This Week in the Future, May 16-20, 2011

This Week in the Future, May 16-20, 2011 Baarbarian

Earlier this week, we wrote that "a hacker allegedly used a fake name to set up a bogus Amazon EC2 account" in order to wage a massive, debilitating attack on Sony's PlayStation Network. According to this week's Baarbarian illustration, that hacker may just have been...a squirrel. I don't even want to know what he's doing to that overlong tax code.

The rules: Follow us on Twitter (we're @PopSci) and retweet our This Week in the Future tweet. One of those lucky retweeters will be chosen to receive a custom t-shirt with this week's Baarbarian illustration on it, thus making the winner entirely too cool for their school, or place of business, or couch. (Those who would rather just buy the t-shirt can do that here.) The stories pictured therein:

• Patient Elects to Have Hand Amputated to Make Way for a Bionic One
• U.S. Air Force Seeks Acoustic Squirrel-Detector
• Science Fiction Writer Envisions How Smart Algorithms Could Streamline the US Tax Code
• PlayStation Network Hackers Used Amazon's Cloud Services To Launch Their Attack, Report Says
• The First Squid in Space: Will Its Bacteria Turn On Its Host Once Away From Earth?

And don't forget to check out our other favorite stories of the week:

• As the Army Fights the Mississippi River, Who Is Winning?
• Citizens in Flood Zone Build Homemade Levees to Protect Their Homes
• How L.A. Noire Rebuilt 1940s Los Angeles Using Vintage Extreme Aerial Photography
• Bodies In Motion: Exploring the Human Limits of Future Travel
• Video: Robotic Exoskeleton Helps Paralyzed College Student Walk Across the Stage at Graduation
• Dinosaur Digs, Particle Accelerators and Crash Tests: Eight Epic Summer Vacations
• SETI Turns Radio Telescopes Toward Kepler Candidate Planets, Listening for Signs of Life
• Is the Ending of the Shuttle Program a Setback for Space Science, Or a New Opportunity?
• New Tougher Bedbugs Are Harder Than Ever to Kill
• Video: Virgin's SpaceShipTwo Makes Its First 'Feathering' Flight
• FYI: Can Humans Survive in a Completely Self-Sufficient Closed Environment?
• Ford Wants Your Next Car to Monitor Your Vital Signs as You Drive
• Archive Gallery: PopSci Lends a Hand to the Disabled
• Testing the Goods: Horizon MiniPak Portable Fuel Cell Charger