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UPDATE Monday, April 13: The project is now over $10 million.The most successful fully funded crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo is not for a new smartwatch, video game, or 3D printer. It is for a new way to harvest honey, a potential breakthrough in a practice that has not seen a significant technological advance since 1852, when the Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth patented America’s first movable frame beehive.The Flow hive has amassed $8....

Q: Occasionally, when I play video games, I get motion sickness. Why is that?A: The accepted term for that particular variety of motion sickness has been called “simulator sickness,” and despite a few studies to determine its cause, nobody is quite sure why it happens.It doesn’t affect just video-game players. A 1995 report by the U.S. Army Research Institute found that almost half the military pilots who used flight simulators developed aftereffects – and 10 percent of those respondents had symptoms lasting more than 4 hours....

Media Platforms Design TeamVolvo must have been feeling left out. With Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, General Motors, and other major carmakers ramping up their efforts to get autonomous car technologies on the road by the end of the decade, it figures that the Swedish automaker would also join the fray. With its recently announced Drive Me pilot program, Volvo says it plans to introduce 100 “highly autonomous cars” to the streets of the Swedish city of Gothenburg in 2017....

To find out how two new drill bits, both designed with self-feeding features that essentially pull the bit through the hole as it spins, stack up against a standard, old-fashioned spade bit, we decided to abuse a pallet that’s been taking up space in our lab. All three bits were 1-in. models, and after destroying an underpowered 14.4 V cordless drill on the first test run, we upgraded to a pro-quality corded 3/8-in....

Media Platforms Design Team LOS ANGELES — Porsche has a rich tradition of offering specialty versions of its definitive 911 model. Remember the original 1973 Carrera RS? How about the 1989 Speedster? Or our personal favorite, the 1993 RS America? But for 2008, Porsche is offering the 911 sports car in a staggering 15 different flavors: S models, turbos, cabriolets, turbo cabriolets, all-wheel-drive Carrera 4s, Targas, GT3s and, of course, the 530-hp, 204-mph GT2....

Media Platforms Design TeamAMSTERDAM—Remember the ? When Honda launched the amazing all-aluminum, two-seat hybrid coupe in 1999, it became the first hybrid on sale in the U.S., beating the better-known Toyota Prius to the punch by some seven months. Moreover, the Honda was actually kind of sporty. Not fast, admittedly, but somewhat fun to drive with a manual transmission, electrical regeneration and room for two. But it didn’t sell well—just 17,000 units in six years—and lost the company a bundle....

I fly my American flag a lot during the summer, using a pole mounted on my front porch. The wind whips it around, and I frequently return to find that it’s a tangled mess. I was thinking of installing a freestanding flag pole to prevent this. Can a flag flying from a pole also get tangled? Just because I’ve never seen it happen doesn’t mean it can’t.It’s gratifying to hear about your respectful care of our nation’s symbol....

Media Platforms Design TeamLast year at CES, the theme swirling throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center was High Definition. Amid the throngs of HD TVs and camcorders was the promise of a hi-def DVD player for the American market. None of these promises materialized. This year, the HD tune is still playing. But this time high-definition DVD players from several makers are actually going to arrive. In the first four press conferences I attended, each maker offered a high-def player with a price AND a release date (with one exception)....

Last week, a pair of anonymous treasure hunters approached officials in Walbrzych, Poland via their lawyer to claim they had found an old Nazi loot train. Now officials have confirmed that the pair certainly found a train. Whether it’s full of gold remains to be seen. As NBC News reports, a press officer confirmed that a military train had been found and the town’s deputy mayor Zygmunt Nowaczyk made the following statement at a press conference:The city [of Walbrzych] is full of mysterious stories because of its history....

StrengthThe Test: To assess the good old-fashioned, raw strength of these tools, I found an old beam measuring 6-in. by 71/4-in. It’s an impressive chunk of lumber and similar to the ones that have given the barn a perfectly straight ridgeline for more than 150 years. The test was a simple timed cut, straight through the solid wood. I had a hunch which tool would win, but with the scientific method in mind, I persevered....

