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Media Platforms Design TeamSmog over Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photograph by Margaret Bourke-White/Getty Images) Plug-in hybrid vehicles operating in the electric mode don’t produce any emissions—but, of course, the power plants that charged up their batteries did. So are the emissions from largely coal-fired power plants better for air quality than the emissions from millions of tailpipes? New research says yes—with enough plug-ins replacing gas- and diesel-powered vehicles, those living in cities can breathe easier....

Technology is opening all sorts of places to human exploration, including areas of the sea previously too remote to spend much time lingering in. I had occasion to reflect on whether this is a good or a bad thing when I went scuba diving with a rebreather in the Caribbean last summer. Rebreather technology, though new to me, has been gaining popularity among technically inclined recreational divers – enabling them to dive deeper and for longer periods than with comparably sized, traditional open-circuit scuba systems....

Using sheets of light to scan cells, a new microscope can capture real-time 3D videos of what’s happening inside cells down to the molecular level—feat once thought impossible.The inventors of the new device—including 2014 Nobel Prize winner Eric Betzig, teamed up with 30 teams of biologists over the past year to produce extraordinary 3D movies of biological events from the movements of individual proteins to the development of entire animal embryos over the course of many hours....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ: I’ve been told that when I use my credit card or give private info over the Internet, I’m supposed to look for the SSL security protocol. What is this and how does it work to secure the transaction?A: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a form of data encryption. Think of it as a lockbox for your data, packing up normal Web traffic and delivering it signed and secure from your browser to your server of choice....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis Wednesday, Americans worried about the in the United States will have a new reference point for the crisis–at 10 am Eastern, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) will release a study it calls a report card, grading categories such as dams, bridges, roads and schools. The previous report card, issued in 2005, gave the country a final grade of D, and issued a startling (and frequently quoted) estimate for the funds needed to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure: $1....

Lashing down a heavy load can be frustrating. Sure, a bowline knot is pretty easy to make and undo—if you can remember how to make one. But even a bowline can be tough to make correctly when your hands are cold or when the rope is wet and slippery.Before the cold weather comes along, then, you might want to get yourself a Titan Strap. Essentially, it’s a big belt made from a strip of tough but flexible polyurethane with an additive to help it resist UV degradation....

GM’s full-size trucks have always been great workhorses. My own, highly modified full-size Chevy has been four wheeling, towing and moving friends into new digs since I bought it brand new sixteen years ago. So when GM completely re-invents its full-size trucks—I get a little curious. We’ll have to wait another six months or so to sample the full-size pickups but the all-new Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon are here now....

Bioengineers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have written an algorithm that can be used to create machinery that understands the intent of an action, such as steering a car or pouring a glass of water. It can even correct for any interruptions of that action—so imagine a computer system that corrects for accidental jerks of your car’s steering wheel because it knows you didn’t mean to do that.Justin Horowitz, a graduate research assistant at UIC, first developed this method by analyzing the movements of test subjects when they had their hands pushed away while they reached for a virtual object....

The most popular alternatives to fossil fuels for generating electricity–wind and solar–don’t look so good once the sun sets and the wind dies down. To provide a home with reliable power, either technology must be coupled with an energy-storage system. For now, that means a bank of lead-acid batteries. But there’s a better way, according to research scientist Grover Coors. “The problem [with lead-acid batteries] is they tend to fail after a few hundred charge-discharge cycles,” he says....

C-ClampMedia Platforms Design TeamEvery clamp collection starts with a few C-clamps. Light-duty C-clamps are sufficient for most home and shop projects; I’d recommend getting six to eight clamps ranging from 4 in. ($9) to 8 in. ($19); the size indicates the maximum clamping capacity. Once you have a few basic C-clamps, consider adding some specialty models. Here are two of my favorites: The Three-Way Edging Clamp ($13) has three adjustable clamping screws, not just one....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo by Jason Madara)Company:Farlow’s Scientific GlassblowingCraftsman:Wade MartindaleLocation:Grass Valley, CaliforniaThe object here is a trachea and its twin bronchial tree—the superstructure of the human lungs. It was sculpted out of borosilicate glass by Wade Martindale, the senior craftsman at Farlow’s Scientific Glassblowing. It is anatomically correct. Glassblowing is, in part, the art of breath control, but it rarely results in art that looks as though it could breathe on its own....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Motorola)ou might have heard that Apple is planning a little get-together on Tuesday. But today, Motorola got out ahead of iPhone fever. It officially announced the new iterations of its flagship Moto X Android smartphone and the more budget-minded Moto G, as well as the launch of the long-awaited and frankly gorgeous Moto 360 smartwatch.Here are a few key points you should know:Moto 360Since pics of Motorola’s elegant smartwatch leaked in June, techies have been itching to get it on their wrists....

