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Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: Fall 2012Price: $25,995 to $32,280 (base SE to optioned SEL; includes $795 delivery)Competitors: Toyota Prius V, Mazda5, Subaru Impreza 5-door Powertrain: 2.0-liter I4 with electric hybrid; 188 hp total; CVT, FWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): 47/47 mpgWhat’s New: Aimed squarely at the market-dominanting Toyota Prius, Ford’s C-Max Hybrid brings a 50-hp advantage, more passenger room, and much higher fuel-economy ratings to the fight (the Toyota makes 40 mpg highway and 42 overall compared with the Ford’s 47/47)....

When Superstorm Sandy nearly sank New York City two years ago, we knew it was going to happen. Same with snowmageddon in 2010: D.C. got more snow than a Saskatoon Christmas, and, again, we knew it was going to happen. Those were both devastating storms, but we were as prepared for them as we could have been, thanks to two very important satellites. Now, however, as superstorms become more frequent, those two very important satellites are running out of time....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design Team Earlier this month, I reviewed two tiny PCs and concluded that neither was quite on the mark as a go-anywhere Web surfing and e-mail tool. I had hoped to test the small Asus Eee PC, but wasn’t able to get a review copy in the run-up to CES, where we saw a WiMAX version and the PM team gave it an Editor’s Choice Award....

Media Platforms Design Teamcellpadding=“0” cellspacing=“0”>(Illustration by Sinelab)Innovators: Gregory Deierlein, Stanford University; Jerome F. Hajjar, Northeastern UniversityFor decades, the goal of seismic engineers has seemed straightforward: Prevent building collapse. And so they add steel braces to a skyscraper’s skeleton or beefier rebar to concrete shear walls. After absorbing the brunt of seismic shaking, however, the compromised structures often must be demolished. “The building, in a sense, sacrifices itself to save the occupants,” says Gregory Deierlein, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineer....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf last night’s episode of Lost, “The Last Recruit,” is any indication, Jack’s true foe might not be John Locke—instead, it just might be the dural sac. In the pilot episode of Lost, Jack tells Kate about his first solo surgery where he accidentally sliced open a patient’s dural sac. The bundle of nerves, he says, spilled out of the patient like angel hair pasta. The terror was extreme....

Media Platforms Design TeamA radioactive cloud was released earlier today from a nuclear reactor crippled by Japan’s record 8.9 earthquake, according to . Japanese nuclear-safety officials ordered the evacuation of about 3,000 residents within a 1.9-mile radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and told people within a 16.2-mile radius to remain indoors.published reportsThe reactor was shut down soon after the quake, but the fuel rods in the reactor remained hot, both in terms of temperature and radioactivity....

As the cameras panned to the sidelines on Super Bowl Sunday at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla., fans were reminded of a few perennial mysteries. Why is the head coach wearing that ridiculous jacket? Why does he let them put ice in the cooler that’s going to get dumped over his head at the end of the game? And whom, exactly, is he listening to over that headset?The answer to the last question is: more people than you might expect....

Mower MaintenanceFrame UpEasy SharpeningHand Trucks Rock There are lots of times when you simply need help moving a rock out of the way. Sometimes rocks need to be moved aside when building a path. Or you may want to place them in a rock garden or at the entrance to a driveway. There are many ways to move a rock, and over the years we’ve seen our share of sleds, slides and contraptions for budging them....

We’ve already learned that those “flushable” wipes can seriously clog up sewers. But another flushable product might just save them: the humble tampon.Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. wanted to tackle the problem of sewer misconnections. Many homes have their wastewater improperly connected to the surface water network, which can lead wastewater to flow directly into rivers and streams, hurting wildlife and potentially contaminating our drinking water. But the problem is tough to detect, because lots of different compounds can be discharged and the timing is unpredictable....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Sale Date: NowPrice: $600 (Off-Contract)I have in my hand—well, two hands—the HTC One Max, big brother to the HTC One. Although it’s not the biggest phablet on the market, it’s still massive. Measuring 5.9 inches diagonally, it falls between the smaller 5.7-inch Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the 6.4-inch Sony Xperia Z Ultra in display size. And it’s heavier than both. It’s no surprise that the Note 3 is a lighter 5....

