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Gravity-Fed and Wood-FinishedMedia Platforms Design TeamThis is a three-tier brewing system, a simple—but elegant—gravity-fed rig.2. 15 Gallons Pumping Through SteelMedia Platforms Design TeamThis is a two-tier system, in which two of the vessels exchange liquid with a pump. Each steel pot on this three-vessel, 15-gallon rig has its own natural gas burner and thermometer.3. The Recirculating-Infusion Mash SystemMedia Platforms Design TeamOne step up from the two-tier system is the recirculating-infusion mash system (RIMS)....

A giant asteroid will swing past the neighborhood of Earth on Christmas Eve. But let’s get this out of the way, before your relatives post a very fake link to Facebook: it’s still going to be pretty far out there. At a closest approach of 6.7 million miles, it’s almost 30 times the distance of the Earth to the Moon. The unusual orbit of the asteroid, called 2003 SD220, makes it so the asteroid comes near the orbit of Venus, then swings back out to Earth....

Minivans have a perception problem. But as boring and boxy as they may be, minivans provide more room and utility for a large family than just about any other vehicle. Reinventing the van takes much more than new sheetmetal and a few more horsepower under the hood. It requires clever thinking. And that’s especially true if you are Chrysler. It not only invented the minivan–it has led the segment for the past 24 years....

There are a lot of ways to spend $100,000, But none are quite so adorable as a dad and daughter team building a three-minute recreation of Jurassic Park entirely in LEGO. They even have the animated DNA in there, as well as Muldoon whispering “clever girl” before his untimely demise (look, it’s not a spoiler if the movie has been out for 22 years.)Paul and Haley Hollingsworth created the video with the help of some friends....

Media Platforms Design TeamBy outfitting an off-the-shelf netbook with a touchscreen, we were able to make our own finger-friendly PC.If the buzz is to be believed, 2010 will be the year of the touchscreen tablet PC, with multiple major manufacturers lining up products that they claim will give us a carry-anywhere way to read e-books, watch movies and surf the Web.And while I suppose I could just buy one of these machines, I thought it’d be more fun to make my own touchscreen PC out of last year’s “it” computer: the lowly netbook....

When we first moved from manic midtown Manhattan to the serenity of rural Litchfield County, Conn., my wife and I were struck by the amazing array of flora and fauna on our 3.5-acre lot. Thick stands of mature hardwoods and white cedars grew among ferns and flowering mountain laurel. The stream defining our southern property line routinely attracted a wildlife menagerie that included turkey, fox, chipmunk, possum, coyote, raccoon and, of course, deer–lots and lots of deer....

Media Platforms Design TeamArtist’s illustration of Kepler 36-c looming in the sky of Kepler 36-b. Credit: David A. AguilarNeptune is, on average, 30 times further from the sun than the Earth is. The blue gaseous world is so far from us that the driving force of its discovery was the predictions of mathematicians rather than the sightings of stargazers. But in an alien solar system around a star called Kepler-36, an Earth-sized planet has a Neptune-like planet right on top of it, a huge orb looming in the sky....

From the floor of the New York International Auto Show, contributing editor Ken Juran files up-to-the-minute reports and photos. NEW YORK - The big news from General Motors is an influx of product into the Saturn portfolio in the form of the 260-hp Sky Red Line roadster, the Aura midsize sedan with its upcoming hybrid, and the Outlook eight-passenger crossover. All, interestingly, are Opel-based vehicles. Opel is GM’s successful European brand, and GM vice chairman Bob Lutz even admitted that he’s finally listening to journalists’ pleas to bring over “those great Opel products....

Media Platforms Design TeamTalk of a large-scale U.S. nuclear renaissance in the post-Three Mile Island era has long been stalled by the high cost of new nuclear power plants, the challenges of safeguarding weapons-grade nuclear material, and the radioactive lifespan of much nuclear waste, which can extend far beyond 10,000 years. But a growing contingent of scientists believe an alternative nuclear reactor fuel—the radioactive metal called thorium—could help address these problems, paving the way for cheaper, safer nuclear power generation....

Media Platforms Design TeamYours is an unusual but intriguing finalist. Why did you design a firebox insert?I found myself in a renting situation with an old clunker of a wood burner that smoked badly. I knew that smoke is wasted energy, so I thought about how I could modify the stove to capture that energy and get it into the house. Because I didn’t own the one where I rented, I couldn’t make major modifications, and my landlord was not interested in replacing it....

