Media Platforms Design TeamBeta Inkless Pen, $28Beta Inkless Keychain Pen, $35Like a pencil, the Beta Pen has no ink and writes on paper. But unlike your trusty No. 2 pencil, the Beta Pen never needs to be sharpened and never shrinks to an unusable stump. Instead of leaving a trail of graphite on paper, the Beta Pen leaves bits of its metal alloy tip—so little, in fact, the company says the tip will last nearly forever....
Yes, the U.S. Marines are well known for invading islands and wresting them away from others during a conflict. They also have a lesser-known responsibility to defend them, and the Corps may be getting new ship-killing missiles to aid them in that task. U.S. Marines occupied Iceland during World War II to prevent Germany from snatching it up. Days after Pearl Harbor, Marine defenders of Wake Island staged a vigorous defense of the South Pacific island that included sinking the Japanese destroyers Kisaragi and Hayate....
The U.S. Navy may have a tough choice to make: prioritizing growing its fleet of warships or funding the next generation of nuclear ballistic missile submarines. The Navy has made growing the size of the overall fleet to 355 ships a major priority, while at the same time building the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. Meanwhile, the service is also being warned that the Pentagon’s defense budget will start shrinking in fiscal year 2020, making the two priorities in the eyes of many analysts an either/or proposition....
Whether you use your phone for music or to navigate while you drive, holding it in your hand is outright dangerous. That’s why phone mounts have become a must-have for any safety-conscious driver. If you have yet to get your own, the CHOETECH Air Vent Fast Wireless Qi-Certified Car Charger not only gets the job done, but it also energizes your phone with wireless charging tech. You can get it on sale for 43 percent off today....
The U.S. Army’s five airborne infantry brigade combat teams are set to begin receiving the new Ground Mobility Vehicle. Designed to move airborne troops out from the drop zone in a hurry, the new air-droppable vehicles were originally procured for special forces but have found a new home. Military Times reports non-airborne infantry forces will receive the vehicles next.The Ground Mobility Vehicle is based on the General Dynamics Flyer Advanced Light Strike Vehicle....
If you’re looking for a new pair of frames, the internet is here to help. You’ll get lower prices, more options, and the freedom to skip the weird ritual of staring at your own face in a public place while wearing a pair of glasses that many other strangers have also handled. Here are six sites that will help you settle on your next specs.When You Know What You WantSome sites have so many options that they can be overwhelming....
The Popular Mechanics staff are always looking to check out the latest ATV, UTV, or side-by-side. Whether we’re testing them in wooded trails or roaring through the desert at breakneck speeds, we always have fun. But beyond the obvious recreational thrills, these off-road vehicles serve as workhorses for people across the country. Most can’t imagine performing their jobs without the use of one of these four-wheelers.Timothy DahlHonda let us spend a few months with their newest and most powerful side-by-side, the Honda Pioneer 1000-5 Limited Edition....
MORE BRAND-NEW REPORTING FROM PM’S GEEK THE VOTE SERIES* PLUS: 10 Foreign Policy Questions We Want at First (Delayed?) Debate* INFRASTRUCTURE: Clean Tech Overshadows Obama-McCain DisparityFrom offshore drilling (and Sarah Palin) to plug-in cars (andinflated tires), alternative energy has been the uncontested behemoth of environmental issues in the presidential campaign’s homestretch. But when Sen. John McCain suggested renegotiating a key water conservation agreement last month, the ensuing political firestorm reminded voters just how important other “green” topics have become....
Media Platforms Design TeamDear Mr. President,En route to the moon forty years ago, Apollo 11’s astronauts executed a course correction maneuver, an 8-mph rocket burn that fine-tuned their aim. You gave NASA a course correction with the 2010 budget plan. The $19.2 billion NASA budget (just half a percent of federal spending) may seem trivial amid the trillions spent to boost the economy, but such decisions will make or break America’s status as the world leader in space....
Media Platforms Design TeamWhen Deepwater Horizon, the offshore drilling rig, burned and sank on Thursday, April 22, federal and state government officials feared a major oil spill was in the making. The worst-case scenario predicted 336,000 gallons of crude oil a day might start spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and threaten the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.On Friday morning, however, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said no crude oil was leaking from the wellhead or from the riser adjacent to it....
