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Bacillus anthraces — more commonly known as anthrax — is not to be trifled with. Once the bacterium enters the blood stream, it releases a lethal cocktail of toxins that spreads rapidly throughout the body, leading to severe tissue damage, bleeding, and respiratory collapse. The fact that anthrax spores can infect a host via inhalation have made it a popular biological weapon in recent years. More »
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In early January, President Obama announced a new strategic direction for the U.S. military, slowing defense budget growth and shifting the military's focus to new threats. The novel strategy will shape military spending for years to come. How will it change the shape of future defense technologies? More »
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Some people take their golf extraordinarily seriously. One such group of die-hards were the proprietors of the Richmond Golf Club in Surrey, England, who drafted an interim set of rules explaining what players must do should Nazi aircraft bomb the greens mid-game. More »
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There are many debates over the best and most realistic military science fiction. But those arguments are never about the best science fiction to read or watch if you're actually serving in the military More »
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There was a time when increasing the distance between yourself and a sharp shooter bent on your extermination would significantly improve your chances of survival. But that time is coming to an end. More »
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Space, the final frontier...of warfare? Science fiction tales often center around the militarization of space, with lasers and torpedoes made of light racing past (and through) battleships and star destroyers. More »
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Whenever we hear about reconnaissance planes, descriptor such as "stealthy" and "slipping under the radar" are bandied around. But what actually goes into making stealth fighters undetectable, and what are the limits of this undetectability? More »
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The last decade of global conflict has seen the dawning of the age of the robot plane. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been around for decades, but today they're ubiquitous war machines with unmatched endurance and lethal combat capabilities. Find out more about these increasingly high-tech pilotless aircraft.

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When we reflect on iconic images of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and their nuclear devastation, one of the first to come to mind is inevitably a mushroom cloud. More »
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The US Air Force's high-tech, unmanned X-37B spaceplane launched on March 5, 2011, entering low Earth orbit with the mission designation USA-226 and a set of tantalizingly vague mission parameters: to "demonstrate a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform for the United States Air Force." More »
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World War II marked a time of great innovation, which was sometimes practical and sometimes loony. Those two kinds of innovation came together when great military minds decided that to keep an airplane from being spotted, they needed to paint it pink. Find out why a pink aircraft can get lost in the sky. More »
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This is the Kiev, currently anchored in the Chinese port of Tianjin. Once she was the flagship of the mighty Soviet navy's Pacific fleet. Now she's available for business retreats, intimate getaways or simple relaxation. More »
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Sure, it may not have been the vigilante Yale graduate we've all come to know and love, but a Batman (and his squadron of Bat-Men) did join the California State Guard for a blip in history. Pictured here in this Mechanix Illustrated article from January 1942 is Mickey Morgan, who made his career testing awesome wingsuits. More »
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Given that Thanksgiving has the reputation for being a day of Herculean food consumption, here's a rather strange World War II propaganda cartoon that visualizes such gustatory excess. In the 1942 short "Food Will Win The War," an overexcited narrator begins yelling about how bridges of butter, flour blizzards, and Brogdingnagian obese children will destroy the German army. Wars are won and lost on tubers the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. The statistics get crazy at 1:40. More »
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The military's newest digital training system is gonna open a can of whoop-ass on new recruits. And maybe a sonic blaster, too. More »
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Soldiers trapped in the jungle may need to summon help. To do this they need no radios, no signal flares, no high-tech GPS. They just need a simple (but expensive) balloon. More »
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The Air Force is looking to hire a gardener - preferably one with ray guns. You see, just like the rest of us, the military is embarrassed by their unkempt, weed-filled backyards. They've tried spraying those pesky weeds with toxic herbicides, but chemicals are expensive and - this was news to me - apparently, when you spray Round-Up on a dandelion, it doesn't instantly turn black and swoon and shrivel up, like it does in the commercials. Manual weeding takes forever - and besides, fighter jocks aren't paid to mow the lawn. More »
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The Pentagon's already got brain-controlled prosthetics, and they are a major improvement over old-school artificial limbs. The devices are far from perfect, however. They rely on metal implants, which aren't compatible with the body's tissues, and they can only transmit a few signals at a time - turning what should be a simple movement into a Herculean task. More »
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When you or I ask for a flying car, we get "Terrafugia's Transition," a roadable aircraft. When DARPA asks for a flying car, they get a Hummer like the one pictured up top — a Hummer that is capable of taking off and landing vertically; traversing off-road terrain with ease; and withstanding small-arms fire, all while accommodating up to four passengers. More »
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A soldier tries to sleep. But he is not safe in his dreams. Jolted awake by a nightmare, the combat veteran fumbles in the dark for his 3-D glasses. More »
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A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America's Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots' every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones. More »
