Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i Popular Mechanics

You might have noticed the new logo on the cover of this issue of Popular Mechanics. The bold letters comprised in our name, the clean lines, the capital letters. Or maybe you didn’t notice. That would be just as well, because it would signal that our new logo suits us, that it’s a natural fit. That was the idea. The typographer with whom we collaborated to create it, Henrik Kubel, is the current master of making the alphabet look beautiful in any language— his recent projects include everything from new fonts for The New York Times Magazine to a redesign of the signage in the entire Moscow subway system. In the rarefied world of typography, the guy’s an animal. For our new logo, we looked at our history and found…

Four millennia into the study of anatomy, new body parts are discovered at about the rate that comets buzz the earth, often with a similar amount of fanfare. The last one, in 2013, was a knee ligament. Before that, it was a microscopically thin layer of eyeball. This summer Antoine Louveau, Jonathan Kipnis, and their colleagues at the University of Virginia School of Medicine discovered a possible piece of anatomy worth a great deal more excitement: a section of the immune system that reaches into the brain. The discovery was a viral news story for two days—“Lymphatic Vessels Extend Into Brain!” To many, it was another comet, but to scientists who study an unmapped, last-frontier kind of system like the brain, a discovery like this upends fundamental theories, the same…

The first time I tasted rot—as in real, funky, fully formed mold—I was not in any condition to legitimately evaluate it. I had put away one too many drinks and figured I should eat something, so I headed into a dark kitchen, grabbed a slice of bread from the bread box, and chased it down with a glass of milk. Two seconds later I realized something was horribly wrong. I turned on the lights and saw that the bread, like my judgment, was fuzzy. There’s a rather large difference between rotten bread and something that’s deliciously and intentionally rotted. The terms that describe the latter include dry-aged, fermented, and ripened, but they all refer to the same thing: creating the unique conditions under which desirable microbes can flourish, transforming a…

MODEL: MASTER PITCHING MACHINE MP-6 PRODUCED: KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI TIME TO DISASSEMBLE: 5 HOURS, 34 MINUTES NUMBER OF PARTS:644 NOTES: In the early 1950s Paul Giovagnoli owned two driving ranges in eastern Kansas, and thought batting cages might be a good addition. When he had trouble tracking down the company that made them, Giovagnoli decided to build his own. In his apartment. The homegrown construction project got him evicted, but it was the beginning of Master Pitching Machine, which became the company his children run today. While other machines use spinning wheels to shoot balls through the strike zone, the arm action of Master Pitching’s “Iron Mike” pitching machines approximates a human pitching motion, which makes for better batting practice. PITCHING MECHANICS Like a human pitcher, the Iron Mike has…

Joe Miller built his family’s home in Peacham, Vermont, himself. On their small farm he’d put his young son and daughter to work forging door hinges and hooks in his blacksmithing shop or assembling cabinets and drawers for carpentry projects. Joe used horses—no tractor— to haul wood from the forest behind the farm. To tend to those horses, he accumulated piles of horseshoe rasps, the high-carbonsteel files used to maintain hooves. Joe’s daughter, Chelsea, was watching. When her father fell ill for a spell in 2011, Chelsea, now grown, returned home to Vermont from New York. In between caring for her father, she helped her brother make a hunting knife from one of the old rasps. Then she tried making a knife herself, reviving the blacksmithing skills she’d picked up…

Keeping a team of astronauts fed for a three-year trip won’t be easy, especially without Tang. According to Doug Ming, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, one solution NASA is researching is growing plants in transit and on the surface of Mars. They’ve already developed a full list of twenty-three crops that, along with being hearty enough (with some tweaks) for the Martian environment, will create a nutritionally balanced vegetarian diet for the astronauts. On the menu: carrots, mushrooms, onions, peas, peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and more. Even strawberries. Space crops will work double duty, providing food for the crew and regenerating oxygen through photosynthesis in artificial Earth environments. Some may be genetically modified for the cramped conditions of space life. (Wheat, for example, can be manipulated to…

FOR THOSE WHO PREFER WOOD-TRIMMED SECURITY As a single guy with no roommates and a freight-car-sized apartment in New York City, I don’t need much in the way of security— just something to tell me if someone has broken in, really. That’s why the Withings Home ($200) has been perfect for me. Similar to security cameras like the Canary, the Home comes with a 1080p motion-sensing camera capable of 135 degrees of viewing, a microphone, and an air sensor, which has already alerted me several times to spikes in volatile air compounds. Good to know! My only gripes have to do with the image quality—a bit blurry—and the absence of an automatic timer to turn alerts off according to my daily schedule. I always forget to manually do that, which…