Media Platforms Design TeamEverything that can fit a Bluetooth transmitter or a Wi-Fi antenna seems to be getting one or the other, and refrigerators are no different. The ChillHub smart fridge shown off at CES is a standard refrigerator but with eight USB ports, Wi-Fi, and an iOS app. From your phone, you can control the temperature settings and get data from the sensors inside. It’ll come in one size (27....

SIENNA, Italy— Whatever you do, don’t mention the term “world car” to the Ford people. “Bad things happen when you say those words,” says Ford’s global product development boss, Derrick Kuzak. He is, of course, referring to Ford’s recent lack of success developing a single small car for every global market. Ford might not want to admit it, but the new Fiesta is, in fact, a world car. It goes on sale in Europe this year, closely followed by debuts at dealerships in the United States and then China in 2009....

Media Platforms Design TeamThrough a tumultuous spring in which more than 1200 tornadoes ripped through the U.S., high-resolution satellite images illustrated the story of the destruction in painful detail. In Tuscaloosa, Ala., black-roofed houses stand next to the earth-colored remains of flattened homes, and in Joplin, Mo., a six-mile jagged line cuts across the southwest corner of town, a reminder of the most deadliest tornado to touch down in the U....

Media Platforms Design TeamAdding SpaceQ: Like most 1950s houses, ours is short on storage space, so I want to build a couple of closets. Should be pretty simple–two walls and a door. Right?A: Yes. Building closets is simple, and the project is pretty much as you describe it. Before you build closets, though, be sure that you’ve made maximum use of existing closet space. There are lots of ways to do this, from building efficient plywood shelving and dividers to installing factory-made storage hardware....

Media Platforms Design TeamLast week, Afghan president Hamid Karzai formed a commission to monitor U.S. and European investigative units that have targeted corruption within the government. The move is a direct challenge to recent disclosures by those units to plumb the murky depths of money-handling in this poor nation. But for all its poverty, there are people making lots of money in Afghanistan. The trick is getting it out of the country—and billions of dollars have migrated out of the nation, much of it believed by U....

Tornadoes make the news most often in spring and summer, when they commonly tear through towns and cities. But these violent storms don’t really follow any set season, as we noticed last month when an spate of unseasonable storms struck the Midwest. Tornadoes are instead driven by local weather patterns, when warm, humid air, full of energy, meets an area of colder, fast winds. Because they are so driven by weather, it makes sense to wonder just how much changes to climate on a regional or global could change the frequency of these local, deadly weather systems....

The upcoming seventh episode of the Star Wars series, The Force Awakens, has certainly inspired a number of invocations and shenanigans. But one family in Lafayette, CA, chose to demonstrate its loyalty to the Galactic Empire by constructing a technological terror—a 23-foot model of the Death Star—and hoisting it onto their roof. The Powells detail the construction of the massive geodesic dome in a video posted to YouTube. They used 2,000 feet of PVC conduit to create the two halves of the dome that were subsequently joined together....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe star of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is neither Captain America nor the Winter Solider. It’s the next-gen Helicarrier, a technological marvel and ultimate superweapon that can stay in orbit to target and kill about a million victims at once. But is it a terrorist’s worst nightmare, or American militarization out of control? That’s the big dilemma facing Chris Evans’s Cap and the vaunted S.H.I.E.L.D. organization in the ....

Originally published January 2009Or is it the Seven Pillars of Horticultural Wisdom? As everyone’s resolutions remind us, we love attaching a number to advice, a number smaller than the one I regard as most realistic: The Twenty Three Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty-Two Things It’s Important to Remember Before Getting Out of Bed. So be warned: I haven’t really honed it down to only seven; these are just the first seven essentials that came to mind when I decided to do this....

Media Platforms Design TeamOpenness and compatibility are going to be the key forces behind Web giant Google’s first major step into the cellphone universe.Although the much-rumored gPhone wasn’t announced, Google said today it will release a software platform dubbed “Android” that will allow anyone—from amateur hackers to mobile phone companies—to create applications for widespread use on the go. To ensure that these new applications find a home on mobile devices, Google also has formed the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 companies that include manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung and service providers like T-Mobile, Qualcomm and Sprint Nextel....