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Soldiers: Your underwear of the future will do more than prevent crotch rot. It'll protect you from injuries, monitor your vitals, and even "harvest" your energy. That is, if a new project from Darpa's Defense Sciences Office works out as planned. That's an illustration, to the right, of what Darpa thinks its "Warrior Web" onesie might look like. More »
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Remember Boston Dynamics' robotic pack mule Big Dog? The researchers have revealed the next generation of their mechanical quadruped, Alphadog. This remote-controlled equine machine is designed to carry 400 lbs of payload on 20-mile treks over uneven terrain. The primary benefit of Alphadog is that it's way quieter than the stentorian Big Dog, which sounded like a swarm of cyber-bees. This just a prototype of this DARPA-funded carrier bot, so don't expect the "brown noise whinny" peripheral to be finished yet. More »
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Just prior to the end of World War I, French officials began constructing a Potemkin Paris outside of the real city to throw off German bombing raids. This tactic may seem unusual, but aerial bombing technology was still a bit of a novelty in 1917. Planes couldn't support massive payloads, and pilots didn't have the luxury of fancy navigational technology. This faux Paris was never finished, but as you can see the fake city's layout in this article from a 1920 issue of The Illustrated London News. More »
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At some point during World War II, loony solutions to practical problems really started to shine. There were pigeon-guided missiles, shark repellent, and giant aircraft carriers made of ice. Well, almost. The ice aircraft carrier was a legitimate plan in World War II, mostly because military intelligence discovered Pykrete, the substance that melts so slowly it might as well be concrete. More »
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What's you're seeing above is a a CV90 light tank outfitted with BAE Systems' ADAPTIV, a form of camouflage that can be used to trick heat-sensing technology. According to its designers, ADAPTIV can render the tank entirely invisible to thermal sensors or make it look like an automobile...or even a bovine. More »
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The August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia was fought at sea, in the air, on land … and in the press, as both sides tried to spin events in their favor. The shooting has ended. The propaganda war continues. More »
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During World War II, the Axis propaganda campaign took a turn for the bawdy when Japanese and German forces began distributing porno pamphlets among Allied troops. The central thesis? It was much better to stay home and get laid rather than risk your neck fighting Fascism. More »
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Gun cotton, or nitrocellulose, is a staple of a certain era of science fiction — and a certain era of firerarms. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was called 'smokeless powder' and used by the French military. Meanwhile, Jules Verne was using it, in his novels, to launch things into space and fight off bad guys. And smokeless powder was discovered because of a cooking accident and an apron. More »
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A document has just gone on display at Mount Vernon, Virginia - the museum in the former home of George Washington, first US President. It is an order dated 1777 and signed by Washington himself to send troops that had not been vaccinated for smallpox - or survived it - to Philadelphia to be vaccinated. These troops were then to join up with the main army, where the disease was raging. More »
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The US Navy is introducing a new kind of missile. Instead of taking explosives to the target, the missile will be a chemical reaction held in readiness until it hits the target. The navy says it will reduce the deaths of innocent bystanders while increasing the effect of the explosion. More »
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We've already seen how future ships can be cloaked against sonar, and maybe someday even space and time. Now researchers say they can cloak the ships' wakes, tricking water itself into acting as though nothing is there. More »
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Think you know a lot about Somali pirates? Familiar with the ins and outs of the shifting pirate finance markets?  Then send a résumé and cover letter on over to the European Union's anti-piracy task force. They're in the market for an expert on pirate culture. More »
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There was a time, not all that long ago, when the Pentagon sank tens of millions of dollars into remote-controlled lightning guns that it hoped would fry insurgent bombs before they killed any more troops. Now, disassembled parts from the one-time wonder-weapons are being sold on eBay. At least one buyer snatched up the gear, hoping to use it in his latest art project for Burning Man. More »
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People have always wanted to communicate privately. There once was a time when regular ink was secret enough, because not much of the world knew how to read. Then literacy ruined it for everyone, and drastic steps had to be taken. Enter invisible ink, the way to keep what was written secret, sometimes by unsavory means. More »
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They hover, spy, take photographs, fire missiles. But there's just one major problem with drones – they're too damn loud. Now Iarpa, the intelligence community's blue-sky research division, wants to hush them up. And it's turning to nature's own stealth flyer for inspiration. More »
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BAE System's Mk 38 chain gun was already a formidable opponent: a 250millimeter cannon capable of putting 180 rounds per minute into the air from the deck of a naval ship, strongly urging those without clearance to keep a safe distance (of about 2,000 yards). More »
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Lasers have become common since their invention in the 1960s. We use them every day to read optical media like DVDs, to see if our shelves are level, measure distances, or just to point at things. There are lots of medical and industrial uses for lasers too, but what we really want to know is how we can use them to defeat alien and Cylon invaders. Here are some ways the military is (and will be) using lasers on the battlefield. More »
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With weird western Cowboys & Aliens coming out next week, we couldn't help but wonder: were there any real 19th century weapons that could compare to Daniel Craig's alien energy weapon? As always, never underestimate the awesome craziness of the 19th century. More »
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Allied bombing raids during World War II "inadvertently experimented on the weather" in England by creating massive concentrations of artificial clouds as the planes roared off toward continental Europe. More »
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