This one's pretty hard to wrap my head around: An MIT researcher, Alan Epstein, has created a nickel-sized gas turbine, a pint-sized relative of those found on jetplanes. Despite the turbine's tiny size, the blades whir along at 1 million RPMs. He's pitching it as a replacement for batteries in handheld devices like GPS radios, though it sounds like a bad match for anything that goes in your pocket—the mini-turbine emits "a tiny stream of hot exhaust gas." Insert your own scatalogical joke here.

Rocket in Your Pocket [Fuel Cell Works, via MIT Tech Review]

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