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Media Platforms Design TeamAt the edge of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on earth, Lima, Peru, receives almost no rainfall. About 700,000 people have no access to clean water for drinking or bathing. Another 600,000 of the city’s 7.5 million residents rely on cisterns for their water, which must be filled by pumps or by hand and cleaned regularly.But Lima’s Pacific Coast location experiences humidity of more than 90 percent on summer days, from December to February....

Visitors at the Vliehors Cornfield range on the tiny Dutch island of Vlieland got a treat in the form of a low pass from an F-16 close enough we imagine they’re still recovering from the vortex. View full post on YoutubeA couple of things to note about this video: First off, despite the title, there are no bathers on this beach. The Cornfield range is a well-known NATO flight ground, and the beaches are cleared of any sunbathers....

Media Platforms Design TeamMotorcycles have an alter ego. On the outside, a husky cruiser bike may look like the two-wheel equivalent of a gas-guzzling muscle car. But despite the big chrome pipes, fat rear tire and bulging V-twin engine, bikes are fantastically fuel-efficient machines.Even the heaviest, most powerful models deliver hybridlike economy. The smallest ones sip fuel at a pace that would make a Prius owner jealous. So a cool-looking, fun-to-ride cruiser can become a very unlikely and appealing alternative to a hybrid....

Looking for ways to inspire children to care about space exploration, NASA decided to fly an icon to fly into orbit: Big Bird would be an astronaut. But, as relayed in the new documentary I Am Big Bird, actor Carroll Spinney’s turn in the suit was stopped because Big Bird’s costume, towering at more than 8 feet, was too tall for the Space Shuttle Challenger.Christa McAullife, a social studies teacher from New Hampshire, went instead....

Media Platforms Design TeamChaos helps stock the shelves of criminal arms dealers and terrorists. In Libya, where a civil war has raged since February, fears are growing that weapons inside Muammar Gaddafi’s arsenal . Perhaps highest on the list of valuable commodities would be shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, which terrorists or insurgents could use against military and civilian aircraft outside Libya.could fall into the black market Last week, Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U....

Media Platforms Design TeamApparently as a result of an impending story from ABC News (according to ABC—BMW’s press department wasn’t picking up the phone this morning), BMW is about to upgrade a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) to a full-out recall of several hundred thousand cars.From the beginning: Starting in 2006, BMW sold several different models equipped with the N54 twin-turbocharged engine, including 135, 335, 535, Z4 and X6 vehicles. This engine is a direct-injection engine....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS—Roku just announced that it is expanding out from the streaming box space it has long dominated and will start making an actual Roku TV: a simple, stripped-down Smart TV that puts Roku’s interface, along with all its content sources, front and center.The set-top box king is partnering up with television manufacturers TCL and Hisense to bring multiple models of the Roku TV to major U.S. retailers, in sizes ranging from 32 to 55 inches....

Media Platforms Design TeamView full post on YoutubeIn the pantheon of driving video games, SMS Racing isn’t even in the building. It’s sitting outside wearing a fanny pack and a DSLR slung around its neck—this is not a terribly complex game. The driving dynamics, visual fidelity, and aural impact fall somewhere between Pole Position and San Francisco Rush. SMS Racing was never meant to be a racing simulation masterpiece—game developer Holden Link built it in two days for a rapid video game development competition known as Ludum Dare....

Last weekend, I was driving a friend’s car back to his house after he had some fresh tires installed. We weren’t on daylight savings time quite yet, so it was well past sundown when we picked up his ride. It was one of those moonless, rainy nights–plus this guy lives out in the sticks, so it was about as dark outside as a tax collector’s heart … almost. As we travelled further out into the country, I could hardly see the road around me–the pavement ahead was like a black hole....

Media Platforms Design TeamI’ve had so much fun with Google’s original Nexus 7 over the past year, it’s hard to believe the tablet was . That sounds like something only Tony Stark could have done, cobbling together his first suit of Iron Man armor and emerging victorious from the caves of Tora Bora. Much like Tony’s MK I armor, Google’s first stab at a 7-inch tablet was just the warm-up for bigger and better things to come....

