Size, style, and material all make a difference when it comes to protecting your stuff. You’ll want to use it properly to maximize safety, but also so you don’t waste it. With that in mind, read on to learn all you never even knew you didn’t know about bubble wrap. Bubble wrap can get expensive if you’re packing up your entire home for a move, so you don’t want to waste it....

Designing anti-aircraft, or ack-ack, guns was difficult. Because airplanes move so fast and have such extreme maneuverability, gunners must shoot at the target’s future position, making the aiming mechanisms quite complex. So America’s new guns were complicated and expensive—but boy, were they effective. The fast-firing autocannons could paint the sky with lead, firing more than 120 anti-aircraft shells per second. On one occasion in 1942, the guns aboard the U....

For several decades in the middle of the 20th century, Blackbird was the primary US producer of cobalt, a metal essential in the manufacture of Cold War–era jet engines. After years of on-again, off-again operations, the site closed in 1982, when the price of cobalt dropped too low for the operation to be profitable. Today, the shuttered mine constitutes a 10,000-plus-acre Superfund site, the designation bestowed by the Environmental Protection Agency on areas of extreme contamination....

Cancel the noise and the cost with these Bose deals: Bose Noise-Cancelling Headphones 700 Over-Ear, Wireless Bluetooth Headphones $269 (Was $379) Sleek, with a smooth, matte finish that our reviewer once described as “what I’d imagine a dolphin feels like when it’s dry,” the Bose Headphones 700 are an impressive piece of audio engineering both outside and inside. Available in Silver Luxe or Triple Black, the Headphones 700 has responsive touch gesture controls on the outside of the earcup....

The New York City Department of Sanitation acquired a Mack electric garbage truck in 2020 as a test vehicle, and now is planning on ordering seven more. They could quietly cruise down streets in Manhattan, the Bronx, and other boroughs by 2023. Here’s what to know about how these super-heavy electric garbage trucks work, and why electrifying refuse vehicles in cities like New York isn’t a stinky idea. Refuse is a good fit for an electric truck Anyone who’s ever pondered a long drive in an electric vehicle has worried about charging it, but the rhythms of waste collection mean that’s less of an issue....

Now, three environmental accountability groups say the largest fossil fuel company in the US is doing just that. Earthworks, Global Witness, and Greenpeace USA, represented by the law firm Richman Law and Policy, jointly filed the first-ever greenwashing complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on March 16 against Chevron, an energy company with a market value over $136 billion. They claim that the company “is consistently misrepresenting its image to appear climate-friendly and racial justice-oriented, while its business operations overwhelmingly rely on climate-polluting fossil fuels, which disproportionately harm communities of color,” according to a press release from Earthworks....

As opposed to gunpowder, railguns use electromagnetic energy to sling out a projectile, which means there’s potential for far greater speed and range—the equivalent of a cannon with missile effects. Essentially, a railgun is an electromagnetic-powered cannon that’s fires hypersonic shells by applying parallel magnetic fields (or “rails”) on the shells While the technology has received great attention in United States military circles, China is the nation producing the most unclassified, peer-reviewed electromagnetic launch research in the world....

The agency is in the middle of a comprehensive study on the about 1,000 reported cases of Havana syndrome. Its interim findings rule out unnatural causes of the condition in most cases, but the CIA will continue its investigation and focus on the two dozen cases that are still unexplainable. “Some of our toughest cases remain unresolved,” a CIA official told NPR under the condition of anonymity. “We have so far not found evidence of state actor involvement in any incident....

“It was in [the] blink of an eye. This was a disaster in fast motion, all in the course of half a day,” Governor Jared Polis said in a press conference on December 31. “Nearly 1,000 homes are gone.” Cold, snowy weather over the weekend has since suppressed the fire. This is believed to be the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history due to its location in the packed Denver suburbs and remarkable timing outside of fire season, which traditionally lasts from around May to September....

Researchers surveyed 365,682 adults between the ages of 50 and 74, asking how much tea or coffee they drank each day. The team then tracked each participant’s health outcomes for more than a decade. At the end of the study period there were 5,079 cases of dementia and 10,053 cases of stroke, based on hospital records. Those who drank two to three cups of coffee or three to five cups of tea a day, or a combination of four to six cups of coffee and tea, were the least likely to develop either stroke or dementia....

