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Media Platforms Design TeamWho comes to the rescue when your car breaks down? Most drivers have some form of roadside assistance coverage, through a car manufacturer, a car insurance company, or the American Automobile Association (AAA). Surprisingly, though, the same tow truck could come to help someone covered by any of these polices.That’s because car manufacturers and insurance companies typically buy roadside assistance programs from third-party companies. These third-party companies buy contracts from individual towing companies across the country and then act as one-stop shops for companies looking for roadside assistance programs for their customers....

View full post on Youtube"Some people, they’ll come here, they’ll say ‘What do you do?’ I just say, ‘I’m doing it right now.’“That’s Artie Barkley, a local resident featured in this National Geographic video about the National Radio Quiet Zone, extolling the virtues of one of the most peculiar and peaceful places in America.Pocahontas County in West Virginia is home to the Green Bank Telescope, a marvelous piece of machinery that surveys the skies for radio signals from across the universe....

When it comes to flying America’s newest fighter aircraft, waifs need not apply. However, it’s not because the Pentagon only oversized, muscle-pound pilots in the F-35. A combination of ejection seat and helmet issues have forced the Air Force to prohibit pilots who weigh less than 136 pounds from flying the F-35 until some new design solutions can be implemented. So far the restriction, announced in October, is more just another weird hiccup for the F-35 program than it is a major inconvenience....

Media Platforms Design TeamUse the DishwasherOdd as it may seem, studies have shown that in households with two or more people, a dishwasher uses less water than washing dishes by hand. To get the most significant savings, scrape your dishes clean, don’t prerinse them, and run the dishwasher only when it’s completely full.Showers, Not BathsThe average bath uses between 30 and 50 gallons of water. And that’s if you only fill the tub once—most bathers add more hot water as the bath water cools....

An Air Force reserve unit that can spray chemicals that break down oil is on standby, awaiting presidential approval to spray the slick that has threatened the Gulf Coast for days, officials say. The 757th Airlift Squadron 910th Airlift Wing is the only defense department asset that has large fixed-wing airplanes, modified C-130 transports, that can conduct aerial spray missions. These usually involve spraying pesticides to protect U.S. troops from insect-borne diseases, a mission the Air Force has conducted since the 1970s, but the 910th has also more recently been training to combat oil spills by spraying the surface with chemicals that breaks down oil molecules....

Back in 2010, European budget airline Ryanair floated an idea: What if they charged customers to pay to use the restroom? Or just removed the bathrooms all together, and put in some extra seats? (Ryanair has a history if seeing just how many frills in can remove from flying—it’s also proposed standing-room only flights, having passengers load their own luggage into airplanes, and eliminating the position of co-pilot, so all planes fly with just one pilot....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe spring of online security holes continues. Just in case you didn’t get your fill of Heartbleed and the ongoing woes of Internet Explorer, there’s a new security weakness making waves today: a vulnerability in the login tools OAuth and OpenID.If you’re ever seen registered for a web service and it offered you the opportunity to log in via Facebook, then you’ve seen OAuth at work. OAuth and OpenID are both open standards that provide a secure way to log into a third-party website with your credentials from a site such as Facebook or Twitter....

In 2006 the Capitol Christmas tree was adorned with 100 percent LED lights, and the following year the Christmas tree at New York’s Rockefeller Center went LED. Yes, the time-honored tradition of hanging Christmas lights has undergone a major shift, and a decade later we’re still grappling with the fact that LED Christmas lights are here to stay—and waxing poetic about bubble lights and over-sized colored bulbs. Fear not, for the latest crop of LED lights offers a softer glow, but you’ve got to do some research to find them....

Media Platforms Design TeamA Lun-class ekranoplan, one of the Soviet aircraft that inspired Rutan’s project.Renowned aircraft engineer and designer Burt Rutan, who officially retired in April 2011, reveals exclusively to Popular Mechanics today that he has devised “a new concept for a seaplane that may allow for operation from any surface: water, snow, grass, and hard surface.“Reports proliferated in late 2011 that the 69-year-old founder of the innovative aerospace research firm Scaled Composites was working on a seaplane that he could use to go lake-hopping near his new home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the fall of 1970, General Motors’ Chevrolet Division put the new Vega small car on sale. It was good-looking, conventional in most of the ways that matter and priced keenly against the competition. Compared to Ford’s also then-new, awkwardly proportioned Pinto, it was sleek. And up against the Japanese and German alternatives, it seemed substantial and more comfortable. Its success was both inevitable and a harbinger of all that would come to trouble GM....

