Popular Science July 2014

Feed 06 From the Editor 08 Peer Review 10 A Bit About Us Now 13 A speaker that plays what you want to hear 17 10 things we love this month 18 Glassware for better-tasting beer 20 Wearable tech in disguise 22 The quietest fan 24 How Porsche is reinventing the sports car 26 A smart bike suspension 29 Xbox attacks cyberbullies Next 31 Solar flares that affect tech 32 An implant to help the paralyzed stand 34 The U.S. wind energy landscape 35 Inside Google's Project Loon 36 A drone to change warfare 39 How to kill garlic breath 40 Naming a piece of extraterrestrial property Manual 69 A robot that fish can drive 70 A DIY space suit for suborbital launches 72 Welding with car batteries 73 A…

When I was in college, I worked in a genetics lab. It started out as an internship and then grew into a part-time job, which helped pay the bills. For the most part, the work was pretty mundane. I did a lot of pipetting, ran a lot of gels, and tried my best not to contaminate the samples (which I did more than a few times). Staying late to dig into some problem or yet another baffling result, I often lost sight of why I was there: My job was to genetically modify plants. Much as I hate to date myself, those were the early days of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). My task was to alter the nitrogen-assimilation pathway in plants, so they could grow in poor soils with less…

This month's infographic, “The Whole Brilliant Enterprise” (page 64), was made possible thanks to a trove of publicly accessible NASA documents. “This isn't a pure time line of what happened,” says project lead Noa Younse. “It's an impression of what NASA has accomplished throughout history,” The source code used to create the four-page visualization is freely available on GitHub. While waiting in the airport after a missed flight, Bob Parks and photojournalist Paul Shoul noticed a crowd forming around a man telling stories about his work in the repossession industry. Parks was intrigued by the sophistication of the tracking technology involved in repossessing cars, which he writes about in “Scan Artist” (page 50). His eventual ride-along in Cleveland—complete with a chase—showed him the power of the technology firsthand. For our…

In her column, Erin Biba equated wildfires with floods and hurricanes and suggested higher homeowner insurance premiums [Next, May 2014]. That is too simplistic a solution for me, a wildland firefighter. Wildfire environments are a complex mix of fuels and terrain. Ranking homes by geographic zone is too general and could equate a safe house in a clearing with a vulnerable one in thick forest, creating a disincentive for proper siting and other protective measures. John Walker Coaldale, Colo.…

In May 2014, Ask Anything addressed the question of how colonies would grow food in space. Several readers still had lingering questions. Writer Daniel Engber responds. Q: Why not build a greenhouse-equipped ship in Earth orbit? The crops could be started prior to departure and, upon arrival to Mars, greenhouses could be detached and parachuted to the surface. Douglas R. Benn Spokane, Wash. A: There are two problems, says Cornell's Jean Hunter: First, planted crops could add weight to the landing vehicle, making it unfeasible; second, the microgravity on a trip to Mars would make cultivation very difficult. Instead, one might send robots to establish agriculture ahead of human colonists. Q: Have you considered sprouts as a permanent space-colony food source? Highly nutritious sprouts, such as bean sprouts, just need…

Q: WHAT VILLAIN DID YOU FEAR MOST AS A CHILD? 1. The Gmork from The NeverEnding Story. He only appears in flashes. 2. Vigo the Carpathian. It's a miracle I set foot in a museum again. 3. The cold, unforgiving vacuum of space in The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System. 4. The scarlet fever that killed Beth in Little Women. 5. I'm still afraid of the preacher in Poltergeist II. 6.Who Framed Roger Rabbit's Judge Doom. Half human, half animation, all trauma. 7. The cannibalistic witch from Hansel and Gretel. Prion-laced gingerbread! 8. He turned out to be good, but E.T. scared me. 9. The Wicked Witch of the West. 10. Hexxus from Fern-Gully: The Last Rainforest. I literally ran out of the theater crying.…