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(Published in the August 2004 issue)More: Learn how to do the Perfect Push Up.Everyone wants a great body, but not everyone wants to spew the sweat to get one. Isn’t there an easy way out, a shortcut? Sure–if you believe the claims made about the infomercial fitness machines that you see on late-night TV. They’re the next best thing to “sleep your way to a perfect physique.” Or are they?To find out, we had Lou “The Hulk” Ferrigno put five popular models to the test....

Media Platforms Design TeamChalk it up to low quality images on the Internet or to my slightly imperfect eyesight, but when I first saw this picture from the Arts & Classy blog, I thought I saw a board that was not actually there.What I thought was an upright board on the wall in the center of the image is, in-fact, a utility bump-out in the wall framing itself. What I saw as a highly artistic bit of modern-art shelving is, in the dull reality, just a few standard shelves with standard brackets....

Proponents of geothermal heating and cooling systems have been pounding on the door of public acceptance for almost two decades. And now, thanks to improved equipment and changing attitudes, doors are beginning to open. Though the number of geothermal systems sold today is still less than 1 percent of the domestic heating market, sales for fall 1997 through spring 1998 were up nearly 22 percent from the year before. When the numbers for the ‘97-‘98 season are tallied, the industry expects similar gains....

Will autonomous cars still need traffic lights? MIT’s SENSEable City Lab poses this question in a recent animated simulation of driverless cars for its DriveWAVE program.Without stoplights, self-driving cars will be able to harmoniously merge, turn, and navigate the road without causing traffic congestion. And no congestion means greatly reducing emissions that otherwise accumulate at intersections, all while increasing the number of cars that can pass through without being delayed.There’s a problem with DriveWAVE’s model, however....

Media Platforms Design TeamA back-to-back comparison of the 2013 Hyundai Azera and long-wheelbase Santa Fe spec sheets reveals what appears to be essentially the same 3.3 liter V6 used in both applications, producing nearly identical horsepower and torque figures. Though the engine sharing is obvious (and standard practice in the automotive industry), Hyundai made a number of internal alterations to ensure the direct-injected mill was ready for duty when it got transplanted from the 3,605 lb, four-door Azera to the 3,946 lb Santa Fe midsize crossover....

On Memorial Day weekend, I got a glimpse of something new – the beginning of a new kind of Space Age.For the first time in more than a decade, I attended the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference, which was held in Dallas this year. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, I attended quite a few of these conferences, which had something of the aura of a science-fiction convention: The people who turned out for them believed in the dream of human settlement in space, but “dream” was the operative word....

Media Platforms Design TeamOver the past several years, there has been a barrage of studies about how the vast population of microbes that live in the gut can influence our mind and mood, evidenced by all the products in the grocery store with “probiotic” now slapped on their labels and the wave of interest in “good” bacteria. Researchers out of McMaster University in Canada, in in the , have shown not only that introducing new kinds of bacteria could actually reduce anxiety, but also how the bacteria could be creating that effect....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe seatbelts in my ‘96 Toyota Corolla lock up when I get in the car and try to pull them out. I’ll go to fasten my belt, but it won’t extend more than an inch, and I have to tug dozens of times. Sometimes it takes me 10 or 15 minutes to buckle up. Please help!After pulling the mechanism off a similar model year Corolla in the junkyard and examining how it works, I see two things that could explain your issue....

Media Platforms Design TeamAdd a little versatility and fun to your bath by replacing a standard fixed-head showerhead with a fully adjustable slide-bar showerhead. This cleverly designed fixture consists of a 24-inch-long vertical bar that mounts to the tub wall, and a handheld sprayer that connects to the water-supply pipe via a flexible steel hose. The sprayer clips onto an adjustable slide-lock fitting, which can be positioned anywhere along the bar....

Media Platforms Design TeamA few weeks back, Netflix announced plans to spin off its famed DVD-by-mail service—the very thing that first made Netflix—into a separate company with a separate website called Qwikster. And America freaked out. The public reacted so harshly that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sent an apology via email to subscribers. Then, yesterday, Netflix sent out another communiqué to the world, this time announcing that it had retracted the decision altogether....

