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Media Platforms Design TeamEat my root veggies! MSNBC anchor and tuber launcherTucker CarlsonTransterrestrial.com’s Rand SimbergLockheed Martin will build NASA’s new ride to the Moon and MarsTesla Roadster—Benjamin Chertoff joins me on the Popular Mechanics Show to discuss the wonders of spud gunning, and to share some of the more elaborate potato cannons (a propane-powered semi-automatic) he has in his arsenal. Plus, , a self-confessed recovering aerospace engineer, joins me to analyze last week’s announcement that —but will it ever fly?...

Media Platforms Design TeamLE MANS, FRANCE - For insight into Richard Mille’s obsession with performance, look no further than his garage: his vast collection includes a Ferrari 512M, Porsche 917, Lola T70, and V16-powered BRM, and the Brittany-based watchmaker is not afraid to race his six and seven-figure toys.“I love cars, aircraft, and watches,” he explains. “There are so many similarities.“Richard Mille disdains watches with ornamental automotive themes like tire tread wristbands and steering spoke hands, and believes the idea that a watch should be weighty is an outdated conceit, in the same way that overweight cars are a thing of the past....

Poseidon is Putin’s showpiece. First revealed in 2015, this nuclear-powered underwater drone—one of Russia’s next-generation nuclear weapons—is nicknamed the “tsunami apocalypse torpedo” for its multi-megaton warhead that could create city-smashing waves. A succession of news reports have carried wildly disparate accounts of Poseidon’s capabilities. So is this another example of overblown Russian military vaporware or is there something more to it?Here’s what we can say: At more than six feet in diameter and 65 feet long, weighing perhaps a hundred tons, Poseidon is the largest torpedo ever developed, coming in at thirty times the size of a heavy torpedo....

Russia is planning to use swarms with more than 100 drones in them.Each drone would pack an explosive charge, and the swarms would be unleashed on convoys and other targets.A surefire defense against a large swarm may be impossible, but it’s worth remembering that Russia says a lot of things, and not all of them come to pass.Russian academics and aerospace engineers recently came together to present a fairly terrifying vision of the future of warfare....

Dump some basaltic rock into an induction furnace, heat it up to 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit, pour it into an insulated steel box about 18 inches tall, and inject it with high-powered jets of water and you’ve made yourself a backyard volcano. Except we don’t recommend it. Best to leave it to the geohazard experts, like Ingo Sonder, Ph.D., a research scientist at the University at Buffalo. Sonder and his team of six researchers have been doing just this to understand what conditions cause the most violent eruptions in hopes of someday being able to conduct risk assessments for people living in volcanically active regions of the world....

Dark matter remains one of the biggest mysteries in physics. Scientists know the mysterious substance makes up the majority of all matter in the universe, vastly outnumbering normal matter like stars, planets, and people. But no one is sure exactly what it is. A group of astronomers has at least narrowed the field of possible answers, though. They just ruled out a hypothesis about the nature of dark matter put forth by the late Stephen Hawking, who said that dark matter might be made of tiny black holes created at the beginning of the universe....

Media Platforms Design TeamHeather Peters’ victory in small claims court could loom large over the automotive industry. Peters is the Honda Civic Hybrid driver who sued the car company in November 2011, arguing that her Civic not only failed to live up to the advertised EPA fuel-efficiency estimates, but also that her mileage decreased after she volunteered to have her Civic’s software reprogrammed, at Honda’s request, to extend the hybrid’s battery life....

One week, two terrifying false alarms. Mistaken alerts sent from the state of Hawaii and from a Japanese television station’s social media account both delivered the same scary message to the public: North Korean ballistic missiles are inbound. Duck and cover. And where one such screw-up is strange, two in such close proximity will no doubt feed conspiracy theories.So far, we have no reason to believe these are anything but dumb mistakes....

To spatchcock is to remove a bird’s spine and lay the body flat. It originated to cook small birds evenly, but it’s just as effective on your holiday turkey and will cut the cooking time at least in half. You’ll also get crispy skin and meat that’s easy to carve. The only drawback is that most roasting pans are limited to about a 14-pound bird. But thanks to the low height you can roast two birds on separate oven racks....

There you are, standing on the surface of Mars. You can’t quite pick up that rock by your foot—not yet at least—but you can stand in places the Curiosity rover has explored, see that orange-yellow sky with red terrain on all sides, and feel like you’re on an alien world.If Mars is too pedestrian, maybe you’d like to jump 40 light years away to the alien surface of the planet TRAPPIST-1d....

