Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2019 i Popular Science

EARLY ONE MORNING THIS past summer, I rode my motorcycle out of New York City for what I expect was the last time. In fact, I’ll probably never ride in my hometown again. That’s too bad, because motorbikes used to be the best way to get around this burg: fast, cheap, and able to squirm through gridlock. Why? The recent influx of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have made these streets way too mean. According to data from the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission, the city has added more than 70,000 for-hire vehicles between 2013 and 2018. And while it’s far easier to get a ride now—even if you’re in far-out Brooklyn or couldn’t historically flag down a cab based on the way you look—Ubers are making the…

OUR MOST STALWART celestial explorers are hitch hikers. Autonomous rovers such as Sojourner, the bouncing robots of Minerva II, and the crewed Apollo moon buggies might not log as much mileage as the rockets they ride, but the relatively wee lengths they travel cover the final legs of journeys into the unknown. On the surface of Mars, asteroids, and the moon, these intrepid travelers look for water, gather samples, and capture photos that showcase alien worlds to the Earth-bound. These are the tracks of six off-world trotters. SOJOURNER Distance: 0.06 miles Destination: Mars Date: 1997 Origin: USA Although Sojourner, the first rover on Mars, trundled only a short way, it managed to nab more than 500 pics while studying the composition of alien rocks and soil. MINERVA II 1A AND…

IN 2017, PHYSICISTS BEAMED PHOTONS from Tibet to a satellite passing more than 300 miles overhead. These particles jumping through space evoked wide-eyed sci-fi fantasies back on Earth: Could Star Trek transporters be far behind? ¶ Sorry for the buzzkill, but this real-world trick, called quantum teleportation, probably won’t ever send your body from one place to another. It’s essentially a super-secure data transfer, which is tough to do with the jumble of code that makes a human. Photons and teensy bits of atoms are the most complex bodies we can send over long distances in a flash. Each particle of the same type—photon, neutron, electron—is largely the same as every other member of its subatomic species. Configurations known as quantum states distinguish them. Two photons spinning clockwise, for example,…

WHAT’S THE HOLDUP? IN 1958, POPULAR SCIENCE predicted humankind’s “age-old dream of flying like a bird…may be nearer than we think.” Within three decades, jetpack test pilot William Suitor hovered over the opening ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Even so, our prediction was a bit overblown: Suitor’s moment of glory—bogged down by inefficiency and 120 pounds of kit—lasted 20 seconds. Jetpacks have inched toward liftoff since Suitor’s stunt. His model used pressurized hydrogen peroxide for fuel, while today’s rocket suits rely on more-efficient kerosene or diesel to fly for 10 to 20 minutes. But modern crafts have made only marginal leaps on other issues. Being literal rockets, the packs are noisy; Suitor’s belt screeched at 130 decibels, and Jetpack Aviation’s current model is a slightly muffled 120 decibels.…

IN 2018, QANTAS INTRODUCED the first nonstop link between Europe and Australia. Clocking in at 17 hours, an extended flight like this is possible only because airplane makers such as Boeing and Airbus have spent decades on innovations, including fuel-friendly wing shapes and stronger, lighter materials. But keeping a plane in the air all day is useless if you can’t keep customers happy in cramped, sterile cabins for the duration. Plans include wider seats, lights that reprogram circadian rhythms, and cabin air that’s more pleasant to breathe. Also, they might finally speed up the Wi-Fi. But they’d better hurry: Qantas plans to schedule 22-hour flights by 2022. 1. EASING THE SQUEEZE The most coveted inches on any plane are the ones we sit on—the economics of air travel forces most…

Raymond Wilson The Associated Heath Press AHP − A recent breakthrough stands to help millions of Americans plagued by burning, tingling and numb legs and feet. But this time it comes in the form of a cream, not a pill, suggesting the medical community may have been going about the problem all wrong. The breakthrough, called Diabasens, is a new relief cream developed for managing the relentless discomfort caused by neuropathy. When applied directly to the legs and feet, it causes arteries and blood vessels to expand, increasing the flow of warm, nutrient rich blood to damaged tissue. However, what’s most remarkable about the cream…and what makes it so brilliant…is that it contains one of the only natural substances known to activate a special sensory pathway right below the surface…

