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Media Platforms Design TeamAeronautic history is not always about streaking rockets and speeding airplanes. Sometimes it’s done in near silence at a plodding pace. But this morning the tension slowly grew as the Dragon space capsule, exterior floodlights glowing, inched towards humanity’s only functional space station.Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) just became the first private company to design, build, launch, and operate a spacecraft to approach the International space station. Before today, only governments did such things—and for a lot more money....

Media Platforms Design TeamCar keys—what a pain. Honestly, who has the time to reach all the way into their pocket? Well, now General Motors wants to put your key fob on your wrist.Soon GM car owners will be able to remotely control their car from Samsung’s Galaxy Gear 2 smartwatch, which debuted earlier this week. A modified version of GM’s RemoteLink smartphone app will allow owners of RemoteLink-compatible Chevy, GMC, Buick, and Caddy vehicles to control the car’s locks and turn the engine on or off just by tapping the watch face....

When a few flakes of snow stick to the ground, my hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, shuts down. Schools operate on a delay, if they’re not closed entirely, and everyone in town stocks up at the supermarket as if a hurricane were coming. All this is to say that winter driving skills, including what tires to put on my car, never quite made it into my high school driving course.I wanted not only to learn how to drive in bad weather, but also to see whether winter tires really make as much difference as people say....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn October 2011, Matthew Boyer had a vision: racing cars on video games not just with a handheld controller, but with a full DIY racing cockpit designed to mimic one of those racing shells you used to see in the arcade. Boyer created the initial design in Google (now Trimble) Sketchup, planning out where the steering wheel would sit and how the foot pedals and clutch would connect....

When is a GFCI outlet not a GFCI?Answer: When it’s miswired, damaged or just plain old and worn out and not providing the protection you think it is. The devices are more sensitive than you might realize, and if you have any in your house that are several years old, you should run a test on them. To do this, plug a lighted lamp into the device and press the Test button....

Eight thousand years ago, around the time humans were just getting good at farming, a star 20 times as big as our sun blew up about 2,100 light years from here. This feathery ribbon is the aftermath.NASA just released this eye-popping image of the Veil Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula, which looks a little like the Nexus from a certain forgettable Star Trek movie, spans 110 light years across....

Coast Guard rescue swimmers sometimes have to rappel down cliffs and dangle from helicopters to save people from churning seas. During big storms. At night. How do you get people ready for such fearsome errands? You send them to the service’s in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, home to a $25 million indoor facility that can whip up approximations of the waves, bellowing wind, horizontal rain, and disorienting noise that rescuers will eventually face....

Figuring out how to precisely control incredibly small shapes of molecules is an important step toward creating new synthetic materials. The better we can manipulate tiny molecular chains, the more accurate our man-made creations can become. That’s why a nanoscale wrench invented by a University of Vermont chemist is so important.Chemist Severin Schneebeli and his team cobbled together their wrench using molecules that only fit together in one particular way thanks to what’s called “chirality,” a fancy term for when things are identical but also mirror images, like your left and right hand....

LOS ANGELES – To see the influence of Apple on Pixar, you don’t have to look much further than WALLE–not the cute trash-compacting robot from the studio’s eponymous new film (though he does boot up to the Mac chime and own an iPod), but his polished white paramour, EVE. Part iPhone 3G, part Asimo, she’s the animated equivalent of the next product that might be unveiled by Steve Jobs, who effectively runs both companies....

Q: I bought some yellow headlights for my vehicle. I believe they help me see better at night, especially when it rains. I live in Washington state, the land of rain and fog. However, one of my friends who has the same yellow lights has been pulled over by local authorities and warned to remove the yellow lights. If we can have yellow foglights, why can’t we have yellow headlights?A: The federal Department of Transportation, which sets all motor vehicle regulations, requires that all new cars sold in the United States have white headlights....

