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Researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno will be conducting tests that simulate a magnitude 8.0 earthquake on a 110-ft. suspension bridge today. Resting on three giant shake tables and hydraulic platforms, the four-span bridge is the largest in the world to be tested at such seismic intensity. “We have 350 sensors that measure such data as the internal stretching of reinforcement bars and directional movement,” says M. Saiid Saiidi, the project’s lead researcher....

Media Platforms Design TeamView full post on YoutubeRichard Branson’s spaceship has gone supersonic. The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo broke the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert in California this morning, an achievement that paves the way for the vehicle’s first suborbital flight tests that are scheduled for later this year.WhiteKnightTwo, the mega-jet that carries the smaller SpaceShipTwo into the atmosphere, reached an altitude of 48,000 feet before dropping the ship. SpaceShipTwo then completed a 16-second-long engine burn that carried the craft to an altitude of 55,000 feet, and to a velocity of Mach 1....

A Germanwings Airbus 320 plane crashed Tuesday morning in Southern France around 11:20 a.m. local time while traveling from Barcelona to Düsseldorf in the French Alps, according to the New York Times. 150 people were on board (144 passengers and 6 crew), and everyone was killed as the plane crashed into the mountains. Reviewing the cockpit audio recordings reveals that one of the pilots was locked out of the cockpit in the final minutes before impact....

WARREN, Mich. – The future of General Motors’ advanced, plug-in electric hybrid vehicle program might seem like a tired-looking, maroon-colored 2005 Chevy Malibu, but that’s just a disguise. Underneath the test mule’s pedestrian sheet metal here at GM’s top-secret Technical Center lies the high-tech bones of the Chevrolet Volt, which is looking more and more like it’ll be in dealerships by 2010.It’s easy to get excited about the Volt. It could be America’s first production plug-in hybrid after all, and the specs are impressive: 40 mi....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf it wasn’t for Popular Mechanics, Andrew Clement wouldn’t be where he is today. The special-effects guru fondly remembers afternoons spent building projects from the magazine with his dad when he was a kid. That DIY how-to extended to Halloween, when Clement and his dad created elaborate costumes. “I was a mummy, a vampire, you name it,” Clement says. “I would make my own masks and use foam to enhance my costumes....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow to Plan an Autumn Kitchen GardenAre you already resting on your laurels from this summer’s fruitful garden labors? Well, there are many more laurels, er, make that beets, spinach and lettuce to grow before the snow comes. Planting a fall garden can be a rewarding effort and a great start to preparing your entire yard for winter’s dormancy as the last head of lettuce is plucked. Here are four things to do that will help sprout a tasty new leaf during fall’s shorter days....

The Threat: The most destructive recent U.S. quake (Northridge, Calif., 1994) caused $40 billion in damage and killed 61Where: California and MIdwestWhen: At least one great quake (magnitude 8.0 and up) hits somewhere in the world each year\Today there is no credible way to predict earthquakes, so when a big one hits a U.S. population center—and experts agree that there will be a big one—it will come without warning and it will be devastating....

Media Platforms Design Team Just as Dubai prepared to send off the New Years with a dazzling fireworks display, the city instead had a major fire at a downtown highrise to contend with, engulfing 20 stories of a 63 story luxury hotel called The Address. Burning debris was reported to have been falling from the building. However, Major General Rashed al-Matrushi said in a televised address that at this time there appear to be no injuries....

Media Platforms Design TeamiRacing Motorsport Simulator $13-$19 per month, depending on length of subscriptionThe Promise Racing simulators can be roughly divided into two categories: The first comprises ultrarealistic simulations, and the second, what aficionados of the first would derogatorily refer to as “games.” The iRacing simulator falls squarely into the former category–this is no Mario Kart, and riders looking for fender-bending explosions or downtown drag racing should look elsewhere. The goal of this PC racing sim is simple: Provide professional racers with the most realistic training and track re-creation technologically possible....

Media Platforms Design TeamI first met Carroll Shelby some 20 years ago, when he signed my Mustang GT350. I love that car, but it’s one among many greats.Shelby was responsible for or involved with three of the coolest cars of the sixties: the GT40, the Cobra, and the GT350. My favorite Road and Track cover is the one where he’s standing among all three. He was also a classic American DIYer....

