Somewhere high above New Jersey, I yanked the oxygen mask off my face, worried I was about to throw up.
Maj. Jason Markzon, the pilot of our F-16 fighter jet, had just steered the plane through two tight, hard turns, part of an aviation procedure…

I flew in an F-16 with the Air Force and oh boy did it go poorly

Last week, Singapore Airlines launched what is the longest regularly scheduled flight in the world—at least for the moment.
The ultra-long-haul trip is a nonstop connection between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Singapore’s…

The world’s longest commercial flights, by the numbers

As the name implies, a triathlon is made up of three activities: swimming, biking, and running. But to test out a slick new sports watch from Wahoo that focuses on triathlon tracking, I faced a few key challenges.
The first is that I live in…

This new workout watch can tell when you switch activities

On Sunday, November 8, two people sat in a pod in a tube in Nevada and were quickly whisked a distance of about 1,300 feet. About 6 seconds into the test, the occupants hit a top speed of around 107 miles per hour. The entire trial lasted less than…

The first hyperloop passengers just took a short but important ride

Drones are common enough that it’s easy to picture their basic design variations. Fixed-wing drones look like miniature airplanes. Others use propellers—typically four of them—to pull themselves up into the sky, kind of like helicopters. A few drones…

This robotic hawk can shape-shift as it flies

Late last month, the Federal Aviation Administration signed off on the biggest commercial jet engine in the world. The huge thrusters that it certified are the GE9X engines, one of which hangs under each wing of Boeing’s new widebody 777x aircraft.…

The world’s biggest jet engine, explained

COVID-19 is poised to enter the history books as a catastrophic pandemic. While combating a new disease is difficult, we can’t blame this outbreak’s losses on the pathogen’s novelty alone. We also suffered from a lack of preparedness.
As early as…

We already know how to keep the next pandemic from catching us off guard

Commercial airliners today whisk passengers through the air at high speeds, but they can’t come close to breaking the speed of sound. Even back in the era of the Concorde, supersonic travel was the exception for commercial aviation, not the rule—and…

This test plane could be a big step towards supersonic commercial flights

The Celera is “a combination of an extremely efficient aerodynamic body and very efficient propulsion system,” says Bill Otto, Jr., the CFO of Otto Aviation, the company behind the aircraft. The goal, he says, is to be able to “fly between any city…

This weird-looking plane could someday be a fast, clean option for air travel

Earlier this week, an NPR report uncovered an exchange from June 1, in which a military police officer wanted to know if the D.C. National Guard owned a pain-inducing heat weapon for potentially using on protesters. He also asked about a powerful…

The US military’s heat weapon is real and painful. Here’s what it does.

Battery life is a crucial metric for smartwatches. The ubiquitous Apple Watch boasts about 18 hours of energy between charges, although the company is likely announcing new models tomorrow. But, it’s not just the size of the battery that determines…

These solar-powered smartwatches have seriously long battery lives

Military airplanes that can accelerate through the sound barrier are relatively common. An F-16 and other fighter jets can do it. So can a type of U.S. bomber, the B-1B. But those planes are designed for fighting and bombing, not shuttling executives…

Air Force transport jets for VIPs could have a supersonic future

When a patient climbs into an MRI scanner, it peers inside their body to reveal the complex anatomy within, like the ligaments and tendons in a knee. But in January, before COVID struck, some patients who needed their knee scanned at NYU Langone…

Artificial intelligence creates better, faster MRI scans

For years, Amazon has envisioned deploying drones to deliver packages to customers’ yards. In the company’s plan, an electric aerial vehicle would take off from a distribution center, cruise some 15 miles or less, and deposit whatever small item an…

Amazon is one big step closer to delivering packages by drone

The most dramatic way to fight a fire is from the sky.
An air tanker may fly about 150 feet off the ground at 161 miles per hour and can paint up to a mile-long line of retardant on the ground. A big helicopter could dump as much as 2,000 gallons of…

How aerial firefighters battle blazes from the skies

Popular Science’s Play issue is now available to everyone. Read it now, no app or credit card required.
Whether you want to bust tricks or just cruise around, there’s a skateboard that’ll get you moving. These half-dozen options are perfect for…

Six skateboards that absolutely shred

After more than a decade, Microsoft has officially launched the next version of its famous flight simulator. The game dropped for PCs this week, and while no computer simulation of something as complex as flight can completely mimic what actually…

Microsoft’s new Flight Simulator makes flying—and turbulence—a lot more realistic

Fighter jets need humans to fly them, but someday, that could change. This week, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency—better known as DARPA—is hosting a virtual Top Gun-style competition in which various artificial intelligence algorithms fly…

Virtual fighter jets powered by AI are battling for the chance to duel a human

Our smartphones are fantastic at conveying information, from the serious to the silly. But it’s easy to forget that they’re also powerful information-collecting devices. The GPS chip can grab a satellite signal to learn your location, companies like…

Millions of Android phones could soon start detecting earthquakes

TikTok is a fun, silly place. To scroll through it is to take in a sensational amount of people dancing and lip-syncing. There’s a video of Cameron Diaz’s wine drinking challenge, a very polite kid named Grey, and a clip from Taylor Swift’s “Love…

Go ahead and use TikTok all you want

Samsung announced a slew of new phones, wearables, and tablets in an event streamed from South Korea this morning. The presentation, called Unpacked, included plenty of talk about the new normal that the coronavirus pandemic has led to, and featured…