Sommaire pour February 2014 de Popular Science

Sometime around the sixth century BCE, the philosopher Heraclitus established a series of doctrines that upended the thinking of the day. By all accounts, Heraclitus was not an easy man to get along with. He derided Pythagoras and Homer as idiots and was referred to as the “Weeping Philosopher” because of his rather dim view of human nature. But for all his quirks of character, Heraclitus did strike upon one fundamental idea: “Nothing endures but change.” In its 141 years, Popular Science has seen its share of change. That's apparent in what we cover, of course. Our magazine has witnessed the birth of modern automobiles, spacecraft, nuclear power, computers, DNA sequencing, the Internet, mobile phones, and Candy Crush. But it's also apparent in the magazine itself. The first issue of…

Over the years, Popular Science has run many contests. Ioana Literat, a communications Ph.D. student at the University of Southern California studied the contests from 1918–1938 and the communities they fostered. Literat usually studies online communities but found the historical analogues weren't so different. Contests Analyzed 1918–1931 Helping out the farmer 1918 What to do with your old tires 1918 What did you do with your old car? 1919 Have you a step-saving house? 1920 Finding new uses for old things 1921 What new uses for electricity have you found? 1921 Best ideas contest 1921–1923, monthly John and Mary Newlywed contest 1925–1926, occasional Best ideas for motorists 1926–1931, monthly data fromThe Popular Science Archive Explorer…

On February 12, RoboCop will step back onto the screen. But unlike a cartoonish steel cyborg, the new Officer Alex Murphy is eerily imaginable. Director José Padilha and production designer Martin Whist were inspired by some of today's most promising (or perilous) science as they conceived the part-human, part-robot peacekeeper of 2028. Rather than clanging metal plates, Whist chose graphene for RoboCop's armor. The lattice of carbon atoms is 200 times stronger and six times lighter than steel. Although graphene is now only produced in small batches, corporations, including Samsung, are researching more efficient ways to produce the material. Today, military and law enforcement agencies can send flying drones to do their dirty work. In Padilha's dystopian future, we'll send robotic people. Although Officer Murphy wants to believe that he…

Q: How did having only one central screw affect the design? A: “The first thing that came to mind was Copernicus, who helped everyone understand that we turn around the sun. The small red dots [on the face] correspond to the six visible gemstones that help set the precision in the movement, and the other dots are the important soldering points. Then we drew lines to unite the points, and we said, ‘Okay, this really looks like a solar system.’ I think we achieved something new: a design that's an evolution of a thought, not just something on a dial.” —CARLO GIORDANETTI, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, SWATCH…

Cars today can see just about anything. They have systems that spot lanes, parked cars, and even animals. But even the best of them can't do what the new Rolls-Royce Wraith can: The luxury coupe's transmission predicts and responds to the road ahead. Engineers linked the eight-speed automatic to the car's onboard navigation. A processor translates turns and on- and off-ramps on any route into shift commands. Because of that, the Wraith squeezes optimal power from its turbo V12 and provides a smoother ride than its predecessor. The system will also improve; engineers are working to include topographical data in calculations, so climbing hills will be as seamless as taking curves. Rolls-Royce Wraith 0–60 4.4 seconds Horsepower 624 Price $284,900…

As people flock to urban centers, engineers will need to figure out how to accommodate them. In 2006, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority started digging a train tunnel beneath Manhattan to connect the Long Island Rail Road, the nation's second busiest commuter train system, to Grand Central Terminal. Where the two systems will meet, at a new station 14 stories below ground, two 85-foot-tall caverns are currently under construction. Expected completion: 2019. 300,000 Trips per day on the Long Island Rail Road…

Physicists at Cornell University found that people in mosh pits behave strikingly similar to gas particles—meaning that the pits move in predictable patterns. We waded through the researchers' paper to find a few concrete takeaways. Moshers, here's how to avoid incurring too much bodily damage: Wait a while before jumping in. The collective speed of the moshers typically spikes early on and then drops off steadily, following a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. Once in the fray, make sure to avoid the middle, where a vortex-like “circle pit” can emerge as people collide and start running in the same direction. When you're ready to get out, don't head directly toward the stage. That area will be tightly packed with bodies. Instead, exit stage left or stage right.…

The world's largest and deepest underwater-walking robot, the 1,400-pound Crabster CR200, was designed to scuttle along the seafloor like a monstrous crustacean. Its possible vocations include scientific explorer, commercial surveyor, and treasure hunter. In fast currents too dangerous for scuba divers, it steadies itself on six legs by putting its head down, raising its rear, and facing the flow head-on. It has 11 cameras, including an acoustic one to see through cloudy, turbulent waters. Engineers at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology held Crabster's first underwater trial last summer. This spring, they plan to test it at maximum depth (656 feet) and then head to the Yellow Sea to help archaeologists excavate 12th-century shipwrecks. A 500-meter-long tether allows Crabster's human operators to remotely control it using joysticks. The…

