Table of contents for January 2015 in Popular Science

Follow us on twitter @popsci Pressure-sensing lenses • You put them in your eyes—on purpose. • They help detect and prevent glaucoma. • They carefully cradle small white spheres. Snowball slingshots • Don’t shoot your eye out! • They defend your fort against invasion. UPDATED Each year, we predict the biggest stories in science and technology for the next 12 months. So, how did we do in 2014? We reported: The U.S. Army would use Field Deployable Hydrolysis Systems (FDHS) to neutralize chemical warfare agents. Tokyo Electric Power Company would build an underground ice wall to sequester contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Infectious diseases like whooping cough and measles would reemerge on a larger scale. What happened: FDHS aboard U.S. ships had disposed of many of Syria’s…

Obsolescence is one of the most annoying problems in technology: You save up to buy the newest piece of hardware only to have it eclipsed by a newer, shinier version just a few months later. What if our electronics were built to evolve instead? That’s the thinking behind Boom Boom, a software-upgradable speaker developed by Binauric. The softball-size unit comes with everything you’d expect from a portable speaker system—3.5mm audio input, Bluetooth connectivity, volume and power buttons—plus four microphones, an accelerometer, and a light sensor. Although there aren’t many uses for those additional components today, Binauric has issued an app that rolls out upgrades to the speaker. “We don’t want to build features without the cooperation of our users,” says Binauric co-founder Detlef Wiese. “We want to see what type…

9.7 Number of active skiers and snowboarders, in millions, in the U.S. 2012–2013 season 1 Uvex Snowstrike VT Goggles Used by fighter pilots, the technology behind Uvex’s variotronic lens can change the goggles’ tint in a tenth of a second. A photocell sensor gauges ambient light and sends a signal to the goggles’ LCD layer, which is sandwiched between two lenses. The electrical impulse automatically triggers the crystals to turn purple, blue, red, or clear—or the wearer can assume control manually. The Snowstrike works for up to four days on an eight-hour charge. $500 2 Black Diamond Hot Forge Hoody This jacket is one of the first to use Primaloft’s Gold Down Blend, a combination of lightweight, warm down and quickdrying synthetic insulation so enmeshed that the two are indistinguishable…

These days you can 3-D print just about anything— a wrist splint, a figurine that looks just like you, even components for rockets. Now food is on the list. One start-up, Natural Machines, began printing savory meals like ravioli and pizza in the fall of 2013. Over in Germany, the 13-year-old company Biozoon has started printing easy-to-swallow pureed foods for senior citizens, molded to look like the real thing. And 3D Systems will launch two commercial food printers, the ChefJet and the ChefJet Pro, this year. That’s all well and good, but 3-D–printed food won’t have much of a future if it doesn’t taste good. So we asked 3D Systems to print out mint and sourapple-flavored candy for the Popular Science staff to try. Like filament printers, the device deposits…

Astronomers recently held groundbreakings for three huge telescopes in five months, the first of which should start observations by 2021. The scopes’ light-collecting mirrors— each 80 to 126 feet across—will dwarf those at the W.M. Keck Observatory, whose twin 33-foot mirrors are the benchmark today. With telescopes this large, one challenge is to develop a design that swings easily across the sky and minimizes the atmosphere’s blurriness. Overcoming these hurdles, engineers have created observatories that will take pictures of the cosmos at resolutions 100 times higher than the current generation of telescopes’. Astronomers will use them to study stars born just after the big bang, detect the expansion of the universe in more detail, and hunt for signs of life on planets around other stars. Even more tantalizing is the…

Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness, affecting some 60 million people worldwide. It’s also highly treatable, if caught early. The disease typically occurs when fluid pressure inside the eye rises, choking the optic nerve and causing irreparable damage. To detect this often sudden shift, a team of doctors at the University of Washington is developing a wireless sensor small enough that it can be attached to a lens and implanted in the eye. It will send data to clinicians in real time through a peripheral device. (Currently, doctors screen at-risk patients every three to four months.) The system may be ready for human trials in as few as five years. How It Works A A silicone replacement lens, similar to the ones used in cataract surgery, contains the device’s…

On May 2, 2011, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)— locked in a steady, predawn orbit above a residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan—transmitted live video of an unfolding military raid to a laptop in the White House Situation Room. There, President Barack Obama and his national security advisers watched as a team of Navy SEALs infiltrated the walled compound and killed its chief resident, Osama bin Laden. By almost any account, the mission was a tremen dous success, but an elemental part of the victory has gone all but unnoticed. The operation might never have happened were it not for a new aircraft, the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, which had been monitoring the location for months. The aircraft’s mere presence over Pakistan was notable. Abbottabad is home to the country’s military…

