Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2016 i Popular Science

141 Number of giant waves at the 2016 Eddie Aikau tournament in Waimea Bay, which is held only when waves top 35 feet. Every few years, El Niño—the weather phenomenon caused by unusually high surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean—deals us some wild cards. Some are devastating, in the form of floods and droughts. Others are godsends, in the form of much-needed rain or this year’s gargantuan waves that gave surfers the ride of their lives. This past winter’s El Niño was one of the three strongest on record, creating waves with magnitudes not seen in nearly two decades. The breaks that pro surfers paddled into during the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational (pictured) in late February ranged from 40 to 60 feet. The monster swells, according to Mark Willis,…

In the 47 years since humans first stepped on the moon, space-helmet technology hasn’t exactly made a giant leap. But the prospect of exploring Mars has NASA’s designers scrambling for their drawing boards. “The requirements are different from anything we’ve done before,” says Dave Lavery, who leads NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program. They include durability (to withstand abrasion in wind storms), flexibility (for yearlong missions), and field of view (for 360-degree visibility). “The shape [of future helmets] is going to be driven by the ability to see your feet while walking on the rough surface of Mars,” says NASA’s Amy Ross, who designs space suits. Now it’s up to NASA to get us there. PAST (1960s & ’70s) The iconic bubble helmet worn by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was…

To keep harmful pathogens, molds, and fungi at bay, farmers often spray crops with chemicals. But a company called Bee Vectoring Technology has developed an environmentally friendly alternative in which bees carry and deliver a fungus that kills off the bad stuff. Normally, a farmer with an acre of apples sprays about 13 pounds of streptomycin to protect the fruit from fire blight, which can destroy entire orchards. But with the new bee system, a tray at the hive entrance coats the bees’ hairy legs with a natural powderized fungus called BVT-CR7. The fungus acts as an endophyte, and grows harmlessly on the plant. It also prevents parasites and bacteria from taking hold. As the bees forage for nectar and pollen, they deposit the powderized fungus—of which only 0.04 pounds…

Digital tablets provide access to a world of information— but there’s no elegant, affordable way for the visually impaired to read from them. That’s because current braille readers, which attach to the bottom of a tablet, provide room for only one line of text at a time. Researchers at the University of Michigan, led by Brent Gillespie, Alex Russomanno, Mark Burns, and Sile O’Modhrain, hope to develop a refreshable display to translate an entire page at once. The project was partially motivated by O’Modhrain, who is visually impaired. “Existing displays don’t allow you to access lots of braille code and graphical information,” she says. “Math and music codes, for example, are displayed spatially, so that they’re spread over multiple lines.” Existing technology could conceivably allow for a full-page braille screen…

Some of it is profoundly beautiful, some quite bleak. Nearly all of it is fascinating. From massive solar arrays in the desert to the innards of a hydrodam to the arabesque tire tracks left in coal ash outside a power plant, our planet is a mosaic of industrial striving. In the following pages, photographer Spencer Lowell offers us a tour of our engines of energy, with new vantages on their epic scale. DESERT SUNLIGHT SOLAR FARM Located in California’s Mojave Desert , it’s the largest solar farm in the world —with 8.8 million photovoltaic modules that produce enough clean energy each year to displace about 300,000 metric tons of CO2 produced by burning coal. DEWA JEBEL ALI POWER PLANT The pipes at this power plant in Dubai suck in up…

1 CEREAL HACKS In March 2015, artist and inventor Dominic Wilcox got an offer he couldn’t refuse. Kellogg’s wanted him to create five goofy devices to liven up cereal. Wilcox dreamed up 20. He eventually built seven, including a cerealserving drone, a spoon with LED eyes, a “tummy rumbling amplifier,” and a head-mounted crane for scooping cereal. The latter, which appeared on The Late Show, uses three levers to control the crane’s motion and a fourth to release milk. “The way it moves looks robotic,” Wilcox says, “but it’s powered by hydraulics.” 2 BACON ALARM CLOCK Traditional alarm clocks wake you with annoying beeps. Tech entrepreneur Matty Sallin decided to make mornings more pleasant— with a bacon-scented alarm clock. “You probably have a memory of waking up to the smell…