The obsession started when I bought my first Nest product. I have a weekend house, and I was always worried about whether I had left the heat on. So I picked up a Nest thermostat to control the temperature when I wasn’t there. It was just amazing to me how well it worked. After that I had to buy every smart product known to man. First was a Dropcam security camera (which is now owned by Nest, which is now owned by Google). I put it in my living room and was instantly fascinated with watching my empty house for hours, especially the birds outside. If a bird flew by the window, I’d get a notification and would sit in front of the computer at work and freak out. I…

1. CHOOSE YOUR LOCATION A room that everyone can get to quickly and fit in comfortably is ideal. Try to pick a space that has as few exposed interior walls as possible. If you live alone, a walk-in closet or bathroom is good. For families, a master bedroom works. 2. CONSIDER THE WINDOW If your designated safe room is on an upper floor, having at least one window that fully opens is beneficial. A stashedaway escape ladder will allow you to exit if need be. 3. REINFORCE YOUR DOOR Interior doors tend to have a hollow core and are easy to kick in. Replace yours with a solid wood door that uses pinned hinges and swings out. The extra resistance from the doorjamb will make it harder to kick in.…

Ripping Bar To remodel you need a ripping bar. It’s got a cat’s paw at one end for digging out nails, and a V-notch chisel and nail slot at the other. You can do everything with it from lifting shingles to dismantling wall framing. Sawzall There will be a lot to cut: nail-studded framing lumber and cast-iron pipe, shingles, tree branches, even roots. Only one tool handles all that, the mighty reciprocating saw. Our vote is for the famous Milwaukee Super Sawzall. Framing Hammer The solid-steel framing hammer is nearly unbreakable. When you’re madly tearing out lumber in a con-fined space or driving a nail somewhere you’re sure to hit the handle, you’ll be glad you have this puppy. Oscillating Multitool Although demolition and remodeling can be a savage business,…

Some 20 percent of the ice in the Arctic is expected to melt by 2050, opening about a million square miles of valuable terrain to shipping, oil drilling, mining, and tourism— all of it located in one of the few places on the planet without an owner. “There are many competing claims, and whoever can enforce the claims will reap the benefits of the resources,” says Sim Tack, a military analyst with the global intelligence and advisory firm Stratfor. The high north is also valuable from a military standpoint, and with no treaties prohibiting the deployment of weapons there, nations around the Arctic Circle—including the United States, Norway, Canada, Sweden, and Russia—are sending up equipment and vehicles to develop a presence. “Demonstrating the ability to deploy forces into the Arctic…

Late last summer Mary Pat Knadler, a research fellow at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company, received an email that made her concerned that she was going to annoy her colleagues. For ten days she and 179 other employees at her Indianapolis office would not be able to use Outlook between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. “I work with people around the globe. That’s a time when I am very productive,” Knadler says. Even through multiple time zones, when she sends an email, she knows the person on the other end will see it as soon as he’s available. And vice versa. Conversation Starters for Smart People Date of the first email: 1971 Number of emails sent each day: More than 205 billion Why do email addresses contain the @…

I didn’t have toys growing up. I had tools. My father was a sign-maker, and his workshop was our toy chest. Although back then all I wanted was a Barbie, I realize that my parents did me a favor: All of the work I did with my dad not only helped me get my first jobs as a contractor (which helped me make enough money to record my first album), it taught me how to be creative. Even as a full-time musician, I still love to play with wood. Last summer I salvaged a huge wooden door to put on my house, and recently I’ve been drawing up plans to build a dumbwaiter. The first thing to remember with any reclaimed wood is to make sure the salvage fits the…

Ask any Italian-American from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, to Pittsburgh about his grandpop’s homemade liqueurs, and you’ll likely get a wide grin. Despite their fancy name, these libations are surprisingly easy to make, and remain a culinary staple for many European immigrants with backyard gardens. But lately, across the country liqueurs are moving beyond ethnic enclaves and into the mainstream. Unlike the big strokes of craft spirits distilled from limited ingredients, liqueurs are incredibly nuanced, expressing the vast diversity of the plant world: fruits, flowers, barks, herbs, spices, seeds, roots, and nuts. Syrupy and intense, they are designed for sipping, not shooting. With vivid colors and heady aromas, liqueurs can be throwbacks to medieval magical potions made from elaborate secret recipes: Chartreuse, an 18thcentury French liqueur called the elixir of long life,…

