Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i Popular Science

“FOOD, ALONG WITH WATER AND ENERGY, WILL BE ONE OF THE DEFINING ISSUES OF OUR TIME. In the waning days of World War II, a plant biologist named Norman Borlaug went south to Mexico. Ostensibly, he arrived there to teach modern farming methods at the behest of the Rockefeller Foundation. But Borlaug, described by most as a highly determined man, did much more than that: He started and led perhaps one of the most profound revolutions the world has known. The Green Revolution is a catchall that describes advances in plant breeding, chemical fertilization, pest control, and irrigation, particularly from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Those innovations— including Borlaug’s contribution of high-yield short-stem wheat —helped grow agricultural productivity more quickly than the global population. And over a few…

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1 ROBO-SAUCE This children’s picture book from Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri follows a young boy who tries a neon concoction called Robo-Sauce. It (predictably) turns him into a robot. Things go south when his parents and dog transform too. $19 2 KNOCK KNOCK This app, available for iOS and Android, uses Beacon technology to share whatever contact information or social-media handles you choose by knocking on your phone. It also builds chat rooms of nearby users. Free 3 BLUESMART LUGGAGE Bluesmart is the Swiss Army knife of carry-on suitcases. Bluetooth location tracking ensures it won’t go missing. A built-in scale keeps you from maxing out weight limits, and USB chargers keep your phone alive. $495 4 TOPO COASTERS Set your sweaty glass down on your favorite topographical regions with…

1 KNIPER MULTITOOL Throwing knives are usually made for one purpose: to be hurled end over end until they embed in a wood surface. (Thwack!) The Kniper is fun like that, but it also adds 22 important functions, including a fork, range finder, pry bar, sundial, wire stripper, wrench, saw, bottle opener, and screwdrivers. The Kniper is milled from high-carbon steel and is finely balanced, so it’s easy to hit your target. Oh, yeah: It also has a tobacco pipe (in case you haven’t kicked the habit yet). $145 2 BREITLING EMERGENCY Pilots, anglers, and backcountry trekkers often carry personal locator beacons to send distress signals if something should go wrong. Breitling’s engineers have encased one in a watch. The Emergency can transmit to the international Cospas-Sarsat system, which has…

2.4 Estimated dollars’ worth, in billions, of jobs, food, and tourism that corals provide to the U.S. and its territories Corals in shallow water sometimes produce a fluorescent pigment that protects them from harmful solar rays, like a sunscreen. But when researchers from Israel and the U.K. found deepwater corals that produced a brilliant rainbow of hues, they were floored. “There might be something completely undiscovered in reefs that could be incredibly useful,” says Jörg Wiedenmann, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton. The corals’ pigments, he says, might help in the lab. For example, one can change from green to red when exposed to near-UV light— a capability that could help researchers track cancer growth or test the effects of potential drugs on cell cultures.…

City dwellers are reportedly 40 percent more likely to develop mood disorders than people in rural areas. But walking for roughly 90 minutes in nature, according to a Stanford University study published in June, can calm the negative thoughts. The Essence Skyscraper is designed to provide urbanites with just such an experience. The 2,067-foot tower, envisioned by a Polish architectural team, won a 2015 skyscraper competition to redefine high-rises. Within the imagined 3.6 million square feet, visitors cross 11 distinct ecosystems from around the world. “We wanted something that would blend into an urban fabric,” says team member Jakub Pudo, “something that would allow us to go inside and get lost.” NATURAL LAYERS Visitors ascend through the ecosystems on a series of gradual ramps. The skyscraper’s design lacks the vertical…

“Ever since we migrated out of Africa, we have been transforming landscapes and causing extinctions.” —MARK LOMOLINO, ECOLOGIST AT THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK 8.7 Estimated number of species on Earth, in millions, according to a 2011 study; we’ve discovered only 25 percent This summer the Internet seemed to wake up to the fact that we’re in the midst of a mass extinction. These things happen periodically. The Permian extinction 252 million years ago wiped out 95 percent of life on Earth, while the Cretaceous (65 million years ago) did in the dinosaurs. But this sixth one is different. Whereas powerful natural forces— volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, and atmospheric warming—were behind all five previous mass extinctions, this one is caused by us. The indictment came in June, when a…

