Innehållsförteckning för July 2020 från Popular Mechanics

DAISY HERNANDEZ News Editor Waiting for my phone to stop ringing so I can go back to snapping pics of my pup. The Best Money I Ever Spent Definitely the money I used to take a trip to Iceland in 2017. Being there was surreal—like visiting an entirely new world. My Favorite POP Story So Far “Burning Out: What Really Happens in a Crematorium”—I’ve always been morbidly curious about undertaking. THIS IS SONNY She’s a three-month-old Australian cattle dog/Shiba mix we recently rescued from our local animal shelter. She spends half the day sleeping to recover from being insanely rambunctious the other half of the day CURRENT PASSION PROJECT A home reno! We closed on a home at the end of January and have been completely redoing the entire property.…

THE RED CLAW 1 oz. Campari6 oz. lime seltzerDash of Peychaud’s BittersOrange slice (optional) Fill a glass with ice. Pour in seltzer, followed by Campari and bitters. Stir briefly. Garnish with orange slice. HORSE’S NECK 1½ oz. whiskey (bourbon or rye)4 oz. ginger beerPeel from one lemon Place lemon peel into a Collins glass and fill with ice. Add whiskey, top with ginger beer, and stir briefly. For a twist, add a dash of aromatic bitters. ANGOSTURA PHOSPHATE ½ tsp. acid phosphate1 tsp. Angostura bitters1 oz. lemon syrup Soda water Combine the first three ingredients in a Collins glass. Add soda water and ice (if desired); stir briefly. Note: Acid phosphate adds a dry, tart flavor to drinks. You can buy it online To make the lemon syrup: Stir ¾ cup…

WITH CROSSOVE RS AND SUVS supplanting sedans as the default choice for everyday transportation, it’s common for any given vehicle to sport four- or all-wheel drive (4WD and AWD). Most new models have fully automatic AWD systems that will detect wheel slip and automatically divert power to the wheels with traction, no driver involvement required. But in most trucks and some SUVs with 4WD, there will be at least two drive configurations you can choose from to maximize your vehicle’s capability in a given situation. If you drive an SUV with an off-road bent, like a Toyota Land Cruiser, you have even more choices—high range, low range, locked or unlocked center differential. It gets complicated quickly. But let’s begin with the biggest topic of confusion: 4WD versus AWD. With AWD,…

INSECTS Most common types for human consumption are the Acheta and the banded cricket, says Jarrod Goldin, president of Canada-based insect farm Entomo Farms. Packed with a nutty, earthy flavor, crickets are rich in protein, prebiotic fibers, and antioxidants. ALGAE Triton Algae Innovations’s proprietary strain of algae boasts flavor-mimicking properties—think savory flavors of meaty foods and salty notes of umami. “It runs about 45 to 50 percent protein, has a complete amino acid profile, and is rich in vitamin A and iron,” says David Schroeder, director of corporate and regulatory affairs. ANIMAL-FREE EGG WHITES Clara Foods converts sugar into proteins, which are then encoded with 3D-printed genes that code for the same proteins found in an egg, explains CEO Arturo Elizondo. One strain produces a baking albumen; another generates a…

For gearheads, half the fun of any adventure, whether it be a day on the water or a night spent sleeping under the stars, is turning to our closets and loading up our car (or pack, or bike, or boat). Although we regularly geek out about innovative materials and product design, it’s not solely about the tech. The excitement also lies in what’s ahead: making good, capable use of that gear to ensure we’re better able to enjoy the activities we love (when shelter-in-place orders aren’t in effect, of course). So during hundreds of hours of rigorous evaluation, we’ve camped through freezing temperatures and stormy nights, let headlamps run until they went dark to assess battery life, hiked more than double the length of California’s John Muir Trail, measured how…

SMART LOCKS—OR SMART DEAD BOLTS, more accurately—allow you to lock and unlock doors remotely, check their status and history, and provide access to visitors when you aren’t home. They employ Bluetooth, WiFi, or Z-Wave radio signals to communicate with apps on smartphones, WiFi bridges, or smart home hubs, and may also be integrated with security systems. If you want the convenience of smart locks but don’t know where to start, we’ll cover the basics to ensure you get one that’s compatible with your home and helpful for your household. HOW TO INSTALL Smart locks generally come in two configurations for dead bolts. The first is the full dead-bolt lockset—including the dead bolt, the exterior keyed lock and/or keypad, and the interior thumb lever and plate. These will completely replace your…

THE PORTABLE AIR CONDI - tioner is essentially an AC on wheels. It’s not a gimmicky contraption but an effective appliance, as millions of cool and comfortable people can attest. Unlike a heavy window AC with a single fixed location on a sill, the portable air conditioner can be pushed around in a room or moved between rooms, more accurately putting cold air right where you need it. For many people facing hot and sticky living conditions and an uncomfortable night’s sleep, the appliance can be a tremendous problem solver. For our test, we set the temperature on each air conditioner to 68 degrees, the fan speed to maximum, and aimed the appliance at a target eight feet away. Then we measured the temperature at four locations on the target.…

Solo adventure in nature shows you a quieter space to dwell. Mindless entertainment is gone; it’s just you. The initial shock of stepping into this private world can send people right back to their cars because they only have themselves for company. These trips don’t have to be epic. In fact, the less epic they are, the more likely you’ll enjoy them. Start close to home. As you build your skill set and comfort level, you can branch out. Carry the essentials, and share detailed plans with someone, including your itinerary, trailhead location, campsites, and phone numbers of the appropriate land management agencies in case you don’t arrive on schedule.…

