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2015 Acura TLXPrice: $31,915Available: NowMpg: 24/35Conventional wisdow says that luxury cars need rear-wheel drive, as a matter of both performance credibility and styling. Acura understands this, but Honda’s luxury brand sticks with front-drive platforms as part of its strategy, zigging when everyone else zags. Its new TLX has other tricks to win your attention.The base 206-horsepower four-cylinder model, for instance, uses an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission that also incorporates a torque converter....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe emerging technology of 3D printing had a shot fired across its bow this week. On Sunday, May 5, after eight months of development, the first gun made on a 3D printer fired its first bullet. Defense Distributed, the group behind the DIY gun, named the Liberator, later posted blueprints online for the mostly plastic weapon. The move has sparked fears—overblown for now—that anyone anywhere with a 3D printer could produce a deadly firearm (though that is the stated goals of Defense Distributed’s leader, Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old Texas law student described as a radical libertarian and anarchist by Forbes)....

Uber—usually powered by living, breathing human drivers—put its first self-driving taxis on Pittsburgh’s public streets earlier this month. It’s a first big step in the ride-hailing service’s master plan to move from drivers to driverless cars. Shortly thereafter, Uber’s rival Lyft declared that within five years the company’s autonomous cars would rule the road, and that private car ownership in cities would all but disappear within a decade. These kinds of ambitious proclamations have put traditional car companies on high alert....

Paris, 1903Media Platforms Design TeamThe Crash /// By the official count, 84 people died in the Couronnes Disaster, a tragic rail fire in turn-of-the-century Paris. After the train caught fire, many passengers tried to flee, but found no escape from the tunnel. Here’s the original New York Times story on the disaster, which reported that 100 were dead, “Suffocated in Tunnel by Smoke From Burning Train.“The Lesson /// Transit historian Brian Cudahy, who wrote about the disaster in A Century of Subways tells PM that that the French disaster led companies to adopt some of the fire safety procedures we’re familiar with today....

LAS VEGAS — Lamborghini’s baby supercar is all grown up. Boasting more power, less weight and slicker styling cues, Lambo’s new Gallardo LP560-4 is closing in on its big brother Murciélago while retaining a sticker price of $201,000—roughly 20 grand less than last year’s edgy Gallardo Superleggera. The Specs The LP560-4, which we first spotted in March, has the same power-to-weight ratio as the Superleggera, but achieves its performance goals with much friendlier dynamics....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe SpecsHow closely related is the GX 460 to the new 4Runner? Well, they both ride on the same 109.8-inch wheelbase and the slight differences in other specifications can be attributed to slight differences in bumper, roof rack and wheel design. The outgoing GX 470 rode on a 109.8-inch wheelbase too. This is not the case of a vehicle growing larger.However, it is a vehicle that’s gotten heavier....

Media Platforms Design TeamBuilders in Ontario have completed what they say could be the most environmentally friendly house in Canada, and reading though the partial list of features, I believe them.Low-Hanging FruitA quick look at what it takes to be the green champion of an entire country is both encouraging and overwhelming at the same time. On the encouraging side are the design features and building systems that seem reasonably doable....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe crane that Hurricane Sandy left dangling from the top of One57, the luxury skyscraper under construction on West 57th Street in Manhattan, was a symbol of the super storm’s legacy in more ways than one. Beyond demonstrating the sheer power of the storm, it’s a window into how the builders, craftsmen, and tradespeople have to shift their lives in response to a disaster.With damage flopping in the wind from New Jersey to Rhode Island, there’s an immediate need for contractors to swoop in and fix the obvious problems, such as the dangling crane....

UPDATE, June 8: Contact was re-established and the craft deployed its wings. Read more here. UPDATE, June 5: The Planetary Society has once again lost contact with LightSail-1. They haven’t heard from it since June 3. Read more at Space.com.UPDATE: On Saturday, the Planetary Society regained contact with the LightSail-1, setting it up for a Wednesday test of the sail propulsion. The Society didn’t specify how it rebooted in a blog post on the topic....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the not-too-distant future, when is an established industry, different carriers will provide distinctive customer experiences for space tourists—just as Jet Blue and Delta airlines provide different inflight amenities. At least that’s what Boeing is banking on with its recently unveiled interior designs for the CST-100 space capsule.private spaceThe CST-100 (CST stands for Crew Space Transportation) is Boeing’s gumdrop-shaped candidate for NASA’s Commercial Crew Development program. The seven-seater capsule is intended to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and later, perhaps, to tourist destinations in orbit, such as the Bigelow inflatable space hotel....

