Popular Science 2010-10 PDF

SUPERSIZED!
Inside the World’s Most Dangerous Weather p.38 Your Crash Course on Memory Drugs, Space Dust and More p.58
25
Hot Products
Electric-
Vehicle
Home
Charging
Station
p.22
THE FUTURE OF THE HOME
LIFE ON
Extreme Habitats
THE EDGE
for a Changing World p.44
PLUS
THE $50,000
APOCALYPSE-
PROOF
COp.5ND2 O
A New Take on Gravity P.29
Can Brain Freeze Kill? P.79

OCTOBER 2010
Grow Your Own Spare Lung

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CONTENTS
THIS MONTH’S GUIDE TO INNOVATION AND DISCOVERY OCTOBER ’10
VOLUME 277 #4
FEATURES
44 LIFE ON THE EDGE
Conceptual shelters that will
protect us all from rising waters,
extreme heat, rampant pollution and
overpopulation. By Suzanne LaBarre
52 CAN THIS HOUSE SAVE YOU

FROM THE END OF THE WORLD?
Meet Robert Vicino, doomsday
real-estate developer. For $50,000,
he’ll sell you a spot in his luxury
apocalypse-bunker community.
By Arnie Cooper
THE GREEN DREAM

56 BRINGING IT ALL HOME
Popular Science’s staff photographer
has nearly finished building his eco- FIELDWORK
friendly home. Now he has some 38 TWISTED
hard-won advice for anyone who The quest to track and surround a
wants to construct his own. tornado is the quest to understand
By John B. Carnett all weather. Inside the world’s
most dangerous meteorological
56 52 experiment. By Corey Binns

CHRIS SCHWARZ/UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA; KOPPILLUSTRATION.COM; JOHN B. CARNETT (2)
ON THE COVER: NICK KALOTERAKIS; THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NICK KALOTERAKIS;
INSTANT EXPERT
Our annual guide to the science that you need to know now.
58 REBUILT 60 EASY 62 UNNATURAL 64 DIRTY
MINDS FRESHWATER GAS COSMOS
New drugs could Desalination Mining natural This map of
help scientists techniques are gas from shale cosmic dust
understand more efficient is cheap but particles
memory than ever. Could could spoil could help
formation and this process be nearby waters. astronomers
stop age-related the answer to Here’s how to understand
memory loss. our water woes? wrest fuel from how stars and
By Elizabeth By Katharine the rocks. planets form.
Svoboda Gammon By Corey Binns By Katie Peek
POPSCI.COM OCTOBER 2010 POPULAR SCIENCE 05

CONTENTS
18
REGULARS
MEGAPIXELS
12 An organ on a chip; decapitating a dummy.
WHAT’S NEW
17 HOME TECH
A robotic hammer that fits anywhere.
CHECK IT OUT
HOW 2.0
18 THE GOODS 67 YOU BUILT WHAT ?!
A Bluetooth headset that records P.O.V. video,
A working replica of a 19th-century submarine that
a sensor-packed chainsaw, and more.
drives—yes, drives—on the seafloor.
20 HOME ENTERTAINMENT 70 REPURPOSED TECH
New gear for controlling videogames with your body.
Open your car doors with your cellphone.
22 AUTOMOTIVE 72 VOID YOUR WARRANTY
Chargers for electric cars.
Add an impressive e-reader display to your netbook.
HEADLINES POPSCI ON 74 ASK A GEEK

29 THEORETICAL PHYSICS THE iPAD Should I overclock my computer?
Learn more at
Was Einstein wrong about gravity? Inside the debate. popularscienceplus
FYI
32
.com.
30 ARTIFICIAL ORGANS
Scientists learn how to grow a lung in the lab. 79 Is that hair in my soup a health
hazard? Can brain freeze harm you?
32 THE ANNOTATED PIG
The pig genetically engineered to
make more eco-friendly poo.
OTHER STUFF
36 FORECAST 08 FROM THE EDITOR
10 THE INBOX
79
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY HUSQVARNA; GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY JOHN MAHONEY; COURTESY NASA/ESA/STSCI;
Robot maids, smellovision, lunar
bases: Scientists predict the future. 100 THE FUTURE THEN
Pixel Qi Screen Swap

For a closer look at our DIY Pixel Qi netbook GOT
GOT
[page 72], find step-by-step photos at QUESTIONS?
QUESTIONS?
popsci.com/pixelqihowto.
E-mail
fyi@popsci.com
The Future According to Japan or tweet
Japanese scientists have come together @popscifyiguy.
to predict the future of science
[page 36]. See more of Japan’s tech
visions at popsci.com/futurejapan.
iSTOCK; MITCH ROMANOWSKI
A Day in the Life: Testing the Goods

NASA Concept Illustrator Find out which of our monthly gadget picks
Meet the artists who bring NASA’s wildest (plus some bonus gear) best survive real-
astronomical discoveries to life, at world trials. Check out our new review section
popsci.com/nasaconcepts. online at popsci.com/testingthegoods.
06 POPULAR SCIENCE OCTOBER 2010 POPSCI.COM

FROM THE EDITOR THE
FUTURE
NOW
Editor-in-Chief Mark Jannot

Deputy Editor Jacob Ward
Creative Director Sam Syed
EDITORIAL
Executive Editor Luke Mitchell
FLOOD OF
Features Editor Nicole Dyer
Editorial Production Manager Felicia Pardo
Copy and Research Director Rina Bander
Senior Editor Martha Harbison
Senior Associate Editors Lauren Aaronson, Doug Cantor,
Bjorn Carey, Seth Fletcher
CREATIVITY
Associate Editor Corinne Iozzio
Assistant Editor Susannah F. Locke
Editorial Assistant Amy Geppert
Editor at Large Dawn Stover
Contributing Innovation Editor Mike Haney
Contributing Technology Editor Steve Morgenstern
Contributing Editors Eric Adams, Theodore Gray, Eric Hagerman,
Joseph Hooper, Preston Lerner, Gregory Mone, Rena Marie Pacella,
Catherine Price, Dave Prochnow, Jessica Snyder Sachs, Rebecca
Skloot, Mike Spinelli, Elizabeth Svoboda, Kalee Thompson,
DURING A RECENT FAMILY DRIVE out of town, my 13-year-old son, Phillip Torrone, James Vlahos, Speed Weed
Contributing Troubadour Jonathan Coulton
Rex, launched into a diatribe from the backseat, blasting the environ- Editorial Interns Lana Birbrair, Katie Peek, Victor Zapana
mental myopia of every lone driver spewing unnecessary CO2 behind ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Art Director Matthew Cokeley
the wheel of a hulking SUV. (He actually wanted me to bump them off Photo Editor Kristine LaManna
Staff Photographer John B. Carnett
the road, thus ensuring that he won’t join their ranks until long after he Senior Designer Stephanie O’Hara
Contributing Artists Kevin Hand, Nick Kaloterakis,
turns 16.) “Don’t they realize that if this keeps up, Manhattan is going to be Graham Murdoch, Bob Sauls, Paul Wootton
Photo Intern Jack Forbes
under water before long?” he demanded.
POPSCI.COM
My wife, Liza, attempted to Digital Content Director John Mahoney
Associate Web Editor Paul Adams
We’re an upbeat assure him that our home wasn’t

going to be submerged anytime
soon. Which is true—projections
BONNIER’S TECHNOLOGY GROUP
VP, Publishing Gregg R. Hano
magazine. So suggest that it could take until 2080

or so for New York City to lose a
Group Director, Sales and Marketing Steven B. Grune
Associate Publisher Anthony Ruotolo
Executive Assistant Christopher Graves
Associate Publisher, Marketing Mike Gallic
why focus on fifth of its landmass. Even so, I

felt compelled to mention that the
Financial Director Tara Bisciello
New York Advertising Manager Matthew Bondy
Northeast Advertising Office Shani Ben-Moshe,
David Ginsberg, Sara Schiano
Ad Assistants Andrea Licata, Colleen Nicosia
floods and very next cover of POPULAR SCIENCE

would depict just such a doomsday
Midwest: Manager John Marquardt 312-252-2838
Ad Assistant Krissy Van Rossum
West Coast Account Managers Robert Hoeck, Bob Meth, 310-227-8963
Ad Assistant Kate Gregory
overpopulation? vision, albeit with a twist, showing

comfortable housing pods
suspended over the flooded streets
Detroit: Manager Edward A. Bartley 248-502-2172
Ad Assistant Diane Pahl
Southern: Manager Jason A. Albaum jason@afatlanta.com
Classified Advertising Sales Patrick Notaro 212-779-5555,
Chip Parham 212-779-5492
Classified Assistant Jessica Steinhoff
Direct Response Sales Alycia Isabelle 800-280-2069
of Midtown. Liza shot me an incredulous look. “Why?” she asked. Interactive Sales Manager Chris Young
Digital Project Coordinator Amanda Alimo
A fair question. We’re an upbeat magazine, whose vision of “The Integrated Sales Development Director Alexis Costa
Integrated Sales Development Managers Brian Graser, Mike Kelly
Future Now” usually takes a happy form. So why focus on floods, pollution, Integrated Sales Development Planner Lauren Brewer
Group Director, Creative Services/Events Mike Iadanza
desertification and overpopulation [“Life on the Edge,” page 44]? Director of Events Michelle Cast
Special Events Manager Erica Johnson
It’s not because we’re certain those predictions will come to pass— Digital Days Manager Susan Vonella
Marketing Art Directors Lindsay Krist, Shawn Woznicki
although the underlying trends are real, and we’re not in the business Promotions Manager Eshonda Caraway
Consumer Marketing Director Bob Cohn
of turning a blind eye. It’s because we’re a magazine about problem- Associate Directors Lauren Rosenblatt, Andrew Schulman
Senior Planning Manager Raymond Ward
solving. We were interested in the adaptations that architects have New Business Manager Cliff Sabbag
Retention Manager Connie Cotner
designed in response—adaptations that might find Single Copy Sales Director Vicki Weston
Publicity Manager Amanda McNally
far broader applications than the specific scenarios Human Resources Manager Kim Putman
that inspired them. The sun-slurping, smog-dispersing CHECK IT OUT Production Associate Erika Hernandez
Group Production Director Laurel Kurnides
Operations Director Mimi Rosenfeld
funnels conceived by Philips to line the exterior of its
Sustainable Habitat 2020 [page 51], for instance, could
Chairman Jonas Bonnier
lead to tremendous technology regardless of whether Chief Executive Officer Terry Snow
FROM TOP: JOHN B. CARNETT; COURTESY APPLE
Chief Operating Officer Dan Altman

air-pollution levels Chief Financial Officer Randall Koubek
SVP, Corporate Sales & Marketing Mark Wildman
skyrocket. You can’t Vice President, Consumer Marketing Bruce Miller
Vice President, Production Lisa Earlywine
find the light unless Vice President, E-Media Bill Allman
Vice President, Digital Sales & Marketing John Haskin
you’re willing to Vice President, Enterprise Systems Shawn Larson
Vice President, Human Resources Cathy Hertz
look at the dark
POPSCI ON
Vice President, Corporate Communications Dean Turcol
Vice President, Media Development Michael Starobin
clouds ahead.
THE IPAD Brand Director John Miller
Director, Licensing & Merchandising Stanley Weil
MARK JANNOT Read this issue of
Publishing Consultant Martin S. Walker
Corporate Counsel Jeremy Thompson
mark.jannot@bonniercorp.com Popular Science on For service anytime, please use our Web site: www.popsci.com/cs
Apple’s tablet! You may also call 386-597-4279
Or you can write to POPULAR SCIENCE, P.O. Box 420235,
Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235

The 265-horsepower
merry-go-round.
Corner like a thrill ride on rails in the new 2011 Impreza WRX. Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive
in a bold new wide-body package puts an asphalt-eating grin on your face every time it digs
®
its claws into a turn. That, and a turbocharged SUBARU BOXER engine, without spending
stupid money? Now that’s a joyride. Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.
®
WRX. Well-equipped at $25,495†
†MSRP excludes destination and delivery charges, tax, title and registration fees. Dealer sets actual price. 2011 Subaru WRX Premium pictured has an MSRP of $27,995.
THE INBOX
OUR FUTURE ROBOT SERVANTS
After our August issue explored the
latest in robot technology, readers
wondered why U.S. engineers even
bother with humanoid robots, like those
mentioned in Jacob Ward’s “The Loneliest
Humanoid in America.” Especially when
Corey Binns’s profile of 10 new machines
that will make our lives easier, “Rise
of the Helpful Machines,” showed that
’bots don’t need to resemble their human
counterparts to be useful assistants.
Robots Aren’t Human

Your coverage of robots in the August issue was
excellent. The articles were right on the money
and covered the spectrum of service robots quite
well. iRobot CEO Colin Angle’s quote in “The
Loneliest Humanoid in America” is quite right:
Humanoids are not going to “drive the robot
industry.” Robots do not need to look like humans
or walk on two feet to be useful in the home.
Tom Carroll
Ridgefield, Wash.
I can’t foresee a practical use for humanoid robots

that would justify their cost. Americans have A Tough Job
the right idea in focusing on individual elements “A Slick Fix” [Headlines] mixes apples and oranges—
such as prosthetic limbs and artificial intelligence or, more literally, oil and water. The robots can each
without trying to put them all together. The clean only 3,000 gallons of oily water per minute.
money is better spent that way. Let other countries These ’bots would merely scratch the surface of the
play with their humanoid all-in-one robots, spill. Every little bit helps, but the Aeros system is
because that’s all it is—play. just that: a little bit of help.
Carl Huber David Bortin
Riverside, Calif. Whittier, Calif.
BIGGER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER THE

