Seal everything up tight To help ensure your van retains as much heat as possible during cold winter nights, make sure there aren’t any spots where heat can leak out and cold air can slip in. This is also essential if you plan to store your van, as it prevents water from leaking in and causing mold and other issues. We’ll start by looking at how you can stay warm on the road, then provide a few essential tips for readying your van to hibernate for the winter....

But ramping up clean energy isn’t without its own thorny considerations. One question is where to put all those renewables. If sun and wind provide 98 percent of energy by 2050, that could quadruple the amount of land required to produce energy, according to an analysis by Bloomberg and Princeton University. That’s why policymakers are looking to the sea for solutions. The President also recently pledged to develop 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030—a goal that, if achieved, could alleviate the pressure on land to support vast acres of energy development....

Although conservation efforts have been ramped up—five percent of formerly endangered species are facing recovery—the report cautions that better results are needed and that humans, whether directly or not, are to blame for many of the ills facing mammals. For instance, 78 percent of marine mammals are now endangered due solely to accidental deaths (like by being caught in fishing nets not meant for them or being hit by ships) and 40 percent of mammals are threatened because of damages to their habitat....

In the case of lungs, most of those donated will never reach a recipient. Transplant teams reject a whopping four out of five of them for simple reasons that have proved nearly-impossible to solve. A new approach, described today in a paper published in Nature Communications, might change that, leading to a greater abundance of viable lungs and more successful transplants. Currently, the window for keeping donor lungs viable is only 24 hours at most....

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Corrin hails from the Fire Emblem series of games. Including Corrin in the game makes sense, with the newest installment of the Fire Emblem series coming in February. Bayonetta makes her way to the Smash Bros games via fighter ballot. Having won the fan election in Europe and landing in the top 5 in North America, the seductress was the most popular option that could feasibly be added to the Wii U and 3DS game....

Each year, companies produce billions of pounds of plastic waste., and the majority of single-use plastics are produced by just a handful of groups. Still, corporate accountability isn’t always robust. Even in the cases where companies do make commitments to reduce plastic consumption, in actuality, the burden often falls on the consumer, and promises frequently don’t reduce virgin plastic consumption, a new study published Friday in One Earth shows. “We need to turn off the tap of plastic pollution,” Zoie Diana, author of the study and PhD candidate at Duke University tells PopSci....

An online program from the University of Washington, the University of Utah, and other partners lets any amateur astronomers take a look at images from the Hubble Space Telescope and search for star clusters in the galaxy. There’s a lot of those clusters–as many as 2,500 in the images–but researchers have only found about 600, even after searching for months. (One big roadblock: Pattern-recognition software tends to skip over star clusters....

Formerly retailing for $796, you can get your hands on the AWS Certified Dev and Ops Engineer Professional Training Bundle for only $29.99. Prices subject to change.

Forty-eight lithium-iron-phosphate batteries feed power into the motorcycle’s controller, which determines the rate at which electricity travels to the motor. The result is 420 pounds of unusually quiet motorcycle, with 100 horses and a top speed of 150 mph. Build an Electric Bike Time: 10 Days Cost: $10,300 DC-to-DC Converter: Power-drawing accessories like the headlights don’t need anywhere close to the amount of current emitted by the enormous battery pack....

The current version of the SnoMote, built by Georgia Tech engineer Ayanna Howard (who previously worked on NASA’s autonomous Mars rovers), was field tested last month on Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier. If you’re thinking the SnoMote looks suspiciously like a toy—well, it is. The three prototypes, each just two feet long, were engineered from off-the-shelf remote control snowmobile kits and souped up with advanced electronics and monitoring equipment. Despite their humble origins, they withstood the harsh Alaskan conditions just fine....

The thing is, the racer is a blue plastic humanoid robot with actuators instead of muscles and tendons. Yamaha engineers want to first get Motobot, as they call the rider, to hit 100 km/h (62 mph) in a straight line on a regular motorcycle—throttle, clutch, and all. Then they’ll teach him to corner and run a slalom. Then, they’ll turn him loose on a racetrack, where Motobot’s machine learning systems will allow him to incorporate data acquired on each lap of the track to improve his times....