Though it may seem like an eternity, ski jumpers typically spend just a few seconds in the air. To refine their form at various air speeds and temperatures, jumpers can use a wind tunnel—if they have access to one. Such facilities are scarce and expensive, and so were a rare luxury for U.S. team members before last year. In May, Darko Technologies finished construction of a wind tunnel near the team's base in Utah. The tunnel is primarily used for vehicles racing at the nearby Bonneville Salt Flats, but Alan Alborn, head coach of the women's ski-jumping team, adapted it for his athletes by adding an elevated stand with ski bindings. Darko then custom built a device that projects lift and drag data onto the floor so that ski jumpers…

Of all the events at the Winter Olympics, the skeleton is perhaps the most terrifying. Athletes hurtle down the bobsled track on specially designed sleds, headfirst and at speeds exceeding 80 mph. Losing control could mean serious injury or death, so four companies have been working since 2009 to make an ultra-responsive sled for Sochi. As with the bobsleds, the new skeleton sleds are made of carbon fiber. Engineers built an adjustable frame to enable athletes to change positions more easily, and they fit every sled with a custom-molded steel saddle. “The steering, the aerodynamics—that's all done with our bodies, so the saddle is everything,” says Katie Uhlaender, who hopes to compete in Olympic skeleton for the third time. “I feel like I have a secret weapon with this sled.”…

Ski suits need to keep athletes warm, but they need to do so without slowing them down. “A few hundredths of a second can be a big deal in ski racing, so every advantage you can get is very meaningful,” says Olympian Ted Ligety. Historically, European teams have had the fastest suits, so the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association sought to level the playing field this February. Researchers in its high-performance laboratory analyzed various fabrics with an electron microscope, selecting one that's textured like sharkskin to better manipulate airflow and minimize drag. The new suits are also designed specifically for the course at Sochi. Researchers methodically analyzed speed and GPS data from training runs there and used the information to guide the placement of zippers and seams to minimize drag.…

To date, most known extrasolar planets are gas giants like Jupiter or Neptune. Lacking even a solid surface, they are worlds very unlike our own planet. A true Earth twin must satisfy five characteristics. So far, astronomers have found only one planet with a measured size and mass similar to Earth's: Kepler 78 b, announced last October. A recent study found that most planets smaller than one and a half times Earth's diameter probably have rocky surfaces. Kepler has found more than 1,000 candidates, but they are not yet confirmed as Earth-like. One in every five sunlike stars should have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones, according to a new analysis from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Hawaii. But all Kepler's rocky habitable-zone candidates circle dim…

Detective Jim McClelland clicks a button and the grainy close-up of a suspect—bearded, expressionless, and looking away from the camera—disappears from his computer monitor. In place of the two-dimensional video still, a disembodied virtual head materializes, rendered clearly in three dimensions. McClelland rotates and tilts the head until the suspect is facing forward and his eyes stare straight out from the screen. It's the face of a thief, a man who had been casually walking the aisles of a convenience store in suburban Philadelphia and shopping with a stolen credit card. Police tracked the illicit sale and pulled the image from the store's surveillance camera. The first time McClelland ran it through facial-recognition software, the results were useless. Algorithms running on distant servers produced hundreds of candidates, drawn from the…

The practice of identifying individuals with biological markers dates back more than a century to the first use of a fingerprint as evidence. As computers have grown more powerful, so have matching algorithms, and the field of biometrics has expanded to include everything from swabs of DNA to patterns of speech. The latent prints collected at crime scenes include finger and palm prints. Both can identify an individual, but latent impressions tend to be smudged and incomplete. Last April, the FBI revolutionized print analysis, rolling out the first national palm-print database and updating algorithms to triple the accuracy of fingerprint searches. Matching a suspect's DNA to a crime-scene sample used to mean waiting up to 60 days for lab results. IntegenX recently released RapidHIT technology, which compares DNA in 90…

Imagine a thunderstorm directly overhead, with a flash of lightning and a sudden boom. Double that—boom-boom—and you have an idea of a normal boom sound. Now imagine that same storm rumbling in the distance. That's what a low-boom aircraft would sound like. peter coen, nasa langley research center In my experience, it sounds most like a bass drum struck twice closely together. On a still day, I hear the drumlike ba-boom sound; on a windy day, the sound is muffled and might be more like a ba-oom without as distinctive a two-part signature. bruce holmes, nextgen aerosciences A classic N-wave sonic boom sounds most like a mid-range thunder clap without the after rumble. It gets your attention and may startle, but it is not scary like a very close lightning…

