Popular Science (July 2004)

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BONUS FOLDOUT: SPECTACULAR MISSION TO SATURN FIRST TRUE GLOBAL CELLPHONE PLUS:

36 HOT TECH PRODUCTS

WINNER 2004 ! NAT

IONAL M AWARD AGAZINE FOR

GEN EXCELLERAL ENCE

9 Ways to Save the World

Or at Least Improve It: The International POPSCI Design Competition

PLUS: Last Words of the World’s Oldest Lab Mouse PAGE 94

US $3.99 CAN $4.99

JULY 2004

popsci.com

RADICAL NEW SHAPES WILL BRING MACH-PLUS AIRLINERS TO OUR SKIES

CONTENTS JULY 2004 VOLUME 265 #1

Founded in 1872

“So how do you actually do it? How do you ruin a machine that Porsche will charge you $30,000 to replace? You take a deep breath and start.”

PROJECT PORSCHE p. 76

tech 13 What’s New

The MiniDisc revamped; digital music storage showdown; hi-tech travel gear; computerized crash-test dummy; garage of the future; 20 hot new products

O N T H E C O V E R : J O H N M A C N E I L L ; I N S E T: L U I S B R U N O . T H I S PA G E : C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: B O B S A U L S / F R A S S A N I T O & A S S O C I AT E S ; G R E G O R H A L E N D A ; J O H N B . C A R N E T T; KENN BROWN AND CHRIS WREN; STEPHEN ROUNTREE; TOMER HANUKA; JOHN MACNEILL; JAMESON SIMPSON

83 How 2.0 BUILD Pinky: cardboard robot that sees GROK Perfecting your digital photos EXPERIMENT Collecting magnetite TECH SUPPORT Hacking LED flashlights

65

13

45

74

56

20

92

32

news 31 Headlines NANOTECH Potential pollution hazard? GEOLOGY Nationwide quake tracking ROBOTICS Exoskeleton baby steps FLIGHT X-43A smashes speed record!

stories 45

POPULAR SCIENCE’s 2004 Design Competition We asked top design firms to invent a 21st-century CARE package. From artificial stars to whalesaving AUVs, here are their strange and provocative proposals. By Steven Henry Madoff

56 Whooshhh! An innovative aerodynamic design tweak could lead to supersonic business jets and bombers freed from that troublesome sonic boom. By Bill Sweetman 65

Saturn Unveiled The incredible Cassini probe begins its four-year tour of Saturn and its moons. Here, your foldout guide to the mission. By Dawn Stover

74 Project Porsche How a passionate, compulsive car enthusiast restored a broken-down road racer to gold-plated glory. By Stephan Wilkinson

depts. 4 From the Editor 6 Contributors 8 Letters 26 Man and Machine 94 FYI 120 Looking Back

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FROM THE EDITOR

CARE Packages— And Our Big Win! MORE YEARS AGO THAN I CARE TO REVEAL—OK, IT WAS 1970, and I was 11—my family lived in Surakarta, a cultured city in the middle of the Indonesian island of Java. My father, a physician, worked for the relief organization CARE. He taught medicine and helped administer three local hospitals. CARE was a low-cost operation that relied in part on donations of medical equipment and drugs. One day several large crates arrived from a major American hospital. Possessing a keen interest in the apparatus of medicine, I was eager to help unpack the loot, which was vitally needed by the under-equipped hospitals in my father’s charge. It was a farce. We uncrated medical textbooks so old they would have posed a hazard to patients tended to with their advice; some of the moldy clunkers predated the discovery of antibiotics. There were medical machines designed to deliver vibration or electromagnetic therapy of the sort still advocated by quacks. There were long-expired medicines. There were ivory-handled optometry tools of 19th-century vintage. It was as if we were rooting around in the deepest cobwebbed corner of a hospital basement. Actually, that’s likely not far off—the hospital had cleared out this stuff and donated it, possibly with good intentions, possibly as a cynical tax break. It was the sort of thing you learned to laugh at, because your father laughed at it. Tidak apa-apa, as we’d say in Indonesian about a lot of things: It doesn’t matter. But of course it did matter, and does. Giving technology to communities in need is fundamental to the modern idea of aid. Technology is both agent and symbol of the power of modernized nations. It can be administered wrongly in a million ways. The idea of the transformative power of the technological gift fueled our first design competition, the results of which are published in this issue (page 45). We asked internationally known designers and thinkers to choose a community in need, then prescribe a fix in the form of a “technological CARE package for the 21st century.” We also encouraged them, in the tradition of this magazine, to look slightly beyond the technological horizon, and speculate about how emerging technologies might help. The range of solutions offered will surprise you. The range of communities in need might, too—it includes you, it includes all of us. I’M DELIGHTED TO REPORT THAT AT THE 2004 NATIONAL MAGAZINE

Awards in May in New York, POPULAR SCIENCE won the General Excellence award for magazines with circulations of 1 million to 2 million. The “Gen Ex” award is the highest honor a magazine can receive. Our editorial team has been working for more than two years to create the finest magazine of its type in the country. It’s been gratifying, to say the least, to have that work honored.

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POPULAR SCIENCE PROPERTIES Publisher Gregg R. Hano Advertising Director John Tebeau Vice President & General Manager Steve Belanger Executive Assistant Chandra Dwhaj Northeast Advertising Office: Manager Howard S. Mittman (212) 779-5112, Jill Schiffman (212) 7795007, Mike Schoenbrun (212) 779-5148 Ad Assistant Brenda Charles Midwest Advertising Office: Manager John Marquardt (312) 832-0626, Megan Williams (312) 832-0624 Ad Assistant Mickey Preston Los Angeles Advertising Office: Manager Dana Hess (310) 268-7484, Ad Assistant Mary Infantino Detroit Advertising Office: Manager Donna Christensen (248) 988-7723, Ad Assistant Diane Pahl San Francisco Advertising Office: Manager Amy Cacciatore (415) 434-5276, Ad Assistant Sarah Needleman Southern Regional Advertising Office: Manager Dave Hady (404) 364-4090 Classified Advertising Sales Joan Orth (212) 779-5555 Direct Response Sales Marie Isabelle (800) 280-2069 Business Manager Jacqueline L. Pappas Director of Brand & Business Development L. Dennett Robertson Sales Development Managers Mike Saperstein, Daniel Vaughan Events and Promotion Manager Christy Chapin Ellinger Creative Services Designer Mary McGann Marketing Coordinator Eshonda Caraway Advertising Coordinator Evelyn Negron Consumer Marketing Director Barbara Venturelli Senior Planning Manager Margerita Catwell Consumer Marketing Managers James Cahn, Erik Hass, Sara O’Connor Senior Production Director Laurel Kurnides Production Assistant Shawn Glenn Prepress Director Lisa Szymanski Prepress Manager José Medina Publicity Manager Hallie Deaktor

President Mark P. Ford Senior Vice Presidents James F. Else, Victor M. Sauerhoff, Steven Shure Director, Editorial Development Scott Mowbray Director, Corporate Communications Samara Farber Mormar CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUBSCRIPTIONS For 24/7 service, please use our Web site: popsci.com/customerservice You can also call: 800-289-9399 or write to: Popular Science P.O. Box 62456 Tampa, FL 33662-4568

JAKE CHESSUM

SCOTT MOWBRAY [email protected]

Editor-in-Chief Scott Mowbray Deputy Editor Mark Jannot Design Director Dirk Barnett Features Editor Emily Laber-Warren Science Editor Dawn Stover Senior Technology Editor Suzanne Kantra Kirschner Senior Editor, What’s New Eric Hagerman Aviation & Automotive Editor Eric Adams Managing Editor Jill C. Shomer Senior Associate Editors Nicole Dyer, Michael Moyer Associate Editor Gregory Mone Assistant Editors Mike Haney, Martha Harbison Assistant Editor, Best of What’s New Joe Brown Deputy Art Director Hylah Hill Assistant Art Director Josh McKible Designer April Bell Photo Editor Kristine LaManna Staff Photographer John B. Carnett Editorial Assistant Barbara Caraher Web Producer Peter Noah Consulting Editor Jeffrey Rothfeder Graphics Consultant John Grimwade Contributing Design Editor Chee Pearlman Contributing Automotive Editor Stephan Wilkinson Far East Contributing Editor Dennis Normile Contributing Editors Dan Carney, Rebecca Skloot, Bill Sweetman, Charles Wardell Contributing Futurist Andrew Zolli Contributing Artists Mika Grondahl, Jason Lee, John MacNeill, Garry Marshall, Stephen Rountree, Bob Sauls Editorial Intern Christina Bryza Art Intern Peter Oumanski

CONTRIBUTORS

FROM “ADAPTIVE CAMOUFLAGE” TO “ZIPS” Your guide to this month’s POPSCI ADAPTIVE CAMOUFLAGE

Inspired by the containers filled with Spam and other surplus food items that were sent to Europe at the end of World War II, POPSCI asked prominent architects, designers and artists to identify a community in need and design a solution in the form of a high-tech, 21st-century CARE package (page 45). On the whole, the proposals offer smart and imaginative solutions; we’ve featured a few of our favorites. Projects ran the gamut from the earnest (providing safe drinking water) to the inventive (protecting whales from high-intensity sonar tests) to the bitingly satirical (a pop-culture bomb dropped on people “about to be liberated by the United States”). The POPSCI Design Challenge was spearheaded by CHEE PEARLMAN (left), design journalist and director of the design consultancy Chee Company, and STEVEN HENRY MADOFF (right), a contributing editor of ARTnews and a managing partner of the consulting group 5ive. Most of the entries feature cutting-edge technology—the only spam involved is the kind that arrives digitally over the Internet—but are informed by an ethical lens. Says Pearlman, “Design humanizes technology.”

If POPSCI science editor DAWN STOVER seems a tad spaceobsessed (her latest story about NASA ran in April), it might be because she works from a log cabin in rural Washington and, unlike her New York colleagues, can actually see the stars. This month, Stover describes the Cassini mission (page 65), due to arrive at Saturn on July 1. “Scientists don’t know much about Saturn,” she says, “not even enough to argue.”

TOMER HANUKA’s jittery, color-soaked, graphic-novel style is informed by a childhood obsession with DC comics. On page 92, he illustrates an ultrabright flashlight with a humorously gruesome, comic-book-worthy image. Hanuka, whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, is co-creator—with his twin brother and fellow illustrator Asaf—of the comic book Bipolar. LUIS BRUNO, who shot the crash-test dummy on page 18, uses minimal lighting and props to create naturalistic still lifes. “It’s not like I wing it,” he says. “But I want to keep it simple.” Bruno, whose work has appeared in Fortune, uses a digital camera, but his heart is in the past. “I really love the old processes, the sharpness that glass plates give,” says Bruno, “but I use digital because it is so much faster.” 6

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BRONZE-AGE FACTORY

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CASSINI-HUYGENS

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CRASH-TEST DUMMY

18

CULTURAL ASSIMILATION

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ELECTRIC SOCKS

120

ELECTROLUMINESCENT STRIPS

48

ELEGANT LITTLE FIGHTER

62

ELVISH MAGIC

94

ETCH A SKETCH

90

FAT-FANNIED BUREAUCRAT

80

FREEZERATOR

18

GREAT TRAGEDY

78

HUMBLE OFFICE WORKER

49

HYPERION

66

KATHMANDU

16

MAGNETITE

90

MANY LONG NIGHTS

83

MARITAL BLISS

76

MONGOLIAN DAZZLERS

80

NANO-POLLUTION

31

OCEANS OF GASOLINE

72

OVERPRESSURE

59

PAL OF THE USA

54

PINK-OBSESSED ROBOT

83

QUIET SUPERSONIC PLATFORM

60

REPTILE REAR

58

REVERSE OSMOSIS

55

ROYAL LAND BARGE

28

RUSTICLES

42

SILICON JUNKYARDS

50

SMOG

72

SOLID CHUNK OF BRASS

13

STIRLING ENGINE

46

SYNTHETIC STAR

48

THUNDEROUS DOUBLE BANG

58

ÜBERINVESTOR

60

VERSATILE F-5

120

WHALE BEHAVIOR

53

WOODY ALLEN OF RODENTS

96

YODA

94

ZIPS

68

LUIS BRUNO AND CHEE PEARLMAN PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOHN B. CARNETT

Illustrator JAMESON SIMPSON drew a water-purification, remote-communications unit (page 46) conceived for the POPSCI Design Challenge as a cure-all of sorts for people living in third-world poverty. Simpson knows firsthand the perils of poor sanitation: During a recent stint in India he fell desperately ill from tainted water. “Bacteria were jumping out of the woodwork,” he says. “I had to leave—or die.”

PAGE 94

BONEYARD

LETTERS [email protected] some very good points in his article regarding labeling, but he should slow down and do a little more research. Matthew Stone St. Augustine, Fla.

“Claims” Adjustments I just finished reading your article “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney” [May]. I found it to be very informative. This story should serve to remind all of us of an excellent rule of thumb that transcends many aspects of life, whether they are scientific, financial or personal: If it sounds too good to be true, then it most likely is. Patrick Lussenden Auburn, Wash.

I’m a retired poultry farmer, and I have a few comments about your “106 Science Claims” article by William Speed Weed. First, the FDA does not regulate the poultry CORRECTION An article about the Core77 Design Challenge in the May “What’s New” section incorrectly stated that the Cetus diving suit could cause decompression sickness if a diver held his breath and ascended quickly to the surface. In fact, the suit is only intended for surface breathing; the risk of decompression sickness is marginal.

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industry. FSIS (Food Safety and Inspection Service), a branch of the USDA, does. A little clarification as to what FSIS describes as “natural” would have benefited Mr. Weed’s story. “Natural” means the poultry has no artificial ingredients or added color, and is only minimally processed—meaning the process has not fundamentally altered the raw product. Other labeling is added to poultry to convey the barnyard image, like “free-range,” “hormone free,” or “antibiotic free.” These labels are also regulated by FSIS. Mr. Weed should also realize the reason that the birds’ toes, claws and beaks are clipped. No matter how much room chickens are given, the birds will fight and peck at each other. This leads to scratches and dead birds. Scratched skin does not sell well on the market, as few people like a blemish. In fact, toes and beaks are taken off with microwaves these days: This causes the toes or beaks to fall off after a few days with no blood and less stress to the animal. I think Mr. Weed brought up

Carry Luggage, Don’t Ride It I was amused to learn the Core77 Design Challenge #3 Grand Prize Winner was the Transporter, a selfpropelled piece of luggage that one can ride like the Segway [“Faster, Smarter, Better,” What’s New, May]. Seems to me that with something like 60 percent of Americans either overweight or obese, this kind of invention is yet another example of exactly what we don’t need. (LETTERS, CONTINUED)

y

I found your article on science claims very interesting. But why stop there? The back pages of your magazine are filled with many dubious claims, including a golf club’s secret metal, a fourminute-per-day exercise machine, the toughest glue on planet Earth, an aphrodisiac aftershave additive, and too many male enhancement aids to count. Whose side are you really on? Paul Davis Tujunga, Calif.

Although I enjoyed and agreed with most of Speed Weed’s evaluations, the item claiming that yeast and gluten are different was lacking in medical knowledge. I have a friend who has Celiac disease, a severe gluten allergy. She makes her own bread from rice flour. In yeast manufacture, the yeast is grown in a culture that may include cereal flour. The gluten remnants in those brands of yeast would make my friend very sick. Ron Peterson Ogden, Utah

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LETTERS

This American Tourister–carrying Luddite will continue to burn a few calories by simply walking in the airport. I promise not to stick my umbrella in the spokes of one of these contraptions as it whizzes by. Scott Fazekas Stuttgart, Germany

Dynojet Dyno-Mite! While reading “Setting Loose the Horses on Dyno Day” [Man & Machine, May], I was surprised that while giving the general background for dynamometers, the author seems to be heralding the idea that Dynapacks are superior to drum dynos. In my experience, Dynojet dynos (drum type) are far superior. Although Dynojets do require the car to be strapped down, and the car can theoretically come loose, they offer a more accurate measure of true wheel horsepower for several reasons. First, Dynapacks (as stated in the article) provide resistance via some viscous fluid which opposes the motion of the axle (not the wheels). After a few dyno runs, the temperature of the fluid can increase greatly. This can change the viscosity of the fluid. This is very important, because viscosity is one of the main variables used by the Dynapack in the calculation of horsepower and torque. Secondly, the Dynapack requires the removal of the wheels. Therefore, true wheel horsepower (what is transferred to the ground) cannot be measured. The weight, diameter and rotational inertia of the wheels do have an effect on the horsepower, since the engine has to rotate them also. Kevin Hassell Raleigh, N.C. Author Stephan Wilkinson replies: There are many variations that affect any ordinary dyno (short of a hugely expensive test cell of the sort a vehicle manufacturer would have), so arguing about whether one type or another is superior is largely irrelevant. Humidity, temperature, operator technique, tire heat and growth at speed (in the case of a drum-type dyno) and a variety of other factors cause substantial variations in results. A drum or axle

dynamometer is really only effective as a tool to assess an individual engine’s effectiveness on a given day at a given time under identical conditions but different tuning states. Regardless of the type of dyno, horsepower and torque readouts are only comparative indications, not graven-in-stone numbers. One substantial advantage of the Dynapack, nonetheless, is that it's portable enough to take to the track for on-site racecar tuning.

“Now” Please, Not “Next” Fantasizing on what might happen is not what I expect nor what I seek in POPULAR SCIENCE [“Best of What’s Next,” May]. You seem to be catering to the lowest common intellectual denominator. What has happened to in-depth articles? Self-fixing cars, cloning kits and brain spas are no-brainers for me. Give me a break. Frederick E. Conron Cap-Rouge, Quebec

_FROM THE BLOGS

Last month, over 250 Web logs linked to popsci.com. A sample: Best of What’s Next_ A neat speculative article from POPULAR SCIENCE. I should start reading magazines like this again; it helps to see the bigger picture when you get mired in all the details involved with science. posted by Andy Y. Lin Monkey Kingdom News and Rants web.mit.edu/andylin/www/blog 106 Science Claims_ POPULAR SCIENCE reports on the “scientific claims” made all around us, and investigates to see just how “scientific” they are. An amusing piece. We can understand that advertisers lie, and will continue to do so to make money. But, perhaps we are affected by the pervasiveness of this trend more than we would initially like to think. How many people regurgitate these claims as fact? How long until the reiteration becomes fact in a person’s mind? posted by Jen Palmer, Kali Is My Copilot kaliismycopilot.blogspot.com How 2.0_ A big wheel for big spenders: Innovative monowheel design features counterweight and no front wheels. Very cool. I want this, bet you will too. posted by Jim Bonfield, Eyeballfarm.com eyeballfarm.blogspot.com

INSIDE: SAVVY TRAVEL GEAR 16

•

WORLD’S SMARTEST CRASH-TEST DUMMY 18

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GARAGE OF THE FUTURE 20

What’sNew $1,900 BUYS YOUR VERY OWN BRASS BAND SONY ANSWERS THE IPOD STRATEGY WITH A MASSIVE MINIDISC FORMAT.

STYLING BY STEPHANIE BASRELIAN

Thought MD was dead? Think again. Sony just upgraded it. With its new HiMD format, you can record 45 hours of music on a single 1GB disc—and the blanks cost a measly seven bucks. Effectively, that means unlimited storage, putting Hi-MD players on a freshly competitive footing with fancy-pants jukeboxes like the iPod and sleek flash-memory audio devices. And by launching the Qualia 017 (at right) last month, Sony is trumpeting a commitment to sexy design as well. The $1,900 Hi-MD player is machined from a solid chunk of brass, ostensibly for durability (fewer seams), realistically because it’s cool. (There are more affordable HiMD players too.) Still, knowing which type of player best suits you means knowing how they store digital music. For that answer, check the chart on the following page. —SUZANNE KANTRA KIRSCHNER

The pleasantly hefty Qualia 017 features silicone-gasketed brass earbuds said to boost bass and clarify treble. PHOTOGRAPH BY GREGOR HALENDA

NEXT PAGE: 3 WAYS TO STORE TUNES POPULAR SCIENCE

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What’sNew

SHOWDOWN: PORTABLE MUSIC

THE MEDIUM IS THE MUSIC LET US COUNT THE WAYS YOU CAN STORE YOUR DIGITAL TUNES.

1 2

FOR EXAMPLE

VITALS

3

HARD DISK DRIVE

FLASH MEMORY

Filling your Hi-MDs takes a few scant moments with Sony’s MZNH1, sitting pretty in its combination USB 2.0 cradle and battery charger.

The Samsung Napster Yepp YH-800, one of the first micro jukeboxes that links to a music service.

The Nike Philips MP3Run packs in an FM radio and provides time, distance and pace data on demand via a Bluetooth sensor you wear on your shoe.

