The Best Inventions Of The Year

From the phone that has changed phones forever, to futuristic cars, to a building made of water, to a remote-controlled dragonfly—a dazzling display of ingenuity

By Maryanne Murray Buechner, Kristina Dell, Andrea Dorfman, Lev Grossman, Anita Hamilton, Rebecca Winters Keegan, Jeffrey Kluger, Michael D. Lemonick, Coco Masters, Lisa McLaughlin, Alice Park, Julie Rawe and Deirdre van Dyk

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John B. Carnett / Popular Science
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Each year coal-fired power plants dump millions of tons of mercury-laced ash into landfills. Henry Liu has found a way to compress this waste into fly-ash bricks that are eco-friendlier than their clay counterparts. The bricks conserve energy (they're made at room temperature), and tests suggest they may even suck mercury out of the surrounding air.
Available 2009
greenestbrick.com

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