Conrad explains that the best percussion massagers are helpful for large body muscles.“ These include the trapezius, quads, and hamstring muscles on the back of your legs,” he says. “Large muscle groups work well with a massage gun, as the treatment helps alleviate delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which is the accumulation of lactic acid and inflammation in the muscles after a strong muscle workout.” In fact, Conrad says a percussive massage gun can provide 5 specific benefits: improved range of motion, better flexibility, decreased spasms, augmented sports performance, and reduced recovery time....

The trunk of your car has a lot more room than a single carry-on, but it’s definitely limited and you’ll need to make the most of it. Packing for the road isn’t just about the satisfaction of winning a complicated game of luggage Tetris—safety is important, too. “Properly packing cars mitigates these dangers and also helps keep all passengers safe and organized,” says Thomas McIntyre Schultz, who’s in charge of technology and product communications at Volvo Car USA....

But the spotlight on vaccination status ignores the complexities of organ transplantation outside the pandemic. “There are a ton of requirements for transplant eligibility,” says Dorry Segev, a transplant surgeon at New York University. The ethics of transplant decision-making are different from those of other kinds of medical care, in large part because there are fewer organs than there are people in need. According to the American Transplant Foundation, more than 100,000 Americans are currently on transplant waitlists....

1. Silicon We have plenty of silicon on Earth, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be useful in space. Future lunar settlers could mine and refine it into semi-conductors to create solar panels that could power their outposts. The stuff makes up 20 percent of moon dirt. 2. Rare Earths Fresh deposits of ­­rare-​­earth elements—17 highly conductive metals used in tech like hybrid car batteries and phones—are scarce on Earth. In spots rich in potassium and phosphorus, the moon could host REE mines on par with the best ones we have at home....

Energica has deep experience delivering electric two-wheeled performance to customers, having launched its first EV motorcycle over a decade ago. With several models worth of development under its belt, the Italian e-moto company is well placed to develop technology beyond that of its competitors. On May 31, Energica announced its newest model—the adventure-focused Experia—would deliver an impressive 261 miles of city range, which is significantly more than any other electric motorcycle yet on the market....

The networks that supply zippy internet don’t run on movie magic—­everything you do online has a carbon footprint. The above chart shows where each viewing method draws its power. This article was originally published in the Summer 2019 Make It Last issue of Popular Science.

There are the softer risks too, ones that can damage health but aren’t necessarily fatal right away. Will all crewmates be psychologically up to the challenge? What will years of low gravity do to bone density? And then there’s radiation, the energetic particles that fly in from intergalactic space and the sun. Earth’s magnetic field protects us from the worst of it, but out in space it’s much easier for those whizzing bits to bury themselves in our bodies where they can break DNA strands, increasing a person’s chances of developing cancer....

Floating solar farms have been around for over a decade, but water-bound panels became much more prominent in the last few years. The basic idea is to attach solar panels to plastic floats which then drift on a body of water. These floating solar arrays are typically placed on man-made bodies of water—a town’s water reservoir, an irrigation reservoir, a water treatment facility—as to avoid interfering with plant and animal species that live in natural bodies of water....

“The United States is targeting the main artery of Russia’s economy. We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy,” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday. “That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at US ports, and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine.” Following suit, the UK and EU have announced similar plans to phase out dependence on Russian fossil fuels in the near future....

Edging into Hypersonics In 1952, Bell Aircraft’s chief engineer Bob Woods sent a memo to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) calling for a hypersonic research program. Rocket engines were routinely pushing planes supersonic. It was only a matter of time before a powerful enough engine would send an aircraft hypersonic, rocketing through the sky faster than Mach 5, more than five times the speed of sound. In Woods’ opinion, the time was right to build a hypersonic research aircraft to start figuring out how to keep a pilot alive flying at these breakneck speeds....

Hejiu Hui of Notre Dame, Youxue Zhang of the University of Michigan and their colleagues studied several rocks from the lunar highlands, recovered during the late Apollo missions. One rock was nicknamed the “genesis rock” after Apollo 15 astronauts recovered it on a crater rim. The rock was thought to have come from the moon’s primordial crust. The researchers used infrared spectroscopy to peer inside the rocks without disturbing them, and were able to analyze the rocks’ water content....

Instead, commercial test pilots employed by spaceship builders will fly the first crewed missions, according to NASA officials. The space agency is letting the private firms bear that risk before exposing its own astronauts to a privately built ship. Boeing has already announced it would send its own employees to space–just like the Mercury 7 astronauts were involved in their spaceships’ development, Boeing wants input from people who will eventually fly its CST-100....

For starters, there’s the reusability aspect. A Falcon Heavy rocket is essentially three Falcon 9 first-stage boosters strapped together. All three are capable of coming back and landing vertically on the ground, to be reused later on. The side boosters being flown in this mission were both recovered from the Arabsat-6A mission conducted in April, so you could think of this mission as being made of approximately two-thirds recycled material....

Tokelau–which is made up of the Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo atolls–is administered by New Zealand, and it was New Zealand that made the $7 million investment in the territory’s energy future. With solar stations on all three atolls (the last of which was completed this week) the three main atolls now have the renewable energy capacity to meet the electricity needs of all of Tokelau’s 1,500 inhabitants. That doesn’t necessarily make Tokelau a model for the future, but it is significant for a few reasons....

Normally, when a pathogen enters the body, an able immunity is capable of defeating most invasions. B-cells, T-cells, macrophages, neutrophils and others work in combination with one another to eliminate the threat and restore us back to health. It’s not always an easy process, however, and at times can lead to exhaustion. When this happens, our ability to fend off other invaders decreases. We essentially become more susceptible to other ailments....

This is interesting because it suggests some kind of universal rule or system of laws controlling large systems. Network science is about unraveling those rules and trying to predict or control the behavior of complex networks. “By no means do we claim that the universe is a global brain or a computer,” said Dmitri Krioukov, co-author of the new paper, which was published by the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego....

Now, while the laws of physics put severe limitations on whether we could ever travel the vast distances involved in any reasonable period of time, as far as we know physics may not absolutely prohibit the possibility. So, with this in mind, let’s have a brief look at some of our favorite science fiction movies and shows and see how they deal with transporting protagonists through the vastness of space....

The new Ultimate Ears Hyperboom speaker is built for the same party rocking, neighbor-disturbing purpose, but in a much more modern package. Despite its monolithic exterior, there’s a whole lot of punch inside. The sound The Hyperboom continues UE’s excellent lineup of wireless speakers, all of which have some form of the word “boom” built into the name. The new model, however raises the stakes considerably when it comes to power and volume....

This week’s episode is another extra special one: it’s the second half of our first-ever live show, which happened on September 14 at Caveat in NYC. We’re already cooking up plans for another one in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled for more info! Fact: An 18th-century lady scammer convinced the royal physician she was giving birth to rabbits By Rachel Feltman In September of 1726, Mary Toft had a baby....

So in 2017, when Nicholson was examining seismic scans of the region taken by oil and gas exploration vessels, an unexpected feature jumped out: a 5-mile-wide dimple buried deep in the cake. A closer analysis of the site, led by Nicholson and published today in the journal Science Advances, argues that it’s the crater from a meteor as wide as the Eiffel Tower is tall. If it’s confirmed as a crater, it would have crashed into Earth within a million years of the Chicxulub meteor that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs....