Magnus effect

Earlier today I watched this video, where some guys dropped a basketball off a dam. Interesting, I guess. Then they threw another one off, but this time they made it spin backwards as they dropped it. It fell, but it fell sideways, in a similar fashion to a ball rolling down an invisible skateboard ramp.

This is called the magnus effect. It's where as a spinnin object goes through the air, the air on one side goes along with the spinning motion of the ball, and the other side goes against it, creating drag. The side that's going with the ball creates an equal and opposite reaction, pushing it sideways.

This has been used in a few engineeing feats, such as a boat that had 4 spinning rods on the top of it, with no propellers in the water, or sails, and just by spinnging those rods it pused the boat forward, using air propulsion.

Aerogel

 Aerogel was invented by Samuel Stephens Kistler, in 1930. 

Aerogel is made by combining silica with a solvent to make a gel. This gel is then subjected to supercritical fluid extraction,which is where they introduce liquid carbon dioxide in liquid form to the gel, the decompress it so it all evaporates out, leaving just the structure of the gel, and air.

About 99.99% of aerogel is air.

Nasa uses aerogel as an insulator to keep its eletronics warm, on the mars rover, and they also use it to catch space dust and debris.