Home maintenance isn’t restricted to repairs. In fact, certain tasks– when performed regularly–may actually prevent things from breaking in the first place. But when things do go wrong (and it’s inevitable that they do), we have some backup plans that you can try before you grab the phone to call for pro. Appliances and plumbing are the most frequent offenders, but they also often can be the simplest to care for....

PM contributor Leslie Sabbagh writes in to remind readers to watch HBO’s documentary Baghdad ER (which aired on Sunday evening and will re-run this Friday). The program follows medics in the 86th Combat Support Hospital (CSH), and includes appearances by several medics highlighted in Sabbagh’s “Birds of Mercy,” her account of her time flying with the 50th Medical Company, 101st Airborn Division, excerpted below. —B. ChertoffThe voice is flat and uninflected but its effect is electric: “Medevac, medevac, medevac....

Media Platforms Design TeamLego world, meet the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lego just announced a kit for this amazing S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier straight out of the The Avengers.It takes 3,000 pieces to build such a behemoth skycarrier. The set will set you back to the tune of $349.99, but hey, we’re talking about a spectacular Marvel kits that looks awesome as hell(icarrier). Plus, the original idea came from the Lego Ideas site, courtesy of user YoSub Joo, proving that sometimes dreams really do come true....

Media Platforms Design TeamMassachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (L) speaks with Pam Hatchfield, Head of Objects Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as she displays a silver plaque inscribed by Paul Revere. (All Photos by Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images)The time capsule found in Boston that dates back to 1795 and was supposedly placed by Sam Adams and Paul Revere has been unsealed by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and its centuries-old contents unveiled to the world....

Media Platforms Design TeamSavage tornado-spawning storms ripped across the southern and southeastern United States last week, killing at least 340 people and leaving thousands hurt or homeless. Meteorologists have graded two of the around 225 confirmed tornadoes as EF-5, the strongest category on the Enhanced Fujita scale. Winds whirl in these monsters at more than 200 miles per hour. But it doesn’t take such rare, finger-of-God twisters to tear a structure apart....

Media Platforms Design Team Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, but the Christmas season officially began today—at least here in New York City—with the installation of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Problem is, how do you install a monster tree in the middle of a crowded plaza? With about 10 guys, a crane, cables and a little eyeballing. Bob Gerosa, a third-generation rigger, runs the family business that erects the tree each year....

Media Platforms Design TeamWeapons Against Waste: Switchable power strips let you kill juice to components you’re not using. An HDMI switch routes AV signals around your home theater receiver when you’re not using it. A wattmeter identifies the worst power offenders. Save the home theater for when you’re watching movies. No need to waste watts during the morning news. Multichannel surround-sound systems can bring a stunning theater-like soundscape to your living room....

There are 3,000 tons of space junk in orbit around Earth, and that junk will become a big problem down the road when important orbits get clogged with derelict satellites or fragments imperil important probes. The problem needs to be taken care of before it’s a bigger problem. There are a lot of proposals out there. Giant magnets. Giant fishing nets. Space vacuum cleaners. But Japan’s RIKEN, a network of research labs, wants a solution that’s a little more high tech....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf you’re enough of a geek, no card reader will ever impress you. If anything, card readers can be an invitation to scoff, like when they’re touted as special features on high-end HDTVs or the more expensive version of the Playstation 3. But show the average person Kingston’s MobileLite 9-in-1 Card Reader, and the reaction is unanimous: Hey, that’s a great idea.This double-sided, jumpdrive-size reader has three card slots, so you can simultaneously load an SD, miniSD and microSD card, then plug it into a computer’s USB port....

Media Platforms Design Team(Illustration by Michael Tschernjajew) cellpadding=“0” cellspacing=“0”>1. Shepherding SpacecraftRather than commission expensive new devices for the shepherding spacecraft, the team beefed up non-aerospace technology, including near-infrared spectrometers designed for carpet recycling and Nascar engine-block thermal-imaging equipment.2. CentaurThe Atlas V’s empty upper fuel stage, called Centaur, smashed into the permanently dark Cabeus Crater on Oct. 9, 2009, blasting a swimming-pool-size hole and ejecting a 6-mile-high plume of vapor and dust that had not seen sunlight for more than a billion years....