Month: November 2018

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

It's superheroes and not their super-villain counterparts that we should really be afraid of. This idea has been explored in a number of superhero movies, including such diverse fare as The Incredibles, Watchmen, and the post-Sokovia adventures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In each, lawmakers shackle our protagonists in response to the collateral damage caused when they step in to save the day.

But perhaps collateral damage is not what we should be worried about. According to a new study, the "good guys" are actually significantly more violent than the antagonists they're trying to stop. These findings were presented on Monday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Pennsylvania pediatrician Robert Olympia and his colleagues sat through 10 superhero movies released in 2015 and 2016, cataloging each specific act of violence and noting whether it was committed by a protagonist or villain.

As anyone who has sat through a recent summer superhero tentpole can attest, there is a lot of violence to catalogue—on the order of 23 acts per hour for the good guys, with just 18 violent acts per hour for the bad guys. And it is mostly guys—male characters were five times more likely to engage in violence than female characters.

Enlarge (credit: BradleyWarren Photography)

The email arrived unexpectedly. "I don't think we've ever met, but I'm the PR Manager for McLaren in North America," it began. My pulse quickened as I continued reading. "We've got a 570S Spider that is making a quick appearance in the Chicago area for a few press loans, and I was wondering if you might be interested in scheduling a quick loan for a review?"

In the year or so I have spent reviewing cars at Ars, in addition to my usual managing editor duties, I've generally stuck to SUVs, crossovers, and minivans. Some of them can go very fast—the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio, BMW 640i GT, and the Maserati Levante come to mind—but the McLaren 570S Spider is quite a different beast. After a quick chat with Automotive Editor Jonathan Gitlin, I replied with a "yes, please." A week later, I found myself pulling out of the garage at the McLaren dealership in downtown Chicago behind the wheel of a $235,340 supercar.

When it comes to McLarens, the 570S Spider is toward the low-end of the price spectrum. New for the 2018 model year, the Spider is a convertible version of the 570S, a model that itself hit the market in 2015. Capable of a top speed of 196mph with the 101lb (46kg) roof down, the 570S Spider can hit 204mph with the hardtop in place. Speeds like that come naturally to a car that has a 3.8-liter V8 twin-turbo engine and weighs just a hair over 3,300lb. The 562hp (419kW) engine offers 443lb-ft (600Nm) of torque and is paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch seamless-shift gearbox.

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. (credit: Aurich Lawson/SpaceX)

Welcome to Edition 1.25 of the Rocket Report! There is some really interesting news from Russia this week, with a potential revival of the Sea Launch platform, concerns about sloppy work at Russian aerospace companies, and Kazakhstan opting for a Falcon 9 launch.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Stratolaunch test fires PGA engine pre-burner. For the first time, on Nov. 2, the company fired the pre-burner for its PGA engine at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Space News reports. The pre-burner serves as the smaller of two combustion chambers in a staged combustion engine. “This is the first step in proving the performance and highly-efficient design of the PGA engine,” Jeff Thornburg, vice president of propulsion at Stratolaunch, said.