STATS Time 4 hours Cost $40 Difficulty You don’t need an army to wage an epic snow battle. This sled-mounted slingshot provides a tactical advantage. You can easily haul it from one strategic position to the next as you fire a fusillade of snowballs with accuracy and speed that would impress a general. Flexible rubber tubing acts as a powerful tension spring for flinging ammo, while a midweight sled forms a steady base to stabilize the contraption. Don’t want to turn a perfectly good sled into a weapon? You can easily construct your own base from standard lumber using simple hand tools. WILLIAM GURSTELLE WARNING: Don’t overextend the tubing or fire a projectile at close range. It will hurt. To build the sled base from scratch, see instructions and drawings…

It was 18 years ago this month that Daft Punk released their first studio album, Homework. The electronic-music duo’s robotic persona recently inspired Pedro Ruiz, creative technologist at Adafruit, to do a little homework of his own. It took Ruiz three days, and enough plastic to stretch the length of three football fields, to 3-D print a replica of Daft Punk’s trademark helmets. For extra pizzazz, he added programmable LEDs. Even non-fans can enjoy the helmet, Ruiz says: “It’s great for scaring your small child when they act up!” PRINT IT Customize the 3-D–printing files to fit by measuring your head just above the ears. Get links at popsci.com/printpunk. LIGHT IT Ruiz glued six battery-powered LED strips inside the plastic visor and taped over it before painting the rest of…

When Popular Sciencefeatured the Advanced Technology Bomber on the September 1986 cover, it was before the military revealed what it looked like. As we wrote then, “To those outside the black curtain of Pentagon secrecy, making out the stealth picture is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with only 10 percent of the pieces.” Still, we used those pieces to investigate how the right combination of shape and material could render planes invisible to radar, and the craft we envisioned proved remarkably similar to Northrop Grumman’s B-2, which was unveiled two years later. In this issue, we analyze clues to a new class of stealth vehicles: unmanned autonomous drones, such as the RQ-180, also made by Northrop Grumman. For more about today’s arsenal, turn to page 46. How Aircraft Hide RADAR…

On October 28, an Antares rocket on a resupply mission to the International Space Station exploded 15 seconds after launch in coastal Virginia. Three days later, SpaceShipTwo, the experimental spacecraft from Virgin Galactic, disintegrated 50,000 feet over the Mojave Desert. It was a terrible week for private space: One dead. One injured. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of technology, supplies, and experiments destroyed. Not surprisingly, the incidents set off a round of furious hair tearing and teeth gnashing over the future of private space. Could the nascent industry survive such unmitigated disasters? The answer came less than two weeks later, when Orbital Sciences, which manages the Antares, and Virgin Galactic announced plans to move forward. Orbital had selected a new engine to replace the fl awed AJ26 on the…

1 CAMERA51 Filters improve photos only so much. Camera51 helps before the shutter snaps. The Android app analyzes the subject and surroundings, then guides users toward the ideal frame. It will even fl ag objects that might otherwise ruin a perfect image. Free 2 RYOBI PHONE WORKS INFRARED THERMOMETER Ryobi’s new tool plugs into a smartphone’s audio jack, allowing it to measure temperatures from -22°F to 662°F—in real time, no less. $50 3 EC LYNC SYSTEM If there’s one thing closets and luggage always need, it’s more space. Eagle Creek solved that conundrum with a full-size rolling suitcase that can collapse—frame, wheels, and all—to a fraction of the size. From $280 4 BLADE 98S Wilson’s Blade series is the fi rst set of tennis rackets to incorporate basalt, a natural…

During the broadcast of its championship match, League of Legends, one of the most played videogames in the world, typically attracts more than 30 million viewers. That audience is more than triple the 8.3 million who tuned in to the MTV Video Music Awards last year. So it’s not surprising that Twitch.tv, the most popular video-streaming platform for gamers, attracts more than 1.2 million broadcasters per month. With top Twitch personalities earning six-figure salaries via paid subscriptions and ads, many talented videogame players are beginning to consider streaming a viable source of income. But the community is tough to break into. If you’re ready to get involved in professional gaming, you’ll need the right gear on your desktop. 61.8 Calories burned by an adult playing sedentary video games for one…

The guitar has changed dramatically since 1931—Chuck Berry happened, Elvis happened, even Guns N' Roses happened. Yet, the component that made this evolution possible, the electric-guitar pickup, has remained largely unchanged. In August, guitar-electronics company Fishman launched an entirely new kind of pickup, one that relies circuit boards. Traditional pickups use coiled copper wire wrapped around poles to create a magnetic field. That field registers disturbances as notes and sends them to an amplifier. The Fluence pickup, on the other hand, uses a sandwich of circuit boards to obtain the same effect. The advantage is that circuit boards, unlike copper wire, are programmable. So while a regular pickup will impart one kind of sound, the Fluence can be programmed to reproduce any number of sounds, MATT JANCER The Components Battery…

