This Week in the Future, March 28-April 1, 2011
Do not adjust your computer monitor, tablet, or smartphone. Do not bother rubbing your eyes. Just scoff, as the chicks...

Do not adjust your computer monitor, tablet, or smartphone. Do not bother rubbing your eyes. Just scoff, as the chicks do, at the patently impossible air conditioner. Then enter our contest for the chance to win a t-shirt emblazoned with said chicks, said air conditioner, and a host of other science and tech breakthroughs from the week that was March 28th through April 1st.
The rules: Follow us on Twitter (we’re @PopSci, funnily enough) 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:
- Coming Soon To Your Mug: Temperature-Regulating Coffee Widgets
- With New Materials, Air Conditioners Can Be Powered By Waste Heat
- To Find Intelligent ETs, First Look for Signs of Mining in Distant Asteroid Belts
- Baby Chicks Reject Escher-esque Impossible Shapes
And don’t forget to check out our other favorite stories of the week:
- How It Works: The Make-All 3-D Printer
- Six Ways Bio-Inspired Design is Reshaping the Future
- Video: Robotic Swiss Quadrocopters Hold Their Own At Tennis
- The History of the Teardown: The Need to See Our Gear Undressed
- Testing the Goods: HTC’s Thunderbolt, Verizon’s Searingly-Fast First 4G Phone
- As Radioactive Situation Worsens in Japan, Authorities Plan to Seal Reactor With Shellac
- Gallery: Messenger Sends Back First-Ever Pictures From Orbit Around Mercury
- How It Works: The World’s Fastest Rollercoaster
- New Species of Freshwater Stingray Found, X-Rayed
- Archive Gallery: Popular Science’s Daycare of Horrors
- How It Works: 3-D TV Without Glasses