FUTURE
NOW
SUBSCRIPTION
INQUIRIES
Report changes of
or syndication, please
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In Living Large, contributing writer address and subscription
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Sarah Z. Wexler takes a look at MAIN OFFICE Popular Science Send letters to the
America’s longtime obsession 2 Park Ave., 9th Floor P.O. Box 420235 editor to
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Drawing on firsthand reports from the LETTERS NEW INTERNATIONAL

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POPSCI
The paper used for this
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Progressive Insurance is proud to sponsor the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE,

a $10 million competition to develop clean, safe, affordable cars
that get at least 100 miles per gallon or its energy equivalent (MPGe).
Congratulations to all the teams on their progress and achievements in

advancing revolutionary automotive technologies that promise to give
consumers more fuel-efficient choices in the cars they drive.
visit progressive.com/autoxprize
09P00134.B2 (08/10)
MEGAPIXELS the must-see photos of the month
martin montoya/Dongeun huh/aKiKo mamoto/hong yuan hsin

Kristin Johnson/DonalD ingber/benJamin matthews/
12 popular science october 2010

BREATHE IN Scientists create a vacuum

in the green channels bordering the blue
rubber strip, which forces it to stretch,
contract, and simulate breathing.
every breath you fake

a lung-on-a-chip is the first lab-ready mini organ
to be used in drug research
This ersatz lung, no bigger than a multivitamin, could represent a new pharmaceutical testing method. On it,
researchers have created an artificial alveolus, one of the sacs in the lungs where oxygen crosses a membrane
to enter the body’s blood vessels. A polymer sheet that stands in for the membrane is in the blue strip. On
one side of the sheet, blood-vessel cells mimic a capillary wall; on the other, lung-cancer cells mimic lung
epithelial cells. Scientists have tested the chip’s immune response, and it behaves just like real tissue would,
a first step to having lifelike organ systems on which drugs can act. The chip’s primary developer, biomedi-
cal engineer Dongeun (Dan) Huh of Harvard University, hopes that within two years, the chip will succeed in
mimicking the process by which the lungs swap oxygen for carbon dioxide. Huh would like to create a suite of
artificial organs to be used in cosmetics testing and pharmaceutical safety trials. bY VIctor ZAPANA
PoPScI.coM popular science 13

MEGAPIXELS
A POWERFUL
LESSON
Why you should keep your face
away from big fireworks
This unlucky blast-test dummy was the star of the Consumer
Product Safety Commission’s annual July press event on the
National Mall in Washington. The commission, which regulates
fireworks’ explosive power, here vividly shows the potential
of pyrotechnics for bodily harm. The mannequin’s Styrofoam
head, filled with cornmeal to simulate brains, was close to a
professional-grade explosive, with a “quick match” fuse that
burns almost instantaneously. (Consumer-grade pyrotechnics
have a six-second fuse.) The commission estimates that fire-
works were responsible for 9,000 injuries in the U.S. last year.
Most of the injuries from firecrackers and sparklers are burns
and cuts, but the decapitation demonstration is a reminder that
the night can end in other ways. BY KATIE PEEK
PHOTOGRAPH BY Manuel Balce Ceneta
POW! Consumer-grade fireworks

have 130 milligrams of an explo-
sive called flash powder. Pro-grade
AP PHOTO
pyrotechnics [right] have up to 1,000

times as much.
14 POPULAR SCIENCE OCTOBER 2010

See more amazing images at popsci.com/gallery.
POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 15

WHAT’S NEW
TECH THAT PUTS THE FUTURE IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND
20 22 24
New motion sensors How to charge A boot, jacket and
for videogames an electric car GPS for better hikes
THE HAMMER,
EVOLVEDA cordless nailer powerful enough for the
pros and handy enough for the rest of us
First came rocks. Then hammers.  EASY DRIVER
After that came pneumatic nail This nailer
guns, and then the pneumatic has a magnet
to keep a nail
palm nailer, a hand-sized tool that
in place as it
can pound nails accurately in even pounds, while
tight spaces, such as between wall an LED lights
studs or ceiling joists. But it still your work.
requires an unwieldy hose and air
compressor, and battery-powered
alternatives have lacked the
force that contractors need. The
Milwaukee M12 Palm Nailer is the
first battery-powered version
that’s almost as fast and
powerful as a pneumatic. even sinks five-inch monsters
It gets its oomph called pole-barn spikes. That
from a compact but wide-ranging speed makes it
mighty 12-volt battery and a useful both for pros, who can
motorized piston-like mechanism maneuver it more easily than
that’s larger and more efficient pneumatics, and DIYers, who
than those found in other want a less exhausting way to
automatic hammers. As you hold repair the deck.—Max Fischer
it over a nail, a 3.2-ounce steel
ram (twice as weighty as others)
moves up and down 2,700 times a MILWAUKEE M12 PALM
minute, alternately compressing NAILER
SIZE: 7.5 x 2.5 x 6.5 inches
a spring and then bouncing back
WEIGHT: 3.3 pounds
forcefully to hit a steel post in the NAILS PER CHARGE: up to 100
tip that strikes the nail. It drives 3 1/2-inch (16d) nails
BRIAN KLUTCH
a common two-inch nail in one PRICE: $130

second and a house-supporting GET IT: milwaukeetool.com
31/2-incher in less than two; it

WHAT’S NEW
Chain Reaction
Husqvarna’s new chainsaw keeps itself well-tuned to help minimize
maintenance. It has a sensor that checks conditions, such as outside temperature
and internal airflow, every eight rotations and then adjusts the engine’s fuel-air
mix to make sure the saw doesn’t wear itself out. Husqvarna 576 XP AutoTune
$910; husqvarna.com
Simply Quiet
These active noise-canceling earbuds
Air Check are the first that don’t require an
Monitor carbon monoxide even when in
internal battery to generate the tones
your hotel. This three-ounce detector
that block outside noise. Instead,
shrinks the usual circuit board to
they connect to your iPhone or iPod’s
remain compact, and it has
charging port and take power from the
a ruggedized plastic case to
device’s battery. Blackbox i10
survive rough-and-tumble
$130; blackboxonline.com
baggage handling. First
Head Shot Alert Travel CO Alarm
The Looxcie Bluetooth headset $35; firstalert.com
also records live video from
your perspective and wirelessly In Good Hands
streams it to your cellphone to Two rollers in the back of this chair mimic
save or send instantly to the Web.
Action Capture the fingertip pressure of shiatsu massage.
This point-and-shoot decides for
It has a dual-core processor to Designers collected data from sensors on
itself how many snaps it will take
color-correct its standard-def masseurs’ hands to re-create their techniques.
to get the picture you want. In Burst
video on the fly. Looxcie Panasonic EP-MS40 Massage Sofa Chair
mode, the camera’s processor tracks
$200; looxcie.com $2,500; panasonic.com
how quickly the subject is moving and
chooses to shoot 2, 5 or 10 frames
per second. Panasonic Lumix DMC-
FX700 $400; panasonic.com

Memory with Mettle

LaCie’s USB key can withstand being
submerged in 300-foot-deep water
Steady Cam or run over by a 10-ton truck. A
Nikon’s new camera takes the slickest high-def video of any DSLR. It’s the first
watertight O-ring seals the flash
to continuously and automatically adjust its focus as the subject moves or as
memory inside its tube-shaped alloy
the camera pans from one object to another, such as when filming your kid’s
case made of copper, zinc, aluminum
football game or birthday party. Nikon D3100 $750 (est.); nikon.com
and magnesium. LaCie XtremKey
Crash Landing From $50; lacie.com
This helmet’s dual-layer design
goods
helps save snowboarders from
brain damage. On impact, a pin at
the top breaks to let an inner shell
THE
rotate with your head, so it won't get
slammed around inside the helmet
and bruise your brain. POC Receptor
Backcountry $250; pocsports.com
A dozen great ideas in gear
By Corinne Iozzio
Flash and Carry

This hard drive sits next to your home
computer, but you can easily take selected
files on the go; the drive automatically
syncs with a removable USB stick. When
you return, changes from the road can
overwrite the original file on the hard drive.
Hitachi LifeStudio Desk Plus From $150;
lifestudio.com
Bed Bundle
At nine ounces, Klymit’s six-foot camping
pad weighs 70 percent less than its
competitors. The mat, which rolls up to
the size of a soda can and inflates in
about three breaths, focuses support in
key areas, such as the lower back and
hips, and is hollow in others. Klymit
Inertia-X-Frame $100; klymit.com
Better Blades
Microplane’s herb chopper does the
job of a chef’s knife with a single
wrist twist. The mill has two stacked
circular blades with hundreds of teeth
that slide back and forth to act like
tiny scissors, cleanly mincing herbs
without tearing the leaves. Microplane
Herb Mill $20; microplane.com

SWING INTO ACTION
Motion controllers aim for precision
and fun. Which will make you jump?
How do you make video- wand packs a Wii-like
games more lifelike? speed- and tilt-sensing
Get the players off the accelerometer, a gyroscope
couch. Nintendo’s Wii got to track rotation (such as
families on their feet with a sword’s twist), and a
a controller that senses digital compass. A video
swings and other motions. camera detects the wand’s
In November, Xbox 360 exact position in space: It
fans will rise for Micro- watches the glowing ball
soft’s Kinect. And now Sony as it moves sideways or
wants serious gamers to up and down, and it judges
stand. Its Move is designed depth from the ball’s
for even those who prefer apparent size. All that data
precision shooter games. lets SOCOM 4 warriors use
The system, an add-on the wand to point at targets
to PlayStation 3, combines as if they were beaming a
many measurements. Its laser from their hand.
—Steve Morgenstern
CHEAT
SHEET
Three major
videogame
systems all have
the same goal:
to quickly and
accurately follow
your movement in
three-dimensional
space. But they
achieve it in very
 GET IT: Sony PlayStation Move: $100;
different ways.
PS3 console: From $300; sony.com
Nintendo Wii Microsoft Kinect Sony Move

WHAT IT A controller, using sensors. Accelerometers, Your entire body, using a special camera. Set A controller, using sensors and a camera.
TRACKS and an add-on gyroscope for precision, detect atop the Xbox 360, an infrared projector and Accelerometers and gyroscopes measure
(AND HOW) motion. An infrared emitter gives x-y position. image sensor create a detailed 3-D picture. motion; a camera spots x-y-z position.
STRENGTHS The best games rely on fast, broad, kid-friendly Tracking your whole body, not a handheld Combining many measurements provides a
moves. There are many choices, since most Wii controller, offers physical freedom and allows high degree of accuracy. An optional joystick
games (unlike Xbox or PlayStation) use motion. more motions, such as kicks and exercises. lets you navigate complex games.
BRIAN KLUTCH
WEAKNESSES Pointing precision can be problematic. No Lack of buttons will frustrate shooter fans. Has less free-form magic than Kinect. Not
camera means no augmented-reality games. Debut games are mainly big-gesture sports. including a joystick may limit its use in games.

WHAT’S NEW AUTOMOTIVE COMING SOON
CHARGE!
Mass-market electric cars are mere months away—and
that has charging-dock companies scrambling
Next year the number of electric cars and plug-in
hybrids in America will increase by an order of GE Wattstation
magnitude, and all of those cars will be able to draw Thanks to standards set earlier this year
electricity from any 120-volt wall outlet. Just not very by the Society of Automotive Engineers
quickly. Charging from the wall can take longer than (SAE), charging docks like the GE WattSta-
16 hours. A faster fill-up involves installing a dedi- tion—which arrives next year in both
cated 240-volt “Level II” home charging dock, and to home and public versions—can connect
combat range anxiety—the fear of being stranded to any new EV or plug-in hybrid. Designed
with no electrons and nowhere to plug in—automak- by Yves Béhar, known for his work on
ers want to see these same charging docks installed the One Laptop Per Child computer, the
for public use across the country. So far, the Depart- WattStation delivers a 24-kilowatt-hour
ment of Energy and state and local governments charge, good for approximately 100 miles’
have announced worth of driving range, in four to eight
plans to install hours, for about $3. (You’d spend $12 to
more than 11,000 cover the same distance in a 25-mpg
public chargers in car using $3-a-gallon gas.) On public
19 states. Here’s versions, you can pay with a credit card.
what’s coming. A commercial unit will cost $3,000 to
—Lawrence Ulrich $7,000, with wall-mounted home chargers
closer to $1,500, a blow softened by the
ILLUSTRATION: PAUL WOOTTON; PHOTOGRAPHS, FROM LEFT: COURTESY AEROVIRONMENT; COURTESY GENERAL ELECTRIC
federal tax credit covering half the cost.
ChargePoint Level
III Fast Charger
Level III “fast chargers,” industrial-strength
electron pumps that can fill a battery in 30
minutes or less, will be essential for taking
electric cars mainstream. AeroVironment has
said that covering a metro area will require an
array of public fast-charging stations 10 to 30
percent the size of the local gas-station mar-
ket—250 to 750 chargers in Los Angeles, for
Nissan Home example. The SAE hasn’t agreed on standards
Charging Dock for Level III chargers, and fast chargers are
still several months away. But Coulomb Tech-
Nissan knows how frustrating it will be to fill the Leaf’s hefty 24 kilowatt- nology’s prototype 480-volt DC ChargePoint
hour battery from a 120-volt outlet, so it’s encouraging Leaf buyers to station, which the company developed with
install Level II home charging docks built by AeroVironment, the company Aker Wade Power Technologies, is a vision of
known for its work on GM’s EV1. AeroVironment is training electricians to what’s to come. These chargers handle volt-
inspect drivers’ homes, obtain local permits, and install the 240-volt AC ages so high that they might require a trained
docks, whose 3.3-kilowatt rate can fill the Leaf’s 24-kilowatt-hour bat- attendant to ensure safe fill-ups. Such speedy
tery in four to eight hours. Together, the dock and installation cost roughly charging could finally free EVs from mere
$2,200; half of that is offset by a federal tax credit. commuter-car duty.