Call 212-649-2828 and leave a message with your home or yard question. You could be featured on a new Popular Mechanics podcast. Questions can also be emailed to askroy@popularmechanics.com. Q My inexpensive score-and-snap tile cutter doesn’t always make a clean cut. Sometimes the cut edge is a little rough, which shows after the tile is grouted. Any advice? KATE N., CHICAGO A Cut-and-snap tools (like the one pictured) work best on smooth, vitreous (porcelain-coated) wall and floor tiles. For nonvitreous and textured tiles, however, you’re better off using a wet saw. Assuming you are cutting vitreous tiles, you should do the following: Hold the tile firmly against the tool’s base and make one firm score line, not multiple passes. If the tile slips while scoring or while snapping it, you’ll get…

RIDLEY SCOTT is one of the most ambitious and successful directors of our time. In a fifty-year career—Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, American Gangster, Exodus: Gods and Kings—he has created astonishing worlds that challenge the limits of endurance and possibility, but never reality. With his new film, The Martian, Scott adds a new dimension to his legacy: Science, a frequent backdrop to the stories he tells, becomes a main character. POPULAR MECHANICS // OCTOBER 2015 WHEN YOU STAND ON MARS, IT’S HARD TO figure the horizon. It looks a smidge too close, disconcertingly dim. Dark even. The color of the sky above you? Sort of blue, with a green tinge. It’s vast, unlike anyplace else you’ve seen. Distance is the first puzzle of this place.…

DAY LENGTH Days on Mars are forty minutes longer than they are on Earth, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but Mars colonists will get out of sync with the circadian rhythms that govern things like sleep, hormone release, and body temperature very quickly. Expect a lot of light therapy. RADIATION In space astronauts receive about twenty times the radiation we do on Earth. Along with increased cancer risk, radiation can also have unknown effects on the heart, brain, bones, muscles, and other organs. (Scott Kelly’s year in space will provide illuminating data in all of these categories.) One of NASA’s nightmares is that increased radiation levels will cause a loss of cognitive abilities. At the moment the best protection is to get astronauts to and from Mars as…

I prefer not to dwell on the smashand-grab burglary in my home that traumatized me as a kid, but suffice it to say I wasn’t left feeling very comfortable, both in our home’s security and with the people responsible for securing it. (The police laughed when we insisted that they dust for prints.) Years later, when someone stole laptops from the offices at the major broadcast network where I worked, many of us chipped in to help solve the crime. With camera technology so readily and cheaply available, we could scatter hidden cameras in smoke detectors, pens, and key fobs around the office and wait for the criminals to return. So we did. And they did. Catching crooks in the act is my view of the new American way. Recently…

Funny thing about the digital age: You know what your old college roommate dressed as for Halloween this year, but you’ve still never met the family three houses down. That’s the point of Nextdoor, a popular social-networking app for neighborhoods. Once you’ve downloaded the app and confirmed your address, Nextdoor allows you and anyone else within a certain geographic location to share information on a secure Facebook-like feed—say someone’s found a lost dog, or the Memorial Day picnic is canceled. This connectedness has also created a sort of virtual neighborhood watch, with many Nextdoor communities even helping police solve crimes. For this reason municipalities across the U.S. are starting to team up with Nextdoor. One of the agencies to recently join Nextdoor is the Prince George’s County, Maryland, police department.…

My mother needed a new furnace, and she asked me about “this Nest thing, a thermostat that supposedly learns your habits and turns on and off automatically.” She wanted to know: Was it good? Was it worth it? She thought I would be able to tell her. I’m the technology editor at this magazine, after all. And I do know a lot about the Nest. Its history as the brainchild of a former Apple designer who wanted to change the way we think about the mundane, functional elements of our homes. About its sales, which hit fifty thousand per month within a year of its release. But I live in a rental apartment in New York City, where you change the temperature by opening the window. So while I knew…

In addition to state incentives and local sunlight, one element to consider before installing solar is whether your roof is ideally situated to receive rays. There are four key characteristics solar companies look for in the section of your roof you intend to pave with panels: (1) roofing material, (2) the azimuth, or direction the section of roof faces, (3) the roof’s pitch, and (4) the hours of sun the roof gets per day. Assuming you’re buying energy from a conventional utility at a cost of $0.25 per kilowatt-hour, and you’ve got enough roof to install the optimal number of panels, here are the savings you can expect based on what you’ve got. With thanks to Aamir Khan, director of training and enablement, Repower Academy.…