Medical illustrator Sarah Berman was in a bio-art class at Parsons School of Design in New York when she learned about fluorescent proteins. When genetically modified to produce them, bacteria glow various colors under ultraviolet light. Inspired, Berman decided to cultivate her own bacteria—and use them to make art. “As an artist, I enjoy producing work that makes people want to learn more about something they weren’t interested in before,” she says. Berman created her “paint” at Genspace, a community biolab in Brooklyn, by injecting DNA that codes for fluorescent proteins into a nonpathogenic strain of E. coli. She found that by mixing her genetically modified bacteria, she could produce different hues. After four months of daily experimentation, Berman chose a palette that included green, red, yellow, and cyan. She…

Though this world might be unrecognizable, the scene it portrays is familiar: A traveler waits for a train. Except here, the trains are powered not by diesel fuel, but by tides. Artist Kirsten Zirngibl, who used digital art software to create this image, was inspired by one of Jupiter’s large moons, Europ a—which, due to its proximity to the massive gas giant, experiences tidal forces extreme enough to melt the ice on its surface. In Zirngibl’s vision, the technology harnesses the tides’ push and pull, and uses the power to propel small passenger trains through tubes—a kind of mashup of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop and a surfboard. In much of her work, Zirngibl incorporates advances in science and engineering, projecting them forward into the distant, but still foreseeable, future. To construct…

Hail science! The winners of our 2016 Science Visualization contest (the Vizzies), will be on display at the Chicago Science Festival May 28-31 in honor of the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of science (thanks ancient Greek guy). Go to nmhmchicago.org to fi nd out more. PopScion Video Want a small dose of PopSci between in-depth articles? We’re producing video shorts on a broad range of topics. We’ve got DIY tutorials like how to turn a smartphone into a scanner; we tackle health topics like the Zika virus; we even debunk the myriad scientifi c claims made in the crazy world of politics. Like us on Facebook to see these videos in your daily stream. Corrections At Popular Science, we always strive for flawless presentation, but occasionally mistakes slip through.…

AVIATION THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLANE EVER MADE David Loury isn’t a classic-car kind of guy. But when he decided to radically redesign the private plane, he turned to luxury automobiles— and their design-forward aesthetic—for inspiration. “Maserati and Mercedes-Benz were the two main cars I looked at, and I engineered ideas and concepts from them,” says the independent aerospace engineer. Those concepts evolved into the Valkyrie: a five-seat, singlepiston-engine plane that he calls a “high-tech vehicle of the future.” The Valkyrie’s exterior certainly looks futuristic—and beautiful. That’s because Loury designed it to have aesthetic proportions: “a convex profile in the front, a concave one in the back, and an inflection point where they join.” In addition to looking good, Loury wanted Valkyrie to be efficient and easy to fly. So he…

Ann Makosinski’s first serious toy was a box of transistors. She’s been tinkering ever since, creating projects with a hot-glue gun and household items. A few years ago, she used her hobby to solve a real-world problem. A friend in the Philippines mentioned she was failing school; without electricity, she couldn’t do her homework at night. So Makosinski devised a flashlight powered by the heat of your hand. It uses peltier tiles, which generate electricity when one side is hotter than the other, to draw energy from the heat difference between hand and air. Makosinski submitted her invention to the 2013 Google Science Fair and won first place in her age group. She has since nabbed prizes from competitions such as the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and…

Vital signs are key indicators of health. But tracking some of these signals, such as the body’s core temperature, can require invasive tactics— which is especially problematic for active or injured patients. Almost anyone, however, can swallow a pill. That’s what Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer at Harvard Medical School, and Al Swiston, a biomaterials scientist at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, realized when they met at a work event in 2012. At the time, Traverso was working on ingestible devices and Swiston on vital-sign monitoring—so they decided to join forces to create what Traverso calls “an ingestible stethoscope.” “It’s basically a really tiny microphone that is able to listen just like the doctor would,” says Swiston. The PSM pill (short for “physiological status monitoring”) contains special microphones that pick…

