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Media Platforms Design TeamYou can tell by the extent of a car guy’s air system when he’s gone from hobbyist to automotive mental patient. For grease monkeys the world over, air tools elicit envy—and for good reason. Their speed and power make car work dramatically easier and put more projects within reach. With a properly sized shop air system, cutting, grinding, polishing, painting, sanding, inflating, and even cleaning up take less time and sweat....

The British company what3words has overhauled the world’s coordinate system by naming every single 3-meter by 3-meter plot on Earth.In disaster situations, the app can help first responders find people more quickly.Since it’s a layer on top of the coordinate plane system, what3words can also be used to navigate to specific locations using Google Maps or Waze as you normally would. In the midst of a disaster, if a firefighter told me that my apartment was on fire at the coordinates 27....

The Nasal Ranger helps investigators track strong odors, whether of chemical contaminants or just “bad smells.“Machines are talented at detecting poisons or at purifying air, but humans are still better at tracking smells.Dynamic olfactometry means diluted smelly air is passed to trained human panelists. The Nasal Ranger is a limited mobile version.The tiny city of Bessemer, in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula, has spent $3,400 on a marijuana-sniffing instrument called the Nasal Ranger....

One thing about physics: everywhere you go on the surface of the Earth, it’s pretty much the same. What’s surprising is how many connections there are. For example, the same rules that apply to keeping bridges from falling down also nicely explain what happens when you’re leaning back in your chair, trying to maintain balance. Practical Engineering shows how the two are related.View full post on YoutubeOur understanding of these concepts goes back pretty far—all the way to Isaac Newton in 1687, when he published Principia Mathematica in which he discussed his famous three laws of motion....

Drones are not immune to the whole “What goes up must come down” thing, and their descent is not always planned. If a drone falls out of the sky, the plummeting load can weigh up to a dozen pounds and be accompanied by four spinning rotors ready to rip into, or lop off, anything that gets in their way. Amber McDonald, CEO and one of the founders of the company Indemnis, first saw this problem when working in the film industry, so she, and her team, set out to fix it....

Media Platforms Design Team This evening WowWee introduced its latest homebound robot, the Spyball. It comes on the heels of Rovio, a robot armed with a webcam so that you can drive it around remotely to watch your home while you’re away. The Spyball can also be controlled remotely, but instead of scooting around the house on several wheels, it rolls (stealthy!). It seems like a fun way for kids to wreak havoc—you can control it through the Internet, but can also make it work with many Wi-Fi enabled devices, including the PSP and Nintendo DS....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn-Sale Date: April 2014Base Price: $13,495 to $15,995 Competitors: Aprilia Tuono V4 R APRC ABS, Kawasaki Z1000, Triumph Speed Triple R Powertrains: 1198-cc L-twin, 135-145 hp, 87-92 lb-ft; six-speed manual; RWDEPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy, mfr. est.): N/ADucati’s Monster has been roaming the road for two decades, but the naked Italian bike wasn’t always as menacing as its name might suggest. While early variants linked the fairing-free, exposed-frame design to its super-bike siblings, the second-gen model sported a lighter body and a milder 100-hp engine....

Media Platforms Design Team Boeing announced today a new configuration for the F-15 called the F-15 Silent Eagle (F-15SE). The redesign consists of new coatings, improved tail design, weight reductions and internal-carriage fuel tanks, according to Boeing’s press release. With the new tanks, the Silent Eagle can fly with the previous F-15 configuration, with weapons extended for maximum fuel capacity, or it can conform to hold weapons internally, for stealth. The Silent Eagle will be able to internally carry air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-9 and AIM-120 and air-to-ground weapons such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition and Small Diameter Bomb....

DARPA has chosen a drone for its strange-sounding concept: charging aircraft in midair with laser beams. The concept could lead to unmanned planes that stay aloft indefinitely.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s laser-powered flying drone works like this: The aircraft has solar panels in the wings, particularly the dorsal wing, and batteries in the fuselage. The batteries provide the initial source of power, but as they drain down, the drone operators aim a laser beam at the solar panels....

