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Global Surveyor May Be Done with Mars After 10 years in space, NASA said today the Mars Global Surveyor, which has not communicated with Earth for almost three weeks, has likely finished its career.Having returned more than 240,000 images of the red planet, the craft became the most productive science mission there yet, says Michael Meyer, NASA’s lead scientist for Mars exploration. Still, the agency might need an official roadmap to Mars like the one Buzz Aldrin, a member of Popular Mechanics’ Editorial Board of Advisors, outlined for us a year ago....

Sometimes they stand triumphant. Sometimes they stare off into the distance at the specter of their mortality. Sometimes they have come full circle.You can tell a surprising amount about a film from just it’s opening and closing scenes, as this side-by-side supercut by Jacob T. Swinney makes plain. Ignore the Lester Burnham soundtrack and check out Nebraska, Lord of War, The Master, and especially Gone Girl. (The movies are all listed on the Vimeo page....

CAREFREE, Ariz.—Honda’s first Insight, launched in 1999, was a single-purpose hybrid. It got an astounding 70 mpg on the EPA highway cycle thanks to a small, light and very aerodynamic body and a positively puny 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine. But the original Insight had only two seats. And that made the Honda too impractical for mainstream consumers. A year later, the Toyota Prius came to town and, well, the rest is history....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: October on the West Coast, January to March 2012 for rest of the U.S. Price: $15,995 Competitors: Smart ForTwo, Fiat 500, Mini Cooper Powertrain: 1.3-liter four-cylinder, 94 hp, 89 lb-ft, continuously variable transmission (CVT), FWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/highway): 36/37What’s New: Pitted against boutique small-car brands from Europe such as Fiat, Mini and Smart, Scion’s “premium urban micro-subcompact” stretches a mere 120.1 inches long—just a skosh over 10 feet....

Media Platforms Design Team Airbags in cars are ubiquitous, but could the seatbelts used on commercial airplanes be equipped with similar inflatable protection? A company called AmSafe is marketing such a device—in hopes that a new Federal Aviation Administration safety regulation will open the door for their widespread adoption on commercial airliners. In 2005, the FAA mandated that all U.S. aircraft built after October 2009 meet the “16g rule,” which states that passengers somehow be protected to withstand forces equivalent to 16 times earth’s gravity....

The electric-vehicle hype continues, but very soon, there will be no more smoke and mirrors, performance promises and untested infrastructure challenges (Where do apartment dwellers plug in again?). That’s right, EVs you can drive-and buy-are coming. The following is a compilation of EVs that are now or will soon be available for sale or lease in the United States and Europe. According to manufacturer claims, each is capable of attaining highway speeds of at least 65 mph and can travel a minimum of 75 miles between recharges....

Few things refresh the human spirit so thoroughly as simply sitting outside on a beautiful day. It’s even more satisfying if you sit with somebody, and if the seat is something you’ve built, well, so much the better. We’d like to help by suggesting your next project—this garden bench. Start with seven pieces of lumber and a handful of hardware. Spend a couple of free afternoons cutting and boring. When you’re done, you’ll have fine seating for one or two—in fact, three kids could even rest comfortably on it....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf you live in Europe you’ve seen the Ram ProMaster before, but it was called the Fiat Ducato and was the most popular heavy duty van on the continent. For 2014 Ram is bringing the heavyweight front-wheel-drive-only van to the US to replace the spot vacated by the very aged Ram Van. It comes in three different styles: Chassis cab (a cabin and ladder frame popular with box vans), a low height roof which looks like a regular van, a high-roof version, and a cutaway version where there’s no back wall to the cab - these are popular with RV manufacturers....

Media Platforms Design TeamNEW YORK — The folks at Mitsubishi are as busy anyone for the auto show here this week, showing their eco-friendly iMiev prototype and talking up all-electric tech. Yesterday we got a chance to slide behind the wheel. The iMiev looks just like the three-cylinder, 600-cc, rear-drive Mitsubishi i that’s already on sale in Japan. But insteaad of a gasoline internal combustion engine, this little guy gets a 47-kW electric motor driving the rear wheels and a 330-volt lithium-ion battery pack (manufactured jointly with GS Yuasa)....

Video Quality Design and Controls Media and Software Feature Set Battery Life Our panel of testers (two experts, three video newbies) were asked to examine identically shot clips from all cameras multiple times. It was a double-blind test. Footage was taken in several lighting situations and was rated on color, sharpness and motion. Video cameras were masked to cover up brand identification. Then, we gave our testers 3 minutes to figure out how to record a short clip, play it back on-camera and change a menu setting....