Takes 1GB Hi-MD discs; 3.25 x 3 x 0.59 inches; in-cord remote. $400; sony.com

1.5GB hard drive; 2.25 x 2.25 x 1 inches; FM tuner;10hour rechargeable battery. $300; samsungusa.com

256MB internal flash memory; 2.8 x 2.8 x 1.1 inches; 12hour rechargeable battery. $350; nikerunning.com

HI-MD

INSIDE THE TECH LASER

PLAY PLAY

WRITE HEAD

CONTROL GATE THIN OXIDE LAYER FLOATING GATE PLAY

SWITCHING LAYER MEMORY LAYER RECORD

RECORD

RECORD

A red laser creates nonreflective bumps on a flat, reflective data track on the memory layer. It creates bumps smaller than it can read.

The write head moves over a spinning platter coated with magnetic iron-oxide particles to polarize them in a sector on one of tens of thousands of tracks.

A positive charge applied to the control gate of a transistor pulls electrons through a thin oxide layer into the floating gate, creating a negative charge there.

PLAY

The “switching” layer, when heated with a red laser, magnifies the memory layer below it. Nonreflective bumps =0s; reflective spaces = 1s.

The read head detects the presence or absence of a magnetic charge and converts it into the 1s and 0s we love so much.

When a voltage is applied to the control gate in read mode, electron-filled floating gates are read as a 1; neutrals are 0s.

1GB

40GB*

8GB

$0.01

less than $0.01

$0.05

30-plus years

5-plus years

50-plus years

The music enthusiast who’s always swapping out tunes and needs a durable device.

The audio pack rat who’s going to pamper a device that stores his entire music collection.

The gadget lover who wants the smallest and lightest audio player with some aesthetic mojo.

MAX CAPACITY AVG. PRICE PER MB CLAIMED LIFESPAN WHO WANTS IT

*Based on the commonly used 1.8-inch disk drive

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SENSOR

READ HEAD MAGNETIC IRONOXIDE PARTICLES

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C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: C O U R T E S Y S O N Y; C O U R T E S Y S A M S U N G ; C O U R T E S Y N I K E ; J A S O N L E E

RECORD

What’sNew

OUTFITTER

WHY SWEAT SUMMER TRAVEL? ONE-OF-A-KIND GEAR TO PREP YOU FOR LANDING— WHEREVER THAT MIGHT BE.

You love your digital camera, but can you find a fresh SD card in Kathmandu? Your GSM “world phone” is great, but do you know it won’t work in Korea? And why bother locking your luggage if the security folks at LAX are likely to clip it anyway? The answers to such wandering quandaries lie, of course, in technology. From stitchless surf trunks to truly interactive digital guidebooks, we’ve wrangled six innovations to help you squeeze the most out of your summer vacation.—MELISSE GELULA

THE FIRST TRUE GLOBETROTTER

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UNIVERSAL LOCK

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SPY AND CAPTURE CAM

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/1/SAMSUNG A790/We used to think of GSM handsets as world phones. But they don’t work in areas that rely on CDMA networks, like Korea and parts of South America and Africa. This model roams on both networks, which makes it a first. Price not set; samsungusa.com /2/SAMSONITE TRAVEL SENTRY LOCK/You can’t stop the Feds from rifling through your checked bags, but now you can prevent others from doing so with the lock on the Portside suitcase (shown). Set your combination, and Transportation Security Administration screeners can get in with coded keys. $240; samsonite.com /3/BUSHNELL POCKET IMAGEVIEW/Don’t underestimate the sneakiness of these 7x digital binoculars: They’re the smallest in their class (3.13 by 4.5 by 1.5 inches), and clever, with a built-in 0.35MP digital camera. Take snaps of some skittish creature and e-mail them to your friends. Stores 150 images. $110; bushnell.com /4/SONY PHOTO VAULT/When you max out your digital camera’s memory, you can transfer the images via USB or Memory Stick to 200MB mini CD-Rs with this 8-ounce burner/player. Connects to a TV for slideshows. $200; sony.com /5/RIP CURL CODE: STL/Instead of stitching the seams of its new board shorts, Rip Curl laser-cuts the fabric to prevent fraying and then glues the edges together under high heat and pressure. No thread, no rash. $55; ripcurl.com /6/IFODOR’S TRAVEL GUIDE/Download these electronic city guides to your PDA, tap your location on a map, and the software generates walking directions to shops, hotels, sights, clubs and restaurants (which you can search by price and cuisine). It’s the first such digital guide to merge comprehensive guidebook information with Mapquest-like usefulness. $20 for each of 10 cities, including London, New York and Rome. fodors.com

5 NO-CHAFE SHORTS

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DIGITAL PHOTO BURNER

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LUIS BRUNO

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TAP-AND-FIND GUIDE

What’sNew

THE BREAKDOWN

TOUGH DOESN’T MEAN STUPID WHAT’S TO PROTECT YOU FROM A DEADLY SIDE IMPACT? THIS GUY.

As any 9-year-old with a Lego set can tell you, it’s easy to build things for destruction. The challenge for grown-ups designing crashtest dummies is to create something highly technical that can recover from one collision to be used in the next. “We don’t break bones,” says Steve Moss, technical director of First Technology Safety Systems, which is just starting production of the World Side Impact Dummy, or WorldSID. “Everything is required to deform the way a human would, without breaking like a human does.” Developed over 12 years by designers on four continents, WorldSID is the first internationally accepted side-impact crash-tester. He arrives as pressure increases on car makers to address side-impact safety. And at $250,000 fully loaded, he’s no cheap date.—AMY GOLDWASSER

HEAD

INSTRUMENTATION

Head injuries account for half of all side-impact fatalities. The seamless construction of his skull is revolutionary—it eliminates unnatural splitting.

WorldSID takes up to 212 sensors, head to ankle, that measure acceleration, force and deflection. Internal memory boards store 64 channels of data at 1,000 times per second. The results go to five internal data-collection boxes.

PELVIS RIBS

The main impact point for the lower body. A load cell between the head of the femur and the hip socket can predict fracture.

LEGS

ANKLES

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Bones are aircraft-grade aluminum sheathed in dense vinyl “flesh.” Except for the legs, average male height is constant around the world; Japanese men are slightly shorter from the waist down.

LUIS BRUNO

Double-axis ankles give him human range of motion. Foot and leg injuries tend to require years of rehab.

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Instead of the old singleshell cage, he has one shoulder rib, three thorax ribs and two in the abdomen— invaluable for gauging organ injuries. Each rib is made of superstrong, superelastic nickel titanium and bonded with a tar-like damping material to simulate the mushy combo of bones and organs. The ribs deflect 75mm, because if yours move 50mm, you’re dead. All of his parts are made to exceed human fatality thresholds by 50 percent.

What’sNew

HOUSE OF THE FUTURE

YOU’RE THE MASTER; THIS IS YOUR UNIVERSE

❯

S

TOMORROW’S SMART GARAGE IS READY TO OBEY YOUR EVERY WHIM.

S

S

S

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TOUCHSCREEN DISPLAY 3 RFID LABEL MAKER 5 S

The garage of the future will still shelter your car and serve as a place to store your lawn mower and other indoor-outdoor equipment. But according to visionaries we interviewed at organizations ranging from the Ultimate Garage to the Electric Power Research Institute, in 10 years your garage will also be a savvy service center. Multiple power systems will ensure that your house consumes—and generates—energy as efficiently and inexpensively as possible. A team of robots will automatically take out the trash, accept and sort deliveries and trim your lawn—but only if it needs it. And sensors will valet park your vehicles and keep tabs on their condition. All you’ll have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.—CHARLES WARDELL

CAR 2 DIAGNOSTIC CENTER

Q

Q

Q

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ENERGY 9 CONTROL CENTER

Q

S

S

S S

SMART STORAGE Shelves [4] have built-in scales to keep track of how much fertilizer, grass seed and other lawn-care products you’ve used. They automatically scan Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in product labels as items are removed and replaced, and update the inventory on your home computer. An RFID label maker [5] lets you inventory the contents of your own storage boxes so you know exactly where you stashed the holiday decorations. To maximize storage space, all these boxes, as well as bikes, boats and other recreational toys, are stored on the second story with the help of an electric lift [6]. HOME POWER SYSTEM Your home will still be connected to the grid, but it will also include two of its own power-generating systems: a photovoltaic roof array [7] that can deliver energy directly to your home and a hydrogen fuel cell [8]. A central controller [9] coordinates these systems. When the sun is shining and you need power, the solar rooftop system sup20

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8 FUEL CELL

S

S

CAR TECH Pull up to your garage, press the park button, and infrared beams help your car guide itself into the bay correctly [1]. Once parked, your car transmits data wirelessly to a diagnostic station in the garage [2]. The system’s display tells you when it’s time for regular maintenance—like a 300,000-mile tune-up— and warns you if something needs attention, presenting all your options. If you’re handy, use the touchscreen [3] to display your car’s manual, and order parts if necessary; it will then walk you through the repair. If you’d rather not sully your mitts, beam the diagnosis to your repair shop for an estimate. The mechanics can use their own computers to do a more in-depth remote diagnosis and notify you if and when you need to bring it in. A handheld camera lets you send visual as well as electronic information.

Q

Q

14 LAWN MOWER WITH AERATOR

13 EDGER

K

11 IRRIGATION SYSTEM

plies it. If it’s a blue-sky day and nobody’s home, the solar energy powers a reformer, which extracts hydrogen from water; the hydrogen is stored safely in a subterranean tank [10]. As a last resort, if it’s cloudy and your fuel cell’s out of hydrogen, the controller finds out through the Internet which utility has the lowest rates at that instant, and draws from the grid. YARD CARE The irrigation system [11] goes online to check National Weather Service reports and municipal water restrictions, using the information to decide when to water. A small army of robotic lawn maintenance tools can make decisions based on the same data, and automatically groom your yard accordingly. You’ll have single-function bots like a yard vacuum [12]

7 PHOTOVOLTAIC ROOF ARRAY

ELECTRIC LIFT 6

SMART SHELVES 4

1 PARKING SENSOR

TRASH BOT 15

DOOR BOT

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12 YARD VACUUM

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and edger [13], as well as a mower that takes attachments such as an aerator [14]. The bots rest on their charging stations between jobs. TRASH BOT A robotic trash can [15] sits on a charging station by the back door to the house. It has an automated routine to wheel itself to the curb on collection night.

POPSCI CONCEPT DOOR BOT Think of the door bot as a robotic gopher. It stashes packages from the delivery guy. Once he keys in a one-time code and leaves your packages in a double-secure storage bay, the bot scans the embedded RFID tags and automatically puts the boxes on the correct shelf or in the fridge (or freezer). It finds and retrieves items for you from the second-floor storage room. And it fetches and puts away your tools.

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(HOUSE OF THE FUTURE CONTINUED ON PAGE 22)

INFOGRAPHIC BY KENN BROWN AND CHRIS WREN

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21

What’sNew

HOUSE OF THE FUTURE, CONT’D

You may have to wait a decade or two for your garage to automatically diagnose your car’s ills, but the array of technology below only seems futuristic. It’s quite possible today to demystify the Check Engine light on your car’s dashboard and schedule your lawnmower to trim your yard automatically. Here’s how to do all that and more.—CHARLES WARDELL

1 S-K FACOM STRAP WRENCH

2 OTTOSCAN DIAGNOSTIC SOFTWARE 3 SOLAR CENTURY C21 ROOF TILES

TOOLS Whether your oil-filter wrench uses a gripping strap or a cuff vaguely shaped to fit the can’s flats, it’s no match for an over-tightened unit. S-K Facom’s strap wrench gets the job done with a meaty, ratcheting handle and stainless-steel strap that you can tighten using a knob on the heel of the wrench—hugely useful in tight quarters. Besides, the Ferrari Formula 1 team uses nothing but Facom tools. $25; facom.com DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEMS Save yourself a pricey trip to the car dealer the next time that hectoring Check Engine light flashes red. With Ottoscan software, a Pocket PC and a cable that attaches to your car’s onboard diagnostics port, you can read more error and performance data than you’ll ever know what to do with. $389-495, depending on PDA model; www.baumtools.com POWER GENERATION Solar roofing panels don’t have to be hideous, as evidenced by U.K.-based Solar Century’s C21 photovoltaic roof tiles. Except for a slight bluish tint, they look like a traditional roofing slate. And unlike most other solar panels, the electric links between tiles are so simple that any roofer—not just a solar panel specialist—can handle the job. Enough tiles to provide half the power for a 1,400 square-foot home cost about $14,000. The break-even point is a decade or two. solarcentury.com

REFRIGERATION The extremes of ambient temperature that would melt ice cream or freeze soda in a typical refrigerator don’t faze Gladiator Garagework’s Freezerator. It keeps food frozen even at 110°F. And if temperatures fall below 32°F, heat strips lining the 21-cubic-foot interior keep your drinks from turning to ice. The top compartment freezes and refrigerates. $1,300; www.gladiatorgw.com LIGHTING Dull as cement? Not any more. LiTraCon’s concrete blocks have hundreds of glass fibers running through them to brighten dark spaces. Lay the blocks over a bed of electrical lighting and you’ve got a disco floor. Developed as a student project at Royal University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm, the blocks are currently being tested to see if they can be manufactured on a large scale. If so, they’ll be available Stateside by year’s end; plan to spend a lot. Litracon.com LAWN CARE Forget about mowing the lawn this summer. Instead, stake a wire around the perimeter of your yard, and let the Robomow RL1000 trim away inside its pen. The electric mower autonomously returns to its docking station to charge using an onboard navigation system, and you can set it to do the work automatically on a schedule you determine. Touch-sensitive bumpers help the bot avoid obstacles. $2,000; friendlyroboticsusa.com

6 ROBOMOW RL1000

4 FREEZERATOR 22

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5 LITRACON CONCRETE

NEXT INSTALLMENT_In September we’ll explore the ergonomically perfected work center that will be your future home office.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: C O U R T E S Y S - K FA C O M ; C O U R T E S Y F R I E N D LY R O B O T I C S ; C O U R T E S Y L I T R A C O N G M B H ; C O U R T E S Y G L A D I AT O R G A R A G E W O R K S ; C O U R T E S Y S O L A R C E N T U R Y; C O U R T E S Y B A U M T O O L S U N L I M I T E D

COOL GARAGE TECH—TODAY TURN THE CAR CLOSET INTO A BRIGHT FIX-IT BAY.

What’sNew

MUST-SEE TECHNOLOGY

THEGOODS 2O SERIOUSLY HOT PRODUCTS THAT (ALMOST) SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. Kiss & Tell

Mean Data

Pure Java

OraQuick Rapid HIV-1 Test >> The first rapid HIV test to analyze saliva, recently FDAapproved, is 99 percent accurate. Get results in 20 minutes. Price not set; orasure.com

Omron Karada Scan Scale >> Measure weight and body fat, sync the scale with the pedometer and feed the ugly truth to your PC. Japan only. $175; omron.com

Bodum Granos >> In addition to having a professional-strength pump, this machine expels stale water after each brewing cycle so your espresso is always made with fresh H20. $500; bodumusa.com

Carpenter: Know Thy Walls

Dial-A-Traction

Land Rover Terrain Response System >> Turn a console dial to one of five driving conditions and the 2005 LR3 tweaks the suspension, 4WD system and traction control. A first. Price not set; landrover.com

A Shot in the Dark

Fujifilm QuickSnap Smart Flash >> Flip a switch to widen the aperture and slow shutter, improving low-light snaps. A flash diffuser eliminates bright spots. $15; fujifilm.com

Indoor Links

Detroit’s Green Monster Jeep 5.7-liter HEMI V8 >> The biggest guzzler for the ’05 Grand Cherokee can also act like the smallest: It shuts down four cylinders when cruising, using 20 percent less fuel. Price not set; jeep.com

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Have It Your Way

Gamester Phoenix Revolution >> Lefties rejoice! All four control elements of this PS2 joystick are modular, so you can arrange them however you like. $25; gamesterusa.com

Zircon OneStep MultiScanner >> Stud finders compute density by bouncing current through walls. This one uses two sensors to triangulate the stud’s center— a unique feature. $55; zircon.com

QMotions-Golf Controller >> Use real clubs on the virtual course in EA Sports’ new Tiger Woods game: Optical sensors wired to a tethered ball read your swing and tell the computer how it should fly. A first. PC only. $250; qmotions.com

Heads-Up Display

Equal Opportunity Speakerphone

Polycom SoundStation 2W >> Battery-powered speakerphone lets you use your cell’s hands-free jack for conference calling anywhere you get a signal. A 2.4GHz transmitter that plugs into your landline allows it to work at home too. Price not set; polycom.com

Ambient Executive Dashboard >> A cellular network feeds data on weather, traffic and NASDAQ to this analog desktop display. $130; ambientdevices.com

Margarita Master

Jenn-Air Attrezzi Blender >> It holds more than most (72 ounces), oversize blades devour ice, and the motor is unusually powerful. Que summer. $200; jennair.com

Svelte Sub

Soundmatters SUBstage Subwoofer >> This 3.1inch, digitally amplified woofer produces bass as solid as most 14-inch analog models.100 watts. $300; soundmatters.com

Hide ’n’ Speakers

Philippe Starck/Cassina Music Image Sofa System >> Since not everyone wants A-V gear on display, this couch conceals your rear-channel speakers and subwoofer within its upholstery. Hide your projector in a pop-up rear compartment. $18,500; cassinausa.com

Boo-Boo Bling-Bling

Curad Silver >> Bits of silver in the pad kill bacteria by attacking a variety of their enzymes. With this approach, the germs are less apt to build up resistance. $4; curadusa.com

Cell Booster

Light Saber

Gerber Nautilus >> A spring-loaded LED pops out and illuminates your work area, so you can use the light and a tool on the knife at the same time. O-ring-sealed electronics. Stainless steel hardware. $60; gerberblades.com

Digital Antenna Powermax DA4000SBR >> Bring wireless dead zones to life. A roof antenna pulls in and amplifies weak signals. (Doesn’t work with Nextel service). $560; digitalantenna.com

Club Pro

Taylor Made r7Quad TP Driver >> Fight hook or slice by changing the club’s weight distribution. Four ports accept 12 bolts of varying weight. 883 combos in all. $1,000; taylormadegolf.com

Tight and Light

Whiter Noise

Tide Buzz >> Tide and Black & Decker made a stain-removing contraption that soaks soiled duds in a sound-conducting soap and pounds them with ultrasonic waves to scrub out the gunk from the inside of the fabric. $50; stainbuzz.com

Cannondale Six13 >> Cannondale uses an angioplasty-like bladder to mold carbon-fiber tubes to the frame’s aluminum joints from the inside. $4,400 as shown; cannondale.com

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MAN & MACHINE BY STEPHAN WILKINSON HARD, FAST, SHINY OBJECTS & WHY WE LOVE THEM

Fuddy-DuddyBrand SpawnsLuxuryRocket

What goes 0-to-60 in 4.7 seconds, looks like a crouching cat and may, at 150 large, be a bargain of auto technology?

IN

1998,

THE

VOLKSWAGEN

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had let himself be head-faked by BMW. Piech was said to be a rude, arrogant, pushy blowhard, a classic “couldn’t happen to a nicer guy” dupe. But a funny thing happened on the way to market. When BMW introduced the first German Rolls-Royce early in 2003, we saw in the new Phantom a huge, enormously expensive car that undeniably had . . . presence. It pushed a Grecian-temple grille the size of a card table. But the car lacked grace and suffered from styling flaws that suggested the heavy hand of a committee. VW, meanwhile, was late out of the gate. It had spent a lot of time and money hugely upgrading the old Crewe factory and making substantial mods to Bentley’s aging Arnage, a pocket battleship of a sedan that benefited greatly

from VW-engineered suspension and turbocharging tweaks. In the meantime, VW had spent many millions of pounds and three years on a victory in the 2003 Le Mans endurance race with a Bentley-branded racecar, the Speed 8. It was the first Bentley win in 73 years. I got a ride in a Speed 8 four months after that race, suiting up and jamming myself into the left seat—it is an English car, after all—alongside team driver Tom Kristensen, a 36-year-old Dane who is just slightly handsomer and vastly faster than Brad Pitt. Kristensen has been on a Le Mans–winning team five times. This is not a record, since two other drivers have won five. But only Kristensen did it in just seven tries. He is also the only driver with four consecutive wins.

EDWIN FOTHERINGHAM

Group bought Rolls-Royce and its subsidiary marque Bentley for $750 million, after a fierce bidding war with BMW. Months later, it was revealed that for $65 million, BMW had made an end run and snookered away the rights to the Rolls-Royce name—arguably the only valuable asset in the whole deal. All VW ended up owning after spending so much was a Bronze Age Rolls/Bentley factory in Crewe, England, and the second-rate—in many eyes—Bentley brand (what were Bentleys, other than stealth Rollses with different grilles?). I was among the know-it-alls, a group that included many business and car magazine editors, who snickered that VW CEO Ferdinand Piech

MAN & MACHINE

It used to be that the best endurance racers were strokers, skilled at going just fast enough and coddling the equipment. No more. Today, you’re going flat out pretty much the whole 24 hours at Le Mans, and one of the reasons Tom enjoys giving rides in the 600-plus horsepower, 215-mph Speed 8 is that it reveals to civilians what punishment a good racer endures in his or her office. The G-forces are sharper than anything I’d imagined. I doubt that any fighter pilot undergoes such rapid G onset from side to side and fore and aft, and certainly none

PIECH PRIZE: The 2004 Continental GT

quality wood, weapons-grade metalwork—make the interior of even a $120,000 Porsche 911 Turbo seem positively industrial by comparison. Nor does it hurt that the GT is utterly beautiful, from its mesh-grilled face to arrogant rear haunches like those of a big, crouching cat.

