Scientists are finally learning who was onboard. Preserved machine guns may finally reveal the names of the lost Flying Fortress crew. The B-17 bomber was specifically designed for high altitude, long distance missions. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A team of marine archaeologists is one step closer to identifying an Air Force crew who lost their lives aboard a B-17 bomber amid the height of World War II .

The Chinese military recently unveiled a new kind of battle buddy for its soldiers: a "robot dog" with a machine gun strapped to its back. In video distributed by the state-run news agency CCTV, People's Liberation Army personnel are shown operating on a testing range alongside a four-legged robot with what appears to be a variant of the standard-issue 5.8 x 42-mm QBZ-95 assault rifle mounted on it as part of China's recent Golden Dragon 24 joint military exercises with Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. In one scenario, Chinese soldiers stand on either side of a doorway while the robot dog enters the building ahead of them; in another, the robot fires off a burst of bullets as it advances on a target. "It can serve as a new member in our urban combat operations, replacing our members to conduct reconnaissance and identify enemy [sic] and strike the target during our training," one Chinese soldier shown operating the robot told CCTV. This isn't the first time the Chinese military-industrial complex has shown off an armed robot dog. In October 2022, Chinese defense company Kestrel Defense published a video showing an unmanned aerial vehicle air-dropping a quadrupedal ground vehicle affixed with a 5.8 x 42-mm QBB-97 light machine gun on a roof during an urban warfare experiment.

Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world's first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare. The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers. That would mark a revolution in military technology as profound as the introduction of the machine gun. Ukraine already has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI. Russia also claims to possess AI weaponry, though the claims are unproven.

Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world's first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare. The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers. That would mark a revolution in military technology as profound as the introduction of the machine gun. Ukraine already has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI. Russia also claims to possess AI weaponry, though the claims are unproven.

On Saturday, October 29, a Russian fleet on the Black Sea near Sevastopol was attacked by 16 drones--nine in the air and seven in the water. Purportedly launched by Ukraine, no one knows how much damage was done, but video shot by the attacking drones showed that the vessels were unable to avoid being hit. In response to that and other successful attacks, Russia has retaliated with scores of missiles and Iranian-built Shahed-136 drones aimed at electrical and water systems throughout Ukraine. Despite daily reports of lands taken or lands liberated in the nine-month war, the conflict has been largely fought in the air, with artillery shells, rockets, cruise missiles, and, increasingly, drones. Small, cheap, relatively slow-moving, carrying far less of a wallop than a cruise missile or a 500-pound bomb, the Shaheds in particular have bedeviled Ukraine's otherwise excellent air defenses.

A number of shots rang out, smashing into Fakhrizadeh's black Nissan and bringing it to a halt. The gun fired again, hitting the scientist in the shoulder and causing him to exit the vehicle. With Fakhrizadeh in the open, the assassin delivered the fatal shots, leaving Fakhrizadeh's wife uninjured in the passenger seat. A pickup truck parked on the side of the road exploded for no apparent reason. Sifting through the wreckage afterwards, Iranian security forces found the remains of a robotic machine gun, with multiple cameras and a computer-controlled mechanism to pull the trigger.

The security convoy turned on to Tehran's Imam Khomeini Boulevard at around 3:30pm on 27 November 2020. The VIP was the Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely regarded as the head of Iran's secret nuclear weapons programme. He was driving his wife to their country property, flanked by bodyguards in other vehicles. They were close to home when the assassin struck. A number of shots rang out, smashing into Fakhrizadeh's black Nissan and bringing it to a halt.

A Chinese military contractor created a video showing off its terrifying new military technology, revealing a robot attack dog that can dropped off by a drone. The video that was initially released on the verified Weibo account of "Kestrel Defense Blood-Wing," a page affiliated with a Chinese defense contractor, shows a drone hovering over a building and then dropping off a robot on the roof. After the drone flies away, the robot gets up on four legs and then begins to scan for targets around the building with what appears to be some sort of automatic weapons attached to its back. According to a report from WarZone, the weapon mounted on the robot dog is possibly a Chinese QBB-97 light machine gun, which is capable of firing 650 rounds per minute at an effective range of 400 meters. A drone is displayed at a Chinese military parade.

In a metal workshop in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine, a homemade anti-drone system waits to be mounted on a military pick-up truck. The contraption -- a heavy machine gun welded to steel tubes -- is one of several do-it-yourself weapons that are proving to be valuable additions to the Ukraine war effort. "We have the skills and the equipment, and we don't lack ideas," said Sergey Bondarenko in the workshop near the southern front. The well-built 39-year-old with a long black beard is a local leader of the territorial defence, a unit of the Ukrainian army. The device will be accompanied by shock absorbers, for more stability and precision, Bondarenko told AFP beside the anti-drone prototype.

Iran's top nuclear scientist woke up an hour before dawn, as he did most days, to study Islamic philosophy before his day began. That afternoon, he and his wife would leave their vacation home on the Caspian Sea and drive to their country house in Absard, a bucolic town east of Tehran, where they planned to spend the weekend. Iran's intelligence service had warned him of a possible assassination plot, but the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, had brushed it off. Convinced that Fakhrizadeh was leading Iran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb, Israel had wanted to kill him for at least 14 years. But there had been so many threats and plots that he no longer paid them much attention. Despite his prominent position in Iran's military establishment, Fakhrizadeh wanted to live a normal life. And, disregarding the advice of his security team, he often drove his own car to Absard instead of having bodyguards drive him in an armored vehicle. It was a serious breach of security protocol, but he insisted. So shortly after noon on Friday, Nov. 27, he slipped behind the wheel of his black Nissan Teana sedan, his wife in the passenger seat beside him, and hit the road.