Popular Science

Despite our niftiest holograms and watermarks, counterfeiters still manage to sneak billions of dollars of fake goods onto store shelves. Instead of slapping on authenticity seals, which can be copied, Ingenia Technology’s anti-counterfeit scanner reads the nanoscopic variations that occur naturally on the surface of every object, from documents to a perfume bottle, and no two are ever the same. [ Read Full Story ]

Regenerative braking, the process through which an electric car grabs otherwise wasted energy from the brakes as the car glides to a halt, is a brilliant bit of engineering for efficiency—take energy that's otherwise only good for burning up brake pads, and turn it into electricity that charges the battery.

It may also make the uninitiated driver want to vomit.

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As any brewer will tell you, the yeast used to make beer tends to bunch up during fermentation. However, despite thousands of years of brewing and decades of genetic research on yeast, no one was able to explain why yeast stuck together. Now, not only has the gene behind the clumping been discovered, but that gene also offers an interesting look at how life may have become multicellular, and provides a new example of an important evolutionary theory.

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For years, the increased accuracy, smoothness and reliability of electronic shifting has been perhaps the ultimate goal for high-performance-bike designers. After several companies’ attempts failed—suffering from breakdowns in bad weather, poor battery life or unbearable complexity—Shimano’s Dura-Ace Di2 has finally delivered it. [ Read Full Story ]

Call us obsessed, but we can't get enough high-speed video. The scientists at GE turned us on to this footage of water bouncing off a superhydrophobic surface. As the droplets come into contact with the extremely water-resistant surface (in this case, some unknown nanoparticle-based surface, possibly nanopin film), they smash into bits and rearrange Terminator-style, bounce like a basketball and generally retain their perfect-droplet shape.

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Drywall, plasterboard, wallboard—whatever you call it, the substance that covers billions of square feet of American homes hasn’t changed since its invention in 1917. Dry-
wall factories still roast ground-up gypsum rock in 500°F kilns, spewing out 20 billion pounds of greenhouse gases a year. So Serious Materials created EcoRock: a drywall that congeals without heat, uses recycled materials that don’t require mining, and holds up even better.

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Nokia recently hosted a cocktail party to introduce journalists to its chief designer, Alastair Curtis. The Brit's formal slide presentation was a carefully crafted marketing piece, hammering in his Finnish employer's slogans such as "beautiful to use" and "connecting people." And he provided a bright glimpse into the company's future plans in response to our questions.

The revelations started when Curtis described Nokia's record in America. "The U.S. hasn't been Nokia's strongest suit," he conceded. But the company aims to change that, having just completed a fact-finding trip around the States, where Americans were "talking about music, talking about gestures, talking about what they want for the future."

Talking about gestures?

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Tales of Testing Lauren Aaronson, Associate Editor One day I walked into work, and my new Lenovo X301 laptop was gone. Good thing it had Phoenix FailSafe, a program that lets you track and control a missing computer. I borrowed a PC to log onto Phoenix’s Web site, where I reported my laptop lost and asked to retrieve an important document. [ Read Full Story ]

Last spring, scientists from the Queensland Museum in South Brisbane, Australia, discovered this new coral species hanging underneath a rocky ledge about 50 feet deep off the northern end of Australia’s Lizard Island. They now hope to classify the coral, along with hundreds of other recently discovered marine invertebrates.

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When lunar astronauts flick on their televisions after a long day of prospecting, they’ll have a trashcan-size nuclear reactor to thank for their nightly dose of prime time. NASA, looking past the already daunting task of simply getting humans to the moon by 2020, recently started considering proposals for ways to power lunar habitats. Batteries and fuel cells provide only short-term solutions. Solar power would be limited where a single night lasts as long as 354 hours. So space-agency officials have started making plans to go nuclear.

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Sink clogged again? Just turn the knob on the outside of the PermaFlow, and a flexible rubber paddle inside rotates through the trap to push the wad downstream. PermaFlow also helps keep glop from gathering in the first place, with a subtle angle in the incoming pipe that generates turbulence to carry it away. [ Read Full Story ]

Commuters in Grand Central Station got a morning sugar shock of eye candy when Sharp unveiled a 26-foot tall Christmas tree made by stacking 43 of its Aquos LCD televisions. The panels, growing in size from 19 inches at the top to 52 inches at the bottom, are wired together to display coordinated video shows, such as a waterfall that spills from the top panels and splashes down on the bottom screens, or snowflakes that float down the length of the tree. It currently cycles through nine patterns created by Japanese video artist Tsuyoshi Takashiro. To keep things fresh, Sharp will replace the originals with about 10 new patterns in December.

The tree is greener than just the pine branches that stick out from between the panels. The company is using the display to publicize the Hope Program, a nonprofit that provides job training and career counseling to help New Yorkers get out of poverty. “Their whole mission is not just to become part of he working poor,” said Judah Zeigler from Sharp’s marketing department.

Passersby can sign up at –

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