• Gadgets

    Simple Innovations: The Bottle-Top Bike Clip

    By John Mahoney Posted on 7.15.2009 2 Comments

    I've never wanted to attach a water bottle cage to my bike; I like it to be as free of clutter as possible, both for aesthetics and to keep the weight low. But I can't say that I've never wanted to have a quick drink handily accessible when I'm riding without a bag. That's where this bottle cap clip concept by Matthias Ries comes in.

    7.15.2009 at 11:27am - Comment by anomaly

    I wonder if the same idea could be used on a squirt top too. Have a screw on top with a clip and a squirt nozzle.

  • Cars

    A Car That Drives You (to Save Gas)

    By Posted on 8.5.2008 6 Comments

    Your car is going to drive you to work someday. Until then, car makers are experimenting with ideas that take control away from you in subtle, helpful ways – mostly to help increase fuel efficiency.

    8.5.2008 at 04:19pm - Comment by anomaly

    Perhaps it would be possible to add an easy override switch on the steering wheel . I'm not sure if the reaction time would be fast enough to avoid being in an accident, though. But once we've started to blatently control something like this, we're not far from controlling the speed of the car, so that some GPS system forces you to follow the posted speed limit based on your coordinates.

  • The Environment

    A New Dawn for Solar Energy

    By Posted on 8.1.2008 28 Comments

    It doesn’t take a stellar imagination to figure out the main downside of solar power. For years, the question of how to store the energy generated when the sun is shining for use at night has prevented solar power from becoming a viable alternative energy source. However, a new breakthrough may have overcome that storage problem, opening the door for solar energy on a grand scale.

    8.2.2008 at 12:51pm - Comment by anomaly

    Physco219, I like your point about over oxygenating the atmosphere. No matter what solution we end up using we have to look into the long term effects. It's great that we've found a viable solution in turning water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then turning it back to water. And it's great that we'll get usable energy out of one of the largest natural cycles (the water cycle). But what happens in 2030, when the estimated 1 billion cars on this planet (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/MarinaStasenko.shtml) are all displacing water and potentially disrupting the water cycle? Or what happens when our power plants output so much water that they form their own streams or rivers? What agricultural or environmental side effects are there? Don't get me wrong, I think that using water is a great potential solution, but these are the questions we need to be asking.



Download Our iPhone App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing



Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed



Become a Fan On Facebook

Share links with friends, comment on stories and more


December 2009: Best of What's New

In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.

Check out the best of what's new here.

Popular Science Photo Pool


Share your photos in the Pop Sci pool at www.flickr.com!
tags_sprite.png
POP_embeddedForm_cover_May09.jpg