WHAT’S NEW RECREATION FULLY LOADED
1. JACKET
WALK THIS WAY

Hiking gear that keeps you safe, comfortable and oriented
The weather-resistant Kishtwar strikes
a good balance—it withstands all but the
worst rains yet doesn’t trap sweat like fully
waterproof shells do. Its fabric, Polartec
Power Shield Pro, contains a polyurethane
membrane woven into irregularly sized
and stacked pores. This maze blocks
Breathable rain gear, carbon-fiber moisture but lets in enough air to vaporize
trekking poles, a $3 map app: Hiking sweat and help it escape. The North Face
technology comes in many forms. Kishtwar $280; thenorthface.com
Here’s what’s arriving just in time for
leaf-peeping season.—Berne Broudy 2. BACKPACK
CamelBak packs, which build in water
containers and straws, just got comfier.
Revamped containers are flat and wide
to spread water evenly, welded in the
center to end side-to-side sloshing,
and held by a strap so they don’t
slump. CamelBak Highwire
$115; camelbak.com
3. POLES
Trekking poles add stability
in tricky spots. These 47-
inch ones fold up small
and light for packing and
extend quickly when
needed. Each 9.5-ounce
stick is made of three
15.6-inch carbon-fiber
tubes, linked by a Kevlar
cord. Pull the handle to
tighten the cord and draw
the tubes together in a snap.
Black Diamond Ultra Distance
$150; blackdiamondequipment.com
4. GPS
The best GPS unit for casual hikers is a
phone. This popular app for the iPhone 3G
or 4 saves open-source topographic maps
and uses the GPS chip and motion sensors
to track location, speed and altitude. An
update shows places en route that have
been geo-tagged on Wikipedia; tap to read
articles. Motion-X GPS $3; motionx.com
5. BOOTS
This boot reduces blisters with curves that
match a foot’s shape, like indentations for
toes in its upper. TrekSta laser-mapped
100,000 feet to create its ultra-detailed
BRIAN KLUTCH
shoemaker’s mold. Bonus: Fiberglass in

the sole grips wet rock. TrekSta Evolution
GTX $130; trekstausa.com

 TEAM SPIRIT
Sports fans
can join a vir-
tual audience MORE INTERACTION
of avatars on You’ll soon be able to watch
Xbox LIVE. live sports on your Xbox 360—
and compete in trivia contests
against other fans. By November,
Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE service will
begin streaming the Web channel
ESPN3. Viewers get access to
interactive features, such as
real-time polls and quizzes at
the bottom of the TV screen, that
are more commonly found in
videogames and social-networking
sites. Next up: additional channels
and a wider range of social
experiences, such as voice chat
among viewers. ESPN3 on Xbox
LIVE Included in $50/year LIVE Gold
membership; xbox.com
HELLO, CONVERGENCE
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY VIZIO; SCREEN: COURTESY MICROSOFT; JAMIE McDONALD/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY GOOGLE
New sets and services finally bring television and Web videos together
TECH TREND EASIER SEARCHING BETTER RECOMMENDATIONS
The next generation of Internet- The Google TV system lets you With the growing variety of Web
connected TVs and set-top boxes swap grid-like program guides for and broadcast programs, the next
make the Web something you surf Google’s familiar search bar. Type in advance is TVs that help you pinpoint
with a remote, not a mouse. a title, and it combs cable schedules, the best parts. Prototype software
shows saved on a DVR and online at the Intel China Research Center
WHY NOW videos, so you can readily watch analyzes video to detect people and
Because an increasing number of content from many places. The events. It spots soccer players by
TVs now stream video from the system also lets you surf the Web their numbers, for example, and
Web, manufacturers are building and run apps, since the hardware can assemble a highlight reel of
interfaces to help you navigate this will have an Intel Atom chip and an goals or let you search for a favorite
sea of content. The Internet link also Android operating system. Google TV star. Similar tech could come to TVs
allows computer-like interactions, Prices not set; google.com/tv within five years. techresearch.intel.com
such as searches, alongside videos.
 GET THE
HOW YOU’LL BENEFIT GOOGLE
Google TV
Think of a show, and you’ll pretty
arrives this fall
much be able to get it. Watch it on on some Sony
cable, Hulu or YouTube, and even TV sets and in
do a little social networking at the an add-on box
same time.—clay dillow by Logitech.

WHAT’S NEW RECREATION TECH REBORN
THE WHEEL TURNS

Stationary exercise machines are now on the move
A new generation of bicycle elliptical

designers has reverse- The ElliptiGO lets bikers climb hills more
engineered classic exercise easily than on a sit-down bike. Its footrests
machines to create innovative slide back and forth on fixed rails like on
ways of getting around town. an elliptical trainer, but this pair transfers
—Mark Anders power to a rear-mounted eight-speed hub
via carbon-fiber arms and an oversize
bike crank. Since the arc of each stride is
climber longer than on a regular bike, there’s more
A rider on the stand-up Dreamslide can zip room to harvest
down the street at 13 mph while putting energy, allowing
out no more effort than a brisk walk. Its bikers to quickly climb
single-speed drivetrain is propelled by 20-degree inclines and
pedals that spin independently of each reach 25 mph on flats.
other and thereby constantly generate ElliptiGO 8S $2,200;
power. Standard sit-down bikes, in elliptigo.com
comparison, have an energy-deficient
dead zone when the pedals are at the top
and bottom of the rotation. Dreamslide
$1,600; dreamslide.com
AROUND TOWN On the collapsible

Dreamslide, commuters can travel
nearly triple their walking speed,
without breaking a sweat.
ROWer
The Rowcycle merges the strength of
both your arms and legs to increase speed
and provide a total-body workout. As you
COURTESY ELLIPTIGO; COURTESY TARASOV

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: DAN SAELINGER;
pull back with your arms and push forward
with your legs, a system of pulleys and
belts, including an extra-strong Kevlar band,
transfers energy to the rear wheel by way
of a standard bicycle-chain drive. Tarasov
Cougar Touring Rowcycle $4,500;
tarasovrowcycle.com

LET’S GO FURTHER ON ONE GALLON OF FUEL.

We must learn to use energy more efficiently. For 25 years, the Shell Eco-marathon® has
supported teams worldwide who explore ways to maximize fuel economy. Last year’s
winner was capable of traveling 8,870 miles on the equivalent of one gallon of fuel.
This spirit epitomizes our relationship with car manufacturers, finding ways to make cars
more efficient. And it’s typical of our ambition to help build a better energy future.
Let’s go. www.shell.us/letsgo
HEADLINES
DISCOVERIES, ADVANCES AND DEBATES IN SCIENCE
30 32 36
Inside the first A pig that makes Japan predicts the
regenerated lung cleaner poop next 30 years
THEORETICAL PHYSICS
DECAYING
GRAVITY New theories test our understanding
of nature’s most elemental force
No one has ever quite nailed down forward in

gravity. Newton saw that bodies time, then
appeared to attract each other at some
even at a great distance, and from moment
this observation was able to con- everything
struct a mathematical formula in the uni-
that predicted the motion of the verse must
planets with astonishing accu- have been
racy. Einstein improved on that gathered into
definition by stating that massive a single point.
objects attract lesser ones by bend- The problem,
ing the space around them—like which has chal-
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: ISTOCK; ERIK P. VERLINDE; OXFORD UNIVERSITY
how a bowling ball deforms the lenged theorists for

surface of a trampoline so that nearly a century, is that
a marble will roll toward it—and Einstein constructed several
based on this insight was able to specific mathematical formulas
construct his theory of general from his general theory, and they
relativity, which proved to be even have proved accurate in describing
more elegant and predictive. nearly everything—except the pro-
But not perfect. Einstein’s theory posed origins of the universe itself.
posits that the universe is expand- When mathematicians reverse the
ing such that each object is moving theory to repackage the universe as
away from everything else, which it was before the big bang, the math
Hubble Space Telescope observa- produces something infinitely small
 WANING INFLUENCE Pedro Ferreira
tions have confirmed. Yet for this and dense. This “singularity” is a [left] proposes modifying Einstein’s
theory to hold, it requires a far more common sign that something in the theory of relativity by limiting gravity’s
complicated conclusion: If every- equation is amiss. “Physicists don’t pull. Erik Verlinde [right] says gravity
thing is moving apart as it goes like infinite numbers because  isn’t a force at all.
JULY 29 The X Prize Foundation announces the Oil Cleanup X Challenge: $1.4 million for the fastest and most efficient ways to skim oil from water.
popsci.com ocToBER 2010 popular science 29

HEADLINES ARTIFICIAL ORGANS HOW TO REMAKE
A LUNG
MADE-TO- PHASE 1: STRIP IT
ORDER LUNGS
Scientists fill a rat lung with a deter-
gent that removes the organ’s cells,
leaving behind only its inanimate
collagen-based scaffiolding. This is
then placed in a standard nutrient-rich
liquid that promotes cell growth.
Scientists grow the first working replacement lung
PHASE 2: BUILD
THE AIRWAYS
In the U.S., people needing a new After just eight days of growth, the Scientists pump epithelial cells extracted
BREATHE EASY lung wait more than a year on aver- lungs were transplanted into yet from baby rat lungs into the trachea
Making age for an organ. That’s often too other rats, where they oxygenated scaffiolding, which leads into other
lungs from long—237 people on the transplant blood 95 percent as well as a nor- empty airways. The cells stick to the
a patient’s list died in 2009. Recent advances mal, healthy organ. scaffiolding and multiply to form the
own cells in cell regeneration, however, Custom-made human lungs are bronchi, bronchioles and alveoli, the
could could someday allow a patient to still years off. To prevent a patient’s tiny air sacs that exchange oxygen
improve “donate” a healthy lung to himself immune system from attack- and carbon dioxide with the blood.
the current in just a month. ing a new organ, doctors need to
15 percent This summer, scientists dem- perform the reseeding step with PHASE 3: CONSTRUCT
10-year onstrated the first functional cells from that patient’s own body; THE VESSELS
suvival rate replacement lung in a rat. The Niklason’s group can’t yet do that Making blood vessels is similar. This
for trans- technique follows what’s becoming even with rats. Figuring out how time, endothelial cells harvested
plantees. a standard practice in regenerative to produce adult stem cells that from rat lungs are injected into the
medicine, but the lung is the most will develop into the correct types scaffiolding of the lung’s pulmonary
complex organ copied so far. Bio- of lung cells and not form tumors artery. The cells grow to form the
medical engineer Laura Niklason’s has proved difficult, although other lung’s veins, arteries and capillaries.
group at Yale University removed researchers have made progress
a rat’s lungs and stripped away the with other cell types. Niklason
cells, leaving an inanimate scaffold thinks it will take about 20 years
of collagen and other connective tis- before she can rejuvenate a human
sue. They seeded the scaffold with lung, but she intends to see it
malleable lung cells harvested from through. As she puts it, “I didn’t get
other rats, which multiplied to form into this to make lungs for rats.”
new airways and blood vessels. —VicTor Zapana
”
they imply a solution that isn’t very Infeld action, which describes
physical,” says Nikodem Poplawski,
a gravitational theorist at Indiana
electromagnetism. With Born-Infeld
conditions in place, Ferreira and EINSTEIN’S
University. But this summer, two Bañados were able to replicate
THEORY OF GRAVITY
IS SIMPLER. BUT
physicists may have figured out how Einsteinian gravity in normal
to bring order to Einstein’s universe. situations, and they were also
SOMETIMES THE
Astrophysicists Maximo consistent with the conditions
Bañados and Pedro Ferreira of scientists have observed about
the University of Oxford replaced the origins of the universe.
SIMPLEST IDEA ISN’T
GRAHAM MURDOCH
”
the Einstein-Hilbert action—the According to Ferreira and Baña-
equation from which all of general
relativity’s other equations are
dos, gravity is not strong enough to
crumple the universe’s mass into an
THE BEST ONE.
derived—with a modified Born- infinitely dense point, but with the
JULY 29 The Population Reference Bureau, an independent research group, estimates that the world’s population will exceed seven billion next year, and eight billion by 2024.
30 popular science ocToBER 2010

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
Epithelial cells
PHASE 3
Trachea
Bronchioles
Pulmonary
artery Alveoli
Blood
Endothelial cells vessels
Bronchi
limit they placed on gravity, it could gravitational waves left over from terms, and gravity coupled to a
have compressed the universe into the early universe could validate ‘chameleon field’ that makes the
an extremely small ball. Rather than the work, Ferreira says. “Einstein’s strength of gravity different near
emerging from a point, that ball may theory is simpler,” he admits. “But matter than in a vacuum. The recent
have been the densest part of an sometimes the simplest idea isn’t appearance of so many theories
ongoing process, in which a previ- the best one.” may be a sign of a field on the verge
ous universe had collapsed in on “It’s a good step toward improv- of a breakthrough. Indeed, Erik
itself, “bounced” against the limits ing our understanding of gravity,” Verlinde of the University of Amster-
of density, and then expanded again Poplawski says. But as it stands, the dam argues that gravity is not a
to become our current universe. Or, theory is less developed than other force at all but rather an “emerg-
after its initial growth, the universe alternatives to Einstein’s gravity. ing condition.” As he told the New
may have paused before expanding There’s gravity in higher dimen- York Times in July, “For me, gravity
as it does today. Future analysis of sions, gravity with extra curvature doesn’t exist.”—JoN LAcKmAN
AUGUST 5 A homemade computer in Japan calculates the most digits of pi ever: five trillion decimal places, beating the previous record by more than two trillion.
popsci.com popular science 31

HEADLINES THE ANNOTATED PIG
3
2
GREENER
BACON
A bioengineered pig that
excretes fewer pollutants
INSIDE THE
This little piggy went to market. FRESHER WATER when Cecil Forsberg, a biologist at
This little piggy stayed home. Elevated phos- the University of Guelph in Ontario,
ENVIROPIG
And this little piggy is genetically phorus levels genetically modified pigs so that
modified to poop less phosphorus, in water, often their salivary glands would secrete
making it the most environmen- traceable to pig- phytase. This allows the pigs, now in
tally friendly pig in the world. waste runoff, their eighth generation, to get their 1. MAKE THE ENZYME
Like all animals, pigs’s cells are a major con- phosphate from grains alone, and to As the pig chews, the Escherichia coli
need phosphorus to make DNA, tributor to algal excrete about 40 percent less of it. genes implanted in its salivary glands
build cell membranes, and trans- blooms that Switching to Enviropig herds will begin promoting phytase production.
port energy. But pigs can’t digest steal oxygen be expensive for farmers, Forsberg
phytate, a phosphorus-heavy mol- from fish and says, but in the long run subtracting 2. BREAK UP THE
ecule in grains, so farmers fortify render drinking supplements will save $1.75 per pig POLLUTANT
pig feed with pure phosphate or water toxic. annually—a windfall for a 100,000- Phytase begins breaking phytate into
phytase, an enzyme that breaks pig farm. He is currently petitioning digestible phosphate in the mouth, but
usable phosphate off phytate. Still, the U.S. Department of Agriculture it really ramps up its activity when it
pigs excrete nearly all the phos- and Health Canada for permission hits the stomach’s strong acid.
phorus they eat, and this washes to serve Enviropig meat. “Unfortu-
into the ocean, where it feeds bac- nately, it is illegal for us to do taste 3. POOP AND PEE AWAY!
teria and algae that create oxygen tests at this time, despite the temp- Because they don’t need phosphate
“dead zones,” a major killer of tation,” he says. “But I expect they’ll supplements, Enviropigs excrete 30 to
MITCH ROMANOWSKI
marine wildlife. taste quite good.”—BJORN CAREY 65 percent less phosphorus.

