We've written about more than a few creative transportation ideas on this blog, but this one takes the cake: a huge, road-straddling vehicle that operates like a type of bus-subway hybrid.

Originally created by Chinese engineers and set to arrive in Beijing in 2011, this super bus will be powered by electricity combined with rooftop solar panels. It will travel at speeds of 25-50mph and sit about eight feet above other vehicles, allowing them to pass underneath the passenger compartment.

Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo, an associate professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University, is changing the future of electronics. The key? One word: plastics.

Loo's research examines how electrically-active materials can be processed to make cheap, efficient, thin film devices (such as solar cells).