The Orion spacecraft that will drive astronauts to Mars has a diameter that’s about the length of a pickup truck. That’s not a lot of space when you consider the astronauts’ journey to Mars will take at least 6 months. In order to not go totally bonkers, Mars-bound astronauts will need a larger place to live, complete with private quarters and exercise equipment. NASA envisions the Orion capsule could link up to a habitation module in space, but right now they have no idea what that module could look like....

The company has teaching facilities in Detroit, Michigan and Henderson, Nevada. Its stated mission is to “provide education and FAA certification for flying and maintenance, job/career placement, advisory services, outsourced aviation services and repair services.” If the drone industry is to take off, it will need pilots with more training than that gained by just flying a quadcopter into a tree after Christmas. Fast Company reports: There are already military drone airports, which are great for military pilots and understandbly off-limits for anyone else....

We covered the project when it launched in December, writing at the time that the $220 drones would respond to gesture commands, and enter the drone market as one of the cheaper, camera-carrying options. It promised so much fun in such a little device. As recently as October 15th, the team announced they were capable of shipping 200 Zano drones a day. Torque’s official statement is locked for backers only, but the BBC reports that it included this line: “Having explored all options known to us, and after seeking professional advice, we have made the difficult decision to pursue a creditors’ voluntary liquidation....

Flowcarbon, backed by WeWork founder Adam Neumann, is one of the latest crypto carbon projects to emerge. The company converts carbon credits into digital tokens that are usable on a blockchain with the goal of simplifying how the credits are traded. Flowcarbon announced in May that it had raised $70 million in its first major funding round. But whether the tokenization of carbon credits can help mitigate climate change is yet to be proven....

Jackery Explorer 300 Portable Power Station $209 (Was $349) Why it made the cut: This powerful portable generator can be charged with an outlet, car charger, and solar power, and it’s lightweight enough to take camping. Specs: Dimensions: 9.1 inches L x 5.2 inches W x 7.8 inches HWeight: 7.1 poundsVoltage: 110Wattage: 300 Pros: Multiple modes of chargingLightweightIdeal for campingGreat price Cons: Not powerful enough to charge major appliances for long periods...

But to geologists decades later, those black specks are a treasure rarer than the diamond itself. Using X-ray analysis and mass spectroscopy, geologists and physicists confirmed that the jewel’s imperfections are bits of mineral from the Earth’s lower mantle—a substance that has never been identified in a natural sample before. The mineral usually only exists in extreme high pressures and temperatures, and this particular sample likely formed between 410 and 560 miles below the Earth’s surface, making the stone a “super-deep” diamond....

Thanks, Jeff Goldblum. In Death Valley, renowned for it’s exceptionally hot and dry weather, flowers are blooming. They are blooming in such large numbers that some of the park’s rangers are anticipating the possibility of a ‘superbloom’–a once-in-a-decade event that happens when the dry desert receives a decent amount of rain. Wildflower blooms happen every year in the desert, but a deluge in October, followed by brief rain showers have brought these stunning flowers to the desert floor in unusually large numbers....

Estes alerted state park rangers and lifeguards to his find, who in turn alerted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “I knew it was an unusual find,” Estes told the Guardian. “I have never seen a fish that looked like that before.” The bizarre sea creature turned out to be a 18-inch female Pacific Footballfish, a species of anglerfish similar to the notorious one-time villain from Finding Nemo. As shown in the movie, each anglerfish has a fleshy, long dorsal fin called an illicium that extends in the front of the mouth....

DJI announced the Mavic Air at a press event earlier today in NYC. It was the public’s first chance to see the revamped guidance system, which works similarly to a self-driving car. Sensors look around the environment and processors use algorithms to interpret that data and guide the craft down the path of least obliteration. Meet the sensors The most obvious sensors on DJI’s new drone are the seven cameras....

As the dust has settled, many astronomers think the early results remain informative. But, in the rush to work with a groundbreaking new observatory and sift through its mountains of data, they report stressful working conditions. That’s a scenario they hope to improve upon in 2023 and beyond, finding a balance between quickly offering exciting results to the public and taking the time needed for rigorous, sustainable science. “I was actually quite excited to see science happening very fast,” says Klaus Pontoppidan, JWST project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute....