Media Platforms Design TeamGetty Images.Didn’t mean to boil that egg after all? No problem—just go back in time.It seems far-fetched, but scientists have done just that: They’ve unboiled an egg, returning it to its original shape. By adding urea (a urine byproduct) to the eggs, scientists reverted them to their runny previous state. The urea untangled the proteins that get knotted up during the chemical reactions when an egg is boiled....
Here’s a not so surprising newsflash: Wearing your seatbelt is smart! Because of its stellar life-saving record, PM picked Nils Bohlin’s 3-point designas one of the top 50 inventions of the last 50 years. But just in case you need to put some cold, hard stats in front of your reckless teenager, a new study supports exactly what we already know. After analyzing data from Wisconsin’s Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES), which links police crash reports with hospital discharge data, researchers at the Injury Research Center of the Medical College of Wisconsin found that car crash victims who make it to the emergency room and who were not wearing seatbelts are three times as likely to die as those who were....
The Senate hearing has started and so far GM chief Rick Wagoner, who arrived in a prototype Chevy Volt prototype covered in 2010 Chevy Cruze sheetmetal, has admitted that “We made some mistakes” and that the company has learned a lot since the last, embarrassing hearings. We’d like to know exactly what he’s learned because it seems that the most important lesson may be how to handle congressional hearings. I’m sure that the execs from the Big Three thought that since Congress was so quick to bail out Wall Street and AIG, surely a measly $25 billion wouldn’t require such a grand PR gesture....
Media Platforms Design TeamBe willing to change your vision.Corwin Hardham, who co-founded the energy company Makani Power, created a new kind of wind turbine that swoops high above the Earth. He says that the inspiration for his design came from the first time he kite surfed, when he realized that the wind that sent him sailing through the air could also power a turbine modeled after a kite. “The design is very different now,” he laughs....
Media Platforms Design TeamThis test structure, built using a flexible composite called SmartWrap, shows the potential of organic light-emitting diodes to make walls glow from within. (Photograph by Barry Halkin)In these hi-def hungry times, anything that promises brighter, thinner, more energy-efficient TV screens generates some buzz. That’s why, for the past couple of years, tech-sector engineers have been chattering about organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), which work by applying an electrical charge to a thin layer of organic compounds, which then emit light....
Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: June 2013 (Europe only)Base Price: €416,500 ($541,000)Competitors: NonePowertrains: 4 AC electric motors, 740 hp, 738 lb-ft; 60-kwh lithium-ion battery pack; direct drive, AWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): N/AWhat’s New: On the outside it looks like almost exactly like a gas-powered SLS AMG, but underneath lies a completely different powertrain that is hand-assembled at the AMG headquarters in Affalterbach, Germany. There are four electric motors, one for each wheel, making a total of 740 hp....
Media Platforms Design Team For the first time, Britain’s Royal Society recently opened online access to an 18th-century handwritten manuscript detailing Sir Isaac Newton’s life, including his inspiration for the theory of gravity, to mark the institution’s 350th anniversary. One of the most notable revelations to come from the manuscript, which was written by William Stukeley, a friend of Newton, and published in 1752, is the documentation of how Newton’s theory of gravity came to be....
Sony Pictures’ The International, starring Clive Owen, tries to establish a new kind of villain: An international bank that uses its position as middleman in international arms deals to-well, it’s not all that clear what they want to achieve with all of their scheming. Filmmakers based their antagonists on the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International, founded in Pakistan in 1972. The BCCI stretched across 78 countries, including the United States, and was brought down in 1991 when its myriad crooked deals, including money laundering, bribes and back-rolling arms trafficking, were exposed by U....
Lexus LFAMedia Platforms Design TeamThe Lexus LFA we drove recently made its first North American debut in LA. As breathtaking as the 552 hp supercar’s performance may be, there are a few design details that just don’t work. The one that stands out to us is that horizontal cut-line across the nose. This might be function triumphing over flash, but there must have been a cleaner way to execute the front of this car....
Bluetooth headphones just make so much sense: You get your personal soundtrack without the cords to get tangled or caught on your jacket. Yes, some scoff at Bluetooth because transmission compresses data, thereby diminishing audio quality. But as someone who’s heard massive music files on $10 earbuds and on industrial-strength $1,200 in-ear monitors, the convenience outweighs a quality difference most of us probably won’t notice. Sorry, Neil Young.So far, however, nothing that I’ve tested has been easy enough to use that it’d convert me from cheap, reliable, familiar wired earbuds....