Hetain Patel's sculpture is an ode to two old loves: his first ride—a 1988 Ford Fiesta—and the childhood toys known as Transformers. Patel enlisted his father, Pravin, who converts cars into hearses and limos, to help him slice the automobile into pieces and reassemble them as a bespoke robot. Unlike the fictional automatons that inspired him, Patel's Fiesta Transformer does not move or fight. “The pose is important,” he says. “It's not a warrior. It's an old crappy car.” The Build Time 3 months Cost About $16,000 1,580 LBS. Estimated weight of the Fiesta Transformer…

Chris Hackett is Popular Science's intrepid DIY columnist. He lives in a shrinking vestige of industrial Brooklyn. Say the apocalypse happens tomorrow. The good news: You survive! No more credit card debt or miserable commutes. The bad news? Infrastructure has collapsed and there's no clean drinking water. Most people can't last a few days without it, so what we need is a reliable way to purify some from toxic soup. Distillation covers nearly all bases, freeing H2O of salts, pollutants, microbes, viruses, and other nasties. A common method is moonshine-style, using sealed pots, fire, and complex plumbing. Or it can be done more safely and lazily by harnessing the sun. Solar stills elegantly miniaturize the cycle that draws water from oceans and lakes, stores it in clouds, and returns it…

Ken Murphy, a computer programmer in California, built a rig to photograph the sky once every 10 seconds for a year. The resulting time-lapse video collage is a kaleidoscope of shifting weather patterns. Murphy's project is one of more than 150 featured in The Art of Tinkering (released this month). Karen Wilkinson, one of the book's editors, says it shows time-lapse photography is now more accessible than ever before. “People are even writing apps for it,” she says. True to form, the book includes a guide for mastering the art of time-lapse. CAMERA Recording millions of sequential photos wore through the components of two point-and-shoot cameras in one year. COMPUTER A small computer triggered the camera and saved images to a memory card. It also enabled remote access to the…

Short answer It doesn't taste like nothing. A For thousands of years, philosophers claimed that water had no flavor. It's the baseline for the sense of taste, they said—a starting point and null condition. What water is to tongues, darkness is to eyes and silence is to ears. “The natural substance water per se tends to be tasteless,” wrote Aristotle. In his view, it serves only as the vehicle for flavor. But eventually, scientists began to notice that a draught of pure distilled water could provoke a certain taste. Some found it bitter on the tongue; others said it was insipid. By the 1920s, evidence was mounting that water changes flavor depending on what you happen to have tasted just before. Take a sip of Poland Spring after putting something…

In 1927, the Winter Olympics were in their infancy, having just debuted in 1924. But athletic pursuits on snow and ice, from skating on stilts to sleigh racing, had already developed an enthusiastic fan base. As Popular Science declared in its February issue, “the more dangerous the better!” That year, the first world championships for bobsledding took place in St. Moritz, Switzerland, followed by the Olympics in 1928. There, the U.S. became a leader in the sport, a position it held until the 1950s. Since then, American dominance has slipped; a U.S. team hasn't medaled in men's two-person bobsled since 1952. To gain an edge this year, the U.S. team worked with BMW to engineer a new carbon-fiber sled specifically for the Sochi course. For other ways Olympians harness technology…

This issue, Popular Science debuts its new look, including a redesigned logo. After reviewing many typefaces, Gail Anderson and Joe Newton of Anderson Newton Design found a font that evoked a sense of science and history, Brandon Grotesque. “From there, we made countless alterations,” Newton says. For example, the letters N and A were customized to come to a sharp point to suggest energy and mechanical precision. “It was really satisfying to revisit a field I knew very well but have been away from for a while,” says Popular Science information editor Katie Peek, who wrote about exoplanet research on page 42. Peek has a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and as a grad student, she spent hundreds of nights observing planets and stars. Even now, she designs infographics, including the one…

In November, we covered Vancouver's decision to use levers instead of doorknobs in new homes and apartments. Research shows it would significantly benefit the elderly. The reader reaction took a far more controversial tone than we expected: Welp, we now know where the raptors will head first—once we clone them and fail to contain them on a tropical island. @invisiboninjo via Twitter There starts the decline of our last defense against a zombie apocalypse: the doorknob. Bryan Marshall via Facebook Switched to levers in my house a long time ago to avoid wrist pronation. Carpal tunnel sucks. Heather Karolyne via Facebook God forbid people decide what sort of door hardware they prefer in their houses. Sometimes knobs are preferred when kids and clever animals are around. Chris Ferguson via Facebook…

