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PM west coast editor Ben Stewart drives a brand-new Corvette Z06 from Los Angeles to New York this week, in search of America’s best driving roads.Our 700-mile endurance test yesterday has made us weary even after a decent night’s sleep. We’ve lost a time zone, too, which makes it feel even earlier this morning. We hit the I-40 for Arkansas.We’re looking for the Pig Trail Scenic Byway. It sounds like a funny name for a great driving road, right?...

With over five and a half million miles on the odometer, Space Shuttle Discovery touched down at Kennedy Space Center this morning, marking the end of NASA’s return to flight program and the beginning of regular shuttle service. The successful, on-time landing—the first of many scheduled attempts, if weather had been a problem—was a fitting conclusion to a nearly flawless mission. After garnering considerable criticism over safety concerns before launch, the Discovery’s flight was so smooth that it proved at times even boring for a mission management team poised to tackle the myriad disasters that can strike a shuttle mission....

You already paid to heat the water washing down your shower drain–why waste it? EcoDrain’s heat exchanger transfers heat from water passing through the shower drain to fresh cold water headed to the tap (the two don’t mix). A typical shower consumes 12 gal of hot water; the EcoDrain reduces the energy your water heater uses for that purpose by 25 to 40 percent. The heat exchanger contains a turbulator on the fresh, cold water side of the system that churns up the hot, used shower water and boosts the transfer of heat....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn a blog post announcing his decision to open the patent portfolio of Tesla Motors, CEO Elon Musk expressed disappointment that more automakers weren’t following his lead in creating long-range electric vehicles.“We felt compelled,” he wrote, “to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn’t have been more wrong....

Solar cells that track the sun over the course of a given day produce more energy, but the equipment required to do this is bulky, and requires more space. Researchers at the University of Michigan have borrowed from the Japanese art of kirigami to solve this problem.Kirigami is essentially origami, but it allows for the cutting of paper rather than just folding. The researchers worked with Matthew Shlian, a paper artist and lecturer at the university, to come up with a design that would translate to solar cells....

It’s a rare kind of inspirational speech that centers around a leader highlighting the woes of his command. But Gen. Norton Schwartz, USAF Chief of Staff, managed to sound hopeful and regretful when it came to his keynote speech at the Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference and Technology Exposition last week. “We were asked to put out some wildfires that had grown out of control,” Schwartz told nearly a thousand attendees, many in uniform....

This spring, the residents of Greensburg, a tiny community in the center of Kansas, were warned that the most severely rated tornado in history was about to rip through their lives. Ten people would die and 95 percent of the buildings would fall, but, as we found out in speaking with the twister’s smart survivors, a little know-how can go a long way toward withstanding even the worst disasters. In this mesmerizing audio slideshow, PM contributor Sarah Shatz takes us to Greensburg, where many Americans are piecing together their homes and families, and telling their tales of survival....

Drawing designs on the top of a latte is a time honored art form. And like any good robot, Ripple simultaneously strips it of its human touch and does it better than any flesh-and-blood person could ever hope to. Should you find yourself in a high-tech and fancy-pants cafe with a Ripple machine, you just order your drink via an app on your phone, pick out the image you want to print on it, and wait for it to arrive....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe tool-wielding wrists of the da Vinci can rotate 540 degrees and have seven degrees of freedom, making the tools of the mechanical surgeon more dexterous than instruments held in human fingers.Once considered oddities, multiarmed tools are becoming mainstays of hospital operating rooms. The industry trailblazer in the human-robot medical team is the da Vinci HD Surgical System, a multiarmed assistant that is directly controlled by a surgeon who sits at a nearby console....

For years, sci-fi stories and real scientists have warned about the possibility of a catastrophic solar storm frying Earth’s power grid, GPS satellites, and aircraft radios. But today, humanity is set to get its most advanced warning system ever created for detecting these storms in enough time to take preventative action.A new satellite called DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) is scheduled for to be launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday, February 11, 2015....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere’s a storm coming in space, and it looks like a big one. A solar storm will hit the Earth at around 9 on Tuesday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center. It will likely cause the largest solar radiation storm that the earth has encountered since 2005. The sun is constantly releasing charged particles into space in the form of an ongoing solar wind, but sometimes, parts of the sun can behave more energetically than others, accelerating particles into space in huge solar flares....

