There's a reason it's Spider-Man and not Superman who climbs up the walls of buildings: Superman can fly instead. But the KAIST Urban Robotics Lab in South Korea wants to turn flying quadcopters into wall-crawling robots that could wash windows and inspect infrastructure. The result is kind of awkward.
Drone races have all the excitement of science fiction hoverbike chase scenes. Exciting first-person camera views and strange 3D paths are inevitable. This latest race, made by athletic outfitter Motociclo Sports and actiony camera giants GoPro, features three quadcopters (they all appear to be DJI models) flying through an old soap factory in Montevideo, Uruguay. The GoPro cameras stream live video to the pilot's tablets, which they use the fly the craft from a first-person view.
It's an idea after Ben Wyatt's heart. The BBC reports that the Canadian city of Edmonton is thinking about taking advantage of the cold, dark nature of its winters and creating an 11-kilometer-long (almost 7 miles) 'Freezeway.' The Freezeway would function as a bike path and greenway in the summer, then, once the weather started getting cold, flooded and frozen, creating an icy surface that residents could use to skate to work. The idea was presented at the 2015 Winter Cities Shake-Up a conference for urban planners and others based in chilly cities.
Unlike Copenhagen, London isn't known for a robust cycling culture. But that is slowly changing. Cycling in the city is more popular than ever before, and it will likely continue to expand.
Every day, people find new places where they shouldn't fly drones. Earlier this week, it was the White House grounds. Before that, a meth-smuggling remote control copter crashed just south of San Diego. There are even maps of where not to fly drones. Now, in a new, short PSA, the Federal Aviation Administration very clearly says where not to fly: the Super Bowl
News reports say that 11 of the 12 game balls used by the New England Patriots in their AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts were deflated, showing about 2 pounds per square inch (psi) less pressure than the 13 psi required by the rules, so it seems that the most bizarre sports scandal of recent memory is real. But there are still plenty of questions: why would a team deflate footballs? Could there be another explanation? And most importantly, what does physics tell us about all this?
Sometimes Iceland really lives up to its name. For instance, in the picture above, the entire country is basically covered in snow and ice. With one notable exception. See that big black dot in the middle? No, not in the lower left--that's the largest natural lake in Iceland, Lake Þingvallavatn, which is a favorite for snorkelers and scuba divers. We're talking about the beauty mark in the center-right, which is an absolutely massive lava flow originating from a fissure of the volcano Bárðarbunga.