BACK IN THE ’90S, ADAR PELAH WAS studying vision at the University of Cambridge when he noticed something funny at the gym: For the first few minutes after stepping off a treadmill, he felt like he was moving much faster than he actually was. Pelah documented his observation in a 1996 paper. Since then, studies have tested many so-called treadmill illusions, including this one: Run on the machine for at least 10 minutes, step off, then have a friend blindfold you. Try to walk in place, and you’ll run forward instead. While you’re on the treadmill, your body is moving, but the world isn’t shifting past you like it does when you’re striding on solid ground. You end up with zero optic flow—the motion of the visual world as you…

ALL ROADS MIGHT LEAD to Rome, but some destinations are accessible by only a single route. Practice your logical reasoning with these path puzzles (instructions below), a concept originally created by mathematician Roderick Kimball. Instructions: Each grid has two openings, and your goal is to find the path between them. The digits on the outside are both clues and strict rules: They represent the number of square cells the path travels through in each corresponding column or row. If there’s no number, the trail can pass through an unconstrained number of cells. Always, the path can pass through each square just once. (Use a pencil; answers on page 122.)…

A time machine STEPHEN DIAMOND VIA FACEBOOK YOU’RE ALREADY EN ROUTE from yesterday to tomorrow. And you can always jump ahead: Spend 100 years aboard the International Space Station, where time passes ever so slightly slower than on the blue planet, and when you return home, Earth will be one second ahead of the ISS. Slipping back is more difficult. You’d have to create a warp in spacetime by bringing two ends of a wormhole together, says John Friedman, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Natural ones might exist, but they’d be too small even for an electron to pass through. Stabilizing a human-size loop would require “exotic matter” with wonky properties such as falling upward, which is probably impossible. An electric car that recharges itself JOSEPH…

Andrew Blum As a youth in summer camp, Andrew Blum sailed Lasers: small, fast, wildly popular sailboats. On page 48, Blum, now the father of two young sailors, focuses on the history of this classic craft and the life of 90-year-old Bruce Kirby, the Canada-born designer who built the first Laser in 1970. The story—technical but deeply human—was a natural fit for Blum, whose first book, Tubes, told the tale of the physical structure of the internet and the people who constructed it. This June will mark the debut of his second book, The Weather Machine, which peers into the complex systems that bring the morning forecast to our phones, digital assistants, and radio DJs. While he sees technical explanations like these as a public service, he admits that…

WHAT’S THE FASTEST ANIMAL ON EARTH? DEPENDS ON HOW YOU define quickness. By simple miles per hour, classic mega-fauna like cheetahs dominate the leaderboard. But if we measure velocity by the body lengths an animal travels per second, those quick cats have some competition. This race of proportions allows contenders from all kingdoms to go for gold. Here’s how a cross-section of critters achieves top speeds. 1. COMMON SQUID JET PROPULSION This cephalopod shoots through the ocean like a tentacled jet. It sucks water into a chamber in its 8-inch-long cone-shaped body, then contracts its muscles to push the liquid through a narrow funnel-shaped organ near its head. The flow blasts in one direction, launching the adult squid’s gelatinous form the opposite way at 10 body lengths per second. 2.…

IN 1961, A JAPANESE AMUSEMENT park let kids cruise around on teensy Honda motorcycles in the awesomest attraction ever. People freaked, so Honda tweaked the miniature moto just enough to make it ready for the road, and released the CZ100 “monkey bike” in 1963. Though technically for older kids, grown-up hooligans loved them, even after production ended in 1970. Now there’s a new Monkey in town. It measures just 47 inches from front to back and sports ’60s-style steel bodywork, but it’s a modern, street-legal machine. The 125cc engine is more than twice the size of the original, so a not-too-heavy rider can push the 234-pound terror north of 60 miles per hour. The upgraded Monkey even boasts anti-lock brakes, but the system affects only the front wheel. That way,…