If you compare the phone in your pocket to the model before it, you probably won't find a lot of change. Maybe a faster processor and a bigger screen, but those are small potatoes. The last time phones underwent any big hardware shift was when manufacturers began swapping dim LCD screens for bright OLEDs a few years ago. This year, another big change is in the works: phones with curved screens. Samsung's Galaxy Round bends in from the sides, and LG's G Flex bows inward from the top and bottom. Apple has also filed a patent for a curved battery, a critical component for a contoured phone. At first glance, curved OLED screens could appear to be just a marketing stunt. But according to Raymond Soneira, an analyst who specializes…

Who wants to be a sweaty mess after biking to work? “No one,” is the answer FlyKly is banking on. The start-up has created an electrified rear wheel that can retrofit onto almost any bike. Pedaling becomes effortless, and co-workers will thank you. The 250-watt motor propels the bike up to 20 mph. Electricity passes into two rings of magnets inside the housing. The current turns the magnets, which drives the wheel. A round circuit board at the center of the housing relays commands to the motor. GPS tracks the bike's location, mileage, and routes; Bluetooth links the system to an app. The 36-volt battery charges in several ways. When the bike coasts, the wheel spins the magnets, which generates current. A socket charges the cells within three hours. When…

In September, Apple debuted the new iPhone 5s. Among the many updates (amazing camera! faster chip!) was the Touch ID sensor. With Touch ID, 5s owners use their fingerprints to unlock their phones and authorize payment for App Store, iTunes, and Newsstand downloads. It's the first mainstream use of biometric security for consumers, which makes Touch ID a nifty feature. Apple says it's secure: Fingerprint data is stored on a quarantined section of the phone's processor, doesn't sync with iCloud, and is blocked from third-party use. But the 5s probably won't be the last device with biometric security. And that brings up a tough question: Have we reached the point where we're giving away more to technology than we're getting in return? Biometric identification is a good thing—in theory. Fingerprints…

The U.S. is still the only country that's sent people to the moon, but more nations are steadily joining us in space. South Korea sent up its first satellite last year. In the fall, India launched a probe that could make it the fourth country to Mars. All told, 13 have done indigenous space missions—that's with spacecraft and rockets they designed and built themselves. Low-Earth orbit Solar orbit Venus Mercury Mars Jupiter Asteroids Saturn Uranus Comets Titan Neptune Moon Sputnik 1 Oct. 1957 Explorer 1 Jan. 1958 Luna 1 Jan. 1959 Pioneer 4 Mar. 1959 Luna 2 Sep. 1959 Vostok 1 Apr. 1961 Mercury Atlas 6 Feb. 1962 Mariner 2 Aug. 1962 Ranger 7 July 1964 Mariner 4 Nov. 1964 Asterix Nov. 1965 Venera 4 June 1967 Apollo 8 Dec.…

For the past five years, Dave Lange has handled all FedEx shipments that require a chartered plane, coordinating deliveries of the big, weird, and extra important. His techniques put your stamps and envelopes to shame. Popular Science:When the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago renovated in 2008, you flew its seven whales to a host aquarium. So how does a whale travel? Lange: Each one is in a metal container, which has a sling, where the whale sits. The box isn't completely filled with water; there's just enough to keep the animal moist. PS:If you're moving many animals together on a plane, how do you decide where to put each one? Lange: The plane has to be balanced, so they have to be in certain positions. But you still want everyone to…

Cataracts, a clouding of the lenses in the eyes, affect some 20 million Americans over the age of 40. Doctors can implant synthetic lenses to fix them, but they have to estimate the right focal power before surgery, so many patients still need corrective lenses afterward. A company called Calhoun Vision invented a synthetic lens that can be adjusted after the eye has healed, using an ultraviolet laser. It has been on sale in Europe for six years, but patients can't get it in the U.S. Sadly, that's hardly uncommon. Scores of medical innovations approved abroad are not available here. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) needs to stop delaying access to medical devices. Part of the problem is that unlike in Europe, which requires devices to be proved safe,…

Don't let the headphones and baggy pants fool you. Snowboarders are intensely competitive. Last fall, members of the U.S. team began recording their velocity, body angle, and G-force with a wearable device to gain an advantage. The Catapult Sports Minimax S4 contains an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer; during training runs in the half-pipe, it takes readings every tenth of a second. Athletes can then match the data to video footage to pinpoint areas for improvement. For example, the data shows that snowboarders experience surprisingly high G-forces when they land tricks—up to 15 Gs, or three times the force Formula 1 drivers feel as they're braking. Knowing exactly when to expect those forces allows athletes to adjust their body position so they don't lose speed going into the next trick, says…

