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Honda Delivers The FCX ClarityMedia Platforms Design TeamTechnically speaking, the Honda FCX Clarity, delivered to customers starting in July, is the second generation of the company’s hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle. But those first dinky, two-door FCXs went mostly to government agencies, and each was essentially hand-built. The new FCX Clarity four-door sedans, on the other hand, are put together on an assembly line of sorts, are fully finished as production cars and have been delivered into the hands of actual civilians....

Media Platforms Design TeamUPDATE, June 4: Readers were right; this mystery Buick from the Far East is actually the Chinese Buick LaCrosse! DETROIT — Is this the first Chinese car to make an appearance on American roadways? Could be. Spotted near GM’s headquarters here, the car is clearly a Buick. And though we couldn’t immediately ID it more specifically from the foreign-language branding on the trunk lid, we think it’s the Buick Park Avenue, recently introduced at the Shanghai auto show as a new model for the Chinese market....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the 45 years since the Toyota Corolla was first introduced, Toyota has sold 40 million units of the compact sedan worldwide. Last year, it was the number two seller in the compact car segment. This is good for Toyota, but it’s bad for everyone else. Why? Because the Corolla has always been painfully bland. The Toyota Corolla Furia unveiled today gives us hope. For Toyota, the Furia symbolizes the future exterior styling direction of the Corolla, and thankfully, the future looks pretty intriguing....

Ryanair, one of Europe’s busiest and notoriously cheapest airlines, may soon begin flying into some of America’s biggest cities. The company’s board has voted to approve the outline of a plan to carry passengers between 14 U.S. cities, such as New York, Boston, and Chicago, and 14 cities on the other side of the pond.This is just an outline of a plan, so don’t expect Ryanair to follow through on its proclaimed vision of offering $15 transatlantic plane tickets anytime soon....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe ISEE-3 is coming home. And if Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing have their way, it’ll return to find a warm welcome and a new mission. That is, if they can get it working again.The International Sun/Earth Explorer 3 probe has been in space nearly as long as the Voyager probes now departing the solar system. It launched in 1978 to study the interaction between the Earth’s magnetic fields and solar winds....

While SETI researchers search for a new Wow! Signal thanks to the Breakthrough Listen cash infusion, they may want to search for something other than radio transmissions along the way. Like exhaust from microwaves used to propulse giant light sail-like spacecraft. Two researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics proposed the new detection method in a paper draft published on Arxiv. James Guillochon and Abraham Loeb propose that a light sail-like craft—vehicles with a sail of conductive material that push them through space without rocket propellant—might get their thrust from microwave transmissions delivered from the ground of some alien planet....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhere did the idea for In Time come from?Its a child of Gattaca. I always knew that the holy grail of genetic engineering was discovering and switching off the aging gene. I knew the implications were so enormous that it would be another movie. Its just an extrapolation of todaypeople are already going to such extremes to look young, so this is taking it to its logical conclusion....

Just three years ago, Colorado-based inventor Jim Sears shuttered himself in his garage and began tinkering with a design to mass-produce biofuel. His reactor (plastic bags) and his feedstock (algae) may have struck soybean farmers as a laughable gamble. But the experiment worked, and today, Sears’ company, Solix Biofuels in Fort Collins, is among several startups betting their futures on the photosynthetic powers of unicellular green goo. The science is simple: Algae need water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow....

Media Platforms Design TeamSummertime, and with surf fishing the dining can be as easy as tossing hooks and a sinker into the saltwater a few feet from your towel. “Chunk a hunk of shrimp into the waves and you never know what’s going to bite—that’s what people love about it,” says Ryan White, owner of fishing outfitter Hatteras Jack in Rodanthe, N.C. “Kick back on the beach and catch a few rays while you catch dinner....

Media Platforms Design TeamDODGE CHALLENGER CONCEPT | CHEVROLET CAMARO CONCEPTIt’s Ford vs. Chevy vs. Dodge all over again. Check out these hundreds of comments from our Detroit auto show coverage. Tired of clicking through? Here they are repackaged so you can read them all in one place. Thanks for your interest in POPULAR MECHANICS.–The EditorsRe: Detroit Auto Show 1: Dodge Challenger Concept DO IT !!! SOON Re: Detroit Auto Show 1: Dodge Challenger Concept Fell in love with it the second i saw it....

