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There are lots of eco-friendly reasons to switch to a hybrid. And then there’s the Army, which has announced that its entire family of Manned Ground Vehicles (MGV) will use a new hybrid electric drivetrain, starting with the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon, a 155mm self-propelled howitzer. Of all the potential advantages listed for the system, including better low-speed maneuverability than those with traditional drivetrains, none has to do with limiting emissions or reducing carbon footprints....

So in the May issue of Popular Mechanics, I wrote about the dangers of overly complicated gadgetry, especially in cars. Now it seems that Audi is centering a new advertising strategy around the same theme. According to Advertising Age:“Audi wants luxury-car buyers to know its in-car technology enhances driving—and doesn’t complicate it like some gizmos in competitors’ models. In trying to popularize and energize its brand with its first ad campaign from Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco, Audi of America is taking aim at rivals, though Scott Keogh, Audi’s chief marketing officer, said the effort doesn’t target a specific competitor....

In a press conference in Washington, D.C. today, Netherlands-based nonprofit foundation Mars One announced that it plans to launch a privately funded unmanned mission to Mars in 2018.Mars One has been planning a four-person manned mission, for which it has begun to select citizen astronauts from a pool of 200,000 applicants from around the world. The newly announced mission would be much less ambitious and more realistic to accomplish by the team’s self-imposed 2018 deadline....

Almost thirty years ago, Jurassic Park roared its way into theaters worldwide. And though the action-packed dino flick would inspire a new generation of paleontologists, director Steven Spielberg packed in more science fiction than actual science. Since the film’s 1993 debut, scientists have discovered that velociraptors were actually feathered, Dilophosauruses definitely didn’t spit poison, and a T-Rex’s vision was very much not based on movement. Even the very premise of the film—resurrecting dinosaurs with DNA extracted from ancient mosquitoes—is now considered likely impossible....

Can-Am is a three-wheel pioneer, building trikes way before it was cool. In the decade since that first Spyder, three-wheelers have become a legitimate, even popular alternative to motorcycles. Related StoryThe 7 Best Motorcycles to Ride in 2020The company still makes the original Spyder, but it’s expensive. The base model starts at $16,000, and goes to over $25,000 for a loaded Touring model. The new Ryker is Can-Am’s entry-level trike, starting at $8,499 and built to give the same fun and stability on twisty roads as its older sibling....

Media Platforms Design TeamPrice: $30It’s not often someone improves on scissors. Generally speaking, the design—which dates back to somewhere around the 15th century BCE in Egypt—has served us well. But with the Amplify Mixed Media Shears, Fiskars has rethought the classic design in an effort to make it easier to cut all sorts of media, from cardstock to magnets to chipboard to fiberglass cloth. The technology works this way: When cutting thick mixed media materials, the scissors sense blade separation thanks to a patent-pending floating blade tang, which allows the transfer of energy to a torsion bar, which then adjusts the blade to its optimal cutting angle....

DETROIT – Looking back on the opening day of the Detroit auto show, we certainly could not mistake whose show this is. With the masses of humanity from various domestic carmakers to over-the-top press conferences—featuring such crowd pleasers as Bobby Flay sharing his recipes for success with Chrysler Group’s president, Tom Lasorda, or DaimlerChrysler’s ice dancers—there’s no doubt that this show is the personal property of Chrysler, Ford and GM. The non-native brand automakers, not exactly shrinking violets in their presentations, still defer to geography....

Media Platforms Design TeamSaturn may have the largest set of rings in our solar system, but it has nothing on J1407b. That planet, located about 433 light years away, has a ring system stretching out 200 times the distance of Saturn’s. They’re so big that if Saturn had them, we’d see the rings clearly from Earth in broad daylight.The planet is huge—10 to 40 times more massive than Jupiter, and so big that it might actually fall be a brown dwarf, or a failed star....

PM has spent some time cruising in a 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and driving it taught us some of the real-world quirks of owning an EV. Ron Moore learned a lot from getting his hands on an i-MiEV, too. But Moore’s lessons came from ripping the thing apart.Moore is a training consultant for the National Fire Prevention Association. He, along with a hand-picked team of firefighters, systematically tore apart a donated 2012 i-MiEV last month to educate emergency personnel on the complications high-voltage batteries and electrical systems present....