In 2013, American Airlines replaced its pilots’ kit bags— 35 pounds of paper charts and manuals—with electronic ones stored in iPads. The swap saves at least 400,000 gallons and $1.2 million of fuel annually. If the 150 or so passengers per fl ight on a Boeing 737-800 made a similar calculation, the weight reduction would lead to even greater savings and dramatically lower carbon emissions. Engineers Brian Yutko and Luke Jensen of MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics developed an algorithm that shows the relationship between luggage weight and fuel consumption. To slash 1 percent of fuel—and prevent 427 pounds of carbon emissions— the average domestic fl ight would have to cut 1,750 pounds, or about 11 pounds per person. Here’s what that might look like. 703 Gallons, in millions,…

In December, the Nobel Prize for physics went to the team behind a significant invention: the blue lightemitting diode (LED). While red and green LEDs have been around since the 1960s, figuring out how to make blue diodes bright enough stumped engineers until the early nineties. That advance—enabled by high-quality gallium nitride— quickly led to another. By converting blue light to white, engineers produced the crisp beams now ubiquitous in computer screens and smartphones. More recently, they found yet another application: street lamps. To date, Los Angeles has swapped in 155,000 LED fixtures, a move that has reduced both municipal energy bills and light pollution. Ed Ebrahimian, who directs L.A.’s Bureau of Street Lighting, says the benefits are a no-brainer for cities. “We’re at the tip of an iceberg,” he…

In December 2013, four captive chimpanzees in the state of New York became the fi rst nonhuman primates in history to sue their human captors in an attempt to gain their freedom. The chimps’ lawyers, members of a recently formed organization known as the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), were asking a judge to grant their clients the basic right to not be imprisoned illegally. The NhRP could soon fi le similar lawsuits on behalf of other great apes (bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas) and elephants—beings that have all been shown to possess highly developed cognitive capabilities. The NhRP’s campaign is, not surprisingly, controversial. For many, the very idea of nonhuman personhood is an oxymoron. Others argue that human rights come with societal responsibilities, such as paying taxes and obeying laws, that…

Two years ago, artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg caused a stir in both the art and biosecurity worlds when she displayed busts of people she’d never met. She determined the facial features for her “Stranger Visions” show using DNA found in the streets and subways of New York City. “We are shedding our biological information all the time without knowing it,” Dewey-Hagborg says. “I think anonymity should be a choice.” She devised her next project with that thought in mind. The pair of perfume-like sprays she invented, called Invisible, obscures DNA traces so no one can follow your genetic trail. Stranger Visions Discarded cigarette butts, gum, and hair provided Dewey-Hagborg with DNA, which she tested for genetic variations that reveal a person’s gender, ethnicity, eye color, and facial structure. Software she designed…

Liberate your next electronics project from the constraint of wires and run current through a painted line of graphite instead. A DIY graphite paint won’t conduct electricity as well as a wire or an expensive commercial conductive ink. But it’s perfectly good for connecting LEDs to batteries in fl exible circuits and making a sheet of paper touch-sensitive enough to play like a piano keyboard. JEREMY COOK MATERIALS • Powdered graphite • White vinegar • Syringe • Clear Elmer’s glue STATS Time 2 hours Cost $12 Difficulty INSTRUCTIONS 1 To make the ink, put powdered graphite in a cup, cover with vinegar, and stir. Let it sit for a few minutes. 2 Once the graphite settles on the bottom of the cup, remove the clear liquid on top with a…

Tweet Out of Context Please take a seat. Dr. 10100110111 will be in to see you shortly prior to your surgery. @AbolitionOf WORD TO THE WISE The new question from “A Smarter, Fairer SAT” [November 2014] is redundant. Even without the word intense, clustering means concentrated. If one does not know the words dilettante, pilferer, or raconteur, then that person is not a reader or is too lazy to use a dictionary. What if this person becomes a surgeon operating on the “thingie” next to your “whatchamacallit”? Paul Koskovich, Canton, Ohio APTITUDE TEST Here’s how 310 readers did on our highly abbreviated SAT exam, posted at popsci.com.* The quiz included a verbal and a math question from both the current exam and the forthcoming redesign. Nearly a third of the…

CHEVROLET COLORADO Engine 2.5-liter 4-cylinder Horsepower 200 Fuel economy 22 miles per gallon overall Price from $20,995 Detroit automakers have always dominated the full-size pickup market, but they’ve more or less ceded the midsize one to Japanese automakers Nissan and Toyota. General Motors plans to reclaim it with all-new versions of the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon, which were discontinued in 2012. Although larger than before, the trucks are still much smaller than their full-size counterparts. A midsize Colorado with an extended cab is 17 inches shorter and more than 1,000 pounds lighter than a double-cab Silverado. As a result, the trucks are more maneuverable and get better fuel economy by two to fi ve miles per gallon. The downside is a diminished towing capability, but let’s be real: Only…