Our attachment to food is antiquated. So the argument goes: It takes time and energy to buy and prepare, and it can lack nutrition (we tend to cook away the good stuff). We can now drink our meals. Mealreplacement shakes—different from protein drinks that serve as supplements—optimize nutrient efficiency, save money, and turn the messy business of eating with others into a hobby. SOYLENT Ever since Soylent launched as a powder in 2013, it’s been a trend among Silicon Valley coders. Now it comes in even more convenient 14-ounce drink bottles. Each bottle holds 400 calories (you need six or seven to maintain a minimum daily calorie requirement for an active adult).The new release includes soy for its primary protein source and algae—in the form of algal oil—for half of…

Americans eat about 4 billion pounds of seafood a year, but many of us don’t know where our fish or shellfish come from—or even what we’re eating. (Seafood is sometimes intentionally mislabeled.) Karlanea Brown’s family-run shrimp farm, in landlocked Indiana, offers a cheaper, sustainable, and more transparent approach. For years, the Brown family had raised hogs but became frustrated by plummeting prices in the market. So they began looking into aquaculture. In 2010, they decided to raise shrimp. Their farm, RDM Aquaculture, is now the largest such operation in Indiana—which is a U.S. leader in inland shrimp farming— and produces 250,000 shrimp a month. Today, much of the world’s shrimp is grown in small farms in Southeast Asia that don’t always measure up to U.S. healthsafety regulations. In 2011, the…

In 1999, 19-year-old Sean Ward created one of the first music-recommendation algorithms, dropped out of the University of Virginia, and started his own company. By age 25, he had tired of the conflict between record companies and Internet users, so he turned to something completely different: bioengineering. “In many respects, genetic engineering is the ultimate remix technology,” Ward says. Bioengineers copy DNA from one organism and adapt it for another to create life-forms that change color, glow, or produce new medicine or materials. In today’s high-speed, high-volume biolabs, automated tools like pipetting robots do most of the work—and each requires different kinds of code. Ward saw that, like music, biotech research had become digital. And also as with music, he could use his programming skills to give more people access…

When Foundry launched in March, Ryan Craven used the project-sharing website to show off the hoverboard he’d built in 2014. Rather than asking for step-by-step instructions, like other DIY sites, Foundry prompted Craven to describe his inspiration (Back to the Future Part II) and the challenges he faced (“many long bike rides to and from Home Depot in the hot Texas sun”). “Foundry is for people who want to sit down and learn the stories behind the creations,” says founder and CEO David Endler. Eventually, Endler hopes the site will create a connected community of entrepreneurs, becoming a professional network for the maker movement.…

Clay Dillow Each time Clay Dillow reports from the Pentagon or a massive agency like the FBI, he’s surprised to find the place “made up of real people,” he says. While reporting “To Catch a Bombmaker” (page 54), a scientist explaining the nuances of roadside bombs excused herself to go retrieve her puppy from the vet. The juxtaposition— from bomb tech to dog lover—says Dillow, was “humanizing.” Ilima Loomis Taking on “The Search for Dark Matter” (page 26), was a no-brainer for journalist Ilima Loomis. “That a quarter of the universe can’t be accounted for is irresistible,” she says. Finding the stuff that holds our universe together is no easy task, but Loomis says they’re getting close. In fact, she’s already geared up for the next great piece of the…

ZOMBIE SCIENCE Excited for season six of The Walking Dead? We are too. Actor Ross Marquand (you know him as Aaron) will talk all things zombie apocalypse this month at popsci.com. KEEPING COOL LEGO brought the Technic Wall of Fans to the Popular Science office this summer. The motion-activated fan wall is built with Mindstorms motors and sensors and Technic blocks. It’s more work than AC, but more gratifying. Find us on Tumblr! popsci.tumblr.com HEAR THE FUTURE In July, we launched a podcast called Futuropolis. This month we wrap up our first season. If you’ve ever wondered what finding love, communicating, or buying a sandwich will be like in the future, be sure to check it out on iTunes, SoundCloud, or your favorite podcast app. TIME WARP Students at…

The Wright brothers aren’t the only siblings to push the limits of flight: In 1986, pilot Dick Rutan flew nonstop around the world, spending nine days in the air on a single tank of gas. He made the trip in a plane called Voyager, which his brother, Burt, designed. Today he’s still at the forefront of aviation, busy building a new hyper-efficient engine and reimagining what aircraft might be. “I had an abnormal fascination for aviation at the expense of more normal character development.” 7.3 Billions of airline passengers in 2034, as projected by the International Air Transport Association (compared with 3.3 billion in 2014) “ Burt and I were issued flight plans instead of birth certificates. When we flew Voyager nonstop around the world, we showed that you could…

