capability of sensors. In the future everybody will be wired and we’ll be dribbling bits—bits about blood chemistry, cardiovascular status, neural status—and those bits will be analyzed by AI and you’ll be told if anything is in deviation....
In October 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a U.S. Air Force cruise missile unit received orders to launch. Given that you’re sitting here reading this and civilization didn’t end with World War III, you can probably guess that they didn’t. The story behind why they didn’t, which rests on some critical thinking by launch crews to prevent the missiles from firing, is an amazing one.An article for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists tells the story of Air Force veteran John Bordne, who was stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa in 1963....
Media Platforms Design TeamRadio-Controlled LawnmowerBuilt by: David O’NeilGreenacres, Florida Here’s one we’ve all dreamed about on sticky, 95-degree days when the grass is starting to look too shaggy: a radio-controlled lawn mower. You don’t need to break a sweat to keep your lawn immaculate with this gadget around. In fact, you don’t even have to leave your house. David O’Neil took an ordinary 5 HP mower to use as a base for his project, stripped off the human controls, and added parts to control it with a remote....
Media Platforms Design Team"AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CLASS OF ANIMAL COMING SOON.“This is what the mysterious website Zoox.copromises. And according to the scant amount of information on the single-page site pictured above, that new class of animal is a fully autonomous electric car (level 4, by NHTSA classification) to be unveiled at the L.A. Auto Show and Connected Car Expo this coming November. Considering no carmaker or outside company has developed a true fully autonomous vehicle yet, that’s big news!...
Media Platforms Design TeamThe newest Range Rover luxury SUV is nearly as long as its name.The Range Rover Long Wheelbase Autobiography Black is as close as one could get to an all-terrain limo. The $185,000 (!) Range Rover has a wheelbase that’s been stretched to provide 7.3 inches more rear seat legroom and 17 more degrees of rear seat recline. So, if you need to take a nap while your driver conquers the Rubicon trail, no problem....
After more than a year of inactivity the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located 300 feet below the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland, is finally up and firing on all its superconducting magnets. On Nov. 30, a little over a week after it began sending protons zooming across a 17-mile circular tunnel, the LHC became the world’s most powerful particle accelerator by accelerating its twin proton beams to 1.18 TeV (or 1....
Media Platforms Design Team DETROIT — At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this morning, Lincoln unveiled a new premium utility concept vehicle reportedly based on the same mechanical bits and platform as the Ford Flex crossover coming next year. The MKT features the same toothy new split front grill as the upcoming MKS luxury sedan. But the body is designed as a four-door hardtop with a glass roof to let in light....
Of the hundreds of nominations we received in our search for America’s Most Popular Mechanic, only a few had multiple submissions made in their honor. And none stirred more passion and enthusiasm than Mike Besso, mechanic and proprietor of Main Street Automotive in Little Falls, New Jersey. It was the stories of Mike and his work that earned him the title of our first ever Most Popular Mechanic.Besso has been at it since he was 20, and Mike has been operating his two-bay shop for the past twenty years....
