inventions

America's beloved Bubble Wrap turns 50 today, proving that even ephemeral plastic bubbles can morph into a timeless invention. But consider that if the original inventors had their way, people would have used "Air Cap" as wallpaper -- a concept that would have undoubtedly proved as fulfilling as the prototype model future homes of the 1950s.

USB is as close as we're probably going to get to a universal gadget-charger standard. But to charge something without occupying a precious free port on your computer, you need a power brick adapter. Not with these $10 wall sockets from True Power.

These will fit with the wiring already in your home, giving you two powered USB ports (or "holes" as Prickly Pete would say) for each wall socket. They're available next year.

Between napkin sketch and showroom floor, nearly every invention undergoes substantial redesigning. For Ben Gulak’s Uno, a motorized, self-balancing unicycle (the winner of a 2008 Popular Science Invention Award), that meant adding a front wheel.

A new refrigerated cargo box for moving pharmaceutical products has attracted the likes of delivery giant UPS, but its inventor may go out of business first because of a lengthy review process by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

I watch a few documentaries a week, but it's rare for me to come across a series that I need to take notes on to keep up with. The first season of the BBC series "Connections" is one of those. It will blow your mind. James Burke walks us through the history of innovation from a touch stone (used to test the purity gold) right up to the atomic bomb, and explains how these two distant inventions are related. If you can see through the 1970s disco outfits and smoking on airplanes, you will be shocked that documentaries this good were being made 30 years ago.

Even though the ring-shaped Air Multiplier fan isn't particular powerful at $300, it's still, well, a bladeless ring! And while the answer to what comes next can only truly be known in the jetstreams of genius cycloning around in Dyson's head, cartoonist Tobias Lunchbreath has taken a stab at what ring-shaped future luxuries we may have the pleasure to purchase in the future.

A new coating turns insects' sticky climbing feet into a slippery mess, and could be the future of pest repellent, according to a new research paper. You hear that, bugs? If you can't crawl up my kitchen counter from the floor, you can't go waving your disgusting antennae all over my pizza, you insects-who-shall-not-be-named of apartment horror.

How will people make dinner in 90 years? If the newly crowned winner of the Electrolux Design Lab 2009 challenge is any indication, it'll be as easy as 1-2-3. Cocoon is a fish- and meat-generating microwave, intended as a solution to preserve fishing and farming resources.

Chinese locals have already demonstrated a knack for knocking together homemade flying contraptions and robots. Now one amateur inventor has created a full-fledged submarine built primarily from discarded oil barrels and tools bought at a second-hand market.