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Media Platforms Design TeamThose of us who live in older homes are familiar with doors that don’t open or shut properly. Like most things mechanical, doors can develop problems. Fortunately, fixing a problem door doesn’t require years of experience or special training. In fact, a homeowner can handle most jobs with just a few simple hand tools and a bit of patience.Although many problems are obviously the result of ordinary wear and tear, some seem to appear on their own....

The first electric-powered big rig to hit the public roads in Europe is a 40-ton, zero-emissions behemoth.The YT202-EV, which is actually built by Dutch manufacturer Teberg, is going into service in Munich. There it will carry car parts for BMW between the company’s manufacturing plant and warehouses belonging to the firm SCHERM. Since it’s just driving around town, the big truck’s 100 km (62 mi) range between charges shouldn’t give its drivers too much range anxiety....

Media Platforms Design TeamSpark plugs that haven’t been changed for a long time can become one with the cylinder head. Fortunately, it’s possible to repair damaged threads instead of scrapping the head. (Photograph by Chris Eckert / Studio D)Q: Yesterday I was driving home and a spark plug blew right out of the cylinder head. The car was towed to the shop where I’d had a tuneup the day before – which included changing the spark plugs....

Mice that receive a human version of a speech and language gene display accelerated learning, according to a new study. Don’t expect these findings to lead to a rush of smarter, “uplifted” animals—though they might just reveal something new and fascinating about the evolution of human speech and language.The gene for the protein called FOXP2 has been firmly linked to human speech and language. Humans with just one functional copy of this gene experience difficulties in learning and struggle with spoken and written language....

Media Platforms Design TeamScience fiction author Robert A. Heinlein once wrote: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly....

Media Platforms Design Team(Illustration by Leandro Castelao)To maximize efficiency, everything inside a space station should be reused, including the sweat, urine and wastewater of its inhabitants. Las Vegas–based Bigelow Aerospace—which is currently building inflatable, orbital habitats to rent to customers—will be recycling these fluids to power the station’s thrusters. The system, designed by Orion Propulsion (now owned by Dynetics), collects and purifies the wastewater before using an electric current to break it into hydrogen and oxygen....

Media Platforms Design TeamCAMBRIDGE, Mass. — I’m looking at a 15-foot tall picture of a dissected rat lung. It is part of a presentation on nanotoxicity at the MIT Emerging Technology conference. And the very fact that this topic is being discussed here is evidence that the field of nanotechnology is advancing faster than even the scientists behind it can control.The question put before the panel of five esteemed scientists speaking here is, essentially, “How much should we be worrying about the health consequences of the new nanosubstances we are rushing to develop....

Media Platforms Design TeamNiels Bohr is coming to Los Alamos! The A-list physicist, who unlocked the quantum structure of the atom, has escaped Nazi-occupied Denmark and reached New Mexico. It’s a development that excites the entire town and drives the story of episode 4.Akley vs. WinterThe episode opens on a battlefield, not in this Second World War but the first. Huddling in their trench, a pack of American soldiers watch as “Fathead,” a young doughboy, is given an intelligence mission to sneak out at night and collect documents off dead German soldiers....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo by AP Photo/Joe Berti)For most people, images of a towering mushroom cloud rising over the horizon immediately bring to mind a nuclear weapon detonation. But this iconic shape is produced by large explosions on the ground, courtesy of simple physics—that’s why one appeared after yesterday’s explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas.This cloud appeared after the detonation of a 2000-lb bomb, which PM photographer Chad Hunt witnessed at a Marine Corps training facility in California during our recent visit....

Media Platforms Design TeamCredit: Getty ImagesThe latest stop of the Tesla Legal Maneuverings Tour 2014 was New York State. Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s car company agreed to a compromise that would allow Tesla to keep selling its high-end electric vehicles at the five shops it already operates in and around New York City. The catch: Any future Tesla stores would have to follow the old-fashioned dealership model.This Empire State battle follows a similar script to dust-ups happening in lots of states around the U....

Media Platforms Design TeamPopularMechanics.com, Oct. 16, 2006 – Watching the United Nations Security Council grind its way to a compromise resolution on North Korea, it’s hard to avoid returning to one question: What took them so long to do something about North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction? Over the past 45 years, North Korea has assembled a huge arsenal of mass casualty weapons - namely biological and chemical weapons. Yet it is only when North Korea gets as far as possible nuclear capability the U....

