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Media Platforms Design TeamDespite more than $7 billion in Congressional funding, the Army Corps of Engineers says it’s still four years and $7 billion away from re-building the levees of New Orleans. Robert Bea, a professor of engineering at the University of California at Berkeley who authored the huge National Science Foundation report on why the Big Easy collapsed in the first place, proposes solutions to . And Leslie Sabbagh, , joins us from a military air base for a very candid conversation about the state of the high-tech war....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe new Kia K900 is deceptively big. From a distance, the design makes Kia’s new rear-drive flagship appear to occupy the same footprint as a midsize sedan. And it looks like a cross between a Lexus GS and a Maserati Quattroporte. But this Kia is larger. It’s within inches of the full-size Hyundai Equus, a car that shares the same wheelbase, powertrain and chassis. Kia says the suspension tune is unique to the K900....

Oculus VR held its first developer conference this past weekend. The event was rumored to be the launching ground for the consumer version of its Rift virtual reality headset; instead, the company instead used the conference to show off yet another piece of developer-only hardware: Crescent Bay, a new prototype of the virtual reality headset that takes the experience to a new level.A New OculusCrescent Bay represents the third generation of Oculus’ virtual reality headset....

With Space Shuttle Discovery safely home after a nearly 13-day flight, NASA is breathing a collective sigh of relief. STS-121 was by far the safest space shuttle flight yet (at least in terms of launch debris). Frequent Popular Mechanics contributor and four-time shuttle astronaut Thomas D. Jones joins me in the studio to chat about this most recent flight, the future of the space shuttle program, the future of the ISS and what it’s like to work on a construction site that orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes....

The 24-hour day is not as rock-solid as you might think. Scientists have known for some time that the rotation of the Earth can be manipulated by a number of factors, including weather patterns and the gravitational pull of the moon. Back in 2002, Walter Munk hypothesized that changes in sea level should also affect the Earth’s rotation rate, but his math never added up and he couldn’t prove his theory....

Editor’s Note: A major-league pitcher for 25 years, left-hander Jim Kaat won 283 games and earned 16 Gold Gloves while playing for the Washington Senators, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. He currently broadcasts Yankee games on the YES network and WCBS.Critics of baseball will tell you that Abner Doubleday of Cooperstown, N.Y., invented the game in 1839 and not a thing has changed since....

War is Boring has a fantastic report on a 1950s and 1960s program for which the United States Army began to build guns for future military conflicts in space. The whole thing reeks of “hard power,” or peace through military might, and even accounts for whether or not a gun could be built to fire on the surface of the moon.The document states that its own purpose is not to start a space war, but to have the proper tools in place in case someone else starts one: “Because of the entirely new and different environment and conditions facing man in space, we cannot wait until the eleventh hour to crash a weapon program through with any hope of success, for we may even now be standing on the edge of the battleground of Armageddon....

Media Platforms Design TeamMy La-Z-Boy has a seatbelt. My living room has wheels. I’m piloting a mobile McMansion–leather couches, cherry wood cabinets, flat-screen televisions, the works–across the desert south of Las Vegas. We’re flying. The shower is doing 75 mph. The throw pillows are doing 75. A plump chicken is roasting in the oven; it’s doing 75, too, and smells delicious. This evening I’ll pull over, drop the stabilizing jacks and sit down for dinner....

Behold, the model that rules the waves. Jerry Shaw of Palm Beach Gardens, FL, has been building this model supercarrier in his garage for three decades. It’s 12 feet long and weighs 2 tons, counting the display case. The carrier is fully motorized, with the ability to lift and drop anchors, lift decks, and rotate radar dishes. There’s a working helicopter and 90 scale model planes, because what’s an aircraft carrier without a few aircraft to carry?...

Media Platforms Design TeamChallengerBally, 1971Media Platforms Design TeamMultiplayer pinball usually involves players taking turns. This game sought to cut out the waiting. This double-long table features flippers on both ends, allowing (in fact, requiring—there was no single-player mode) players to do all they could to sink balls past their opponent’s flippers. In effect, it had as much in common with foosball as with pinball.Orbitor 1Stern, 1982Media Platforms Design TeamObritor 1 is one of the strangest—and most minimal—games around....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn the battlefield of the future, a wounded soldier could be scooped up by a robot, placed in a specially equipped drone, and then flown to the closest manned-medical center, where he or she is diagnosed with automated equipment that can deliver treatment without human intervention. Of course, that brings up the question: If robots can do all that, will there be human soldiers on the battlefield?Air Mobility Command, the military command in charge of aeromedical evacuation of wounded troops, recently announced that it was looking to commission a study on the future of evacuating soldiers from the battlefield....