The Enviropig is the first
swine (a Yorkshire, to be exact)
able to digest phytate on its own.
The project started a decade ago
OCTOBER 4 The Census of Marine Life releases the results of a decade-long project to identify every species in the ocean and determine their location and abundance.

THIS MAGAZINE PUTS OUT ITS BEST ISSUE

EVERY MONTH. YOU HAVE TO RESPECT
THAT COMMITMENT TO QUALITY.
THAT KIND OF INTEGRITY ISN’T LOST

ON A TRANE. IT PUTS ITS BEST AIR
FORWARD EVERY MONTH. REMOVING UP
TO 99.98% OF DUST, DANDER, BACTERIA,
MOLD, SMOKE AND OTHER AIRBORNE
POLLUTANTS OUT OF YOUR HOME’S
FILTERED AIR. AIR AFICIONADO.
THAT’S A TRANE ALL RIGHT.
RELIABLE, ENERGY-EFFICIENT, CLEAN AIR FOR THE HOME. trane.com
© 2010 Trane. All rights reserved.

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HEADLINES FORECAST
TOMORROW IN JAPAN
Space tourism,
artificial organs, FORESIGHT
and butler SURVEY
2020 2033
’bots—we look at Thin, flexible electronic displays
Japan’s forecasts replace newspapers.
Stem-cell techniques can 2033
produce artificial organs. Computers evaluate
of its future POPsCI Comparison policy recommendations
2022
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SCIENCE SOURCE/PHOTO RESEARCHERS; JOHN B. CARNETT; NASA; COURTESY MARK GREENBERG/VIRGIN GALACTIC; COURTESY APTERA MOTORS; iSTOCK
At the Wake Forest Institute for and institutional plans.
In 21 years, vacationers will
Synthetic blood Regenerative Medicine, scientists
sip mojitos while watching the
makes donation have made a transplantable artifi-
sun set over the far side of the
unnecessary. cial bladder and are working on 22
planet from the comfort of an
human tissues and organs, says 2035
orbital hotel—that, at least,
director Anthony Atala. His group Commercial flights are 100
is according to a panel of 40 2023
has made nickel-size working percent autopilot.
Japanese scientists. In June, Doctors use medicine
hearts, but it could take decades POPsCI Comparison
the Japanese government to control any cancer.
to make sure all new organs can The software will be ready in
released its Foresight Survey,
safely integrate into the body. 5 to 10 years, says Michael
which since 1971 has polled
the country’s top minds to map 2025 Toscano, director of the Asso-
Electric cars travel 310 miles on ciation of Unmanned Vehicle
out Japan’s advances over the
a single charge. Systems, but we’ll probably
next 30 years. Past surveys
have made some accurate POPsCI Comparison never see an unmanned JFK–
With continued improve- LAX flight. Although the Federal
projections. In 1997 the futur-
ments to the energy density Aviation Administration’s Next-
ists said that Internet-based
of lithium-ion batteries, 310 Gen air-traffic-management
phone service would exist in
system will switch planes to
2003, the year Skype debuted. miles will be “feasible by 2018, 2031
and very doable by 2025,” says satellite navigation, which
They’ve had some misses, Earth-orbiting space
Donald Hillebrand, the director could help control autopilot
too: In 1992, they thought sightseeing tours
of transportation research at systems, the FAA currently
scientists would create an go on sale.
Argonne National Laboratory. says that commercial flights
HIV vaccine in 2002. (Possible
In 20 years, though, lithium-air will always be human-flown.
vaccines are only in clinical
batteries, in which lithium and
trials.) Here, Japan’s future, 2030
oxygen react to generate elec-
with a few footnotes from our A.I. is able to form 2035
stable of experts for good tricity, could produce five times
opinions on movies, Scientists extract
measure.—VICTOR ZAPANA as much energy as a lithium-
books and art. uranium and other rare
ion battery of similar mass.
elements from seawater.
2028
Smellovision—televisions that 2037
produce tastes and smells— Seismologists can predict
grace every living room. earthquakes above a magnitude
of 6 up to a year in advance.
2026 2040
Domestic humanoids Earthlings establish a
 ALMOST THERE The three- become common. manned lunar base.
wheeled Aptera 2e covers 100
miles on a single battery charge.
OCTOBER 22 The Orionids meteor shower peaks, with the best views in the morning. Traveling 42 miles per second, some meteors may make green streaks in the atmosphere.

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FielDWorK
TWISTED How 140 scientists set a 1,000-square-mile

tornado trap and pulled off the world’s most
ambitious weather experiment
By Corey Binns
GETTING CLOSER One of the 50 vehicles that

make up VORTEX2, on the hunt in Kansas
38 POPULAR SCIENCE ocToBer 2010

popsci.coM POPULAR SCIENCE 39

FielDWorK
The world’s biggest 1

tornado hunt is stuck. I’m at
an improvised command center in
the conference room of the Holiday
Inn Express in Perry, Oklahoma,
and 35 scientists are trying to decide
where, on this cloudy May morning,
to deploy the 50 equipment-
2
laden trucks parked outside. The
first major storm system of the
expedition is forming southwest of us, in Texas, and it’s
likely to lead to supercells, massive rotating thunderstorms
that may in turn spin off one or more twisters. Very
promising. But Lou Wicker, a team leader from the National
Severe Storms Laboratory, sees a problem. He looks up from
a radar screen. “Fifty miles per hour,” he says. Too fast.
The popular image of the is anxious to head out. Only about
tornado hunt is of a few trucks 1,000 tornadoes are reported in
speeding across the plains, dirt the U.S. every year, and that rarity
flying, in pursuit of monster is the central challenge of storm
funnels, but Wicker’s project, the chasing. Tornadoes touch down
second Verification of the Origin of unexpectedly, do terrible damage,
Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment, and disappear. Researchers have
known as VORTEX2, calls for a sparse data to rely on while trying
very different kind of chase. The to determine where and when the
goal of the two-year, $12-million next one will strike. This makes
government field experiment is not chasing them hard, and offering
NAtioNAl severe storms lABorAtory; PrecediNG PAGes: chris schwArZ/UNiversity of oklAhomA

simply to get close to a tornado, reliable warnings even harder.
clockwise from toP left: sUsAN coBB/NoAA/Nssl; JohN oAklANd/NoAA/Nssl; michAel coNiGlio/
but to surround it and capture In fact, 70 percent of tornado LaGrange, Wyoming. It was a
enough data to accurately re-create warnings are false alarms. As a major catch but, as Wurman says,
it in a computer model. With an result, people tend to take the next “one tornado is not enough.”
armada of trucks and vans, 140 warning far less seriously. “We Wicker puts his finger on a
crew members and several tons of detect rotation, and we issue a map. “Here,” he says, pointing
gear—from 40-foot-tall portable warning because we’re scared not to the predicted center of storm
radio masts to weather balloons to,” says Don Burgess, a team leader activity, a spot about 40 miles to
to an unmanned aerial vehicle— who works part-time as a research the east. Because most tornadoes
success requires far more than meteorologist at the University lumber along at about 15 mph,
just daredevil driving. It requires a of Oklahoma. the typical chase strategy is to
great deal of methodical planning, In trying to improve the drive alongside them and deploy
which in turn requires a great situation, the VORTEX2 team sensors and instruments to
deal of advance information. “It’s is faced with a chicken-and- collect data on the fly. But a fast-
tough to do even on days with slow egg quandary: Intercepting moving storm calls for much
storms,” says Josh Wurman, a team more tornadoes requires better different maneuvering. The team
leader from the Center for Severe prediction models, but better members must spread out quickly,
Weather Research. “It’s bordering prediction models require Wicker explains, get ahead of the
on impossible on a day like today.” intercepting more tornadoes. storm, and set up a perimeter of
Now, with a mere five weeks When VORTEX2 completed last instruments capable of measuring
left before the storm-chasing year’s hunt, the team had managed whatever happens within an area
season ends, the VORTEX2 team to surround only one twister, in of about 1,000 square miles and

3 4 5
G THE TRAP
“It’s dIffIcult to chase 50-mIle-

The VORTEX2 Wurman looks at the trucks
team relies
and shakes his head. “We’ve duct-
per-hour storms when you’re

on dozens
of weather taped a lot of broken parts on my
instruments trucks in the past 10 years,” he says,
by yourself, let alone wIth 50 to document “but this is just about the worst
from left: NoAA; texAs tech UNiversity; JohN oAklANd/NoAA/Nssl
tornado possible scenario.”
vehIcles,” says lou wIcker.

behavior.
Above: [1] why chase?
Minivans with The VORTEX project is the
roof-mounted
then wait for a tornado to spin through it. Still, he cautions, even with weather
world’s most ambitious effort to
several hours’ preparation and a large footprint, surrounding a moving sensors, [2] understand tornadoes. When the
disaster area will not be easy. “It’s difficult to chase 50-mile-per-hour stationary National Severe Storms Laboratory
storms when you’re by yourself, let alone with 50 vehicles,” he says. “With sensor pods, conducted the original VORTEX
this many people, it’s like trying to run errands with a car full of kids who [3] Doppler- field experiments in 1994 and
all have to take bathroom breaks at different times.” radar trucks, 1995, Wicker and Wurman,
At the moment, better drivers would help too. A technician interrupts [4] “sticknet” along with meteorologists Harold
wind gauges,
the meeting to announce that there’s been an accident, and Wurman Brooks and Don Burgess, became
[5] a communi-
heads to the parking lot to assess the damage. In all of the preparatory cations truck. the first scientists to surround
rush, one of the fleet’s 10 Doppler-radar trucks has backed into another, a tornado with radar trucks.
damaging the connection between the radars and the internal computers, With their “Doppler on wheels,”
an essential part of both trucks. Repairs could take hours. they were able to capture rare

FielDWorK
HoW To CATCH A ToRNAdo

ground-level views of tornadoes
and document for the first time
a twister’s entire life cycle.
But fundamental questions
remain. For example, why do RANGE
funnels form in the first place, 0 miles 3 miles
and what makes some tornadoes
strong while others are barely
a wisp? What fuels them? By
understanding the basic mechanics
of twisters, Wicker and his team
are looking to improve tornado-
warning times from 13 minutes
to 50 and, ultimately, mitigate
property damage and save lives.
VORTEX2 includes more To catch a twister, the VoRTEX2 Field-command unit
researchers, new mobile weather team deploys a variety of vehicles
sensors and improved forecasting and sensors in the area where they
techniques. The revamped effort think a funnel will touch down. The Sticknet
is already paying off. Last year’s long-band radar stays about 15 Pods
catch in LaGrange is the most miles distant from the storm and
extensively documented tornado looks at the entire rotating storm
in history. This month, scientists system. Short-band radar strays
will meet in Colorado to divide within a few miles of the developing
the data for analysis. From there, funnel cloud and gets a good shot
one of the big goals is to develop of the tornado itself. Rapid-scan
dozens of computer models that radar takes sweeping images of
will run simultaneously, analyzing the storm, once every two minutes
real-time storm data on a minute- or so. UAVs and weather balloons
by-minute basis, each of them collect aerial data—the weather bal-
calculating different inputs: bigger loons provide real-time data to help
raindrops, heavier winds, greater meteorologists in the field-command
Short-band
humidity. The combined results unit track the storm’s movements.
radar
would generate far more specific
guesses about future conditions, so
that weather forecasters confronted
by, say, a supercell formation 10 The VORTEX2 solution is to get closer and record the supercell
miles north of Chicago could avoid from every conceivable angle. A radio-controlled unmanned plane
issuing a blanket warning for canvasses the clouds, collecting data on the streams of air that feed the
the entire metropolitan area and supercell. Team members drive vehicles with roof-mounted instruments
instead announce more-accurate underneath the storm to sample conditions like temperature and
probabilities for a far smaller area. humidity. Video cameras mounted on tornado-resistant platforms
Today’s severe-weather photograph activity inside the funnel.
warnings draw heavily on The robust storm forecasts that should result from this kind of
data gathered by NEXRAD, the surveillance will deliver better storm warnings and also improve
network of 159 stationary Doppler airport flight patterns, forest-fire indexes and city planning. They could
radars operated by the National even lower electricity bills. Utility companies rely on storm warnings
Weather Service. But stationary to determine how much electricity they need to generate, and if the
radar is often too far away forecasts are wrong, the companies must buy energy at the last minute at
from thunderstorms. Its signals a premium, passing the cost on to consumers. “I wouldn’t be surprised,”
spread out like a flashlight beam, Brooks says, “if we look back 30 years from now and the models turn out
becoming more diffuse the farther to be, from a societal standpoint, more important than anything to do
they go. Radar also travels along with tornado warnings.”
in a single plane, so it misses the This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will
DAVVI.COM
lower regions of the atmosphere as begin upgrading NEXRAD with new dual-polarization radars, already a
the Earth curves away beneath it. standard part of VORTEX2’s armament, which send out horizontal and

