Dan Smith

Ever wanted to launch your own satellite into low earth orbit, then track it on ham radio for a few weeks before it burns up on re-entry? Well, 52 years after the launch of Sputnik, you can. Interorbital Systems is offering YOU the chance (by the end of 2010) to send up a TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit for the low introductory price of just $8,000.

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Researchers at the University of Florida claim to be the first to use targeted gene manipulation to take adult stem cells and change them into another kind of cell completely. They changed the stem cells, from bone marrow in this instance, into retinal cells. These retinal cells, when injected into blind mice, helped cure their blindness.

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The Pentagon is trying to speed up the deployment of an ultra-large bunker-busting bomb, which would constitute the largest non-nuclear bomb the U.S. has ever used. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, is a 30,000-pound bomb that would dive deeper than any previous bomb, and could be strapped to B-2 or B-52 bombers by July of 2010.

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If you live in a big city, you probably know how dangerous bike messengers can be, suicidally zipping in and out of traffic at high speeds and smacking pedestrians in the head with their bike locks. But in a crowded city, if you want a package delivered as soon as possible, they tend to be the quickest option.

If designer Phillip Hermes has his way, though, your packages might be delivered by scurrying underground robots instead. Via the sewer.

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We at PopSci appreciate new weapons. And lasers. And laser weapons. Which is why we're excited to tell you that the Navy and the Marines have given a company called Applied Electronics about a million dollars to attach lasers onto planes. The weapons would be ultra-short-pulse (USP) lasers, which shoot beams of frequent-pulse light that create a path through the air, via which bolts of electricity can travel toward a target.

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We previously showed you construction of Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnight Two, the mothership that will help launch SpaceShipTwo into sub-orbit. However, Flight Global was able to sneak in some exclusive photos and video from inside the cockpit.

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Remember Clippy, the annoying pop-up virtual assistant that would always dispense "helpful" advice, until you wanted to virtually bend it out of shape? Well, despite it getting axed several years ago due to across-the-board hatred, and getting called "one of the worst software design blunders in the annals of computing", Clippy has inspired the Department of Defense to fund the creation of a bevy of new virtual assistants. WTF, DARPA?

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The spectacular picture above was (reportedly) shot high above the set of a movie. Producers for an unknown movie paid a couple of Russian pilots to fly their SU-35UB jet at speeds past Mach 2.0... without a canopy! After the flight, the pilot said, "While on this speed I even managed to pull out my fingers in glove for an inch or two outside - it became heated very fast because of immense friction force plane undergoes with the air."

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It is estimated that about 100,000 crashes a year are caused by sleepyhead drivers. Now, scientists are combating driver fatigue by developing systems that monitor your level of alertness -- and Nissan is hoping to wake you up with a blast of smell.

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The long-awaited robot-led holocaust may happen any day now. That seems to be the finding of a secret conference of the world's top computer scientists, roboticists, and artificial intelligence researchers. The clandestine meeting focused on topics surrounding advancements in robotics and how they could quickly spiral out of human control. This includes the danger that robots could autonomously kill humans -- a danger than conference participants believe may already exist.

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