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Are we ever going to be allowed to keep our shoes on through airport security again?Two reasons we’re still shedding our shoes 13 years after scraggly would-be evildoer Richard Reid tried to set off a device in one of his high-tops: For one, intelligence suggests terrorists remain interested in smuggling explosives in shoes. The second is more political than practical: Once instituted, security measures are notoriously difficult to revoke. Who, after all, wants to take responsibility for declaring that shoe bombs are no longer a threat?...

One of the best ways to build your own custom bikes is on a frame jig, a piece of equipment that lets you lay out the parts of the frame to your specifications and holds them in place while you assemble the pieces. But at a price of $1000 or more, most frame jigs are intended for large-scale bike producers, not the DIY enthusiasts who want to build bikes for themselves on the weekend....

I may be on vacation, but a science editor’s work never really takes a hiatus—particularly when my inaugural stroll on the beach ended at a whale, still alive, though barely, and surrounded by an attentive team from the Virginia Aquarium. The slick gray animal was stretched helplessly in the surf just as the tide came in, its body rocking with the motion of each breaking wave. When darkness fell I reluctantly turned back towards our beach house; the whale’s outlook was grim....

Media Platforms Design TeamYesterday’s post aboutMitsubishi’s new HDTV technologythanks for the hyperboles that produced an pictures with image quality “surpassing that of film” turns out to be (), a bit of an overstatement. “We’re not comparing this to film, at least not in terms of resolution,” says Frank DeMartin, V.P. of marketing for the new sets at Mistubishi Digital Electronics of America. “This is a color story.” Mitsubishi’s new screen will display almost twice the range of colors (or gamut, in industry speak) as today’s top-of-the-line LCD sets, and they’ll do this with a smaller footprint a third of the power of similarly sized LCD or plasma screens....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: NASA)The ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer) satellite, originally launched into space to study the sun, is now under the control of former NASA employee Keith Cowing, in the back of a former McDonald’s, using radio parts from eBay.The satellite began its voyage in 1978, hoping to monitor the particles and fields between Earth and the sun. After logging 36 years and 30 billion miles in the name of science, ISEE-3 came back by the Earth—within 9693 miles of us— on August 9 2014....

The Claim: “If you’ve ever stripped a screw or broken off the head of a bolt, you know how frustrating that can be. Well, not anymore!” The GRABIT damaged screw and bolt remover extracts problem fasteners in 10 seconds. Drill out the damaged area with a cone-shaped cutting end to form a divot. Flip the tool around, drive it in reverse, and the extracting head bites the cone to remove the screw....

I’m strapped into the seat of the Prowler, a kind of ATV on growth hormones, halfway up a near-vertical embankment in a little slice of desert in suburban Phoenix. Beneath my helmet and goggles, I’m staring straight up at the wide, blue Arizona sky like an astronaut bracing for blastoff, while behind me the beefy rear tires are spinning, grasping unsuccessfully for purchase. Actually, forget the astronaut image. I feel like a cockroach frantically trying to scale a wet tile wall and awaiting a coup de grace from a rolled-up copy of USA Today....

It looks straight out of a kid’s movie, but the Interact Centaur rover is a highly sophisticated rover built by ESA for space exploration. The blue little guy will be remote controlled from the ISS next week, carrying out some Earth-based tests that simulate a 56,000 mile remote control separation.ESA astronaut Andreas Mogenson will test out the robot, which has haptic feedback to give its operators a sense of the feel and heft of the object as the robot performs delicate operations from afar....

My son, Richard Garriott, grew up in an environment in which there were astronauts living all around us. He grew up thinking almost everyone could fly to space. During his 12-day stay in space, Richard became a cosmonaut or astronaut in the same way I was, even though NASA has decided that he should be called a spaceflight participant. Like astronauts, Richard was involved with scientific research, in collaboration with state agencies including NASA, the European Space Agency and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, as well as nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS — When Mattel lets Detroit go no-holds-barred open-source on our favorite childhood racers, it’s even more of a trip than the hologram Scion we spaced out with earlier. Checking out these full-size Hot Wheels in person is a bit of like sliding into the rabbit hole, Alice in Wonderland-style: The new supertoys are about as whimsically cartoonish as anything you’ll find on the SEMA showroom floor....