Tools of the Trade
THE HomEmAdE
ToRNAdo TANk
A tornado can pack as much kinetic energy
as a bomb, so veteran storm chaser Reed
15 miles Timmer and his team, who star in the
Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers,
built themselves a four-ton tank dubbed
the Dominator to stay safe on the job.
The team started by gutting a 2007
Chevy Tahoe and then wrapped it in a
16-gauge-steel shell. To fortify the sheet
metal, they sprayed it with a quarter-inch-
thick, bulletproof combination of Kevlar
and polyurethane called Rhino Lining.
Long-band “You can hit it with a sledgehammer,
radar and it’ll bounce right back,” Timmer
says. They also installed bulletproof
windows made of half-inch-thick sheets
of polycarbonate, plastic that’s strong
UAV enough to withstand hailstones the
Rapid-scan size of watermelons and debris flying
radar Weather at speeds of up to 150 miles an hour.
balloon When heading into storms, the crew
straps in with five-point safety harnesses
fit for Nascar, although Timmer admits
that during a chase, he’s often too busy
launching weather probes from miniature
potato guns to buckle up. (He can track
the probes on his laptop as they measure
GPS position, temperature, pressure and
moisture five times a second.) If wind
speeds reach 100 mph and threaten to
Mesonet toss the truck, the crew flips a James
Bond-style switch to activate battery-
powered hydraulics that lower Dominator
vertical microwaves to read the sky of Rhode Island. But at 10:30 a.m., to the ground. A rubber sheath around the
more accurately and distinguish we’re still organizing in the hotel truck’s bottom flares out and creates a
among snow, ice and raindrops. parking lot. Finally, at 11, Wicker vacuum seal to keep out debris and help
A project is also in the works rushes me and one of his graduate anchor the vehicle. And, as tanks go, the
to outfit cellphone towers and students into a minivan, and we Dominator sips fuel, getting 14 miles to
rooftops across the country with drive off, later followed by two of the gallon.—coreY Binns
thousands of Doppler units. For the 10 radar trucks that make up
now, though, the best way to find the mobile Doppler system. We are
tornadoes is still to get in a truck headed for the northern border of
and go look for them. “I don’t think the grid, about 25 miles distant,
we’ll ever be doing this work from where our radar dishes will trace
armchairs,” Wicker says. the storm from afar.
The technicians, meanwhile,
SETTING THE TRAP have managed to repair the
Wicker and other leaders have damaged radar trucks, which are
made their best guess: The storm now headed 40 miles southeast
will strike northeast of Oklahoma of us toward Stroud, closer to
Dick McGowan
City by 4 p.m., leaving the crew just the center of the grid. Individual
a few hours to perfectly position Doppler-radar data sets are useful
50 vehicles across a grid the size to track [continued oN page 87]

Four visions for inhabiting a transformed world

problem
RISING SEAS Photovoltaic

panels
solution: City(e)scape
DESIGNERS: MUSTAFA BULGUR AND SINAN GUNAY
Environmental disruptions and technological advances have always
influenced where and how people live. Early humans may have left
Africa after rapid fluctuations in rainfall destroyed their food supply,
and the opening up of the American Southwest occurred roughly in
parallel with improvements in air-conditioning technology. In the
decades ahead, a warming planet and a booming population will again
alter where we live and how we construct our homes.
The most immediately disruptive force could be a rapid rise in
sea levels. A coalition of scientists from Denmark, England and Finland
predicted last year that by the end of this century, melting ice and
thermal expansion will drive up the world’s sea levels by more than Water-storage tank Agricultural module
three feet. It’s unclear how many people that would displace, but
the damage could be vast—approximately 10 percent of the world’s
population lives in coastal areas lower than 30 feet above sea level. photochromic Plexiglas, which adjusts its translucency according to the
Land that remains above water will face increasingly frequent storm strength of the sun. The remaining surfaces would be covered with spiky
surges and flooding. The residents of coastal cities could head for eight-inch-thick photovoltaic panels. (The spikes, Bulgur says, generate
higher land, or they could do something distinctly more drastic: They more energy than standard flat panels, because they increase the surface
could add a second city above the water. area of the solar collector.) Each unit would contain its own “agricultural
New York City, for instance, is an archipelago that could lose as module”—a tall column of soil, held together by a silicone net, that would
much as a fifth of its landmass by 2080. But Mustafa Bulgur and Sinan provide fresh fruit and vegetables and also help insulate the house. A tank
Gunay, recent graduates of Istanbul Technical University’s architecture would store more than 5,000 gallons of freshwater from the citywide supply,
school, suggest that New Yorkers could make up the lost housing by which itself would use highly efficient desalination processes to transform
stringing cables between existing skyscrapers and suspending some the source of the city’s trouble into its nourishment.
600,000 prefabricated homes among them. By tethering a cable over Other architects have proposed a different approach: homes that
the flooded streets and avenues—and even extending those cables out require no land at all. Zigloo, a firm in Canada, envisions a narrow
to structural towers in New York Harbor—it would be possible, they say, underwater skyscraper, deeper than the Empire State Building is tall, that
to safely house up to 2.5 million people. by collecting rain for freshwater and using sun and wind for power would
The homes themselves, most of them no larger than 800 square provide a self-sufficient home for 2,000 people (zigloo.ca). Gro Architects
feet, would be made from lightweight titanium plates and held together in New York proposes harvesting tidal motion to power a network of
by even lighter-weight carbon nanotubes. Each would be secured to floating single-family homes (groarc.com). And with the Sub Biosphere 2,
its support cables by powerful electromagnets. It will be hotter in architect Phil Pauley imagines a completely submergible habitat for as
2080, too, so the northern and southern facades would be covered in many as 200 daring aquanauts (philpauley.com).

BY Suzanne LABarre
WAKE OF THE FLOOD Circa 2080,

New Yorkers could live in some
600,000 modular apartments
strung along structural cables
and held in place by powerful
electromagnets. The support
cables would be attached to the
city’s existing skyscrapers.
NICK KALOTERAKIS

MONUMENTAL SQUATTING The architect Stéphane
Malka proposes taking over La Grande Arche de la
Défense in an overcrowded Paris of the future.
KEVIN HAND

problem
OVERPOPULATION
solution: Auto-Défense
DESIGNER: already have been anchored to
STÉPHANE MALKA the interior facade of the arch,
In 2008, for the first time, more and locked into place by means of
than 50 percent of the people simple mortise-and-tenon joints.
on Earth lived in cities. This was In La Défense, the units could be
good news for the environment; stacked as many as 25 high, but
New Yorkers, for example, have Malka’s design could be applied
a carbon footprint that is a third to the side of any building.
of that of their suburban and To get in and out of their
country-dwelling counterparts. homes, residents could catch
But that population shift will also elevators among the offices
present major challenges. By on either side of the arch—the
2030, some five billion people two sides of the arch would be
are expected to live in cities, connected by elevated catwalks
up from more than 3.3 billion supported by suspension
this year—and those cities cables—and move from house to
are expected to be packed. In house by way of more catwalks,
the 2000 national census, for attached to the scaffold itself.
instance, New York City had a Malka’s vision of close-
density of 26,400 people per packed homes has precedent,
square mile. In 2030 that number particularly in Japan, where
is expected to be about 30,000. small-space living has been
New construction will common for decades. In 1952 the
help to alleviate some of the architect Makoto Masuzawa built
crowding, but Stéphane Malka the 538-square-foot Minimum
has another idea: to make better House. Architect Makoto Koizumi
use of the buildings that are revived the design, which can
already there. Malka, a 35-year- house a family of five, in 2002;
old French architect, proposes the Tokyo firm Boo-Hoo-Woo
taking over La Grande Arche currently produces a line of
de la Défense, a 361-foot-tall 15 different dwellings for tiny
office building and monument urban lots based on Koizumi’s
to national brotherhood in revival of the Minimum House
Paris. It’s the perfect building (9tubohouse.com/eng). In
to showcase a system of infill Amsterdam, Keetwonen, a
design. In Malka’s vision, the high-density dormitory made
arch’s hollow belly transforms of shipping containers, already
into a colony of 450 388-square- houses students in 1,000 studio
foot prefab apartments. apartments (tempohousing
Auto-Défense, as he calls the .com). And someday, when even
project, relies on basic modular Los Angeles needs to give up
assembly. Housing units would its sprawling ways, architect
be prefabricated from steel, glass Houston Drum will be ready with
and wood facades stripped from his design for the 25-Hour City,
other buildings, then flat-packed a 1,900-foot-high multi-tower
and delivered to the arch by skyscraper that houses 800,000
truck. On arrival, they would be Angelinos at 26 times the city’s
maneuvered into a structural current population density
scaffolding, which itself would (houstondrum.com).

THE OASIS The Positive Impact
House harvests energy and
water from the environment
for self-sufficient living.
SURPLUS POWER
Roof-mounted
solar cells and
eggbeater tur-
bines together
generate
KEVIN HAND
nearly twice the

house’s daily
energy needs.

BREEZEWAY In the hottest

months, a fan draws air
through a naturally cool-
ing underground tunnel
into the basement, where it
rises into the house by way
of floor vents. Meanwhile,
18-inch-thick, rammed-
earth walls help keep
the house cool during the
day and warm at night.
problem
DESERTIFICATION
solution: Positive Impact House
DESIGNER: ROBERT PERRY metal coils, which attract condensation that is to magnify solar rays by a factor of as much as
One of the paradoxes of global warming is that even then funneled into a purifying holding tank. (The 2,000, would be capable of generating all of the
as it leads to flooding in some parts of the world, desert air is moister than you might think; Dubai, 80 kilowatt-hours of electricity the homeowners
it will lead to severe water shortages in others. for example, averages 80 percent relative humidity consume daily. Eggbeater wind turbines on the
According to the United Nations, climate change is at certain times of day in January.) Two generators roof would produce another 40 kilowatt-hours. The
likely to reduce rainfall in drylands, which cover would produce enough freshwater for drinking and extra energy would help with any sudden need for
41 percent of the land on Earth, including much of showering, and the shower water would be recycled additional power, but on a normal day they could
the American West. In 2007, the U.N. estimated that for use in flushing toilets and growing food. (A pump it back into the grid, thereby generating
desertification could eventually affect some one related composting system would also generate income. In the U.S, a homeowner sending 40
billion people in at least 100 countries. biogas for cooking.) kilowatt-hours of energy to the grid every day would
Yet architect Robert Perry of Studied Impact Most of the year, the natural flow of air through earn as much as $3,000 annually.
Design, which operates out of Pittsburgh and Dubai, the house’s windows would be enough to cool it. Nearly all of this technology is in small-scale
proposes that deserts need not be unlivable, or But during the hottest months, a fan would draw hot use today. A nonprofit group called FogQuest is
even uncomfortable. His Positive Impact House, a outdoor air into an underground chamber, where harvesting fog to provide water to Ethiopian villages.
3,200-square-foot single-family home, is not only the temperature is 50ºF to 60º year-round, and then In Zimbabwe, the Eastgate Centre shopping mall uses
designed to draw enough water and cool air from the into the basement and up through floor vents. As the huge, perforated, chimney-shaped structures to draw
environment to sustain five people, it will also send cool air warms back up again, it rises and escapes air in from the outside. (Zimbabwe is hot, but air that
energy back into the grid. through a 200-square-foot interior courtyard, whose moves is cooler than stagnant air.) And in Orange
The water comes by way of an atmospheric slim vertical cavity would create a wind tower. County, California, the Groundwater Replenishment
water generator, similar to commercial units The 24 panels of roof-mounted, sun-tracking, System makes sewer water suitable for drinking
used today. These devices run refrigerant through concentrated photovoltaics, which use lenses (gwrsystem.com).