Media Platforms Design TeamGetty ImagesE-cigarettes, often touted as a healthier alternative to Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man, keep a nasty byproduct around: formaldehyde.Scientists from Portland State University say in their study in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Formaldehyde is a known degradation product of propylene glycol that reacts with propylene glycol and glycerol during vaporization to produce hemiacetals,” adding that more than 2 percent of chemicals in e-cigarette smoke catalyzes into formaldehyde....

Are you the planner in your group of friends? Are you always on time? Do you love organization, list-making, and research? Then you might have what it takes to become a project manager. Dive into the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Training to learn all there is to know about this in-demand role—and land the PM job of your dreams. Right now, you can enroll for just $49.99. Take an additional 15 percent off with coupon code: DIGIWEEK15....

Google Glass is the most divisive consumer technology ever—besides the weird future fashion, it turns out that people generally don’t want to be filmed surreptitiously. But if there’s one guy who’s figured out how to use Glass correctly, it’s Casey Neistat, the filmmaker whose specialty is short-length YouTube-optimized videos.Besides his daily vlog and personal videos, he’s done movies for J. Crew, Mercedes-Benz, and Nike. His videos use lots of POV scenes, and he’s a fan of Glass’s camera....

The Space Launch System (SLS) is NASA’s next generation heavy-lift rocket, the powerful vehicle to get us to Mars, back to the moon, to an asteroid, or even to Europa. But first, of course, it has to get off Earth. Thursday at 5 p.m., NASA will take another big step in that quest, test firing the RS-25 engine.The fundamentals of the RS-25 were used for decades on the Space Shuttle program, though the SLS model includes new controllers to regulate thrust and fuel, as well as providing an analytical overview of everything happening in the engine....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn this video captured by Eurogamer, legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto walks us through the iconic game design of the first Super Mario Bros. level, World 1-1, with help from fellow game designer Takashi Tezuka. Tezuka, though perhaps less known than his counterpart, is also responsible for a good chunk of classic Nintendo game design in titles like The Legend of Zelda.Miyamoto dives into the philosophy behind the design, explaining that the familiar first level was created to make it as intuitive as possible for new players to understand the game mechanics and to experience wonder at what they find....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe future isn’t what it used to be. And neither is science fiction. While books about space exploration and robots once inspired young people to become scientists and engineers—and inspired grownup engineers and scientists to do big things—in recent decades the field has become dominated by escapist fantasies and depressing dystopias. That could be contributing to something that I see as a problem. It seems that too many technically savvy people, engineers in particular, are going to work for Web startups or investment firms....

NASA wants to land a human crew on Mars in the 2030s. But to succeed with such an ambitious, expensive, long-timescale project, the agency needs a roadmap that inspires confidence that it really can send people to the Red Planet. Firouz Naderi, director of Solar System Exploration at NASA-JPL, has a budget-conscious idea: Let’s land on Phobos first.Of the two moons of Mars, Phobos is the larger one. Its proximity to Mars allows for a place to remotely control robotic rovers and landers in near real-time, without the minutes-long time delay inherent in sending instructions from Earth....

Philip FriedmanAt some point between the Challenger explosion in 1986 and the in 2011, NASA became uncool. Once regarded as the wild geniuses leading us bravely into the future, the agency earned a reputation as insular, wasteful, and out of touch.end of the manned shuttle programNaturally, they’re looking to change that perception. The agency recently expanded its use of challenges and crowdsourcing to include more opportunities for regular Joes (citizen scientists, if you can bear the term) to submit their ideas....

On Sale Date: May 25, 2012Price: $26,795Competitors: Audi A3, BMW 1-series, Buick Verano, Volkswagen CC Powertrains: 2.0-liter I-4, 150 hp, 140 lb-ft; 1.5-liter I-4 with electric hybrid assist, 111 hp, 127 lb-ft; 2.4-liter I-4, 201 hp, 170 lb-ft; 5-speed auto, 6-speed manual, or CVT; FWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): 22 to 39/31 to 38What’s New: The ILX is a new member of the Acura lineup, a compact sedan conceived to straddle the murky border between luxury and premium market segments....

American Airlines passengers have seen few visible changes since the world’s fourth largest airline filed for bankruptcy last week. Still, the storied carrier, whose 1920s-era origins include a young pilot named Charles Lindbergh, has stormy skies ahead on the route to regaining both the loyalty of big-spending frequent travelers and profitability. American’s financial woes may not change the flying experience much if you have booked a ticket with them this holiday season (though the service might be noticeably improved to try to make you forget the recent headlines)....