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The Cat's Back
Can the long-awaited E-Type successor live up to its lineage? In 1961, Jaguar debuted the E-Type, a road-ready two-seat version of the company’s champion racecars. It quickly became legend, praised by Enzo Ferrari as “the most beautiful car ever made.” But in 1974, Jaguar discontinued the E-Type and shifted its...
popsci.com (10 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Shipping A 50-Foot Circular Magnet 3,200 Miles Across The U.S., For Physics' Sake
From New York, around Florida and up the Mississippi, all to study a subatomic particle that only lives two millionths of a second. After the discovery of the Higgs boson last summer, particle physicists are exploring new avenues to help shed light on how the universe works. But the most intricate physics...
popsci.com (10 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
What Information Can The Justice Department Get From Your Phone Records?
The U.S. Department of Justice has subpoenaed the Associated Press's telephone records. How much data will officials have access to? Yesterday the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Department of Justice used subpoenas to collect telephone calling records for many of their journalists and editors. In doing so,...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Autonomous X-47B Jet Fighter Makes Historic First Launch From An Aircraft Carrier
As PopSci cheers from the carrier deck ABOARD THE USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH, ATLANTIC OCEAN--All that was left on the carrier deck was a cloud of white steam wafting over a flight crew that was visibly bursting with excitement even with faces concealed behind bulky protective headgear, noise suppressing headsets, and...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Was the 2013 World Press Photo Of The Year A Fake?
Forensic image analysis relaunches the controversy. In February, the winner of the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award came under fire after allegations surfaced that it had been significantly altered. The organization has stood by the photo, but a forensic image analyst, Neal Krawetz, now claims his...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Iranian Hackers Attacking U.S. Banks
Hackers have attacked major U.S. banks over most of the past year, according to a new report. Noticed any outages on your bank's website over the past year? They could have been the work of Iranian hackers. Hackers that intelligence officials identified as Iranian have affected some of the biggest U.S. banks,...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
A Cannabinoid That Looks Like THC Could Be Key To Diagnosing PTSD
Researchers have pinpointed a set of biological markers that could help diagnose PTSD--and, eventually, treat it. A molecular imaging study has pinpointed a set of biological markers that could help diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder more accurately, and might even lead to a pharmacological treatment in the...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Freaky Carnivorous Flower Has Super-Efficient Genome
Plant genetics are so weird. The humped bladderwort is a flower that's as strange as its name. It grows in mats in shallow water, it doesn't have true roots, and it bears small, inflated, hair-triggered bladders that it keeps underwater. Any time a tiny swimming animal brushes past one of these bladders, the bladder...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Cornstarch Replaces Cyanide In Clean New Gold Extraction Method
Scientists accidentally discover a new way to isolate gold that is much safer than existing processes, which use toxic cyanide. Gold, precious forever but especially lately, is a tricky metal. Bound up in consumer electronics, jewelry and the ores that it comes from, gold is difficult to extract, and most modern...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
2013 Invention Awards: Hot Savings
An HVAC system powered by an 18-wheeler’s exhaust. Semitruck drivers idle their engines to heat or cool their vehicles’ cabs-a practice that burns a billion gallons of fuel each year. Small engines on the back of a cab, called auxiliary power units (APUs), get the job done with less fuel, but they’re loud and...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
2013 Invention Awards: Suborbital Safeguard
A sleek, comfortable space suit designed to protect high-flying tourists. During NASA’s 2007 Astronaut Glove Challenge, costume fabricator Ted Southern met fellow competitor Nikolay Moiseev, a Russian space-suit builder. Although each walked away from the competition empty-handed, they formed a productive...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
X-47B Takes Off From An Aircraft Carrier Today
It's a momentous occasion for the autonomous drone, sure, but remote-controlled airplanes have been making naval history for 86 years. The U.S. Navy's autonomous X-47B drone took off from an aircraft carrier today. This is a big deal in the military world--an airplane that takes off from and lands on an aircraft...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
How To Turn An AK-47 Into A Soup Ladle
A DIY metaphor for peace Changing swords into plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks is an ancient metaphor for turning away from violence and toward peaceful labor. Mike Izbicki, a former Navy midshipman who in 2011 was discharged from service as a conscientious objector, has created a modern-day, literal...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Are Autonomous Helicopters The Next 18-Wheelers?
The K-MAX drone made a name for itself transporting supplies to troops in Afghanistan. Will the unmanned helicopter start delivering commercial cargo in the U.S.? The K-MAX optionally-manned helicopter is a powerful battlefield work horse. Over the past 16 months, two (yes, just two) K-MAX drones delivered 3.2...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
FYI: Why Do We Hate The Sound Of Nails On A Chalkboard?
