In The Martian, a stranded NASA astronaut is forced to turn a planned four-week mission on the surface of Mars into a marathon for survival. His only chance to have enough food to last until he’s rescued is to turn his habitat into a space farm, using the only crop he has available: potatoes.Related StoryThere Is Water Flowing on Mars As We SpeakSpace farming researcher Bruce Bugbee tells PM that the story gets it pretty much right....
Media Platforms Design TeamThe Eau Rouge is Infiniti’s F1-inspired performance concept, and it’s meant to show off what a potential performance sub-brand could look like for the carmaker. Lower, wider, and with a taller hood than the standard Q50, the Eau Rouge features all-new sheetmetal, dark-chrome accents, and carbon fiber galore. The car has special aero packages up front and in the rear, and the twin rocker panels are meant to grab air from the front wheels and funnel it to the rear brake calipers for cooling....
Media Platforms Design Team1. Leverage Wall SpaceThe Tool-O-Dex consists of four 2 x 4–foot pegboards, each attached to a 1-inch-diameter ABS pipe. The pegboard-to-pipe assemblies are held vertically in wooden supports. The individual pegboard sheets swivel, allowing access to tools as needed and folding flat against the wall when not in use.2. Split SpinesStart by carefully cutting straight slots lengthwise in four 5-foot lengths of ABS pipe using a table saw....
Media Platforms Design TeamAvalanche • Location: • Name: Expert Advice If you’re in an avalanche, there’s a 50 percent chance you’ll die. If you survive without major injuries but are buried, your chances of surviving go up to 90 percent, but only if you’re dug out within 15 minutes. After that, it gets deadly quickly. Skiing solo? Chances are you’ll die. So you need at least one partner, a locator beacon, a shovel and a probe....
Media Platforms Design Team It used to be that interior walls were finished with layers of wet plaster troweled onto wooden strips, or lath, that were nailed to wall studs. But that changed in 1917 when the United States Gypsum Company introduced a gypsum panel that it named Sheetrock. Because of its success, other manufacturers have long since gotten into the act. Known generally as drywall, this material is sold in thin, paper-covered sheets that are typically 4 ft....
The numbers tell you something. When Evan Malone founded the Philadelphia makerspace NextFab in 2009, it occupied 4000 square feet and employed eight people. In 2012, NextFab moved to a 21,000-square-foot space, to accommodate tremendous growth in its membership and make room for further expansion. Today, 20 employees support NextFab’s 500 members, and the makerspace — which has all of the tools to design and prototype a product, including 3D printers, a milling machine, a laser cutter — has added a business-incubation program for makers turning their ideas and creations into startups....
Media Platforms Design Team(A) STAGE 1A pair of collection augers rotate from the outside of the intake chute to its center, gathering snow and breaking it up.(B) STAGE 2More pulverizing power comes from a high-volume, vertical rotor between the two augers.(C) STAGE 3A discharge impeller throws the snow clear. The stuff flies a long way, given the machine’s enormous power, so be sure not to aim the discharge at your neighbor’s kids, dogs, or cars....
All good things must come to an end, and that’s true even of the International Space Station. The orbital laboratory, which has been remarkable on many levels (including getting the US and Russia to get along, sort of), is set to be decommissioned in 2024. Russia already has plans for its own space station, but the American space program hasn’t put forward anything new. At a meeting sponsored by the Secure World Foundation and the Alliance for Space Development, though, one solution was proposed: a privately owned or commercial space station, utilizing corporate (rather than national) stakeholders....
Media Platforms Design TeamWhen North and South Korea trade artillery rounds, as they did this past Tuesday, killing four and injuring at least 16, some panicked hyperbole is understandable. First, there’s the unfortunate geography—the opponents’ capitals are just 120 miles apart, with Seoul within 35 miles of the border. The numbers only get worse, with estimates of as many as 13,000 , many of them within range and presumably aimed directly at Seoul, one of the world’s most densely-populated cities....
Media Platforms Design TeamYesterday afternoon, NASA confirmed the inevitable: After landing in May and studying the Martian surface—and finding ice in the soil and snow in the air—the Phoenix Lander has gone quiet. Project science leader Peter Smith of the University of Arizona told PM yesterday that the team last received a signal from the Mars lander on Nov. 2, but since then had been trying to reach it, hoping the lander would wake up....
Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today. Media Platforms Design TeamThe 45th anniversary of the first moon landing was yesterday, so the timing seems fitting for NASA to announce the existence of lunar caves that could someday serve as astronaut safe havens.After analyzing images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, NASA has found around 200 such caves on the moon. These “lunar pits” range in diameter from 15 to 3000 feet across and were probably formed when lava flowed underneath the moon’s surface, making large, hollow lava tubes....