Media Platforms Design TeamWednesday night on “Late Night with David Letterman,” Sen. Barack Obama joked that he was considering appearing in a “centerfold, with a wrench” (watch the full interview below). Here at PM, we couldn’t be happier with the suggestion. After all, we have lots of to discuss: energy, digital technology and space policy, just to get started. Popular Mechanicselection-related science and technology issuesOf course, the senator did say he’d like to be photographed holding a wrench....

After an eternity of chatter and commercials, the radio DJ is about to play the song you’ve been waiting for. Then, after a moment of pregnant silence, you hear it. No, not your favorite tune, but your least favorite sound: a bzzt-baba-bzzt-baba-bzzzzzzzt that pierces through your car-stereo speakers. The ­jarring interruption is as familiar as it is mysterious.Within moments a cellphone will ring, either in the radio studio dozens of miles away, or inside your own vehicle....

Will the fire extinguisher of the future be a big speaker? It’s possible. Work by Seth Robertson and Viet Tran shows that you can use sound waves to put out flames. The George Mason University engineering students rigged up a sonic fire extinguisher that lets out soundwaves at frequencies between 30 and 60 hz. At that rate, the waves move the air around them in such a way that they disrupt the rapid oxidation at the core of a fire....

Media Platforms Design TeamA roof snow rake is like a 20-ft-long aluminum hoe that homeowners us to lighten the structural load on their roof and to reduce the formation of an ice dam (the only true solution to ice dams, though, is to carefully air seal, ventilate and insulate the attic).Using these tools can be physically demanding and hazardous. Here are five cardinal safety rules to help you as you keep winter at bay....

While Bill Gates and Toyota are making headlines today from the Consumer Electronics Show and the Detroit Auto Show, there’s plenty else abuzz from the Popular Mechanics world of tech and science out there.–Matt SullivanAfter all the rumors, it appears Apple is finally ready to release its phone tomorrow—possibly with its Cingular relationship intact. We’ll be there at the MacWorld expo—with a live blog from Steve Jobs’ keynote speech, plus analysis and reaction from our tech team at CES....

Here in 2015, self-driving cars are only just hitting the open road in earnest, but the idea goes back decades and decades. In fact, self-driving cars were scooting around as long ago as 1971, and even by today’s standards they look pretty legit. This particular car was a project of the British Road Research Laboratory and worked via “electronic impulses relayed to the car through a special receiving unit affixed to the front....

Media Platforms Design TeamAdding smart lights to your home doesn’t have to mean buying expensive new bulbs.Emberlight is a plug-and-play adapter that takes your existing light fixtures and bulbs and makes them smart. Once the setup is complete, your lights will connect to your Wi-Fi network and you can control them from anywhere in the world.The company is a recent graduate of OrangeFab’s three-month startup accelerator in San Francisco. It launched today on Kickstarter, where the team hopes to raise $50,000 for its first run of adapters....

Sunday’s supermoon eclipse will do more than create a great show on Earth – it could provide amazing temperature data for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Or it could just cause the orbiter to lose power. (Maybe.)According to Mike Wall at Space.com, the LRO has encountered three previous eclipses, and the team has found a workaround to shutting down the probe and getting systems online again when the Earth’s shadow passes. But the shutdown this time may be partial, as the team wants to use the opportunity to monitor temperature fluctuations in the Moon’s surface....

It’s been over a week since the big Valentine’s Blizzard, but we’re still dealing with its aftermath, mostly in the form of blowing and drifting snow. I’ve put more hours on our tractor in the past week, than I did in the three months prior. As an energy news junkie, I’ve been keeping a close eye on global oil production, which has been tracking slightly-downward-but-mostly-sideways (slideways?) for nearly two years. What does that mean?...

Media Platforms Design Team LOS ANGELES — Based on the name of the division that conducts all of the Mitsubishi Corporation’s motorsport activities, the Ralliart label was originally added to a slightly upgraded Lancer in 2004. The goal was to give buyers something other than the mild-mannered base Lancer or the bad-boy Evolution models to choose from. It was a great idea, but the 2.4-liter engine—although larger than the 2.0-liter engines of the ES and LS models—lacked enough luster to really differentiate it from the base cars....