Farms Grow Up This past winter, as near-record snows piled up outside his 30,000-square-foot warehouse off Lake Michigan, Robert Colangelo stood inside, bathed in blue and red LEDs, and surrounded by crops of butter lettuce and herbs. Located 40 miles outside Chicago, this is Green Sense Farms, the largest indoor vertical farm in the U.S. The CEO of Green Sense, Colangelo grows produce—including micro-greens and basil—hydroponically, feeding them a constant stream of nutrient-rich water, in racks 25 feet high, beneath specialized LEDs, monitored by computer, and harvested as often as twice a week. “We can grow a large volume, in a small footprint, 365 days a year,” says Colangelo. “We’re not subject to rain or drought. We control the environment. So the weather is perfect every single day.” Indoor vertical…

The ability to create food with the press of a lever has been a science-fiction staple for decades. While 3-D food printers have not reached Star Trek levels, they can make simple foods, and will soon be pressing and cooking your burgers. Here are a few new products—and a taste of what’s to come. Foodini, Natural Machines Prints pasta, crackers, and burgers. However, the ingredients—such as ground beef—must be prepped and fed into the machine to be printed and then cooked separately. The next model is expected to cook as well. ChefJet Pro, 3D Systems Engineered to print intricate confections, like multicolored candies and wedding toppers. The ChefJet Pro uses powdered printing sugar in flavors such as chocolate, vanilla, mint, and watermelon. 3D Fruit Printer, Dovetailed This…

8,800 Number of times per minute the bristles of an electric toothbrush can oscillate GOOD IDEA SAND THE SMALL STUFF Last June, professional DIYer Kip Kedersha turned an electric toothbrush into a $5 mini power sander. Kedersha, who posts how-to videos on his YouTube channel, Kipkay, first cut the bristles off an Oral-B electric toothbrush. Then he hot-glued a small plastic circle to the head and attached self-adhesive sandpaper. The sander can make small cuts or grind fine details on plastic models or miniatures. “It fits the bill for a hobbyist,” Kedersha says, “and it’s a deal.” BAD IDEA GIVE A TATTOO Daring inkers have discovered that an electric toothbrush can also drive the needle of a DIY tattoo machine. But it’s hard to control the needle’s depth, which increases…

FOR THE THRILL Last month, we asked readers which type of transportation they would take to the edge of space if offered a seat: spaceplane or stratospheric balloon? Looks like we’ve got some adrenaline junkies out there. ADHIRAJ MATHUR I would choose the spaceplane because it’s closer to the experience a real astronaut might have. STEPHEN BEETS Spaceplane. It’s WAY faster and more flexible in terms of mission capabilities than any balloon. ELYSE DORM Balloon, but preferably if it’s done like that first guy did it, floating up by yourself in a space suit, and then catapulting back to Earth when you’re done. That would be fantastic! JOB INSECURITY My grandfather, retired U.S. Air Force Col. Dan Delton Fulgham, was an Air Force master balloonist in the 1950s. He would…

When choosing a blender, most people focus on speed. The logic goes: The faster blades spin, the better they pulverize fruits and vegetables, and the better the resulting smoothie, soup, pesto, or cocktail. Not so, say the engineers at Electrolux. Too much force crushes seeds, which busts them open and releases enzymes that make for a bitter taste. So, instead of designing a faster motor, the company tilted the canister. The angle creates an irregular funnel within the mixture, allowing the food to circulate evenly. And, they’ve employed titanium-coated blades of different shapes and purposes to thoroughly process it. The result is better texture and taste, with half the speed. ELECTROLUX MASTERPIECE COLLECTION JUG BLENDER Speeds 3 Max capacity 74 ounces Max RPM 10,000 (approx.) Price $349 ANGLED CANISTER Engineers…

In August, Google made the surprise announcement that it was changing the company’s name to Alphabet. Under the new structure, the moneymaking advertising business was separated from its loftier moonshot projects such as Google Glass, self-driving cars, and Internet delivery balloons. Astro Teller, who heads Google[x], the division that oversees those projects, spoke to Popular Science days before the news broke. He talked about the skepticism investors have over long-shot projects, why such projects are necessary to Google’s survival, and how he culls the winners from the losers. Popular Science: How do you vet moonshot ideas? Astro Teller: We probably look at 1,000 ideas, for a few hours each, for every self-driving-car project we end up with. So it depends on where the project’s Achilles’ heels are. If it has…