Media Platforms Design Team1. SURVIVAL PACKA 35-pound backpack holds Hotshot staples: a fire shelter, flagging, extra water, chain saw oil and gas, rain gear, warm clothes, a first-aid kit, Meals Ready to Eat—and a hearty lunch. Hotshots burn about 4000 calories a day.2. ALL-PURPOSE TOOLMarkalunas’s Leatherman has done everything from opening meal bags and cutting barbwire to fixing portable pumps. Two years ago he wedged it into a sprinkler head that had turned on in the night, spraying a sleeping crew....

Media Platforms Design TeamDon’t act like you don’t love McDonalds fries. If you don’t like the company itself, and want to get those tasty golden strings without spending any McBucks, then Good Morning America has made it a bit easier for you by revealing how these delicious sticks of regret are made.The show went behind the scenes of the fries, watching them go from spud to franchise frier. Yes, they’re real potatoes, and not reconstituted ones....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe task of driving screws improved exponentially about 30 years ago with the advent of the battery-powered cordless drill/driver. Today, the ubiquitous drill/driver is the go-to tool for virtually every hole-drilling and screw-driving job.However, to power-drive screws with speed and precision takes practice, patience, and a few tricks of the trade. Here are some tips and techniques to help you maximize the screw-driving capabilities of your cordless drill/driver....

Media Platforms Design TeamLoggerHead Tools, best-known for its Bionic Wrench, seems to specialize in tools that are equal parts ingenious and impossible to describe. But it’s worth rambling about the Bit Dr., a weird little multi-bit compact screwdriver that might just change the way you, um, drive screws. It’s small (4 in. closed) and light (6 ounces), with 10 double-sided bits stored in the handle. And the shaft folds out to one of five different positions, ranging from a right-angle pistol grip to a straight, traditional stick-handle....

The same materials know-now that helps spacecraft safely re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere is being put to use for some very terrestrial work: protecting firefighters. NASA is quick at work developing the next generation of heat shields for spacecraft, but while it designs the new materials, it’s also working on ways to incorporate them into the protective gear used by firefighters. Mary Beth Wusk, a NASA Langley researcher, got the idea from the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona in 2013, which killed 19 firefighters....

Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today.Media Platforms Design TeamPhoto credit: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty ImagesThe internet is home to threats real and fake, and it can be hard for government organizations to follow up on every single one. According to Nextgov, the secret service is now asking for an automated service to help comb twitter and weed out “sarcasm and false positives.” Essentially, this requested service will help government agencies flag tweets as sarcastic and help prevent security bottlenecks....

Media Platforms Design TeamThrough a radio telescope, a signal from an alien civilization would probably look a lot like a signal from a satellite orbiting Earth, only fainter. At least that’s what scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) suspect. After a brief shutdown for budgetary reasons, the SETI Institute is using California’s 42-dish Allen Telescope Array to investigate the 2321 exoplanets turned up by NASA’s Kepler space-based observatory, which is searching for Earth-like planets....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe autonomous car (and plane, and swarm of flying robots) is coming. That much is clear. But what might be less clear to onlookers watching the rise of the unmanned vehicle is that there are very different types of autonomy in machines, according to three PopMech Breakthrough Award winners.This afternoon at PM’s home in the Hearst Tower, our Senior News Editor Joe Pappalardo sat down with Joseph Chody, chief engineer for the X-47B unmanned combat air system; John Capp, director of global active safety electronics and innovation at General Motors; and Vijay Kumar, a University of Pennsylvania mechanical engineer who designs fleets of autonomous quadrotors that work together....

One of China’s most prolific aircraft manufacturers, Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) has announced it’s working on a new, locally produced heavy lift helicopter. The as-yet-unnamed helicopter will be the largest in China’s inventory. According to the Chinese web site qq.com, the new helo will be comparable to the American CH-53K King Stallion. It’s projected to be a little bit slower than the CH-53K, but the site proudly points out it will have a maximum takeoff weight that’s 0....

Headphone Type: Ear budWeight: .6 oz.Input Jack: 1/8" mini jackReviewer: Anthony Verducci The Details: Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 Pro are small ear bud headphones with surprising sound quality. Stabilized by flexible ear loops and silicone or foam ear tips (both available in multiple sizes), the buds provide a comfortable acoustic seal, and provide -26dB noise isolation – about enough to quiet a neighboring conversation in a coffeehouse. The Lightweight and stylish phones are available in black, white or clear with a removable cord, which comes in different colors and lengths....