How incredibly cool would it be if a stroller could automatically follow you and brake when needed? That was the question posed by Dutch man Timo Ross back in April on his regional Volkswagen Facebook page, and the car company answered.Though it is most certainly an ad, and therefore potentially just a concept, the company designed and built a stroller that automatically follows someone around and brakes when needed. It accomplishes this with the help of a cruise control sensor from a Volkswagen Golf....

You’ve probably never thought of the toilet this way, but from a chemist’s perspective, your average flush is a goldmine of untapped chemical energy. Over the past few decades, scientists and engineers have tested various ways to reclaim raw sewage’s wasted energy and recycle it back into sewage treatment. The methods have ranged from the practical—extracting methane by fermentation—to the futuristic: creating bacteria-powered fuel cells.Yes, giant poop-powered batteries.Today a team of materials scientists and wastewater engineers, led by Shenlong Zhao at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, China, announced a curious new material for creating sewage-based bacterial fuel cells....

Media Platforms Design TeamA group of scientists at Penn State University has plumbed the stomach of the Asian long-horned beetle for clues to making ethanol from wood. The bug has been ravaging trees in North America since its accidental import from China in the mid-1990s. But instead of seeing a relentless pest, postdoctoral fellow Scott Geib sees a model for separating useful cellulose from wood, a vital first step in creating ethanol....

Amateur video doesn’t have to be as unpolished as the name implies. High-def camcorders and PC video-editing software have made ­quantum leaps in quality and sophistication compared to what was available only a few years ago. With a little attention to technique, a home video can be shot on a makeshift set, then fine-tuned in your own computer postproduction studio to create near Hollywood-quality special effects.In the course of a weekend, I assembled a film crew (myself, my friend Jamie, his 9-year-old daughter, Kayla, and my 11-year-old son, Joshua) and used a setup of semipro equipment and software to create two short comedy videos....

Modified Honda InsightBuilt by: Michael DabrowskiNorth Grosvenor Dale, Conn. The Honda Insight hybrid already sips fuel in its stock form, but Dabrowski decided to take the car a step further with his own innovative modifications. He added additional batteries, a chip that gives him direct control over the car’s hybrid drive system and a drop-down fifth wheel that can power the Insight on electricity alone for city driving. When he’s at home, Dabrowski can recharge the Insight from the grid or from the solar array mounted outside his garage....

PARIS—Every two years the automotive industry descends on the French capital for the Paris Motor Show—a convention so stylish it’s called a Salon. Autumn in Paris should be one of the most romantic spins on the dance card. The site of soft café lamps spilling across the narrow streets seems far removed from the cut and thrust of Big Business. Yet in this perfect storm of chill financial winds, towering oil prices and currents of strict environmental legislation, our cosy café looks more like a wonky lighthouse lined with ragged rocks threatening to crush our star-crossed paramours....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the race for environmental sustainability, the United States takes an unimpressive28th place. According to the Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index—a study developed by the Center for Environmental Law & Policy at Yale University and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University—the U.S. lags significantly behind its economic “peer group” on issues such as renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions and management of its fisheries, agricultural and forest resources....

The Muon g-2 was set to be a crown jewel at Illinois’ Fermilab. But first, it had to arrive safely with almost no margin of error. If it bent the slightest bit, the $25 million magnet would be of no use in discovering the mysteries of the universe. The magnet previously was sitting around gathering dust at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. But Fermilab opted to take it on in order to research follow-up resorts from the second round of Large Hadron Collider experiments....