It’s the audio equivalent of viewing the world through a clear window versus stained glass: Stained glass creates gorgeous colors and patterns, but sometimes you just need to see what’s on the other side, even if it’s ugly out there. Let’s peer at some top choices to bring this clarity home. Best overall: Yamaha HS5Best for golden ears: Focal Alpha 80 EvoBest for DJ/producers: KRK ROKIT 8 Best for home recording studios: JBL LSR 305P MKIIBest portable: IK Multimedia iLoud Micro MonitorsBest budget: Mackie CR3-X...

Here are some of our favorite synths currently on the market. Yamaha’s REFACE series of synthesizers is a breath of fresh air, offering up classic vintage keyboard tones in affordable and smartly-upgraded miniature packages. The REFACE CP is Yamaha’s answer to the timeless Rhodes and Wurlitzer style of electric pianos, boasting six unique onboard piano sounds and 128-note polyphony for a realistic, dropout-free playing experience. You can control analog-style drive of your synth or add chorus, delay, tremolo, and reverb all from the knob interface, and you can take it on the go too, thanks to the onboard speakers....

The oven is linked to an app, which allows you to control the oven’s functions, or search through its surprisingly robust digital recipe catalogue. The catalogue is updated with new recipes on a regular basis and you can search for ones that fit your current diet, or feature an ingredient you have sitting in your fridge or pantry. You can also access recipes or change the oven’s settings by using its touchscreen....

Jessi Combs got it done. Nearly a year after her land-speed record attempt in the Oregon desert, Guinness World Records has awarded the racer, fabricator, and motorcyclist the designation of Fastest Woman on Earth. Combs died last year during the record attempt in an accident in southeast Oregon’s Alvord Desert. She was 39. Her run broke a record that stood for more than 40 years. Officially, the record set is for “fastest land-speed record (female),” which was a recorded 522....

In a new statement outlining new emergency use authorizations, the FDA says that individuals 65 years and older, as well as adults with high risk of severe COVID-19 or high exposure to the virus, can get an additional single booster dose of Moderna at least 6 months out from their first set of shots. The FDA also authorized that people 18 and older can receive a single booster dose of Johnson & Johnson two months after their initial immunization....

But that doesn’t make this any less of a breakthrough where metamaterials and cloaking are concerned. Many attempts at cloaking have been made, and many have been some degree of successful. But the original theory that led to all this cloaking science says that we should be able to cloak objects entirely, and up to this point we’ve failed to do that. Every other attempt has, to some extent, left behind small reflections of incident light....

Whether you’ve got a single skillet or a fully stocked kitchen—or perhaps you’re just itching to light that new grill—there is a burger method that’s right for you. Below, we break down the best ways to cook burgers on the stovetop, in a toaster oven, over the grill, even how to steam the patties. Once you’ve mastered your preferred method, check out our Ultimate Burger Guide for our favorite recipes, toppings, tips, and sides....

There are many still-open questions on what registration means. It’s not clear who will have to register, or what that process will be like, but that will be decided next month. Drone regulation was always coming. In 2012, when Congress passed a bill reauthorizing the FAA, it required the administration to come up with a roadmap for legal drones in American skies. The deadline was set for September 30th, 2015, and the while the FAA proposed new rules this past winter, the administration missed that deadline....

Destroyers as a category of ship exist for two distinct yet related missions. From the category’s conception in the late 19th century to the present, they’ve been built to escort bigger, more powerful or vulnerable ships, and use their weapons to deter or destroy smaller threats. (The name itself is a shortened form of “torpedo boat destroyer.”) The other mission of destroyers is as a platform for offensive weapons, primarily guided missiles, which can be launched at ships, buildings, or vehicles at great range....

Meanwhile, the action sequences, and the use of technological gadgetry are on par with a James Bond movie, and The Dark Knight provides an ample springboard to apply some Hollywood physics. There are so many chases, collisions, jumps, flights and explosions it’s easy to highlight a few of these for some exciting physical analysis. We’ll also take a look at some of the fancy gadgets and discuss the physics (or lack thereof) behind them: There’s a lot there....