Media Platforms Design TeamFor scientists who hunt for planets in other solar systems, the “Holy Grail” is to find a rocky, earth-sized world that orbits its star at a distance where it’s not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to form. Today in the journal , a team led by Andrew Howard , a planet that meets two of the three requirements.Natureannounced the discovery of Kepler-78bWith a radius 1....

Spirit and Opportunity were part of the first wave – the robot invasion of Mars will continue when the unmanned Phoenix Mars Lander touches down in the planet’s northern polar region next year. Its mission is to follow up on evidence of water uncovered by the rovers as well as by orbiting spacecraft. The 3.4-ft.-tall lander (below, undergoing tests at a Lockheed Martin facility in Denver) will dig deeper than any of its predecessors; it will penetrate the top layer of arctic soil with a robotic arm and, scientists hope, retrieve water ice for on-site analysis....

As is so often the case, first impressions can get altered quickly. Turns out our Nissan Versa was the best-handling car today, despite it having the poorest brakes of the bunch. It’s also the only car here with a six-speed manual transmission. All the others have five-speeds.The Honda Fit, not the Toyota Yaris, clearly has the best fit and finish, although its chassis dynamics deliver mind-numbing understeer.The Yaris got relegated to the middle of the pack overall....

Early this morning, Mission Control Moscow lost contact with a Progress 44 spacecraft loaded on a Soyuz U rocket 5 minutes after it launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft is believed to have crashed in the Altai region of southern Russia. The launch was intended to carry an unmanned Russian cargo ship up to the International Space Station, and its failure comes just after the final mission of the space shuttle, which left Russia’s launches as the only way to reach the ISS....

Q:I needed new disc brakes for my car, but the repair shop wanted so much money for the parts alone, I went to the auto parts store up the street and bought them myself. But when I showed up at the shop to have them do the installation, the manager took one look and refused to install the brakes. He said they were poor “offshore knockoffs,” and likely to kill me and my family....

Media Platforms Design TeamIncandescent light bulbs may be fading away, killed off slowly by fluorescents and LEDs, but there’s one old-fashioned bulb that refuses to go out. In fact, it’s been going for more than a century.The world’s longest-burning light bulb has been shining* since 1901, when it was first turned on in Livermore, Calif. (It’s gone out during a couple of power outages, and it was briefly turned off when it was moved in 1903, for a week in 1937, and in 1976 when it was moved again....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: blackred/Getty Images)The best time to change a terrible password is two years ago, but the second best time is now. So if your password is “12345,” “12345678,” or any variation thereof, stop what you’re doing and fix it. The same goes for “password,” “qwerty,” or any default passwords like “access” that you haven’t bothered to change.This advice should be obvious by now. Yet year after year, these come up on the most-guessed passwords of the year, and it’s no different for 2014....

Media Platforms Design TeamYesterday morning, there was a ground-shaking explosion at a the Ramsey Natural Gas Processing Plant near Orla, Texas. Over 250 people work at or around the plant but only two unlucky folks were afflicted with minor injuries. It’s especially impressive in light of some new footage showing the explosion, a blast so big it looks more like something from a Michael Bay movie than real life. View full post on YoutubeAccording to Current-Argus, the initial explosion could be felt from 25 miles away and the fire continued to burn on into Thursday night....

Media Platforms Design TeamFor Aereo, the startup that collects over-the-air TV signals and streams them to a user’s TV or devices, the fight for its existence gets real today. The service has powerful enemies in the form of established media companies, which don’t like the idea of a third party raking monthly fees for redistributing their content without paying a penny in licensing fees. The inevitable lawsuit, ABC, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc....

Media Platforms Design TeamWorkshop on WheelsTable saws might be a fixture in nearly every woodworking shop, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay put. Craftsman’s Professional 10-in. Portable Table Saw ($450) is a 126-pound, 15-amp powerhouse with a folding stand and built-in handles, so you can roll it around like a fully loaded hand truck. The aluminum rails slide to the right as well as to the left of the 36-tooth carbide blade, making it more versatile than traditional table saws, which only extend to the right....