Technology, Innovation & Outdoor News

Sub-zero survival lighter fires out lasting flame in rowdy conditions

May 20, 2026 | C.C. Weiss
The average $2 Bic lighter is great for lighting up a cigarette but not as great for lighting campfires or grills. Minnesota startup Radlight presents an intriguing alternative developed specifically for such outdoorsy tasks ... and for fending off hypothermia when things really go south. Its oversized weatherproof lighter delivers a confident, reliable starter flame, even if you're battling squall winds, horizontal rain or temperatures as low as -40.

Nissan builds $14K tiny camper using crazy-versatile everyday material

May 19, 2026 | C.C. Weiss
Nissan keeps the factory camper vans coming. Its newest is built atop its smallest van, the Clipper kei van, which measures in under 3.4 meters (11.2 feet) long. To make it a micro-camper, Nissan relies on a basic household staple with which everyday DIY handymen have been familiar for ages: pegboard. The van's integrated peg panels serve as a simple, affordable means of holding up the bed and providing highly versatile storage organization for related (and unrelated) outdoor adventures.

Cooling copper plates could slash data center energy use by 90%

May 20, 2026 | Etiido Uko
In 2025, data centers consumed 485 TWh of electricity. 30% of that, more than the entire annual power consumption of Sweden, went to cooling. Scientists have developed a 3D-printed copper plate cooling tech that can slash this figure by over 90%!

Top Stories

The Manx R is a proper supersport, one that doesn’t feel like a retro cash-grab. Rather, a statement that the company wants to be taken seriously again – not just as a historic badge, but as a modern performance bikemaker with something left to prove.
The Byron Bay tiny house is a spacious model that's centered around an open kitchen and living area. The towable home also has multiple upgrades available, including an off-grid setup, and would be a good fit for small families.
CycloKinetics, a US propellant company, has unveiled a new family of superfuels for aircraft, missiles, and rockets that increase fuel performance by 32%. Aimed at the defense market, the fuels could allow vehicles to fly farther while carrying heavier payloads.
Winnebago's latest launch is its most ruggedly luxurious yet. Picking up where the Revel and Ekko leave off, the Arka truck camper is prepared to spend 2 full weeks at a time in the deep, dusty backcountry. Just don't expect a spa bathroom.
What better place to pull the covers off of your latest and greatest pocket camera than the Cannes Film Festival? DJI has done just that, unveiling the Osmo Pocket 4P on one of the most prestigious stages in global filmmaking.
Turkey-based upstart Shark Instruments is taking the fight to higher-end guitar makers with advanced manufacturing capabilities. Its latest industry-first feature: adjustable frets.

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Health and Science news from our sister site: Refractor
A survey found nearly 30 percent of American-registered physicians think it’s somewhat plausible that we’ll invent the ideal conditions for a brain to retain enough neural information to function well after death.
Texas-based company says its artificial egg supports the full development of bird embryos outside a biological eggshell, without requiring supplemental oxygen. The work is part of its plan to “de-extinct” birds, including the giant moa and dodo.
Is life really out there? A team of scientists from the University of California, Riverside, has devised a new statistical method that could serve as more than a cosmic thought experiment, potentially providing answers to the age-old question.
Could glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) nix the inflammation that drives asthma? Maybe, according to a large national study of more than 27,000 older adults, which was presented to scientists last week.
Like the spin of a cosmic coin, a unique set of particle oscillations could ultimately decide the fate of the Universe’s biggest suns. These new findings suggest that current descriptions of core-collapse supernovae may actually be incomplete.
A new study suggests that genes from the ancient human species, Homo erectus, may have been passed on to living people in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and across south-east Asia.

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Editor's Picks

Bajaj Auto, the world's third largest motorcycle manufacturer, has gone from a partner to KTM to taking over the Austrian brand altogether. That's thanks to a $905-million shot in the arm from the Indian two-wheeler giant at the eleventh hour.
As science wrestles with the thorny job of proving, defining and understanding human consciousness, one pioneering startup aims to apply cutting-edge theories of consciousness to AI models – and create the first sentient AI. This is wild stuff.
After leaving the competition scrambling with the launch of a powerful ebike drive system in 2024, DJI brand Avinox is set to do it all again with a second-generation flavor designed to beat every rival on power, torque, and weight.
It's not often you get two household names in one headline, but that's what happened at Mecum's annual collector automobile auction season Kickstarter in Florida this week, with a who's who of motorsport stacking the provenance of the same car.
When we first caught wind of Thule's new Widesky rooftop tent, we took the model name to imply a large, clear stargazing skylight. Instead, Thule's latest tent encourages panoramic viewing in a different way, one we haven't seen on any other RTT.
Australian defense company Electro Optic Systems (EOS) has unveiled its Apollo High Energy Laser Weapon (HELW) that pumps out up to 150 kW of power yet can take out 200 medium-sized drones running on its own internal power supply.
The dream of the ancient alchemists may come true as Marathon Fusion announces that its tokamak fusion reactor technology can turn common mercury into gold as a byproduct of fusion operations in quantities that would make Auric Goldfinger blush.
Dinosaurs may be long extinct, but 2025 made it clear that they’re anything but settled science. New fossils, reanalyses of famous specimens and increasingly sophisticated tools have helped us learn more about how they lived, moved, fed and evolved.