So here’s the bottom line:

Someday soon, we may look back upon RollsRoyce as a 21st-century flameout. Put all this together with the fact that you get a 552-hp car that will do 198 mph and 0-to-60 in 4.7 seconds, and you have a $149,990 bargain. (In fact, I drove a production Continental that had officially been timed at 206 mph, though Bentley chooses to be conservative in its claims.) So here’s the bottom line: Someday soon, we may look back upon RollsRoyce as a 21st-century flameout, a brand that had no markets into which it could credibly expand. BMW can make super-luxurious Rolls-Royce sedans, super-super-luxurious Rolls limousines and maybe—to be daring—a four-seat cabriolet. That’s about it, though. Nobody wants a Rolls-Royce racecar, supercar, roadster, coupe, wagon or “inexpensive” entry-level Rolls. Yet that’s all within the purview of Bentley. (Alas, it could even build an SUV and get away with it.) And of course it can also do the limos. Indeed, Bentley recently built for the Queen of England a special state limousine. It comes with a button on the dash that sets the cruise control to exactly 4 mph—the marching speed of the guardsmen who proceed alongside the royal land barge. ■

Test the flexibility of the Stephan Wilkinson brand at [email protected].

COURTESY BENTLEY MOTORS

experiences those stresses virtually nonstop for two and three hours at a time. As with any modern racecar, what really stuns you is the unearthly grip of its brakes. The engine yowls like a tortured tiger, the acceleration is fierce enough to verge on uncontrollable and Kristensen makes constant course corrections almost before the mini slides begin. But the primary sensation is that we’re all gonna die because we’re still doing 150 and a 90-degree left is six car lengths ahead. So it turned out that Herr Piech of VW had serious plans for Bentley. Confirmation that he knew exactly what he was doing came with the appearance of the 2004 Bentley Continental GT. This beauty is in fact the single biggest performance-car bargain on the market. A Bentley bargain? Are we sniffing too much oxymoron gas here? Well, consider first that the Continental GT, a two-door coupe, is a true four-seater. I’ve ridden in sedans with less backseat room and comfort than the Continental GT affords. It’s by far the fastest four-seater on the planet. Then consider that the Continental’s furnishings—superb leather, museum-

H E AD L I N E S INSIDE EARTH WATCH Geologists’ tech attack on North America. I, SOLDIER Sizing up the military’s new robotic uniform. THE TITANIC Once a shipwreck, now a scientific treasure trove. FUTURE NEWS Obesity in the year 2024.

JULY 2OO4

Discoveries, Advances & Debates in Science and the World ENVIRONMENT

NANO-POLLUTION: NO TINY ISSUE?

F R O M T O P : K E N N E T H E WA R D / B I O G R A F X / P H O T O R E S E A R C H E R S ; C O U R T E S Y E VA O B E R D Ö R S T E R

Scientists say ultrasmall man-made particles are toxic to animals. What about us?

In 1941, researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital made an unsettling discovery: Inhaled nanoscopic particles could travel into the brain. When chimps and rhesus monkeys breathed air laden with poliovirus cells, some of the particles followed the path normally reserved for smell signals, thwarting the protective blood-brain barrier. Polio has since been con-

tained, but lifeless specks the same size or smaller will be churned out by the ton in coming years as nanotechnology becomes an industrial mainstay. Though the nano boom will likely yield countless commercial benefits— ultraprecise drug delivery systems, improved superconductors—it could also give way to an insidious form of air pollution. Mass produc-

FISHING FOR ANSWERS

GOOD FOR INDUSTRY. . .

0.5 nanometers

New synthetic materials like these dome-shaped carbon molecules measure less than one billionth of a meter in diameter. The tiny particles may be small enough to lodge inside the brain tissue of largemouth bass, according to new research from toxicologist Eva Oberdörster, who says her results warrant further investigation.

. . . BAD FOR BASS?

tion will likely bring environmental exposure, and experts are now examining the potential for toxic nanoparticles (objects typically smaller than one billionth of a meter) to end up inside plants, animals or people. The potential impact of nanoparticles on marine life concerns Southern Methodist University toxicologist Eva Oberdörster, who recently completed a study involving captive large-mouth bass. Oberdörster exposed the fish to various concentrations of a dome-shaped molecule called Carbon-60. After two days, signs of an immune response to the invaders were found inside the fishes’ livers. Evidence suggests the molecules may have even breached the cells protecting the brain and central nervous system. Carbon-60 is part of a family of precision-engineered nanoparticles called fullerenes, named after architect R. Buckminster Fuller, famous for his geodesic domes. The structure of the molecules and their resistance to heat, among other properties, make them suitable for use in fuel cells, high-temperature lubri-

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TICKER /// 04.13.04 MARS ROVERS REBOOT NASA OUTFITS SPIRIT AND OPPORTUNITY WITH SPECIAL SOFTWARE PATCHES THAT SHOULD KEEP THE TWINS RUNNING FOR P O P U L A R S C I E N C E J U LY 2 0 0 4

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HEADLINES

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SEISMIC STAKEOUT

Tech-savvy researchers gear up to revolutionize earth science.

cants and other products that could wind up in landfills, says nanochemist Vicki Colvin, director of the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology at Rice University, where fullerenes were first discovered. But not all fullerenes are toxic, Colvin points out. The type used in the fish study lacked the protective coating often applied to fullerenes to render them nontoxic to living tissue. “Fullerenes have extremely stable surface coatings,” she says. More than

To anyone studying how continents evolve, North America offers the ultimate tectonic smorgasbord. From the rifting in the Basin and Range to the fault zones along the Pacific coast, nearly every major geological process is in progress in the western United States alone. Until now, scientists have struggled to assemble the big picture from patchy details, chasing old earthquakes like detectives on a cold case and drawing deep conclusions (literally) from surface data. Technology has finally caught up with geology, however, and over the next five years researchers will deploy EarthScope, a multidisciplinary effort to understand the forces that shape and shake the world’s land masses. Partially funded by a $200 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the project will generate detailed geophysical models using two vast new sensor networks: “Bigfoot” will take seismic readings at thousands of locations nationwide while the second, a swath of GPS units and strainmeters blanketing the West, will measure rates of deformation. In addition, a 2.5-mile borehole already being drilled deep into the San Andreas fault will put key instruments right where earthquakes begin. “It’s the largest undertaking in the history of solid earth geoscience,” says EarthScope director Gregory van der Vink, who expects the endeavor’s sweeping data collection to revolutionize the field. “Geologic time will be days, not millennia.”—JOSHUA TOMPKINS

“MAYBE MOST NANOPARTICLES ARE HARMLESS. OF COURSE, WE DON’T KNOW THAT,” SAYS TOXICOLOGIST GÜNTER OBERDÖRSTER. “WE NEED TO FIND OUT.”

merely shellacking the sphere, the coating process chemically bonds the surface material to the carbon. Colvin adds that fullerene pollution will likely pale next to the nanoscopic airborne pollution already in existence, from the carbon particles in car exhaust to the manganese oxide in welding fumes. “We’re exposed to multiton quantities of incidentally created nanoparticles,” Colvin says. Oberdörster’s father, Günter Oberdörster, director of the University of Rochester’s EPA-funded Particulate Matter Center, has probed the toxicity of those inadvertent particles for years. His most recent research project shows that rats, like monkeys, may be subject to contamination by inhaled ultrafine particles via the olfactory tract, a pathway also found in humans. Günter Oberdörster cautions against alarm, too: Nanoparticle toxicity is not a given. “Surface chemistry is very important,” he says. “Most of the engineered nanoparticles may be harmless. Of course, we don’t know that. We need to find out.”—JOSHUA TOMPKINS

Drill site

San Andreas fault

FAULT ZONE OBSERVATORY

STEPHEN ROUNTREE

[

GEOLOGY

Halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, researchers are drilling a boomerang-shaped shaft across California’s notorious San Andreas fault, eventually aiming for a depth of four kilometers. Reinforced with cement, equipped with an array of sensors and designed for 20 years of monitoring, the borehole will return the first-ever samples from the actual gouge—the rock being pulverized inside the fault.

Future borehole: 31 cm wide and 4 km long

Recent earthquakes

Side tunnels

ANOTHER FIVE MONTHS /// 04.14.04 SICK AT SEA CORNELL UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS PRESENT OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE THAT THE WORLD’S MARINE LIFE IS CONTRACTING A

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EARTH IN 3-D

ROAMING “BIGFOOT” To gather the detailed nationwide seismic data that experts have long sought, 400 seismometers will be installed across the western United States during the next five years, and then incrementally moved eastward to new sites every 18 months until data from 2,000 locations have been obtained. The goal for the array, nicknamed Bigfoot, is to obtain coastto-coast readings at intervals of 70 kilometers.

EarthScope scientists hope to secure funding for a satellite employing Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), a technology already in use on several European satellites, to perform meticulous 3-D mapping of large areas. Accurate to the millimeter and repeated once every few days, the scans would track continental surface displacements and augment the findings of EarthScope’s land-based strainmeters and GPS devices.

GPS antenna

Backup batteries and electronics Station brace (10–15 m depth) Level bedrock

Solar panel

INSIDER VIEW OF PLATE TECTONICS A network of 175 strainmeters, which gauge the subtle compression and expansion of underground rock formations, will combine with 775 precision GPS receivers to track the maelstrom of bending and buckling that slowly roils North America from the Rockies to the Pacific. One hundred of the GPS units will remain portable for targeting localized areas of interest.

Vault-encased broadband seismometer Internet satellite

PLATE BOUNDARY OBSERVATORY KEY LEGEND:

OBSERVATORY SITES

PORTABLE SEISMIC OBSERVATORY

SITE LOCATION FOR FUTURE SEISMIC OBSERVATORY

Permanent Inactive Active

GREATER VARIETY OF DISEASES /// 04.21.04 MONEY TALKS ENGINEERS AT THE CALIFORNIA-BASED TECHNOLOGY COMPANY BEEPCARD ANNOUNCE THAT THEY HAVE DESIGNED P O P U L A R S C I E N C E J U LY 2 0 0 4

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Q&A: EUROS ON THE MOON BERNARD FOING, CHIEF SCIENTIST, EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY

PERSPECTIVE

FREAKISH SPEED, BY THE NUMBERS

NASA’s X-43A scramjet hits Mach 7 and won’t stop there. 5,000 MPH 720 MPH 11 SECONDS 15 MILES 2 HOURS 1 MILLISECOND 2,200 MPH 1,350 MPH 4,000°–4,500°F 2,500°–2,700°F 6,750 MPH

Approximate top speed clocked by the X-43A hypersonic scramjet aircraft on March 27 Relative speed of sound Approximate duration of the X-43A’s powered flight Distance traveled Estimated flight time from New York to Hong Kong traveling 5,000 mph Time the X-43A engine takes to generate thrust Previous record for a jet aircraft Average cruising speed of Concorde jet Temperature inside a scramjet engine Melting point of steel Anticipated speed of NASA’s third and final X-43A hypersonic aircraft, scheduled to fly this fall

SOURCE: NASA

SOUND WAVES

ECO FRIDGE

GREEN INNOVATION

CHILLING WITH SOUND WAVES, NOT FREON

An eco-hip acoustic fridge debuts. But is anyone listening?

PHOTO CREDIT TK

For the sake of the scoop, Ben & Jerry’s managed to do what no refrigerator manufacturer has: jolt into development the world’s most eco-friendly ice-cream freezer. Unveiled for Earth Day 2004 at a Manhattan scoop shop, the chiller relies not on greenhouse gases but on sound waves to keep the precious stuff cold. Research on thermoacoustic refrigeration limped along for 20 years or so until the ice cream duo forked over $600,000 to a Penn State team, which made the prototype in two years. The freezer is an ordinary deli cabinet piped to a 14-inch-high canister with soundproof stainless steel walls. A loudspeaker pumps sound waves (at 190 decibels, louder than a rocket launch) into the canister, expanding and contracting helium gas inside. The pressure changes chill the icebox as efficiently as a conventional freezer. Cool? Sure. But even with investors now vying to make the technology commercially viable, the longstanding reign of cheap, functional ozone-polluting fridges won’t be trumped anytime soon. “Historically, environmental friendliness doesn’t sell,” says Penn State acoustician Matt Poese. But don’t tell that to Ben & Jerry’s. The company will test and promote the rig at its Vermont tour facility this summer.—LAURA ALLEN

A CREDIT CARD THAT AUTHENTICATES TRANSACTIONS THROUGH A VOICE-RECOGNITION CHIP /// 04.29.04 CITY OF TOXIC ANGELS THE AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION’S 2004 STATE

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C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y E U R O P E A N S PA C E A G E N C Y; C O U R T E S Y B E N & J E R R Y ’ S ; C O R B I S ; C O U R T E S Y M AT T H E W P O E S E

BEN & JERRY

POPSCI: Tell us about Europe’s lunar ambitions. BERNARD FOING: Our first priority is SMART-1, the first-ever European Moon probe, which we expect to reach lunar orbit by November. The probe will help us test miniaturized instruments and a new deep space ion propulsion engine that is 10 times more efficient than classic chemical propulsion. And after SMART-1? One possibility would be a rover mission in 2012 to prospect for ice. The next phase is the deployment of an international robotic village, to create a permanent infrastructure with life-support systems and habitats. We’re looking at a crew of ten staying for 100day rotations. President Bush has been criticized by some for pursuing the go-it-alone approach to space exploration. Agree? Even if the United States has dominating technology and budgets for space exploration, international cooperation can be fruitful for all. Which country do you think will put the first person on the Moon in the new millennium? I expect the next lunar crew will be international. And I should hope it will include a European. —INTERVIEW BY JAMES VLAHOS

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HEADLINES

H ABUGGYCAVITYFIX RADICAL DENTISTRY

COURTESY JEFF HILLMAN

Can genetically engineered bacteria cure tooth decay? Kids get cavities. Dentists fill them. It’s a fairly old arrangement, but it may soon come to an end if cavities go the way of smallpox. Jeffrey Hillman’s company, Oragenics, has patented a simple swab of bacteria that when wiped across a set of teeth will (allegedly) grant a lifetime of protection from tooth decay. By this fall, Hillman, a dental researcher at the University of Florida, will begin testing the new strain on 15 to 30 volunteers. Normally, bacteria called Streptococcus mutans grow on human teeth and convert sugar into lactic acid, which rots enamel. Hillman engineered a strain of S. mutans that doesn’t produce lactic acid; instead, it carries an antibiotic

that helps it displace the indigenous cavity-inducing strain. “The dentist will apply our bacteria and then tell the patient to go home and eat sugar,” Hillman says. As luck would have it, Tootsie Rolls, lollipops, et al. help to colonize the new strain, but instead of creating a cavity the sugar helps form a tooth security guard, thus revolutionizing the practice of modern dentistry. “I think that’s a fair way to put it,” says Kenneth Burrell, senior director of the American Dental Association Council on Scientific Affairs. But there could be a hitch with the FDA: Hillman is not sure whether patients can transfer the new strain to others with, say, just a kiss. Hillman is confident there

[A] WITHOUT THERAPY

[B] WITH THERAPY

THREE OUT OF FOUR RATS AGREE “IF THERE WAS A MARKET FOR PREVENTING CAVITIES IN RATS, I’D BE A MILLIONAIRE,” HILLMAN SAYS. (A) RAT TEETH COLONIZED WITH A STRAIN OF S. MUTANS, ALSO NATIVE TO HUMAN TEETH. (B) RAT TEETH WITH HILLMAN’S NONLACTIC ACID PRODUCING STRAIN. THE RESULTS ARE OBVIOUS: ONE RAT NEEDS MAJOR DENTAL WORK.

will be no “horizontal transmission,” but just to be sure, the spouses of Phase I testers will be monitored. If the strain stays put, it could go commercial within five to six years.—MICHAEL ROSENWALD

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HEADLINES

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THE POPSCI OPINION POLL BASED ON 5,200 RESPONSES POSTED TO POPSCI.COM FROM 4/7 TO 5/7

NEXT-GEN MILITARY MAN

WEARABLE MACHINES A gas-powered robotic uniform inches closer to the battlefield. The military garb designed by mechanical engineer Homayoon Kazerooni at the University of California, Berkeley, is anything but standard issue. Kazerooni’s 90-pound battlesuit, dubbed BLEEX for Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, consists of a pair of robotic legs and backpack-like frame. Wearing the prototype, a soldier can haul up to 75 extra pounds with little effort. BLEEX is still a far cry from the superhuman combat gear envisioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is funding the research. But BLEEX 2, due out in late 2005, should be faster, lighter and more limber.—TREVOR THIEME

1POWER SOURCE

Using human gait analysis, Kazerooni designed the exoskeleton to possess the same mass distribution and range of motion as its human pilot. Now limited to a slow march, BLEEX should be squatting and climbing stairs within two years.

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More than 40 sensors are spaced throughout BLEEX’s robotic legs to gauge the direction in which the legs are being pushed. Data is gathered by a nearby computer module and relayed through a “body LAN” to a central processing center in the backpack. A control algorithm then calculates how the pilot is moving, and commands the leg actuators to follow in stride.

THIS MONTH’S OPINION POLL: A REVAMPED SPACE SHUTTLE IS SLATED TO LAUNCH NEXT MARCH. DO YOU HAVE FAITH IN THE MISSION? WHAT DO YOU THINK? POPSCI.COM

OF THE AIR REPORT RANKS LOS ANGELES AS THE AMERICAN CITY WITH THE WORST AIR QUALITY /// 06.10.04 CELLULAR ONE THE FIRST-EVER SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY CONFERENCE

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B L E E X C O U R T E S Y U C B E R K E L E Y; I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y G A R R Y M A R S H A L L

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BLEEX runs on gasoline, which is housed in a small one-gallon tank in the backpack. It provides two hours of both hydraulic power for locomotion and electric power for sensors and computer parts. Gas sound dicey? Kazerooni says it’s the only fuel with sufficient power density.

“There is no joystick, keyboard or steering wheel,” says Kazerooni. “The pilot becomes part of the exoskeleton.” Just step in and start walking—no training required. Not yet suitable for dodging bullets, BLEEX has a speed of just two steps per second.

LAST MONTH WE ASKED:

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SHRINKAGE DEPT.

THE MICRO BARBER

C O U R T E S Y C H R I S T O P H E R N . L A F R AT TA

Chemist turned stylist etches 3-D text onto human hair. Yes, that’s the word—“Hair”— written delightfully, absurdly, on a human hair. This whimsical 3-D microsculpture comes from the head of John Fourkas, a chemist at Boston College. The letters look as imposing as the “Hollywood” sign under an electron microscope, but they’re only 10 microns tall—about 1/10 the width of the hair. Fourkas carefully sculpted each letter from thousands of tiny baked “bricks” of Plexiglas, some as small as 120 nanometers in width. To make his sculpture, Fourkas bathed the hair in a liquid Plexiglas resin, then hardened the

resin with infrared laser light, “cooking it—sort of like you cook an egg white and it hardens,” says Fourkas. By moving the laser around point by point, he can build any shape he likes. When he’s done, he washes away the remaining liquid. Fourkas envisions making molds with his technique so that one could stamp out thousands of such tiny structures at a time. But more than just an artsy parlor trick, this technology has the potential to yield supersmall 3-D electronic devices, such as inductor coils for cellphones. In a few years, Fourkas would like to etch

100 microns

FINE PRINT: JOHN FOURKAS USED AN ULTRAFAST INFRARED LASER TO ETCH TINY LETTERS ONTO THE SURFACE OF A SINGLE STRAND OF HAIR.

a car’s VIN number into every chip of its paint, or perhaps tag explosive chemicals with serial numbers. “I don't think what we did on the hair was particularly useful, but it shows that you can build 3-D microstructures on fragile materials without destroying them.”—WILLIAM SPEED WEED

HEADLINES

H MARINE ARCHAEOLOGY

WHAT’S EATING THE TITANIC ?

