Wouldn't it be great if here at scienceTASTIC we didn't report the coolest science news, but actually made the news? Then we could tell you that Mike was killing the world's most ancient frogs for a bit of coal, Mark is able to hack your car's computer with ease, and Joe has successfully sent information over ten miles using quantum teleportation. Alas, we're just a trio of know-nothings telling you that male antelopes lie to females to get a little more lovin', the Japanese have launched a probe with a interesting secondary mission, and pencils will make our computers 1000 times faster. Maybe we should have actually used our childhood chemistry sets for experimentation instead of just dumping everything into an empty mayonnaise jar and make a foamy, purple mess?

What we didn't get to: the creation of the first synthetic life form. You know, one of the biggest science news stories of the decade. Yeah, didn't have time for that.

(Links to the stories we cover are always available at sciencetastic.net.)

In this episode of scienceTASTIC we do our best to stay on topic, sometimes to little avail. Mark covers hypersonic space tourism, Mike ratches it up a notch with even more hyper- hypersonic space flight, and Joe washes his hands clean of it all. A zig here, a zag there, and we continue on with smart dust, real-life tractor beams, and making it rain with lasers. It was a bit of a journey, but we got through it. Together.

What we didn't get to: waiting for Mt. Fuji to explode and watching supernovae in 3D.

(Links to the stories we cover are always available at scienceTASTIC.net.)