• Science

    Why Does Organic Milk Have a Longer Shelf Life Than The Regular Kind?

    By Catherine Schwanke Posted on 4.15.2009 3 Comments

    It all has to do with where the cow was milked. "Organic milk often has to travel thousands of miles to reach distribution points," says Dean Sommer, a cheese and food technologist at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin. To survive the journey and leave time to spare in the fridge, farmers pasteurize organic milk at higher temperatures than conventional milk.

    4.11.2009 at 12:30pm - Comment by trestle

    Irradiation is expensive and can lead to consumer relations problems. Furthermore, irradiation is only applicable for a limited number of foods. Pasteurization is nearly universally accepted by the public and works well.

  • Cars

    GM Unveils the P.U.M.A., and Possibly the Future of Urban Transportation

    By Posted on 4.8.2009 12 Comments

    Is it the car of the future? The Segway of the future? An idea destined to go nowhere? Something in between? Today GM unveiled the PUMA, a two-wheeled city vehicle built in collaboration with Segway. PUMA stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, and the idea is to create a small, highly maneuverable mini-car ideal for congested cities where the traffic is slow and the parking is nonexistent.

    4.8.2009 at 02:33pm - Comment by trestle

    The PUMA makes for a great technology demonstrator but there is nothing practical about it. There is not a market for people that want to drive a micro-sized car that doesn't have a steering wheel. The PUMA represents GM's attempt to think outside the box, not a legitimate attempt to put egg shaped vehicles in people's driveways.

  • Technology

    The Flying Car Gets Real

    By Gregory Mone Posted on 10.8.2008 45 Comments

    The Transition is not a flying car. The vehicle, set to go on sale next year, will cruise smoothly on the road and through the sky. It will have four wheels, Formula One–style suspension, and a pair of 10-foot-wide wings that fold up when it switches from air to asphalt. And when the engineers at Terrafugia in Woburn, Massachusetts, let me sit inside their just-finished proof-of-concept vehicle and grab the steering wheel, it’s easy to imagine piloting this thing up and out of traffic, into the open skies.

    10.9.2008 at 12:15pm - Comment by trestle

    This thing is a gimmick. It is not as practical for flying as an actual plane, and it is not as practical for driving as an actual car. It would be a lot cheaper and more efficient if they simply made the vehicle a dedicated aircraft. Flying cars are novelties nothing more.

  • The Environment

    An Ecological Leap

    By Jaya Jiwatram Posted on 10.2.2008 12 Comments

    What makes an eco-friendly meal? It's a question that has caused many heated arguments. Some say vegetarian, or even vegan, meals are the best way to lead a green lifestyle, since the livestock industry causes a plethora of environmental problems, from massive-scale deforestation to air and water pollution. Others argue that the large-scale production of corn and soy (a popular substitute for meat products) are just as bad for the environment. In Australia, the debate has taken an interesting turn.

    10.5.2008 at 10:47pm - Comment by trestle

    Forget about flatulence and belching. If you want to reduce the effect of of agriculture on the environment, find a way to deal with the millions of pounds of feces produced each year. That contributes huge amounts of methane to the atmosphere (which is a better heat trapping gas than CO2) and it would be a lot easier to manage than attempting to catch flatulence.



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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.

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