KEVIN HAND

problem
POLLUTION
solution: Sustainable Habitat 2020
DESIGNER: PHILIPS DESIGN suction-cup-shaped “funnels,” it forms a
In the coming decades, advances in pollution membrane between the indoors and outdoors
control may not be enough to counteract that controls the inflow of light, air and water.
the air- and water-poisoning effects of The funnels are embedded with
dual explosions in population and energy photovoltaic cells and sensors, which track
consumption. Within 20 years the number of humidity, wind direction, and the brightness
cars in the world will rise to two billion, and and angle of the sun. As the sensors detect
GREEN HOUSE Air-cleaning, solar-energy- most of them will be powered by gasoline or changing weather conditions, they direct the
harvesting, water-capturing funnels coat the diesel. By 2100 air quality in Southern California funnels to change into the most effective
Sustainable Habitat 2020 apartment building. is expected to violate federal standards 50 shape for the task at hand. For example, on
The funnels change shape to make most efficient
more days a year than it does now. Pollution clear days, the funnels follow the path of the
use of prevailing weather conditions.
will be particularly vexing in fast-developing sun like flowers, transmitting light indoors
countries like China, which according to the and generating enough solar power to provide
World Bank is already home to 20 of the 30 all the building’s electricity. (Energy stored
most polluted cities in the world. In one third during the day is used for lighting at night.)
of China’s cities, for example, the groundwater When it rains, the funnels change shape
is contaminated. Buildings are part of the to become water-capturing cups. As rain
problem too. The nonprofit group Architecture trickles into the cones, the water is pumped
2030 estimates that the residential-building to a cell structure behind the facade, where
sector is responsible for about a fifth of it is filtered, stored, and channeled into a
global greenhouse-gas emissions. closed-loop system in which everything,
In response to these challenges, designers even toilet water, gets recycled. When it’s
at the Dutch electronics giant Philips imagined breezy, the funnels elongate into a trumpet
Sustainable Habitat 2020, an apartment shape—a natural wind tunnel that directs air
building engineered to make life healthy even through a filter and then indoors. (When it’s
in the smoggiest urban environment. “The sunny and breezy, the funnels multitask.)
question we’re posing is a depressing one,” Other architects have begun working
says Clive van Heerden of Philips Design. “At on projects in the same spirit as Sustainable
this rate of urbanization, what do you do if Habitat 2020. The San Francisco firm
the pessimists are right? How do we begin IwamotoScott Architecture, for example,
to start making buildings sustainable?” has proposed a low-rise dwelling called
The high-rise apartment tower, composed the Jellyfish House for a decommissioned
of hundreds of 431-square-foot units, is military base on San Francisco Bay’s
intended for future Chinese megacities. The Treasure Island. The project’s creators say
multifunctional exterior skin is the most the house, with its permeable skin, will be
important part of the structure. Dotted with like a living creature (iwamotoscott.com).
CELL WALLS The translucence of

exterior wall cells [at right] can be
adjusted by touch. The interior wall
[blue] works as a water tank, purifying
and storing rainwater captured by the
funnels on the apartment’s exterior.

THE DEVELOPER Robert Vicino at the

entrance to his Terra Vivos underground
shelter network near Barstow, California

SEPTEMBER 2010


BATHROOM LIVING MODULE

SELLING POINTS Each Vivos bunker,
Vicino says, will allot 100 square ENTERTAINMENT ROOM
feet of space to each resident; each
8-by-10-foot bedroom sleeps four.
Meals will consist of freeze-dried
Army-style food, with vegetables
grown in a hydroponic garden.
BEDROOM
READY TO
To reach the world’s first everything- WEAR When surface fires, and three weeks beneath any flood. Vicino
disaster
proof underground luxury community, I drive east out says that a soon-to-be-installed air-filtration system
strikes, Vicino
of Barstow, California, 50 or so miles into the Mojave says, you will also neutralize any biological, chemical or nuclear
Desert, then turn down an unmarked gravel road, park won’t have attacks. The Barstow branch will stock enough food
in a barren lot surrounded by razor wire, enter what time to pack, and clothing to sustain 135 people for at least a year,
appears to be a small cinderblock garage, and walk so Vivos and in a lifestyle that Vicino describes as compact but
down two steep flights of reinforced-concrete stairs, bunkers will luxurious, like being on a cruise ship. Getting on board
at which point the project’s enthusiastic promoter, be stocked requires a $5,000 deposit, he says, to be held in escrow
with casual
Robert Vicino, greets me with an outstretched hand, until the bunker is ready to move into, at which point
attire, shoes
slams a 3,000-pound blast door behind us, and asks this and plenty of the remainder is due. As of August, several hundred
question: “Do you have a family?” underwear. people had put their money down for a spot in one of
Then: Do I have life insurance? Would I like to When it’s time his bunkers, he says; 75 for Barstow thus far.
have 10 times the life insurance I already have? Would to leave, you’ll Vicino has always had a taste for offbeat business
I like to have something even better? Because I can. get sturdy ventures. In 1977, at the age of 22, he pioneered the
The structure in which we are now standing was built outdoor “giant inflatables” advertising medium by building
by AT&T in 1965 to protect telephone infrastructure apparel to a giant inflatable Jose Cuervo bottle for the liquor
survive the
from a nuclear attack, but now it can protect something company to display at events. Within five years, he
wilderness.
far more important: me and my loved ones. For just says, he had 200 Fortune 500 clients. After he had done
$50,000 each—half off for kids—I can buy a fractional everything he could do in the inflatables sector, he sold
share of the Terra Vivos underground shelter network, his company and began a new venture, speculating
a project that will include at least 19 more “community in fractional shares of resort homes from Europe to
bunkers,” each of them located within 150 to 200 miles Hawaii. (A fractional share is like a timeshare, except
of a major American city. Terra Vivos is a concrete- that buyers actually own a piece of the title.)
and-steel solution to the end times, whether brought The idea to build and sell post-apocalyptic bunkers
about by climate change or nuclear war or even an weighed on Vicino for many years before he acted. In
unavoidable realignment of the cosmic order. Wherever 1980 he saw a replica of the Mayan calendar, the ancient
I happen to be at that terrible moment, I’ll have a place stone carving that predicts that the world will end on
COURTESY TERRAVIVOS.COM
to live the morning after. “I’m not selling life insurance,” December 21, 2012. Vicino recalls the moment clearly.
Vicino explains. “I’m providing life assurance.” “It just gave me this gut-wrenching feeling that I needed
The physical specifications required to assure life to convert a mine to a shelter for 1,000 people with
are striking. The Barstow bunker was built to withstand everything you’d need to survive for a long period of
a 50-megaton nuclear blast 10 miles away, 450mph time.” The decades passed, however, and it wasn’t until
winds, a magnitude-10 earthquake, 10 days of 1,250°F this year, the end times fast approaching, that Vicino

“I’M NOT SELLING LIFE

INSURANCE. I’M PROVIDING
LIFE ASSURANCE.”
ALL SALES
FINAL
purchased the Barstow bunker for an undisclosed Some are building from scratch—Texas-based Radius
Vicino’s
amount. He has six more under contract: one in North repair list for
Engineering, for instance, offers fiberglass shelters
Carolina, one in Pennsylvania, two in New York, and two the Barstow that it says can support 2,000 people for five years
in “the Midwest.” (Vicino won’t give precise locations, bunker is underground—and others are taking over Cold War
citing the need to stay hidden from intruders.) extensive. relics. “The critical infrastructure is there,” says Larry
Now, as 2012 approaches, Vicino says he is actually Before he Hall, the project manager of Survival Condo Project,
more worried about 2013, when solar activity is can start which is converting abandoned Atlas missile silos
expected to increase significantly. He says an extreme redecorating, in Kansas into seven-floor fallout shelters at $1.75
it needs new
solar storm could fire a catastrophic electromagnetic million a floor. Brian Camden, the CEO of the Colorado
wiring, a new
pulse at Earth, crash the power grid, and thereby trigger generator, firm Hardened Structures, says his bunker sales have
anarchy. Even if the world escapes that fate, it could still air filters and increased by 40 percent since 2005. He is also helping
face an asteroid, or a plague, or a war. Anything could more. Pro- Vicino renovate his older bunkers and build 13 more
happen. “2012 is just the impetus to bring the project jected cost: bunkers from prefabricated units that Vicino is
forward because there’s a great deal of concern now, but $3.5 million. ordering from a yacht manufacturer in Taiwan.
these bunkers could be of use anytime in the next 200 Buyers are drawn to Vivos for a variety of reasons.
years,” Vicino says. “We’re building for whenever.” Jason Hodge, a 40-year-old former mechanic, says the
promised air-filtration system was a major attraction:
Vicino leads me into a smaller room, and the “I live 123 miles from Los Angeles, and I’m on the
scent of old diesel recalls the bunker’s Cold War vintage. windward side of town. If a dirty bomb goes off in L.A.,
Vicino points to a flip switch marked “nuclear blast the fallout’s hitting my neighborhood within a couple of
detector.” It activates a gamma-ray detector that will spot hours.” Steve Kramer, a 56-year-old respiratory therapist
a nuclear blast as much as 100 miles away and instantly from Palos Verdes, California, is more concerned about
shut all the air vents. He had it tested before moving in. post-apocalyptic raiders. He made his deposit, he says,
“This is the real thing,” he says. “It still works!” after inspecting the bunker’s hardened-steel doors,
Until recently, the construction of large bomb which are strong enough to repel a tank blast.
shelters was mainly the work of governments. In 1962, Building the Vivos society requires complicated
for instance, federal authorities completed construction engineering too. Vicino says he has 5,000 additional
of a massive “continuity of government” bunker applicants on file but that he is being selective in order
beneath the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. The to create a balanced community. “You wouldn’t want
nuclear-fallout shelter, code-named Project Greek Island, 200 doctors in one facility and no plumbers,” he says.
packed enough supplies to keep all of Congress plus “If the toilet breaks, that could be a real disaster.” People
another 600 staff members alive for 45 days. can bring guns, but they must check them at the door. If
Now smaller entrepreneurs are getting involved. someone misbehaves, the security [continued ON page 91]

THE
GREEN DREAM
ONE MAN’S MISSION TO BUILD AN ECO-FRIENDLY, AFFORDABLE HOME
THE SPECS
HOUSE: 3,500-square-foot, four-bedroom
contemporary
LOCATION: Greenwich, N.Y.
BUDGET: $350,000
LESSONS LEARNED
BRINGING IT ALL HOME

Hard-won advice from a proud and exhausted green builder expanded polystyrene that’s
F
blended with graphite to lock in
IFTEEN MONTHS AGO, #1: BALANCE BENEFITS OF NEW heat and keep out mold. I was the
I set out to fulfill a lifelong TECHNOLOGY AGAINST RISKS first residential customer to install
ambition of building my THE DREAM: An easy-to-install the panels—and at the time, the
own home using the latest green prefab frame made of insulating, vendor, Lightship Group, was
technology. On a $350,000 budget, recyclable foam panels apparently still working out some
several dreams came true. I THE REALITY: Some panels kinks. The first shipment of panels
installed a solar-powered boiler, a arrived damaged and improperly were damaged en route from
rooftop garden and a graywater cut, stalling construction. the factory in Rhode Island. And
recycling system. Other dreams some of the panels, improperly
were harder: A delivery truck Wooden frames can leak heat cut, wouldn’t fit around my
damaged the recyclable foam and take weeks to measure, cut, home’s steel support beams.
panels meant to form the frame of Follow staff and nail into place. So for the But the company handled its
my home, and I’m also considering photographer budget-minded green builder, mistakes responsibly. It replaced
suing my window contractor. But John B. Carnett’s prefabricated insulating panels the damaged panels and sent
JOHN B. CARNETT
it will all be worth it when we progress on are a smart choice. They hold out a repair crew to handle the
move in next month. For those popsci.com/ up the house and keep it warm. installation, all on its own dime.
considering your own eco-haven, I greendream. My panels are made out of light- In the end, the panels took 14
offer four pieces of advice. gauge steel studs and recyclable days to install instead of eight. If

#3: ACCEPT YOUR DIY LIMITS

THE DREAM: Homemade solar
collectors to generate hot water
THE REALITY: Some things are
best made by the pros.
When I began evaluating my

options for solar collectors, I
was turned off by the bulk and
expense of commercial models. I
decided to make my own. Turns
out there’s a reason to just buy
’em. The prototype I built couldn’t
make enough hot water in cold
weather to fill my home’s large
water tanks. In the end, I ordered
solar collectors online that use
evacuated tubes to generate higher
water temperatures. They’re
easier to install and less intrusive-
looking. Remember—pretty
much every part of building a
green home is going to be at
least somewhat new to you. If
you’re uncertain about your
qualifications, you probably need
a bit of professional consultation.
#4: RESPECT YOUR BUDGET

THE DREAM: Geothermal wells to
save on heating and cooling costs
THE REALITY: Overbudget;
installed a single well and
reduced demand
not for the great customer service, it aluminum windows and doors for  IT’S NOT My initial plan called for a $16,800
would have been a disaster. $60,000. His frames use a special EASY BEING geothermal system with two
GREEN Leaky
insulating technique that makes wells that use the constant 50oF
window frames
#2: KNOW YOUR CONTRACTOR them 50 percent more efficient and damaged temperature of the ground to cool
THE DREAM: Efficient, sleek than vinyl ones, so I’d save money insulating and heat my home, and to augment
aluminum windows and doors on heating and cooling costs. panels that my solar panels on cloudy days
THE REALITY: No doors, empty The technology was great; the form the bones and during the night. But with my
window frames, and lawyer bills workmanship not so much. As of the Green budget nearly tapped, I needed a
of press time, my home is still Dream threat- cheaper plan. I discovered that I
I wanted the look of my home without doors. Plastic sheets cover ened to derail could save $7,000 by installing a
the project.
to be industrial yet rustic, so I missing windows, rain puddles single well. To reduce demand on
decided to combine modern collect beneath the windows that the smaller system, I decided to
aluminum windows with 100-year- were installed, and the contractor is eliminate the radiant-heat concrete
old hemlock-and-cedar siding. stalling on repairs. I’ve purchased on my second floor (my wife
Aluminum frames tend to be poor wooden doors instead of aluminum, wanted hardwood floors anyway).
insulators and can cost upward but I’m stuck with empty frames, You’re building a functional home
of $140,000 for a three-bedroom and I can’t install the drywall until on a limited budget. Don’t kill
home, but then I found a window the job is finished. My advice, yourself over the green technology
contractor who promised to especially where custom work is you can’t afford—finish it with the
deliver custom-made triple-paned concerned, is to get references. green technology you can.