The 2010 Winter Olympics had the same overall injury rate as the Summer Olympics in 2012—for both, it was about 11 percent. But Torbjorn Soligard, an officer at the medical and scientific department of the International Olympic Committee, says severe acute injuries (such as torn ligaments) are more common in the Winter Games because so many of the events involve high speeds. Once scientists target frequent injuries, new safety tools can help mitigate the risks. Snowboard cross Bobsled Aerials Ski cross Ice hockey Short track speed skating Alpine skiing Figure skating Snowboard half-pipe Snowboard slalom Skeleton Ski jumping Curling Cross-country skiing Speed skating Nordic combined Luge Moguls Biathlon Researchers said they alerted the International Ski Federation to the alarming injury rate in women's snowboard cross. A Georgian luge athlete died…

Last February, Ted Ligety became the first skier in 45 years to win three events at the annual World Championships. At Sochi, he is a medal contender for the same three races—the slalom, super-G, and super-combined. Ligety brings both precision and speed to the course, a product of training and immense natural talent. But he also credits his success to a relentless pursuit of the perfect gear. This year you'll be skiing in a new, more aerodynamic suit. How often do your skis change? TL: I work a lot with my ski sponsor, Head, to develop new technologies. We're always tweaking construction—for example, the flex of the ski, how it runs through the snow, where the radius will pull when you turn, and what the rebound energy feels like. For…

The unexpected breadth of planets is teaching scientists more about how solar systems form. The first confirmed exoplanets orbited pulsars. Since planets are unlikely to survive the supernova that formed the pulsar, researchers suspect pulsars capture their planets afterward. Astonomers didn't expect big gaseous planets like Jupiter to orbit close to their host stars. But hot Jupiters—most of the early exoplanets detected—were exactly that. Theorists think they formed farther out and spiraled in slowly. Based on our own solar system alone, astronomers weren't sure planets with sizes between Earth and Neptune could exist. But it turns out that mini Neptunes are quite common. In the solar system, all the planets orbit in the same direction that the sun spins on its axis. But in a few systems—like HAT-P-7—one or more…

Software called ForensicaGPS, developed by Animetrics for law enforcement, can transform a poor 2-D photo into a 3-D model, which can then be run through matching algorithms. 1 This image of the author is particularly challenging for facial-recognition software because the subject is turned away from the camera. 2 ForensicaGPS automatically places up to 40 landmarks on the face corresponding to various features. The user can adjust them to fit. 3 The system builds a wireframe map that can be used to confirm the position of landmarks and facial contours. 4 The subject's image is essentially wrapped around the wireframe model, retaining textures and skin features such as moles. 5 The 3-D—rendered avatar can be rotated to face forward, making it easier for face-matching systems to compare with mug shots.…

Age: Years take a toll on the face. The more time that has passed between two photos of the same subject, the more likely the jawline will have changed or the nose bloomed. Any number of other features can also lose their tell-tale similarities with age. Pose: Most matching algorithms compare the distance between various features—the space separating the eyes, for example. But a subject turned away from the camera can appear to have wildly different relative measurements. Illumination: Dim lighting, heavy shadows, or even excessive brightness can have the same adverse effect, robbing algorithms of the visual detail needed to spot and compare multiple features. Expression: Whether it's an open-mouthed yell, a grin, or a pressed-lip menace, if a subject's expression doesn't match the one in a reference shot,…

When you first meet him, Carl Bass comes off like any other weekend carpenter. Dressed in a worn T-shirt and jeans, he shakes hands with a wooden grip and has a big, brassy laugh. His workshop is a warren of lumber and hammers and idle projects. A half-built chair sits here. A sculpted Styrofoam head there. But Carl Bass is no ordinary carpenter. He's the CEO of Autodesk, a $10-billion company that makes AutoCAD, the standard software used by engineers to digitally design such products as cars, airplanes, and skyscrapers. And his maker space is no ordinary garage. First, it's huge. His wood shop alone occupies 20,000 square feet—and he's got a comparably sized metal shop down the street. Second, it's sophisticated. 3-D printers sit among the band saws and…

