A gravity tractor, as envisioned by scientists, is a spacecraft that would hover over an asteroid on a collision course with Earth and, through gravitational attraction, accelerate or slow down the asteroid's rate of travel. By altering the speed, the gravity tractor could prevent the asteroid from striking Earth and wreaking environmental and economic havoc.
A strain of bacteria that releases electrons as a waste product could become the secret ingredient for developing fuel cells for spy drones and other small robots.
An ambitious program called CubeSat, developed at Stanford University and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, is giving students and companies the opportunity to build and launch functional satellites into low Earth orbit, or about 240 to 360 miles above the planet.
The U.S. Army next year plans to deploy robots mounted with M249 machine guns, although humans will firmly be in control of them.
Mirroring trends in the personal computing industry boom, intelligent robots that can perform tasks usually reserved for humans are starting to creep into mainstream society and could become a multibillion-dollar market in a few years.