The locks on this list have been thoroughly vetted, evaluated, and tested by our editors. First, we installed each of them in a metal exterior door to assess fit and ease of installation. We then paired them with our smartphones, ran through the setup processes, and tested Bluetooth functionality. To connect the smart locks to a consumer-grade wireless network, we installed them all in a single test stand, took them off-site, and set up a live-stream video camera to monitor functionality. We then locked and unlocked them remotely using our smartphone, while reviewing the video stream, and confirmed lock status via the manufacturer’s app. We were careful to test all of the smart locks’ features, taking aesthetics into account.…

How has the B-52 stood the test of time while other military aircraft haven’t? Because it was engineered to keep aerodynamic and payload forces in balance during missions, minimizing stresses that weaken other planes over time. Active B-52s aren’t patchwork quilts of structural components pilfered from retired airframes—they’re almost entirely the real thing, down to the flight controls, control surfaces, and cable linkages. The Air Force has also (mostly) held off on modifying the B-52’s core hardware. While it seemingly makes sense to upgrade the eight low-bypass engines with four modern, high-bypass engines, that requires a costly redesign of the entire wing, since the new engines’ weight and placement would have been dramatically different from the original Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojets, which hung in pods of two each. Now…

NOTHING HALTS PRODUCTIVITY AMONG coworkers quite like a maddening brain teaser. The latest to ensnare the Popular Mechanics editors and readers: How many triangles are in this drawing? When I posed the problem to our team, responses ranged from 4 triangles all the way to 22. Most people saw 18. One wiseguy counted the triangles in the A’s in the question itself, while another seemed to have an existential crisis: “None of these lines are truly straight, just curves—thus you cannot define any of them as a triangle,” he said. “There are no triangles in this photo. Life has no meaning.” I could’ve listened to my colleagues’ questionable processes all day, but instead, I reached out to geometry experts to see if we could arrive at a consensus. All of…

ON AUGUST 5, 2013, CHEF RICHARD McGeown was in London, preparing to film a cooking segment on British television. McGeown was searing a burger, something he’d done countless times before. But this time, an estimated billion people would be watching or reading about what was about to transpire. Because the round, pink mass McGeown was cooking was a $325,000 burger made from stem cells cultivated in a lab by scientists in the Netherlands. “It’s close to meat,” said Hanni Rütz-ler, a food trend researcher who tried the so-called in-vitro patty. But, she noted, it lacked fat and juiciness. Perfection wasn’t the goal for Mark Post, the lead scientist behind the burger. “This is just to show we can do it.” Futurists have imagined growing meat from cells for decades. In an…

“Surface area is the key to a hotter fire,” says Daniel Leavell, an assistant professor in Oregon State University’s Department of Forest Engineering, Resources and Management. He explains it this way: If you had to choose between an 8-by-12-inch log and 32 quarter-inch sticks with an equivalent volume and moisture content, you will have a much easier time igniting the bundle of sticks. That’s because the bundle’s surface area is nearly 4.5 times greater than the single log’s. That means you can spread out the sticks to create the necessary influx of oxygen to start and feed the fire. Once your fire is built, surface area remains just as important of a factor. Many people make the mistake of only adding large logs once their fire is going strong. This…

Nintendo Switch Lite Game Console The Switch is one of the most fun, well-designed devices of the last decade, offering incredible versatility as a single- or multiplayer Game Boy or a dockable TV console. With the newer, cheaper Lite, we still played our favorite games but in a smaller, hand-held-only package that’s great when someone’s hogging the big screen. It hasn’t left our side in months. Consider us converts. $200 Sony WH-1000XM3 Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones These comfy cans produced clear highs and deep, shuddering lows, with unmatched distinction between tones as we listened to songs, podcasts, and movies. Ambient mode was excellent at letting in outside sound when we needed it, and the noise-canceling tuned out most everything when we didn’t. For sheer audio chops, this pair can’t be beat.…

HIKING AND HUNTING GARMIN ETREX TOUCH 35 $300 Good for geocaching, trekking, or hunting, the Bluetooth-capable Touch 35 features a 2.6-inch color touch screen, compass, altimeter, and 32GB memory card for storing maps offline. BOATING AND FISHING HUMMINBIRD HELIX 7 CHIRP MEGA SI GPS G3 $700 Land your catch and return to shore with this device, which has a 7-inch screen, over 10,000 lake and coastal maps, and lets you see 125 feet below or to the sides of your boat. OFF-ROADING MAGELLAN TRX7 $500 The TRX7 is shock-resistant and comes loaded with more than 160,000 high-resolution off-roading topo and base maps. Audible directions, real-time tracking, and off-course notifications help you find your way back to paved roads at the end of the day. EMERGENCY COMMS BIVYSTICK $349 In serious…

An AC’s plastic cabinet houses fans, a compressor-condenser, an evaporator, and a labyrinth of sealed tubing containing refrigerant—a material that cycles between being a liquid and a gas, absorbing and discharging heat as it does so. The refrigerant cools the tubing, and warm indoor air passing over it loses heat first to the cold tubing surface (that heat is ultimately absorbed by the refrigerant). As the air cools, moisture vapor in it condenses. The AC blows the cool, dry air into the room while ejecting the hot air outside via a discharge tube passing through one of the home’s windows. The condensate (liquid water condensed out of the air) collects in a pan to evaporate or is used to cool the hot condenser.…