Scientists hope to strengthen aging brains by tweaking the behavior of DNA
Age-related memory
loss—the kind where you
remember friends from decades
STATISTICS
100
MEMORY LOST,
ago but can’t remember your
grandchildren—is largely a
mystery, but a class of com-
billion
Number of
MEMORY REGAINED
pounds used to treat cancer has neurons in a
given neuroscientists clues to healthy adult
its molecular underpinnings. brain
Scientists also suspect that the HOW WE MAKE MEMORIES happens, the DNA wrapped around
compounds responsible for this 41 The process of forming long-term the spool loosens slightly. The
insight, called histone deacetylase Average memories—those that persist for loosening of the DNA makes it
inhibitors, could significantly percentage more than a few dozen seconds— more available for the biological
slow memory loss—perhaps of neurons in brain is poorly understood, but here’s process, called transcription, that
for years. (Two drugs used tissue lost in what we know: Neuroscientists permits the gene to be expressed
now to treat memory loss and people with have evidence that the brain’s into neurotransmitters.
Alzheimer’s disease work only Alzheimer’s disease hippocampus is central to the
for a short time.) A study on process. To consolidate a memory, HOW MEMORY IS LOST
aging mice by scientists at the a cascade of electrical pulses fire In age-related memory loss, the
European Neuroscience Institute
5.3 across the gaps between neurons, H4 histones don’t have enough
in Germany published this May
million called synapses. This triggers acetyl groups attached to them.
in Science showed that histone Number of the release of neurotransmitters, DNA remains tightly wound
deacetylase inhibitors helped Americans which form new connections around the histone spool, so the
mice perform more than 50 currently living between neighboring neurons. genes on the spool that control
percent better on a memory with Alzheimer’s But neurotransmitters can’t be memory formation remain
test than controls did. Study co- synthesized without each cell suppressed.
author André Fischer says these tapping into its DNA.
drugs would be used together HOW WE MIGHT GET IT BACK
with others to treat Alzheimer’s HOW GENES AFFECT MEMORY To reverse the memory loss,
patients.—Elizabeth Svoboda Long-term memories are less doctors inject a compound called
likely to be formed if certain a histone deacetylase inhibitor. It
genes are not activated, which ensures that the H4 histones have
is why it’s at the genetic level plenty of attached acetyl groups,
ESSENTIAL JARGON that scientists are trying to effect so the DNA wrapped around the
HISTONE: Histones are crucial in the change. Normally, inside cell histone once again becomes
KOPPILLUSTRATION.COM
process of condensing and packing nuclei, DNA tightly wraps around available for transcription. The
DNA within a cell’s nucleus. An octa- a protein spool, called a histone. memory-formation instructions
A small molecule called an acetyl encoded in the DNA can be
mer of histones package DNA into a group attaches to a particular used to make proteins, helping
structure called a nucleosome. Histone histone known as H4. When this restore memory formation.
H4 is one of five histone groups.

Neuron
Hippocampus
Histones
Acetyl group
DNA
Transcription
FAQs
I’M STILL PRETTY YOUNG, SO WHY CAN’T will be encoded. Even though these glitches are HOW CAN I TELL IF I MIGHT LOSE MY
I REMEMBER WHERE I PUT MY KEYS? more common after 40, in most cases, they don’t MEMORY LATER IN LIFE?
Cut yourself some slack. Occasional memory signify the onset of early senility. You probably You can’t know for sure. But you may be more at
glitches can be caused by something as simple don’t need to worry unless you start forgetting risk if you have high cholesterol, a family history of
as not paying attention to your surroundings, a good portion of your vocabulary or losing the dementia, drink heavily, or participate in sports that
lowering the likelihood that a particular memory capacity to do easy math problems. involve multiple blows to the head.

EASY FRESHWATER
A state-of-the-art facility aims to make desalination more efficient
By 2025, the United Nationsreports, two out of three Clarification tank
people on Earth will live in places without enough freshwater to
drink or grow crops. One way to beat that trend is to extract water
from saltwater. The most common method of doing that is reverse
osmosis, an energy-intensive process. To reduce that energy burden,
researchers are developing other methods to desalinate water, such
as using biomimetic membranes. Some proposed desalination plants
will reduce their energy needs by using energy-capture schemes or
sustainable energy sources like wind power. Here’s how one state-of-
the-art plant—the Thames Gateway Water Treatment Works, which
opened this June in Beckton, East London—processes 39 million
gallons of water every day.—Katharine Gammon
A PEEK INSIDE THE PLANT

Water flow
Water intake
Buffer tank
Sand filtration
REVERSE OSMOSIS generates more freshwater out of the editor of Water Desalination
Most desalination plants take STATISTICS the salty Thames water. In a two- Report, estimates that since energy-
advantage of reverse osmosis 400,000 step process, only 50 percent of the recovery devices were introduced
to filter salt from water. Pumps gallons source water becomes drinkable. 15 years ago, they have sliced
force salty water through a sheet Amount of water The engineers say the Beckton the amount of energy required to
of polyamide wound around a purified daily plant’s process will convert 85 produce freshwater in half, from 30
giant cylinder. Water molecules on a typical U.S. percent of river water to freshwater. kilowatt-hours per 1,000 gallons
squeeze between the individual Navy aircraft to less than 15 kilowatt-hours
polyamide chains to pass to carrier, enough ENERGY-RECOVERY DEVICES
the membrane’s far side. The for 1,000 homes The 15 percent that remains, now TIDAL EXPLOITATION
dissolved salt can’t pass between a briny concentrate, is still under The more salt there is in the water,
the polymer chains, so it stays 73 pressure, and that pressure can the more it costs to get it out, so
million
behind. The Beckton plant uses be recaptured. The brine spins Beckton plant engineers adjust
a unique four-stage reverse- gallons a turbine in the plant’s energy- their approach depending on the
osmosis process (most plants Capacity per day recovery devices. This turbine runs tide. They collect the estuary water
use just one or two), running the of the largest a pump that boosts the pressure of in huge tanks in the hours leading
brackish water through four sets reverse-osmosis the next batch of seawater moving up to the low tide, so they get river
of membranes, each step of which plant in the world, through the system. Tom Pankratz, water with a concentration of less
located in Israel

Freshwater essential
jargon
FORWARD OSMOSIS:
Osmosis is the process in
which water moves from
an area of low solute
concentration (such as
salt or sugar) through
a membrane to an area
of high concentration.
In one system, patented
by Massachusetts
company Oasys, a
membrane separates
saltwater from a highly
concentrated solution
Energy-capture turbines of ammonia salts.
The water molecules
migrate from the
saltwater into a solution
of ammonia salts. To
Reverse osmosis generate freshwater, the
ammonia is removed
from the water by low-
Ultrafiltration grade heat. This process
requires less energy
than reverse osmosis.
BIOMIMETIC
MEMBRANES:
Waste brine
Channels of proteins
than one third that of normal called aquaporins
seawater. When the tide starts
embedded in a
rolling in and the salinity starts
increasing, the tanks’ pumps
shut down.
WASTE TREATMENT
FAQs
HOW MUCH DOES HOW MANY
polymer membrane
filter freshwater from
saltwater, much like
a kidney recovers
The Beckton plant coordinates DESALINATION COST? DESALINATION PLANTS
with its neighbor, a large sewage- In general, desalinated ARE THERE IN THE U.S.? water from urine. (In
treatment plant. Treated effluent brackish water and regular About 250, each of which has fact, multiple kinds of
from the sewage plant is blended treated municipal water can the capacity to generate greater aquaporins are found in
with the briny concentrate—an cost about $1.50 per 1,000 than 0.025 million gallons a kidneys.) The aquaporin
environmental hazard—and gallons, whereas desalinated day. Almost half of them are in
diluted, making the discharge less seawater may cost $2.50 to $3 Florida, with dozens of plants in
proteins preferentially
salty than the river. per 1,000 gallons. California and Texas. draw the water molecules
through the membrane.
UNNATURAL GAS A dramatic technique for mining oil and natural gas called
hydraulic fracturing is under fire. Here’s why
Need some natural gas? To generate in horizontal drilling technologies have
more of it—and more income—energy allowed energy producers to reach gas packed
companies are resorting to creative measures, in dense rock formations that happen to
eking out every last bit from the gas wells coexist with the sources of drinking water
they drill. But environmentalists and public- for a sizeable segment of the U.S. population.
health advocates warn that one such process, This fall, the Environmental Protection
called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, can Agency is releasing a plan to study the health
also taint nearby water supplies. Advances hazards of the practice.—Corey Binns
Aquifer
Blast it Well bore
HOW TO 1. BLAST IT
Once a well is drilled and a pipe is
2. FRAC IT
To make the fracturing fluid, well
WRING GAS
secured half a mile or more into workers mix sand and a variety of
the shale, well workers send a potentially hazardous chemicals,
“perf” gun down into the pipe. The such as benzene, into the water.
FROM A STONE gun shoots small explosives that

perforate the well casing and the
rock along the well bore. When the
They send the mixture into the well
at a pressure of 10,000 pounds per
square inch. The pressure cracks
well is complete, the natural gas open the rock while the sand grains
will flow through these channels. prop open the tiny fissures.

STATISTICS
25
essential jargon Percentage of U.S.
TCF: Units of a trillion cubic feet
are used to measure resources in the
ground, or annual national energy
consumption. One tcf is enough natural
energy produced
from natural gas
70,000
Number of wells
FAQs
WHY FRAC?
gas to heat 15 million homes for one planned for the It’s cheaper for an energy company
year, generate 100 billion kilowatt- Marcellus Shale in to drill one well with multiple
New York State horizontal legs and frac the well than
hours of electricity, or fuel 12 million it is to drill many vertical wells and
natural-gas-fired vehicles for one year. 250,000 build infrastructure for each one. In
Number of wells Pennsylvania, some customers saw the
in Pennsylvania in results fracking could have on their
the current plan utility bills, which dropped from $122
for the Marcellus to $102 in one month.
Shale
WHAT’S THE DANGER IN
8 FRACKING?
million Each step has room for error. Trucks
Maximum number can spill chemicals, wells can blow
of gallons of frac out belowground, wastewater holding
fluid used in a tanks can spring holes. Carcinogenic
single well chemicals, including benzene, may leak
from the well into an aquifer. A single
25,000 well could contain enough benzene
Number of gallons to contaminate 100 billion gallons of
of chemicals used drinking water, according to drilling-
in that same well company disclosures in New York State.
16,200 WHAT’S IN FRAC FLUID?

Estimated global Tough to say. Gas drilling is exempt
supply of natural from the Safe Drinking Water Act,
Frac it Pump it gas, in trillions of and companies are not required by
2 cubic feet the federal government to disclose
3 the fracking chemicals in each well.
160 Recent legislation in Wyoming now
Estimated number demands that information. We know
of years that that frac fluid is approximately
the supply will 98.5 percent water, 1 percent sand
last at current and 0.5 percent other chemicals.
consumption According to Pennsylvania’s
rates Department of Energy, these
chemicals include potassium
2050 hydroxide and propylene glycol.
Year by which
3. PUMP IT natural-gas CAN IT BE MADE SAFER?
Well workers stop the pumps. with salt, heavy metals and consumption will Maybe. Anthony Ingraffea, a civil and
This loss of pressure draws naturally occurring radioactive largely surpass environmental engineer at Cornell
the frac fluid and natural gas, materials—all of which pose coal consumption University who has studied hydraulic
which begins seeping out of health and pollution hazards. to generate power fracturing since 1982, says our best
the shale and into the bore of This spent fluid is stored on-site bet lies in better ways to recycle the
the well, up to the surface. In in pits or storage tanks until used frac fluid. Since 2009, the U.S.
addition to containing natural it’s hauled away to be pumped Department of Energy has awarded
gas, the frac fluid that emerges into deep injection wells, or to groups funds to research new
from the well is now replete wastewater-treatment plants. techniques to treat this waste.

