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A Category 4 hurricane approaches New Orleans, yet “When the Saints Go Marching In” continues to spill out of clubs on Bourbon Street. No one’s worried, because two F4 Phantom fighter jets have just taken off from the nearby Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base to kill the storm before it hits land.

Veteran Pilot Vern Raburn has a plan to save us from the nightmare that is modern air travel-the lines, the endless delays, the crowded cabins. His company, Eclipse Aviation in Albuquerque, is manufacturing the most inexpensive business jet ever: a six-seat bird called the Eclipse 500. Hailed as the nation´s first real air taxi, one that could shuttle customers between America´s 5,400 small (read: uncrowded) airports, the jet costs just $1.5 million.

For a closer look at the exotic aircraft the Air Force might be cooking up at Area 51, launch the photo gallery.

Geneticist Amita Sehgal of the University of Pennsylvania was recently studying fruit flies in her lab when she noticed something peculiar. The insects slept normally when bathed in light for 24 hours a day but tossed and turned when shifted from one day/night cycle, or â€time zone,†to another. It turns out they were suffering from something akin to serious jet lag.

What happens to airplanes when they die? Though it's fun to imagine them flying up to some big hangar in the sky, the truth is that of the 200 that are retired worldwide every year, most end up in scrap-metal graveyards. Some are even simply abandoned to rust next to landing strips, becoming the FAA equivalent of junked front-yard jalopies.