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Media Platforms Design TeamIf there is a war in the Ukraine next week—an unthinkable scenario just a few months ago, but now a frightening possibility with Russian forces massing on the border and a contentious independence vote in Crimea looming—what could the United States do about it? If Russia or Ukrainian forces clash, direct NATO or American intervention would be risky, and highly unlikely. Could the West still assist Ukraine without sending in its own warplanes or armored columns?...

Media Platforms Design TeamThere’s a new whiskey rebellion going on.Popular Mechanics recently covered the American microdistilling revival, in which DIY craftsman around the country are producing small-batch liquors of their own design. And at the end of the day, when they’re done with the science and tech of distilling, these guys appreciate a cocktail just as much as the rest of us. (Okay, probably more.) We asked the distillers featured in our article for their best cocktail recipes, and the experts obliged:45th Parallel SpiritsNew Richmond, Wisc....

Media Platforms Design Team LOS ANGELES—The original 2003 G35 Coupe was so freshly designed, so well developed and so sporty, it even made BMW’s talented techs nervous. And automakers like Hyundai have proved that the G is a benchmark for coupe design today. Still, those of us who enjoy a little California sunshine with our sporty coupes had to shop elsewhere. About half of all the BMW 3 Series coupes sold are convertibles....

Media Platforms Design Team CHICAGO – A year after showing specially customized versions of its little Transit Connect commercial vehicle at the 2008 Chicago Auto Show, Ford has taken the wraps off the production version it plans to sell here in a few months. The US version of the Connect has a completely new front fascia, grille and headlamps to distinguish it from the widely sold European version, first introduced back in 2003....

Less than two weeks ago, the future looked rosy for the Large Hadron Collider. On Sept. 10, the world’s largest particle accelerator launched, sending its first beams of protons whizzing around the 17-mile ring underneath the Swiss and French Alps. However, somewhere along the way to uncovering the Higgs boson “God particle” and quieting doomsday naysayers, a trio of setbacks put the LHC out of commission for two months. Here’s what’s gone wrong so far, and what the CERN team plans to do about it....

(Published in the January 1997 issue)More: Learn how to turn your mountain bike into a snowmobile.Five automobile manufacturers are selling mountain bikes alongside their 1997 cars. Is this a marketing gimmick, a design exercise or the start of a new industry? Well, it’s a bit of each. To find out what the car companies are up to, we gathered samples of every available model and brought them to New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest....

Media Platforms Design TeamPindrop Security has a new way of beating the phone scammers who prey on banks and other institutions: by identifying the audio fingerprint of a phone call. Called “phoneprinting,” this software solution uses elements of an audio signal to determine the type of device being used, its location, and whether the person on the other end is for real.Caller ID may have been pretty advanced for the 1990s, but nowadays, it is easy to fool....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe night Cindy M.* disappeared, she ate dinner with her parents and older brother in the family’s two-story suburban Pittsburgh home, then went to her room and promised to come back for apple-walnut pie. The pretty 13-year-old with dark blond hair and blue-green eyes never returned. When her parents checked her room, they found neither a note nor a sign of forced entry. It was New Year’s Day, 2002, and their daughter was simply gone....

NASA’s iSAT may well herald an innovative thruster, one capable of using iodine to navigate through space. The light weight fuel may be able to pack a big, big thrust-to-weight ratio, enabling heftier propulsion on less fuel. In this video, NASA demonstrates everything that will go under the hood of the experimental satellite, an 8x8x12" nanosat intended to test out the thrusters. It’s interesting to watch a spacecraft assembled piece by piece, a way more cool version of watching a LEGO set or model car come together....

Aviation snips, also called tin snips or compound snips (even though they are different), are the best hand tools for cutting sheets of metal. Cutting in a straight line with tin snips is easy. It’s making curved cuts that can be difficult, especially if you’re holding the wrong tool. Tin snip grips are typically colored red, yellow, or green, and it’s not for cosmetic reasons. Each color signifies a different direction that the snips are made to cut....

