Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2023 i Popular Mechanics

pg 32 ON THE COVER DIY ALPHA LOCK PLANE pg 42 Leroy Hood Wants to Show You How to Live for a Really, Really Long Time → Leroy Hood is a giant in the biology community, with nearly every prize and accolade under his belt but the Nobel. (His former colleague, Anthony Fauci, has thoughts on that omission.) We wanted to tell a story about the man behind the genius, and how his life informs his current work at the nexus of health and biotechnology. But it’s worth pausing for a moment on the sheer magnitude of Hood’s contributions. In 1982, he and his team created a tool that enabled scientists to determine the sequence of amino acids in a protein; in 1984, they created a peptide synthesizer, a tool that…

ON A FLIGHT FROM NEW YORK CITY TO Berlin, the route map might look a little curious: The shortest path between these two cities is surely a straight line, and yet the flight path curves distinctly. In fact, for curved spaces, the shortest path is what’s known as a geodesic: the generalization of a straight, flat line to a curved space. Certain phenomena violate Euclidean (or coordinate) geometry; luckily, Riemannian geometry, frequently used to study the curvature of surfaces, can still model them. Other features of our world, however, cannot be accommodated by either branch of mathematics: Take human color perception, for instance. The current mathematical model of human color perception suggests that the distance between two colors is the length of the shortest path that connects them. At both large…

AS WE AGE, OUR BODIES FILL UP WITH a type of dysfunctional cell that permanently stops dividing, called a “senescent cell.” These “zombie cells” linger in our tissues, emit inflammatory signals, and increase the risk of age-related diseases. And just like zombies that spread their living-dead condition through a bite or scratch, senescent cells can damage their healthy counterparts through chemicals they emit. When these cells were first discovered 60 years ago, scientists regarded senescence as a strange phenomenon. But in 2011 and again in 2016, a research group from the Mayo Clinic genetically engineered mice to have no senescent cells and showed that the mice did not develop cataracts or other signs of aging. The mice without senescent cells could increase their “healthspan,” living disease-free into old age, according…

Graphic designer, author, and paper plane fanatic Kyle Boyer designed our cover plane, called the Alpha Lock. It’s specially crafted to fly far, fast, and straight, and it has an interior pocket that locks the wings in place to ensure a stable flight. We’ve included step-by-step instructions below on how to fold the plane, but you can also find a full video tutorial at popularmechanics.com/paperplane. Step 1 Remove the cover from the magazine by cutting along the dotted line. Start by flipping the cover upside down. Step 2 Fold the sheet in half, lengthwise. (The front of the cover should be on the inside of the fold.) Step 3 Open the sheet up, flip it over, and fold the top edge down along the horizontal black line near the center…

THE CHOICE USED TO BE BETWEEN CHARCOAL AND PROPANE—flavor or easy. Then along came pellet grills, with temperature and fuel management systems. When they eventually became “smart,” their technology bled over to charcoal grills. All this is to say, you have more choices than ever before when it comes to purchasing a grill—and that’s a good thing, because the newest generation of pellet and charcoal grills don’t sacrifice ease of use for flavor. Plus, their versatility makes it easier than ever to grill, smoke, roast, or bake, with minimal experience. How Modern Smart Grills Work Pellet grills and smokers are essentially wood-burning cookers fueled by smoking pellets (not to be mistaken with heating pellets) made from compressed hardwoods. The pellets are fed to a fire pot, where an electric heating…

PRODUCT Red Wing 953 MADE: 2018 | ACQUIRED: 2018 | FUNCTION: Work boot MAYBE I’M HOPELESSLY old-school. I rise early, shave, drink my coffee black, tuck in my shirt, and shine my shoes—even my work boots. Are these deeply ingrained ways virtues? Before a family picnic, my wife implored, “Please don’t tuck your shirt in.” I tucked and replied, “At least I’m wearing sneakers.” But I never wear sneakers when I work. I’ve worn the Red Wing 953 for the last four years. Each eight-inch boot is handcrafted in the U.S., with a plain toe and steel-shank-reinforced sole. Red Wings (I’ve heard people refer to them as “Wings”) are built out of a full-grain leather on which you can put a shine that would please a drill instructor—from a generation…

Whizz Mini Rollers | $9–$11 If there’s one thing I need in tools and accessories, it’s their ability to quickly solve problems that arise in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, masonry, and painting. In the case of the latter, there are all kinds of things to paint around, between, and behind. You may use a variety of paints and finishes on a job. And then there’s cleanup. Whizz Mini Rollers to the rescue! There’s a Whizz to solve nearly any painting problem, to suit nearly any paint, and to adapt to any material’s surface. Equip yourself with a variety of these. They’ve saved me countless hours staining decks, deck stairs, and balusters, and painting walls, ceilings, shelves, and kitchen cabinets. They also work great for squeezing into corners next to and behind…

THEO KAHLER News Editor Don’t ask me to do math. 6 SHORTCUTS THAT MAKE LIFE EASIER I’m a painfully slow typer, so I try to make up for lost time with keyboard shortcuts. Some of my favorites: Ctrl + W (close tab) Ctrl + T (new tab) Ctrl + N (new window) Ctrl + X (cut text) Ctrl + Z (undo) Ctrl + V (paste) THE MOST USELESS PRODUCT I LOVE My girlfriend got me a blue lava lamp for Christmas. It takes it a while to heat up—and I’m mildly concerned it’s a fire hazard—but I could stare at that thing for hours. Every time I look at it, I have the same intrusive thought: I wonder what it’d be like to eat one of the blobs. In My…

