Toroidal Propellers Make Drones Less Annoying

A black quadcopter sits on a grey surface. In place of traditional propellers are four figure eight propellers with sharp tips where the top and bottom of the eight would be.

Despite being integral to aviation for more than a century, propellers have changed remarkably little since the Wright Brothers. A team at MIT’s Lincoln Lab has developed a new propeller …read more Continue reading Toroidal Propellers Make Drones Less Annoying

Lost Moon Found: The Satellite That Came Back to Life

The late 1950s and early 1960s were a tumultuous time in world history. The Cold War between the East and the West was in full-swing, driving the new fields of nuclear weapons and space exploration and giving the period its dual monikers of “Atomic Age” and “Space Age.”

Changes in these fields often went hand in glove, with developments in one requiring responses in the other. In 1958, the US conducted nuclear tests in the Pacific that effectively destroyed the ionosphere over the test site and shut down high-frequency communications to places like Hawaii and New Zealand. The strategic implications …read more

Continue reading Lost Moon Found: The Satellite That Came Back to Life