The world’s most famous sunken wreck becomes a boon for deep-sea microbiologists. Oceanographer Robert Ballard is returning to the Titanic, but it’s not the same sunken ship he found in 1985. The deep ocean has been steadily dismantling the once-great cruise liner, and scientists say the process is unlike any they’ve ever seen. “Even if we could stop it, I wouldn’t,” says forensic archaeologist Charles Pellegrino. “The Titanic is becoming something that belongs to biology.” The ship has proved an incredible draw for deep-sea life—Pellegrino says it’s like “a giant culture medium that fell out of heaven.” After the Titanic plunged 2.5 miles beneath the Atlantic Ocean in 1912, local mollusks quickly began devouring any organic material, including most of the soft woods, as bacteria steadily consumed the ship’s steel. Originating in the seabed and upstream hydrothermal vents, the bacteria have burrowed into cracks, consuming iron (400+ pounds a day) and excreting rust to form so-called rusticles— icicle-like housings that drape from the steel sections of the wreck. The feasting is so aggressive, scientist Roy Cullimore of Droycon Bioconcepts estimates 50 percent of the Titanic’s steel will have been recycled back into the ocean within 200 years. Not to be outdone by rusticles, other critters (including tourists) are steadily chomping away at the ship too. Here, your guide to the wreck’s undoing.—GREGORY MONE

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Mollusks and microorganisms

Ejected from the seabed when the Titanic first struck bottom, they set to work immediately.

Bacteria

Floating downstream from hydrothermal vents in spore form, bacteria found a new Eden in the Titanic.

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Teredo worms By the time scientists munched on softer arrived to survey the woods, while microorship, only the hard ganisms ate some woods, such as clothes and textiles. mahogany, remained. Thriving on the sulfur in steel, bacteria also extract iron for housing and spew out the excess.

Bacteria have sucked over 1,000 tons of iron from the ship— once-flat steel plates are now rippled.

END IN SIGHT? After cleaning their plates, the Teredo worms moved on— the worst is done.

The bacterial colonies are blooming, and half of the steel could be gone by 2204.

Salt corrosion eats Water pressure intenThe Titanic settled in a Some suggest salharsh environment, away at the hull while sified as the ship sank, vaging specific parts 2.5 miles below gravel from icebergs imploding sections of of the Titanic to save icebergs passing overhead rains down the stern. Salt corrofrom inevitable decay. on the ship. sion works slower. overhead. Lured by legend, profit and the popularity of Titanic TV specials, people keep going back.

Submersibles descend to the site using weights and, upon ascent, can damage the hull or deck.

Careless piloting in close quarters could damage the fragile hull, as did a minor accident in the ’90s.

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NOAA has rules for proper behavior, but lacks the authority to enforce them.

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2024 OBESITY CURED, FOR THE RICH Ten thousand years ago, before the rise of deep-fried cheese sticks, starvation, not gluttony, was a leading cause of premature death. Today, our food supply has changed: Famine is rare in most nations, but our eat-it-while-it-lasts genetic instincts remain the same. The result: an epidemic of spare tires and saddlebags leads to more ill health worldwide than any other cause. While new anti-fat drugs help the affluent Western world slim down, obesity takes root in developing nations, where junk food is omnipresent and affordable, but the drugs to resist it are not.—AS TOLD TO AARON CLARK Dr. David E. Cummings is an obesity specialist and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington and Seattle VA Medical Center.

KICKS OFF AT MIT /// 07.01.04 EXPLOSIVE FUN! THE TRIPOLI ROCKETRY ASSOCIATION BEGINS ITS WEEK-LONG HIGH-POWERED ROCKETRY FESTIVAL IN GENESEO, NEW YORK

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TOP: MONIKA AICHELE; BOTTOM: JOE MORSE

HEADLINE FROM THE FUTURE BY DAVID E. CUMMINGS

A PROJECT INSPIRED BY WWW.CARE.ORG

For the 2004 POPULAR SCIENCE invitational design competition, we chose the theme of “technological CARE packages for the 21st century.” What good, we asked, might emerging technology do for global communities in need? We put the problem before internationally renowned designers, architects and thinkers. The results surprised and delighted us. Whales, it seems, need noise-cancellation devices. Office chairs should morph, like Transformer toys, into survival gear. Bombed-out villages need utility centers powered by wood or the turn of a bicycle wheel. And cities need to gaze at newborn stars. By Steven Henry Madoff

THE 2004 POPSCI DESIGN COMPETITION

TheJury: Janet Abrams

Cameron Sinclair

Jeff Speck

Rodney Brooks

Chee Pearlman

Abrams is a design writer and the director of the Design Institute at the University of Minnesota.

Architect Sinclair is the founder of the nonprofit organization Architecture for Humanity.

Former city planner Speck is the director of design for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Brooks heads up the MIT Computer Science and AI Lab, and is chairman of iRobot Corporation.

Design Challenge director Pearlman heads Chee Company, a NYC-based design consultancy.

THE TECHNICAL ADVISERS: BRIAN BINGHAM, WOODS HOLE; DAVE CADOGAN, R&D MANAGER, ILC DOVER; DON EYLES, ENGINEER, DRAPER LABS; JAMIE GIL, ENGINEER, ILC DOVER; DARIO GOUSSAL, CTO, TEL@BURO; JOE HERNANDEZ, CEO, INNOVATIVE BIOSENSORS; CHUCK HOBERMAN, FOUNDER, HOBERMAN DESIGNS; INSITU GROUP; JOHN LEONARD, MIT; NICK MAKRIS, MIT; TOD RIEDEL, CO-FOUNDER, MILLENNIAL NET; RUSSELL SOUTHWOOD, CEO, BALANCING ACT; AARON THODE, UCSD; SAM TOLKOFF, DIRECTOR (MANUFACTURE), BLUEFIN ROBOTICS; JUAN VITALI, ENGINEER, GEORGIA TECH.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN B. CARNETT

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DESIGN CHALLENGE 2004

GRAND PRIZE CARE CUBE

WHEN WE DECIDED TO BUILD A

design competition around the idea of a 21st-century CARE package, the idea was to move well beyond the original 1945 template. Those simple boxes of Spam, lard, cornmeal, powdered milk and other American staples saved the lives of many starving Europeans after World War II. But soon after 1945, CARE was air-dropping tools, blankets and medicine as well. Over the decades the concept of international relief evolved to include transfer of expertise and technology and the encouragement of self-help in communities in need. The parameters for those invited to participate in our competition were left wide open: We asked the entrants to identify a community, define a need (it could be “any urgent, definable need: social, political, cultural, domestic or international”) and then imagine a technological fix. The technology itself should be extant or within reasonable hailing distance, and a matchmaking service was offered: We would pair entrants with experts in scientific or technological fields related to their concept. When the folders, discs and e-mail attachments arrived at our offices early this spring, the projects revealed in roughly equal measures the influence of CARE, the nightly news, Florence Nightingale and the 101st Airborne Division. The judges encountered fleets of autonomous underwater vehicles to save sonar-assaulted whales; survivalist office chairs; deployable sweet-water systems; and a FOR INFORMATION ABOUT CARE International and its foreign aid missions, go to www.care.org.

SWISS ARMY KNIFE FOR A VILLAGE

CREATORS: ALEXANDER ROSE AND DANNY HILLIS COMMUNITY: VILLAGES LACKING KEY INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT: PORTABLE COMMUNICATIONS, WATER PURIFICATION AND ENERGY STATION

In designing their “systematic infrastructure collapse syndrome CARE package,” Alexander Rose and Danny Hillis considered that disaster inevitably leads to a need for three things: clean water, communications and power. Rose and Hillis’s aircraft-deployable station comes equipped with a water-purification unit, a computer and PDA-like networked communication devices, and a Stirling engine and power generator. An induction hose sucks in river water for purification. Users can borrow PDAs, which ping messages to one another and, when close enough to home base, into cyberspace. To make electricity, users either hop onto a stationary bike and pedal, hamster-style, or they can burn wood, rice husks or other combustibles. Weather permitting, the station’s Stirling engine can also run on solar power.

Retractable sink

Configurable storage area

Induction hose Handheld communications device

Communications area Flywheel Lower combustion box

Human powered bicycle interface

Inside

Bicycle

Drive belt Battery

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMESON SIMPSON

Antenna

Heat tube heat tube Adjustable passive solar reflectors

Cube, landed and opened

6 feet

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2ND PRIZE URBAN LODESTAR

BIRTH OF A NEW CITY STAR

CREATORS: JULIAN LAVERDIERE AND PAUL MYODA COMMUNITY: CITIES AFFLICTED BY LIGHT POLLUTION PROJECT: SYNTHETIC STAR

PHOTO CREDIT TK

The designers of the magnificent Tribute in Light memorial for the World Trade Center turned their attention to urban night blindness: the blankness of the city skies. Urban Lodestar is a light-emitting five-pointed star designed to float serenely above a city center and pulse gently at the same rate as a resting heart to calm the city folk below. Lodestar hovers with the aid of helium-filled polymer balloons; propellant tanks and directional boosters attached to a GPS-equipped positioning system keep it from going AWOL. During the day, photovoltaic film panels harness energy from the Sun and store it in batteries; at night, electroluminescent strips in the shape of a star glow with that stored energy. Graphite composite struts provide stability, and a batterypowered xenon strobe creates the pulsing effect. Intermittent green flashes differentiate the Urban Lodestar from natural celestial bodies.

C O U R T E S Y O F J U L I A N L AV E R D I E R E A N D PA U L M Y O D A ; B A C K G R O U N D P H O T O G R A P H : C O U R T E S Y N A S A ; I N S E T S : C O U R T E S Y R O S E E T H E R I D G E ; R I G H T: C O U R T E S Y O F E C C O D E S I G N

DESIGN CHALLENGE 2004

savagely satirical project called PAL of the USA, for People About to be Liberated by the United States of America, in which the community receives a “smart bomb” ordnance of iPods, hot dogs and other Americana. Some entries were dead serious, some a mere provocation and some a techno-poetic gloss on the predicament of western communities lost in their own machine-made fog. Taken together, the CARE packages mirror their creators’ first-world sense of technological might: Membership has its privileges. Who else can afford to consider electroactive polymers, Technogel, woven-fabric electroluminescent displays and 3-D scanners as aid? Yes, attention was paid to basic needs—for purified water, for example—but it seems humanity also requires sleeker portable communications devices, more and better network access, more terminals and displays, and all the power sources to feed them, from solar to steam to hypothetically efficient Stirling engines. The judges were experts on design, technology and the blurry line between fancy and feasibility. They met around a table at the magazine’s headquarters to evaluate the entries. Epithets shot back and forth, from “technoporn” to “fantasy projections” to “commercial home run.” There were plenty of practical questions: “Why do you need connectivity in the same box with water purification?” “Does it allow people to create an economy or is it going to be a burden?” “What happens when this technology breaks down?” What rumbled under the hood of the proceedings was not so much the problems of specific technologies, it was a more philosophical issue: In the real world, would these technologies, these silicon CARE packages, be real gifts or simply more levers of influence in the balance of power?

HONORABLE MENTION

SOTERIA CHAIR

HAVE CHAIR, MIGHT SURVIVE

CREATORS: ECCO DESIGN COMMUNITY: NERVOUS HIGH-RISE OFFICE WORKERS PROJECT: EMERGENCY GEAR CHAIR In a time of terrorism the humble office worker feels exposed, a reserve soldier in a global war. Ecco’s designers equipped their simple-looking office chair with a fireproof hooded vest, first-aid supplies, rope and sharp-edged tools. Armrests double as crowbars or shovel handles, and the chair back serves as a shovel. The hard-topped hooded vest sports a gas mask, battery, embedded LED lamp, heartbeat sensor that transmits the victim’s location, and FM radio for receiving safety instructions. If the building falls on top of you, just put on the vest, dismantle your chair, and try to dig your way out of the rubble.

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RECYCLED COM-TECH

21ST-CENTURY PHONE BOOTH CREATORS: ZAGO ARCHITECTURE COMMUNITY: PEOPLE WITHOUT COMPUTERS AND TELEPHONES PROJECT: RECYCLED COMMUNITY TELECOM HUB

Solar panels

Nothing better represents the technology divide than the silicon junkyards in developing countries such as China where wealthy nations send their still-functional but outmoded computers, cellphones and other discards. People who live in these areas might find such equipment useful, if it could be combined and reconstituted in helpful ways; instead it moulders, dead and disconnected, leaking toxins such as lead, mercury and cadmium. Zago Architecture devised a deployable communications center to connect remote communities with the rest of the world. These centers would be built from salvaged computer and electronics components and would include a computer, a satellite modem, solar panels and a satellite telephone. Such a center would enable far-flung families to communicate, students to supplement their studies, and heath-care workers to access up-to-date medical information.

Shipping container and folding canopy

Monitor

CPU Satellite modem Printer Keyboard PHOTO CREDIT TK

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C O U R T E S Y O F Z A G O A R C H I T E C T U R E ; R I G H T: C O U R T E S Y O F I D E O C O R P O R AT I O N

DESIGN CHALLENGE 2004

TECH TO THE RESCUE War, the collapse of infrastructure and the necessity of portable, rapidly deployable technologies were givens assumed by most of our Design Challenge entrants, and none more clearly than Alexander Rose and Danny Hillis in their Swiss Army Knife of a package, which took the grand prize. Its nickname: the “CARE cube.” “We were doing this post9/11, and after the blackout that hit the eastern seaboard last August,” says Rose, who is executive director of San Francisco’s Long Now Foundation, which studies time and culture in up to 10,000-year chunks. “It struck us that loss of infrastructure is the basis of ‘community in need,’ and this comes down to three things: clean water, communications and power.” They wanted to squeeze solutions to these three huge needs into a box six feet square, weighing maybe a ton. During the three months they worked on the project, Rose went on sabbatical to Borneo, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand, along the way exchanging e-mails with Hillis, a computer scientist who has built two prototypes of 10,000-year clocks for the Long Now Foundation. The duo pictured a box stocked with solar-powered cellphone-PDAs that keep pinging other units until their users’ messages are picked up or make their way to the Internet. The box would feature configurable LCD screens and softwaredriven keyboards that could shift easily between the alphabets of different languages, along with retractable sinks and water-purification filters. A Stirling engine, fueled by solar reflectors or a combustion box, would store energy. If either of these power sources failed, a stationary bicycle could generate electricity and give the user an aerobic workout in the bargain.

FINALIST PACKAGING THE PACKAGE

EXPANDABLE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE CREATORS: IDEO DESIGN COMMUNITY: INTERNATIONAL AID WORKERS PROJECT: EXPANDABLE, NETWORKED CONTAINER

IDEO designers reasoned that to send a smarter CARE package, you need a smarter box, one that can wirelessly signal its location and expand incrementally while protecting its contents at any stage. Voilà, IDEO’s “expandable CARE package.” A lightweight, collapsible metal frame gives structural support, and an aerogel-filled inner bag protects the contents and keeps them at constant temperature. To fill the package, simply expand the frame, place the goods inside the bag, zip it closed; then, using the integrated vacuum pump, evacuate air from the bag so it conforms to its contents, preventing them from rattling around during transport. Along the aid chain, the container can be expanded or contracted if required. A readdressable, wireless digital display tag shows handling instructions, transit addresses, bar codes, icons, multi-language text and more. The container’s contents and destination can be monitored using a PDA or laptop in the field.

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POWER PLANT

BONSAI-SCALE ENERGY LESSON

CREATORS: ANTENNA DESIGN COMMUNITY: URBAN DWELLERS WITH GREEN LEANINGS PROJECT: TINY, NATURAL, INDIVIDUALIZED POWER GENERATOR

One judge likened this concept to “Zen poetry.” Antenna Design’s project is a wee lesson for power-hogging Westerners in the cycle of global energy. The “power plant” combines genetic engineering and fuel cell technology into a windowsill power station. In a small terrarium, the user nurtures a tree that has been genetically engineered for rapid growth, compact size and high leaf density. After several weeks, the nurturer turns consumer, chopping the tree into small pieces, mixing the pieces with water and leaving them to decay for at least a month. Methane given off during decomposition is fed into a fuel cell, which produces a modest amount of electricity, enough to run, say, an iPod. The designers say the concept illustrates the notion that humans must care for something in order to profit from it, and that they must be patient to get the benefit.

COURTESY OF ANTENNA DESIGN

“The surprise for me,” Rose recalls, “was how many communities where I was traveling could use this. No place had water, power and communication at the same time. But what was also interesting was how quickly new technologies were picked up. The key is serviceability. If you can’t maintain the technologies, they get junked as fast as they arrive.” The powerful impact of obsolescence was on the mind of another winner, Andrew Zago, whose firm’s Self-Contained Community Telecenter took an honorable mention. “Toxic colonialism” is the phrase that Zago uses to describe the problem of global techno-dumping. Three hundred and twenty-five million computers will become obsolete this year in the United States alone, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and huge numbers of them will add to an Everest of e-junk that is strewn through China, India and Pakistan. One infamous site, the town of Giuyu, China, is a poster child for environmental disaster, with its dumping grounds, poisonous smoke and river choked by stripped and melted computer parts. Zago, whose architecture firm is based in New York City and Detroit, imagined a second life for some of this discarded stuff. “Obsolete is a relative term,” he says. “There’s no end to the people who can use things that were called ‘blazingly fast’ a few years ago that we’ve thrown away.” His reconstructed computers and satellite modems would, at least in a symbolic way, reduce the dumping while offering a way onto the grid for the technologically impoverished. The plan also addresses another problem. If a CARE package simply serves its need and is exhausted—the way a container of food is—then it’s a one-way transmission. It never gets at the more profound issue for broken communities:

FINALIST

EDITORS’ CHOICE MARINE MAMMAL RX

“HEADPHONES” FOR

WHALES

CREATORS: CENTER FOR DIGITAL ARTS & EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON COMMUNITY: WHALES IN THE PATH OF NAVY SONAR TESTS PROJECT: UNMANNED SUBS THAT PROTECT WHALES AGAINST THE DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF SONAR

1. AUVS DEPLOYED

C O U R T E S Y O F I A N I N G R A M , B R E T B AT T E Y, A N D S H AW N B R I X E Y

2. AUVS MONITOR THE POD

3. BLOCKING NAVY SONAR

Many marine biologists believe that Navy sonar tests, which blast ultra-high-intensity sound waves through the world’s oceans, are responsible for mass beachings of whales, dolphins and porpoises in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. They theorize that the highenergy sound waves interfere with whales’ sonar-based communication and navigation systems, causing them to become disoriented, and that the sonar blasts ultimately may deafen or kill the whales. In this project—the only one of the bunch that was designed to benefit a nonhuman community—a school of “active noise reduction autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)” would be deployed by an unmanned aircraft in an area where the Navy’s low-frequency active sonar array is being tested (1). One AUV (not shown) would float on the surface, staying in contact with the drone and transmitting information to the other AUVs via an acoustical modem. Using that information, the swarm of AUVs below would locate a pod of whales and swim with them (2). When the first low-frequency sonar signal is detected, the AUVs would gather in a grid pattern between the whales and the signal origin and orient their undersides toward the incoming pulses. Transducers on the bottom of each AUV would emit a cancelation signal, blocking the whale pod from the sonar waves (3). In addition to buffering the whales from disruptive sonar, the AUVs would collect information on whale behavior and broadcast it to Navy and marine biologists. When the sonar test is finished, the AUVs would gather to be collected (4).

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DESIGN CHALLENGE 2004

FINALIST

how to build or repair a self-sustaining social network. Zago’s package, along with Rose and Hillis’s, proposes a route into the network. Their charitable machines create skills and work, encouraging local microeconomies in an unstable world. FORGING CONNECTIONS TO THE COSMOS Broken communities, threats and instability are hardly confined to the third world. Terrorism on a planet criss-crossed by digital and transportation networks gives the concept of the global village a new, darker meaning. Ecco Design’s Soteria office chair, another honorable mention winner, suggests this in its compact, double-duty frame. The Soteria’s designers, Eric Chan and Valerie Trauttmansdorff, say that what they imagine office workers sitting on is “more than a post-9/11 chair. It’s for any disaster, not just terrorism.” Sure. But the attack on the World Trade Center looms in the mind’s eye. Named after the Greek goddess of rescue, the Soteria is cleverly crammed with a fire-resistant helmet and jacket, a back that becomes a shovel, an arm that can break glass, and sensors that track location, your heartbeat, smoke and heat. “If something bad happens, what do you need?” Chan asks. “Three things: something to protect your skin, something to help you breathe, something to get debris out of your way.” The importance of connectivity and the networks shaped many of the winning projects; in

PERSONAL OCCUPATION KITS

OCCUPIED? BE HAPPY!

CREATORS: SPRINGTIME-USA COMMUNITY: PEOPLE ABOUT TO BE LIBERATED BY THE U.S.A. PROJECT: 21ST-CENTURY PROPAGANDA DEPLOYMENT

The horrendous situation in Iraq highlights the thorny challenge of liberation by a superpower: The liberated don’t necessarily buy into the program. Designer Tucker Viemeister and his team responded with a savagely satirical take: deployment of “very smart bombs” that would rain down token instruments of cultural assimilation. In this concept, autonomous surveillance systems watch foreign news broadcasts for any foment of anti-American sentiment to identify areas in need of intervention. The geographical coordinates are beamed to airplanes carrying the smart bombs; the bombs explode and shower, not explosives, but small, flowerlike packages containing assorted bits of Americana (bottom). Each package (below) includes a propeller that folds up into a “PAL of the USA” baseball cap.