IT’S TIME TO DITCH THE SWEATS AND BAGGY T-SHIRT THAT MAKE UP YOUR default travel outfit. Instead, opt for better-fitting garments that will endure the delays, cramped quarters, and poor ventilation of a long haul. You’ll also want clothing that you could rock even for a few days if your luggage goes on its own vacation. These items are comfy and, thanks to smart fabric and construction choices, will keep you chill and smelling fresh. 1 Eddie Bauer Voyager 2.0 Jacket A durable water-repellent finish protects this garment and everything you put into its six pockets. Two-way stretch fabric gives when you reach to turn on an overhead light. 2 Lululemon Commission Pants Lycra in these slim-cut cotton slacks leave room for pre-flight stretches without fear of a split seat.…

ON A SLATE- GRAY DAY IN September, 89-year-old Bruce Kirby leans against the pinstriped first-mate’s seat of Lulu as it motors in slow circles on Long Island Sound. Just outside the elegantly varnished cockpit, a fleet of small sailboats races by, its formation loose and shifting. Kirby follows the boats through a pair of binoculars. One, Jack, belongs to him; he’d be out there competing if it weren’t for his ailing back. But all of the boats are Kirby’s design. Known as Sonars, Kirby drew their shape in 1979 with a day just like this in mind. The Noroton Yacht Club, Kirby’s home port in the suburban town of Darien, Connecticut, wanted a craft for its members to race—something nimble and fast, but also sturdy and well-behaved. The Sonar is…

WHAT’S THE HOLDUP? THE POINT OF FLYING CARS is convenience: to go up and over traffic instead of sitting in it. That means the craft’s propulsion technology must be powerful enough to soar, but also safe, quiet, and nimble enough to land in a suburban driveway. While startups have developed clever flight schemes, none has found the happy medium between auto and airplane. Silicon Valley company Opener has a single-seater that takes off vertically using eight rotors, but the contraption has no wheels, which means it is more like a personal helicopter than a road-ready rover. Boston-area startup Terrafugia makes the Transition, a two-seat vehicle with folding wings. With its fins deployed, it can fly up to 400 miles at altitudes of 9,000 feet. But there’s a catch: In order…

WHAT’S THE HOLDUP? IN EARLY 2018, it seemed like autonomous cars were ready to hit public roads. Then a self-driving Uber struck and killed a woman one night in Tempe, Arizona. The incident got folks worried (more on p. 44) and also highlighted this tech’s big flaw: It cannot reliably recognize hazards in all conditions. Even an untimely glare can mess with a car’s perception. All-the-time autonomy relies on a suite of tech. GPS tells the car the best route, while sensors—radar, lidar, and cameras—spy obstacles. An artificially intelligent computer processes those inputs to make rapid decisions: slam the brakes for a person, or go through a leaf. Vehicles must train for hundreds of thousands of hours to learn every hazard in every condition. Automakers can log that time more…

FROM THE NEXT ROOM, THROUGH A thick granite wall, comes a chug-a-chuga-chug-a, like an old steam train closing in. Rounding the corner, I see the source of the racket: a table, shaking. The long, metal slab jerks quickly back and forth. On it, in two neat rows, are a half-dozen rectangular prisms packed with sensors measuring pressure and motion. Each one holds a titanium-alloy bolt the size of a grown man’s forearm and weighing about 10 pounds. As the elaborate assemblage might hint, these bolts are special. Eventually, this remarkable hardware will go to space. The bolts, or ones like them, will hold together sections of the Orion space-craft, a new vehicle that, sometime in the next decade, will carry humans out of low-Earth orbit for the first time since…

THE CONTROL ROOM AT THE U.S. Air Force Academy’s Aeronautics Research Center is remarkably quiet given the fury Blake Scholl and his engineers just uncorked. Thick concrete walls and a robust slab of glass separate them from a screaming General Electric J85-15, a turbojet like the one used in the T-38 trainer and other military jets. The cylindrical engine, bolted to a steel test stand, glows a sinister shade of red as it spits a cone of flame the color of a clear summer sky. Scholl, who founded Boom Supersonic in 2014, watches as his chief test pilot, former U.S. Navy fighter hotshot Bill “Doc” Shoemaker, and Boom propulsion engineer Ben Murphy coax the engine through its runup to full afterburner: Fuel squirts into the exhaust, boosting the jet’s thrust—and…