Media Platforms Design TeamLike any self-respecting motorhead, we shrug off most electric go-peds as janky junk we wouldn’t be caught dead on. Proving that self-imposed rules were meant to be broken, there’s the Rion scooter, an exquisite carbon fiber and aluminum creation that defies the genre’s stereotypes and goes for broke with a carbon fiber monocoque, aluminum subframes, and hydraulic Shimano brakes.Rion is the brainchild of Gal Hagoel, an entrepreneur who divides his time between Tel Aviv and the Hollywood Hills....

Poor Lenovo. Just three months after a large group of security researchers pointed out a number of dangerous vulnerabilities in its computers, another major security lapse has cropped up.The security holes are serious. One would allow hackers to “write malware to spoof official Lenovo updates,” according to IOActive. From there, hackers could run programs from afar, further compromising your system, according to The Verge.Should a Lenovo owner update their machine in a coffee shop, another individual could conceivably use the security hole to swap Lenovo’s programs with their own — what the researchers call the “classic coffee shop attack....

Senior tech editor Glenn Derene is live at the Apple announcement in San Francisco. Hit refresh for constant updates and analysis, and stay tuned for complete coverage and reaction at PM’s MacWorld Central.INSTANT ANALYSIS: iPhone’s Firmware, SDK Updates Make It a Real Computer—and Better Than Your Unlocked OneINSTANT ANALYSIS: Could Apple TV 2.0 End the High-Def Format War? 10:36–Randy’s just talking now. But it seems like that’s all, folks. I’m hoping to do a little hands on with the MacBook Air in a bit....

UPDATE, March 26: The Daily Beast is reporting that while ISIS is active in Tunisia and claiming responsibility for attacks, it has not actually seized control over the towns and places where Star Wars was shot. More here.March 25: Something worse than the Empire has hit Tatooine: the Islamic State has taken over the town.According to The Guardian, ISIS has set up an arms depot in Tataouine, the town in Tunisia where multiple Star Wars films have set up shop....

Media Platforms Design TeamEmbarrassing revelation: A quick poll of Popular Mechanic’s digital staff shows that none of us has ever been able to solve a Rubik’s Cube. And we had as long as we wanted to try (or at least as long as we wanted before we got bored).That failure to solve one of the iconic children’s puzzles is just one of the many things separating us from 19-year-old Australian Feliks Zemdegs, who just won the Rubik’s Cube World Championship in Brazil after solving his cube in in 5....

You don’t always need warships to conduct gunboat diplomacy. In Europe, detachments of U.S. warplanes are operating throughout the Baltic region, sending a reassuring message to American allies—and a warning to Russia. In recent weeks there have been some new arrivals: combat planes that are part of what defense wonks call a theatre security package, or TSP. Their arrival is the first TSP in Europe. All previous ones were deployed to Asia....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Sale Date: NowPrice: $30,699Competitors: Victory Cory Ness Cross Country, Yamaha Star Stratoliner DeluxePowertrain: 110 cid (1802-cc) V-twin, 122 lb-ft at 3750 rpmEPA Fuel Economy (city/highway combined): 41 mpgWhat’s New: Since 1999, Harley-Davidson has built a handful of special bikes each year in its Custom Vehicle Operations (CVO)—a 40-person Harley skunkworks team charged with creating some of the brand’s most exciting bikes. For 2012, there are four CVO models, but only the Road Glide Custom is all-new....

Media Platforms Design TeamA Navy Global Hawk unmanned aircraft during a training exercise in a swampy area of Maryland, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for promoters of the unmanned surveillance aircraft. The aircraft was one of five the Navy bought as part of its Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstrator program, which is supposed to complement the Navy’s manned aircraft fleet. While there are no details yet on what caused the crash of the 44-foot Global Hawk and no one was injured, there are plenty of reasons for the Navy to curse the timing: crashed today1....

Media Platforms Design TeamEuropean art collectives got more than they bargained for in their new show: A bot they programmed to make automatic purchases on the Darknet sent back Ecstasy pills and a fake Hungarian passport.As part of the show “The Darknet: From Memes to Onionland,” these groups programmed the Random Darknet Shopper to spend $100 worth of Bitcoins per week on whatever it could find on the deep web, home of purported hit men to be hired or very real drug transactions on Silk Road....