IN the downtown Fargo office of the startup Botlink, engineers, code writers, and executives huddled around me, thrusting a tablet to show off their app, an air traffic control interface that allows even the least skilled to fly a drone without crashing it into a plane. “Real-time data distribution,” said one. “The orange circles show restricted airspace around airports. You want a beer? A Coke?” With the exception of the executives, all sharp smiles and good hair, the entourage was pure geek: sneakers and hoodies that limited exposure to sunlight and, in the Zuckerberg era, seemed to suggest imminent innovation and subsequent riches. I had arrived in North Dakota last June, in the same week MarketWatch declared it the “Silicon Valley of drones.” At each stop I was regaled with…

In the 1980s, a talking bear called Teddy Ruxpin took the world by storm. now, Oakland engineer andrew Langley is bringing Teddy back. He hacked the bear’s circuitry and installed C.H.I.P., the $9 computer that his company, next Thing, had just crowdfunded. The 1 GHz computer can run text-to-voice algorithms that let the bear read anything. TIME 3 hours COST about $85 DIFFICULTY MATERIALS • Teddy Ruxpin • Screwdriver • Wirecutters • Soldering iron • C.H.I.P. computer • SparkFun Motor Driver, Dual TB6612FNG • 3.5 mm audio cable • 3.7-volt single-cell Li-po battery INSTRUCTIONS 1. Purchase a working Teddy Ruxpin from eBay, and pop open its back with the screwdriver. Inside, identify three sets of motor connectors for the eyes, upper jaw, and lower jaw. 2. To sync the upper…

TIME 1 hour COST $10 DIFFICULTY Your smartphone crushes it when ordering pizza, snapping photos, or displaying YouTube videos. But playing the audio that goes with those videos? Not so much. You could overcome the problem with a pricy speaker or some headphones—but that’s the boring route. Instead, use a PVC pipe or a sturdy cardboard tube to make a simple passive amplifier TOOLS+MATERIALS • 10-inch-by-2-inch PVC pipe • Miter saw • Dremel or milling machine • Drill • 1½-inch-long, ¼-inch-diameter self-threading screw • Spray paint (optional) INSTRUCTIONS 1 Cut the PVC pipe at 45 degrees on both ends. It should be symmetrical, with the shortest part about 8 inches long. 2 Rotate the tube so the shortest side faces you. Along the top center of the pipe, use the…

Laura Poitras “In the wake of Edward Snowden’s NSA reveal, society has grappled with how to balance personal privacy 1 and public safety. Events like the mass terror attacks in San Bernardino, Brussels, and Paris have only raised the stakes. Records of our daily lives now exist on our smartphones. That is why the prospect of a federally sanctioned iPhone hack—even a one-time occurrence under the argument of national security— could open a Pandora’s box; 2 it could threaten future technological rights and human rights. U.S. presidential candidates are calling for digital backdoors to a host of technologies, 3 which would allow access to private information. 4 This could create unintended entry points for rival governments and hackers, as well as damage the brands and trustworthiness of tech companies’ products.…

We depend on cows for food, clothing, and sometimes even insulin. Cattle, though, are expensive and inefficient—each cow drinks a bathtub of water and emits three times that volume of methane daily. There are also the ethics of animal slaughter. But we might no longer need the cow. Scientists are synthesizing the substances we normally get from cows by using bovine cells, yeast, and even bacteria. 325,000 Cost, in dollars, to bioengineer the first lab-grown hamburger MEAT Since tissue engineer Mark Post debuted an in vitro burger in 2013, several companies have tried to create tasty, scalable test-tube meat. Though Memphis Meats recently unveiled a cultured meatball, two challenges—chewability and cost—have derailed other attempts. INSULIN Cow insulin moderates diabetics’ blood-sugar levels but can cause allergic reactions, and synthetic analog insulin…