Media Platforms Design TeamJeff Karp considers the surgical bandage he helped develop an inside-the-body Band-Aid. “But I like the duct tape analogy,” the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) faculty member says. An ulcerous hole in the intestine? Patch it up. A bowel resection as a result of Crohn’s disease? Wrap the sutured halves to prevent leaking. “There are a lot of glues, including the cyanoacrylates, which are basically medical-grade Krazy Glue, but many of these have poor mechanical properties and elicit strong inflammatory responses....

The spirits of All Hallows’ Eve decided to show themselves a day early in Peoria, Arizona, where a 350-pound, 25-foot-tall pumpkin was torn loose from a local holiday display by high winds. The freed pumpkin traveled about a quarter mile and crossed an intersection, leaving destruction and mayhem in its wake (it broke a couple street lights) before getting stuck at a local park. The owners, Big AZ Productions, had no idea the pumpkin was on the loose until they received a phone call....

FROZEN ALLEN SCREW If you work around machinery a lot, you are bound to run into all sorts of Allen screws, many of them in tight places, where they are frozen solid with caked dirt or rust. If you try to loosen one of these screws with an Allen wrench, you will likely strip out the head long before you can break the screw free. And once the head is stripped, the only way to remove the screw is by drilling a hole through the head socket and into the shank, inserting a screw extractor, and turning the extractor until the screw backs out....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhile necessity may be the mother of invention, it’s increasing costs that spawn efficiency. Before the ’70s, we happily cranked up the thermostat when the house felt chilly. Once heating costs went through the roof, though, we all put on sweaters and started looking for ways to save. And, with up to 40 percent of our heating dollar going to air infiltration—otherwise known as drafts—sealing the place up began to seem like the best defense against high heating bills....

My trick to opening a stuck hood? Pull on the hood-release handle with your right hand while standing outside the open car door and slapping the hood, hard, with an open-palmed left hand. Oh, yeah, it stings, but at least the hood pops open.You’re right; eventually, the cable will stretch or break, and you’ll just have to sell the car. Of course, I jest. Actually, this is a common complaint, and it’s almost always caused by a dirty, under-lubricated or rusty hood-latch mechanism....

Media Platforms Design TeamI’ve got a 1998 Ford Taurus, and the Check Engine light came on. Checking the code with an OBD-II scanner revealed a bad oxygen sensor. What’s the best way to replace it?Media Platforms Design TeamYour car’s computer uses data from the O2 sensors to determine the effectiveness of the catalytic converter and how much fuel to inject. So they’re critical pieces. Luckily, replacing one is relatively straightforward. Unfortunately, original-equipment oxygen sensors, offered by the manufacturer, can be pricey....

Media Platforms Design TeamHummer is expanding. According to a Hummer blog, General Motors’ rough-and-tumble brand will show its top-of-the-line 2008 H3 Alpha in the Big Apple next week. So what do you get when you buy an Alpha? Well, you finally get what we’ve wanted all along: a V8. The current H3 (pictured above), with its inline five-cylinder engine, musters barely enough scoot for flatlanders. Hills? Fuhgeddaboudit.So the Alpha model is reported to get a 5....

Indonesia is mulling a new way to guard its death row prisons: killer crocodiles. Budi Waseso, head of the National Narcotics Agency in the country, wants to round up aggressive crocodiles for a proposed island prison. Rather than hire guards that might be easily bribed, Waseso says escapees might instead have to contend with the threat of an angry, hungry reptile. Indonesia allows the death penalty for drug related offenses, and the prison is intended for those offenders....

Apple has perfected disposable technology. The brand keeps selling in such huge quantities because people like me need to have the latest device. The iPhone 5s, with the camera and processor that was groundbreaking months ago, is junk next to the iPhone 6 Plus I have. Trade-in, upgrade, repeat.With that in mind, the Apple Watch Edition sounds preposterous. With its 18-karat gold components (no gold-plating here), it has all the tracings of a proper, investment-worthy watch that is handed down though generations....

Browse expert reviews and compare info on Kia Sedona and other rides at theMedia Platforms Design TeamOur Sedona is, indeed, about to become an “ex,” as we bid farewell to the hardworking minivan. We’ll miss maxing out its capacity–four adults and three kids schlepping off to dinner in the driving rain with no complaints about comfort, even from the cheap seats in the third row. The power sliding doors and hatch made for smooth pickups and drop-offs of boisterous, gear-laden young hockey players....