It makes up a quarter of the universe. Without it, galaxies would fall apart, and stars would spin off into space. Dark matter is five times more abundant than normal matter (the stuff that makes up trees and stars and us), yet scientists can’t see it nor figure out what it is. The one thing they can say for sure: They’re getting closer to an answer. 600 Approximate number of collisions, in millions, inside the Large Hadron Collider every second 1 Astronomers in the 1930s realized that if they added up all the visible matter in a galaxy cluster, the combined gravity would not be enough to hold everything together. There had to be something else there— and there had to be a lot of it. Scientists initially referred to…

Thanks to the growing popularity of apps like Tinder, one in five relationships now begins online. But users might find more than romance when they swipe right. In 2014, sexually transmitted disease rates in Rhode Island reached a 10-year high. Cases of gonorrhea alone rose 30 percent (in the state’s relatively small population), mirroring a national trend in STDs. Geospatial apps like Tinder and Grindr could be one reason: A 2014 study found that gay men who used them had higher rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia. But keep in mind, that’s only a correlation. The usual suspects—drugs, alcohol, and multiple partners—are still at play, say state health officials. The apps likely enable risky behavior, not cause it. Swipe safely, folks.…

Two years ago, then MIT graduate student Caleb Harper built a fully networked farm of tomatoes, lettuce, and broccoli inside a fourth-floor lounge at the school’s famed Media Lab. He hoped to prove he could use data science to optimize crop yields, boost nutrient density, and trim water consumption by 98 percent compared with traditional dirt farming, all of which he did. But there was no meaningful way to share his data with the world. Despite an ongoing boom in agricultural technology, no one cared about his findings or dared to share theirs. This September, he launched the Open Agriculture Initiative, the first open-source platform for global agriculture and food hackers. Popular Science: How is agriculture not open-source? Don’t we pretty much know how to grow a tomato? Caleb Harper:…

Each year, groceries, restaurants, and hotel chains collectively toss out some 400 million pounds of fresh potatoes due to bruising and black spots. (Consumers loathe a bruised spud.) Boise, Idaho, food giant Simplot—one of the largest privately held food producers in the nation—has now genetically modified potatoes so we’ll waste less. Its new Innate line of Russet Burbank (a standard for French fries), Atlantic (a chip staple), and Ranger Russet (an all-purpose potato) is bred to have less bruising. Compared with typical potatoes, Innates also have up to 70 percent less acrylamide—a potentially cancer-causing chemical formed when potatoes are cooked above 248 degrees, such as when frying French fries or baking chips. In other words, they’re healthier. The new potatoes are among the latest GMOs with direct consumer benefits, joining…

STATS Time 1 hour Cost $30 Difficulty It’s never a good idea to leave a flame unattended—even on Halloween. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up the glow of a traditional jacko’-lantern. You can create a realistic fire effect by wiring up an electronic blinky light. This one, inspired by our friends at DIY blog Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, uses a safe circuit that requires no soldering. It incorporates six LEDs with a candle-flicker effect, which will shine all night on three AAA batteries. And thanks to a phototransistor, which detects light, the LEDs will automatically turn off at dawn and back on at sunset. Trick or treat! Build It 200 Estimated residential fires caused by open flames in the U.S. each year around Halloween MATERIALS • Mini…

'pa-siv .in-frə -'red n. A method of detecting motion by observing the slight difference in radiation when one object passes in front of another Last Halloween, radiologist George Poulos decided to make his yard extra scary. His plan: Every time a pedestrian passed by, a projector would shine a ghostly animation on a plexiglass pane to make it look like a real ghoul had appeared. It was too dark to rely on a traditional motion sensor, so Poulos used a $10 passive infrared (PIR) one. Every object warmer than absolute zero emits infrared rays, and as one source of radiation passes in front of another, a PIR sensor detects the difference. DIYers can use PIR sensors day or night to automate security cameras, open doors for pets, help trigger Nerf…

08 Length of time, in months, it would take humans to travel to Mars today In 1953, people had yet to see a close-up image of Mars. But that didn’t dim the prospect of one day living there. In March of that year, Popular Science featured a plan— developed by a graduate student with the input of government scientists— outlining how 33 earthlings might one day live on the Red Planet. Their spaceship would serve as the base’s hub. A heart-shaped ring of solar panels would warm the living quarters, and wind generators would provide power. And alien invaders? There was a plan for them too. Decontaminating mist would kill any Martian germs clinging to the crew’s space suits as they entered the base. Today, life on Mars is still…