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Drone summons lightning

It’s like something out of a sci fi movie–a drone summoning lightning.

Earlier this month, the Japanese telecommunications company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) successfully used a drone equipped with a lightning-proof cage to essentially summon lightning in an effort to mitigate damage from an incoming thunderstorm. According to NTT, lightning causes up to 200 billion yen ($1.4 billion) damage a year, so using these lightning drones could go a long way towards protecting sensitive equipment and population centers during severe weather events.

PJH Studios artwork, Portrait of a sun

PJH Studios

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  • Drone summons lightning

    It’s like something out of a sci fi movie–a drone summoning lightning. Earlier this month, the Japanese telecommunications company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) successfully used a drone equipped with a lightning-proof cage to essentially summon lightning in an effort to mitigate damage from an incoming thunderstorm. According to NTT, lightning causes up to…

  • The Speed Project, a secret ultramarathon

    The Speed Project is a secret ultra-marathon, starting in Los Angeles and ending in Las Vegas. This, he explained, was a welcome to the Speed Project, a 340-mile relay race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas with no designated route, no specific rules and only one goal: to get there as fast as possible. Arend,…

  • Introducing the Slate truck

    Two segments of the U.S. car market that are non-existent: an affordable truck and a basic electric vehicle that isn’t $35,000+. The Slate truck aims to do both for approximately $20,000. Open sourced specifications allow for customization. If the build quality is good and the aftermarket accessories create a healthy modding community, this thing will…

  • Import Immature

    Spencer Wright muses on how the world changes, there are things that never mature, namely, imports. I bring all of this up because the weird thing, and stick with me here, is that the world around us doesn’t mature. It keeps changing, even as we mostly stop doing so. The world doesn’t care that we’re…

  • A sofa in the woods brought a town together

    A fun story where someone dumped a fly tipped sofa in the woods, and it became a spontaneous photography studio.

  • A universal antivenom

    It sounds like a joke based on a basic misunderstanding of science, but a man who’s been slowly injecting himself with snake venom may now provide a source for a universal antivenom. Over nearly 18 years, the man, Tim Friede, 57, injected himself with more than 650 carefully calibrated, escalating doses of venom to build…

  • Cats bringing dead gifts

    My mother feeds a local feral cat named, Rigby. While the cat has never left dead gifts, he has been seen carrying dead animals. Most recently, a squirrel. There are a couple of hypotheses for why cats bring their catch home, Emmanuelle Baudry, an urban ecologist at Paris-Saclay University, told Live Science. The main hypothesis…

  • FAFAnomics

    Recent economic policy has turned into FAFAnomics – Fuck Around and Find Out Economics, F*ck Around and Find Out Economics, something that feels like the policy equivalent of a TikTok influencer doing increasingly dangerous stunts off the side of a building for views. The goal isn’t good governance; it’s capturing attention at any cost. And…

  • Trading card game where local Japanese men are the stars

    The small town of Kawara in Fukuoka Prefecture created a Pokemon like card game featuring local middle-aged men as the stars. The creator of the game is Eri Miyahara, the Secretary General of the Saidosho Community Council.  “We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children and the older generations in the community. There are…

  • Making music after death

    Popular Mechanics with an interesting art installation involving posthumous brain matter to make music. American composer Alvin Lucier was well-known for his experimental works that tested the boundaries of music and art. A longtime professor at Wesleyan University (before retiring in 2011), Alvin passed away in 2021 at the age of 90. However, that wasn’t…