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Media Platforms Design TeamA lot of guys sort of know how to catch large-and smallmouth bass. But the anglers in Bassmaster pro tournaments obsess over the details because landing one extra fish can mean big money. Here are five tips from the best.DON’T GET COMFORTABLEThe first thing amateurs do wrong, they say, is fall in love with their favorite fishing spot and go-to lure. Remember the 7-pound bass you caught in that magical bay using a plastic worm while wearing your dad’s lucky Brooklyn Dodgers cap?...

Planetary scientists often hunt for planets by searching for small flickers in a star’s light. But when the James Webb Telescope and huge observatories like the European Extremely Large Telescope go online in the next decade, they might be able to use the flicker of distant exoplanets to find another cosmic companion: comets crashing into those planets.It would take a collision not unlike Shoemaker-Levy 9, the comet that smashed into Jupiter in 1994, to provide astronomers with this rare show....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo courtesy Incubator School)The kids at the Incubator School in Los Angeles, 118 of them in grades 6 thru 8, use computers and whiteboards instead of textbooks. They are part of an educational effort led by Sujata Bhatt. “Our goal is to start-up students,” Bhatt says, “so by design, we are a startup, too.“Even in a city where innovation and entrepreneurship are a cultural norm, the Incubator School stands out....

Media Platforms Design TeamAudi’s big announcement at this year’s CES was that it plans to bring laser headlights to a production vehicle. All together now: sweet! At its booth, Audi is showing off this technology in its Sport Quatto Laserlight concept. The concept uses LEDs for the low beams and then switches to laser diodes for the high beams. Audi says the laser headlights can illuminate the road for 1640 feet and with three times the brightness of LEDs....

Merle HenkeniusEvery homeowner who’s pushed a lawnmower knows that grass needs periodic care. Even so, the best-kept yards develop problems. Fortunately, the solution can be as simple as an application of the right lawn-care product. Or perhaps it’s time to dethatch, spread lime or just pour on more water. In most cases, it’s a foolproof process that your garden center is happy to help with. And if the problem is really severe, you can usually aerate and add more seed, and be back to normal in a month or two....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s a cool afternoon in the rugged countryside just outside of Granada, Spain, and Mercedes-Benz’s new GLA is aimed sharply downhill as it negotiates a 30 percent grade. The nav screen displays relevant terrain data and front wheel position while the driver—none other than Daimler Management Board Member Prof. Dr. Thomas Weber—casually steers the petite SUV while discussing the world’s voracious appetite for compact crossovers.What is this city slicker sport ‘ute doing with its nose buried into the earth and a rear wheel dangling in mid-air?...

The wraps are finally off Mercury’s new family of big 4-stroke outboards. Merc had been teasing everybody with these motors, code-named Project X (to coincide with the company’s secret testing area–Lake X). The real name–Verado (for the motors, not the lake)–was revealed on February 12 at the 2004 Miami International Boat Show. We didn’t have a chance to take Verado for a spin at the show, because the boats that were displayed inside the Miami Beach Convention Center don’t perform as well on carpeting as they do on water....

Humans have been launching things into space for nearly 60 years, and in that time we’ve gone through a LOT of rockets, some bigger than others. Nothing has quite beaten a Saturn V in size, though the Space Launch System (NASA’s first deep space rocket meant for crewed missions in quite some time) will make a decent run at it.Just how big are our space rockets? This handy chart should give you a pretty good idea....

Click here for pdf version.1–AMPLIFIER AND HEADSETA three-wheel lock has 1 million possible combinations. Along with a light touch, amplifiers help LaBarge discern the minute mechanical discrepancies that give away the winning numbers.2–BORESCOPEWhen a combo can’t be cracked, LaBarge drills in and peers around with this lighted fiberoptic scope; its prism tip rotates 180 degrees. “I can view anywhere in the safe at any angle,” he says.3–DRILL PRESS AND DRILLA magnetic or vacuum press keeps LaBarge’s heavy-duty drill firmly in place....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS — Okay, the tricked-out, “Cobraized” sports car will get the most attention. But Cobra’s new line of GPS and radar-detector products shows that the latest round in the war between motorists and traffic authorities is heating up. I wrote in Popular Mechanics a while back about the growing trend of revenue-hungry localities to implement red-light cameras and speed cameras, and that’s a trend that has continued in the ensuing years....