FUTURE CAR WEEKTUESDAY: Rethinking Internal Combustion* VIDEO: Inside GM’s Efficiency Lab* –>WEDNESDAY: Plug-In Reality Check* PM NEWS: New Player in Chevy Volt Battery Race?* RAY WERT: Why Car Geeks Should Buy an Alt-Fuel RideTHURSDAY: The Automotive X Prize* PREVIEW: Top 10 Early Auto X Prize Contenders* PLUS: How to Build a 100-mpg Car Right NowFRIDAY: High-Performance Alternatives* GREEN POWERHOUSE: Jay Leno’s 600-hp E85 CorvetteTIME MACHINE: PM Praised Early Aerodynamic EfficiencyDRIVE GREEN: Alt-Fuel News, Videos & MoreDETROIT – Carmakers across the globe are already adapting their R&D to hit the new 35-mpg law by 2020–and now the Department of Transportation wants to speed up the fuel-economy boost by five years....
Media Platforms Design TeamPeople often think of Popular Mechanics as an automotive magazine, or an old-school how-to publication, and even more recently as a tech-geek Web site or an energy news pioneer. But over our 106-year history, PM has often written about the science and technology behind sports. Now we’ve compiled the best of that coverage—and added plenty more—for the exciting new Why a Curveball Curves: The Incredible Science of Sports....
Media Platforms Design Team LAS VEGAS—If you like massage chairs—and you do, you have to, because every muscle you have is designed to enjoy being groped—you’ll love the Inada Sogno. All three models on display at CES Unveiled were in constant use. The wait was worth it, though. Compared to the tentative, fumbling massage chairs at your local mall, the Sogno is a seasoned robotic masseuse, taking care of the usual business—back, neck, buttocks—before squeezing your calves, your feet, and your fingers....
Media Platforms Design TeamSo it seems that the device that we preemptively lauded with a Breakthrough Award has become one of the tech world’s biggest soap operas. Michael Arrington, of the blog TechCrunch, had been working with hardware design firm Fusion Garage to create a low-cost tablet computer that was to be called CrunchPad. The two parties have had a very vocal falling-out over the device–a week ago, on November 30, Arrington proclaimed it “dead” after hearing that Fusion Garage planned to exclude him from any involvement with the device....
Media Platforms Design TeamA great synth can create a vast array of sounds to please even the most creative musician. But try to explain the science of how it all works and you could quickly find yourself going down a rabbit hole of electronics jargon. To get the gist of how a synthesizer works, though, all you really need is this cheeky video starring 1980s pop icon and geek all-star Thomas Dolby....
Media Platforms Design TeamA fragment of plutonium sits in the University of California-Berkeley Hazardous Material Facility, locked in 6-foot-by-6-foot windowless room. It’s been hanging around Berkeley for decades, like some grad student who just wouldn’t leave. But even when it went on display in the 2000s, scientists weren’t completely sure whether this tiny sample was, in fact, part of the plutonium used in the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.According to new research, though, it is indeed a relic of the early days of the Manhattan Project....
The need for safety regulations around unmanned aircraft has never been clear than it now, after a runaway drone in England hit a toddler, slicing his eyeball which then had to be removed. According to The Telegraph, 16-month-old Oscar Webb was playing in his family’s front yard when a quadcopter drone being flown by family friend Simon Evans hit a tree and suddenly spun out of control. On its way down, the drone hit Oscar in the face, slicing through his right eyeball....
Media Platforms Design TeamShortly before 9 pm on Aug. 13, a crowd numbering in the thousands awaited the arrival of the country music duo Sugarland for a headline performance at the Indiana State Fair. With dark clouds massing overhead and heavy winds buffeting the stage area, conditions at the Hoosier Lottery Grandstand seemed ill-suited to an outdoor concert. In fact, only 4 hours earlier, the Indianapolis office of the National Weather Service had issued a severe weather alert to warn residents about the approaching thunderstorms capable of producing “damaging winds and large hail....
Media Platforms Design TeamAfter a five-week hiatus induced by the Hollywood writer’s strike, Lost finally returns this week with a new episode, “The Shape of Things to Come.” Show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who both produce and write episodes of the ABC drama, are self-professed geeks who haven’t promised sci-fi entirely based in real-life science, but they still want to get it right—or at least right enough that the show’s rabid fans will believe it....