Clean the Bathroom Like scrubbing bathtubs? Neither do we, so cut the required elbow grease with a power scrubber. Drill through the center of a circular tub brush. Then drive a threaded bolt through the hole so the threaded end pokes out of the handle. Add a washer and secure it in place with a nut. Pop the end of the bolt into the drill head, tighten the grip, and enjoy cleaning the bathroom for once. Perform a Root Canal Dentists polled by the Chicago Dental Society say they've treated patients who tried to self-administer a root canal using power tools—tried being the key word. WARNING: Always wear gloves and safety glasses while drilling. And when we say something is a bad idea, we mean it.…

Conductive inks make it easy to draw circuits on almost any surface, including paper. Popular Science used a carbon-based paint to animate this amorous robot, but other products use emulsified metals, such as silver, to carry a current. Whatever your artistic preference, skip the greeting card aisle this year and put an extra twinkle—quite literally—in your sweetheart's eye. MATERIALS (PER CARD): INSTRUCTIONS: TOOLS: Scissors, pencil, wire cutters, black pen, clear tape 90 MIN.Approximate time to build this project Cost: A few dollars Difficulty: 1 heart out of 5 hearts Printer paper White card stock Red card stock Two 3mm high-efficiency LEDs (for eyes) Conductive ink (10ml makes about six cards) Two 3V coin batteries (type CR2025 works well) Print the stencil onto the printer paper and cut it out, leaving…

Shields are small, stackable circuit boards that plug into Arduino microcontrollers and grant useful new abilities. But buying just one shield for Wi-Fi or GPS, for example, can triple a project's cost. Enter the 1sheeld: a $50 device that borrows a smartphone's sensors and processing power to create virtual shields. 1sheeld sits atop an Arduino and communicates wirelessly with a phone. Users then use an app to “stack” digital shields and commandeer the phone's sensors. The Egyptian start-up Integreight plans to ship the first units to its crowdfunders in May.…

Short answer Snot is worse than spit. A Different diseases affect different fluids in the body, so it's hard to give a simple answer to this question. HIV, for example, shows up at infectious levels in blood, semen, vaginal and rectal secretions, and breast milk. But an HIV-infected patient's sneeze or spit poses very little danger. On the other hand, the germs that cause conjunctivitis, or “pink eye,” come out in tears, and the virus responsible for mononucleosis swims around in the saliva. If we limit the discussion to our most common germs, spit turns out to be relatively harmless. Rhinovirus, which causes up to half of all colds, multiplies in the cells that line the nose and upper respiratory tract. As a result, the easiest way to transmit a…

I was surprised that the article [“Penny Power” December 2013] did not include a disclaimer reminding readers that defacing U.S. currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 331 of the United States Code. The article encourages readers to render the pennies unfit for circulation, which is punishable by a fine or imprisonment or both. Mike Abelson St. Louis Park, Minn. Editor Dave Mosher responds:It is true that defacing currency can be illegal. However, in the U.S., it is perfectly legal to mutilate a coin as long as there is no fraudulent intent. The U.S. Code section our reader cites was enacted to prevent people from making cheaper coins look like more valuable ones—not to prevent them from building little DIY batteries.…

At a time when screens are being integrated into everything, Skully engineers saw an opportunity to upgrade something that's remained largely unchanged for decades: the motorcycle helmet. The P-1 is the first helmet with a digital head-up display. The one-inch screen sits at the right-hand edge of the driver's field of view and projects a live feed from a 180-degree rear-facing camera, eliminating the blind spots that plague other helmets. The system can also broadcast turn-by-turn directions and pair with a smartphone to read back text messages, so the rider's eyes can stay glued to the road. Rear camera viewing angle 180 degrees Battery life 9 hours Safety approval DOT and ECE certified Price Not set…

Say good-bye to CAPTCHA, the boxes of warped text that separate humans from bots online. AI company Vicarious claims to have developed an algorithm that can pass the test about 90 percent of the time. What will save us from spam now? These alternatives could come to a site near you. Validate your user name with a confirmation code sent to your phone or e-mail. Solve puzzles, draw shapes, or describe pictures. If a form is filled out and submitted faster than is humanly possible, the bot is denied access. Programming hidden to humans but visible to bots tricks a nefarious algorithm into identifying itself and subsequently blocks it. Using a device's camera, a program analyzes gestures to determine whether you're flesh and blood.…

Simply put: It's a new standard that merges many home-theater connections into one. With a little more detail: It allows users to connect all their components—cable box, A/V receiver, Blu-ray player, and so on—into an HDBaseT switch box and tuck everything away in a closet or cabinet. The box pipes video, audio, Internet, and up to 100 watts of power to your HDTV through a single Ethernet cable. A dongle can update existing TVs to receive the signal; the first compatible sets are starting to hit the market.…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk bought the submergible Lotus Esprit prop car James Bond drove in The Spy Who Loved Me. Musk plans to convert it into a functioning submersible. Toyota recalled more than 800,000 Camrys, Avalons, and Venzas after several faulty airbag deployments. In one case, spiderwebs blocked AC drainage, creating puddles that caused the airbag electronics to malfunction. On October 19 and 20, Ed Bolian drove a Mercedes CL55 AMG 2,813 miles from New York City to Los Angeles in 28 hours and 50 minutes, breaking the previous record by more than two hours.…

