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Media Platforms Design TeamGoogle wants to deploy a fleet of nanoparticles to hunt for cancerous cells in the body. The tiny particles, just 1/1,000th the size of a cell, would be delivered by a pill, then enter the bloodstream and attach to red blood cells. Once deployed, the magnetic nanoparticles could be activated via a wearable device, giving a count on cancerous cells and providing a view into the health of the wearer....

I can see why you’d want to record and share your proposal—that’s a forever memory, and social media gold.Just don’t do it this way.This perhaps inevitable accessory is the RokShok, a terrible spelling of a questionable idea. It’s a phone case that hides away an engagement ring. Open the case when you’re ready to pop the question and boom, up comes the rock on a little pedestal, as if it’s in a pop-up book....

Home Depot, a literal depot for all our home and tool needs, has some major deals for Black Friday this year. All the favorites make the list, Dewalt, Milwaukee, Ridgid, Makita, and even a few that might be a joyous surprise. Enjoy spending and saving that holiday money with these products. [Note: We’ll update this story as more deals become available.]ToolsHusky 15-Drawer Mobile Workbench - $898, save $100Dewalt 15-Amp Corded Sliding Compound Miter Saw - $399, save $199Milwaukee M18 18-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless Combo Tool Kit - $549, save $450Ridgid 15-Amp Corded Heavy-Duty Portable Table Saw with Stand - $299, save $200Ryobi 18-Volt ONE+ Lithium-Ion Cordless 10-Tool Combo Kit - $499, save $130Hulk Power Portable Electric-Powered Vertical Silent Air Compressor - $329, save $62Makita 18-Volt LXT Lithium-Ion Cordless Impact Driver Kit - $90, save $39Bosch Factory Reconditioned 8....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s a beautiful spring day, and a perfect time to break the winter seal on the garage and drive around in your classic Corvette, vintage motorcycle or whatever pride and joy you happen to have stashed inside. Off with the cover, and the engine turns over willingly, thank goodness. A quick warmup and you’re off for a loop around town.All of which is fine, until the engine seems a little … reluctant to maintain speed....

Media Platforms Design TeamHyundai, like most automakers today, continues to showcase advanced battery-electric vehicle concepts. At this year’s North American International Auto Show, Hyundai is showcasing the Blue-Will Plug-In Hybrid, a concept car that the company says hints at future plug-in Hyundais. This concept’s solar panoramic roof and its thermal generator might not necessarily be production-ready today, but they are smart ideas nonetheless. The solar cells on the roof gather electricity while the car is parked and spins an interior cooling fan so passengers don’t have to deal with a hot interior after a trip to the mall, and so, theoretically, Hyundai could use a downsized A/C compressor....

The speedometer climbs as we race down a straightaway in Humble, Texas. As the needle edges to 60, 70, then 80 miles per hour, the 36-year-old automobile rattles and the wind whistles through the windows. Finally the DeLorean zooms up to 88 miles per hour and we feel, just for a moment, like we’ve gone back to the future. Then, a series of loud honks from the other side of the road, followed by animated waving, awaken us out of our speed spell....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe opening moments of Lost’s season six premiere, “LA X,” look eerily familiar: We’re back on Oceanic Flight 815. But something is off. Yes, reluctant hero Jack Shephard is still flirting with an Australian flight attendant and talking an anxious Rose through a patch of turbulence while her husband is in the bathroom, just as we saw in season one. Suddenly, the turbulence gets worse, and then … it stops....

UPDATE: In the November 2011 issue of Popular Mechanics, we updated our Mac vs. PC lab test with two new contenders, the Apple MacBook Pro and the HP Pavilion DM4. Check out the new showdown here.Media Platforms Design TeamWe all know the stereotypes. Apple’s popular commercials have painted the picture in stark terms: There are two types of people, Mac people and PC people. And if the marketing is to be believed, the former is a hip, sport-coat-and-sneakers-­wearing type of guy who uses his computer for video chatting, music mash-ups and other cool, creative pursuits that starchy, business-suited PC users could never really appreciate unless they tried them on the slick Apple interface....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Sale Date: Feb. 20Price: $199 (with Verizon two-year contract)To make a Windows Phone is to face a Herculean task: to figure out a way to make a device appealing while having a limited app store and a small user community to work with. Nokia knows this all too well; it has carried the Windows Phone banner since the introduction of its first devices in October 2011, and Microsoft acquired its mobile division late last year....

