The coveted “Best of What’s New” for the year awards from Popular Science include, for 2006, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II and the recently de-cloaked Polecat unmanned aerial vehicle. Popular Science evaluates thousands of products each year to find those new products that “change the way we think about the future,” said Editor Mark Jannot, per a company news release. Lockheed Martin just unveiled the Polecat, a product of the secretive Skunk Works, this past summer.
Three of four congressional committees with influence over defense policy have voted to change the official name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War—but final approval of the Pentagon rebrand is months away and not yet assured.