At first glance, the boxy “eternal camera” looks like an old daguerreotype device. But appearances are deceiving. This is something new— a camera that powers itself. The computer vision lab at Columbia University, led by computer scientist Shree K. Nayar, created this everlasting camera by making photodiodes—devices that convert light into electricity —do double duty. In digital cameras, photodiodes measure light. In solar panels, they harvest energy. The eternal camera’s photodiodes do both jobs. This enables the camera to generate enough power to take photos forever—as long as there’s light available. Nayar’s team began by building just one double-duty photo diode. Mounted on a robot that slowly moved it in a grid, it captured an entire picture one pixel at a time, which took about an hour. The current iteration…

During a TedTalk in March 2015, Joseph DeSimone quietly revolutionized 3-D printing. With little fanfare, he printed a palm-size geodesic sphere, a task that normally takes hours, in a little over six minutes. A serial entrepreneur, DeSimone had devised his rapid 3-D-printing method with help from his former postdoc Alex Ermoshkin. Instead of using conventional techniques, they drew inspiration from the liquid-metal T-1000 assassin in Terminator 2. Like the fi ctional robot, their M1 printer “grows” solid objects out of liquid—by applying ultraviolet light and oxygen to resin in a technique called Continuous Liquid Interface Production, or CLIP. “We’re using light as a very delicate chisel that can make complex, amazing things,” DeSimone says. The result is 25 to 100 times faster than conventional printing. It also works with more…

For the past 12 years, the Joris Laarman Lab in Amsterdam has crafted experimental furniture and artwork. To produce their more ambitious designs, Laarman and his partners adopted 3-D printing early on. But existing printers couldn’t produce their larger creations. So the team built its own system, called multiaxis 3-D printing, or MX3D. “We thought, ‘Why not get an industrial robot, attach an advanced welding machine to it, and see what it does?’” says Tim Geurtjens, chief technology offi cer of Joris Laarman Lab and its spinoff R&D company, also called MX3D. First, the team developed software to control the industrial robotic arm. Then they attached extruders—the parts of printers that push out material—to it and started printing with copper and aluminum. Most 3-D printers attach the extruding tools to…

It was a fall night in 2006, when Bradley Waldroup walked out of his rural trailer in southeastern Tennessee, carrying his .22 caliber hunting rifl e. His estranged wife and her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, had just pulled up to drop off the Waldroups’ four children. Waldroup began arguing with his wife and Bradshaw, who was unloading the car. Drawing his gun, Waldroup shot Bradshaw eight times, killing her. He used a knife to cut her head open. He then chased his wife with the knife and a machete, managing to slice off one of her pinkies before dragging her into the trailer. There, he told their frightened children, “Come tell your mama goodbye” because it was the last time they’d ever see her. Miraculously, his wife managed to slip his…

While working at a london hospital, 24-year-old medical student Faii Ong went to perform some routine tests on a 103-year-old patient suffering from hand tremors. the woman’s hands shook so badly, Ong says, that she’d spend half an hour just trying to eat soup, most of which had spilled. He’d spend the next halfhour cleaning her up. to Ong, now 26, the situation was deplorable. And although the hospital staff said that there was nothing to be done, he refused to believe them. Instead, he recruited a few of his fellow students to build a solution: GyroGlove. Worn on the hand, the device stabilizes tremors with a gyroscope. this spinning disc—used in both aerospace technology and children’s toys—maintains an upright position, even when pushed. So when the hand shakes, tilting…

Short answer It’s complicated. Q: WHY HASN’T THE U.S. ADOPTED THE METRIC SYSTEM? A: While most nations use the metric system —those units of decimals that are universally employed in science—the U.S. still clings to pounds, inches, and feet. Despite several high-profile attempts to change that, Americans refuse to convert. Thomas Jefferson first tried to move the nation toward a decimal-based system in 1789. But without support from scientists, his idea flopped. More than a century later, in 1906, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell told Congress that “few people have any adequate conception of the amount of unnecessary labor involved in the use of our present weights and measures.” Strong words, but still no change. Things looked promising in 1968, when Congress authorized a three-year study that eventually recommended converting…