This Week in the Future, August 15-19, 2011

This week’s Baarbarian illustration shows a three-way race (…to the future!). A robot named Mabel races to prove her sporting abilities. An electric car races to prove its endurance. And an alligator races because everyone else is trying to harvest its fat.

Want to win this pretty 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:

• Video: Mabel the Robot Sets Speed Record For Bipedal Running
• Light-Up Bike Wheels Help Cyclists See the Road, and Help Motorists See the Bikes
• A New Spin on Road Bike Frames Smooths Your Ride
• Alligator Fat Could Fill Your Gas Tank and Fuel Renewable Resource Investment in the South
• “Boozer” the Electric Car Smashes Distance Record, Driving 1,000 Miles on a Single Charge

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

• You Call This School? The 25 Coolest College Labs in the Country
• Gray Matter: Easy DIY Gunpowder
• Building, Launching, and Landing a Rover (All Before Going to College)
• Punching Stan In The Face, In Ultra Slow Motion
• Introducing the Popular Science/InnoCentive Education Challenge
• Space Boat: A Nautical Mission to an Alien Sea
• SpaceX Will Launch Dragon Capsule In November, Bound for the International Space Station
• New Computer Chip Modeled on a Living Brain Can Learn and Remember
• DARPA Fills Us In On HTV-2’s Semi-Successful Flight and Very Successful Crash
• Lockheed’s SAMARAI Monocopter Makes Its Public, Neon-Lit Debut
• Putting the Ferrari FF Through Its Paces, High in the Italian Alps
• Genome of Marijuana Sequenced and Published
• RIP WebOS, the Best Smartphone Platform Nobody Used
• Archive Gallery: The Weirdest Ways to Get a Tan