The Worlds Largest Cargo Ship Will Be Too Wide to Fit in the Panama Canal

It has a quarter mile of carrying space

Samsung is building the biggest cargo ship ever. It's a quarter of a mile long. Or four football fields. Or 1,300 feet. You get the point. The thing is huge.

Built for Mitsui OSK Lines, the megaship will carry 20,150 shipping containers. That's a little over 5,000 containers more than the previous largest ship in the world. We imagine unloading that could keep a few stevedores in business for a while.The company is touting the ship as eco-friendly thanks to a number of energy-saving features inside the vessel, which, if true, is a pretty good accomplishment for something so massive.


The whole thing will cost $609 million, but it'll probably make that money back pretty quickly once it's ready to move huge loads of freight in 2017. The mighty vessel will be staying in the Pacific, though. At 193 feet wide, it's too big to fit through the Panama Canal.

Source: Gizmodo

The Worlds Largest Airship May Soon Fly Once More

Hybrid Air Vehicles, the firm that built this blimp for the U.S. Army, has bought it back in the hope of reviving the biggest aircraft in the world.

The biggest aircraft in the world has been grounded since 2013. But with a little cash infusion from the British government, it soon could be flying again.

This 300-foot behemoth is the Airlander 10. It was built by Hybrid Air Vehicles in the U.K. for the United States Army, which selected the airship to be the aircraft for its Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) program, an attempt to bring back blimps for new military uses. The ship took a test flight over New Jersey in 2012, but the Pentagon, citing money problems, cut the LEMV program in 2013.

That wasn't the end for the airship, though. Hybrid Air Vehicles bought the Airlander back from the Army, and now a £3.4 million grant from the U.K. government could get the aircraft off the ground again.

Where the U.S. government sought to use the Airlander 10 for military surveillance,The Verge reports that Britain is more interested in civilian uses such as carrying cargo or passengers. The point of airships is their long endurance and low fuel use, and the Airlander can carry 20,000 pounds for five straight days while using just 10 to 20 percent as much energy as a helicopter.

Let's see this beast back in the air, Britain.

Source: The Verge

These Guys 3D Printed a Jet Engine

We're not sure whether it's feasible to print a whole fighter jet at home quite yet, but some Australian researchers have done the next best thing. They 3D printed an entire jet engine. For now, it's an awesome project. In the future, bringing 3D printing to constructing jet engines could leaves to light, easier-to-craft parts and less waste in the building process.

In this proof-of-concept by Monash University, Deakin University, and Amaero Engineering, the team took an older engine like that in the Falcon 20 by Safran and recreated it with a 3D printer, partly with the help of lasers that helped melt and mold the metals in the new engine. The researchers have a lot of testing to do to find out how printed parts can stand up to the rigors of a working engine. Someday soon, though, the aerospace industry could be primed for customized, ready-made parts that can be easily printed for repairs.

Source: Phys.org, Mashable

Intels $180 Compute Stick Turns Your TV Into a Windows PC

Less than a week after the reveal $100 ASUS Chromebit, Google's computer on a stick, Intel is officially getting in the game, too.

The Intel Compute Stick is an HDMI-connected computer that runs a full version of Windows and features a quad-core 1.33 GHz Intel Atom processor with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of solid-state storage. In other words, it's a full computer that can plug right into your TV. Right now it's retailing for $180, though you can totally get a Linux version for $130. It's not as cheap as the Chromebit, but will allow you to do some things you can't with only the ChromeOS of the cheaper device.

This might be the higher-end way to turn your TV into a computer, or a great way to have a backup computer in case of disaster. Either way, it's a solid, cheaper alternative to a netbook, though you'd need a wireless keyboard and mouse to make use of your new giant computer display.

Source: Gizmodo

This Crazy-Strong Supermaterial Floats on Water

A new magnesium-foam composite can withstand high temperatures and intense pressures—all while staying light as a sponge

A new composite that blends titanium and foam has the durability of magnesium with the weight of a sponge. It can withstand forces of 25,000 pounds per square inch, and has a higher temperature threshold than other lightweight materials thanks to the presence of metals. Oh, and it floats on water.

The new material is syntactic, meaning that a series of air bubbles are inserted in production to make it even lighter without sacrificing structural integrity. Nikhil Guptaof NYU Polytechnic University and Deep Springs Technology developed the supermaterial, and describes its production in a paper recently accepted by theInternational Journal of Impact Engineering.

The metal composite could be a game changer for marine vessels and shipping. Its properties would make it ideal for not only a ship's hull, but also for engine parts and other high-heat environments. The lighter weight could bring down overall fuel costs, improving efficiency in marine transport and reducing its carbon footprint.

Source: Motherboard