Science

In this, the fourth of a series, Popular Science profiles one of the favored teams competing to win the Darpa Grand Challenge autonomous-vehicle race, which will take place on Saturday, October 8, near Primm, Nevada. Today we look at Stanford's entry, affectionately dubbed Stanley, which is designed to automatically choose the best route. Stay tuned to popsci.com for more previews throughout the week and for minute-by-minute videos and updates on race day.

In this, the fourth of a series, Popular Science profiles one of the favored teams competing to win the Darpa Grand Challenge autonomous-vehicle race, which will take place on Saturday, October 8, near Primm, Nevada. Today we look at the Virginia Tech team's two entries, each of which takes a different approach to the problem. Stay tuned to popsci.com for more previews throughout the week and for minute-by-minute videos and updates on race day.

Virginia Tech Team
Blacksburg, Virginia

In this, the second of a series, Popular Science profiles one of the favored teams competing to win the Darpa Grand Challenge autonomous-vehicle race, which will take place on Saturday, October 8, near Primm, Nevada. Today we look at Team DAD's Toyota truck, equipped with an innovative laser-based navigation system. Stay tuned to popsci.com for more previews throughout the week and for minute-by-minute videos and updates on race day.

Team DAD (Digital Auto Drive)

Traveling to the center of the Earth is a fanciful concept, but consider the reality: We have so far drilled just 7.5 miles into the Earth's rocky crust, leaving roughly 3,962 more miles to go. The new Japanese research vessel Chikyu won't exactly breach Earth's core, but it will drill to an unprecedented depth, beginning in late 2007 when it embarks on its first scientific mission off the southwestern coast of Japan.

The 57,500-ton rig is equipped with a 5.9-mile-long drill designed to blast four miles into Earth's crust and strike the semi-molten mantle that lies beneath it.

In this, the first of a series, Popular Science profiles one of the favored teams competing to win the Darpa Grand Challenge autonomous vehicle race, which will take place on Saturday (October 8) near Primm, Nevada. Today we look at the Blue Team's autonomous motorcycle. Stay tuned to popsci.com for more previews throughout the week, and for minute-by-minute videos and updates on race day.

The Blue Team
University of California at Berkeley and Texas A&M

A few months ago, the news buzzed with reports that President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had received an unusual honor. They had each had a species of slime-mold beetle named after them, courtesy of scientists at Cornell University. Debates raged on Internet chat rooms and blogs: Could the scientists be serious? Was it really an honor to be associated with such a creature as a slime-mold beetle?

Two of the most Popular Science-themed TV shows, Cosmos and NOVA, air this fall, bringing big ideas-life, the universe and everything-back to the small screen.
Cosmos
September 27, the Science Channel
"Billions and billions of stars."
So goes the old Johnny Carson impression of Cosmos creator and narrator Carl Sagan. And since the show´s debut on PBS 25 years ago, a billion TV viewers have experienced Cosmos´s jaunt through the history of our universe.

Are you willing to live in a tiny cubby without access to the great outdoors, the local Barnes & Noble, or ESPN?

Congratulations are in order for two alums of POPSCIs Brilliant 10-geophysicist Michael Manga (Brilliant 10 class of 2003) of the University of California at Berkeley and laser physicist Claire Gmachl (Brilliant 10 class of 2004) of Princeton University-each of whom was awarded a $500,000 MacArthur "genius" grant on September 20.

At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, no sprinter could compete for attention, let alone swiftness, with the newly opened Shinkansen, or "bullet train," which ran between Tokyo and Osaka at 125 miles an hour. A worldwide race to increase train speeds has been on ever since. France´s record-setting TGV operates at a top speed of 218 mph, but with the Fastech 360, East Japan Railway stands to become to railroads what Jesse Owens was to footraces.

Dept.: Hidden Talents
Tech.: Sony PlayStation Portable
Cost: Free ($250 for the PSP)
Time: 10 minutes
Dabbler | | | | | Master

The plotline is classic Marvel Comics fare: An electrician grabs a high-tension wire carrying 7,000 volts of electricity, loses both arms at the shoulder, undergoes an experimental surgery, and emerges bionic. Sci-fi as it sounds, this is the story of Jesse Sullivan, 58, a real-life retired linesman from Dayton, Tennessee.

The Frankfurt Auto Show is one of the automotive worldâ€s biggest and most exciting events. Every year, manufacturers unveil their hottest new products and concepts in a dozen exhibit halls in eight different buildings. The media preview took place on September 12 and 13, and there was plenty to see.

Citron C-SportLounge Concept

When Hurricane Katrina roared through the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29, devastating New Orleans, it shut down a major NASA facility, bringing the space agency's seemingly endless struggle to resume shuttle flights to a swift halt. The Michoud Assembly Facility, located about 15 miles east of the French Quarter, manufactures and repairs the space shuttle's giant external fuel tank-the same tank whose shedding insulation led to the destruction of Columbia in February 2003 and grounded the shuttle fleet last July.

Many of PopSci's Brilliant 10-scientists who are pushing the limits of their disciplines-labor in abstract realms, generating calculations, analyses and other intangibles. But a couple of them work very much in the here and now, even risking their own safety when necessary.

Maydianne Andrade, 35, a biologist at the University of Toronto, studies the mating habits of Australian redback spiders, and keeps hundreds of these poisonous critters in her lab. She and her colleagues made the following video, which shows a pair of redbacks in flagrante.