A typical plane flies for 25 years or so before it starts to wear out. When a plane is finally grounded, though, it doesn't have to be the end of the line.

There's a big eclipse coming up. No, not the total solar eclipse in August that we're all really excited about. This one will happen in September around a star 1,000 light years away. Sure, it will be much more difficult to observe than our Moon passing in front of the Sun, but it could give us clues about a distant solar system.

Researchers at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center used motion sensing technology to study how compression tights affect vibration and fatigue.

Launching a missile is easy. Hitting another missile with a missile is one of the hardest challenges of modern military engineering, and has been for decades. Today, the Pentagon successfully fired a ballistic missile interceptor at an ICBM-like target, destroying it in space.

There's an old childhood ditty about eating beans that starts off “beans, beans, they're good for your heart,” and ends with a snicker-inducing line about their other well-known effects. It turns out, though, that beans are good for more than your heart. Eating them could also be good for the climate.

Just a few days ago, Microsoft announced an upgrade to its Surface Pro touchscreen computing device (Redmond hates when you call it a “tablet”). You might have missed it because not a whole heck of a lot has changed. The Surface Pro now has the latest 7th-gen Intel processors, extended battery life up to 13.5 hours, and a swanky new keyboard covered in Alcantara, a material that feels a bit like suede, but is made from polyester and polyurethane to make it durable. What has significantly changed, however, is the Microsoft Surface Pen, and that could be a big step forward for Microsoft in its current efforts to court the creative class.

Good luck studying glassfrogs. Even the largest ones are barely two inches long, they live only along secluded streams inside dense jungles, and their translucent green skin blends perfectly with the leaves they like to hide under. And just to make life even harder for biologists, some of them have completely transparent skin.

Everyone pees in the pool. That's the safe and well-informed assumption that many chemists studying the safety of public, chlorinated swimming pools make. But let's face it: once you jump in the pool and smell and feel the chlorine surrounding you, you quickly forget about any potential pool-peers and trust the power of the chemicals in the water. That's probably not the best idea, though. The chemical byproducts that result from your urine and the chlorine aren't as benign as you may think. And in the end, everyone would be doing a great public service if they would just stop peeing.

Horking down cheese doodles and chocolate milk every night isn't good for you. Hopefully this doesn't come as a surprise. But what apparently does come as a surprise to many people is the fact that the chubby guy on the treadmill might be healthier than that skinny dude vegging out on his couch.

You always forget to chill the booze. Somehow the burgers get prepped and the decorations get hung, but fifteen minutes before the cookout begins, you're stuck with lukewarm beer.

  One of NASA's greatest spacecraft will call it quits on September 15, 2017. The Cassini spacecraft has made countless discoveries during its sojourn to Saturn and its surrounding moons. It has also sent back nearly 400,000 images, many of which are purely spectacular, with surely more to come during the final months of the mission as Cassini explores new territory between Saturn and its rings.

Sound the alarms: Water doesn't always freeze when it should. In fact, you can chill water and most other liquids below the temperatures at which they usually freeze. Scientists once cooled water down to the frigid temperature of -51°C, and the H2O remained liquid, at least for a fraction of a second, before it flash-froze. But forget scientists—you can use this phenomenon, called supercooling or undercooling, to make instant slushies—even beer slushies.

"Tears in Eyes" is a Sichuan dish of soft rice noodles covered in a spicy sauce made of dried, fresh, and pickled chill peppers, chili oil, and, of course, the iconic Sichuan peppercorn. It more than lives up to its name. The dish's capsaicin content (capsaicin is what gives chilis their bite) is so intense that as tears stream down your face, you start to believe that you're doing irreversible damage to your tongue. It is also delicious.

Los Angeles is the land of sunshine, warm summers, and mild winters, with only a few dark and cloudy days to darken the relentless California cheerfulness. But what if you travelled back in time 50,000 years? What would California's climate look like then?