SETH RILEY, WILDLIFE ECOLOGIST AT THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS NATIONAL RECREATION AREA California contains some of the largest and busiest freeways in North America. This causes problems for local animals, particularly mountain lions—traveling through traffic can kill them, so roads prevent them from spreading out. As a result, we’re seeing more cases of inbreeding and of these territorial animals fighting and killing each other. Mountain lions in certain parts of California, especially the Los Angeles area, now have extremely low genetic diversity compared with those in other Western states. By putting GPS collars on a few of these big cats—which generally requires setting a trap and then tranquilizing them with a blowpipe dart—we’ve learned that most don’t even try to cross the biggest roads. Young adults will…

RODRIGO VÁSQUEZ, PROFESSOR OF BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AT UNIVERSITY OF CHILE AT SANTIAGO To figure out how T. rexes and velociraptors strutted around, paleontologists might measure fossilized femurs or footprints. But my team of behavioral ecologists turned to their living cousins: chickens. Animal development is a time capsule. As a chicken grows from egg to adult, it passes through forms that look like its evolutionary ancestors, including theropods, dinosaurs with long tails that walked on two legs. With their similar body structures, we thought that restoring an ancestral tail might give chickens the swagger of their ferocious forebears. First, I tried taping weighted metal bars to the chicks’ butts. But the “tails” would slip off easily, and they weren’t very realistic anyway. So we moved on to custom cabooses: thin rods…

WIND, HORSE, AND PEOPLE POWER enforced strict speed limits for most of human history, but that never stopped us from venturing. By A.D. 400, Polynesians had explored the Pacific so persistently that they’d reached and settled Hawaii—thousands of miles from points of origin in Asia. That wanderlust soon had us itching to pick up speed. Here are some important moments in our journey to go farther—and do it faster. 1522 Around the world 43K miles/5 mph Ferdinand Magellan started the first trip around the globe but died en route. Juan Sebastián del Cano took charge, completing the circumnavigation—which tacked on mileage to curve around continents—in 37 months. 1848 A mile a minute 26 miles/60 mph Speed gains can be slow; sailboats, for one, top horses by only a mile or…

THERE’S AN AERIAL EXPRESS LANE 100 MILES WIDE STRETCHING above the Atlantic, where more than a thousand planes crisscross the jet stream’s 150 mph winds. Spotty radar coverage over the ocean calls for predetermined routes, creating a consistent traffic pattern. Here’s the resulting skyway—which can shave an hour off a trip from North America to Europe—and the rest of the 125,798 flight paths blazed every night. RUSSIA Prior to 1991, these paths connecting Europe and East Asia didn’t exist. The Soviet Union forbade foreign aircraft from flying directly over Siberia, so routes in that region went through Anchorage. Airlines now frequently pay Russia a steep premium so they can skip the detour and shave off precious flight time. DUBAI The UAE’s position on the globe allows the Emirates’ airlines to…

YOU PROBABLY DON’T WANT TO WEAR THAT PAIR OF BLOWN-out Converse All Stars to amble anywhere farther than the corner store. For long treks, the proper footwear will support your dogs and grip the ground to prevent sore soles, painful blisters, and mangled ankles. These four choices will carry you for many miles over different types of terra firma. 1 Rocky paths Stones and boulders threaten your feet with jammed and bruised toes. Salomon covered the fronts of the X Ultra 3 boots with molded rubber, creating an additional layer of protection between your tootsies and rocks or roots that come outta nowhere. The chevron-shaped lugs on the soles give you plenty of grip for ascending and descending. 2 Beach or riverbed Go wading with socks and shoes on, and…

THE RELENTLESS HUM OF BUS TIRES AND AIRPLANE ENGINES will make you yearn for silence. Noise-canceling headphones use built-in mics to listen to your environment, then generate audio waves that nuke background clamor. These ’phones offer increasing levels of control over what reaches your eardrums. 1 GOOD The Panasonic RP-HD605N headphones tap two sets of mics to power three tiers of noise canceling. Tap a button on the right ear cup to choose what you block (or hear) in a given scene. Use the lowest setting to catch both your podcast and a gate announcement, the middle to zap train engines, and the top for sweet, total solitude. 2 BETTER The rotating dial on the right ear cup of the Microsoft Surface Headphones lets you toggle through 13 noise-altering modes.…