Media Platforms Design TeamAlmost every day somebody posts the following on Twitter or Facebook: “In 1949, forecasting the relentless march of science, Popular Mechanics said, ‘Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.’” It is one of those quotations—often plucked from online lists of similar nuggets—that people like to circulate as a pleasant reminder of how much smarter they are than those who lived before them. The actual quotation, from the March 1949 issue of Popular Mechanics, goes like this: “Where a calculator like ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1½ tons....

Years ago, I worked for a new car dealership called Foreign Motors of Boston doing new car prep and light maintenance. The “Foreign Motors” moniker might seem odd today, but back in the late 1960s/early 1970s there weren’t many stand-alone import car dealerships, the exception, of course, being Volkswagen. Foreign Motors carried Bentley, Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce, as well as an eccentric French automobile called the Citroen Sport Maserati, better known as the Citroen SM....

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, this coffee table is fine but it’d be a lot better with the Millennium Falcon, then you’re not alone. Behold the bespoke Empire Strikes Back-inspired table of your Han Solo dreams.Media Platforms Design TeamArtist Richard Riley of Tom Spina Designs crafted a gorgeous coffee table that takes inspiration from the movie’s asteroid chase, featuring both the Millennium Falcon and a TIE Fighter in pursuit. A big piece of oval glass sits on top to make the table a table....

Media Platforms Design TeamKorean carmakers were once reputed for their insularity, but a funny thing happened on the way to global relevance: Asian nameplates started filling key positions with progressive thinkers, thinking differently, and building cars that stoked desire, not desperation. Along the way, they stole the talented (and German-born) Peter Schreyer away from Volkswagen in 2006, and his freshly creased design language helped redefine Kia’s reputation in the international car business....

The 22nd annual Route 66 Rendezvous happened in San Bernadino, Calif., last week. And PM was proud to be inducted into the event’s Cruisin’ Hall of Fame in the Entertainment/Media category. But while we’re thrilled with the accolades, let’s talk about what we really love: absurdly fast cars. While we were in San Bernadino, we got to eye plenty of shiny sheet metal, too, as car buffs bring out their classic machines for the show....

Media Platforms Design TeamToday is Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. , the goal of this annual program (which began as Take Your Daughter To Work Day and expanded to include boys in 2003) is to help children “discover the power and possibilities associated with a balanced work and family life…” According to the Ms. FoundationOK, great. But here at Popular Mechanics, we think there’s something parents can do every day that will help their kids a lot more than parking them in the office conference room once a year: Instead of taking our kids to work, how about putting them to work?...

Media Platforms Design TeamLegs pose a notoriously complex challenge for roboticists. Yet Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert and the rest of the team that developed the BigDog robot are sticking with them. “Legs can go places that wheels and tracks can’t go, and there are lots of those places on Earth,” Raibert says. Including some war zones. The bizarre, four-legged creature (a “defenseless, headless Bambi,” Raibert jokes) was funded by the military research agency DARPA....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn a few years’ time, once we get used to the idea of Google’s self-driving cars, it’s conceivable that autonomous trucks will take over the delivery industry. But while a driverless vehicle might bring with it big advantages, such as being less prone to accidents than a big rig with a road-weary driver behind the wheel, a question remains: How will driverless cars defend themselves?David Mascarenas, a researcher who studies cyber-physical systems at Los Alamos National Lab, says that as more robots venture out on their own, their creators are already struggling with how to protect them....

We all know the half-joke about the AI apocalypse. The robots learn to think, and in their cold ones-and-zeros logic, they decide that humans—horrific pests we are—need to be exterminated. It’s the subject of countless sci-fi stories and blog posts about robots, but maybe the real danger isn’t that AI comes to such a conclusion on its own, but that it gets that idea from us. Yesterday Microsoft launched a fun little AI Twitter chatbot that was admittedly sort of gimmicky from the start....

Dabbling amateur armsmakers mess around with potato guns. Serious amateur armsmakers 3D print their own portable railguns. This man is clearly one of the latter. Known as NSA_Listbot on Reddit, this guy clearly takes his projects seriously, and gets into all the nitty-gritty details of his inadvisable but super awesome weapon in a long post on Imgur. Unlike a coilgun or gauss rifle which use a series of electromagnets to pull a magnetic projectile down a tube at great speeds, a railgun operates on more complicated physics, but doesn’t require its projectiles to be magnetic....