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Media Platforms Design TeamIn 1897, H. G. Wells imagined a hellish existence for a young scientist who managed to find the key to invisibility, but not how to reverse it. More recently, in the movie Predator, a big green extraterrestrial hunts humans while concealed in blurry, almost invisible battle armor. Harry Potter goes even further, disappearing completely beneath his wizard’s cloak. Now the invisibility technology once reserved for sci-fi mags, movie theaters and comic books is quietly sneaking up on us....

Six weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan, there’s still a lot of uncertainty among automakers about just how much damage has been done to the global industry’s supply of components. One thing seems sure, though: You will pay more for a new car this summer than you would have otherwise.“Prices will rise, generally,” says industry analyst Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics. “Sometimes directly related to specific shortages, but also because the commodity parts will increase in cost due to the reduction of supply overall....

Mark BuddeSeattle, Wash.Age: 28Years on Job: 6 Years ago, Mark Budde saw a documentary about a child who survived after being trapped for hours under the ice in a frozen lake. “I thought, how did this kid keep from drowning, and why isn’t anyone studying it?” he says. His curiosity led him to study suspended animation: a state where observable life processes, including movement, breathing and heartbeat, appear to have stopped....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS — There aren’t too many two-wheeled offerings here at SEMA, but Suzuki delved into their sportbike heritage to spruce up its new SX4 Sport and create the Hayabusa-inspired SXForce. Designed and built by Road Race Motorsports, the SXForce steals dual exhaust pipes from a GSX-R sportbike and incorporates other motorcycle cues from its carbon-fiber body trim and side-view mirrors to a pearl, white/orange metallic paint scheme....

Media Platforms Design Team (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images) As part of the government’s auto loans, GM and Chrysler were required to submit their long-term strategies to the Treasury Department yesterday. These are longer-term and more detailed forecasts than were originally submitted last December, and contain a number of striking figures. GM predicts that only 9.5 million cars will be sold in the U.S. in 2009. That figure is about a million fewer than the company forecast just two months ago, and it reflects how quickly and dramatically the car market has shifted....

Thank god for people like Charlie Brinson. He’s part of an artist-engineering collective called the eatART Foundation out of Vancouver, Canada, and he and his crew are responsible for the mad genius behind Titanoboa and Mondo Spider. The former is a thirty-foot-long mechanical snake and the latter a drivable eight-legged, hydraulically actuated, walking metal arachnid. I found these machines and Brinson next to the Lenovo tent outside the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES, and I knew then that I had to use whatever privileges I’m afforded as a journalist to get access to play with these things....

Media Platforms Design TeamView full post on YoutubeMuch of what makes Flappy Bird such a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad game—the stupid simplicity, its borrowed Nintendo aesthetic—also make it an ideal game for the hackable, nostalgia-obsessed age. And so now, nearly three weeks since its abrupt departure from the App Store, Flappy Birds is enjoying its second act as a cultural touchstone.First came the copycats. Any successful app attracts imitators, but Flappy Birds is perhaps the perfect case....

The White House has launched its internal anti-drone response system, starting with middle-of-the-night drone test flights. From 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. on nights throughout the next several weeks, the drones will be taking to the skies over Washington, DC to practice strategies for fending off possible hostile drone intrusions. This includes testing technology to block signals going to the craft. The tests will also determine possible uses of drones in law enforcement....

Media Platforms Design TeamPrice: $25 (set of two)The glass you drink your beer from matters. While the standard pint glass is good enough for most, a glass designed to promote a specific beer’s complex flavor profile is something to appreciate. This is not the talk of a beer snob—this is simply a fact.So consider Spiegelau’s IPA glass if you’re a devotee of these hoppy brews. Working with American breweries Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada, Spiegelau tested more than 50 iterations before settling on this final design....

Last month, a pair of treasure hunters reported to officials in Poland that they had found a long-lost Nazi loot train, potentially full of gold and other WWII goodies. Since then, the Polish officials have confirmed that the finding seems legit, and this image may have helped convince them. Shown to the Polish publicationGazeta Wroclawska, the images were taken with ground-penetrating radar and are mostly indecipherable without the help of arrows pointing at what, apparently, is supposed to be the train....

