Read the latest articles from Popular Science (Page 649)

View of the dome of the HI-SEAS facility against the background of Mauna Loa.
Mars

These astronauts are preparing for life on Mars by living in Hawaiian lava tubes

The caves are an excellent facsimile of lava tubes on other planets.

How to know if your post-workout pain is actually life-threatening rhabdo
Diseases

How to know if your post-workout pain is actually life-threatening rhabdo

There's such a thing as pushing yourself too hard.

Three children sliding down a slip and slide.
Projects

Beat the heat by building your own slip and slide

Laugh, splash, and slide your way to a cool day.

How the war in Afghanistan revealed an evolving drone fleet’s mettle—and shortcomings
Drones

How the war in Afghanistan revealed an evolving drone fleet’s mettle—and shortcomings

The cameras got better, but a Hellfire missile is still no scalpel.

Sky Saker H300 NORINCO China helicopter drone on an exhibition in Dubai
Military

China has a New Armed Drone Helicopter

Meet the Sky Saker H300

Military vehicle FLYPmode on a parking lot
DARPA

How The First Crowdsourced Military Vehicle Can Remake the Future of Defense Manufacturing

DARPA's community-designed FLYPMODE car was presented to President Obama last week

a bloody heart surrounded by forks
The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

The weirdest things we learned this week: wild weather, Victorian cannibalism, and the female orgasm (as told by a 12th-century nun)

Our editors scrounged up some truly bizarre facts.

The Army’s launching drones from dune buggies. Here’s why.
Army

The Army’s launching drones from dune buggies. Here’s why.

The future is starting to look a little more like a G.I. Joe scene.

a baseball player swings a bat
Physics

Why baseball players ‘bone’ their bats

Rubbing down wooden bats with cow femurs is a sort-of-scientific superstition.

Mom and kid in front of a cardboard rocket with white, blue, and red pain in a fenced-in yard
Projects

Turn your old boxes into a kid-sized rocket ship

Liquid hydrogen not included.

You Built What? A Motorized Easy Chair to Roar Around Campus
Vehicles

You Built What? A Motorized Easy Chair to Roar Around Campus

Getting to class just got a little faster

NASA X-59 Quesst Aircraft in the sky
Aviation

The most impressive aerospace innovations of 2019

They’re the Best of What’s New.

medical staff wearing scrubs in an OR
Medicine

Inside the controversial new surgery to transplant human wombs

Pioneering surgeons have made it possible to transplant a human uterus that can bear children, offering hope to millions of women who never thought they could give birth.

J-20 Zhuhai 2016 China Stealth Fighter
Military

Beyond The J-20: The Many Planes Of China

The 2016 Zhuhai Airshow features new bombers, marsupial drones, and much more

Concept art for flying infantry
Aviation

Meet the armored soldiers and nuclear artillery of a future war that never was

Wars of future past.

illustrated modern ejection seat & plane emergency evacuation
Aviation

Here’s how people jumped out of planes decades ago—and eject from them today

Exiting a speeding jet is no small feat. From parachutes for the balloon corps to the latest generation of high-speed ejection seats, here’s how we learned to make a swift aerial exit.

Simple Project Of The Month: The DIY Camping Shower
Projects

Simple Project Of The Month: The DIY Camping Shower

A car-lighter-powered shower for when you get a little too much of the Great Outdoors on you

microbiologist in BSL4 lab
COVID-19

Regardless of COVID-19’s origins, experts say it’s time to tighten up biosecurity lab protocols

BSL-4 labs are somewhat risky, and they're not very well managed.

security flaws in today's $100 bill
Security

Building Better Money

Drug lords, millionaire wannabes and the North Korean government have perfected methods for knocking off our most valuable greenback. Now the scientists in charge of making the real dough are fighting back with an unfakeable (for now) $100 bill

Patrick Leger illustration
Agriculture

The secret to curbing farm emissions is buried in the Stone Age

Agriculture is our number-one carbon polluter, but a return to old ways could reverse the trend.