CONTENTS: Lottery ticket/terror alert combo Hot dog laced with nanotracking device iPod loaded with “God Bless America“ Football (American) Bazooka bubble gum

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COURTESY OF SPRINGTIME-USA

FOR OTHER ENTRIES, including Hani Rashid’s Portable Wireless Domicile, which plugs the überconsumer into datastreams anywhere, anytime; Office of Mobile Design’s Hydra21 project, which features linked habitation pods floating at sea, in which people can live isolated from foes and conflict in a state of self-exile; and student entries, go to popsci.com/exclusive.

FINALIST DEPLOYABLE PURIFICATION SYSTEM

H2O: POTABLE, THEN PORTABLE

C O U R T E S Y O F S M I T H - M I L L E R + H AW K I N S O N

CREATORS: SMITH-MILLER + HAWKINSON ARCHITECTS COMMUNITY: AREAS LACKING CLEAN DRINKING WATER PROJECT: DEPLOYABLE FRESHWATER SYSTEMS

This inflatable unit acts as a water-filtration station, emergency information display and makeshift shelter. It has four layers. The outermost one is a film of organic light-emitting diodes that displays emergency information. The next layer—a lattice composed of multi-layered PVC tubes, thermoplastic resin, carbon fibers and bladders, is inflated during installation and provides structural integrity. The third layer is a reverse-osmosis filtration system. Salty or contaminated ground or river water is filtered and desalinized in this layer. Drinkable water from this layer empties into the final layer—the water collection bladders. When the bladders are full of clean water, they can be removed and worn as a vest for easy portability (far right). The system also includes 2,000 water purification tablets and 500 filters adaptable to a variety of faucets.

AIR DROP INITIAL SETUP

AFTER INFLATION

Plastic bladders filled with clean water hang from the interior of the desalinization unit. People in need of drinking water simply pluck a full one, fold it over their shoulders, then wear it home like a vest.

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THE NEXT GENERATION OF SUPERSONIC AIRCRAFT— FROM $100 MILLION BIZJETS TO HIGH-SPEED BOMBERS— DEPENDS ON ONE THING: SOMEHOW QUIETING THE BONE-RATTLING, BABY-WAKING, CAR-ALARMTRIPPING SONIC BOOM. THE SOLUTION? A BIT OF AERODYNAMIC VOODOO.

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BY BILL SWEETMAN ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN MACNEILL

Supersonic business jets will use aerodynamic shaping to minimize sonic booms. Don’t be alarmed by the lack of windows: Cameras will send exterior images to the cockpit and cabin.

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erospace engineer David Graham and his three standard F-5E from Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada. colleagues had a deadline, and a little brown Plotkin had reckoned that the comparison between the two tortoise was putting it in jeopardy. In a few booms would be fair if the two fighters were more than 30 sechours, as the sun rose over the Mojave onds and less than two minutes apart. Desert on an August morning last year, two The second boom arrived on the lake bed with its usual Northrop Grumman F-5E fighter jets would authority—a thunderous double bang (one for the front of the come racing over the horizon. Flying 30,000 feet above aircraft, another for the aft) audible for miles—and the data Harper Dry Lake and traveling at 920 mph, the airplanes was complete. “I definitely heard a difference,” Graham recalls. would be trailing long sonic booms—the distinctive aural sig- That might be debatable. The two shock waves of each boom natures of supersonic flight that ordinarily make high-speed were less than 1/10 of a second apart, and the team had not even tried to alter the second half of the boom from the modpassages over land impossible. The engineers, all members of a Northrop Grumman–led ified airplane. But within moments, the engineers were viewresearch team working to make those signatures significantly ing the two booms on a laptop computer perched on a car less distinctive, expected the two booms would be different trunk. A blue line showed the pressure wave of the modified from one another—a difference too slight to hear, even with F-5E; a red line represented the Navy fighter. your ear cocked to find out whether a 30-year-old theory aimed It was a dead-on match for the predictions. Ken Plotkin, at mitigating supersonic shock waves worked in the real, tur- who’d been in the boom business longer than anyone else presbulent and bubbly atmosphere, but one big enough to be ent, danced a little jig. Graham says he saw tears in his eyes. detected by the instruments in the back of their SUV. Plotkin placed a call to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. But this SUV, crammed with gear that had to be set out “It worked!” he said. The reply was calm: “I knew it would.” across the lake bed, wasn’t going anywhere until the desert tortoise moved its reptile rear out of the way. The Bureau of Land THE AUGUST TEST FLIGHTS over the Mojave Desert have Management’s instructions were strict: Startling the endan- answered a critical question about low-sonic-boom design: gered animal could threaten its life. The predawn hours are the Engineers now know that they can predict how the sonic male desert tortoise’s time to roam in search of water, food and boom develops as it travels from the airplane to your ear. That female company. That is arduous work, as every tortoise knows, and sometimes a guy just needs a rest. It was 15 long minutes before the beast waddled on its way. Finally on the lake bed, NASA investigator Ed Haering supervised the placement of the portable instrument packages he’d designed, each containing an ultrasensitive Brüel & Kjaer 4193 microphone, in an array about 2.5 miles wide. Away to the north, Northrop test pilot Roy Martin lined up his F-5E, which Graham had disfigured until Welko Gasich’s elegant 1956 design was barely recognizable. Martin pushed the stick forward and the pelican-nosed F-5E began to pick up speed in a shallow dive, accelerating through the sound barrier. Pointing the aircraft accurately wasn’t easy. Graham, Haering and Wyle Laboratories boom expert Ken Plotkin had chosen dawn for the test because, later on an August day, FROM “BOOM” TO “POP” Northrop Grumman engineer Charles Boccadoro, holding models thermals rise from the desert floor of the unmodified F-5E (left) and the reshaped fighter, says quiet supersonic flight is critical to and the atmosphere gets turbulent. both military and corporate execs—it’s the only way to fly over land at Mach 2 undetected. The chosen course put the rising sun smack in Martin’s face. Squinting at the instruments, Martin lined up and locked in the test speed— means there’s much less speculative risk involved in designMach 1.36, 36 percent above the speed of sound. ing and building a low-boom airplane. Within a few years, a The cone of the sonic boom trailed miles behind Martin’s low-boom X-plane could be paving the way for a supersonic jet, and by the time the pressure wave swept across Haering’s business jet—surveys have consistently shown strong array, he was slowing down, turning for a possible second run. demand for such an airplane, even at a $100 million price tag, Down the course after him, trailing by 45 seconds, came a and Boeing and Gulfstream are known to have SBJ efforts

THE TEST

JOHN MACNEILL

OVERPRESSURE, PSF

The results of Northrop Grumman’s under way—or a quiet supersonic August 2003 flights: The red line shows bomber, capable of sneaking into the boom produced by a stock F-5E. enemy territory at high speed withAs the pressure wave expanded away out having its presence betrayed by from the airplane, the strong shocks piercing sonic booms. There are from the engine inlets and wings migrated forward and aft to produce the classic even signs that Lockheed Martin, N-wave—a sharp pressure rise, a straight-line drop and another sharp rise to amwith its long history of flying airbient pressure, all in 80 milliseconds. The ear hears the sharp rises, front and rear, as a double bang. The blue line is the boom from the modified airplane. By adding planes with capabilities that most volume to the nose, the designers spread the pressure more evenly from nose to observers deemed unattainable, midbody. As the shock wave expanded toward the ground, the added pressure could already be capable of buildpushed back against the shocks from the inlet and wings. Result: The front spike ing an operational supersonic busiof the N-wave was flatter. (In this test, the designers did not modify the tail shock.) ness jet, under development in a Ultimately engineers will want the pressure change, known as overpressure and code-locked vault and bankrolled measured in pounds per square foot, to measure between 0.3 and 0.5 psf, rendering it barely noticeable from the ground. (Concorde’s boom measures about 2 psf.) by an unidentified sponsor. 1.4 Major obstacles remain, however, including manufacturing engines 1.2 that are up to the task and can 1.0 lower their noise output to tolerable levels during takeoff and land0.8 ing, and refining the quiet super0.6 sonic design to be more visually 0.4 acceptable than the admittedly ghastly looking F-5E mod. But the 0.2 biggest challenge when it comes to 0 clearing supersonic flight for overland travel: Nobody knows how - 0.2 low is low enough for people on - 0.4 the ground, whether the boom UNMODIFIED F-5E comes from an Air Force jet or a - 0.6 billionaire’s express ride. And that SHAPED SONIC BOOM - 0.8 DEMONSTRATION F-5E is ultimately a question of politics, - 1.0 not engineering. Still, the final political hurdle - 1.2 could be easy work, compared with - 1.4 everything it took to get to it. It has -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 been a 30-year race that began with TIME, MILLISECONDS the voice that Plotkin spoke to from the Mojave lake bed, which belonged to Cornell’s Albert George. George was Plotkin’s thesis adviser at Cornell in the late 1960s, a real aircraft, the method is not as precise as you need.” when sonic booms were a hot issue. The Concorde supersonic Early in the 1990s, a solution to this problem came into airliner and its Russian counterpart were flying, and Boeing sight, thanks to more powerful computers and computational was designing a 300-foot-long, 1,800 mph monster. But these fluid dynamics, or CFD—the use of computers to model the aircraft were hamstrung by their shattering booms. Working airflow around an airplane. With CFD, a design could be evalfrom pure acoustic theory, George had found a way to reshape uated much more quickly than in a wind tunnel, the results the boom from the sharp-edged double bang into a soft, harm- could be analyzed in fine detail and modifications could be less pressure wave. His colleague Richard Seebass—“Seebass made almost instantly. would have come up with the theory about 30 seconds later,” But even if you could design an airplane according to Plotkin says—built a mathematical structure behind it. The Seebass-George, there’s still a showstopper. The boom on the result became the Seebass-George theory. ground is not the same as the boom next to the airplane. As The researchers published their theory in January 1971. the pressure wave expands through the atmosphere, it Congress scrapped Boeing’s supersonic transport two changes shape, with individual pulses flowing and blending months later, and for more than 30 years the theory would together into the double bang that hits the ground. Seebassremain exactly that. The math was complicated: It worked for George says that proper design would prevent that from hapsimple shapes but nobody knew how to use it to design a pening—but only in an idealized, stable atmosphere that propractical airplane. If you tried, the only way to know if you’d gressed smoothly from near vacuum at supersonic cruise got it right, even in part, was to test a model in a wind tunnel, heights to the thicker air at ground level. The real atmosphere observe mistakes, modify the model and test again—a long, is not like that—the air density is variable and the atmosphere expensive effort with no real assurance that the next test full of turbulence and wind shears and the like—and it is too would produce better results instead of different problems. big for any CFD to encompass. Many skeptics thought the Seebass-George “is an ideal,” says Plotkin. “When you get into imperfections might be enough to invalidate the theory. P O P U L A R S C I E N C E J U LY 2 0 0 4

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and engaged Richard Seebass, then at the University of Colorado at Boulder, as a consultant. By 1998, the Skunk Works team believed they had cracked the low-boom problems and they teamed with Gulfstream on a supersonic business jet. The two companies talked to potential customers, including NetJets. Überinvestor Warren Buffett’s company had pioneered the business of selling shares in business airplanes and already had hundreds of jets on order. If low boom worked, NetJets was ready to buy. This good news arrived just as the NASA supersonic transport was shot down by pessimistic forecasts from Boeing. But Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream and their friends can pull strings on Capitol Hill, and the first slice of money for new low-boom research appeared in February 2000 A key to low-boom design is making in the Pentagon’s budget. The sure that the volume of the airplane— Defense Advanced Research Projects which is what displaces the air and causes the shock in the first place— Agency’s Quiet Supersonic Platform varies smoothly from nose to tail. On (QSP) project began the following the F-5E demonstrator, the designers wanted to add volume to the nose. They could year. DARPA is not in the business of not make the nose wider—that would have changed the airflow into the engine building corporate jets, so QSP’s goal inlets—so they made it taller. A subtle pinch in the belly fairing, just behind the was to develop so-called dual-use inlets, compensates for the volume and pressure added by the inlets and wings. technology for either a business jet The fairing ends abruptly at the airplane’s midpoint, tapering to a sharp edge or a long-range supersonic bomber. to clear the landing gear doors. (The graph painted on the side of the body was added before the test, which shows how close the data matched the prediction.) That brought Northrop Grumman into the picture.

To prove Seebass-George, it was clear you would have to build the airplane and fly it, with a strong chance that it would be a total flop, due to the vast quantity of unpredictable factors. The researcher who most people credit with devising a solution to this dilemma is Domenic Maglieri. Long retired from NASA, Maglieri’s experience with sonic booms is unmatched. “I consider myself the world expert,” he says, “because I’ve outlived everyone else.” In the early 1990s, as NASA started to take another look at supersonic transport airplanes, Maglieri realized that the only way to answer the critical question—“Will the boom persist with some stability, or will it go into an N-wave as it moves

THE MOD

IT HAS BEEN SAID that there is a way

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to identify an extroverted engineer—he looks at your shoes when 2. Pinched mid-body he talks to you. But that most certainly does not apply to the enthusiastic, voluble and nattily dressed 1. Reshaped nose Charles Boccadoro, who took over Northrop Grumman’s QSP program in 2000. Previously, Boccadoro had taken part in a study of future strike aircraft, and concluded that the QSP’s Mach 2 speed—about 1,320 mph—was the “sweet spot” for a next-generation airplane. 3. End of modification The appeal of quiet supersonic 1) A wider nose modification would have affected airflow into the engines, so aircraft is evident now more than added volume made the aircraft taller. ever, Boccadoro says. “Anti-access” 2) Subtle pinch behind inlets creates suction, compensating for higher nose mass. threats—from terrorism to mis3) Modification ends at airplane’s midpoint to clear the landing-gear doors. siles—will mean that U.S. forces will be based farther from war zones. “You’re not going to bring hundreds of short-range fighters into the theaway from the airplane?”—was a flight demonstration. ater,” Boccadoro notes. But subsonic bombers like Northrop’s In 1993, Maglieri put forward a plan to make boom-reducing own B-2 take so long to fly from distant bases that they can’t modifications to a Firebee 2, a supersonic pilotless target respond quickly, while ultrafast hypersonic vehicles would be drone. When money got tight, the program was canceled, as difficult to maintain even if they can be built. With stealth, altiwas a NASA plan to modify a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy tude and speed, a Mach 2 bomber “can fly day in and day out.” plane for similar tests. But the people who had built the SR-71 Boccadoro wasted no time in signing on Eagle Aeronautics at Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works were secretly taking and Wyle Laboratories to his QSP team—and thereby gained a new look at low boom. In the mid-1990s, the Skunks hired exclusive access to Maglieri, Plotkin and Juliet Page, who had low-boom expert John Morgenstern from McDonnell Douglas been a key member of the High Speed Civil Transport team at McDonnell Douglas. Their influence was crucial, says designer Jim Kerswell. “DARPA had some extremely aggressive goals,” Sonic booms and human ears at www.popsci.com/exclusive he says,“and everyone was looking for some magic mechanism

C O U R T E S Y N O R T H R O P G R U M M A N C O R P.

to suppress the boom.” Researchers were proposing everything Adds Maglieri: “Shaping wasn’t really what the test was all from plasmas to supersonic biplanes. “Ken, Domenic and our about. It was a matter of proving that the effects of the shape in-house people all agreed that some of the things that were would persist in a real atmosphere, at a real distance.” With a few precious hours left on their aging test airplane, proposed either didn’t match the laws of physics or weren’t robust,” says Northrop’s Steve Komadina, current QSP pro- the team secured funding for a series of follow-up tests to see gram manager. “They might work directly under the airplane whether the results could be reproduced under different conbut not off to the side.” The solution was clearly shaping, using ditions. The flights were made in January 2004, when cooler temperatures opened the speed envelope to Mach 1.45, and computer-enhanced versions of the Seebass-George theory. At that point, Maglieri revived his idea for a Firebee-based made it possible to fly as late as 1 p.m. and still get good data. demonstrator—but everyone knew there were disadvantages, The weather was perfect. “We got very lucky, nine days in a the foremost being that unmanned test vehicles tend to crash row,” says Haering. The F-5E ran like a new Honda, and the a lot. Aerodynamicist David Graham had another idea: team logged 21 more flights. Haering launched a sensor-equipped F-15 to probe the shape Northrop Grumman’s own F-5E fighter. As Northrop test pilot Roy Martin was passing Graham’s cubicle, the engineer but- of the boom and borrowed a Blanik sailplane from the USAF tonholed him and asked what he thought of flying an F-5E test pilots’ school to pick up measurements 6,000 to 8,000 feet with a heavily modified nose. Martin had only two conditions: above the ground, clear of eddies and turbulence. Plotkin Don’t make the front fuselage wider (it could affect airflow designed a “push-over” maneuver, which would focus the boom into the inlets) and leave the main landing-gear doors alone on a selected area of the ground, as might happen when an airplane turned: Once again, the result matched the theory. “We (the procedure for belly-landing an F-5E is simple: Don’t). Graham’s team spent 16 months designing a new nose for got to see the Plotkin dance of joy again,” says Graham. the F-5E, struggling with everything from inlet spillage—a side effect of supersonic flight that pushes air that can’t be TODAY THE NORTHROP GRUMMAN team is looking for a swallowed by the inlet forward, creating shock waves near the museum home for the research airplane and, like other companose—to gaping differences between the Lockheed Martin, nies, is looking to the next stage. Boccadoro detects increasing Northrop and Boeing code used to formulate the boom- Air Force interest in a supersonic bomber, and half a dozen shaping modifications. The team slogged away through most companies are looking at supersonic commercial airplanes. of 2002 without getting much closer to a flight test. “The final They include Gulfstream—which has developed a swing-wing design was identified as 24B4, if that gives you any idea of design and a telescopic swordfish-like nose spike that breaks up and weakens the forward shock wave—Lockheed Martin and how many we went through,” says Graham. In December 2002, DARPA hosted a meeting in Hunting- Boeing. The potential market is enormous, says Harvey Maclin, ton Beach to review the proposed F-5E modification. Plotkin, a manager of advanced technology marketing and government Maglieri and the Northrop Grumman team got together in a programs for GE Aircraft Engines. “NetJets will tell you that room before they met with NASA and DARPA, and “we asked they’d order 100 supersonic business jets right away,” he notes, ourselves, ‘Are we there?’” Graham recalls. The final design quoting a number of forecasts that put the market for superwas a gross modification, a giant pelican beak, but the team sonic business jets at close to 500 aircraft, even at a price decided that it would work. Now Northrop Grumman could approaching $100 million apiece. Most people agree that before either the Pentagon or NetJets start modifying the test airplane—a Navy F-5E. It had flown 7,200 hours and the Navy was ready to ship it to the boneyard. kicks off a full-scale development program, there will have to be an X-plane, an all-new airplane designed to achieve a Northrop Grumman secured a 50-hour life extension. One worrisome problem: The time required to modify the low-boom signature. That will take money. “The technology is F-5E pushed the first flight tests into the summer, when high in great shape,” says Maclin, “but we don’t have the resources temperatures would make the air more turbulent and increase today to accomplish it.” NASA is formulating plans for an Xthe local speed of sound, putting the plane that would be modified over Mach 1.4 target out of reach. “The its lifetime to demonstrate a series IT AIN’T PRETTY, BUT IT WORKED Designers of the good news was that our drag predicof technologies, according to Peter modified F-5E weren’t trying to eliminate the sonic tion was right on,” Martin says. “That Coen, who heads a new supersonic boom, but prove that aircraft shaping can lessen would get us to Mach 1.3.” General vehicle team at NASA’s Langley this signature of supersonic flight. Electric gave its blessing to a “throtResearch Center in Virginia. Its tle push” on the tired J85 engines, on first mission would be to prove to condition that nobody would use the Federal Aviation Administrathem again. The modified airplane tion and the public that today’s outproved reliable and straightforward right ban on supersonic commerto fly. Plotkin says now that no one cial flight could be replaced by a who has worked with the Seebasslimit on boom intensity. George theory ever doubted it—and The engines, in particular, will the straight-out-of-the-box success of require special attention. The main the August 27 tests and the almost engine makers—General Electric, uncanny match between prediction Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney and theory was worth performing a —are studying supersonic cruise dance over. “There were still people engines for military and civil airwho said you’d never get those craft. Key challenges: Civil engines results in the real world,” he says. have to be quiet on takeoff and P O P U L A R S C I E N C E J U LY 2 0 0 4

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THE FUTURE

Executives of tomorrow will fly in sleek bizjets that will be seen—briefly— from the ground, but not heard. None will have cockpit windows—the needle shape of the fuselage will make designing windows for forward visibility too complicated—so pilots will view the outside on LCD screens.

[NORTHROP GRUMMAN] Northrop’s quiet supersonic business jet will include substantially improved shaping refinements—no bulbous pelican noses as seen in its F-5E test aircraft—that will quiet the sonic boom much further than the 2003 test results.

[RAYTHEON] Though 165 feet long, Raytheon’s quiet supersonic jet will seat fewer than a dozen people. The elongated shape helps mitigate the sonic boom, as does the up-angled wing.