Part of what makes cancers so insidious is that they're not invaders: They're our own cells turned against us. That means the body usually doesn't see them as a threat. But over the last few years, researchers have been programming peoples' immune systems to recognize and destroy cancer. So far, clinical trials of about a hundred terminal leukemia patients have shown some lasting effects. A single treatment has kept two of them cancer-free for three years and counting—after everything they tried had failed. Applying the technique to more cancers requires finding new targets to attack, says Michel Sadelain, an immunologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center who pioneered the approach. Exploratory clinical trials, including for lung and prostate cancers, are getting under way. Capture T cells (the immune system's attack force)…

In recent years, researchers have only just begun to understand how dangerous concussions are—and why. This knowledge has been fueling the debate about football safety. As the Super Bowl approaches, here's where the numbers stand. 1.6–3.8MILLION Concussions in the U.S. every year from professional and recreational sports $765 MILLION Amount the NFL agreed to pay to thousands of retired players for damages from concussion-related health problems as part of a 2013 settlement. It's likely that in exchange, the league won't have to disclose how early it knew that neurological damage is linked to concussions. $9.5 BILLION NFL revenue, 2012 ROOT WORD (LATIN) concutere—to shake violently Repeated head injury increases the risk of Alzheimer's disease and its signature protein plaques in the brain.…

Medaling in the Olympics requires outstanding physical ability and rigorous training. But sometimes that's not even enough. Particularly in the Winter Games, technology—flawlessly designed for speed and safety—can mean the difference between standing on the podium and watching from the stands. To prepare for the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, the U.S. team worked with scientists and engineers to develop a suite of high-performance gear, giving athletes the edge they need to bring home the gold.…

No American has medaled in the men's two-person bobsled since 1952 or won gold since 1936. So after the 2010 games, the U.S. team recruited engineers from BMW to completely overhaul its sled. They replaced the typical fiberglass body with one made of carbon fiber similar to the material developed for the new BMW i3. That freed up about 15 pounds, which the engineers redistributed to lower the sled's center of gravity, making it faster. The Sochi bobsled course is one of the most technical in the world, with sloping turns and three uphill sections. Drivers will need to steer skillfully to reach a medal-worthy top speed of 80 to 90 mph. “Once the push is complete, they can't accelerate or brake like they would in a car,” says BMW…

Within Russia, Sochi is known for its pleasant subtropical climate, which presents obvious challenges for a competition that revolves around ice and snow. During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, another relatively mild site, snow cover was so poor that some of the ski and snowboarding courses had to be built up with straw bales first. To avoid a similarly embarrassing fate, organizers for the 2014 games hired the Finland-based logistics company Snow Secure. Its technicians homed in on the ski-jumping venue (altitude: 2,300 feet) as the site most likely to lack snow and developed a three-pronged strategy to ensure good coverage. In 2013, workers pushed about 28 million cubic feet of artificial and natural snow into massive piles and covered it with thick reflective blankets to reduce melting. Snow…

Astronomers announced they had discovered planets around other stars—the first so-called extrasolar planets—in 1992. Other discoveries came a few years later, one by one at first and then in a steady stream by the mid-2000s. The Kepler mission turned that stream into a flood; when its data is fully mined, it will have more than quadrupled the size of the exoplanet catalog. As that mission wraps up, astronomers are taking stock. Early analysis hints that although true Earth twins are thus far elusive, they're probably common. It's just a matter of looking deeper, longer, and smarter. Each circle represents an extrasolar planet discovered since 1992, arranged vertically by mass. Kepler exoplanets [right] are arranged by size—their masses have not yet been measured. Size indicates the host star's distance from Earth.…

TRANSITING EXOPLANET SURVEY SATELLITE (TESS) LAUNCH: 2017 TESS will search for easy-to-see exoplanets around nearby stars across the whole sky. It's a shallower survey than Kepler's single-spot four-year stare, but it will cover much more ground. “It's going to pick all the low-hanging fruit,” says Josh Winn, TESS's deputy science director. JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE LAUNCH: 2018 The Hubble heir apparent will be seven times as powerful and will study individual exoplanets with enough detail to learn about their atmospheres. It will also take pictures of some directly. STARSHADES LAUNCH: UNSCHEDULED For truly detailed observations, astronomers will need to block the light of the star so they can see the planet more clearly. Multiple teams are developing a space-based starshade that would align itself to an orbiting telescope precisely enough…