The Perlan 2 could be a glider unlike any other. It just has to live up to its claims first. It’s designed, like many gliders, to be tugged up to the air by a powered vehicle. But once it’s there, it can power itself on winds to reach astounding heights, up to the stratosphere – an upper layer of the atmosphere reaching from 6 to 31 miles above the surface of the Earth....
Media Platforms Design TeamLast November, on a closed airport runway north of Seattle, Wash., a team of researchers from University of Washington and University of California–San Diego performed an ominous experiment on a late-model sedan. With a chase car driving on a parallel runway, they sped the test vehicle up to 40 mph, then turned off the brakes—via Wi-Fi. “Even though we knew what was going to happen, it’s a very unsettling feeling to have a loss of control,” says Alexei Czeskis, the researcher who was driving the test car....
Media Platforms Design TeamAdding a thickening agent, or a filler, to a two-part epoxy mix advances your game to a new level. I’ve needed epoxy twice in the last few months, and the contrast of my two experiences illustrates just how useful a filler can be.In June I suffered an epoxy failure. My son had damaged the front end of his ‘65 Mustang and was fixing it with the help of his Mustang-expert grandfather....
Media Platforms Design TeamMost people realize that all of us burn gasohol—a mixture of gasoline and alcohol—in our cars. Just about every gallon of gas pumped today contains as much as 10 percent domestically produced ethanol. Gummed-up fuel systems, damaged tanks and phase separation caused by stray moisture infiltrating fuel systems have plagued many consumers since this mixture debuted, and the problems will only get worse if government policy to increase the proportion of ethanol to gasoline is implemented....
A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B fighter passed targeting data to a rocket artillery crew, allowing the crew to target and hit a shipping container miles away. The shot, the first of its kind, highlighted the F-35’s ability to fly over battlefields, detect and identify targets, and pass the information along to nearby friendly “shooters” on the air, land, or sea. The exercise, as reported in Marine Times, was described by Lt....
A 50-year-old concept for a floating nuclear power plant was just too far ahead of its time.Today, Russia has a functioning floating power station, and modular, float-friendly reactors are the future.The 1969 design was damned by bureaucracy, changing energy needs, and manufacturing challenges.Nuclear engineer Nick Touran is shedding light on a historical near-miss with an idea that was just too ahead of its time 50 years ago: floating nuclear plants. In 1969, Touran writes, an engineer was frustrated with the lack of available real estate for new plants: “What if, he wondered, huge nuclear plants could be built in serial at a production facility, put on a barge, and floated to sites out at sea?...
Media Platforms Design TeamThis past summer, as I drove with my family to a vacation on Cape Cod, my two young sons started squabbling in the back seat over a game on my iPad mini. I was dealing with it in the traditional fatherly manner—by yelling at them and threatening to pull the car over and take the game away—when a wave of nostalgia washed over me. I had been on the flip side of the same situation almost 35 years earlier, when my older brother and I fought over a portable football video game in the back seat of our Volvo 144 on a summer trip to Vermont in 1979....
Roughly 75 Nazi artifacts have been discovered in Argentina, believed to once be the possession of high-ranking Nazi officials who had fled after the collapse of their government. It’s the largest stash of Nazi memorabilia found in the country’s history.After Hitler’s suicide and the collapse of the German Nazi government, officials who could escape often looked towards South America as a refuge. The country had remained neutral in World War 2, and like the United States, they salivated at the chance to harness the intelligence of Nazi scientists....
There is perhaps no greater reminder of one’s aging appliances than waking up to the pungent smell of natural gas in a 500-sq-ft. apartment at 3 a.m. At least, that’s what ran through my groggy mind as I dialed my gas provider’s emergency hotline early last Wednesday morning. Though the leak was eventually traced to the ancient hose that connects my stove to the gas line, the range itself is no spring chicken (nor is it fit to cook one)....
The Grand Rapids office of the National Weather Service tweeted a picture of ice volcanoes that had formed along Lake Michigan. The volcanoes aren’t governed by the same forces as their lava-spewing cousins, but instead by chilly temperatures, high waves, and strong winds. Some previously observed ice volcanoes have stretched as tall as 25 feet. Locals along Lake Michigan are buzzing with excitement after the National Weather Service’s Grand Rapids hub tweeted a photo of cones of ice along Oval Beach that were spewing chunks of ice and water into the air....
