COMPANY CLAIMS THEIR FLYING CAR WILL HIT MARKETS IN TWO YEARS

While "Back to the Future" may have been the trigger for many people's dreams of owning a flying car, the idea has actually been floating around the minds of man since not long after cars became widely available at the beginning of the 20th century. Henry Ford even warned that a hybrid airplane and car was coming back in 1940. And even though we have been teased over and over again with prototypes and promises (thank you Terrafugia for repeatedly getting our hopes up), flying cars is still not a reality for consumers.

But excitement was renewed once again last year when Slovakian company AeroMobil tantalised us with their prototype car/plane hybrid, the AeroMobil 3.0, which was unveiled at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna. 

At the time, AeroMobil was careful not to make any promises about when the product could reach the market, admitting that there was still a lot ahead of them. Now, just four months on, the company has perhaps set themselves up for some eye-rolling and "Yeah yeah"'s with the ambitious announcement that the vehicle could go from prototype to consumer vehicle within just two years.
Source: iflscience.com

WE'RE APPROACHING THE "BIG CRUNCH"

For nearly a century, cosmologists have been obsessed with the question of whether gravity will eventually cause the universe to collapse in on itself in a reversal of the Big Bang, or if it will expand forever until the stars burn out. Or as Robert Frost put it, end in fire or ice.

The discovery of dark energy seemed to have settled the question. If the universe is not only expanding, but accelerating in its expansion because a powerful force is overcoming gravity at large distances, then how could it ever reverse? Instead, the dispersion might be expected to happen faster and faster until the galaxies, and maybe individual stars, lose touch with each other. 

In Physical Review Letters, however, two physicists have attempted to answer the still-unsolved question of what dark energy actually is. Their model suggests dark energy will dominate the universe shortly before a "turnaround," leading to an eventual collapse. While they cannot set a date on when this turnaround will occur, a natural choice for the strengths of forces suggests it could be quite soon.

Source: iflscience.com