transportation

Forget about carrying cargo by truck, and instead imagine shuttling goods around inside a series of underground tubes. That's the hope of Henry Liu, a 73-year-old retired civil engineer and a past winner of PopSci's Inventions Awards for his environmentally safe green bricks.

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Slot machine junkies and poker sharks could soon ride one of three futuristic high speed trains from Los Angeles to casino mecca Las Vegas. But that's assuming developers get on board with a tubular rail, a maglev transporter for cars, or an air-cushioned train.

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Norfolk Southern is the latest company to push a piece of heavy industrial machinery into green territory with their 100% electric NS 999 locomotive. The zero-emissions train makes use of 1,080 12-volt batteries that allows it to run for 24 hours on a single charge--all while carrying the same load as a conventional locomotive.

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Good news for the elderly, clowns, obese tourists, and the very, very lazy: Honda has released a new, motorized unicycle that functions the same way as a Segway. The super light U3-X personal mobility system is perfect for those who are too lazy for the standing that a Segway requires.

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If a Segway and a foldable scooter got together, they might hope to conceive something like the YikeBike mini-farthing. The foldable electric bike resembles a sleek, futuristic upgrade of the old high-riding bicycles, and it can fold up for easy storage under a desk or in a cupboard.

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As far as urban bike concepts go, the Pulse from Teague (the designers behind the original Xbox among other things) looks exciting both from a fashion standpoint and a practical one. Sleek, functional and with a frame that glows with an ethereal blue light -- what more could you want?

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Future business travelers may literally ride a laser to work. The U.S. and Brazilian Air Forces are experimenting with Lightcraft technology that could become part of your daily commute, using plain old air to fuel 45-minute transcontinental jaunts.

The design uses a ground-based laser to beam the Lightcraft skyward on a series of blast waves. A parabolic mirror on the back of the craft would capture and focus the pulsing laser beam so that it heats air to 5 times the sun's temperature, creating mini-explosions that propel human passengers or cargo to any point on the planet in under an hour, or into orbit.

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The Shweeb is a human-powered monorail system that makes use of a series of pedal-pods suspended by a metal rail. Easy to operate, Shweeb cars can move up to 25 mph, reportedly without excessive effort.

The Shweeb is still a standalone gimmick/prototype of sorts that sits on company grounds in New Zealand. But they see their contraption as something that would fit perfectly in natural parks for guided tours, or even adventure tourism destinations, where it could be used for racing games.

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A video shot on the floor of a subway car in Kobe, Japan, shows paperclips standing on end whenever the train accelerates or decelerates. The electromagnetism that drives the train's motors leaks through the floor and excites the clips.

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While we seem to be closer than ever to seeing a flying car in our lifetimes, The Economist seems to believe the flying car will die before it was ever really born, but not necessarily for reasons in the air. They think flying cars will have trouble getting road certified.

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