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Halfway down the Hudson, Groucho lets me take the stick. New Jersey on the right, Manhattan on the left, and the river unfolds as a blue road before us. I know the fundamentals of how to steer this thing. But I’m not a pilot, and so I guide it to the left with the slightest of gestures. Good thing, too: It doesn’t take more than a slight tap to push the Icon A5, far from the jerk of the joystick you might expect if you, like I, have never really flown an aircraft before....

Media Platforms Design TeamLast February, NASA quietly dropped from its mission statement the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.” But should Earth scientists actually be worried? According to the National Research Council, that answer is a resounding “yes.“In a report released this week, a committee appointed by the Council’s Space Studies Board warns that a number of measurements providing critical information about Earth processes will cease to be made over the next few years....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe recent rescue of the trapped miners in Chile was a triumph of both human will and technology. The miners themselves were the first to display great human will; they didn’t give in to despair or turn on each other and, hoping against hope, they organized and disciplined themselves to survive. Once they were found, human will was on display all over the globe, as determination, advice and technology poured into the Atacama desert, much of it from America’s space agency....

This was a busy week in electronics. Among other things, Apple upgrades every iPod. Then, Nintendo announces the release of the Wii. And finally, a bit in the shadows, Microsoft unveils its upcoming 30GB digital music player, the Zune. I’d like to share some initial thoughts about this latest challenger to the iPod. Three Things I Like About the ZuneFirst of all, building Wi-Fi/social networking into the device is an intriguing idea....

If the members of the space committee in the House were to get their way, there would be a single answer to the question of what will the astronauts ride to get to and from orbit: the Orion crew module planned as part of Constellation (renamed the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle by the Senate a few days ago), which they’d like to restore after the administration canceled it in February. It weighs much more, and has capabilities unneeded for the simple task of getting to space and back, because it is designed to go all the way to lunar orbit, and to enter Earth’s atmosphere from almost escape velocity (about twice the energy needed to enter from low Earth orbit), which means it needs a more robust heat shield....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Yale University Mechanical Engineering 489 class, from left: Henry Misas, Sean McCusker, Jordan Carter, Nicholas Tsouris, Gregory Brown, Trevor Hines, Derek Zhao, Stephen Miehls and Aaron Fuchs (not pictured). (Photograph by Greg Miller)New Haven ChoppersStudent team from Yale Mechanical Engineering 489; New Haven, Conn.In the nearly 150 years since the bicycle debuted, its operation has remained remarkably consistent. That is, until this year, when a group of mechanical engineering students at Yale created what might be the first spokeless bicycle....

Old-school pixel graphics are something of a trend in many modern-day indie games. But the look of early games wasn’t just a style choice. It was the direct resut of computers that didn’t have a lot of power, and the clever hacks you have to come up with to get around that problem. Early computer games in particular made use of a widespread tactic, as YouTuber TheiBookGuy explains in a fantastic video on the subject....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat you’re seeing in the picture is called “captive-carry,” and yes, it is a series of cables holding a plane aloft. This no-flight flight has a purpose, though. It’s one of the last steps before Sierra Nevada’s long-awaited Dream Chaser spacecraft takes to the skies on its own.During a two-hour test performed yesterday at Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., a helicopter carried the Dream Chaser up to a maximum altitude of 12,400 feet, according to Sierra Nevada....

PM editor-in-chief Jim Meigs (foreground) and his father, A. James Meigs, at the top of Panama’s Ancon Hill, while researching the cover story for PM’s Feb. ‘07 issue. The canal’s Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks are visible in the distance. The senior Meigs was born and raised in Panama, and his father, Al Meigs, helped build and later operate the canal. PM’s executive editor, David Dunbar, also made the trip and took all photos (unless otherwise noted)....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhile the historic inauguration of Barack Obama will be full of ceremony and celebration, there’s one event on January 20 that will go by with little notice. And yet that event will usher him into the world of the presidency in a way nothing else will. It will be the very first time a Secret Service agent opens the door to the presidential limousine and Obama steps inside....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds back on the air show circuit after the sequester grounded them, and military-sponsored shows like MCAS Miramar returning as well, 2014 is shaping up as a great year for air show lovers.Most organizers have yet to announce full 2014 lineups, but these 10 shows have a track record of thrilling audiences. Featuring aerobatics, hot-air balloons, high-speed air races, historical planes, and the latest military aircraft, these are the 10 shows to see this year....