In October, an Orbital Sciences (now Orbital-ATK) rocket exploded during launch, destroying an ISS resupply mission but thankfully not injuring anyone. But among the cargo that exploded after takeoff were two name patches for NASA astronaut Scott Kelly – one in English, one in Russian. Now they’ve been found. And intact no less. As investigators picked up the pieces of the explosion in Virginia, they found the patches among the rubble, no worse for wear....

A torpedo level should be a part of every home tool kit. You need one to properly hang pictures, install shelves, or accomplish any other task that requires knowing whether a surface is perfectly horizontal (or vertical, in the case of a bullseye level). Just align the bubble between the two lines and you’ve got your horizontal measurement.Sometimes, however, it can be tough to see the bubble—either because it’s too dark where you’re working or your eyesight isn’t what it used to be....

Ryder WashburnNew York, N.Y.Age: 33Years on Job: 11 When Ryder Washburn graduated from college, he had a decision to make: pursue a career in finance or go into the family business—a company called The Specialists Ltd., which provides weapons for films and television shows. “It turned out that doing armory work was a lot more fun,” he says. Washburn started on TV shows such as Law & Order; now, 11 years later, the armorer visits sets along the East Coast, maintaining weapons for The Bourne Ultimatum, Salt and other movies....

Media Platforms Design TeamAn F-16 banks after ejecting a string of flares designed to fool antiaircraft missiles. The military does not discuss details of flares for fear of betraying decoy strategies.It was the biggest UFO sighting in years, witnessed by thousands of Phoenix residents–a string of bright lights that appeared around 10 pm on Mar. 13, 1997, before disappearing over the Estrella mountain range. The Air Force initially claimed that no warplanes were in the area....

Last week, scientists announced in a study in Nature that Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, is spewing water vapor out into space. In fact, this big ball of rock and ice might hold more water than Earth does.It’s a fascinating discovery. Astronomers have knows about Ceres since 1801 (when it was declared a planet, a classification that was retracted a half-century later) without knowing it contained so much water....

Media Platforms Design Team It says something about American culture that when we hear the words “bionic exoskeleton” we instantly think of a device that turns an ordinary man into a superpowered fighting machine. That was evident yesterday at a press conference to demonstrate Honda’s two new assisted mobility devices, the Stride Management Assist and Bodyweight Support Assist. American reporters, myself included, asked Honda’s Japanese engineers if the devices—which are primarily designed to help the elderly move about more easily—have military applications, or if they could help people jump higher, run faster or deflect bullets (okay, nobody asked that last one, but I was thinking it)....

Media Platforms Design TeamBOULDER, Colo. — Volkswagen is finally filling the small crossover void in its model lineup with the all-new 2009 Tiguan. This mini ‘ute, hitting dealerships now, is a meld between the Golf and Passat platforms. But think of it more like a beefed-up Golf than a downsized Touareg. While nestled on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in this outdoorsy town recently, we were curious whether we’d want to sneak in some extra time on-road or off....

The automatic ball-catching and returning device shown in a recent issue of this magazine, designed to give baseball pitchers unlimited practice, recalls a baseball-pitching gun invented some years ago by Prof. C. H. Hinton of Princeton University. This gun, resembling a cannon in appearance and hurling the ball by means of gas shot into its breech from an ordinary repeating rifle, was not designed to take the place of a pitcher in a game, but to give batters an opportunity for unlimited practice....

Media Platforms Design TeamJoining a long list of automakers who have contended with– and ultimately withdrawn from– the U.S. marketplace, Suzuki has announced they will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and exit the U.S. market. The Japanese manufacturer joins a long line of Asian automakers like Daihatsu and Isuzu who have withdrawn from the States, and cites reasons including “… low sales volumes, a limited number of models in its line-up, unfavorable foreign exchange rates, the high costs associated with growing and maintaining an automotive distribution system in the continental U....

Media Platforms Design TeamThirty years ago today, on January 24, 1984, a young Steve Jobs came onstage and introduced a new computer that Apple had been building for years. It was called the Macintosh.Years later, Jobs would become famous for his ability to turn any product launch into a theatrical production, and this early reveal was no different. It incorporated elements you’d expect to see on a magic show: The Macintosh sits on a table onstage, concealed in an opaque carrying case....