Instructions 1 Measure and mark off with a Sharpie the length of the pipe necessary to hold your contents. We chose 14½ inches. 2 If the child is at least 12 years old and has some experience, with careful adult supervision she can use a miter saw to crosscut the pipe. If not, a standard eight-point carpentry handsaw is a safe alternative. 3 Apply PVC primer to the end of the pipe and on the inside of the end cap. (Be sure to open the windows for ventilation.) 4 Using the applicator tool, spread a thick layer of PVC cement onto the end of the pipe, and a thin layer on the inside of the end cap. 5 With the PVC pipe upright, tap the end cap on with a…

QUIET A NOISY REFRIGERATOR I recently woke up one morning to hear my fridge making a loud vibrating noise. I pulled it out and cleaned the coils and motor, but it was still making a racket. Then I remembered your story on a disassembled fridge (“Taking Things Apart,” March) showing how a thermostat controls a fan that blows cold air from the freezer into the fridge. I pulled the panel off the back of the inside of the freezer and tightened the fan, which had come loose in its mount. Now the fridge runs smoothly. Brian Miller, Eagle, Idaho GET THE BEST PRICE ON A CAR One of your tips for buying a car (“How to Buy a Car,” July/August) talks about shopping in the fall when new models come…

01 BUREO MINNOW COMPLETE CRUISER Tiny skateboards, like this 25-incher, are why skateboarding is great. So small that you’ll actually carry it around, it turns sidewalks and, if you’re brave, airport terminals into stages for carving. The Minnow’s deck is made from discarded fishing nets (about 30 square feet of wouldbe trash goes into each board), so it flexes more than regular plastic or wood. $149 02 SALT X AETHER SCOUT SUNGLASSES uel stop. You unbuckle your helmet and shake out the niggling discomforts— loosen the glove you cinched too tight, reinsert that loose earplug. The worst: Your helmet has been digging your sunglasses into your head. The Scout fixes that last one for good. Its thin titanium temples and nose pads fit comfortably inside a helmet, sparing you those…

SOMETIMES IT DOES TAKE A ROCKET SCIENTIST The only sunglass technology certified by the Space Foundation for UV and blue-light eye protection. Eagle Eyes® Navigator™ Black Sunglasses $49 + S&P PLUS receive the Navigator™ Gold absolutely FREE!—2 pairs for the price of one! Call 1-800-333-2045 with of er code EEN209-01 or visit www.Stauer.com for more information. TINY NEW AFFORDABLE HEARING AID Save as much as 90% on Doctor designed, FDA registered digital hearing aid. Delivers same hearing experience as $3,000 aids. No whistling or background noise, just crystal clear natural sound inside and outside. RISK FREE TRIAL. 100% money back guarantee, FREE Batteries for a full year. Call 1 (800) 873-0541 with promotional code CD11 or visit www.MDHearingAid.com for more information. HOW TO BURN IT UP WITHOUT BREAKING A SWEAT…

Q How do manufacturers keep packing more gigabytes of space onto smaller and smaller SD cards? A WE HAD AN IDEA on this one. A hypothesis, as the science-minded might say. Alternatively known as the Tokyo Subway Theory, or the Fat Guy With a Samsonite Construct, we postulated that each card came equipped with a tiny man, a hightech homunculus, who shoved, jammed, and/or jumped up and down on our data as necessary, forcing it to fit. This, it turns out, was wrong, as phone calls to memory maestros at manufacturers Intel and SanDisk soon established. The unceasing march toward more digital storage in smaller physical space traces its roots to the inception of the microchip. In 1965 an engineer named Gordon Moore, a future founder of chipmaker Intel, published…

Popular Mechanics teamed up with the gear gurus at Galpin Auto Sports (G.A.S.) to turn an everyday truck into an unstoppable of -roader. Outf tted with Falken Tire’s next-generation Wildpeak AT3W models, this all-terrain terror is ready to tackle anything the outdoors throws at it. G.A.S. customization experts J.D. Hendrickson and Jordan Mann led the build, and brought the ultimate adventure vehicle to life. THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE Heavy-duty of -road bumpers don’t just look tough. They protect your rear end (and the front one, too) from rough terrain, and let you tow or winch your way out of—or into—all kinds of trouble. “Heavy-duty of -road bumpers are built to protect against the roughest terrain, and create a rugged look. We made sure to maintain factory features like back-up…