HOUSTON – When Hurricane Katrina roared through the Gulf of Mexico three years ago, it ripped the drilling rig atop Royal Dutch Shell’s Mars platform from its clamps and slammed it back onto the top deck in a crumpled pile of steel.But the company’s Ursa platform, just 7 miles to the east, emerged unscathed as 80-foot waves and 175-mph winds hammered the region.A storm doesn’t necessarily wreak havoc on all installations it touches, said Peter Marshall, a retired Shell engineer and consultant, as operators continued preparations Thursday for Tropical Storm Gustav’s expected move into the energy-rich gulf....

Media Platforms Design TeamBase Price: $33,900Luxury isn’t defined solely by the gleam and grain of the wood fastened to the dashboard or the suppleness of the hides stitched to the seat frames. Sure, we like to be pampered, but the luxury cars we truly admire are more like the all-new Cadillac ATS—short on fluff and long on substance. The ATS packs a technical spec sheet loaded with advanced lightweight materials in the chassis as well as a body shell that’s up to 40 percent stiffer than the larger CTS sedan....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat is consciousness, and how does that definition affect our perception of our reality?Consciousness is one of the most hotly debated subjects by philosophers, psychologists, but not physicists. There have been over 20,000 papers written on consciousness. Never have so many people devoted so much time to produce so little. I’m a physicist. When we see something new, we create a model, a model that has the essence of the subject we’re looking at....

New York state is investigating whether ISPs provide slower-than-advertised service to customers, something which anyone who has used an online speedtest could safely say, “Yeah no sh—hold on, sorry, my WiFi just dropped.“A combination of consumer complaints and a study from Measurement Lab led New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman to investigate Verizon, Time-Warner Cable, and Cablevision, though the findings could have wider reaching consequences on other ISPs like Cox and Comcast....

It’s three times the dystopian driving drama. PM is going to give away 10 Death Race combo packs, featuring a DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital download of Death Race, Death Race 2, and Death Race 3:Inferno, which drops today. Plus, a grand prize winner will take home a Sony BDP-S185 Blu-ray player in addition to the combo pack.The third chapter of the Death Race series, Inferno finds Carl “Frankenstein” Lucas driving for his freedom in a brutal race across the scorching Kalahari Desert....

How much to own your own private island spanning three Bay Area Counties? $22M? Half that? A quarter? Don’t worry if you can’t guess: neither can Red Rock Island’s seller and real estate team. In 2012, the 5.5 acre span of rock, sand, hearty vegetation and minerals (the rights to which were included with sale) hit the market at $22M. Despite a reported “real interest” from island buyers, Red Rock did not sell....

Media Platforms Design TeamFord’s Chief Engineer for the F-150, Jackie DiMarco, held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on the popular social news website Reddit yesterday, answering questions about the automaker’s upcoming full-sized pickup (mostly about its V-6 Ecoboost engine), her first car (a 1976 Buick LeSabre), and where to find best shawarma in Dearborn (LaPita). All in all, she was amicable, fairly active, and predictibly stuck to her talking points....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe inner regions of a collapsing, rapidly spinning massive star. The colors indicate entropy, which roughly corresponds to heat: Red regions are very hot, while blue regions are cold. Simulation: Christian Ott, Visualization: Steve DrascoOne of the most violent and chaotic events in the known universe is the moment when a star explodes. On average, about two stars in our galaxy per century buckle under the pressure of their own gravity, break down from the inside out, and go supernova....

A Connecticut teenager built a drone with a flamethrower, allowing him to actually rain down fire from above. Austin Haughwout, aka Hogwit on Youtube, created this contraption to roast his holiday turkey. If he were a Boy Scout, I think they’d take away his Firem’n Chit about now … Haughwout also attached a handgun to a drone capable of firing off. This means that, not content to just get in trouble for making a clock and taking it to school, Haughwout is fully weaponizing drones in the woods behind his home....

We’re all made of matter from ancient supernovas. If you’ve seen Cosmos, you probably know that already. But the early universe was a chaotic place. But as reported today in Nature, nine stars in the center of the Milky Way may constitute the oldest ever found – and point to an ancient violent event that gave rise to them. Don’t think supernova. Think hypernova.The stars are located near the center of the Milky Way....