Media Platforms Design TeamSTEP 1Turn off your computer and unplug the power cable from the wall. Open the PC and look for an empty PCI slot. Before touching the HDTV card, be sure to discharge static electricity by touching a metal surface. Seat the card into the PCI slot and screw down the retaining bracket. Close the computer. (Don’t plug it in just yet.)Media Platforms Design TeamSTEP 2Different tuner cards offer different connections, but for HD, you’ll want to plug your new antenna into the DTV input on the back of the card....

You can’t take most of the comforts of home with you to orbit. But you can take tacos, thanks goodness. Watch Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who is currently living on the International Space Station, demonstrate the fine art of making Mexican food in microgravity in the video below.It may seem surprising that astronauts get to eat like this, but tacos (the soft-shell kind) are the ideal food to prepare in space....

Media Platforms Design TeamDENVER — If you’ve been keeping an eye on the blog feed at PopularMechanics.com, you probably noticed that I’ve had a busy few weeks. I’ve been to the in Vermont, hung around the , and am now attending the here in Colorado. Interestingly, the same issue has been a driving theme behind all three events: global warming.Society of Environmental Journalists conferencescience lab on a Royal Caribbean cruise shipGreenBuild conferencePerhaps that’s not so surprising for the journalism conference....

DETROIT – Back in the1950s and 60s, a stretch of Woodward Ave. just north of here was the central corridor for heavy-duty crusin’. Folks would proudly parade their new rides, drag race between half-mile stop lights and pop ferocious burnouts every chance they got. Some would just park and hang out at one of the many drive-ins, have a burger and talk cars. It was the golden age of hot rodding....

Media Platforms Design TeamFor many, the trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco is a non-event. They go to the airport, hand over the boarding pass and enjoy a cold one at 30,000 feet. The flight takes less than an hour, and besides the normal annoyances like airport security, it’s completely painless. But fun? Uh… not so much. We prefer to drive up the coast.And we really like this trip when we’re behind the wheel of something so over-the-top that every mile is an adventure....

Media Platforms Design TeamFRANKFURT — After four decades, the BMW 6 Series is still leading the Munich-based company’s cutting edge of design, and the BMW stand here revealed still another step in that evolution. Redesigned 6 Series coupe and convertible models will be available in dealerships shortly, but the Bimmer folks also showed off two strikingly different concepts of the X6 Sport Activity Coupe—a high-riding SUV that’s a four-door coupe version of the 6 Series, and a hybrid version of the same hatchback coupe....

Media Platforms Design TeamJackson Hole, Wyo.—Jeep will be the first to tell you the Wrangler is a unique vehicle. There is virtually no competition for it in the marketplace, and it has such a loyal and passionate following that it’s the envy of the industry. The Wrangler JK (like the CJ, YJ, and TJ before it) has been Jeep’s icon vehicle for several decades but toss recent ownership and economic crashes into the mix and you can see why this vehicle has been slow to make significant changes....

Media Platforms Design TeamInfinity: The word itself belies the immensity of the concept that philosophers, mathematicians, theologians, and physicists have grappled with for thousands of years. Just putting a name to infinity seems to limit it in some way. But on Friday night at the World Science Festival in New York, a panel of experts nonetheless tried to grapple with this slippery concept.Philosopher’s ParadoxesPhilip Clayton, philosopher, theologian, and dean of the Claremont School of Theology in California, compared infinity to looking up at the stars in the night sky or watching grains of sand slide through your fingers....

A military satellite exploded in orbit in early February, breaking into 43 parts, Space News has confirmed.The DMSP-F13 was a 20-year-old weather satellite that the Air Force and Navy used to make forecasts as part of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. Although still in operation, the sat was relegated to backup status in 2006. At the time of its explosion, it was the oldest still-operating weather satellite of its fleet.The reason for the explosion was said to be a sudden spike in temperature, which caused power systems to fail that left ground operators unable to control the satellite....