Featured Story

Inside the Coast Guard's Dirtiest Job (with Video!)

Buoys guide ships into port--but who maintains these crucial floating beacons? PM spent a night and two days on a Coast Guard boat off the coast of New York watching a young crew labor to keep our maritime infrastructure afloat.

Previous Extreme Machines Stories

Scientists Go Indoors to Test Next-Gen Hurricane Hunter NOAA's Hurricane Imaging Radiometer will scan the ocean floor for microwave reflections that predict storm strengths. When it comes to testing such high tech weather sensors, researchers enter an electromagnetically quiet room. (Published in the December 2008 issue)
3 Large Hadron Collider Headaches (So Far)—and How to Fix Them Somewhere along the way to uncovering the "God particle" and quieting doomsayers, a trio of setbacks put the LHC out of commission. Here's what went wrong, and what the CERN team plans to do about it.
High in Andes, World's Next Super Scope Takes Shape: First Look Teams from across the globe are racing up the Chilean Andes to erect ALMA, which will become the largest and most advanced radio telescope when it's completed in 2012, with 10 times the power of Hubble.
The 10 Next Hot Skyscrapers You Won't Find in Dubai As Burj Dubai officially becomes the world's tallest building, here are our 10 favorite skyscrapers under construction whose radical designs and eco-friendly architecture make up for a lack of height.
5 Things You Need to Know About the Large Hadron Collider Now Why are people without physics degrees counting down until the first proton beam travels the ring? Is it because the bad science of the machine's supposed doomsday potential traveled faster than quantum mechanics? Or because there's never been a more powerful mega-gadget like it?
Inside LHC Launch Party, Not End of World & Scientists Feel Fine Scientists and students put aside the doomsday talk for what may have been America's nerdiest slumber party of all time, gathering at a national lab outside Chicago to gawk at shooting particles and revel in the mysteries they might unlock.
30-Ton Metal Sphere Spins for Magnetic Fields (With Video!) Researchers have constructed a 30-ton sphere that spins at more than 90 mph to generate magnetic fields. The 10-ft.-dia. sphere is filled with 13.5 tons of liquid sodium to mimic the Earth’s liquid-iron center core. (Published in the September 2008 issue)
4 Steps to Moving a Founding Father's House ... Vertically! In June, New York City residents were treated to a strange sight: the home of founding father Alexander Hamilton, elevated high above its foundations. The national landmark was being relocated one block away for restoration. (Published in the September 2008 issue)
Large Hadron Collider Turns on Sept. 10, Tests Beam on Weekend CERN has announced the start date for the LHC, at which point researchers will activate particle beams within the 17-mile-long ring, and the world’s most powerful particle accelerator will begin collecting data.
To Test Houses vs. Hurricanes, Lab Will Simulate 155-mph Storm As hurricane season presses on, Miami researchers are developing a new extreme technique for pinpointing how big storms damage infrastructure: Smack a full-scale, spinning test home with a Category 4 "Wall of Wind"—coconut catapult and all.
View Full Science: Extreme Machines Archive

Digital Hollywood

Geeked-Out Movies '09

The holiday movie season has come and gone without so much as a certified blockbuster. Thank goodness for 2009!

PLUS: The Top 10 F/X Scenes of 2008

Solar Thermal Power May Make Sun-Powered Grid a Reality
It's solar's new dawn. Now new innovations are exiting the lab and plugging into the grid - turning sunlight into serious energy.

Automotive

Detroit's Wild Ride in '08

There's never been a wilder year for the automotive world than 2008. Here are the most important events of the year.

PLUS: 5 Reasons GM Teeters on the Edge

Current Issue

Out Now: Snoop Tech

For January, PM explores how gadgets are leaving our personal info vulnerable to hackers. With features on hi-def epics, full-size pickups, welding and more!