Media Platforms Design TeamDETROIT — Honda showed a more smoothly-styled Pilot crossover SUV Prototype at Detroit this afternoon. It’s slated for introduction as a 2009 model and we’re guessing it’s pretty close, if not identical, to the vehicle we’ll see in Honda stores late this summer or early fall. The Pilot has been restyled to be more polished than the rather bland-looking current Pilot introduced back in 2003, and there are plenty of detail changes on the inside as well....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat benefit will American society get from allowing unmanned aircraft to freely fly in our skies?We use the four Ds: the dirty, dangerous, difficult, and dull missions. When you look at natural disasters, when you look at hazardous situations, when you look at difficult operational environmentsdarkness, weather, heat, hurricanes, things of this natureanyplace where human beings are at risk of loss of life or to be injured, there is an opportunity to utilize this technology....

With cold weather coming, comfortable work clothing can be as important an asset as tools themselves. I’ve been wearing Carhartt garments to survive the winter for 30 years now, but I particularly like the features built into the new Full Swing line, which ranges in price from $60 to $140 depending on the piece.The company’s Full Swing Sandstone jacket nicely illustrates how this clothing is engineered for people who work outside....

It’s a fact: A reciprocating saw is only as good as its blade. Given the punishing work that reciprocating saws are typically asked to do, that blade has to be pretty good. On any given day you might use one to cut through nail-embedded lumber, cast iron pipe, or a chunky piece of L-shaped steel.It’s not just the metal’s hardness that can give these saws a problem—the thickness and abrasiveness that can wear out these blades in seconds....

Media Platforms Design TeamUsing your favorite apps could be as easy as pushing a button. This is the Flic, a smaller rubber button that can connect to various apps through iOS and Android devices, potentially allowing users to turn on Netflix, dim the lights, or maybe even order food with just a push. A single tap, double tap, and prolonged push of the button could each be assigned to do different things....

Media Platforms Design TeamAlan Mulally, President and CEO (left), and Bill Ford, Executive Chairman Ford Motor Company, during the 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan. (Photograph by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)DETROIT–During General Motors’ bankruptcy proceedings last year, skeptics of the plan worried that the automaker would be forced by the White House to produce many more smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles than the public wants while gas prices remain below $3....

Marc UrbanoMarc UrbanoWhen Mercedes-Benz introduced the refreshed E-Class this summer, the model lineup expanded to a staggering 12 variations of coupe, sedan, convertible, and wagon. And that’s just for the models that go on sale in the United States later this month. In Europe, M-B offers even more versions, including the E350 BlueTec, which features the world’s first rear-wheel-drive 9-speed automatic transmission. The 9G-Tronic, as it is formally known, follows the ZF-built 9-speed that debuted in the Jeep Cherokee as the second 9-ratio gearbox on the market, and Mercedes-Benz plans to expand its use to all-wheel-drive and hybrid powertrains....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhile necessity may be the mother of invention, it’s increasing costs that spawn efficiency. Before the ’70s, we happily cranked up the thermostat when the house felt chilly. Once heating costs went through the roof, though, we all put on sweaters and started looking for ways to save. And, with up to 40 percent of our heating dollar going to air infiltration—otherwise known as drafts—sealing the place up began to seem like the best defense against high heating bills....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ: How do you stop a sink faucet from dripping?A: Regardless of the faucet, begin the repair by turning off the shutoff valve on the supply line to the sink. This is located under the sink or in the basement. Next, close the sink drain to avoid losing small parts, then disassemble the faucet. Take note of the order of the parts to aid in reassembly. To ensure an exact match, bring the removed components to the hardware store or home center....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt makes no sense to issue uniforms that conceal a soldier, and then issue the same soldier a black M4 whose shape an enemy can easily spot. U.S. Army soldiers are (without permission) painting their weapons to blend into the environments of Afghanistan and Iraq, but some have gummed up their weapons by spraying paint into mechanical parts. Early this year, the Army issued the first formal, detailed guidelines on how to paint a rifle....