A surgeon in India performed the first remote heart operation on a patient 20 miles away.The procedure, known as percutaneous coronary intervention, can help to open blood vessels in patients with atherosclerosis.Innovations in telemedicine and robot-assisted surgery have widely benefited patients who previously lacked access to the healthcare system.A surgeon in India has successfully performed the first remote heart surgery on a patient who was lying on an operating table 20 miles away....

Update 6/26: Rocket Lab scrubbed the launch attempt for “It’s Business Time” on June 22 due to an issue with one of their downrange tracking dishes. The company is now targeting tonight, June 26, for the next launch window, which opens at 8:30 p.m. EDT.View full post on TwitterOrignal Post:Rocket Lab is set to launch its third Electron rocket. The mission, named “It’s Business Time” by virtue of a poll on the company’s Twitter, will carry satellites for three companies as well as an educational CubeSat, a testament to the appeal of the growing small sat industry....

You may experience weather as a local phenomenon, but changes hundreds or thousands of miles away can impact the weather in your hometown. A new study finds that hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico might be weakened by dust blowing in from the Sahara Desert.In a study published in the Journal of Climate, a group of researchers calculated the effects of sand and dust from the Sahara on ocean temperatures and weather patterns....

The B-1B Lancer heavy bomber was originally built in the 1980s.The B-1B was built for low-level flight, flying beneath radars to bomb targets deep behind enemy lines.Wear and tear to the airframes from decades of flight means the Air Force may restrict the B-1s from flying low.The U.S. Air Force may soon have to restrict one of its bombers from a key mission profile: flying low. The B-1B Lancer bomber fleet is growing old and the Air Force is considering restricting its ability to fly low, which is reportedly hard on the aircraft, in order to keep the big airplanes flying....

Buy NowBefore I came to Popular Mechanics, I was Esquire’s technology editor for ten years. I saw hundreds of TV demos at CES and other trade shows. I tested dozens in my own apartment—plasmas, LCDs, LED LCDs, an enormous Sony 4K TV that took up an entire wall of our tiny living room. But the one thing that stood out over everything else was OLED.OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode. It means each pixel is self-illuminating, which means each pixel can be turned on or off....

Take all the mechanical parts that allow a DSLR camera to take rich photographs and shrink them down to a 4-ounce, three-inch tall, pocket-sized unit. That’s the DxO One. Use it by itself sans viewfinder, or plug it into the Lightning port on your iPhone or iPad and make your smartphone into a serious camera.You may have never heard of DxO. I hadn’t, either. But the company’s bona fides show that it’s ideally position to build an iPhone photography accessory you’ll actually use....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith the Kepler space observatory severely sidelined due to irreparable damage to its reaction wheels, NASA will rely on TESS to find distant planets. TESS–short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite–will launch in 2017. Like Kepler, it will hunt for planets by looking for dimming lights due to the presence of transiting planets. But how will it spot those transits?This video, put together by the TESS team, simply illustrates how TESS stares at distant stars....

Todday, August 1, is Earth Overshoot Day, the moment in the year where humanity uses up more of the Earth’s resources than the Earth produces in that year. Starting tomorrow, any resources we use, from food to water to timber, will not be replenished by the end of the year.The idea for Earth Overshoot Day originated in 1987 with the Global Footprint Network, which is a think tank centered around sustainable practices....

Media Platforms Design TeamImage: DeWaltPrice: $260 to $300Description: A 20-volt hammer drill driver powered by a brushless motor and a 4-amp-hour lithium-ion battery.Summary: About as close to an all-purpose drill as we’ve seen.A typical day on a construction site or remodeling job can take you through any number of different drilling tasks, ranging from lumber to steel to concrete. DeWalt’s DCD995 comes as close to doing it all as any drill we’ve seen....

Media Platforms Design TeamUltimate Ears Loud Enough Earphones /// $40 /// Avalilable now The Promise: “LoudEnough earphones maintain best-in-class audio quality while setting boundaries to the volume delivered to children’s ears. … Relative to other noise-isolating earphones, these innovative ear buds reduce sound pressure levels (SPLs) by up to 20dB, which is heard as about one quarter of the volume.” In other words, you can limit your tween’s hearing loss with these cute in-ear headphones....

“Are we alone in the universe?”Humans have been pondering this question since medieval times, and probably long before. But for most of history, people had little more than low-tech telescopes and highly active imaginations with which to explore the idea that there’s life out there in the cosmos. Not anymore.“After a millennia of asking the priests and philosophers what we should believe about life somewhere else, we suddenly have the tools,” Jill Tarter told Popular Mechanics....