Media Platforms Design TeamSix-foot-five, 500-plus pounds of metal, yet nimble enough for its wearer to maneuver under the sea and study delicate luminescent jellyfish without harming them: This is the Exosuit, and this summer the hulking outfit will carry a scientist down to 1000 feet below the ocean’s surface, to a remote place where glowing fish flash signals to one other through the dark.Some of the scientists who will take Exosuit out into the field gathered at New York’s American Museum of Natural History this morning....

Byron Kerns, former U.S. Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) instructor, and wilderness director and chief instructor at Byron Kerns Survival, drops some knowledge:How to catch minnows when you’re starving1. Take a two-liter bottle, remove the cap, and cut off the top quarter.2. Turn the top upside down and place it in the bottom three-quarters of the bottle.3. If you have string, make a small hole at the top of both sides and tie an end of the string to each....

Microscopic electronic implants zap the brain to help treat pain, depression, or epilepsy. But to do so, they need power. Batteries are bulky, which limits scientists’ ability to build smaller implants. And energy-harvesting strategies that rely on the body’s heat, motion, or sugar to produce electricity currently do not generate enough power for microimplants.Ada Poon, an electrical engineer at Stanford University, and her colleagues devised a way to wirelessly transfer power deeper into the body than ever before....

Media Platforms Design Team1. Get Organized Your many house, yard or cleaning projects can make for unnecessary clutter and confusion. Make sure to set aside and group your tools, materials and tasks for each project. Try to keep everything separate from start to cleanup.2. Don’t Leave Organization for Saturday It’s easy and tempting to put off all the work until the weekend, but during the week, check the tools you’ll need and their necessary bits, blades and abrasives....

London—Ask Bloodhound Supersonic Car (SSC) project director Richard Noble how he came up with the idea of pushing the land speed record into four-digit territory and he freely credits the idea to another. “It was Lord Drayson who suggested 1000 mph,” says Noble, referring to Paul Drayson, British minister of science, businessman and amateur race driver. “When we heard that Steve Fossett had bought Craig Breedlove’s car, Andy [Green] and I were thinking we would have to defend our record with about 800 mph, but he said, ‘why not go for 1000?...

Media Platforms Design Team Bühlerhöhe, Germany—The Mercedes-Benz S400 Hybrid is not only the first hybrid vehicle from the three-pointed star, it’s the first series-production car ever to make use of lithium-ion batteries. With estimated fuel consumption of 23 mpg city and 33 mpg highway, it’s claimed to be the most efficient gas-powered luxury car on the road. An equally important statistic is its extremely low CO2 emissions of 186 grams per kilometer....

On Sale Date: NowPrice: $66,300Competitors: Audi TT RS, BMW 1 Series M, Lotus Evora SPowertrain: 3.4-liter flat six, 330-hp, 273 lb-ft; seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, six-speed manual, RWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/highway): 20/29 mpgWhat’s New: The passion for Porsches comes from a deep connection between man and machine. The more hard-edged, stripped-down and pure that Porsche model is–the tighter the bond. The Porsche Cayman R is so involving it practically welds itself to the driver, and to create this minimalist masterpiece, Porsche engineers carved away as much weight as possible....

Long before the first Speed Week competition—held in 1949—hot rodders used the Bonneville Salt Flats to put it all on the line and see just how fast they could go. Now the annual event is a speed-merchant pilgrimage with over 500 competitors ranging from backyard tinkerers to sponsored professional efforts. Car and motorcycle racers vie for record top speeds in hundreds of classes based on engine size, type of fuel and vehicle layout....

This beautiful bath-improvement project is dedicated to the millions of do-it-yourselfers who’ve always dreamed of building with glass block, but didn’t have the foggiest idea of where to start.That’s right. You can build a gorgeous glass-block shower even if you’ve never laid a single block. It’s all possible with the Glass Block System–a new line of shower kits from Pittsburgh Corning. Each kit includes an acrylic shower pan, glass blocks, and all the necessary hardware, such as spacers, silicone sealant, anchors and reinforcing wire....