This Week in the Future, January 23-27, 2012

Look, world’s longest ongoing experiment. You’re impressive. We won’t deny that. But the fact that nobody has ever seen your tar pitch actually drip in person, after 85 years, is infuriating. Just ask this trio of impatient folks: Ms. Hawk, Admiral F-35, and Dr. Whiskeybottle are all waiting for something, anything, to happen.

Want to win this impatient Baarbarian illustration on a T-shirt? It’s easy! 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 the envy of their friends, coworkers and everyone else with eyes. (Those who would rather not leave things to chance and just pony up some cash for the t-shirt can do that here.) The stories pictured herein:

• In Its First Night Flight, the F-35 Soars at Sundown
• The Maximum Airspeed Above Which Birds And Drones Are Bound to Crash
• FYI: How Long-Running Is the Longest-Running Lab Experiment?
• Tested: A Chemical Time Machine Makes Whiskey Taste Older, Faster

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

• Video: Mixing 21st-Century Cocktails with Dave Arnold at Booker & Dax
• The Goods: January 2012’s Hottest Gadgets
• How Men Can Decode Women’s Menstrual Cycles
• The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 23-27, 2012
• Building a Vertical Farm in an Old Chicago Meatpacking Plant
• The Moon Should Be the 51st State, and Other Space Dreams From Newt Gingrich
• Judge Rules Americans Can Be Forced to Decrypt Personal Data — What Does That Mean For You?
• World’s Most Powerful X-Ray Laser Super-Heats Aluminum Foil to 3.6 Million Degrees
• A Dozen Science and Tech Stories to Expect in 2012
• A New Moratorium on Research Into Engineered Avian Flu: What It Means for Science
• Physicists Hope to Catch Neutrons in the Act of Jumping from Our Universe to Another