STATS WEIGHT: 2,332 lb ENGINE: 2.0-liter four-cylinder POWER: 155 hp 148 lb-ft torque TRANSMISSION: Six-speed manual BASE PRICE: $25,735 The Mazda MX-5 Miata is a misunderstood car. To purists and gearheads, it’s the ultimate affordable sports car, a lightweight tub of fun, the rare track car that won’t maul your wallet every time you need brake pads. Car people not only respect the Miata, they revere it. That view makes sense. But the rest of the world thinks that Miatas are a little bit goofy—if Hollywood wants to tell us that a character is clueless, it brings in the Miata. Remember the Chris Kattan bomb, Corky Romano? Corky drove a Miata. (License plate: corkstr.) Mazda got so bummed out about the Miata’s image that it once tried to get everyone…

RUSSIAN FEDERAL SPACE AGENCY Russia announced a rocket that can move heavier payloads than any rocket currently in operation. According to President Vladimir Putin, in 2018 Russia will use this technology to launch the first manned missions from the motherland. (They typically launch from Kazakhstan.) Vegas odds: 60:1. “It’s clear that Putin is serious.” CHINA NATIONAL SPACE ADMINISTRATION China didn’t send a man to space until 2003, but they’ve been aggressive ever since. They’re building an orbiting space station and looking to launch a rover to Mars in 2020. One of their taikonauts— what they call astronauts— was part of the Mars500 study in Moscow that tested longterm isolation in preparation for a long journey to the Red Planet. Their current plan is for a manned Mars mission between 2040…

“It is essential that we colonize space.”1 “We’ve become cowards . . . As a society, we’re just fat and happy and comfortable and we’ve lost the edge.”2 “The sun is gradually expanding. In five hundred thousand million years––a billion at the outside––the oceans will boil and there will be no meaningful life on Earth. Maybe some very high temperature bacteria, but nothing that can build rockets.”3 “It’s a religious endeavor to be immortal. If the Earth dies, we must be able to continue. Space travel will give us other planets to live on so we can continue to have children.”4 “Mars is one of your better planets, because you could actually land there, and it’s close enough to get to, and it’s close enough to the sun that it’s…

Smart locks are becoming increasingly popular, but will they ever completely eliminate house keys? SCHUYLER TOWNE, a lock expert and self-described security anthropologist, spends much of his time mulling over such questions. That is, when he’s not testing his skills as one of America’s top competitive lock pickers. In many ways, America is a post-lock society. Most places are safe enough that home security isn’t a huge concern, and in others, even the best locks aren’t going to stop an intruder who really wants to break in. Locks are as much about portraying security as they are about actually keeping people out. That might be why smart locks are taking off: They are mainly about convenience. The core feature of every smart lock is that you can open them with…

Nest Cam Nest bought Dropcam last year, and this is the first result. It’s essentially the same hardware, but like other Nest products, the Nest Cam will learn your patterns and alert you when things don’t seem quite right. It also has night vision. $199 (For more on Nest, see page 90.) Guard Dog Security Titan A combination flashlight, 18.5-inch clubber, and stun gun all wrapped up in one medieval-looking package. And it comes with a lifetime warranty. $120 3M Safety & Security Window Film This film can be dif-ficult to install (best to have a pro do it), but once in place it will make breaking windows much more difficult. Bonus: It helps block the sun’s rays, resulting in a much cooler house and less a/c usage. Price varies.…

HOME OWNERSHIP IS THIS: Fourth of July. Outside the air is a dry 88 degrees, breeze out of the southeast, flag fluttering in its brass bracket on the front porch. My two kids are in the backyard trying to rig a zipline from the tree fort to the swing set. My wife is making iced tea and packing some boxes to store in the attic. Me? I’m up here in said attic. I don’t know how hot it is, but it feels like at least 150 degrees, and there’s certainly no breeze out of the southeast or anywhere else. It’s a long weekend, and I’m using the string of days to reinsulate my attic and lay down a plywood floor. I’m wearing Dickies (the ultimate work pant), a long-sleeved T-shirt…

THE SWITCH BY ALEXANDER GEORGE One Sunday, under cover of darkness, I came to the Popular Mechanics offices to set up my standing desk. I put my monitor and keyboard on the $25 worth of Ikea products that, after weeks in hiding, I’d finally assembled the Friday before with the help of our senior home editor, Roy Berendsohn. I was ready to broadcast my commitment. Before I set it up, the idea of using a stand-up desk felt pretentious—a conspicuous expression of self-improvement, the ergonomic equivalent of watching your friends order fries and shakes, then asking the waiter if you can get a turkey burger without the bun. But the desk was loved, and not just by me. People smiled while saying that they’d heard about the benefits and wanted…