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While some parts of the Midwest begin the grueling process of reconstruction, other states are still bracing for impact, as aging levees fight a losing battle against record-breaking floodwaters. And this isn’t the first time the region has been inundated—in 1993, widespread flooding battered and overtopped many of the same levees. We spoke with Eric Halpin, the Special Assistant for Dam and Levee Safety for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, about flood response lessons learned and just how far the Corps can go in preventing disasters....

Media Platforms Design TeamValentine’s Day is knocking, and whether you’re a geek without a date, a stud with a girlfriend or just another hubby with a holiday, there’s still a whole lot left to learn about love. Dr. Helen Fisher is a research professor at the anthropology department of Rutgers University, where her work with high-tech brain scans, romantic focus groups and, now, nearly 4 million online daters has made her the foremost expert on the science of sweethearts....

Media Platforms Design TeamAn AirAsia Airbus A320-200 jet bound for Singapore is missing after losing contact with ground control at 7:24AM local time on Sunday morning. Initial search and rescue efforts have turned up no sign of the plane carrying 162 people. Following the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, It’s the second such Southeast Asia airline disappearance in less than a year.Update: Tuesday, 8:31AM ET: Indonesian authorities said that they’ve found bodies and debris from the missing AirAsia flight....

This little machine is loaded with lessons about engineering and mobility. The gearbox teaches kids how gear ratios affect speed. And when it walks, the robot’s feet can slip unless you add a dab of glue to them. That’s a great introduction to problem solving: increasing friction to create traction and enable faster movement.The pipe cleaners are just pipe cleaners. Have fun!Difficulty: ReasonableTime: 2 hours (or less)Ages: 7+Media Platforms Design TeamMaterials and tools(All available at hardware and craft stores, except where noted)• 1 Two-battery AA or AAA case, with switch• 2 5-in....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs I start my second loop around the capitol building in downtown Madison, Wis., I realize I’m lost. There’s a dusting of snow, and the brakes on the Toyota rental are more sensitive than anything I’ve driven in months. Not wanting to be late for my interview with John Lee, I pull out my Motorola Droid and plug in his address. For the next 1.8 miles, my eyes dart between the phone and the road....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen analog television broadcasting goes dark in the United States on February 17, 2009 and the huge analog transmitters of more than 1600 broadcast stations are turned off, what will happen to those radio frequencies formerly used for analog TV? Well, for UHF channels 60 to 69 the future will be decided starting this week as the Federal Communications Commission begins to auction that reclaimed bandwidth, bringing at least $10 billion into the treasury from auction winners and possibly allowing a dramatic expansion of wireless spectrum for cellular voice and data communication....

Automakers issue recalls with great regularity, and most don’t make headline news. The recent General Motors ignition switch recall different for two reasons: size and fatalities.GM recently expanded this recall to include the 2003-2007 Saturn Ion, 2006-2007 Chevrolet HHR, 2006-2007 Pontiac Solstice, and 2007 Saturn Sky. Add that to the existing recall of the 2005-2007 Chevrolet Cobalt, Pontiac G5, and Pontiac Pursuit (a Canadian version of the G5), and the number of affected cars totals more than 1....

Media Platforms Design Team CHICAGO — Ford has seen the success of Dodge’s Sprinter commercial delivery van and decided it too should have a cleverly packaged European import van in its lineup. Ford says the Transit will offer better fuel economy, bigger load capacity and better cargo accessibility than competitive commercial vehicles when it hits select North American markets in the middle of next year. The Transit Connect is built on a dedicated, commercial vehicle platform....

Media Platforms Design TeamYesterday General Motors invited journalists to its Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan for what sounded like a mundane affair—show and tell with the new versions of standard safety features. But the tech behind those everyday safety features was what caught our eye: With minimal fanfare, GM has put the first camera-based robotic vision system into a production vehicle. The new GM system uses a single forward-looking camera to aid lane departure and collision warnings—mainstream features already in most new cars....