Media Platforms Design TeamElectric ScooterBuilt by: Nathan BallBoston, Massachusetts Nathan Ball built this electric-powered scooter in the basement of his dormitory when he was an undergraduate student. Using a powerful electric motor and battery, it propels riders, without any kicking, at the simple flick of a switch. Don’t mistake it for a simple modification though: Nathan picked up the scooter frame at a garage sale, then improved it with disc brakes, handlebars and fenders from a mountain bike....

Google wants to bring the world Internet by balloon, but Facebook is taking a more sinister-sounding approach: drones. The company is currently testing the drone internet project, called Aquila, Mark Zuckerberg announced at this week’s F8 conference.Facebook’s dream is to create near-universal Internet access through a series of solar-powered drones networked together. With 4.4 billion people around the world lacking Internet access, it makes sense for companies to want to expand their global scope as well as prove they can diversify their offerings....

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead!Can you turn from embryo to old man in a matter of hours?This week’s fringe science centered around a mysterious baby who had grown from a fertilized egg to an infant in less than an hour, and then from infant to old man to deceased in 4 hours. According to Dr. Walter Bishop, the show’s resident mad scientist, “Advanced rapid aging, like the disease called progeria, can be induced artificially by manipulating the pituitary gland....

Media Platforms Design TeamIMAGINE A MACHINE OF THE FUTURE that moves goods by the ton–by tens of thousands of tons–along specialized transportation corridors. Guided by computers, tracked by GPS and driven by powerful new engines, this revolutionary, high-tech vehicle slashes America’s energy consumption and leaves the air cleaner than any mechanized transport before it. At a time when highways are clogged and fuel reserves are strained, it represents a miracle technology that arrives not a moment too soon....

Media Platforms Design TeamApproximately 80 light years from Earth, a planet wanders alone. Without a star to tether it to a single orbit, the newly discovered PSO J318.5-22 drifts aimlessly across the sky at a sluggish 20 kilometers per second. This rogue planet has six times the mass of Jupiter and is the nearest free-floating planetary-mass object ever seen. The international team of astronomers that discovered PSO J318.5-22 has been tracking it for two years; is published this week in the journal ....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs the space community eagerly awaits the nomination of the next chief administrator of NASA, and maybe a new direction in human exploration programs, the agency’s plan to revisit the moon continues unabated. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a satellite that will map the moon in unprecedented detail, is expected to launch in late May–providing data to help NASA plan an outpost location for an extended stay. After the LRO is launched but before astronauts arrive, rovers are likely to do the heavy lifting–as scientific researchers and construction workers–to get the outpost up and running....

In what may be the first tangible step toward avoiding the dawn of a “Digital Ice Age,” Microsoft is working on a concept they call “immortal computing”—as in physically saving your digital information for your ancestors to find. Details are still sketchy, but, then again, so is the future. In the meantime, do the math to install a new hard drive, or just destroy your data altogether.A small startup claims it’s developing “a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid” that will lead the pack for the re-birth of the electric car and solve the laptop lithium-ion crisis....

Media Platforms Design TeamInspired by the winding flight of a falling maple seed, Lockheed Martin’s latest unmanned aerial vehicle concept, the Samarai Monocopter, doesn’t look intimidating. But Lockheed thinks it could become a powerful tool for soldiers in the field, a tiny flying machine they could take along with them. The Samarai prototype is just 10 inches long, and Lockheed hopes to get it down to the size of a fingernail....

Making sure all 659 miles of the New York City subway system’s tracks are in good working order is a herculean task. Amazingly, for most of the subway system’s 111-year history, that job fell entirely to human inspectors. “Trackwalkers,” as their name implies, walked the length of the rails while trains were operating, visually surveying them for damage.The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) still conducts human inspections twice a week, as it has since 2006....

Hyundai’s new Genesis Coupe returns rear-wheel-drive handling dynamics to budget-minded enthusiasts. Sporty cars in this Hyundai’s price range are usually hot-rod versions of front-wheel-drive econoboxes. However, Hyundai adapted the rear-drive Genesis platform for this alluring driver’s car. MOST FUN TO DRIVEHyundai Genesis CoupeBase Price: $22,750The result is a sports coupe that can fend off cars costing thousands more. In fact, when we tested a Genesis Coupe against an Infiniti G37, the Hyundai nearly matched the Infiniti in every performance measure, and did so for $15,000 less....