Screeeeeeeech! Most people associate this cringe-worthy noise with words like “piercing” and “shrilling.” But it isn’t actually the sound’s high-pitched tones that give us goose bumps. During a study that dates back to 1986 (the days when they actually used chalkboards), scientists at Northwestern University tested...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
2013 Invention Awards: Robotic Performer
A programmable animatronic robot kit. Brian Roe spent nearly a decade building animatronic monsters for films such as Virus, A.I., and Scooby Doo 2. Then, almost overnight, Hollywood abandoned mechanical characters for computer renderings. Roe now works as a technology consultant, but with the surge of cheap,...
popsci.com (11 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
How To Puke In Space And Other Important Things We Learned From ISS Commander Chris Hadfield
Water, bread, eyes and vomit all do weird things in space. Chris Hadfield, who abandons his post as ISS commander today, explains. Today, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield passed command of the International Space Station to cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov. Hadfield’s command has been so much fun, because he...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Astronomers Spot A Planet Using Einstein's Theory Of Relativity
First proposed 10 years ago, the method recently helped scientists locate a super-hot gas giant 2,000 light-years away. A different algorithm for discovering planets recently proved its mettle, identifying a new planet that's like a bigger, hotter Jupiter. A team of astronomers from Israel, the U.S. and Denmark...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
How To MacGyver A Million-Pound Orbiting Space Laboratory
When things go wrong on the International Space Station, astronauts often have to get creative with the repairs. Here are 5 of NASA's most MacGyver-y moments. Click to launch the photo gallery Spacewalking astronauts seem to have fixed a leak on the International Space Station by replacing a busted ammonia pump...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Your Brain Catches Grammar Errors Even When You Don't Realize It
The pedant within The brain does all kinds of amazing things while you’re not paying attention (you know, like regularly remind you to breathe). But it’s also engaged in less critical but equally interesting tasks, like correcting the grammar of the person sitting across from you at dinner. A University of Oregon...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
How Do You Make A Painkiller Addiction-Proof?
In 2010, OxyContin introduced a new formula that drug abusers can't crush to a powder to snort or inject. This is how it works, chemically, and whether it actually deters abuse. For those who have severe chronic pain, the advantage of OxyContin over other prescription painkillers is that it lasts for 12 hours. For...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Watch People Across The World Edit Wikipedia Articles In Real Time
Here are 10 great, odd edits from the past 10 minutes. At any given moment, somebody is almost certainly editing something on Wikipedia. Will that person have any expertise on the subject? Who knows! (For the story of one of those editors, click here.) The edits are invisible to your average Wikipedia visitor,...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Geophysical Coalition Testing High-Tech Tools To Unearth Hidden Graves
Atrocities often lead to unmarked graves. A team of scientists is creating better tools to help find them. Perhaps the saddest byproduct of acts of orchestrated violence isn’t the staggeringly high body counts that can accrue, but the bodies that aren’t counted. Conflicts like the one that ripped apart the...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
How Facebook Used Psychology To Design More Emotional Emoticons
With the help of a psychology professor and a Pixar illustrator, Facebook is trying to make our messages a little more emotional. In 1872, Charles Darwin published The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, a book that cataloged emotional expressions in humans and their link to the animal world. In the...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Middle Eastern Hackers Attacking U.S. Power Companies
There's currently a wave of attacks against power plants, according to new reports. Middle Eastern hackers have been attacking U.S. utility companies and trying to gain control of their computer systems, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported recently. Customers haven't seen any effects from the...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
High School Student Wins Hackathon With A Tool That Blocks TV Spoilers
I DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO HAD TO PACK THEIR KNIVES AND GO Twivo is a simple idea: protect yourself from spoilers by censoring references to a given TV show until you can get home and catch up. It's a nice little tool with a great backstory: it was created in only 10 hours by a high school student, who was the only...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Iran Unveils Absurd New Stealth Drone
Weirdly, it bears a striking resemblance to non-stealth drones. Yesterday Iran unveiled the brand-new Hamaseh Stealth and Combat Drone. You can see it above. Note the non-retractable landing gear and externally carried missiles. However stealthy the Hamaseh's bulbous head may appear, exposed landing gear, missiles,...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
The Troubling Way Men React To Sexual Harassment
This is the first study to find a link between harassment and disordered eating in men. When men and women get sexually harassed, they take it out on their bodies, according to a new study. And of the effects researchers looked for, the strongest wad in men, who were most likely to throw up or take laxatives in...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Big Pic: Watch The Moon Swallow The Sun In X-Ray
The Hinode telescope captures some amazing views of last week's annular solar eclipse. Last week's annular solar eclipse was only visible from cruises in the Pacific Ocean, but the international fleet of solar-observing spacecraft had a great view. The Hinode telescope, which orbits Earth and observes the sun in...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
Watch ISS Commander Chris Hadfield Cover David Bowie's 'Space Oddity'... In Space
A seriously beautiful video marks the end of a seriously entertaining ISS expedition. International Space Station Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield has taught us so much about space. He’s shown us how to make sandwiches in zero gravity (with tortillas, because bread crumbs--like potato chip crumbles--can clog...
popsci.com (12 days ago) read full article at popsci.com