Media Platforms Design TeamCan you describe the method used to discover Kepler-76b? The method is using what we call Doppler beaming, which is a relativistic effect . . . Think of the light as particles, so that the direction of the particles or the direction of the rays of the light is changing because of the motion of the source relative to the observer. The observer will see some concentration of rays or photons toward him if the source moves toward him....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamA rainbow appears on the road ahead just 10 miles south of Mojave. (Photogaph by Dale Amon. All rights reserved.)Just as King Canute couldn’t hold back the incoming tide, Monday’s vaunted roll-out of Virgin Galactic’s and Burt Rutan’s new spaceship in Mojave, Cali., demonstrated the limits to the power of even the most charismatic, visionary billionaire. Virgin’s Richard Branson famously likes to throw extravagant parties, and so he did for the occasion, but Mojave’s weather refused to cooperate....

View full post on YoutubeOur quick test is complete, and I’m sorry to say that the Perfect Bacon Bowl—a gadget that promises to provide a round mold of crisp meat candy—is not, in fact, perfect. If you use a thin, disappointing kind of bacon, then the device can mold the pork into something resembling a bowl. But if you use the thick, delicious bacon I insist upon, then the Perfect Bacon Bowl is just another bacon-cooking surface....

When a Russian spacecraft sets off late this year to scrape samples of the Martian moon Phobos, at least 10 of Earth’s toughest life-forms will be going along for the ride. The pioneering experiment, sponsored by the nonprofit Planetary Society, will test whether life can tolerate the deadly hazards of space for three years–long enough to hopscotch between planets. Three of each of the 10 chosen organisms will ride inside individual polymer containers....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith four silver sheets hung from horizontal arms and attached to a stout mast, MegaWatt Solar’s trademark solar system brings to mind a square-rigged schooner of old. But instead of catching the wind, the sheets—actually parabolic mirrors—reflect sunlight onto a thin band of photovoltaic cells suspended in front of them. MegaWatt Solar, based in Hillsborough, N.C., is one of dozens of companies around the globe who are counting on a new generation of concentrating solar photovoltaics (CPV) to provide renewable electricity on a utility scale at a price competitive with conventional sources....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe previous-gen Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 earned a cult following for its bang-for-buck quotient and surprisingly precocious track capabilities. But what happens when customers cry for change?Though the 2012 model claims to be the quickest Jeep yet– its 470 horsepower V8 pushes it to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds– the über Grand Cherokee has succumbed to some consumer pressure in the name of functionality. SRT Chief Engineer Dave Cottrell says “There are people that love the look of the old car’s center exhaust, but there were so many voices out there saying they wanted to be able to tow....

Media Platforms Design TeamNo one in Huntsville, Ala., expected the storm system that ravaged the town in April to knock the city and surrounding areas off the grid completely. But a series of tornadoes severed all eight major power feeds into Madison County, leaving more than 340,000 north Alabama residents in the dark for six days. Complicating the recovery, Huntsville is home to an Army research base, NASA spaceflight facility, an economically vital research park and an active military repair depot, all dependent on the same power supply....

In the future, the word “luxury” might describe automotive qualities quite different from what we imagine today. When sedate and sensible fuel sippers dominate the automotive landscape, luxury could define the ability to produce sports car acceleration with exemplary fuel economy. The BMW 335d is ahead of that curve. BEST LUXURY VEHICLEBMW 335dBase Price: $43,900Under the hood is a twinturbocharged 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder diesel, with a mammoth 425 lb-ft of torque that can return solid mileage....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis gear-reduction starter (left) is a lightweight drop-in replacement for the older starter that failed. By spinning the armature faster and reducing its output speed with a planetary gearbox, it’s possible to get the same starter power in a smaller, lighter package.Click. Click. Click. That’s the noise your car makes when you twist the key. A few more clicks and now you’ve got a metallic screeching that makes all the dogs in the neighborhood start to bark....

Origami microscopes made of paper can fit in your pocket and cost less than a dollar. The devices, known as Foldscopes, each weigh less than two nickels and can be made in less than 10 minutes from paper, a lens, a battery, an LED, and other miscellaneous parts. A Foldscope can survive being stepped on or even after having been dropped from a three-story building.The scientists who invented these paper microscopes detailed their findings online today in the journal PLOS ONE....