DIRTY COSMOS
Interstellar dust may help astronomers understand
the formation of stars and planets
riding in a car through space, if you dust-emitted microwaves to be “noise” that
were to hang your white-gloved hand out the obscures their data, worth analyzing only
window, it would come back dirty. The space to erase from their measurements of the
between the Milky Way’s stars is filled with cosmic microwave background. But for other
gas and dust—lots of dust. astronomers, interstellar dust is useful in
This summer, the European Space its own right. Some of them plan to use the
Agency’s Planck satellite produced a high- interstellar-dust data to study the Milky Way’s
resolution dust map. The ultimate goal of magnetic field, the origins and behavior of
the project is to map the cosmic microwave which are not well understood. Others, like
background, the electromagnetic leftovers Bruce Draine of Princeton University, will
of the universe’s violent beginning. Since study the size distribution and composition
warm dust grains emit microwaves, Planck of the grains themselves. “The universe is
made its map simply to see what’s behind beautiful,” Draine says, “and one of the things
the dust. Cosmologists usually consider the that makes it beautiful is the dust.”—Katie Peek
THE LIFE OF
A DUST GRAIN
1. INSIDE THE STAR
Astronomers don’t know the
identity of all the interstellar dust
factories, but they do know that red
giants—stars of up to eight solar-
masses in the final stages of their
life—generate quite a bit of dust.
Dust components, such as carbon
and oxygen, are made deep in the
star’s core when helium atoms
fuse together.
2. ON THE STAR’S SURFACE

Convection within the red
giant dredges the new proto-
dust atoms from the core

FAQs
IS INTERSTELLAR DUST
VISIBLE FROM EARTH?
Yes! On a clear night far from city
lights, stargazers can see dark patches
within the smooth band of the Milky
Way near the constellation Cygnus.
Those patches are ribbons of dust that
block the stars behind them.
HOW DOES IT AFFECT THE

GALACTIC ENVIRONMENT?
Dust grains are the building blocks of
planets. They also shield gas clouds from
starlight and, by keeping those clouds
cool, allow that gas to condense and
make new stars. “It’s like an ecosystem,”
says Gillian Knapp, an astronomer
at Princeton. “It’s the little stuff that
matters, and how it evolves together.”
essential jargon
INTERSTELLAR
STATISTICS MEDIUM: What
0.1 astronomers call all
Diameter in
microns of a that stuff between the
typical interstellar stars. Dust grains are
dust grain, about only about 1 percent
the same as a of its mass, with
particle of soot
hydrogen accounting
5 for 80 percent and
Average number helium providing
up to the surface. The conditions candidate dust particles from of yards between most of the rest.
and elements present in the stellar the Stardust spacecraft, which interstellar dust
atmosphere will dictate the chemical returned to Earth in 2006 after grains
INTERSTELLAR
composition of the dust. Then the seven years of collecting dust
star’s pulsations and winds fling samples in space. This will bring 50 DUST: Dust grains
those atoms into space. the total number of dust grains million are agglomerations
currently in human possession to Amount of suns of atoms, including
3. IN INTERSTELLAR SPACE three. Finding even one requires a needed to equal
all the dust in the
carbon, silicon, oxygen,
As the atoms continue to drift painstaking search of Stardust’s
through space, they cool and particle trap using a microscope. Milky Way magnesium and
condense into dust grains. From The first dust particle, also aluminum. Silicon-rich
there, new dust grains will float captured by the Stardust grains make up about
out into the cosmos, where they experiment, was announced in 70 percent of the dust
may collect into very small rocks, March. Of the three, two of the
then asteroids, then planets. In July, particles are magnesium-rich,
inventory, and carbon-
planetary scientists announced two while the third is carbon-based. rich grains constitute
the remainder.
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70
HOW 2.0
TIPS, TRICKS, HACKS AND DO-IT-YOURSELF PROJECTS
72 74
Unlock your car Make your netbook Improve your com-
doors with a phone readable in bright sun puter's performance
YOU BUiLt WHAT ?!
SubMobile
designed the narrow, tall sub
using CAD software. The curved
part of the frame is mostly 1x4
beams, while the underside is
steel. For the rest of the hull, the
couple found that four layers
A husband and wife build a replica of an odd of quarter-inch-thick plywood
19th-century underwater craft pressed together by epoxy was
the best mix of strong and cheap.
For the 40-inch-tall, 4.5-inch-thick
wheels, they cut and sandwiched
In 1894, American inventor marine epoxy to overflow a bathtub. STICKING together three layers of lumber
Simon Lake designed the Because no pictures of the POINT The and added leftover treads from a
builders used
Argonaut Jr., a wheeled vehicle Argonaut Jr.'s interior remain, local tire shop.
60 gallons
that would drive along the making an exact replica would of epoxy to The initial test dive started
seafloor, the only way to reliably have been impossible. Instead, hold the sub poorly when the trailer carrying
navigate underwater at the the Jacksons added a few modern together. the sub broke loose and careened
time. The unusual concept has touches while staying faithful into the lake. But the Jacksons
inspired sub aficionados ever to the basic design. Like its recovered, poured a celebratory
since. Among its fans are Doug predecessor probably was, it beer on the hull, closed the
and Kay Jackson, married DIYers is an ambient sub—it keeps hatch, and took the Argonaut
from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who in the air pressure inside the Jr. 2010 for its first successful
BEN SKLAR
June built a watertight replica cabin equal to the water drive, 10 feet below the surface
from lumber, lead and enough pressure outside. Doug of the water.—GREGORY MONE
[continued on next page]
THE H2WHOA CREDO: DIY CAN BE DANGEROUS. We review all our projects before publishing
them, but ultimately your safety is your responsibility. always wear protective gear, take proper
safety precautions, and follow all laws and regulations.
OCTOBER 2010 POPULAR SCIENCE 67
Hear the buzz?
HoW 2.0 You built WHat ?! [continued from
preceding page]
HOW IT WORKS
tiME: 8 MONTHS COst: $5,000
feet of roller chain and matching sprockets, custom-
cut from steel plates on their CNC machine. A dozen
turns of the crank moves the sub about 10 feet.
SAFETY
DESCENT The Jacksons received help from sub experts on
The operators lower a pair of anchors to the seafloor the Internet, many of whom urged them to install a
and, from the sub’s single cabin, open a series of drop-weight system for emergencies. They ended up
valves linked to six ballast tanks. Water floods the cutting or casting 3,500 pounds of lead blocks that
tanks, making the vessel heavier. An electronic fit jigsaw-like into the exposed steel frame on the
anchor-winch controller winds up the cable, further bottom. If they need to ascend immediately, they can
pulling the sub down. As Argonaut Jr. descends slowly, turn a handle that releases all the blocks at once. With
an automatic air-pressurization system retrofitted to 3,500 pounds shed, the sub, weighing a scant 1.25
the craft draws air into the cabin from scuba tanks, tons, rockets up to the surface. The sudden change
equalizing with the ambient water pressure. in pressure could cause the sub to explode, though,
so Doug says that in all but the direst circumstances,
ASCENT “I’d swim out and leave the sub on the bottom.”
To surface, the operators drop the anchors (stored
outside) again. Once those hit the floor, the sub rises.
The Jacksons let out more cable and open valves that
release compressed air into the ballast tanks, gradu-
ally expelling the water and making the sub more
buoyant. “You open or close valves, and you go down
or you go up,” Kay explains. “It’s really simple.”
DRIVING
The Jacksons welded a trolling motor normally used
for small fishing boats to the steel-pipe-based tiller.
By turning the tiller’s handle, they redirect the motor’s
propeller and turn the sub. They can also use a hand
crank to drive the craft. The drivetrain consists of 30
Its about the CRAMPED QUARTERS

new Electric Rabbit.
FROM TOP: COURTESY DOUG JACKSON; BEN SKLAR

The sub’s cabin has
standing room for
only two people.
The display screen shows how
many corks you can pull before
re-charging. The compact design
is up to 3 inches shorter than other
electric corkscrews. The recessed
spiral fits neatly over a wine bottle.
The Electric Rabbit has plenty to be
abuzz about.
Where To Go Electric Rabbit Hunting:

Crate & Barrel, Macy’s, Dillard’s,
Sur La Table, Chef’s Catalog,
Spec’s, Kitchen Kapers, Bevmo!
metrokane.com
68 POPULAR SCIENCE ocToBER 2010

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Electrical outlets and standard voltages
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ElectricalOutlet.org to see if you’ll need
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Zimbabwe with pictures of plugs and
sockets to help you fit in, literally.
4 go native
Your plugs aren’t the only things that
need to adapt. AppBox Pro (99 cents
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HOW 2.0 REPURPOSED TECH
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Locked
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now you PHONE IT IN
can open Sending
the doors a photo to
the printer
using your triggers the
cellphone system to
unlock the
doors.
Drive for long enough, and eventually you’ll experi-

ence it: that helpless feeling that comes when you
discover you’ve locked your keys in your car. Before
it happens again, install a system that unlocks your
car doors with your cellphone. The setup involves
using the Bluetooth module from a cheap wireless
ILLUSTRATIONS: PETER McDONNELL/LINDA DE MORETA REPRESENTS; PHOTOGRAPH: GREG NEUMAIER

printer, which receives a command from your phone
and sends it to a switch connected to your car’s spare
electronic key fob. Instead of telling the printer to
print a photo like it normally would, the phone sig-
nals it to trigger the unlocking mechanism. Stash the
system under a seat (plugged into a lighter socket
for power), and a few keystrokes will pop open the
doors from up to 10 feet away.—Dave Prochnow
A KEYLESS UNLOCKER time: 2 hours cost: $65.02 easy hard
For more information, go to

popsci.com/carunlocker. 1 Open the printer.
Slide the battery 2 Route two wires
into the printer 3 Reassemble the
printer. Slide the 4 Open the key fob
and locate the 5 Turn on the
printer. Enter
Bluetooth cover plate off and via the paper exit two wires through the button that unlocks passcode 6000 to
printer remove the battery. slot. Solder one to the paper exit slot. Solder the doors. Solder one pair your phone
Snap the plastic bezel “TP14” solder con- the other ends of those relay wire to each with the printer.
off the front of the nection point on the two wires to each one pole of the switch. Send a photo via
printer, and remove circuit board, and the of the coil prongs on Reassemble the fob. Bluetooth, and
the two screws that other to any ground the relay. Solder two Connect the printer’s the relay will trig-
hold the cover plate point on the board. different wires to the power supply to an ger the key fob
in place. Remove the remaining switch inverter, and plug it to unlock your
Relay narrow ribbon cable. prongs of the relay. into your lighter. car’s doors.

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FYI
THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
80 82
How a cold turns Hair in food:
into a pandemic How bad is it?
Q CAN “BRAIN FREEZE”

CAUSE LONG-TERM
BRAIN DAMAGE? Anonymous
Q. Can I use DRYLOK to fill the cracks on
my garage floor … up here in Maine?
The winter snow falls off my car onto
the garage floor and leaks in the
floor cracks.
A. Although DRYLOK Masonry
A
Waterproofer can not be used on
We’ve all sucked down a Besides, Gray says, the temporary floors because it is not formulated to
milkshake so quickly that it pain can’t do any harm because it has withstand foot traffic it is a good idea
causes a sudden headache— nothing to do with the brain. to protect horizontal masonry surface
the dreaded brain freeze. There are two schools of thought with a clear protector. United
But . . . milkshake. Tasty. Must. Drink. on what causes the ice-cream Gilsonite Laboratories (UGL) does
manufacture many clear protectors
Could chugging the rest of that shake headache. The drink may chill the air
for floors with different sheen levels.
cause lasting brain damage? in your sinuses and cause the blood All clear coatings will extend the life
First, let’s get one thing straight. vessels in the nasal cavity near your of interior and exterior horizontal
“This condition is referred to as forehead to constrict, creating pain masonry surfaces.
an ‘ice-cream headache,’ ” says similar to a migraine. Or perhaps it
UGL also manufactures DRYLOK
Stacey Gray, a sinus surgeon at the touches off a branch of the trigeminal products made to patch, clean and
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary nerve in your mouth, triggering a beautify garage floors, basement
in Boston. “It’s a very technical pain response in the nerve that’s floors, patios and walkways.
term.” Although there’s no published responsible for facial sensation.
paper saying as much, a milkshake The condition has not drawn
slurped too quickly probably does research funding from the National
not actually lower brain temperature. Institutes of Health, so no one has 
This month’s winner is Lou

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GETTY IMAGES

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All this for only
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95
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performed the simple experiment
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the nerve with an injection of
©2010 Thompson Cigar Co.

Thompson handmade, imported Dominican cigars, a lidocaine, cool the area, and if it still
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At the low, low price of $29.95 for a regular $79 value, temporarily chill your brain a few
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customers to Thompson & Co., America’s oldest mail-order Neurosurgeons including Johns
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Hopkins Hospital’s Rafael Tamargo
often take the brain from its cozy
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“Even if the patient wasn’t
anesthetized, at that temperature
they would be in a noninteractive
state, unable to sense stimuli or
produce a response,” Tamargo says.
“But once you warm the brain up, it
picks right up from where it left off.
It’s not harmful at all.” So whether
your brain is frozen or not, if you
can handle a little pain, slurp away.
—BJORN CAREY
How quickly could a

single supervirus spread
to every single person
on Earth?
If it’s a particularly contagious virus,
it would spread across the planet
in a year. “If it starts in New York,
it’s going to be in London certainly
within a week,” says Ira Longini, a
biostatistician at the University of
Washington and the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Center in Seattle who uses
computer models to analyze how
viruses globe-trot. “And from there, it
will quickly travel to the rest of North
America and Europe.” For Longini’s
computer forecasts to become 

© moodboard/Corbis.
Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft
Great writing begins—and ends—with the sentence. Under- Building Great Sentences:
standing ways to construct sentences is important to enhancing Exploring the Writer’s Craft
your appreciation of great writing and potentially improving Taught by Professor Brooks Landon, The University of Iowa
your own. Lecture Titles
Get the answers to your questions about writing and style in 1. A Sequence of Words 13. The Riddle of Prose Rhythm
2. Grammar and Rhetoric 14. Cumulative Syntax
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rapidly spread
influenza. As anyone who has at Johns Hopkins University. dermatologist at Northwestern
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knows, it affects the respiratory Treating “With everybody expressing hair: Hair is made of a densely
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make it easy to infect anyone landing is chasing, chasing, chasing, but which is chemically inactive in
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within a three-foot radius. The virus critical. always being a few steps behind, hair and won’t cause any problems
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[continued from page 55]
CAN THIS HOUSE SAVE YOU

scientist with NASA’s Near-Earth Object
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Vicino is also thinking about survival of up to cruise-ship standards; the other 19 conditions, and in January the Bulletin of
the species, not just his customers. He bunkers could be ready in 18 months. Atomic Scientists actually set its doomsday
plans to stock each Vivos bunker with a The good news is that most scientists clock back by a full minute.
freezer full of DNA samples of as many aren’t predicting any immediate trouble. When I relate such findings to Vicino,
species as he can collect. Whether it’s Regarding the Mayan prediction of he is unmoved. He says disaster is always
preserving humanity or reseeding a a planetary alignment that would imminent, that someone could explode a
scorched planet, he asks, “don’t you want to catastrophically reverse the Earth’s nuclear weapon at any moment, that two
be one of the guys repopulating the Earth?” magnetic field, Tom Bogdan, the director asteroids had only just recently come this
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Vicino shows me an old control panel that Prediction Center, notes, “The planets he asks finally. “Do you think it’s crazy to
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FROM THE POPULAR SCIENCE ARCHIVES
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THE FUTURE OF THE HOME

A New Take on Gravity P.29

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