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There are good ideas, there are bad ideas, and then there’s the Rocket Racing League (RRL). When we first reported on the ambitious plan to send rocket-powered planes roaring through an aerial racecourse at up to 300 mph, organizers had scheduled a demonstration at the X Prize Cup in October 2006, with a season opener planned for early 2007. But the RRL stalled at the X Prize Cup: Instead of a demo race, the league unveiled a nonworking rocket-plane mockup and sent a single Learjet flying around an aerial course....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Friday morning local time, a ten-ton, 6-foot-diameter meteoroid broke up some 20-30 miles above Chelyabinsk, Russia, about 1,000 miles east of Moscow. The resulting shock wave blew out windows, injuring hundreds of people. The event, along with Friday’s coincidental , points up the need for eyes in the sky—such as those proposed by space startups B612, Planetary Resources, and Deep Space Industries—focused on large incoming asteroids to warn of impending impacts....

Following a scrubbed launch due to weather on Monday, SpaceX has sent another resupply mission to the International Space Station Tuesday afternoon, giving it another opportunity to test its reusable rocket platform. Successfully launched from Cape Canaveral at 4:10 PM ET, the Falcon 9 is sending an uncrewed Dragon capsule to orbit (with 4000 pounds of cargo, including an espresso machine). It attempted a vertical landing on the autonomous drone barge on the way down, but Elon Musk confirmed that the landing was “too hard for survival....

The Mazda MX-5 Miata is a misunderstood car. To purists and gearheads, it’s the ultimate affordable sports car, a lightweight tub of fun, the rare track car that won’t maul your wallet every time you need brake pads. Car people not only respect the Miata, they revere it. That view makes sense. But the rest of the world thinks that Miatas are a little bit goofy—if Hollywood wants to tell us that a character is clueless, it brings in the Miata....

Media Platforms Design TeamPhoto illustration by Anthony VerducciIt would appear that Apple is poised for a jump onto the phablet bandwagon. According to the Wall Street Journal, sources familiar with the situation said that two new iPhones could be released later this year, one with a display larger than 4.5 inches and the other with a screen measuring in at more than 5 inches.To keep up with competitors such as Samsung that manufacture larger handsets, like the 5-inch Galaxy S4 and 5....

One of the big issues with heart transplants is simply the number that how many people need a new heart versus the number of available, viable hearts. A box that keeps hearts beating and filled with blood could help.More specifically, the OCS Heart by TransMedics could help increase the volume of transplants by potentially opening up the number of possible donors beyond those that are normally accepted. The stereotypical heart transplant begins with a brain-dead donor, whose heart is harvested from a healthy body and cooled for transport....

When a major league baseball pitcher throws a 95-mph fastball, only about 400 milliseconds—the duration of a blink—pass before the ball rockets over the plate. And a batter gets less than half that time to decide whether to swing, and where. Baseball players, then, could reap huge benefits from being able to probe a baseball farther from their eyes. And that inspired Aaron Seitz, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Riverside, who has created a new, publicly available app that conditions users to see farther on or off the baseball diamond....

On Monday, a train hauling 100 tankers of crude oil derailed in West Virginia. The violent crash punctured several of the tankers. Eventually 19 were engulfed in flames. Now, more questions are swirling about whether these tankers are safe enough to carry crude.Old cars, new crudeInitially, the crash had many pointing to a seemingly similar accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in 2013, in which crude oil tankers also ignited following a derailment....

As bad as Adam Sandler’s movies have gotten in recent years, they’ve retained a strain of demented, juvenile strangeness that at least gave them a distinctive air of feverish oddity. Jack and Jill, for instance, is a terrible film, but Al Pacino’s go-for-broke cameo as a horny, gonzo version of himself was so astonishingly WTF that it almost redeemed the whole enterprise. With Sandler’s latest, though, those obnoxious peculiarities have been scrubbed away, leaving us with just a big, blandly polished bore....