SINCE THE START OF ITS WAR WITH Ukraine, Russia claims to have taken out 90 percent of Kyiv’s drones with radio jamming. This is probably exaggerated, but a report from the U.K. think tank RUSI suggested that in the early months of the war, quadcopters on the front line lasted only three flights on average before jamming got them. Moscow has fielded a variety of jamming systems to blot out radio communications, blasting out radio noise and drowning out a drone operator’s control signal, as well as its GPS guidance. Some Russian units also have special anti-drone “rifles,” which resemble sci-fi weapons firing a beam of radio energy. Both types cause drones to lose control and land where they are. “For some of the areas in Ukraine, you can’t even fly…

THE WAYS TO TRAVEL THE MULTIVERSE FOR NEARLY 100 YEARS, physicists have been trying to reconcile the physics of the smallest building blocks of the universe (quantum physics) with the physics of the galactically large (Einstein’s theory of general relativity). One simple way to resolve this problem, as far-out as it may seem, is if we live in a multiverse—that is, if our universe is one of many. Trouble is, no one can prove that the multiverse exists, much less what it is like, or whether we can interact with it. So, if there really are other universes, can we ever visit them? Many worlds, many portals // If we live in the “many worlds” universe, then we can create new universes all the time. Each time we make a…

HYPERSONIC ENGINES COME IN ALL shapes and sizes—some are even 3Dprinted. At least, that’s the case with Seattle-based New Frontier Aerospace’s (NFA) Mjölnir engine: a full-flow, 3D-printed engine whose high weight-tothrust ratio means it could be a perfect fit for everything from hypersonic aircraft to planetary landers. Because of this reported operational flexibility, along with the engine’s low-carbon design, the Department of Defense has invested over $2 million in the technology. It may be hard to imagine 3D-printed parts withstanding the harsh realities of hypersonic flight, but stereolithography is a pretty commonplace technology in the hypersonic aerospace industry. For instance, Hermeus’s hypersonic Chimera engine, which is part of the Air Force’s Quarterhorse project, is created with 3D-printed parts. It’s no secret that the Pentagon is interested in hypersonic technology—in whatever form…

HOLLYWOOD MOVIES AND TV SHOWS portray apocalyptic landscapes in which heroes hop into automobiles that not only have a full tank of gas, but also fire up instantly after lying around for years. Recently, you may have seen Joel from HBO’s The Last of Us drive off in a beater that’s been sitting for 20 years. In reality, he would have to think of an alternate mode of transportation because the old gas would be rendered useless. What’s the shelf life? // Gasoline has a limited shelf life, just like fruit and other perishable foods. It will last only about six months—if kept in ideal conditions—or possibly up to a year if a fuel stabilizer is used. Why does it expire? // Unfortunately, there are multiple reasons why gas can expire:…

FRISBEES The lift produced by a Frisbee as it flies through the air is similar to the lift generated by an airplane’s wings. The perfect throw helps the disc push air downward without generating too much drag. In return, air pushes the Frisbee back up, generating additional lift. In 2005, researchers at MIT calculated the ideal throw angle for a Frisbee—12 degrees—to achieve maximum distance. (While the disc may travel greater heights with a larger angle, drag will shorten the distance traveled.) HELICOPTER SEEDS The maple tree’s helicopter-like seeds, called samara, are specifically designed to fall and spin long distances away from the large, shady canopies of their parent trees. Their long, sail-like wings help balance the weight of the asymmetrical seeds. As the seed spins, the wider end of…

WHILE ANGLE GRINDERS have been around for nearly 75 years, today’s crop of cordless models are lighter and more versatile than ever before. With power rivaling their corded brethren, these angle grinders can dress rough welds, remove rust, carve wood, and cut all kinds of materials—in places that are inconvenient or impossible to access with traditional grinders. Our testing reinforces the fact that these are jack-of-all-trades tools, useful to makers and repairpersons of all stripes, from metal fabricators to woodworkers. HOW WE TESTED To test these angle grinders, we used them to grind and cut steel, as well as carve wood. First, working with steel, we used grinding wheels to square up the edges of rough-cut tubing. Using cutting wheels, we cut both sheet metal and half-inch-thick bar stock. We also…

SMART OVENS USE A MIX OF SENSORS AND SOFTWARE to cook food to your liking. You simply select a recipe through an app, load your protein or sides onto a tray, and set a level of doneness—the oven takes care of the rest. Thermometer probes and heat-resistant internal cameras work together to monitor cooking progress and make adjustments as needed, ensuring your dishes come out to your desired internal temperatures each time. Like their traditional counterparts, smart ovens use convective and radiant heat transfer for cooking. This relies on heating elements to slowly warm up a chamber and circulate hot air off the walls. We’ve used this inefficient method of cooking for decades. Temperatures are often capped at a 500°F maximum and tend to bake unevenly, often fluctuating 30° above…