Unlike a standard set, which sits passively when not in use, the motion-activated Samsung Frame transforms into artwork when you’re not watching TV. You can subscribe to a library with over 1,400 pieces of artwork that display when you walk into the room and pick from several bezels/stands (sold separately)—allowing you to match your mood or decor. With 4K AI-upscaling, 120Hz refresh rate, 100-percent Color Volume in the DCI-P3 color space, built-in Alexa, and the Tizen smart platform (giving you access to all major streaming services), plus a wide variety of connectivity (including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB, and four HDMI ports), this TV has both function and form to upgrade your home entertainment setup....

Warning: Even if you’re an experienced professional and build this project perfectly, it could still be dangerous. Please proceed at your own risk. It involves slightly modifying a circular saw beyond its established purpose by bolting it in place and fixing the blade guard in a position where it can’t automatically cover the blade. Because the guard will no longer function as designed, it’s extremely important that you ensure the saw is properly secured and you stand to the side while cutting—as you would when operating a normal circular saw....

1. Defibrillator Inspired by galvanism (manipulating muscles with electrical current), Mary Shelley’s Dr. Victor Frankenstein famously reanimates dead flesh. In 1947, the less-ghoulish Dr. Claude Beck saved a teenage patient with a 60 Hz jolt to the heart from his homemade defibrillator: two silver paddles wired to an outlet. By the ’50s, the machines were reviving patients in hospitals worldwide. 2. Space stations In Edward Everett Hale’s 1869 novella, The Brick Moon, four old college bros use a river-​­powered flywheel to sling a ­skyscraper-​size brick sphere stuffed with people into orbit....

“We know that sharks, rays, and skates”—a group of fish known as ‘elasmobranchs’—“are sensitive to the electromagnetic field,” says lead author Bryan Keller, a PhD student in oceanography at Florida State University. But researchers hadn’t yet managed to demonstrate whether they use that sensory ability for navigational purposes. “What we were specifically interested in testing, was if that ability allows them to infer map-like information from the Earth’s magnetic field,” says Keller....

Crafted by Seido, a global company featured on NBC News, USA Today, and more, these high-quality Japanese master chef knives will transform how you prep and cook at home. The blades are constructed with high-carbon stainless steel and a perfect balance between sharp edge retention and durability and range from an 8″ Chef Knife that’s ideal for slicing tough meat to a 3.5″ paring knife for precision cutting through any food that requires extra care....

The Shure MV7’s design With its black metal housing, foam windscreen, and sturdy yoke mount, the MV7 is clearly modeled after the $399 Shure SM7B, which is an industry-standard (reviewed here) to deliver warm, highly focused vocal tones in recording and broadcast studios—think Michael Jackson on “Thriller,” or many of your favorite podcast hosts. Now the $250 MV7 is aiming to become as familiar in compact digital set-ups, capturing a more sensitive but less forward tone at closer to half the cost of its professional mic sibling....

Google’s dinky streaming dongle works like a charm with Google Home. Simply say what you want to see: Shout at your speaker to start playing Orange is the New Black from Netflix or cat videos from YouTube and watch it spring into action. In order to set up the Chromecast, you’ll need that Google Home app. It manages the whole system, picking up your spoken commands through the Home speaker and sending them over to your sensibly-labeled Chromecast (it needs an easily-understood name like “living room” or “study”)....

A British company called Concept Smoke Screen is now offering up its Security Smoke Screen as a solution to gun violence in schools. Push a button, and thick, non-toxic smoke fills the room, obscuring potential victims from a shooter’s gaze. The product was developed to protect bank vaults, and has been used for more than 30 years, but this is the first suggestion that we install it in classrooms. Concept Smoke Screen suggests that the smoke not only would protect teachers and children by hiding them from view, but would also alarm a shooter and possibly even draw authority attention to the school’s situation....