Media Platforms Design TeamThe obvious way to define your yard is to put up a fence. The cool way is to forget the fence and just build a gateway – a portal from here to there that implies a change of space without presenting a physical barrier. Materials are readily available – 4 x 4s for the posts, 2 x 6s for the arches and braces, and 1 x 6 stock ripped to width for the remaining pieces....
Media Platforms Design TeamMany of the life-saving electronics surgeons can now implant in the human body—pacemakers that correct abnormal heart rhythms, deep brain stimulators that treat Parkinson’s, neural stimulators that provide relief to patients with epilepsy—require battery changes every few years. Battery replacement requires surgery, which can be expensive for the patient and unavoidably creates some risk of infection or other complications. A new device can recharge medical implants using the body’s own motion, and may one day make battery-replacement surgery obsolete....
When a historic structure’s foundation begins to falter, how do you repair it without damaging the building from the ground up? That’s the question Japan had when tasked with repairing the stone walls below Hirosaki Castle. The solution?Pick it up and move it somewhere else first.[youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orZrTG8IbqY[/youtube]The castle, which sits within the city of Hirosaki in Aomori prefecture in Japan, was completed in 1611, and the stone walls were reportedly discovered to be leaning after an earthquake in 1983....
Media Platforms Design TeamOn the factory floor at Sierra Nevada Corporation in Louisville, Colo., four identical satellites are taking shape in separate assembly areas, or pods. These are being built for tracking communications company ORBCOMM, which recently lost the first of these new satellites after a misbehaving SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket dumped it into the wrong orbit. These birds are members of a new breed of spacecraft that are more affordable because they are being made in quantity and with off-the-shelf rather than custom-made components....
Media Platforms Design TeamActual enchilada may look less appealing by the light of your fallout shelter. (Photograph by Burcu Avsar)Meals ready-to-eat (MREs) are the military’s answer to a long-term, disaster-proof food supply. These vacuum-packed foodstuffs–also available in civilian versions–require little more preparation than activating an included heating pad by adding water, and have all the nutrition necessary to keep you alive. But does the taste inspire the will to survive? To find out, we served up civilian MREs from three different manufacturers to some of PM’s hungriest staffers in a flavor face-off....
In the three months since 19 wildland firefighters burned to death in Arizona, a key question has hung over the tragedy: Why did the men, all members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, choose to leave the relative safety of an already-burned hill and descend into the brush-dense box canyon where they were overcome by fast-moving flames? Today, the investigators released their long-awaited report, and unfortunately it doesn’t offer a definitive answer....
Media Platforms Design TeamOn a visit to Mali to help a friend in the Peace Corps repair some village machinery, Jock Brandis, a Wilmington, N.C., TV and movie engineer, saw women bloodying their hands while manually shelling peanuts to feed their families.Peanuts, Brandis knew, can be a great cash crop, improving soil by fixing nitrogen. Potentially, they could complement the nitrogen-depleting cotton the villagers were already growing for sale – but these sun-dried peanuts were too hard to shell by hand....
A new way of looking beneath the ocean’s surface could shed light on whether world fish populations are shrinking in the murky deep. The remote sensor system, developed by researchers at MIT, allows scientists to track exceptionally large fish populations over a 10,000-square-kilometer area. Current technology can survey only about 100 square meters at a time.The device, initially used to locate ancient riverbeds under the ocean floor, returned patterns that the researchers found confusing—until they realized they were actually looking at millions of fish....
Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center gazed into its crystal ball and issued predictions for the coming winter. The verdict: More precipitation than usual for the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes and the Tennessee Valley, but less than usual in the southern half of the country.“La Niña strengthened during October, making it even more likely that the United States will see below-average precipitation in the already drought-stricken regions of the Southwest and the Southeast this winter,” explained Michael Halpert, the center’s deputy director....
Breakthrough Leadership Award winner Burt Rutan (left) reviews the plan for the universal peanut sheller (third item) with Jim Nesbit (right) and its designer, Jock Brandis (center).Breakthrough Leadership Award Winner Burt Rutan meets media personality John Batchelor as PM Editor-in-Chief Jim Meigs looks on.2006 Breakthrough Award winners Jock Brandis (far right) and Burt Rutan (second from right) dodge flying peanut shells as they witness Brandis’ invention in action.Breakthrough Award winner Jock Brandis feeds his universal peanut sheller (third item) as fellow winners and inventors of the GyroBike look on....
