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Media Platforms Design TeamScientists at Drexel University in Philadelphia garnered a wave of media attention this week when they announced their intention to build working replica dinosaurs by using a 3D printer to create stand-in bones and tissue. By actually creating a working, moving scale model of such an enormous prehistoric creature, paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara and his team hope to gain new insights into dinosaur motion.How It WorksBones preserve. Muscles, ligaments, and cartilage don’t....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat do you consider to be the three hallmarks or trends of future air warfare? What the Air Force will do in the future will be the same as what we do today. It’s how we do them that will change. We perform the same five core missions we’ve been doing since 1947, but now we do them in and through three domains: air, space, and cyberspace. In terms of the battlespace, the most significant trend we see is the increased rate of changethe pace at which disruptive technologies appear and proliferate across the globe....

Our Zune is here, with Microsoft’s big entry into the digital music market set for its official release tomorrow. We’ll post a more detailed review once we can test it with other Zunes, and once we have access to the Zune Marketplace download service, but here are initial impressions from Popular Mechanics’ Upgrade editor:Looks It’s bigger, boxier and less shiny than the iPod. In my book, that’s a bad thing, as is the bizarre brown color and even more bizarre semi-translucent green tones at the corners....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NavCam)Scientists have long been curious just where Earth’s water originally came from, and comets have seemed like an ideal candidate. Not only are these icy wanderers mostly made of water, but we also know that a vast number of them shelled the Earth shortly after the new planet cooled.However, a new study out today from the Rosetta comet mission has thrown a wrench into this theory....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Five-Gallon Bucket:The experts agree on one thing: The secret to a great sand sculpture lies in wet sand and compaction. The sand these masters are working with does not start out wet, so large buckets are a must at the construction site. Fitness is also a key to sand castle success—one sculpture requires hundreds of trips to the water source and back Because of the buckets, fitness is also a key to sand castle success....

The finale of BattleBots aired last night, and if you enjoy technical domination, metal-on-metal violence, and the shrieks of machines dying for human’s enjoyment, hey, bully for you.But for our money, the best robot tournament ever already happened. Hebocon, held in Japan in July of last year, was “a robot sumo-wrestling tournament for those who don’t have the technical skills to actually make robots”—there was even a “high-tech penalty” for any robots that were a little too flashy....

The whole idea behind robotics, flying or otherwise, is to have the machines do the work. But military drones aren’t there yet. Humans may not be in the cockpits of unmanned aerial vehicles, but you still need plenty of people to fly them, in the form of pairs of sensor operators and pilots in Nevada wearing out their wrists as they control a single Predator over Afghanistan.The Pentagon’s dream is to put a fleet of UAVs under the control of a single operator....

The living laser is here. Harvard Medical School optical physicists Seok Hyun Yun and Matjaž Humar have invented a clever way to make single living cells act like lasers.The everyday kind of laser we’re all familiar with works by bouncing light back and forth between mirrors. Indeed, back in 2011 Yun and Humar made an early version of living laser by introducing DNA into a cell that would make it luminesce, then placing the cell between two mirrors and blasting it with light pulses....

Erik Sorto, 32, is paralyzed from the neck down. He is also thinking about giving himself a drink of water for the first time in 10 years. As he pictures using his left arm to lift a cup to his mouth, two tiny silicon chips implanted in his brain receive the unique pattern of brain activity. Outside his head—in an external computer connected to those chips by a wire—a personalized algorithm recognizes that pattern as the imagined movement it is, and a robotic arm grabs the water and brings it to his face....

Media Platforms Design TeamPaul Loebach volunteered to test a DNA vaccine for West Nile virus during a crucial period for preventative study that may even help fend off the bubonic plague. (Photograph by Ethan Hill)The headlines last week were frightening: DENGUE FEVER THREATENS CONTINENTAL U.S., FEDERAL OFFICIALS WARN OF DENGUE THREAT. And while the news is the result of research from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), it hearkens back to the fallout from several years ago, when the West Nile virus threat was on the rise....

