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Media Platforms Design TeamNo risky surgery, no invasive implant, no painful rehabilitation and certainly not “no treatment at all.” When we go to the doctor’s office, what we want to hear is, “There’s a pill for that.” Over the past year, a series of medical breakthroughs have brought five such magic-bullet pills one step closer to reality, aimed at diseases such as osteoporosis and type 2 diabetes. Once they’re developed, these pills won’t be cure-alls: A pill that builds bone mass won’t provide the heart and muscle benefits of exercise, for instance, and a calorie-burning pill is no replacement for a healthy diet....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat is fusion, and where does research stand right now?Well, fusion is the process of combining atoms, of overcoming those atoms’ mutual electric repulsion so that they bind together. Quite a lot of energy is produced when this happens. And while people have already created fusion in experiments for decades, it’s always been a process that takes in a lot more energy than it gives out. And it doesn’t have to be....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat triggered your passion for home-brewing? I knew some home-brewers growing up, but I wasnt able to start my adventure in brewing until I moved back to Illinois. I finally had some room to brew, plus room to tinker with equipment. I started with the most basic set: a large stainless-steel pot, a couple buckets, an ingredients kit (which is basically beer in a box), miscellaneous other pieces, and most important, a book....

Media Platforms Design TeamLighting your house and grounds at night creates an attractive evening environment. And, you can install low-voltage fixtures yourself.Most of us are concerned with the way our homes look. That’s why we keep the lawn mowed, the woodwork painted and the hedges trimmed. Each day is a new opportunity to refine, tune up and simply appreciate the appearance of our surroundings. That doesn’t have to change when the sun goes down....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe next world war might not start with a bang, but with a blackout. An enemy could send a few lines of code to control computers at key power plants, causing equipment to overheat and melt down, plunging sectors of the U.S. and Canadian grid into darkness. Trains could roll to a stop on their tracks, while airport landing lights wink out and the few traffic lights that remain active blink at random....

Media Platforms Design TeamHad enough Upworthy feel-good nonsense on Facebook? How about the insulting politics of relatives you just can’t unfriend? Starting today, there’s a solution to those common News Feed problems. Facebook is now giving users a more nuanced way to hide posts.As before, you can hide a specific post from a person. But now, when you do, Facebook will ask you a more general question: Do you want to see less (or nothing) from that person or page in the future?...

Media Platforms Design TeamEver wondered what it would be like to walk on water? A few sporty Europeans showed us what it might look like in a popular video launched last month. An Internet phenomenon, “Liquid Mountaineering” has received well over 4.5 million views on YouTube. Viewers wondered if it was possible, while scientists insisted it was a hoax or publicity stunt. Finally in early June, outdoor brand they were behind the viral video and that an underwater bridge was responsible for the effect....

Media Platforms Design TeamCover crops do exactly what their name implies: They cover the soil. For gardeners, these taller plants are an excellent way to improve soil and suppress weeds.There are two main ways to garden with cover crops. The first method is to plant the cover crop in empty garden beds near the end of the growing season, which gives the crop time to establish itself before going dormant and provides some protection against harsh winter conditions like wind erosion and soil compaction....

Media Platforms Design TeamTOKYO — Toyota may be the first to market with a plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) vehicle. Today, we were briefed on Toyota’s future hybrid and alternative fuel plans. And while there was no official announcement by Yoshitaka Asakura, Project General Manager of Toyota’s Hybrid Vehicle System Engineering Development Division, he mentioned that their plug-in development program was under way and that it may not wait for lithium-ion battery technology to mature....

Media Platforms Design TeamToday Razer announced the next generation of Blade and Blade Pro high-performance laptops. The San Diego-based company has made significant improvements from its last 14-inch model, adding in an improved GPU (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M), a 10-point capacitive multi-touch screen, and a stunning display with double the pixel density of last year’s laptop. The Blade packs in all these extras and still keep its slim shape, adding only 0....

