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Media Platforms Design Team DETROIT— Two years before the Chevy Volt reaches showrooms, it’s already spawned a variant—the Cadillac Converj. This plug-in hybrid, four-seat coupe borrows the Volt’s 16 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that runs down the center of the car and a 160-hp electric motor that drives the front wheels. To solve the “range anxiety” problem and extend the Converj’s 40-mile range, a small four-cylinder engine rides on board to charge the batteries....

We’re pretty open about our love of vans around here. We’re also big fans of ice in our drinks. Put the two together and you’ve got a winning combination. Although the 1984 Toyota Van’s straightforward name lacked imagination (we prefer the more apropos Space Cruiser moniker it had in Europe), the futuristic family hauler was an all-around oddity. A cab-over design, the rear-wheel-drive van featured an engine mounted under the passenger compartment....

Nissan took the wraps off its very first hybrid earlier this week, rolling out the new Altima before it hits stores in January—though only only in the eight states that have adopted California’s stringent emissions standards. Nissan hasn’t announced pricing yet, but a source close to the project expected the new sedan to start around $25,000. The Altima Hybrid is reported to get 41 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway, with the 20-gallon gas tank theoretically allowing 700 miles between fill-ups....

Media Platforms Design Team Alexandria, Va.—We are navigating the narrow streets of colonial-era Old Town Alexandria to test the mettle of the Ford Transit Connect in the cramped urban environment where Ford says its microvan will deliver commercial customers from high fuel costs and parking headaches. But the slab-sided box on wheels catches the eye of more than one urban hipster at the headquarters of the Art League, which serves as our briefing location....

If you have a backyard deck or patio, chances are there’s more than an ordinary door connecting your outdoor space with the inside of your home. In contrast to the traditional porch, decks and patios are real living spaces that extend both the form and function of your home’s interior. And while we’d all like to keep the nasty weather outside where it belongs, we’d like to do so in a way that brings the spaces together as part of a whole....

This is the future of medicine: A baby with an aggressive form of leukemia has been whisked from death’s door by genetic engineering. When neither aggressive chemotherapy nor a bone marrow transplant could save Layla Richards, doctors made a last-ditch attempt to cure her with a donor’s immune cells that were genetically modified to fight her cancer. It seems to have worked, doctors said Thursday—and it may usher in a revolution in the way we treat cancer....

Q: My new car is from the same manufacturer as my previous one. And I still have the wireless key fob from the older car. Can I have it reprogrammed as an extra door opener?A: It is possible, depending primarily on what company made your car. Some fobs can be reprogrammed entirely by the end-user – that’s you – with processes that usually involve turning the ignition switch on and off several times, waiting for some lights to flash and pressing some buttons on the fob....

Media Platforms Design TeamFor me, owning cars without driving them just isn’t fun. I drive mine to work and all around L.A. But many of my old cars simply weren’t built to perform in today’s conditions.Modern cars have to start and stop reliably, idle in traffic, and cruise at freeway speeds. I always want to keep my cars as original-looking as possible, but when I can improve a car for safety or functional reasons, I’ll do it....

Sixteen teams from around the world are racing to build unmanned lunar landers and rovers to win the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize, the largest incentive prize in history. But none of the competitors has actually ponied up for a ride to the moon, until now. At the Space Technology & Investment Forum in San Francisco today, Moon Express CEO Bob Richards announced that his Google Lunar X Prize team has landed a launch contract, the first in this competition to send the first privately built vehicle on the moon....

In theory, Moore’s law is simple. Laid down Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in 1965, it states that roughly every two years, the number of transistors in the most advanced computer chips will double. It’s been remarkably accurate prediction, but now the “roughly” is about to get some exercise. In an investor’s call last night, Intel announced a new, upcoming chipset that will stall the company’s race toward ever smaller chips....

