In reality, no polygon exists. There aren’t any connecting lines within the sectioned colors to create it. Yet, our brains trick us into thinking that the Pac-Man-like characters are full circles, topped with a 3D triangle. The illusion depends on careful placement. Our minds can make do with scant information, says Christof Koch, chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Here, the Pac-Man shapes sit at the would-be triangle’s edges, so we reckon a polygon is actually there....

Subscribe to Popular Science on YouTube. In moments of deep thought, have you ever wondered what the rockets in “rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air” in the national anthem actually are? Of course, bombs were bombs—cannon balls. But what were rockets in 1814, when The Star Spangled Banner was written? As legend has it, Francis Scott Key bore witness to the British siege on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812....

So they sent her to see teams specializing in pain genetics at University College London and the University of Oxford. Those researchers took DNA samples from both her and some of her family members and uncovered her secret: a tiny mutation in a newly-discovered gene. They recently published their results in the British Journal of Anaesthesia. This minuscule deletion is inside something called a pseudogene, which is a partial copy of a fully functioning gene inserted elsewhere in the genome....

1. Sun At just under 1.5 pounds and occupying no more space than a short stack of comic books, the RavPower 16-watt solar charger‘s three panels turn roughly 22 percent of available sunlight into ­device-​­saving current. A pair of USB outputs can top off a phone and a portable power pack ­­simultaneously, at a pace just slightly slower than what you’d get out of a standard wall outlet. 2. Fire Ignite some sticks, pellets, or scraps inside the BioLite CampStove 2, and a 1....

Over the last year, two of my beloved carnivorous plants died suddenly: a Pinguicula—a Mexican butterwort I bought online—and a Sarracenia—a pitcher plant hybrid I purchased from the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley. Both plants thrived for years: The butterwort shrunk to a succulent to hibernate each winter and spread its leaves each summer, sometimes growing a single purple flower; the Sarracenia grew red pitcher after red pitcher, a phallic reminder of the absurdity of evolution....

According to Japan Today, when the police spot drones in no-fly zones, the “the squad will search for the operators and order them to ground the drones.” Should those operators fail to comply, police will scramble large drones (as big as 6 to 10 feet long) with cameras and nets to take down the mechanical intruders. While plenty of fancy anti-drone countermeasures exist, nets are proving to be one of the more popular options....

If McFly has any sense of branding, perhaps he’ll be swayed by the new Hendo 2.0, a redesigned magnetic levitation board featuring design input from legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk. But McFly is hardly limited to just one type. On shelves, there’s the hands-free Segway-style hoverboard that is neither a board, nor does it hover. There’s the Lexus-built magnetic levitation hoverboard that works in exactly one specially built skate-park. Earlier this year, an American even flew a homebuilt hoverboard across a record-setting distance over a lake in Canada....

Rats and humans both have a hippocampus, the region of the brain that deals with memory and with navigation. Some neurons in this area of the brain, known as “place cells,” light up when a human or a rat returns to a location it recognizes. These place cells fire at a certain location known as the “firing field.” What causes firing field formation still isn’t fully understood, but this new research sheds some light on the matter....

To celebrate the anniversary of the July 1969 expedition, we picked out some of our favorite photos from the NASA archives to remind us that no matter how far we go in or past the solar system, it all started here, with the Earth’s most beloved and mysterious satellite.

The program was a huge success. It helped increase childhood vaccination rates, and nationally, around 90 percent of children now receive immunizations against diseases like measles and polio. Today, the program covers 14 vaccines, and in the period since it was introduced, overall vaccination rates have prevented hundreds of millions of illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths in children. However, Vaccines for Children has not created universal access to these medications, and a vaccination gap remains between children who are insured and those who don’t have any healthcare, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data shows....

Rheinmetall already makes a range of vehicles, including tanks. It also produces tank-like vehicles, such as the turreted and wheeled Boxer armored troop transport, or the tracked but turretless Armored Recovery Vehicles. The immediate goal of Rheinmetall’s new contract, as reported by Shepard News, is figuring out a way to mount a 50mm heavy chain gun on the Army’s future Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV), which several companies are competing to make....

After a successful launch of the Jason-3 ocean-monitoring satellite, the rocket’s first stage turned around and came plummeting back to Earth. Despite 12- to 15-foot ocean waves and foggy weather, the rocket booster managed to land very close to the center of the drone ship. It touched down gently… and then tipped over as a landing leg gave out. So close! Here’s the video of the landing attempt, from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s Instagram: One of the landing legs didn’t fully lock out to support the tall booster....

The condoms-turned-into-balloons appear to be filled with a lighter-than-air gas, and have small satchels of explosives tied to their ends. Released into the wind and carried into the sky, their transparent bodies almost disappear, which is probably the one advantage they have as an anti-air weapon. In the video itself, we see one balloon explode prematurely, and even without that the balloons aren’t a controlled weapon. This is hardly the first use of balloons in war, though it may be one of the first uses of condoms-as-balloons in a conflict....

On June 30, the Swedish automaker held a live event in its hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden to showcase its upcoming engineering marvels. Dubbed Volvo’s first-ever “Tech Moment,” the automaker used the time to show how its design principles and focus on safety would shape new cars. Presently, Volvo has only one fully-electric car on the road in the United States: the XC40 Recharge. Soon it will add the C40 Recharge crossover to its portfolio as well....

The payments will go to states, cities, and Native American tribes to settle all opioid lawsuits, with the finalization of the lawsuits depending on an overwhelming majority of plaintiffs signing on. CVS and Walgreens said that these settlements are not an admission of wrongdoing. The opioid epidemic has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans since 1999. Opioids are a class of drugs whose origins go back centuries, but the modern equivalents were introduced in the late 1990s....

On December 12 and 13, scientists aimed NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar precisely at the passing asteroid, and used the returning radio-waves to build detailed pictures of the object’s surface. They then assembled all those still frames into two short video clips. There’s just something amazing about watching a rock spin through space millions of miles away:

Apple very publicly refused to create a backdoor into iPhones after a judge ruled that they must do so. The tech company then went one step further and filed a motion to close back doors into iPhones forever. The trial is scheduled to start at 1pm ET. Watch the Congressional hearing live in the link above or on CSPAN.

Throughout the show, President Obama follows Grylls around through trees and craggy rocks, and at one point they end up looking out over the Harding Ice Field. The glacier (or as Grylls calls it, the glassier) has receded a shocking amount since 2008, and it offers a poetic take on how swiftly our presence can change the environment. President Obama hopes that the show allows people to see and feel the effects of climate change, not just read the numbers....

After a pair of millipedes started getting it on, researchers from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago scanned both individuals and one male-female pair in an electron microscope. They also captured dozens of photos at slightly varying angles on a digital camera. By layering them digitally, they were able to clarify tiny genital details. They photographed the millipedes in both natural and ultraviolet lights, since their genitals glow under UV lighting....