Diego Trujillo's conceptual art piece "300 Year Time Bomb" isn't designed as a preemptive salvo in the inevitable war against Earth's ascendant ape god-tyrants. No, it's built to explore the human propensity to venerate the ancient and tease out our modern fixation with timers and countdowns. As Trujillo explains:

Among the lesser known weapons used in World War II were airborne bombs, that drifted across the ocean like flying jellyfish. They were known as fugo, or fire balloons, and they were the only successful attack on the mainland United States.

Germany spent the end of the 1930s and half the 1940s inventing and perfecting missiles. They made so many, they still had a ton of them left over after the end of World War II. So of course, the leftover weapons were confiscated by the United States. And here's one of the things we did with them.

In order to detect explosive chemicals, without getting in range, scientists have developed a testing laser. The difference is, this laser doesn't need to be shot out of a device. It's shot out of the air.

"It's a lot nicer if you don't have to walk up to a bomb to find out what it is," quips Larry Senesac of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. I would have to agree: roadside bombs are clearly no fun for anyone. That's why Senesac and his fellow researchers have developed a laser system that can detect bombs from a …