A recent barrage of hacks against Obama administration officials, launched by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran, is believed to be connected to the arrest of Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi in late October. Namazi’s computer was confiscated from his Tehran home by the IRGC shortly after his arrest, according to The Wall Street Journal, and could have been the source of the targets and the data about them. Obama administration officials in the Office of Iranian Affairs and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs had their emails and social media accounts hacked....

Media Platforms Design TeamJeep drove into its gene pool at full speed ahead of the upcoming Easter Jeep Safari, showing two concepts inspired by products from the company’s early years. The first, and most tame, is the Jeep J-12 Concept, it’s basically a heavily modified version of the Jeep Wrangler pickup kit you can buy now. The kit encloses the cabin and adds a small cargo box to a Wrangler, but the J-12 Concept goes further....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn 2011, Trace co-founder David Lokshin wanted to disprove what he considered to be a major misconception: that skiing was a lifestyle sport and no one really wanted detailed data on their runs. “The goal has always been to make action sports measurable, shareable, and comparable,” Lokshin says. “What we’ve learned…is there are people who want to know this information.“His creation back then was the AlpineReplay app, which has now grown cover 43 countries with more than 1400 resorts, and has recorded 2....

DETROIT — We’ve seen this Lexus high-performance sports car concept before. In fact, it was two years ago, right here in Detroit. Well, Lexus is still calling the LF-A a concept. But as far as we can tell, it has been updated to near-production car specs. How does a high-revving 500-plus-hp V10 that promises a top speed of 200 mph grab you? Yeah, we like the sound of that, too. Actually, we really do like the sound of the LF-A....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf you have hundreds or even thousands of Facebook friends, it’s easy to cross over into too-much-information territory. After all, who wants their parents or boss to see everything they put up for their friends? That’s why Facebook has long allowed users to create Friend Lists, which let people manage their privacy settings for different groups of friends.But there is a problem with Facebook’s Friend Lists feature: Nobody uses it....

BIOLOGICALMedia Platforms Design TeamANTHRAX What it is: Highly infectious disease caused by touching or breathing in Bacillus anthracis spores. How it works: The cutaneous form causes necrotic lesions. Inhalation anthrax initially resembles a cold, but progresses to cause organ failure. Why it’s a threat: Cutaneous anthrax kills 20 percent of those infected. Inhalation anthrax is usually fatal, even with treatment.Media Platforms Design TeamBOTULISM What it is: Toxin produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria....

WASHINGTON — Cooling my heels in Reagan National airport waiting for my flight to Vermont. I came down to the Washington Auto Show to check out the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid concept car. A couple of impressions, about the car and the show as a whole. First, the car: Yeah, it’s cool. Of course, they put a lot of effort into making it cool; it’s a concept, after all. GM is claiming a range of 40 miles on battery only; after 40 miles, a small three-cylinder engine kicks in to charge the battery....

Media Platforms Design TeamReaders who downloaded the May 2011 edition of Popular Mechanics on an iPad got a bonus: a game called Touchdown, in which the player engineers a spacecraft to land on Earth, Mars, or the asteroid Ceres. Once you select a destination, the game offers detailed information about the target. Engineer the lander wisely and the craft sets down safely, but choose the wrong combination of cargo, fuel, and braking system and you’ll crash....

Big Pressure for Energy LegislationIn the wake of last week’s mid-term elections, a long standoff over two energy bills—one in the House and one in the Senate—may be coming to an end. President Bush has urged both houses to negotiate energy legislation before the end of this year’s lame-duck session, while some House members admit that passing the narrower Senate bill, which includes rebuilding the Gulf Coast’s ailing wetlands, would be better than passing no legislation at all....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe caught the so-called “Blue Devil” Corvette last week on a General Motors test track outside Detroit, just days before it may be unveiled at the New York auto show. The sound of the supercharged V8 during acceleration is akin to a big diesel decelerating down—sharp rattle raps—only in reverse.That box on the hood hides the supercharger, while the wheels may be new as well. At the rear is a new shape to the upper part of the deck lid: The CHMSL is missing, while there are two rising lips on the top of the deck, portending to a substantial change in the Corvette’s aerodynamics....