White houses, sports stadia, nuclear plants—hobbyists are flying drones all kinds of places they shouldn’t these days. While governments struggle to pass new regulations about who’s allowed in what airspace, French company Malou Tech has released this video of its only-half-kidding approach to keeping pesky drones away from forbidden areas.It’s called Drone Interceptor MP200. As the melodramatic YouTube clip below demonstrates, it’s a drone designed to autonomously approach smaller unmanned aircraft and snare them within with appears to be a net borrowed from a tennis court, which the MP200 drags through the air....

Japan has won the wearables game before it has even truly begun: It has given us a wearable robot that feeds you tomatoes. You know, in case you were too lazy to eat a tomato yourself, and also wanted to bite into one the way you’d eat an apple. Media Platforms Design TeamBuilt for marathon runners, the 18-pound robot called Petit-Tomatan sits atop a person’s shoulders and feeds them tomatoes as they go....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: All Photos by Photografica)Nikkor, Nikon’s brand of lenses, has been around for almost a century, and every now and then an old gem appears on eBay. This one will run you $62,000.Introduced in 1972, the Nikkor 6mm f/2.8 was rare to begin with, with only a few lenses originally built, and features an astounding 220-degree field of view, 40 degrees more than any standard fisheye lens today, which means it can see behind itself....

Media Platforms Design TeamGive me a basic overview of the GT Academy. What was the process like from when you got there to winning the championship?It all begins with the time trial. The first day was basically playing video games against each other. They keep everything secret. We’re all tucked into a room [in New York City] together. The next day, Saturday, was extra confusing. We went on a bus. We ended up going two or three hours out to the middle of nowhere....

Media Platforms Design TeamNiketown USA has a brand new sneaker on display, but you can’t try it on. There’s no leather upper balance to it – it’s made out of magnetic ferrofluids. Designed by Guild , the display is a plastic replica of Nike’s Kevin Durant sneakers wrapped in ferrofluids. When a magnetic field is applied, they move and ripple like they’ve come to life. As Andrew Liszewski at Gizmodo points out, while the display is neat (REALLY neat) it has a low shelflife because of the relative instability of ferrofluids in air, which tend to disperse into an oily residue....

As the Slow Mo Guys show in this video, the recipe for making your own little rockets consists of little more than a few ordinary household products. In this experiment the British duo wrapped a piece of aluminium foil around a match head and made the tiniest rocket. It’s even cooler to watch it explode several feet into the air with a slow-motion camera.To make a rocket, all you need is some foil, a wooden skewer, some matches and a heat source like a candle....

The following scenario is fictional, but it’s based on open source reports of military hardware currently deployed in and around the Middle East.Part One: Interception and EscalationThe cockpit of an F-22 Raptor is a lonely place. Despite all the talk about network-centric warfare, integrated sensors, and information sharing, the Raptor pilot is alone in the sky. Today, the single-seat stealth warplane is flying solo on a mission in “contested airspace”—sanitized military jargon that means enemy missiles are pointed skyward....

Media Platforms Design TeamEver wondered what it looks like inside an Abrams tank when the main gun is fired? A GoPro video from the perspective of the tank’s loader shows the action in the cramped space of the turret.In the video, the tank loader picks up a blue-labeled M831A1 TP-T, or Target Practice Tracer round, loads it into the breech, and closes the breech. The tank commander, to his right, gives the order to fire....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s wet and dreary here at the National Mall, a fitting day for the announcement of the winners of the 2009 Solar Decathlon, where students competed to design homes that could run most self-sufficiently on solar power, in rain or shine. The competition, run by the Department of Energy (and sponsored in part by Popular Mechanics), involved 20 college teams, pitted against one another in a showdown of architecture and engineering....