There are two main reasons why no heart surgeon is perfect: vision and motion. The naked eye just can’t see everything when repairing a heart in an open chest, and even a surgeon’s trained hands can’t feel everything. Robert Howe, a professor at Harvard’s biorobotics lab, wants to give them a robotic assist. In the lab, Howe and his team are testing a robot called Raven intended to help surgeons see and navigate around the heart, guiding their instruments to the right place to perform repairs....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: National Geographic)For scientists working on genetically engineered microorganisms, one major worry is making sure those organisms can’t spread. So how do you prevent an altered strain of E. Coli from making a run for it? You make it entirely dependent on living in the lab.As Carl Zimmer of National Geographic writes, containing modified bacteria is easier said than done. Consider the 2009 case of a University of Chicago scientist named Malcolm Casabadan who died after an iron craving bacteria made its way into his bloodstream....

If I close my eyes and relax into the drone of the engines and the heavy rush of air, I might almost forget that I’m in a military airplane. The NATO E-3A is 153 feet long and built on the same frame as a Boeing 707 airliner, so in contrast to the fighter jets looping through the sky not far away, it is not designed to make any sudden moves. The E-3A is a whale floating along at 35,000 feet, and I am buckled into its belly....

Media Platforms Design TeamProtean Electric has displayed its latest technology demonstrator at the 2012 SAE World Congress in Detroit, a Mercedes-Benz E-class sporting a 2.2-liter turbodiesel, manual transmission, and Protean’s electric motors mounted inside the rear wheels. The startup partnered with high-performance tuning house Brabus for the project, intended to show off the capabilities of their e-motor designs, and debuted the car in Frankfurt.Media Platforms Design TeamProtean has been developing in-wheel electric motors for several years, in spite of the fact that most automakers discarded the concept years ago....

Christian EliasAge: 36Years on Job: 18 Embedded in Fenway Park’s 37-ft. 4-in.-tall Green Monster–the highest outfield wall in baseball–is one of the game’s two remaining manual scoreboards. Christian Elias heads the three-man team that swaps the metal plates displaying numbers and city names in and out of the scoreboard’s 127 slots during the Boston Red Sox’ home games. Elias has worked more than 1300 games and two World Series–and he no longer needs to watch every pitch to do his job....

After nine and a half years of waiting, the New Horizons team had to wait about 13 more hours for the New Horizons craft to phone home and say that it had completed its Pluto flyby. It finally did, with the message being received on the Canberra dish of the Deep Space Network at 8:52:37 PM ET Eastern Tuesday night.View full post on TwitterThere was a small chance – something like 1 in 10,000 – that New Horizons would collide with some leftover debris in the area near Pluto and be unable to complete the mission....

Summer is the season when homeowners roll up their sleeves and dig into a variety of jobs, from painting and building to applying lawn chemicals. With so much talk these days about the toxicity of chemicals, we thought it would be helpful to search out and ask the advice of an expert on the topic: Dr. Joseph Sullivan, certified wildlife biologist and consultant on ecotoxicology.PM: Sometimes the application rate listed on the bag of fertilizer or other lawn treatment is a bit ambiguous or doesn’t match the equipment that a homeowner owns....

The Anatomy of a Floor The objectives of wood-floor r&d have never wavered: stay flat and don’t scratch. advances in flooring technology have finally leveled the field. here’s a look at past and present.Media Platforms Design TeamTraditional woodThe best value for the money over the long term: ¾-inch planks can be sanded and refinished half a dozen times, compared to three or fewer for engineered and zero for laminate. Moisture can cause problems....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Aeroscraft uses a buoyancy system called COSH, for Control of Static Heaviness, which is inspired by submarine technology. The system eliminates the need for runways and ground crews. That could make this airship ideally suited for moving heavy cargo to remote locations.BUOYANCYAeros’s first planned production model will have 18 helium tanks (1). To increase lift, the pilot releases helium, which is much lighter than air, from the tanks into the large envelope (2) that makes up most of the volume of the ship (cargo hold not shown)....

NASA has already found evidence of liquid water on Mars, but now the European Space Agency believes a massive storehouse of water and CO2 could be lying in the Red Planet—underground. Does that mean there could be life on other planets, and, by the way, when are we ever going to explore Mars on the ground?After radically rethinking aircraft design with its 787 Dreamliner, Boeing has now officially dropped its wireless in-flight entertainment system onboard the advanced, ultra-efficient jet....

If you’ve ever tried to take the same phone with you from one carrier to another, you probably know all about SIM cards, their benefits and their downsides. But, if we’re all lucky, a supposed partnership between Apple and Samsung could put an end to traditional SIM cards for good, and replace them with something much better. A SIM card is a tiny little chip that sits inside most phones and identifies you to your mobile service provider....