The Week’s Awesome Stories From Around the Web (Through August 5)

TRANSPORTATION

A Pod Races Through the Hyperloop for the First Time Ever
Alex Davies | WIRED
“Once loaded into a 1,600-foot-long concrete tube in the Nevada desert, the pod hit 192 mph in about 5 seconds, using an electric propulsion system producing more than 3,000 horsepower. As the pod accelerated through the tube 11 feet in diameter, the 16 wheels retracted as magnetic levitation took over.”

BIOTECH

Gene Editing Study in Human Embryos Points Toward Clinical Trials
Steve Connor | MIT Technology Review
“The medical rationale for doing germ-line modification—that is, altering an embryo—is to repair a genetic defect even before birth, ensuring that a trait isn’t passed on to future generations. ‘This would completely eradicate the gene mutation and this disease from the lineage of a family,’ Mitalipov says.”

AUTOMOTIVE

All the Things the Internet Hates About the Tesla Model 3 Have Me Excited
Jonathan M. Gitlin | ArsTechnica
“Last Friday, Tesla's new Model 3 electric vehicle finally hit the streets…Doing away with the front motor-generator unit and making the Model 3 rear-wheel drive (for now) is another such choice. Yes, rear-wheel drive makes the 3 easier and cheaper to build, for it has never been the case of simply using two of the same motors and putting one between each axle—the front and rear motors on the "D" version Model S and Model Xes have always been different units.”

VIRTUAL REALITY

See How NASA Envisions a 'Mars 2030' Landing in VR
Mariella Moon | engadget
“A NASA-approved virtual experience called Mars 2030 has just landed on the HTC Vive, the Oculus Rift and the PC through Steam. It puts you in the space shoes of an astronaut exploring 15 miles of Martian landscape, which was modeled after the planet's real surface as captured by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera.”

DATA STORAGE

IBM Scientists Have Captured 330TB of Uncompressed Data Into a Tiny Cartridge
Thuy Ong | The Verge  
 “The record of 201 gigabits per square inch on prototype sputtered magnetic tape is more than 20 times the areal density currently used in commercial tape drives…In order for researchers to achieve the 201 gigabits per square inch, IBM researchers had to develop several new technologies. IBM worked closely with Sony for several years, particularly on enabling increased areal recording densities.”

Image Credit: NASA