If you could think up the most hyperbolic intrusion of privacy rights, what would it be? How about hidden software on millions of smartphones that records every interaction a user has with the device, as well as his location, then sends that information off the phone in a totally unencrypted way without letting the user know? And what if the manufacturer of the phone installed it, and you couldn’t uninstall it?...
The U.S. Army’s aviation branch has decided it will not use pilotless Blackhawk helicopters to ferry troops. “That’s a level of trust we won’t break”, an Army official told Flightglobal.The Army has been looking for ways to squeeze more use out of its UH-60 Blackhawk medium transport helicopters by having them fly unmanned resupply missions during pilot downtime. The idea is to spare manned crews from boring, repetitive missions and letting them concentrate on more complex, demanding missions....
Bigger. Crazier. More death-defying. In the age of GoPro videos on YouTube, extreme sports enthusiasts compete with the best around the globe to create the wackiest stunt, and this clip of a guy waterskiing behind a small plane might win today.You can watch the first-person video of this daredevil day at the lake below. If you have 4k capability, watch the whole thing in stunning ultra-HD here. According to Flight Club, the plane pulling around the skiier is an AirCam, an aircraft partially developed by the National Geographic Society for exploring the thick jungles of Africa....
The U.S. military’s veteran A-10 Thunderbolt II is built for battle: a titanium-armored cockpit protects its pilot from explosive projectile hits, and it can carry weapons like a 30-mm nose-mounted cannon to take out enemy tanks. Now the National Science Foundation (NSF) plans to arm a retired Thunderbolt not with bombs, but with scientific instruments, and use it to study the inside of violent thunderstorms—where winds, hail, and lightning would take down lesser planes....
(Published in the October 1999 issue)Find out how to check your injection system using a noid lightDirect injection- savior of the two-stroke outboard. That’s what some manufacturers trumpeted a year or two ago. But instead of joyfully harvesting the promised benefits of smoother running engines, improved fuel economy, nonsmoking exhaust and reduced emissions, many boaters were stunned by a grim reaping of engines that fouled early on and even self-destructed. Sure, you get great fuel economy, no smoke and zero emissions when the engine breaks and doesn’t run....
You thought you had the best car stereo system on your block? Your puny subwoofers are no match for what voodoo cyborg baddie Immortan Joe and his war band blast out on a chase in the new flick Mad Max: Fury Road. To keep his group motivated, three tiers of slaves/worshippers bang mallets on enormous tom-toms from a giant mobile rig. Zooming alongside is a tower of speakers, and dangling in front is a crazed warrior blasting power chords on a flame-shooting electric guitar....
In his book, Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed, released in October, Alexis Ohanian shares his secrets for what makes a startup catch on and lays out how he believes the freedom of the Web will democratize the future. But Ohanian, who cofounded Reddit with Steve Huffman in 2004, also shares some interesting facts about the site that would go one to become “the front page of the Internet” and a top 50 site in the world....
Media Platforms Design TeamOn Sale Date: Fall 2011Price: $55,295Competitors: BMW X5 M, BMW X6 M, Porsche Cayenne TurboPowertrain: 6.4-liter V8, 470 hp, 470 lb-ft; five-speed auto, AWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/highway): 12/18 estimatedWhat’s New: The all-new 2011 Grand Cherokee helped fuel Chrysler’s renaissance. In little more than a year, the company has transformed most every model, including the popular Jeep. The sporty and luxurious SRT8 edition builds on the modern chassis of the 2011 WK2 (Jeep code for the second-generation Grand Cherokee)....
Speech-recognitionReaching for a touchscreen while exiting the freeway can lead to fender benders. The Garmin Nuvi 880 features speech recognition which purports to allow you to keep your eyes on the road–instead of touching the screen, simply speak the command. As cool as this sounds, the tech still could use a lot of improvement. During our Strip-long, in-car demo, the speech recognition was, at-times, frustratingly unresponsive, forcing us to reach for the screen in frustration....
John Deere Gator XUVMedia Platforms Design Teamstyle=“background-color:#cccccc; font-size:11pt;">Base priceAs tested%">Ground clearance////////////%">EngineTransmissionSample Attachments snow blade heater windshield 40-gal. sprayerWe used Deere’s Gator XUV for hauling hay and slogging down woodcutting trails. The machine did a workmanlike job, and we liked its intuitive controls. We did have complaints, though. The ride quality is rough, but not because of the suspension–better dampening of engine and transmission vibrations is called for. The diesel Gator lacks a transmission cover, which made for lots of noise, and we needed to hose off the drive pulley and belt after muddy off-roading....
