Researchers at automation technology company Festo have developed what just might be the Best Robot Ever. They’ve made a version that swims in the air using helium and lightweight tentacles, as well as one that swims underwater. Totally mesmerizing - check out the video!

The V-2 rocket, produced by Nazi Germany during World War II, was the first man-made object to achieve suborbital spaceflight and was the precursor to all modern rockets, including those used for human spaceflight. Germany launched over 3,000 of them at Allied countries up through 1945, claiming 7,000 military and civilian lives, mostly in London and Antwerp, as well the 25,000 slave laborers who died while being forced to produce them.

The 46-foot-long rocket’s liquid oxygen-fueled engine would burn for only about 65 seconds before cutting off, using two gyroscopes and a simple analog computer to determine the exact angle of the rocket at the moment the engine cut off. The rocket then followed a purely ballistic trajectory the rest of the way to its destination, sometimes landing within meters of its target. The V-2 had a range of up to 200 miles at an altitude of 55 miles.

Whenever the rockets fell in London, there would be no warning before the explosion, as the V-2 traveled at supersonic speeds. Just after the explosion, a characteristic fading whistling sound could often be heard. In fact, the British government denied that the city was under rocket attack until it had been going on for weeks, instead attributing the explosions to other causes.

When Germany fell to the Allied troops in 1945, the V-2’s creator, Wernher von Braun, and his whole team surrendered to the Americans in order to prevent their technology from going to the Russians. Von Braun went on to create the rockets first used by the fledgling US space program, including the giant Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon.

Silicon Valley company Luxim has created the most efficient light source yet, at 140 lumens (units of light output) per watt. For comparison, today’s most efficient LEDs only produce 70 lumens per watt, and a normal incandescent bulb produces a measly 15. They have produced a bulb the size of a Tic Tac that produces as much light as a street lamp using a fraction of the power. They use an electrical charge tightly focused into a small capsule of argon gas. The argon turns into a 6000 degree plasma, as hot as the surface of the sun - which is the reason why the light it emits has the same spectrum as natural sunlight. Check out the CNET video to see it in action.

In addition to being the most awesome-looking piece of machinery I have ever seen, the Large Helical Device is billed as the “largest superconducting stellarator in the world”. This Japanese fusion research device consists of intertwined coils of superconducting material, and is designed to contain a 100-million-degree nuclear fusion plasma. The research aims to solve the many engineering challenges that must be overcome in order for fusion reactors to produce more energy than they consume.

Unlike today’s “parallel hybrid” cars, where a normal gas engine and an electric motor are both mechanically connected to the wheels, the Volvo C-30 Recharge Concept “series hybrid” has four electric motors, one in each wheel well, and a diesel engine that isn’t connected to the wheels - its only job is to act as a generator and recharge the batteries when they are low, or send electricity to the wheel motors if the batteries are empty.

The car can travel 60 miles on batteries alone before the engine kicks in - and since you can recharge it by plugging it in at night, that means if you drive less than 60 miles a day, you’ll never need to buy gas. And in a 93 mile drive starting with full batteries and a full tank, you would effectively get 124 miles per gallon. (Yes, that electricity from your wall probably doesn’t come carbon-free, but even if 100% of it comes from coal-fired plants, your overall emissions will still be far less than a conventional gas engine.)

Sadly, this car exists only in a test version, and may never reach production. However, GM is using the same basic design in their Volt hybrid car, with just slightly lower specs, which is entering production and should be available by 2010.