[BOEING] Boeing’s vision for a supersonic business jet echoes its Sonic Cruiser, a high-subsonic commercial jet that was canceled in 2002. Both aircraft employ a tail-forward design with horizontal stabilizers positioned near the nose.

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performance and weight that would work. No demonstrator was needed, the company suggested, just a new FAA rule allowing limited supersonic overflight at a peak overpressure of half a pound per square foot. The company—and its unidentified sponsor—believes it can scoop a 500-airplane market if the airplane gets airborne before its competitors. By 2010, an X-plane or even a business jet prototype could do something that 15 years ago most people would have considered contrary to the laws of physics: Fly at supersonic speed without trailing a perceptible boom across the ground. If that happens, a very ugly modification to an elegant little fighter will have been a crucial step along the way. ■ Bill Sweetman is a POPULAR SCIENCE contributing editor.

JOHN MACNEILL

landing (but military engines don’t) and supersonic engines run at full blast all the time, making it hard to run several thousand hours between overhauls. Perhaps the furthest along is Lockheed Martin. Funded by an unidentified sponsor, the company’s supersonic business jet project has been under way since 2001. Program manager Tom Hartmann won’t discuss the effort, except to give credit to Seebass, who worked with Lockheed Martin before his death in 2000. “When the history is written,” he says, “Seebass will be the Orville and Wilbur Wright of low boom.” A Lockheed Martin press release in November stated matter-of-factly that their airplane’s low-boom technology had been demonstrated and that the aircraft design was “closed,” meaning that the company had a combination of shape, size,

SATURN UNVEILED

SEVEN YEARS AGO, the largest

It may not be faster or cheaper, but the spacecraft headed for Saturn aims to be better than anything we’ve flung across the solar system. by DAWN STOVER

and most expensive interplanetary probe ever built blasted off from Cape Canaveral. It was loaded with 12 advanced scientific instruments, 72 pounds of plutonium to power them, and a capsule destined to be jettisoned toward the only other object in our solar system protected by a nitrogen-based atmosphere. After launch, the spacecraft began its voyage through the void of space and was promptly forgotten by all but a few scientists and space enthusiasts. Since then NASA has launched the International Space Station, a Mars orbiter Text continues on page 72 >>

CASSINI REVEALED: TURN PAGE FOR FOLD-OUT

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY BOB SAULS/FRASSANITO & ASSOCIATES

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2001–2004: Cassini traverses the void between Jupiter and Saturn at over 12,000 mph.

December 30, 2000: In Cassini’s fourth and final flyby, Jupiter slings it toward Saturn. During the flyby, Cassini studies Jupiter along with the Galileo spacecraft.

Saturn arrival July 1, 2004

Second Venus flyby June 24, 1999 First Venus flyby April 26, 1998

Communications antenna and radar

Launch October 15, 1997 Jupiter flyby December 30, 2000

Earth flyby August 18, 1999

PLANETARY SLINGSHOT

Sending Cassini straight to Saturn would have required too much fuel. Instead, Cassini exploited the slingshot effect as it passed by Venus (twice), Earth and Jupiter. When a craft passes around a planet, the planet’s motion and mass whip the craft forward.

Radar bay Visible and infrared spectrometer

Magnometer

Narrow-angle camera Wide-angle camera

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Infrared spectrometer

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B ring Main engine

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CASSINI-HUYGENS TIMELINE

October 15, 1997: A Titan 4-B rocket lifts the Cassini-Huygens mission from Cape Canaveral.

April 26, 1998: Cassini whips around Venus, getting a boost in speed from the planet’s gravitational tug.

June 24, 1999: Cassini swings past Venus again for a second boost.

August 18, 1999: Cassini flies 727 miles above Earth during its third gravity assist. This push rockets Cassini toward the outer solar system.

THERING LEADER

Saturn is arguably the most > Though spectacular body in the night sky, a

gas giant adorned with brilliant rings and more than 30 moons of all sizes, we know surprisingly little about it. Despite a few brief flybys by ’70s-era spacecraft (Pioneer 11, Voyagers 1 and 2), the planet remains a distant, mysterious glow. All this will change beginning this month as Cassini—the largest, most expensive and complex interplanetary spacecraft ever launched—begins a tour of Saturn and its moons. Cassini will study Saturn for four years instead of its predecessors’ mere days, equipped with instruments at least 10 times as sensitive. The heart of the tour begins July 1, when Cassini’s main engine will fire for 95 minutes to slow down the spacecraft and insert it into Saturnian orbit. “This is probably the riskiest event in the entire mission, not counting launch,” says Bob Mitchell, Cassini’s program manager. Though the detailed orbital plan hasn’t yet been set, the next four years should bring 74 orbits around Saturn, with dozens of flybys of its icy moons, and, if all goes well, enough discoveries to hold us over until Cassini’s eventual successor arrives.

MARCHING THROUGH THE MOONS

Saturn has 31 known moons, some as small as 12.5 miles across, and Cassini will probably discover more on its mission. TITAN is Saturn’s largest moon—it’s nearly as large as Mars—and the only object in the solar system other than Earth with a nitrogen-based atmosphere. Scientists believe it may also be the only other object dotted with liquid oceans on its surface. Another six midsize moons—MIMAS, ENCELADUS, TETHYS, DIONE, RHEA and IAPETUS (2.2 million miles from Saturn, not shown)—are probably made of water ice, though scientists need to get a closer look to be sure. HYPERION is Earth’s Moon the largest irregularly shaped moon. Jean Dominique CasMercury sini and Christian Huygens, Hyperion the European astronomers for Titan whom the spacecraft and its probe are named, discovered Millions of miles Saturn’s five largest moons in 1.0 0.8 0.9 0.7 the 17th century.

Mars Rhea Dione

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June 11, 2004: Cassini zips past Phoebe, a distant moon orbiting Saturn. Tiny Phoebe may be a captured asteroid.

July 1, 2004: Cassini fires its engine to slow down, crosses the rings, and begins to orbit Saturn.

December 24, 2004: Cassini releases the 700-pound Huygens probe, which drifts toward the moon Titan for the next 22 days.

January 14, 2005: Huygens enters Titan’s atmosphere. If all goes well, the probe will land 2.5 hours later.

YOUNG RINGS, OR RECYCLE Saturn’s rings, the planet’s dominant feature its most puzzling. Their large size and brigh the rings are young by planetary standards of millions of years old. This might be becau is constantly recycled by moonlets that accu dust, then knock it loose. Scientists will use t more about how the solar system was form and dust much like Saturn’s swirled aroun 5 billion years ago, eventually coalescing in

Huygens probe

THE BULK OF THE MISSION

Cassini is a monster, a spacecraft the size of a school bus though immeasurably more complex. It stands more than 22 feet high, weighs more than six tons, holds seven miles of cabling and relies on more than 20,000 wire connections. This massive shell houses Cassini’s 12 power-hungry scientific instruments and associated communications equipment. There isn’t a lot of sunlight at twice the distance from the Sun as Jupiter, so Cassini relies on plutonium for power. Three radioisotope thermoelectric generators convert heat from the decay of 72 pounds of plutonium into electricity, then use the electricity to power the craft. Once the instruments—including cameras, cloud-penetrating radar to map the surface of Titan, and spectrometers to study the chemical composition of surfaces, atmospheres and rings—collect data, three antennas will send up to 249 kilobits of it per second back to Earth.

2005–2008: Cassini orbits Saturn more than 70 times, collecting data on its inner structure, rings and moons.

July 1, 2008: Running out of propellant and electrical power, Cassini ends its primary mission. When the probe slows down to 900 mph, the main chute deploys

ED?

e, are also one of htness imply that s, only a few tens use their material umulate gas and the rings to learn med. Disks of gas nd a nascent sun nto planets.

Huygens probe enters Titan’s atmosphere at a speed of more than 13,000 mph

SPLASHDOWN ON TITAN

On Christmas Eve 2004, the Cassini orbiter will eject a 700pound daughter ship named Huygens and send it toward Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and one of the most mysterious bodies in the solar system. Titan is enshrouded in a methane-and-nitrogen atmosphere five times as dense as Earth’s. Scientists think that some of the methane might condense, creating clouds that rain liquid hydrocarbons at -180°C onto Titan’s surface. If true, pools or even oceans of the liquid might pockmark the landscape. Huygens will drop through the atmosphere as cameras take pictures that are expected to reveal an alien landscape unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

The front heat shield is jettisoned, and scientific measurements begin

About 15 minutes later, the main chute is released, and a smaller drogue chute deploys

The probe may survive the landing, floating if on liquid, and continue to transmit data

and lander (both of which failed), the doomed shuttle Columbia and the successful Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. President Bush even announced plans to send humans back to the Moon. All the while, the forgotten spacecraft continued to rack up miles, about 2.2 billion of them, as it quietly made its way across the solar system. This month, the Cassini spacecraft will finally arrive at its destination: the ringed planet Saturn. And when it does, it will steal our attention back from the Moon, Mars and even Iraq— at least for a few precious moments. On July 1, Cassini’s main engine will fire to slow down the spacecraft so that Saturn can capture it as the planet’s first artificial satellite. Cassini will fly through a gap between two of Saturn’s rings, then aim its cameras and remote sensing instruments at the rings as it passes above them. “These pictures are probably going to knock people’s socks off,” says Candice Hansen-Koharcheck, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Cassini mission. With a mission price tag of $3.3 billion, Cassini is more than four times as expensive as the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity combined. Cassini is the size of a school bus, while the Mars rovers are only the size of golf carts. And those rovers existed only in the imaginations of NASA scientists when Cassini began its long journey. Cassini is the biggest, baddest mission ever flown, not just because it has gone out so far—about twice as far from Earth as Jupiter—but also because of what it will do when it arrives. When Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 visited Saturn more than 20 years ago, each only whipped by on its way out of the solar system. Cassini will orbit Saturn 74 times over a fouryear period, studying this mysterious planet from every angle. The spacecraft will train a dozen instruments on the Saturn system—snapping pictures of the planet and its stormy atmosphere, mapping the surface of its icy moons, studying the composition and rotation of the rings to find out why strange “spokes” form and dissipate, and measuring the powerful magnetic

SATURN’S LUNAR LAKES The dark spots on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and home to the only nitrogen-based atmosphere in the solar system besides Earth’s, may be oceans of gasoline-like liquid. We won’t know for sure until the Huygens probe reaches Titan early next year.

field surrounding Saturn to learn more about its inner layer of metallic liquid hydrogen. Cassini will also drop the Huygens probe built by the European Space Agency onto Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which may have lakes of gasoline-like liquid hidden beneath its smoggy atmosphere. Titan is of special interest because it is the only moon in the solar system with its own atmosphere and clouds. Bigger than Mercury or Earth’s moon, it is the single largest unexplored piece of real estate in the solar system. Titan’s atmosphere, like Earth’s, is mostly nitrogen, but the moon’s opaque brew also contains a significant amount of methane. Scientists believe that when sunlight hits this methane, the light catalyzes the gas to form a smog of hydrocarbons. Because Titan is so cold, some of the hydrocarbons condense and rain onto the moon’s surface. This primitive atmosphere may be similar to what Earth’s was like before living organisms began pumping out oxygen. “The thing that makes Titan so exciting to scientists is that they think it probably looks a lot today like Earth did 3 or 4 billion years ago,” says Bob Mitchell, NASA’s program manager for Cassini. “Therefore, it’s a good laboratory for understanding how life began.” Scientists don’t expect to actually find life in this frigid world. Rather, they’re looking for insight into the seeds of life on ours.

Tour a photo gallery of Saturn and its moons. See popsci.com/exclusive 72

POPULAR SCIENCE

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The photos sent back from Titan could reveal an “otherworldly” landscape like nothing we’ve seen on Earth or even Mars, predicts HansenKoharcheck, who can’t wait to see the shots. She and other scientists, some of whom started working on the mission as far back as 1982 (HansenKoharcheck joined the project in 1990) and have patiently waited for Cassini to wend its way to Saturn, are now growing as excited as a 7-year-old on Christmas Eve. “From day one, we were thinking about 2004,” says Hansen-Koharcheck. The fun begins even before Cassini enters orbit. On June 11, the spacecraft will fly within 1,240 miles of Phoebe, one of the planet’s most remote moons, for its first direct encounter with the Saturn system. When that happens, some 200 scientists around the world will be hovering over their computers, waiting for the first wave of data to hit their screens. (Get real-time mission updates at saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.) “We really don’t know what we’re going to find,” says Mitchell, voicing a sentiment shared throughout the Cassini team. Planetary scientists already know enough about the Moon and Mars to focus on very specific questions—such as whether Mars once had water on its surface—and send spacecraft designed to answer those individual questions. With Saturn, however, we’re still at the reconnaissance stage. That’s why NASA is sending a multipurpose spacecraft capable of painting a broad-brush picture of Saturn and its moons. If Cassini is a big success, it may further weaken NASA’s 12-year-old “faster, better, cheaper” mandate, which rarely hits on all three cylinders. Already NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is laying plans for an even more expensive “big science” mission: the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, a nuclearpowered spacecraft that would search for signs of life hidden on three of Jupiter’s moons. The Jupiter mission is still in the early design stages, and won’t launch until 2012 at the earliest, if at all. But if Cassini and Huygens return shocking results from the outer solar system, multibillion-dollar projects will begin to seem like a bargain. ■ Dawn Stover, POPSCI’s science editor, joined the staff in 1986.

C O U R T E S Y E U R O P E A N S O U T H E R N O B S E R VAT O R Y

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 65)

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P

PROJECT PORSCHE

P

How do you completely disassemble a classic sports car and rebuild it better than new? You take a deep breath and dive in.

By Stephan Wilkinson

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN B. CARNETT

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spilled oil, the air-conditioner hoses dangling loose, the Guards Red paint cracked and faded where the Neanderthal PO (previous owner, in Porschespeak) had rigged a nose-protecting y carefully wrapped Christmas bra and then never removed it. The driver’s door sagged half present in 1998 was a $4.95 issue of Hem- an inch when opened, so he was probably fat as well, accusmings Motor News, the thick, pulp-paper tomed to using the door as a crutch. Perfect. monthly classified listing of collector cars. I took the headlights out of their fender bowls to look for hidEven if it carries a 21st-century date, each issue still looks like something you’d find on den rust. Ran a magnet all over the body to test for Bondo, the the toilet tank of a 1950s Sinclair station restroom in Tucumcari, sandable plastic paste that body shops trowel over crash damage they can’t be bothered to smooth. (The magnet would stick New Mexico. So was this a cheesy gift from my wife? Hardly. “You look bored,” Susan laughed at my bafflement. “You fin- to steel but not Bondo, of course.) Parked the car so that the sunished the addition to our house. You built an airplane. You’re light hit it at the right angle to give away bodywork ripples playing around with models.” (No, no—the 1:48-scale plastic when I sighted along the fenders and doors. Checked the vehikit kind, not the double-breasted variety.) “You need another cle identification number to find that the car had been built durproject,” she said. “Buy yourself a car to restore. A Ferrari. An ing the summer of 1983 in Stuttgart for the U.S. market—a very Aston Martin like the one you had when you were a young late SC, one of the last of the breed. Checked the engine number to confirm that it was the correct engine for the year. Looked stud. A Corvette, a Cobra . . .” Wow. I’d always wanted to restore a car, and my unfailingly for the dreaded spilled-acid corrosion under the battery tray. perceptive partner, game for anything, was encouraging me to Jacked the car up and poked an awl at the bellypan in some start at the top. Husbands who feel that permission to watch the famously vulnerable areas to check for rust-thinned metal . . . “I’ve never seen anybody do all that,” the dealer said— Super Bowl is marital bliss don’t know what they’re missing. But I didn’t want to get in over my head with an exotic car either admiringly or calculatedly, hoping to make me think I that required expensive specialist help. A hard-core anal com- actually knew what I was doing. I drove the thing around for barely five minutes simply to pulsive, I’d always wanted to do that frame-off rebuild, totally disassembling a car, detailing every part and reassembling it to make sure it actually ran and tracked straight. No need to check compression, valve leakage, gearbox . . . well, maybe not perfection, in this era of sparecrunching, shock stiffness or tire condition. The no-expense professional restorations worth more GOLD PLATED: Wilkinson (opposite, in his tires were Sumitomos, a Japanese off-brand than Monets, but at least to sanitary standards. driveway) spent more famed only for their cheapness and excellent I also wanted a car that would provide a rea- than two years on his adaptability for use as boat-dock bumpers. I had sonable level of performance when I was done, frame-off rebuild of the no interest in any of the obvious things that usednot a 1950s classic that might have run strongly Porsche 911SC. He also car buyers concern themselves with, for all of in fond memory—an XK 120, an MG TD, a Mor- spent $70,000—far more than the car is those components would be renewed, rebuilt, gan—yet would make me turn to my wheezy old worth. Previous spread: replaced before the car ever ran again. Saab whenever I felt the need to exceed the speed Seeing the light at the Ship it, I told the dealer. Put the thing on a limit. So the choice was easy, particularly with my end of the tunnel. flatbed and send it to me. Oh, and how about a then-19-year-old car-enthusiast daughter, a Skip Barber graduate, chanting, “POR-shuh, POR-shuh, POR-shuh” discount for not asking for a warranty? “Warranty?” he in the background. I would seek out a restorable Porsche 911. laughed. “Warranty? No such thing, my man. You can bring your mechanics, you can examine the car all you wish, you can Ultimately, I found my car just 65 miles from drive and test and check, but you buy and it is yours. Don’t home, in Long Island City, a shabby New York neighborhood come back. No warranty. No nothing.” Well, what the hell. It’s a project car, not a grocery-getter. near LaGuardia Airport, amid sidewalks littered with broken bottles, corner bodegas and stripped cars perched on milk crates at every other curb. The dealer’s wares, though adver- Rebuilding a Porsche 911 engine is neither tised in Hemmings as “exoticars,” were a motley collection of impossibly complex nor in any way counterintuitive. It can be dreadful Jaguar Mark sedans, ugly entry-level Ferraris, Cobra done by anybody who has the time, tools, compulsiveness and kit cars, decrepit Royces and Bentleys, poseur Panteras, neg- common sense to do the job in a scrupulously clean, careful lected Porsches and phony fiberglass MGs. They were packed and organized fashion. Literally. Bruce Anderson, a respected grille to bumper, fender to dusty fender in a dim, foul ware- Porsche technical expert, gives weekend-long, small-group, house. The mechanical expertise of the place seemed limited hands-on workshops in suburban San Francisco on how to to jumping dead batteries. rebuild Porsche 911 engines and transmissions. He once said The car was a sad little rat. The mechanic started it, and it to me, “I can teach anybody with a pulse how to do it.” idled smokily at a warm-up setting; the haphazard Porsche OK. So how do you actually do it? How do you ruin—which threshing-machine clatter brought back memories. The inte- is essentially what you’re doing by taking it apart—a machine rior was grungy, the driver’s leather seat split, the carpeting that Porsche will charge you $30,000 to replace? How do you bunched and filthy, the glare shield terminally cracked, the do that and then somehow make it good as new again? rear bulkhead paneling waterlogged and crumbling, loose You take a deep breath and start. Disassembling the engine wires showing the harsh removal of an aftermarket amplifier and a boom box speaker rig that had been parked crudely on From The Gold-Plated Porsche, by Stephan Wilkinson. Copyright © by Stephan Wilkinson. the jump-seat cushions, the engine compartment slick with Published by arrangement with The Lyons Press, a division of the Globe Pequot Press.