Normally, homeowners must choose between two types of snowblowers: a light, maneuverable single-stage model or a large, powerful two-stage one. The 922EXD combines the best attributes of both. The secret is in the auger. Reinforced rubber-edged paddles wipe concrete clean, and a series of 14 serrated surfaces chop heavier compacted snow. Also, the machine’s electric-start engine is guaranteed to work in temperatures as low as –20°F to ensure it boots up in even the coldest blizzards. Now, if we could just get the snowplow to stop barricading our driveways. BRIGGS & STRATTON 922EXD Weight 90 pounds Torque 9 footpounds Engine 205 cc 150 Weight, in pounds, of the lightest two-stage snowblower from Briggs & Stratton…

The IOGraph app turns computer-mouse movement (on a Popular Science designer’s screen [top] and an editor’s [bottom]) into art that reflects motion and idling. The prevailing belief is that this kind of intense mousing can compress the median nerve and cause carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), which affects 3 percent of U.S. working adults. But that connection has been hard to prove. While a February 2014 meta-analysis couldn’t establish a causal link between desk-job activity and CTS, a computer simulation from September showed that mouse use can indeed deform the median nerve. So the debate continues.…

To prepare the Curiosity rover for its trip to Mars, NASA scrubbed it with alcohol and baked it at 230°F. This is part of the agency’s protocol for “planetary protection,” a policy devised in the 1950s to keep earthly microbes from contaminating other worlds. But when scientists swabbed Curiosity just before takeoff, they found 56,400 organisms from 377 bacterial strains. Then, in the lab, researchers tried to take them out by other means: ultraviolet blasts, high pH environments, and dehydration. Still, the majority survived at least one trial unscathed. “Whatever we throw at them, they find a way around it,” says University of Idaho microbiologist Stephanie Smith. Unless scientists can identify the Achilles’ heels of these bugs, missions will keep sending them into space. Here are four ways that could…

No. 01 Wind Power Moves Off shore When crews begin installing high-voltage cables on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, this year, they’ll be laying the foundation for a new era in renewable energy. The power lines will carry electricity from the nation’s first offshore wind farm, Cape Wind. Starting in late 2016, its 130 massive turbines will provide a quarter-million New England residents with 75 percent of their electricity—saving them a projected $7.2 billion over 25 years. U.S. wind farms currently produce up to 61 gigawatts, but most are located in the center of the country, far from the densely populated coasts. By 2020, proposed off shore projects from Maine to Texas could generate another 3 gigawatts, says energy consultant Bruce Hamilton— enough to power more than two million homes. The U.S.…

In a nondescript industrial building near downtown Louisville, Kentucky, in February, a few executives from General Electric Appliances set out to stage the division's first hackathon. Louisville is home to the appliance manufacturer, but rather than hold the contest at headquarters, the executives decided to mount it offsite, in cooperation with the local hacker group LVL1. For the past five years, the group's few dozen members—artists, mechanics, IT folks, hobbyists, and even a few of GE's own engineers—have congregated in a grimy workshop to make such varied projects as weather balloons and a fire-breathing animatronic pony. On that winter weekend, they would get to exercise their creativity a little differently. The hackathon’s rules were simple: GE Appliances donated refrigerators, ranges, and other devices, and over 48 hours, teams raced to…

Hackett is Popular Science’s intrepid DIY columnist In times of chaos, alcohol is a rare commodity that has universally recognized value. It can fuel engines, clean wounds, and ease social interaction. It’s also shockingly easy to make. The first step is fermentation. Yeast cells are not good planners. If you put them in a container fitted with an airlock, they will gobble up sugar and churn out carbon dioxide and ethanol. Within a few weeks, they will fall to the bottom, killed by their own waste. This leaves us with a potent metaphor and, if conditions are right, a beverage of about 5 to 15 percent alcohol. In the past, I have made the mash, or yeast feedstock, from Dumpstered candy bars, a truckload of overripe plums, and an industrial…

Have a burning question? Email it to askanything @popsci.com or tweet it to @PopSci #AskAnything. Do plants get sexually transmitted diseases? Short answer Sure, all the time. Researchers have long known that certain fungal parasites can spread from one flower to another via pollen transfer. And like most animal STDs, plant STDs aren’t usually fatal for the individual host plant. Still, the concept of “sexually transmitted diseases” doesn’t fit neatly into the plant kingdom. For one thing, the infections are not transmitted through direct physical contact, as in animals. Typically, the fungal spores make their way from plant to plant on gusts of wind or by hitching a ride on a pollinating insect. The best-studied plant STD is Microbotryum violaceum, a pathogen that affects flowering plants called campions. Both the…