The Claim: “If you think a clean windshield is just too much of a stretch,” you need the Windshield Wonder—a wiping wand with a “microfiber cleaning bonnet” at the end of a curved plastic shaft. It lets you reach into that tight corner where the windshield meets the dash, which on a car like a Mustang can be a pretty steep angle. With the Windshield Wonder, it’s “a cinch to reach every inch....

Lightning pictures are a dime a dozen. The really elusive thing to capture is thunder. Sure, we can hear thunder all around us during an especially nasty thunderstorm. But scientists had never been able to see it in detail up close.Rather than wait for the next thunderstorm, researchers at the Southwest Research Institute created their own lightning. They did this by firing a rocket with a copper wire right into a thundercloud, recording the lightning as it came down....

Materials• craft-store felt • thread• wax paper• West System epoxy• 200-grit sandpaper• acrylic tile sealer• paste wax• 1 x 1–foot piece of melamine or ¼-inch plastic• cardboard scraps• Smooth-On Mold Star 16 Fast silicone• Rockite cement mix• pigment or paintTools• scissors • sewing needle • small paintbrush • hot-glue gun • mixing containers • glovesDirections1. Cut out two identical rectangles (or stars, hearts, or any other shape you want) of felt to the desired size with scissors....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Parrot 3200 LS-COLOR integrates your cellphone with your car stereo.Q: Can I wire Bluetooth into my existing car stereo?A: Definitely – but make sure it’s worth your time and money. Several companies, such as Motorola and Parrot, make aftermarket Bluetooth car kits that wire into your stereo. The Parrot 3200 LS-COLOR, for instance, not only adds Bluetooth calling from your cellphone over the car’s audio system, but also will mute your music when you have an incoming call, just like the integrated from-the-factory Bluetooth systems....

Spinlister is betting that the future of bike-sharing doesn’t look like the big racks of borrowable bicycles. Instead, the cycling startup wants to bring to bear a new strategy that gets rid of the bike rack, and perhaps more audaciously, allows members to flat-out own the bikes and make money off each rental.Here’s how it works: Members can buy the official Spinlister bike, a custom job by Dutch bicycle manufacturer VanMoof, which costs just under $1,000....

Media Platforms Design TeamDespite the emergence of leaner, cleaner propulsion technologies like EVs and hydrogen fuel cells, a study led by a panel advising the Energy Department suggests it’s too early to discount the good ol’ traditional internal combustion engine. According to the report, fossil fuel burning engines should remain the dominant source of automotive propulsion until at least 2050. As realistic as the estimate seems, the findings do come from an admittedly biased source: The National Petroleum Council....

This puts a whole new meaning into binge watch.In response to all the reviews bubbling up yesterday for the new Apple Watch, Netflix released its own version of one. Here’s the aptly titled Netflix Watch, a wearable device that straps on to your wrist so you can never go a moment without missing an episode of the Gilmore Girls.“It’s the vast world of Netflix right on your wrist,” it says. “Which means you might be tempted to watch wherever you are....

Media Platforms Design TeamLet’s say you have two katanas and a Chinese machete that you are looking to sell on Craigslist. Hypothetically. Let’s say these are just some run-of-the-mill display pieces, but you want to see if you can get a few extra bucks with some flowery language. What do you do? Make up a curse. Maybe a little something like this Craigslist Katana-salesman came up with to describe the swords you see above: Warning/Disclosure: The black katana is cursed....

Don’t fret! We’re still alive and well. We’re taking a long weekend from our regular posts so that we can put the finishing touches on the next generation of PopularMechanics.com. That’s right: Next week you’ll experience our new interface and a cleaner, clearer and easier-to-use PopularMechanics.com. Don’t worry, you’ll still be reading the same Popular Mechanics content, but you’ll have a much easier time navigating through our huge collection of print, video and audio—over ten years of science news, auto and home how-to and tech scoops at your fingertips....

As many pet owners are aware, when it comes to keeping your dog within a confined area, the only thing more effective than building a real fence is to create an “invisible” radio fence and then, whenever he attempts to cross it, administer a mild electric shock to your pooch. This approach may keep your dog from leaving the yard, but what is a behaviorist pet owner to do when he wants to restrict his animal to, say, 2 or 3 sq....