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is easy: You just undo nuts and bolts in what will quickly become apparent is a logical order. (Starting at the top and working down is a reasonable approach.) A word of advice, though: Don’t trust to memory when segregating the parts as you disassemble them. Put everything (and its fasteners) into as many separate sandwich baggies as it takes, and it’ll take hundreds. Mark each baggie with the name of the part; if you don’t know what it is, just note its location, like “thingie that goes into crankcase near engine serial number,” if what you happen to have in your grimy hand is the oil-temperature sensor. As you get deep enough into the engine to be removing important reciprocating and rotating parts that you’ll be reusing—connecting rods, pistons, wrist pins, rocker arms, cams and the like—number them according to which cylinder or side they came from and whether they were intake or exhaust. Number the cylinder barrels and heads as well, but don’t bother numbering the valves, which are going to be reground or replaced anyway. If you buy new parts, number them too, even if you’re simply assigning them permanently to an arbitrary cylinder position. Since marker-pen scribbles are too easily wiped away by a variety of solvents, the best way to do this is with an electric scriber or a Dremel tool chucked with a fine grinding point. Scribe the number in a nonfunctional location—under the piston crown rather than on the piston skirt, say. One other crucial tool that you’ll need during all this disassembly is a parts cleaner. I once rebuilt a British Matchless trials motorcycle using the kitchen sink of my rented Philadelphia apartment as a “parts cleaner,” but it wasn’t a good idea. My landlady saw me off as I moved out several months later by melodramatically yelling, “I hope great tragedy befalls you.” It was a bit over the top, but a novel farewell. (Oh, and by the way, Mrs. Anselmi, you’ll be delighted to hear that I did get prostate cancer 30 years later, if that’s what you had in mind. But I do remain cured.) A parts cleaner is simply a metal tub full of solvent —choose your poison, biodegradable or carcinogenic, green or clear, soapily helpful or deathly effective—with a small electric pump that recirculates the stuff and pushes it out of a gooseneck TOYS OF THE TRADE: Wilkinson’s sprayer so that you can favorite toy as a kid was his erecsubmerge and scrub-brush tor set. “I do love to take things apart and put them back together squeaky-clean even the big- again,” he says. gest engine parts. For somebody whose basic concept of engine rebuilding is “Clean it up and put it back together again,” a parts cleaner was the altar before which I daily did my mechanical ablutions. One of the most important things to do to a disassembled 911 engine is to clean out all the oil galleries (passageways) cast and machined into the block and crankshaft. This requires a supply of “shop air”—the efflux of a compressor— and a couple of spray cans of carburetor cleaner. The big main oil gallery runs longitudinally through the right crankcase half and is blocked by hammered-in metal plugs. The plugs need 78

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to be removed—a tricky affair—and then replaced with new plugs once the clean-out has been accomplished. There are also six piston squirters to clean out, little nozzles inside the cylinder spigots in each crankcase half that pump coolant oil onto the underside of the piston each time it happens by. The intuitive thing to do is to spray into the nozzles where they protrude from the block, but that’s a fool’s errand: There’s a check valve inside each nozzle that allows oil (or, in this case, carb cleaner) to flow out but not back in. You need to stick the long plastic extension spout of the spray can as far as possible down into the gallery feeding the nozzle. All this lube-system cleaning is especially and enormously important if you are rebuilding an engine that has suffered a mechanical failure, or if the crankshaft was reground. Debris from the failure, or the grinding, can be lurking anywhere in the system. If you don’t get rid of it, there’s an excellent possibility of a catastrophic bearing failure within minutes of first start-up. Instant doorstop.

On the first warm, sunny April day, after a mis-

erable winter, literally the first time our woodland plot was free of the lingering, filthy remnants of the deepest snowdrifts, I backed the Porsche out of the barn as it fitfully brapped and snorted through its yet-to-be-tuned carburetors. Its tail was aimed downhill straight at a small outcropping of sump-eating rocks. I hoped the brand-new brakes would work as the fat rear tires plopped out past the big sliding doors, off the raised barn floor and onto the ground. They did, and I cautiously backed and filled till the car was headed toward freedom, away from two years of mechanical surgery and intensive care. I needed to take it out on the road, even if just for a few minutes. I had no license plates, no insurance, no registration, no inspection sticker, no nada. I didn’t even have my driver’s license. But one of the advantages of living out in the country is a spiderweb of untrafficked, barely paved back roads where the odds of running into a local cop are infinitesimal. And if I did, I figured I’d just wave and floor it. A week later, after several increasingly casual forays onto my illegal loop of back roads, I almost ran into the porky town-police Caprice cruising past our driveway, probably for the first time in a decade. Fortunately, I was on my way to the post office in a legal car. Had the cop heard that some night rider in a fly yellow Porsche had been rattling windows? I’ll never know. I thought of pulling up and asking him but decided that was seriously pushing it. When I bought the original oily red SC, the dealer in the depths of Queens had said, “It’s required that you register the car through me. I must send someone to the motor vehicle bureau and they will pick up your license plates.” No, I said, that wouldn’t be necessary. I wouldn’t be putting the car on the road for a couple of years anyway, so there was no need for license plates. He shrugged, glad to be done with it. I popped the car’s title into our safe-deposit box and filed

the bill of sale among my rapidly growing sheaf of restoration receipts, but a thought continued to nag at me: When I try to register this damn car, something is going to go wrong. Indeed it did. The motor vehicle bureau lady in Newburgh couldn’t have been nicer when I showed up in May 2001 to get license plates so I could finally legally put the incomplete-butrunning little coupe on the road. “This looks like it’ll be a fun car to have,” she said as I proudly showed her the photos I’d brought of the restoration (in case there was some question about why the car had been off the road for two years). Check, check, check went her red-ink ballpoint on my filled-in application form. Until the end—the absolute bottom of the back of the page. “Uh-oh,” she said, “we have a problem. The dealer you bought the car from needs to sign this form.” “Good lord,” I said,“I bought the car over two years ago. At best he’s a 130-mile roundtrip away, at worst he’s retired or gone out of business. I’ve spent $70,000 on this project. What do I do if I can’t find him to sign it?” Her five-days-a-week life as a fat-fannied bureaucrat behind a window grille was at that moment complete, rewarded as only a functionary’s lot can be. She smiled sweetly and said, “You cry.” I hope she’s kidding. I fear she’s not. But I had a secret weapon. Thirty years earlier, I had bought a rare and unusual Ducati 350 Desmo racing motorcycle from a dealer in Montreal. Since I was the Ziff Davis Publishing Co.’s de facto “corporate pilot,” I had the keys to its twin-engine Aero Commander. So I flew the Shrike from New York up to Canada, bought the bike, and loaded it into the leather-lined cabin where billionaire Bill Ziff usually sat. It was one of those trips that a pilot looks back upon in his old age and thinks, “How did I survive?” I’d taken most of the seats out of the airplane before heading to Canada, and the big, empty, rectangular corporate cabin afforded plenty of room for the bike. My friend Russell Munson was my copilot, and he and I tied down the motorcycle as best we could with several lengths of rope attached to whatever seemed at the time to be a substantial mooring but probably wasn’t. Just south of Buffalo, Russ and I ran into an enormous line of thunderstorms. It was 10 at night, and the lightning was dazzling. Fortunately, we banked hard left soon enough to avoid flying into the storms. If we hadn’t, the motorcycle would have come loose instantly in the extreme turbulence and pounded the airplane to death from inside, and almost certainly would have killed a second friend who was sitting trustingly on the floor of the cabin behind the bike, engrossed in a paperback. I flew all the way east to Boston, getting ever farther from New York, before finding an airport that the thunderstorms

hadn’t yet reached and landing to refuel. By the time I taxied back out to take off from Logan International, the tower called and, thank you Logan, said, “One-Five Uniform, I think you’re gonna be better off holding on that taxiway a while. We’ve got a humongous line of thunderstorms coming in from the west.” I considered saying, “Negative, give us a right turnout and vectors to the south, we’ll be on our way before they’re here.” It was, after all, 2 a.m. and I was tired, grumpy and devoid of judgment. (Nonpilots assume that control towers and air-traffic controllers give orders, but they in fact only advise, and unless it’s against the law, the pilot can buck their suggestions.) Fortunately, the first gusts of the approaching storm shook the airplane convincingly enough that I didn’t. We spent the next 20 minutes on that taxiway, pointing the airplane into the shifting gales while I throttled the engines to keep it from being blown backward by the lashing rain and wind. Ultimately, the silver-lamé motorcycle arrived at Westchester County Airport accompanied by three supremely tired travelers and little paperwork. I had a brand-new, unregistered and probably illegal motorcycle and a single scrawled receipt. In French. From the brief period when I was an anthropology major in college, before I changed my nonhonors specialty to playing with cars, I knew that explorers working in the Gobi Desert in the 1930s often devised what they called “Mongolian dazzlers.” These were mock documents covered with meaningless imprints, calligraphy, sealing wax, rubber stamps and ribbons, and they were used to stun border guards and customs officials into whatever submission was at that moment required. So I made for my Ducati a Mongolian dazzler—a typed bill of sale on fancy bond stock filled with be-it-known’s, swornbefore-me’s and in-the-year-of-our-Lord’s. I covered it with enough rubber stampings to satisfy a French douanier. It certainly satisfied Manhattan’s dreaded New York motor vehicle office, which briskly issued me a title to the Duck. So I saw Newburgh as no challenge. I came back to the Newburgh motor vehicle bureau the next Monday and slipped my “signed” form under the wicket. You wanted the dealer’s signature? Hey, how’s this? You like that flourish? Isn’t that interesting how he signed his name diagonally across the dotted line rather than upon it, just as he did on the bill of sale? With a little practice, anybody can do it. The Newburgh MVB lady bought it without a second glance. Yet I still wonder. Is that exactly what she’d assumed I’d do but couldn’t advise me to? Did she think I was dumb enough to drive down to Queens and find the dealer, or did she figure that a few strokes of a phony felt tip would satisfy the MVB gods? I think she knew. ■

DISASSEMBLING THE ENGINE IS EASY: YOU JUST UNDO NUTS AND BOLTS IN WHAT WILL QUICKLY BECOME APPARENT IS A LOGICAL ORDER.

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Stephan Wilkinson is POPSCI’s contributing automotive editor.

HOW2.O THIS MONTH GROK OGLE BUILD HACK ACQUIRE INTEGRATE EXPERIMENT

• • • • •

YOUR LIFE ON TECH > HACKS, UPGRADES, PROJECTS, GRIPES, TIPS & TRICKS

Building a pink-obsessed robot 83 Beyond Google 83 Tweaking digital photos into perfection 88 Tech Support: LED flashlight hack, reader tips, RoadWired RAPS pad, This Is Broken 92 You 2.0: Contacts that shape eyes 85 The Luddite: Kodak EasyShare 87 Collecting and purifying naturally occurring magnetite 90 InfoGrid: Flash memory cards 90

•

5 THINGS. . .

YOU SHOULD USE INSTEAD OF GOOGLE TOPIX.NET

1 Like Google News but better. Topix monitors 6,000+ news sources and tags content for its 150,000 topic pages. Input a zip code for local news or search for, say, “Jackson” and find news pages dedicated to Jackson, Missouri, or Jackson, Michael, plus articles that contain the word. SINGINGFISH.COM

2 You may not find any rare Phish bootlegs, but SingingFish will guide you to more than 10 million free and legal media files, including movie trailers, music videos, newscasts and music clips. LII.ORG

3 Forget the risk of pulling stats from a site posted by Joe College Student. Every page included in the searchable Librarian’s Index to the Internet (12,000 so far) has been reviewed at least twice by real live librarians.

BUILD

DEPT: You Built What?

INVESTIGATOR: Jonathan Coulton

EAT YOUR HEART OUT, AIBO

Why buy a robot that follows a colored ball when you can spend hundreds of hours building your own?

TECH: Robot vision COST: $200 TIME: Many long nights

DENNIS KLEIMAN

FINDINGS:

Practical

Popcorn

It’s midnight and I’m exhausted. For 200 hours, I’ve been caught in a mind-numbing loop: unplug, tweak code, compile, load, plug in, pause for sigh and brief prayer. Once again, I crouch on the floor and wave a pink ball in front of my half-built friend, whom I’ve named “Pinky the Robot Who Follows a Pink Ball.” He doesn’t, and I’m crushed, but I can’t stop because I’m very close. So close that Pinky’s starting to creep me out a little. Anyone who can solder can build a robot from a kit, but take away the plans and the parts you need and the know-how and now you’re living—scrounging the toolbox for brackets and switches, browsing that deserted section of RadioShack, dragging your battered brain through a thousand tiny victories. You’re a dreamer! A scientist! Even (what the hell) a genius! At least that’s the journey I imagined when I found a robotics vision system called the CMUcam on Carnegie Mellon’s toy robots initiative site (www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~cmucam).

4

SCIRUS.COM

Tap into more than 167 million science-related pages, including content from journals and archives such as NASA technical reports and the U.S. Patent Office. Scirus can filter out most nonscientific sites, so search for “spears” to get a study of asparagus DNA, not Britney. A9.COM

5 Amazon’s new search engine uses Google results but adds über-useful extras. Log in from any computer and view your search and click histories, or use the A9 toolbar to leave notes on any page you hit, available every time you revisit that page.—KATE ASHFORD P O P U L A R S C I E N C E J U LY 2 0 0 4

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H2.0

How 2.0 > You Built What?! // You 2.0

There I saw clips of robots following brightly colored objects and knew I had to build one. The folks at CMU pointed me to acroname.com, where I bought the camera, a few servos and wheels, and a microcontroller called the BrainStem. The CMUcam lacked written instructions, so I spent the first couple of hours looking at a picture and soldering capacitors into the wrong holes. Then I fed the BrainStem some simple C code and modified the servos to give them 360 degrees of motion. So far, so good: I had eyes, legs and a brain. The next step was to make Pinky prefer pink. I knew the theory: The BrainStem asks the CMUcam what it sees, and then directs the servos to move the robot until the pink object is in the center of the cam’s

frame. Apparently, this all happens over serial ports—but in what language? How does a serial port work? I was in way over my head. Panic. Desperation. Frantic Googling. Finally, I stumbled across a similar project on the Acroname site, an orangeobsessed robot complete with posted code I could steal and modify for my own pink-loving purposes. Easy . . . except that it didn’t work at all. I’m ashamed to tell you how long I tweaked and tested that code until, many skipped meals later, I discovered the single troublesome line: some snippet about the camera’s auto-gain and white balance values. Driven by frustration and hunger, I decided auto-gain and white balance were stupid and just deleted the line. I hooked

everything together, stuffed the guts into the BrainStem’s cardboard box (note to self: find new body before BattleBots appearance) and put Pinky on the ground to meet his destiny. Pinky, however, seemed more interested in thrashing around nonsensically, then scooting off under the couch. The motor-control functions I wrote had given him the equivalent of an inner-ear infection and a debilitating limp. After several more hours of trial and error, I got my first glimmer of hope: During one of our training sessions, Pinky spun adroitly out of view of the ball I was holding and stopped dead in front of a chair, head upturned. I thought the battery had died until I noticed that he was staring wistfully at my wife’s pink tote

bag, twitching back and forth to get the best possible view. Eureka. Pride welled up inside me and spilled out in a single tear. A little more code massaging had Pinky juking and weaving like a ball boy at Wimbledon. For $1,800 I could have bought a Sony Aibo that does the same thing (OK, it does lots of other things too), but the trick itself has little staying power. I build robots for that moment when the chaos crystallizes into entirely expected yet somehow surprising behavior. Pinky’s not shiny and cute, nor does he have a tail to wag, but he represents many hours of my sweating and swearing, and for that, I love him. Go to popsci.com/h20 to download Pinky’s code and learn more about his creation.

PINKY, SIMPLIFIED Head servo mounted to camera board with L-shaped bracket. The servo is glued to a plastic tube that used to contain a bunch of nails and screws, which are now more easily accessible in a pile on my kitchen counter.

CMUcam, with realtime vision-processing, can be made to recognize any color, but Pinky sounds better than Bluey.

BrainStem microcontroller continually polls the camera for the relative position of the largest pink mass it sees and directs the servos to move until the pink is centered in the frame. Cardboard-box body trades durability for easy access to Pinky’s guts.

Wheels driven by standard servos, hacked for continual rotation, controllable with commands sent from the programmed BrainStem.

Nine-volt battery powers CMUcam and BrainStem.

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Pack of five rechargeable AAs powers servo motors.

MCKIBILLO

Non-scuff chair pad for easy sliding on carpet or tile.

INTEGRATE C O U R T E S Y PA R A G O N V I S I O N S C I E N C E S

YOU 2.0

At the Intersection of Technology and the Body

I HAVE SEEN my future, and it was sharp and clear, which is pretty amazing since I wasn’t wearing my contact lenses or glasses at the time. It’s thanks to a new procedure that corrects low to medium nearsightedness (and astigmatism to -1.75 diopters) without scary lasers and their slight but real risk of permanent damage. Paragon Vision Sciences’ corneal refractive therapy (CRT), approved by the FDA in 2002, works by temporarily reshaping your cornea with rigid gas-permeable contacts you wear while you sleep. In the morning, remove the lenses and your eye maintains its new corrected shape all day. Most insurance

PARAGON CRT CONTACTS

$1,500 initially, $300/year thereafter; paragoncrt.com TECH Lenses reshape your eye while you sleep DOES IT WORK? For me, wonderfully

doesn’t cover CRT, which runs about $1,500 for the initial consult and fitting and about $300 a year for new lenses after that. The first few nights with the contacts in were quite uncomfortable, but never so much that I couldn’t sleep. By night seven, they didn’t bother me at all. Although Paragon says it can take two weeks for the correction to last until bedtime, my vision was perfect all day after only one week of wear.

Each Paragon CRT lens is unique, created from a digital map of your cornea. The rigid contact squeezes your eye into 20/20 shape, which remains temporarily even after you remove the lens. I already think CRT is lifechanging. In the past week, I’ve surfed, swum, mountain biked, and run without blurry vision or fear of losing a contact. My

vision even feels sharper than when I’m wearing soft contacts or glasses. CRT is definitely part of my foreseeable future. —STEVE CASIMIRO

INTEGRATE

THE LUDDITE

Diary of a Tech Resister’s Temptation

FROM TOP: GREGORY MONE; COURTESY CANON U.S.A.

EPISODE 3, PART II: EDITING AND PRINTING PHOTOS TUESDAY, P.M. After a few weeks toting the Casio Exilim EX-Z40, I’ve got plenty of photos. The next step: printing them on the Canon i80 Bubble Jet. WEDNESDAY, A.M. The compact i80 is easy to set up, but the install CD gives me three photo-

editing programs, and I have two already from Casio. Why, again, do I need five of these? THURSDAY, P.M. Open a shot in Casio’s Photohands. Play around with Contrast and Brightness, activate Sharpness and Noise Removal. Onscreen it’s perfect. Hit Print. The result: cartoonish colors and an image so pixelated it looks like a bad high-school art project. FRIDAY, A.M. Know-it-alls at work tell me I must have taken

CANON i80 PRINTER

$250, canon.com

KODAK EASYSHARE SOFTWARE

Free, kodak.com BARRIER TO ENTRY: Too many software options, most too complex VERDICT: EasyShare is a breeze

For some reason, I like this sign for a Cambridge, Mass., carbonnanotube maker. Left: the best print I could muster from Photohands. Right: the same image after a few simple tweaks in EasyShare. low-res pictures by accident. Sure, blame it on the Luddite. SATURDAY, P.M. Switch to Canon’s poorly named EasyPhotoPrint. The odd Digital Face Smoothing feature smoothes nothing. The prints pass with the grandparents, but none of them have their glasses on. MONDAY, A.M. I download

Kodak EasyShare. Suddenly, everything’s, well, easy. Clicking Enhance really does enhance the image. Final prints actually look like the After side of the preview. My “low-res” pics are now frameworthy. Lesson: Without user-friendly software, the best camera and printer are worthless.—GREGORY MONE

H2.0 EXPERIMENT

DEPT: Gray Matter

How 2.0 > Gray Matter // Info Grid

INVESTIGATOR: Theodore Gray

ELEMENT: Magnetite PROJECT: Collecting, purifying magnetite; making magnetic field lines COST: Free TIME: 30 minutes

UNCOVERING A NATURAL (MAGNETIC) ATTRACTION A long walk on the right beach could reveal magnetite hiding in plain sight. FINDINGS:

You know that episode of Star Trek where Kirk is on some planet battling a lizard-man and he just happens to find the ingredients for gunpowder lying on the ground? Nature doesn’t usually give up elements that easily, but there are a few wonderful exceptions. Take, for example, the many seemingly ordinary white-sand beaches that actually contain quite a bit of black magnetite, which is washed down from deposits in the hills and ground into sand by water. (Ironically, black volcanic beaches usually contain little or no magnetite.) Hold a strong magnet an inch or two over one of these beaches and magnetite will literally jump out of the ground onto the magnet. It’s hard to believe until you see it. Sand and debris will come with the magnetite, but you can purify it later by spreading it out on a sheet of paper and passing a magnet over it. Iron producers used a similar process in the first half of this century to mine the nowprotected magnetite-bearing beaches around Santa Cruz, California. The sand was dredged up and dumped onto staircased sheets with magnets

underneath: Sand flowed off, magnetite stuck. It’s still mined in South Africa and a few other spots around the world. After you purify your magnetite, try dropping particles 26

Fe Iron

55.85

Dabbler

Master

directly on a strong magnet to build towers and arches with them (kids find this endlessly fascinating). A more scientific, or at least educational, application is to sprinkle it on a sheet

Magnetite is a naturally occurring form of iron. APPEARANCE Shiny metallic black NAMED FOR Magnes, the Greek shepherd who discovered it on Mt. Ida LARGEST DEPOSITS Sweden, Norway, Romania, Russia FOUND ON Nearly every white sand beach

of paper with a magnet underneath and watch the magnetite grains align themselves along the field lines that connect the magnet’s north and south poles. Amazingly, the Mars Pathfinder lander used a setup like this to identify types of magnetic dust on Mars. Of the likely components there, only magnetite forms visible field lines. Pretty magnetic patterns, while undeniably alluring, are not why magnetite is my favorite element to collect from the wild. Next month, I’ll reveal the real reason, and how it could have helped Kirk with his lizard problem. Provided, that is, that he also had an Etch A Sketch.