For example let’s look at the segment where the guy tosses the ball in the cup off of a moving skateboard. The beauty of all of this is that although the motion of the ball is three dimensional, the motion in each direction is independent of the other two and with a little basic physics we can calculate when and how fast the ball has to be thrown to make the shot....

As the U.S. prepares to open the national airspace to unmanned robotic systems and our various foreign engagements keep military robotics up high on the defense budget, we’re all taking part in an era of unprecedented robotic research and development, prompting Singer to ask: “Are we going to let the fact that what is unveiling itself now seems like science-fiction to keep us in denial of the fact that it is already part of our technological and political reality?...

But while the Army has fixed-wing drones such as the Raven and Puma (picture a big model airplane to get a sense of what they look like) that a soldier would launch by hand, it doesn’t have an official Army drone that’s a four-prop flying machine like any civilian might buy from a company like DJI. “There’s no organic quadcopter capability in the Army,” says Carson Wakefield, an assistant product manager for small unmanned aircraft systems in the Army....

It will be impossible to bring the COVID-19 pandemic to its heels until life saving vaccines are available globally. That is a fact the world is increasingly having to reckon with. But for now vaccinating a majority of the world’s population remains far from reach as experts argue over how, exactly, to scale up vaccine production and distribute doses equitably around the world. Last week, the United States made waves by announcing it would back a waiver of intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccine technology—a move proponents say could remove legal barriers and make it easier for more countries, especially lower income ones, to make and dole out doses....

“Macau is like a labyrinth, a real nightmare for newcomers” is a thought shared by the majority of riders. Treacherous corners alternate with two sixth-gear straights, where the speed is definitely magnified by the tall buildings all around. Every corner looks the same as the next one. Track knowledge is essential, but sometimes experience is not enough; the uninterrupted yellow-black-yellow-black sequence sometimes betrays even the most experienced riders. Cars have raced between these Armco barriers since 1954, while bikes started racing at the Guia Circuit only a few years later, in 1967....

Click to launch the photo gallery_ We are bidding farewell to an epic year for space explorers, who for the past 12 months have been graced with some of the best images and best science ever to come down from another planet. With no slight to Cassini, Voyager or the others, which are also still sending many happy returns, 2012 was all about Mars. Many of you were glued to your livestreams and Twitter feeds in August–and through the onset of winter–for the touchdown and first rolls of the Mars rover Curiosity....

“They’ll stand up on their very muscular pectoral fins and they’ll kind of wiggle along and walk instead of swimming,” says Shannon Corrigan, an evolutionary biologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. Walking sharks can even tolerate short stints in open air as they scramble between tidal pools in their shallow coral reef habitats during low tide. But they’re also noteworthy for another reason: Walking sharks are one of the newest groups of sharks on the planet, appearing on the animals’ evolutionary tree around 44 million years ago, Corrigan and her colleagues reported January 21 in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research....

But while meteorologists had known Irma’s path for some time, the intense solar flare—the most powerful of the decade—came largely as a surprise. Researchers understand pretty well how the Earth’s atmosphere interacts with its surface to make rain, wind, and snow, but figuring out exactly how our local star generates “space weather” remains a big challenge. “On Earth they have this huge network of weather monitoring stations,” says Dan Seaton, a solar researcher at the University of Colorado in Boulder....

These are just concepts, so there’s no promise they’ll see the light of day. Still, the ideas are worth exploring for what they telegraph about the future of military aviation, perhaps in the 2030s. Here’s what to know about these futuristic flying machines. Airplanes, helicopters, and tilt-rotors Aircraft come in a few general categories. Planes ranging from a small Cessna to a giant Boeing 747 are known as fixed-wing aircraft, and feature propellers or jet engines to give them thrust....

Froghoppers feed on plant sap, but not the kind that most other insects rely on. The majority of sap-sucking bugs drink what’s known as phloem, a sugary liquid that easily spurts from plant vessels thanks to the positive pressure in that part of a plant’s circulation. But froghoppers don’t take the easy route. They feed on xylem—a watery, nutrient sparse liquid that flows through plant vessels via negative pressure. To extract xylem, froghoppers generate suction pressures of up to 1....