Media Platforms Design TeamYesterday, at a SXSW panel, Google’s SVP of Android and Chrome, Sundar Pichai, announced that Google will be releasing a developer SDK for wearables in a couple of weeks, The Verge reported. Pichai made no mention of whether or not Google itself would be working on its own wearable devices, but did say that the company’s focus on the emerging product category would be at “a platform level....
Researchers from Gifu University in Japan might have developed a worthy metal gear replacement from two unlikely materials: plastic and carbon fiber.Metal has long been used in cars because of its toughness, but a new plastic gear made with carbon fiber handles the pressure just as well. The researchers first identified which part of the gear is the weakest. Turns out it’s the teeth that connects to its core. So, they lined it with carbon fiber to strengthen that part, which gives it the same stamina a metal gear has....
Kondo Machine, a company known for making specialized parts for high-end carmakers such as Rolls-Royce, has entered the two-wheel market with the same flair. These are some of the most advanced bike wheels in the world, and for the $7,900 price tag, they’d better be.The Gikoso wheels have so little friction that they can spin on a test rack for six continuous minutes, compared to the minute and a half of other fancy cycles....
Media Platforms Design TeamYesterday, Tesla and Toyota announced a partnership to build electric cars. At a press conference attended by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Toyota president Akio Toyoda and Tesla chief Elon Musk, Toyota announced that it had invested $50 million in Tesla in return for common stock. Also, the two companies plan to share technology, EV research and production techniques. Tesla, which received a nearly half-billion-dollar loan from the federal government last year, revealed that it had purchased the Nummi assembly plant in Fremont, Calif....
Media Platforms Design TeamStar Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection Blu-ray Seven-Disc Box Set (2009)Media Platforms Design TeamTo coincide with the release of J.J. Abrams’s new Star Trek film, Paramount Home Entertainment has put together a seven-disc box set containing the theatrical versions of the six original Trek films, available for the first time on Blu-ray, as well as a bonus disc featuring Star Trek: The Captain’s Summit, a 70-minute round-table discussion with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes and host Whoopi Goldberg, filmed exclusively for this set....
Media Platforms Design TeamUntil now, virtual pets (TamagotchiNintendogs, ) have taught a generation of young Americans that caring for your dog is accomplished by pressing various buttons to keep him from beeping too loudly. Needless to say, it’s not the best lesson for real pet (or, Heavens no!) child care. But as robots continue to usurp more of the traditionally carbon-based-life-form roles, a new breed of artificial pet intelligence might actually teach a growing army of Xbox warriors a little about what it takes to actually own and care for a pet—or, at least, to get off the couch....
Media Platforms Design TeamSan Diego, Calif.—Two months ago we had a chance to spend some time behind the wheel of prototype versions of Infiniti’s new M37 and M56 sedans. We were certainly impressed. But it’s difficult to judge a luxury car when there are still some rough edges to smooth out. Well, after driving the production sedans for a day on some challenging driving loops in the mountains near San Diego, we can say these new Infinitis are assuredly smooth....
Flying through the air in a gigantic multi-ton bird made of metal is a modern-day miracle, but its little inconveniences are still annoying, not least among them is that ever-present engine noise. But maybe not for long, thanks to latex. Researchers at North Carolina State University and MIT have developed what is basically a super-thin sheet of latex—about as thick as five sheets of paper—that could dampen the engine drone. All that’s needed is to stretch the latex over part of the plane’s internal frame....
Media Platforms Design TeamLast night the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced it had been investigating primary flight instrument failures aboard two separate A330s since late May. If those same instruments failed aboard AF447 when it encountered severe thunderstorms, the flight computers and the crew may have been able to inadvertently fly the aircraft beyond its structural design limits, triggering an in-flight breakup. That hypothesis gained credence when the aircraft’s tail, or vertical stabilizer, was found floating in the water June 8....
For the last two years, with the economy collapsing all around it, the technology sector and Silicon Valley in particular have proven to be particularly resilient.But that might not be the case forever. Sooner or later, as the economy contracts and everybody cuts spending, the companies that power Silicon Valley–the startups, venture capitalists, banks and big producers of technology–are bound to be affected.“Black Sunday (a week ago) was really a watershed–we’ve crossed a Rubicon,” said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster....