Media Platforms Design TeamApparently, adding 22s and an aero kit qualifies you as a show car.Media Platforms Design TeamNo, this wasn’t shot in the morning before anybody showed up. This was taken at 4:00 in the afternoon when the crowd was heavy.Media Platforms Design TeamNot even restored, much less customized…Media Platforms Design TeamYour monitor doesn’t do justice to the kryptonite-green paint on this 6-seat buggy’s suspension parts.Media Platforms Design TeamWhen I first saw this, I figured that someone had put the vinyl film into the cutter upside down....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere’s some news that’s big coming from GM here in Los Angeles this year. The General showed its all-new Chevy Suburban and GMC Yukon XL, both of which are based on the new GMT-900 full-size truck platform. The Suburban’s new sheetmetal, like the Tahoe, is quite conservative. Under the hood is the venerable 5.3-liter V8, now boosted to 320 hp. Later, a new 6.0-liter V8 with variable valve timing will be available for heavy-duty models....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe IS F is Lexus’s first “F” car, an aggressively tuned sub-brand that steps up to autobahn-storming Mercedes-Benz AMGs and BMW Ms. Despite Lexus’s reputation for building sedate luxury cars, the IS F boasts an impressive spec sheet: its 5.0-liter V8 produces 426 hp and 371 lb.-ft. of torque, a 76 lb.-ft. advantage over BMW’s M3. The 3780-pound sedan is capable of hitting both 60 mph in only 4....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Sale Date: NowBase Price: $29,650 (eligible for $7500 Federal Tax Credit and applicable state rebates)Competitors: Chevrolet Spark EV, Fiat 500e, Ford Focus Electric, Honda Fit EV, Mitsubishi i-MiEVPowertrain: AC electric motor, 107 hp, 187 lb-ft; 24 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, direct drive, FWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): 130/102 mpge (mfr. est.)What’s New: The mid-cycle update of Nissan’s five-door EV is all about improving the whole by tweaking the parts....

Media Platforms Design TeamBase Price: $33,025 to $44,025 Competitors: Audi A3, Buick Regal, Mercedes-Benz CLAPowertrains: turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4, 240 hp, 255 lb-ft; turbocharged 3.0-liter I-6, 320 hp, 330 lb-ft; six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic; RWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy, mfr. est.): 22-23/34-35, I-4; 19-22/28-32, I-6BMW’s product lineup has gone through more subdivisions than a colony of single-celled bacteria. The 2 Series is the latest entrant. In BMW’s new math, an even-numbered prefix indicates a coupe or convertible, while odd numbers tell you the car has four doors....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Grease BikerReader: David HubbardMaterials: $8500Time: Three monthsResult: An eco-friendly touring bike whose fuel costs 65 cents a gallon – labor not included.* See the Biodiesel Motorcycle Runners Up* Submit Your Own DIY ProjectTired of smelling the exhaust from the tractors on his Wellsburg, W.Va., farm, David Hubbard learned to convert cooking grease to biodiesel. Once his tractors and backhoes were running on fuel made from oil provided by local inns and restaurants, Hubbard decided to have a little fun....

Media Platforms Design TeamSuper Bowl ads usually go big. Mophie, which makes cases for mobile devices, is going apocalyptic.Mophie’s cases are known for doubling as a battery to give your phone extended life— becausem as their commercial says, “When your phone dies, God knows what could happen.” That includes gravity coming undone, hurricanes hitting Omaha, dogs walking people, priests stealing TVs and fish falling from the sky.If you need spoiler warnings for a Super Bowl commercial, then maybe you need some new hobbies, but here’s one anyway: SPOILER WARNING....

History is littered with seemingly desirable supercars which, for whatever reason, had a tough time vacating dealerships. Consider the unloved Jaguar XJ220 or the underappreciated Porsche Carrera GT, neither of which was embraced by spendy speed enthusiasts. On the other end of the spectrum is the Ford GT, whose scant 4,038 examples were snatched up swiftly by the time production ended in 2006.Media Platforms Design TeamRed blooded American muscle car enthusiasts who swooned at the GT might be intrigued by Galpin Auto Sports’ recently teased supercar project, dubbed the GTR-1....

Imagine smaller cities like Omaha seeing Los Angeles-style traffic, trains too crowded for most passengers to get where they’re going on time, and further population concentrations into megacities that put further strain on city infrastructure and transit. A new report from the Department of Transportation paints a dire picture of the future of transportation in America if things don’t change quickly, but it also sees technology saving the day in some areas, just as streamlining air travel and reducing traffic accidents through driverless cars....

Media Platforms Design Team Yesterday, Terrafugia, Inc. announced that its proof-of-concept flying car had successfully taken off and landed at Plattsburgh International Airport in upstate New York. This vehicle—which requires a Sport Pilot license to fly—takes 30 seconds to switch between flying and driving, making it a “roadable aircraft.” Its wings fold up automatically and all parts, including the propeller, are stored on the vehicle when its takes to the road....

Media Platforms Design TeamA few years ago, I built an enormous home theater PC that cost about $1200. Because it’s on most of the time, it runs too hot, and the fans trying to cool it down are loud, which makes the whole thing sound like a jet engine. My new HTPC, built around Nvidia ION graphics, is outperforming my old PC and has been shrunk down to the size of a cigar box....