Media Platforms Design Team WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.—If the last BMW Z4 looked as though it had a few odd concavities and strange proportions—rest assured that this new one has a design that’s far more elegant and cohesive. And that’s rather fortunate for BMW considering, that its Z4 competes in a roadster segment that’s notoriously superficial. Style sells more than substance here. But hey, this is a BMW, so under that skin there’s a tech-heavy drivetrain and a chassis that’s been honed on the best roads in Europe....

Media Platforms Design Team LEDBURY, England—If there were one major aspect that impresses about the Land Rover, it is the extraordinary breadth of capability shown by the company’s cars, not least the LR4 we sampled in Scotland recently. The scope of every Land Rover’s operation is striking. One moment you’re cruising Britain’s motorways at 80 mph on beautifully damped air springs, ensconced in soft leather, the next you’re nearly door handle deep in liquid mud, scrabbling for a way back onto the path....

Media Platforms Design TeamMazda has finally listened to enthusiasts extolling the virtues of tiny B cars. Because the subcompact that sold 370,000 units in Europe, Japan and Australia since its introduction in 2007 will reach our shores in late summer, 2011. The Mazda2 made a name for itself as a zippy car we simply couldn’t get here in the States. And receiving the World Car of the Year at the 2008 New York Auto Show cemented its status....

Media Platforms Design TeamBeerCloudWe’re big fans of craft brewing. But it seems every bar has turned into a brewpub overnight—stocking shelves with tracks of obscure labels that can be difficult to navigate. The free app BeerCloud provides a directory of nearby breweries and retailers, arms users with tasting descriptions and brand history, and even suggests food pairings. It’s never been easier to become a can-oisseur. BreathometerHad a few craft beers? Reach for the Breathometer ($50), the first smartphone-enabled breathalyzer, and test your blood alcohol level using only your phone and the portable device....

Media Platforms Design TeamThis isn’t the LED lightbulb that’s going to put incandescents and halogens out of business, but the LED Party Bulb from Philips ($4.99 each, available later this month) is an unassuming harbinger. It fits in standard fixtures, is cool to the touch during operation and lasts for up to 50,000 hours. However, it doesn’t emit much light. And that light, unfortunately, is either blue, green, red or amber....

As it turns out, an eye in the sky to make a map for a walking robot to then follow is incredibly handy. It knows where to go before it even starts shuffling thanks to its little drone buddy.The duo of hexacopter (meaning six rotors rather than the typical four) and four-legged robot comes courtesy of a group out of the Legged Robotics Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the cold open to Sunday’s season premiere of Game of Thrones, patriarch and cold-hearted tactical mastermind Tywin Lannister personally oversees the work of one of the best blacksmiths in the kingdom. The task at hand: melting down the broadsword Ice, property of the now-dispatched Eddard Stark, to forge two new blades for the Lannisters.Besides the obvious metaphorical value of melting down your foe’s weapon to make it your own, there’s another driver behind Lord Tywin’s action: Ice is one of the few remaining swords in the Game of Thrones universe known to be made of Valyrian steel, a mystical material that makes the best weapons around....

Media Platforms Design TeamTouchscreen displays are common features in modern cars, but many add frustration instead of easing it. The default explanation is that the technology is new (some of it is), but the first touchscreen system available in a production car dates back to the 1986 Buick Riviera’s Graphic Control Center. Unlike contemporary LCD screens with high-resolution graphics and colors, the GCC was a cathode-ray tube with a green-and-black screen reminiscent of an old ATM’s....

MORE BRAND-NEW TV TIPS FROM PM’S TECH EXPERTS* BUYER’S GUIDE: 7 Steps to Picking the Right LCD TV on Your BudgetAt midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, most television broadcasters will shut down their old analog transmitters for good. And, depending on whom you ask, this will either be the beginning of a bold new era of digital broadcasting or a total disaster that will leave millions of Americans with no access to the most successful form of mass communication ever invented....

View full post on YoutubeThanks to some imaging equipment, NASA finally has a comprehensive view of Greenland’s troubled ice sheet. By unraveling the history, we can learn more about what we might expect as Greenland’s ice sheet melts away thanks to climate change.Operation IceBridge saw aircraft fly over the frigid island, scanning the terrain below with radar that determined the depth of the ice layers by measuring the strength and time of the signal’s return....