View full post on YoutubeIn February 2013, a video taken by the dash cam of a driver in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia showed what looked like a fireball screaming toward the earth. The video quickly went viral and spawned thousands of conspiracy theories. Was it an alien spacecraft, a sign from God, an angry dragon, the end of civilization… Putin?It also became the fodder for lots of late-night jokes, most notably The Daily Show, which made fun of how cooly the drivers seem to be reacting to a “ten-ton death rock hurtling towards the city....

Zodiac calls it outrageous. Extreme. Extraordinary. And that’s just the price. Almost 200 grand for a rubber boat is enough to quicken–or stop–anyone’s pulse. But the Zodiac CZ7 (Civilian Zodiac 7-meter) isn’t your father’s rubber boat. As a matter of fact it isn’t a rubber boat at all, but a rigid-hull inflatable boat (RIB). The design uses a deep-V fiberglass hull with an inflatable tubes collar.RIBs are popular for recreational boating in Europe, but not here, where these craft are relegated to such pedestrian chores as yacht tending....

Media Platforms Design TeamDEATH VALLEY, Calif. — From the looks of this prototype caught here recently during hot-weather testing, it’s difficult to see the real changes in this planned 2009 BMW 7-series. But, from what we see is covered up, the changes are way more than a simple facelift. Look closely at the pictures below at right, and you’ll see that the panels cover just about everything below the beltline—fenders, hood, doors, grille and maybe even the bumpers....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe V-series sits on the same short-overhang architecture as the pedestrian Coupe. But the performance-boosted variant boasts special front and rear fascias, twin-outlet exhausts, and a mean hood bulge to accommodate an intercooled supercharger. The rear track is nearly an inch wider than even the Cadillac CTS-V sedan’s, so this car is certain to have some serious stance on the road. The powertrain is the same as the CTS-V sedan with an Eaton blower feeding the 6....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: NowBase Price: $25,695Competitors: Volkswagen Jetta TDI, Volkswagen Golf TDI, Toyota Prius, Ford C-MaxPowertrains: Turbocharged 2.0-liter diesel I-4, 151 hp, 280 lb-ft; six-speed automatic, FWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy, manufacturer’s est.): 27/46What’s New: Chevy has done a lot more here than just drop a compression-ignition engine in the Cruze compact, but that’s where it starts. The 2.0-liter under the hood is adapted from GM’s European models, but with the addition of an SCR catalyst to meet U....

Media Platforms Design TeamA. NATURAL WONDERThe Compton-Belkovich volcanic region is isolated from the majority of lunar hotspots, which are on the near side. It is forcing scientists to rethink lunar volcanism. The moon has a molten core but, oddly, no active volcanoes. Using X-ray analyses of melted moon rocks, researchers found that some of the magma is too dense to spew from the surface.B. MASS TRANSITThe moon used to spin faster, but Earth’s gravity slowed its rotation....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s no secret that the United States’ next large push in Afghanistan is aimed at the southern area near Kandahar, where the Taliban first gained power. The fight will not only be for the military, and it won’t only be U.S. and Canadian forces at the forefront. Whenever possible, Afghan army and police will lead the charge to regain Afghan government control over the south of the nation....

EXPANDING SUPPLYThese days everyone is worried about oil. The primitive black goo has been linked to climate change, economic disruption and other problems, but make no mistake: We still need oil, and lots of it. Not only is American demand rising–this year it’s expected to top 21 million barrels per day–but ascendant economies in India and China have developed huge appetites for the stuff. The stark reality is that the supply is finite....

The jumble of faceless online trolls known as Anonymous has just picked out Donald Trump as the newest target for their unfocused, chaotic, and mostly ineffectual wrath.The impetus for the assault—dubbed #OpTrump, in characteristic Anonymous style—is Trump’s recent and widely decried suggestion that the United States temporarily disallow any and all Muslims from entering the country. As always, somebody in a Guy Fawkes mask has taken to YouTube to explain the situation in a short and bombastic speech: View full post on YoutubeAs an opening salvo, the group is claiming responsibility for the outage of the website for Trump Tower NYC—an innocuous page listing information about the building, which has nothing to do with Mr....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe here at are a proud bunch, especially when it comes to our 106-plus-year history covering science, technology, automobiles and DIY. We realize that our back-room library–containing every issue since the first on January 11, 1902–holds one of the most coveted magazine archives around. But instead of keeping these treasured tomes all to ourselves in hard copy (and sharing them occasionally in our ), we have plans to make our rich history available to all of our readers online....