UPDATE (5:45 p.m.): A lot of the buzz here today at GM’s headquarters (aside from chatter about its next plug-in cars down the line) has revolved around the most critical part of the upcoming Chevy Volt: its lithium-ion battery pack. Many insiders believe that there’s simply not enough time for engineers to fully test the battery. Of course there’s no way to perfectly test 10 years of battery use without, well, 10 years....

If you’ve done any flying with recreational drones, you’ll know there are some places you simply cannot fly with them. Some places, like military bases, are restricted for national security reasons. But others, like airports, are restricted because drones can cause major damage to aircraft if they collide.How much damage? It depends on what and where. Researchers have been studying various forms of theoretical collisions, including what happens if a drone collides with a plane’s nose cone or gets sucked into its engine....

There was a time when we shared music through walls rather than social networks, when we prized the tactility of knobs and dials over the numb stroke of a thumb on a touchscreen. Electronics weren’t disposable, and we understood that newer didn’t always mean better.The ’70s were important years for the audio world, and they left a lasting legacy. Today, vintage audio equipment is anything but rare. Aging speakers and receivers fill basements across the country, or sit decoratively and underutilized in living room corners....

Flying is seriously hard work, even for birds that look like they’re barely trying. In fact, birds are on the lookout for flight secrets to make their lives easier. Take thermals, columns of rising air that form when the ground below warms through sunlight. Thermals are pure gold for aerial creatures that do the work of flying for birds, allowing them to save energy. If a bird can catch the right thermal, all it needs to do is find the right angle, spread its wings, and soar....

At its big event last week, Apple continued its tradition of rolling out a standard and a supersized version of its newest iPhone. This time, we got the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max, the latter coming in at a pocket-busting size of 6.5 inches. Has the big phone finally gotten too big?For anyone debating which one to get, my subjective verdict is yes. After a few days of testing, the iPhone XS Max feels too big for most people....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design Team(Photograph by minds-eye)Every 33 years the comet Tempel-Tuttel passes through the inner solar system. It leaves behind a trail of debris, which Earth plows through every November, creating the annual Leonid meteor shower. Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph by Navicore)The Leonids are so named because as the Earth crashes into Tempel-Tuttel’s debris, bits of space rubble streak across the night sky near the Leo constellation. Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph by Christopher P....

A new analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance says that 50 percent of the world’s energy will come from solar and wind by 2050.In 2015, wind and solar made up only 7 percent of global electricity generation. BNEF, then, is proposing that these energy sources will grow by a full order of magnitude over the next 30 years. This is unprecedented for any other energy technology.The group bases the ambitious predictions on two factors: one, that solar and wind power will get dramatically cheaper over the next few decades, and two, that cheap battery storage will allow more wind and solar plants to be built....

On a long trip to Mars, two problems become almost immediately apparent. First: What do the astronauts eat? And second: Where do we put all the poop?A group of scientists from Penn State are have come up with a way to solve both problems at once using bacteria. Specifically, their plan involves using poop and bacteria to grow something edible for the astronauts to eat. And who said going to Mars wasn’t going to be glamorous?...

Lab-grown “mini-brains” have, for the first time, produced human-like brain waves, and appeared to do so spontaneously. The electric patterns from in the mini-brains showed a resemblance to what’s seen in premature babies. The lab brains belong to a type known scientifically as “organoids,” which are grown as 3D cultures of embryonic stem cells. Such cultures also have been used to create miniature versions of eyes, guts, livers, kidney, prostates, and several other organs....

There is one missile system straining relations between the United States, China, and South Korea. It is causing cyberattacks, forcing supermarkets to close, and leading to tourism boycotts. It is the THAAD ballistic missile system. Hot on the heels of a North Korean missile test, THAAD is being deployed to South Korea—and neighboring China is hopping mad. The United States invented THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, in the 1980s as a means of shooting down Soviet tactical missiles....

Media Platforms Design TeamFlimmer, the Navy’s “duck drone” that was designed to hunt for submarines and oil spills, is ready for action, as seen in this video from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. The drone can take to the air, but once it crashes into the waves of a waiting body of water, it’s fully submergible. That is, until it has to take to the air again. The Flimmer bot comes out of Project WANDA....