The Telharmonium was one of the earliest synthesizers. But the history of this early Muzak forerunner has almost entirely disappeared: no recordings or extant versions of the machine exist today. Even in its own time, it failed to gain traction and served more as a nuisance to telephone companies than as an enormous success.The device was drafted up by Thaddeus Cahill in 1893 as a way to transmit music by phone....

Media Platforms Design TeamSan Francisco–So I’ve had some quick hands-on experience with the Apple iPad and a few hours to think about it, and there’s a lot about the device that impresses me, and a few things that depress me. On the whole, though, it’s a winner.First off, the thing is fast. Touch response is snappy and immediate, apps launch instantly and even action scenes in video (I watched a few scenes from Star Trek) are skip- and freeze- free....

It won’t take long out of the gates of Honolulu on Sunday for the Suntory Mermaid II to prove its maiden voyage a success, since the goal of the journey is to prove that a boat relying solely on eco-friendly wave power can operate outside the confines of a lab. It’s also going for a wave-powered distance record, green or no green.Though noteworthy, the Mermaid II’s design is elegantly simple. Boat designer Ichiro Yokoyama eschewed the age-old, stick-the-propeller-in-the-rear approach and, instead, placed fins on the front of the craft....

Oh, I’ve had expensive old cars before. Collectible stuff, like a 1959 Porsche 356 Convertible D. The one with the Speedster body and the roll-up windows. I remember the moment it first betrayed me.In the summer of 2000 I was on a weekend drive when the throttle pedal went limp. I looked under the car and saw a bracelet of broken metal. The Porsche—a simple thing, really, nothing more than a Volks-wagen Beetle—has a seventeen-piece throttle linkage serviceable only by Nobel laureates in physics....

Earlier this summer, a crane in Tulsa, Okla., hauled up a rusted 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that had been buried 50 years earlier in a bombproof bunker as a time capsule. The contents included a case of beer, 14 bobby pins, $2.43, a bottle of tranquilizers and 10 gallons of gas–in case internal combustion engines had become obsolete by 2007.Despite our best research efforts, we’re still relying on internal combustion engines, but much in our lives has changed dramatically since 1957....

There are plenty of ways to make a drone take off vertically. You can just have it be a quadcopter, built it into some sort of hybrid, or even have it transform in the air. But a company called Insitu may have found a solution that offers the best of both worlds. You use a quadcopter to launch a fixed-wing drone. The fixed-wing drone you see here is called the ScanEagle....

Suspension systems don’t tend to get much publicity, but they’re probably the most crucial factor in the day-to-day enjoyment of your car. Automakers are always tweaking and refining their designs in search of that elusive ideal: a perfect ride coupled with race-worthy handling. We haven’t quite gotten there yet, but the latest systems are better than ever at reconciling the competing goals of comfort and performance. Here are three recent innovations to tide us over until Bose reinvents suspension entirely....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s an ambitious deadline: By 2009, DARPA hopes to have a mechanical arm whose functionality is on par with a flesh-and-blood limb. A new arm developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is just as ambitious, allowing its user to actually feel an object in his grasp. Proto 1, the first prototype to come out of DARPA’s prosthetic initiative, was tested by Jesse Sullivan, a lineman who lost both of his arms in an accident six years ago....

After his buddy traded a fully trained dog team for the services of an Alaskan bush pilot, photographer Ken Tape found himself following his friend’s progress in the 1000-mile Yukon Quest dog race—from the air. The mushers started out from Whitehorse, Canada, on Feb. 10, and are our now making their way towards Fairbanks, Alaska. Tape will be filing reports here from checkpoints along the course.BRAEBURN, Yukon Territory, Feb. 10 — At 11 a....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn a press statement released just ahead of the New York Auto Show, General Motors announced a new in-car service that relies entirely on analog technology.Dubbed OffStar, a spinoff of OnsStar which is currently available across the GM lineup, the new feature attempts to satisfy remaining holdouts by utilizing entirely non-digital multimedia devices and services. “OnStar has reliably served over six million customers, but our research shows that a sizable portion of new car purchasers and baby boomers choose not to pay the $18-$28 monthly fee because they distrust its advanced digital technology,” a spokesperson said....