GPS WILL LEAD YOU AROUND THE PAVED PARTS OF THE WORLD, but tapping on a smartphone screen won’t always work in the wilderness. For backcountry adventures, you’ll need to be comfortable going analog. These tools won’t give you turn-by-turn directions out of the woods, but taking them along could save you from shacking up with a bear for the rest of your days. 1 Maps Regional outfits like Outdoor Trail Maps in Colorado or the Appalachian Mountain Club in the Northeast provide local details, such as trail routes. They also have standard cartographic info like elevation, GPS coordinates, and the topographical lines that show terrain contours. 2 Sleeve Thanks to a zip closure with heat-welded seams, the Sea to Summit TPU translucent envelope will protect your precious chart in water…

WHAT’S THE HOLDUP? HYPERLOOP CAPSULES ZOOM at the speed of sound along magnetic rails through underground pneumatic tubes. Or as Elon Musk tweeted during his 2013 unveiling: “A cross between a Concorde and a rail gun.” Musk anticipated his ambitious idea would have a greater chance at success if several groups worked on it concurrently, so he made the project open-source. Also helpful: Versions of the requisite hardware were already out there. Electric motors will send the capsules down aluminum tracks, magnets will provide levitation, and bunches of conventional vacuum pumps will suck all the air out of Hyperloop tunnels to create a nigh-frictionless atmosphere. The biggest physical challenge is digging the passageways, though it’s more a financial woe than a technical one. Musk’s venture for this grunt work, the…

ST. STEPHEN’S COMMUNITY HOUSE sits among single-family homes, recycling plants, wrecking yards, shipping centers, and parks, all occupying the Linden neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Begun as a Catholic social center in 1919, it has morphed into a gathering place that helps local residents connect with jobs, medical care, supermarkets, and transportation. And just as in its early days, the center also helps them connect with one another. So it is that at 5:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in October, about 150 people gather to hear city officials present a reinvention scheme. Even the standing-room section is crowded. A screen displays a slide deck for a 10-point strategy—called the One Linden Plan—to improve this historically underserved low-income area. Onstage, hip-high cubes show photos of happy kids clinging to smiling parents. While…

Grandma refused to sell her house, so the miners dug around her. So goes the yarn Bruce Zaccagnino spun about this set in Northlandz, one of the world’s largest model-train museums. For its few visitors, the mazy 52,000-square-foot Flemington, New Jersey, spot is a daunting multi-hour walk. But for founder Zaccagnino, it’s a shred of the railway in his mind: “I’ll wake up—no dreams, no forethought—and all of a sudden, there’s this scene in front of me,” he says. Opened in 1996, the site is the off spring of his collection, which began in his basement in ’72. Its 8 miles of 1/87-scale track wind through postcard midcentury vistas. Maintaining Northlandz at this size is a full-time job, but the would-be engineer keeps laying new track. Stock Cars Video games…

JOE VANOFLEN, OPERATIONS LEAD AT DRIVE. AI We spend so much of our lives commuting, but with self-driving cars, we could fill that time in unlimited ways. You might finish up work, put on a movie, or—if the car windows are digital displays—enjoy a virtual-reality tour of the French countryside. But before we hand over the keys, we need to test the tech. In June 2018, I started as a “safety driver” at autonomous car company Drive.ai, riding behind the wheel of our passenger shuttles in Frisco, Texas. After driving the vehicle out into the field, I would press a button to engage autonomy. In the event I needed to take over, I didn’t want to waste a second getting to the controls, so I would keep a hand on…

LOOK AT THE PATTERNED IMAGE above. With the magazine fixed, the design remains still. But move the page ever so slightly, and the decorative display picks up speed. What’s driving this delusive dynamism, says neuroscientist Stephen Macknik at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York, is our mental attempt to focus on a moving world. When our eyes concentrate, they generate tiny jerklike twitches known as micro-saccades, which alert our brains to motion. To prevent the world from seeming like a giant strobe light show, we suppress these movements, keeping the eye seemingly still. But the image above hijacks this system. In the real world, sharp changes between light and dark signal movement. The picture here mimics this, as a light shape offsets a dark one. Also, each inside circle…