The mysterious device was netted earlier this year by fishermen in the Adriatic.The U.S. Navy stepped up and claimed the device, though it didn’t explain what it was.The object was likely EARS, an underwater recording device designed to collect noises from the ocean floor.A strange device hauled up from the depths of the Adriatic Sea is almost certainly an underwater recording system left behind by the U.S. Navy. The device, netted by Croatian fishermen, is identical to the Navy’s EARS sensor system....

A Belgian Air Force F-16 crashed in France during a navigation flight.The two pilots onboard safely ejected, but one ended up caught in power lines before being rescued.Belgium has picked the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to replace its aging F-16 fleet.Belgium, the small NATO country bordering France, keeps losing fighter jets under unusual circumstances. Last year, maintainers working on one F-16 destroyed another when they accidentally triggered the jet’s Gatling gun....

Last week’s bizarre maritime mishap is headed for an unhappy ending. The Norwegian Navy warship that ran aground last week after a collision is almost completely underwater and may not see active duty ever again. Last week, the guided-missile frigate Helge Ingstad somehow collided with a civilian oil tanker called Sola TS. The Norwegian frigate’s captain, realizing his dire situation, made the desperate decision to run the ship onto the rocky Norwegian coastline....

When it comes to astronomical questions, it doesn’t get much bigger than the one Numberphile recently attempted to answer: How many particles in the universe? Given that an estimated five trillion hydrogen atoms can fit on the head of a pin, and each of those hydrogen atoms has four particles (one electron, and three quarks in the proton), we can safely assume that the number of particles in the entire observable universe is, well, pretty much beyond comprehension....

Ingvar Kamprad, the IKEA founder who turned a small-scale mail order business into a global furniture empire, has died at 91, the company said Sunday.IKEA Sverige, the chain’s Swedish unit, said on Twitter that Kamprad died Saturday at his home in Smaland, southern Sweden. Later it said he died peacefully following a short illness.“He will be much missed and warmly remembered by his family and IKEA staff all around the world,” the company said....

Black holes swallow up everything, and nothing escapes. This property, the most iconic characteristic of these mysterious space phenomena, had its first major challenge this week when Technion professor Jeff Steinhauer posted the results of an experiment. He simulated a black hole in the lab. The idea that perhaps black holes do let some particles escape has been around for a long time now, since 1974 when Stephen Hawking’s calculations using quantum methods showed that black holes actually “radiate” particles back into outer space, and eventually disappear entirely....

Welcome back to Popular Mechanics’ Riddle of the Week. We just finished up a long and grueling riddle series, ending in “the hardest logic puzzle ever,” so this week we are going to switch it up a little bit with a literary riddle. It might be a good time to brush up on your ancient poets. Problem The following poem was published on February 2, 1833, in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter....

Russian forces are actively trying to jam U.S. military drones flying over Syria, disrupting flight operations by interfering with the signal broadcast by the worldwide Global Positioning System (GPS). The jamming is “seriously affecting” U.S. drone operations, but it’s not yet clear how serious the Russian meddling really is.NBC News, citing four sources inside the Pentagon, reports that the jamming began weeks ago. It started shortly after suspected chemical attacks by the Syrian regime in the rebel-held Ghouta region....

A copy of the largest tanks of World War II was produced for a Russian military museum. A working T-35 tank, which weighed even more than Russia’s newest main battle tank, was built by the metallurgical company Uralelectromed JSC for the Museum of Military Equipment in the Sverdlovsk region, Russia.During the years between World War I and World War II, the new Soviet state pursued an aggressive military expansion plan, including the mechanization of its armed forces....

Though it may seem like something out of a video game, the firevase is very real. Designed by Samsung subsidiary Cheil Worldwide, it was made with the challenge of getting more homes in South Korea to have readily available fire safety equipment. The Seoul-based Chaebol (South Korean conglomerate) is currently distributing 200,000 of the vases to members of its insurance program. Living spaces in South Korea, including the communal and low-budget spaces known as goshiwons, often present fire hazards....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen aerospace engineer Manu Sharma was a college student, he dreamed of sending something to space. Sharma approached one of his professors about sending a cube-shaped project he was working on up into space, but was told that it would take four years to complete—time he didn’t have.“There had to be a faster way for kids and students to send projects up to space,” he tells PM. Frustrated, Sharma became determined to create a project that would give anyone the opportunity to send experiments into space....