Collect, purify, play

1

2

3

4

1 Use a large magnet to pull the magnetite grains from the sand. 2 To get rid of extra sand and other debris, run a smaller magnet over the pile. (The plastic bag just keeps the magnet clean.) 3 Repeat Step 2 until your pile looks more like the pure magnetite (left pile) than the raw beach sand (right pile). 4 Magnetic field lines, which connect the north and south poles. Sprinkle your purified grains onto a sheet of paper with a magnet underneath to create a similar pattern.

• InfoGrid Flash Memory Cards SIZE (MM)

MAX CAPACITY

STREET PRICE 128MB/512MB/1GB

YEAR INTRODUCED

CompactFlash

43 x 36 x 3.3

12GB

$22/$64/$140

1994

Secure Digital (SD)

24 x 32 x 2.2

1GB

$33/$95/$270

1999

Memory Stick PRO

21 x 50 x 2.8

2GB

$45/$116/$250

2003

SmartMedia

37 x 45 x 0.8

128MB

$31/NA/NA

1995

xD-Picture Card

20 x 25 x 1.8

512MB

$47/$160/NA

2002

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DEVICE SATURATION Most common

TREND Flat

h h i Least common

Flat

JEFF SCIORTINO

NAME

GROK

H2.0

TECH SUPPORT

> ATTENTION H2.0 READERS: This is your page, full

of the feedback we get from you at [email protected] and through the forums at popsci.com/h20. ASK A GEEK is your chance to pick the brains of the Geek Chorus—H2.0’s panel of advisers and tech wizards. THE TIP SHEET is a sampling of your best tips, tricks and hacks. YOUR GEAR features the most drool-worthy gadget you’ve bought lately (this month, we’re showing off one of the cool case mods you sent us). Finally, THIS IS BROKEN gives you one of our favorites from Mark Hurst’s site thisisbroken.com.

YOUR GEAR The RoadWired RAPS pad is like a high-tech diaper for my gadget menagerie, providing an extra layer of shockabsorbing, corrosion-resistant protection for anything swaddled in its Velcrocornered folds. ($18; roadwired.com) —Cory Doctorow, editor of boing boing.net and author of the novel Eastern Standard Tribe.

> The Tip Sheet Disposable no more Ritz/Wolf Camera sells an $11, 25-shot, 1.3-megapixel “disposable” digital camera, but with the right software and a hacked USB cable, it’s possible to transfer the images to your computer and reuse the camera. Instructions at maushammer.com.—John Maushammer, Carrboro, N.C.

National Geographic’s updated MapMachine Check out mapmachine.nationalgeographic.com for up to 16 views—including satellite, topographic, street and political—of just about any location in the world. Search by city, country or zip code.—Sree Sreenivasan, H2.0 Web Geek

MICROSOFT’S VERSION OF USER OPTIONS

See more examples of things broken at thisisbroken.com. 92

P O P U L A R S C I E N C E J U LY 2 0 0 4

Q: Can I hack a standard flashlight to use LEDs, making it brighter and longer-lasting?

—Jacob Miller, San Diego, Calif.

A:

Absolutely. A flashlight with at least three AAA, AA, C or D cell batteries hacked to use three 2300-millicandela LEDs will be as bright as an incandescent and last 5 to 10 times longer. Of course you can add up to 20 LEDs (as long as they fit in the reflector) if you’re planning to, say, man a lighthouse with the thing. Use a flashlight with more batteries, get more life. You’ll also need a resistor for each LED: For a three-cell flashlight, use 30 ohm resistors, 75 ohm for four cells, 130 ohm for five and so on. (Try digikey.com for the parts.) Pics and detailed instructions are at popsci.com/h20, but here are the basics: Trim the LED leads to about a half inch (maintaining their relative lengths), and the resistor leads to one-eighth inch on one end, 1 inch on the other. Solder the short resistor leads to the long LED leads. Carefully break the old bulb. Use a soldering SCOTT FULLAM is H2.0’s iron to heat the bottom of the Hackmaster, and author of bulb case until you can push the recent Hardware Hacka long resistor lead through ing Projects for Geeks ($30, it, and clip the excess. Solder O’Reilly). Now a consultant to consumer electronics the hanging LED lead to the makers, Fullam has been a flange of the bulb case. Soltoy designer (he once made der the remaining LED/resistor Barbie talk) and an Apple pairs in parallel to the first engineer, and holds two and stuff them all into the degrees from MIT. reflector. Now shine on, you Meet the rest of the Geek Chorus at popsci.com/h20. crazy diamond.

FROM TOP: TOMER HANUKA; COURTESY ROADWIRED

THIS IS BROKEN

ASK A GEEK: SCOTT FULLAM

FACTS, ANSWERS, ODDITIES & ENTERTAINMENTS FOR A MONTH OF SCIENCE

ard: A soldier in desert fatigues would stand out like a bull’s-eye against a red brick wall. But the nextgeneration suit would take on the appearance of the wall, allowing the soldier to blend into the background. In the same way that an enemy scanning jungle brush might miss a soldier in classic green-and-brown camouflage, the uniform’s optical trickery might cause an urban foe to glance over the future soldier. “Sometimes it’s fairly easy to confuse the human eye,” Moynihan says, explaining that the real goal is not invisibility but simply buying a soldier extra time to react. DARPA isn’t exactly sewing together uniforms just yet—the project is still in its very early stages, and details are scant. “They’re doing the research,” Moynihan says, “investigating the principles involved.” But Moynihan has no doubts about whether adaptive camouflage will be a reality for the soldier of the future. “It’s just a matter of when,” he says.—GREGORY MONE GUEST TESTIMONIAL

FROM THE WORLD’S OLDEST MOUSE

SOLDIER OF THE FUTURE

BLENDING IN WITH BRICK WALLS

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N AT H A N F O X

A reader inquires: Is the military developing uniforms that would make soldiers invisible? The perfect cloak of Frodo Baggins is still far off, if not impossible, but DARPA-funded researchers are working on a new kind of camouflage that would fall only a few steps short of elvish magic. According to Philip Moynihan, a NASA engineer who

published a paper on the subject in 2000, so-called adaptive camouflage would visually merge soldiers with their surroundings—whether that’s an urban backdrop or dense jungle brush. The basic principle is simple: Cameras would capture the scene behind the uniform while embedded displays would reproduce the image on its front. With combat shifting increasingly to urban environments, the need for adaptive camouflage is stronger than ever. Today’s uniforms can be a haz-

I’m lying in my cage half amused, half depressed, mulling over my new title as world’s oldest mouse. I turned four this April. In your world, that means about 136. That’s right: ancient. Even my doctor, Richard Miller, a pathologist here at the University of Michigan Geriatrics Center, is amazed at my longevity. Naturally, the PR folks want to capitalize on my death-defying existence, so they have nicknamed me Yoda. Certainly catchier than my given lab name, D053, but look or speak like Yoda I do not. You probably want to know the secret. Do I hydrate frequently? Sleep a lot? Actually, the trick is my clinically short stature. I was born with a naturally occurring gene mutation that prevents my body from producing normal amounts of growth hormone, a chemical pumped out of the pituitary gland in the brain. At 0.4 ounces, I’m less than half the weight of a normal mouse. I’m also sterile. The upside to my hormone deficiency is extreme life extension. Except for the sterility and Napoleonic physique, Doc Miller says I have a near perfect bill of health. Together we have shown con-

FYI YODA, THE WORLD’S OLDEST MOUSE,

cuddles with his faithful companion, Leia, the buxom blonde who kept him warm.

COURTESY OF DR. RICHARD MILLER, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDICAL SCHOOL

clusively—in mice—that too much growth hormone early on in life speeds up aging and too little can slow it down. Despite our work, thousands of middle-aged humans are lining up for weekly injections of synthetic growth hormone in the hopes that the chemical will restore their lean muscle mass, sex drive, energy and countless other vitals that wane with age and flagging growth-hormone production. Sex? Muscles? A little more stamina? Don’t think I wasn’t tempted to juice up too. But Doc Miller talked me out of it. “There is no evidence that GH administration has benefits that outweigh the risks,” he says, “and although more research is still needed, this mode of therapy is at present unjustified and potentially dangerous.” OK, I said, I get the picture. I’d like to say I’ve suffered for science, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Thanks to my hormone deficiency, which makes it hard for me to stay warm, I enjoy the very close company of a full-figured young female mouse, Princess Leia, whose sole job is to maintain my body heat (see snapshot). I like to say I’m the Woody Allen of rodents: undersized but never without a lovely lady close by. As for Leia, she’s quiet and sweet and doesn’t seem to mind that I use her as a living fur coat. Because my thyroid is kicked and my metabolism is slow (all courtesy of the gene defect) I’m also naturally lazy; I rarely do anything except cuddle. The sad part is that I’ve outlived my nonmutant loved ones, including two of Leia’s

FYI predecessors, who typically expire around age two. These losses have been tough, but I do take comfort in the fact that I’m helping science unravel the mysterious connection between growth hormone and aging. It’s still astounding to me to think that a single genetic mishap can inadvertently extend the lifespan in mice by an average of 40 percent, and in my case, much more. Imagine what it could do for humans. As Doc Miller likes to say, “Curing one disease at a time is a noble goal, but it’s significantly less attractive than learning enough about aging to indefinitely postpone all diseases.”—AS TOLD TO NICOLE DYER

Editor’s note: Yoda passed away just days after this interview. Probable cause of death: old, old, old age. He is survived by his cage companion, Princess Leia.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

THE BEST-KEPT SECRET IN SEISMOLOGY Midwesterners beware: Although you’re assailed each year by voracious tornadoes, crop-flattening hailstorms and searing heat waves, it might be wise to start worrying about what’s going on below the surface. But earthquakes are just for Californians, right? Wrong. In the not-so-distant past, the region along the Mississippi River, where Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas rub elbows, has played host to all sorts of seismic shenanigans. In the winter months spanning 1811 to 1812, the New Madrid earthquakes, so named because their epicenters were near the town of New Madrid, Missouri, rattled the area with quakes measuring 7.8, 8.0 and 8.2 on the Richter scale. And according to Jake Page and Charles Officer’s The Big One (Houghton Mifflin, $24),

a new book detailing the New Madrid quakes and their effects, the devastation was widespread. Whole towns disappeared under rising waters. Trees exploded out of the soil. The ground shook as far away as Montreal. An estimated 1,500 people died. The Big One promises big thrills and largely delivers. The explanations of earthquake pathology shine a clear light on the science behind the New Madrid quakes, and although the book suffers from a lack of organization, the authors’ eye to the future makes the story a relevant and gripping read. They estimate that if another New Madrid were to rear its quaky head, there would be an estimated $1 trillion in damages and hundreds of thousands dead across 24 states. Which brings us to the burning question of the modern Midwesterner: Is this going to happen again? Well, eventually. New Madrid’s brand of geophysical activity is known as midplate seismicity because it occurs near the center of a tectonic plate, not the borderland where two plates grind together. Scientists suspect that midplate activity results from rising

FYI magma plumes breaking through the Earth’s crust, and while there are numerous such rifts across North America, most are ancient and inactive. New Madrid, on the other hand, has experienced powerful quakes at least three times in the past 1,500 years. The prediction, which the authors admit amounts to educated guesswork, puts the chances of a “Son of New Madrid” happening in this century at 20 percent. Not an Earthshattering number, but enough, perhaps, to warrant investment in a seismic retrofit on your home. Or a move to California.—MARTHA HARBISON ASTRONOMY ONLINE

SURFING THE NIGHT SKY Unless you live on a mountaintop, miles away from civilization, with a 15-inch-wide telescope at your dis-

posal, you will have a hard time topping the celestial view slooh.com gives you. This new Web service affords users real-time access to four telescopes perched 7,900 feet above sea level on the Canary Islands’ Mount Teide. “We wanted to open up astronomy to people for whom the initial setup cost, their location or the base knowledge required was prohibitive,” says Michael Paolucci, Slooh’s president and founder. And Slooh—a play on “slew,” astronomy speak for rotating a telescope—does a pretty good job of meeting this goal. While more knowledgeable astronomers can schedule solo missions and view whatever they want, those who think “azimuth” is a Harry Potter character can opt for group sorties. These 10-minute tours take Sloohgoers to the most interesting features of that particular night’s sky. The site has a video game look to it, with a circular window revealing your celestial view in the center and various controls and bits of data spread about the perimeter. You can capture snapshots, play suitably spacey new-age music or opt for audio narration

SLOOH, A NEW WEB-BASED ASTRONOMY

tool, offers users access to high-powered telescopes, providing a portal to the stars.

about what you’re seeing. You can also zoom in on features of particular interest and switch between different telescopes. Eventually, users will be able to vote on what they want to see, but for now, Slooh’s staff astronomers make the call. For $50, you get a year of unlimited group missions and 15 minutes of solo time. For twice that amount, you can stargaze alone for up to 90 minutes. And the best part may be that you don’t even need to lose much sleep: The time difference allows stargazing from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST. Finally, something wholesome for Internet addicts to stare at.—JOE BROWN

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 54)

the Soteria, it’s expressed by the integrated i-Bean technology, made by Millennial Net, a Cambridge, Mass., and Tokyo–based developer of wireless sensor networks, which creates an officewide monitoring system that maps every chair in the system. The global village, the emerging ubiquitous network and the definition of community: These began to blur and take on different shapes as the judges made their way through the entries. What do “community” and “need” mean? There might, one entry suggested, be an urgent need for CARE packages that extends to other species. Community is a social pattern among creatures, it doesn’t matter which ones, and need is need. Over a five-hour dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Seattle last fall, with not a small amount of tequila involved, Shawn Brixey and his students at the DX Arts Center for Digital Art and Experimental Media at the University of Washington 102

P O P U L A R S C I E N C E J U LY 2 0 0 4

began to think about whales. The expertise around the table ran from acoustics to marine science and robotics. Ian Ingram, Bret Battey and Brixey fell into talking about controversial highintensity sonar signals—bursts of lowfrequency sound that the Navy is experimenting with to seek out enemy subs. Studies are tracking the danger these signals pose to whales, which may be distracted, deafened, even killed by a sonar din that could drive them from the deep in a panic, causing potentially fatal gasbubble lesions like the ones divers experience when they get the bends. Why not give whales the equivalent of Bose noisecanceling headphones? And so the concept of Active Noise Reduction Autonomous Underwater Vehicles was born. “Power, wealth, technology, maneuverability, the military and impact on the environment are the essence of what CARE is about,” Brixey says, “and we thought an expansion of the concept—though we knew it was a little

wild—would be to address other species.” Brixey’s team envisioned drone planes dispatching flocks of robotic subs (known as autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs). Turning in formation beside their charges, they pump out sound waves to counter the damaging low frequencies. The idea earned the Editors’ Choice Award for its visionary reach. But Brixey protests: “It’s not just visionary. If the Navy wanted to make the investment, they could do this in a decade. Drones were used in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Navy has tons of AUV research. We’re artists,” he says. “You have to dream a little. But we’re talking about functional machines. This really isn’t pie in the sky.” Leave it to Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda, whose whimsical Urban Lodestar entry took second prize, to tackle pie in the sky. The need LaVerdiere and Myoda identified was simple: For city dwellers peering upward, who see a haze of urban illumination instead of

the pinpricks of the stars, the yearning and awe that the night sky has so long inspired is lost. “We wanted to fulfill unfulfillable needs,” LaVerdiere says. “I’ve always liked the aspirational elements of the optimistic and absurd in Jules Verne. Light has always had these associations with both science and mysticism, whether it be a candle or a laser, and we were trying to wed them with this notion of an artificial star—something rehabilitative to bring back wonder and raise our spirits.” After reading back issues of POPULAR SCIENCE and talking to people at NASA, the artists conceived a pulsing, artificial star floating 20 miles up. It would consist of five high-altitude weather balloons linked in a ring, holding aloft a five-pointed star composed of electroluminescent piping and photovoltaic cells that draw juice from the Sun. Suspended from the rig on electrical cables are a xenon strobe, battery packs and navigational boosters. LaVerdiere and Myoda, who met as

classmates at Yale’s art school in the mid1990s, are experts at raising spirits. They designed the Tribute in Light at Ground Zero, illuminated precisely six months after September 11, 2001. Two enormous high-intensity beams, ghostly and majestic, rose up into the night, evoking the vanished buildings. One judge dismissed the Lodestar project as “galactic TV”; another liked the idea of using technology to address a spiritual, or at least quasi-spiritual, need. What LaVerdiere and Myoda offer is a gratuitous act of technological beneficence. Nothing tangible enters the market economy. Nothing shouts infrastructure collapse or pollution or monstrous crimes. This is its winning charm—a twinkling, xenon-powered respite from technology through technology, as far from fear as disasters are from dreams. ■ Steven Henry Madoff is a writer in New York City. His book Christopher Wilmarth: Light and Gravity will be released in the fall by Princeton University Press.

LOOKING BACK

MARCH1966 FROM THE POPULAR SCIENCE ARCHIVES

HOW THE SUPERSONIC F-5 GOT ITS GROOVE BACK

Northrop’s versatile little F-5 jet fighter made a comeback in Vietnam; 40 years later, it’s being rediscovered again. In March 1966, we wrote that the Northrop F-5 supersonic fighter (below) had been plucked from obscurity—it went straight from Air Force training grounds to the war in Vietnam. The F-5 had been developed a decade earlier to replace aging F-84s and F-86s in countries receiving U.S. military assistance; at home, though, it was eclipsed by “supersophisticated fighter-bombers” like the F-105 Thunderchief and F-4 Phantom. But the F-5s proved their worth when a squadron took flight in Vietnam. They “looked like toys,” one pilot said, but their small size and maneuverability enabled them to follow ground troops into combat, use sod fields as runways, and outfight faster aircraft. Recently, the F-5 has been resurrected yet again—it’s being used to test aircraft designs meant to suppress sonic booms (see “Whooshhh!,” page 56).—CHRISTINA BRYZA

Lockheed helicopter stows its rotors.

Other stories from the March 1966 issue:

CAN PILLS MAKE YOU SMARTER?

Maybe, if you’re a rodent. Administering a magnesium compound to rats increased their learning ability fivefold.

ELECTRIC SOCKS WARM FEET

Heating coils were woven into these electric foot-warmers and connected by wires to batteries on the wearer’s belt. Ice skaters found the socks useful; today, modified versions are marketed to hunters.

BLADES STORED IN HELICOPTER

Lockheed designed a helicopter that could stop its rotor blades and fold them into the fuselage for fixed-wing flight. This one was never built, but the desire for such a craft is evergreen (witness the troubled V-22 Osprey).

FOUR-WAY RUBBER BAND

An H-shaped rubber band stretched four ways to hold books, stacks of papers, phonograph records and other odd-shaped packages.

SICK ROBOT

To train medical students, engineers at USC and Aerojet-General Corp. developed a robot with a pulse and heartbeat that simulated human reactions to various maladies.

SUPERINSULATED BLANKET

The aluminized Mylar emergency blanket, now ubiquitous in emergency kits around the world, evolved from technology that was developed for spacecraft insulation. Photocopy Permission Permission is granted by Popular Science® for libraries and others registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to photocopy articles in this issue for the flat fee of $1 per copy of each article or any part of an article. Send correspondence and payment to CCC (21 Congress St., Salem MA 01970); specify CCC code 0161-7370/85/$1.00—0.00. Copying done for other than personal or reference use without the written permission of Popular Science® is prohibited. Address requests for permission on bulk orders to Time4 Media, Inc., 2 Park Ave., New York NY 10016 for foreign requests. For domestic requests, write or call Reprint Management Services Inc., 1811 Olde Homestead La., Lancaster PA 17601; 717-399-1900, ext. 109; www.reprintbuyer.com (FOR ARTICLE REPRINTS ONLY). Popular Science® is a registered trademark of Time4 Media, Inc. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services we believe would interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, please advise us at P.O. Box 51286, Boulder CO 80322-1286. POPULAR SCIENCE Business and Executive Offices: 2 Park Ave., New York NY 10016. Editorial Offices: Address contributions to Popular Science, Editorial Dept., 2 Park Ave., New York NY 10016. We are not responsible for loss of unsolicited materials. They will not be returned unless accompanied by return postage. Microfilm editions are available from Xerox University Microfilms Serial Bid Coordinator, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor MI 48106. Subscription Inquiries: Send new or renewal subscriptions or change of address (send both new and old addresses) to Popular Science, Box 62456, Tampa FL 33662-4568. Allow six to eight weeks for change of address. If you have a subscription problem, please write to the above address. Subscriptions: U.S. and its possessions, 1 year $19.95; 2 years $26.95; 3 years $32.95. For Canada, add $10 per year (includes GST). For foreign destinations, add $30 per year. Subscriptions processed electronically. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within two years. Postmaster: Send change of address notices to Popular Science, Box 60001, Tampa FL 33660-0001. Popular Science entered as periodical postage paid at New York NY and additional mailing offices. Popular Science new Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40110178. Return undeliverable Canada addresses to: Postal Stn A, PO Box 4015, Toronto, ON, M5W 2T2 GST # R-122988066. Popular Science (ISSN 0161-7370) is published monthly by Time4 Media, 2 Park Ave., New York NY 10016. Printed in U.S.A. © 2004 Time4 Media, Inc.

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