When a shopper enters Reebok's flagship store in New York City, a face-detection system analyzes 10 to 20 frames per second to build a profile of the potential customer. The algorithms can determine a shopper's gender and age range as well as behavioral and emotional cues, such as interest in a given display (it tracks glances and the amount of time spent standing in one place). Reebok installed the system, called Cara, in May 2013; other companies are following suit. Tesco recently unveiled a technology in the U.K. that triggers digital ads at gas stations tailored to the viewer's age and gender. Face detection shouldn't be confused with facial recognition. Cara extracts data from up to 25 faces at once, but it doesn't record or match them against a database.…

On an October afternoon in 2003, a Concorde airliner descended from a cloud-dappled sky and touched down at London's Heathrow Airport. The plane had taken off from New York's JFK International Airport just three and a half hours prior, carrying 100 people who'd come to celebrate the end of an era. Since 1976, the supersonic aircraft had flown thousands of passengers around the globe at speeds exceeding Mach 1.0—the speed of sound—but this would be Concorde's last commercial flight. By sundown, the age of supersonic passenger travel rolled to a complete stop, where it has remained ever since. Concorde's retirement is often attributed to a crash that killed 113 people shortly after takeoff from Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport in 2000. In reality, the world's most successful supersonic passenger jet…

“I bought this gigantic drum and disk sander at Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects shop that did Star Wars. It's from 1940 and can sand anything.” “It's fun and easy to use. I typically use it to make baseball bats and chair legs and poles.” “I found a set of Stanley chisels on Ebay. They were used when I got them, but I sharpened them up, and now I use them on everything.” “I built them myself 35 years ago. It's nice to have built a tool more than three decades ago and still use it.”…

Q: “COULD I PUT A METHANE SENSOR ON MY DOG TO LOG WHERE AND WHEN IT POOPED?” —customer who called SparkFun, a microelectronics company A: “You'd need more than a methane sensor. The final project would also require a GPS module, a wireless transmitter, a battery, and more. Even then, you'll have to search for the poop after the sensor goes off and the dog moves—unless you added a data-logging device to geotag poop sites. But that's a lot of electronics for one dog to wear.”…

Most smartwatches constantly pester their wearers about appointments, e-mails, or even calories they have left to burn. Aisen Caro Chacin, who teaches physical computing at the Parsons New School for Design in New York, has built one that doesn't blast stressful reminders. Hers instead subtly augments her chronoception, or sense of time. Called Scent Rhythm, the wrist piece releases fragrances that she associates with waking up, being active, relaxing, and sleeping. “Olfaction and chronoception are both chemical senses, so I thought it would be interesting to map them onto one another,” Chacin says. Here's what makes her watch tick. SCENT ISN'T KNOWN TO AFFECT TIME PERCEPTION. “BUT IT'S A FUN IDEA,” SAYS ERIK HERZOG, A NEUROPHYSIOLOGIST AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS WHO HAS STUDIED OLFACTION AND THE CIRCADIAN RHYTHM…

Raphael Pirker turned his hobby of flying first-person-view (FPV) aircraft into a career. We asked how he did it so that you might too—if and when the U.S. government ever lightens up. HOW'D YOU GET STARTED? My uncle got me into model planes as a kid in Switzerland, so I had some models lying around when I first heard about FPV aircraft in 2007. I spent the next four years building and flying them for fun. HOW DOES IT PAY THE BILLS? My friends wanted FPV aircraft but didn't know what to buy. So in 2011, I helped launch Team BlackSheep Avionics, an FPV aircraft developer and retailer in Hong Kong. Clients also hire us to shoot footage for commercials, building inspections, and agriculture. WHAT'S NEXT? There are big opportunities…

Short answer Yes, but it's usually benign. A In animals, a tumor develops when a cell (or group of cells) loses the built-in controls that regulate its growth, often as a result of mutations. Plants can experience the same phenomenon, along with cancerous masses, but it tends to be brought on via infection. Fungi, bacteria, viruses, and insect infestation have all been tied to plant cancers. Oak trees, for example, often grow tumors that double as homes for larvae. The good news for plants is that even though they're susceptible to cancer, they're less vulnerable to its effects. For one thing, a vegetable tumor won't metastasize. That's because plant cells are typically locked in place by a matrix of rigid cell walls, so they can't migrate. Even when a plant…