DETROIT – Cadillac continues to bring out product calculated to lower the median age of their customers, and the new CTS will certainly not be a car that their traditional, elderly customer base will aspire to. Whether thirty-somethings, or even forty- or fifty-somethings aspire to remains to be seen. And get this quote from the press kit: “Cadillac’s recent and historic renaissance has brought it back into the top tier of luxury auto brands”....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe University of Michigan just released a study citing that while a third of all licensed drivers were under the age of 30 in 1983, today’s teenagers and 20-somethings only constitute about 22 percent of drivers. Their research concludes that “More young adults today would rather hit the information highway than the open highway.“The whole thing got me thinking (and reminiscing) about my first foray into four-wheeled freedom, which began with the ‘88 Mustang GT Convertible seen here (5-speed manual, of course....

M POWER FOR Z4–FINALLY The roadster market is like the modeling world. Only the youngest and hottest bodies get the money. BMW’s Z4 Roadster is a little like Christie Brinkley. She’s still hot but, well, she’s not quite what she used to be. Well, BMW has decided to give the Z4 the automotive equivalent of Botox. Which, just for the record, is much better than doing fitness equipment infomercials with Chuck Norris like our pal Christie....

Over the past two months, nearly a dozen mysterious ships have washed ashore on the beaches of Japan. The ships were found to be carrying some 22 decomposing bodies in total, with no survivors and no solid explanations. The Japanese Coast Guard reports that all of the bodies that were recovered were “partially skeletalized” and two were found to be decapitated, according to CNN. The true origin of the ghost fleet is uncertain, but the best guesses point to North Korea....

While investigating a string of murders, the agents find viscous liquid oozing from victims’ orifices-something has turned their brains into nothing but goo. Sure enough, drilling a hole into a victim sends brown goo, all that’s remaining of his brain, dripping out of his skull. “The brain goo that they made is maybe the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” Fringe star Joshua Jackson said in a promo for last night’s episode, “The No-Brainer....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat’s it like to hang out with an astronaut? On February 22, we’ll all find out. NASA just announced its first Google+ Hangout with the International Space Station, where astronauts orbiting 240 miles above Earth will answer questions from viewers down below.Only 10 people can actually chat in a hangout at once, so make sure you send in your burning questions ahead of time via YouTube. NASA reps say that “unique and original questions” will be chosen and broadcast during the event (so try to restrain yourself from becoming the millionth person to ask these poor guys how they go to the bathroom)....

Nearly every cyclist has been stopped at one of those traffic lights that never seems to turn green. That often leads to the rider running the light, which not only worsens cyclists’ reputation in the eyes of motorists but also can have deadly consequences. However, many cities are starting to incorporate new tech that can sense when cyclists are waiting at an intersection and cut their wait times.Currently, stoplights at many intersections are triggered by induction coils imbedded in the blacktop....

Media Platforms Design TeamLast winter, Connecticut homeowners Keith Goodrow and Jody Willis began looking into ways to cut their fuel bills. Goodrow, a civil engineer, and Willis, a veterinarian, were spending about $3000 a year on fuel oil to heat their ranch home and to produce hot water. Looking for a way to trim that number, they decided to follow the lead of a neighbor who had installed a stove that burns pellets made from wood, or, to be precise, sawdust....

Media Platforms Design TeamWirelessly powered implant on the field generator with an illuminated LED. A Swiss coin for scale. Credit: Marc Folcher - ETH Zurich.Thanks to the power of amazing new brain-machine interfaces, scientists have shown that it’s possible for us to control prosthetics with only our thoughts. According to a new study in Nature Communications, the same thing can be done for gene expression.The scientists put a surgical implant into mice filled with genetically modified cells capable of secreting an enzyme....

Media Platforms Design TeamA Polk study released today supports hybrid naysayers by revealing that apart from Prius purchasers, the repurchase rate for hybrid vehicles fell to 22 percent for 2012– a low point following a rollercoaster that peaked at 39.6 percent in 2009.While interest in hybrids isn’t as sticky as it once was– perhaps due to the genre’s technology premium, drivability sacrifices, or diminished lanesharing privileges in states like California– the news isn’t all bad, either....