A new air speed record was set at the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Wednesday when pilot Jon Sharp flew 3 kilometers in just 18. 75 seconds. Sharp, who founded Nemesis Air Racing in Mojave, California with his wife Patricia in 1990, broke the 19-year-old record of 331 mph when his Nemesis NXT hit 356 mph on a speed run above thousands of fans. Crowds gathered to watch Sharp, who helped pioneer the design for neoteric experimental technology (NXT) kit aircraft, who will try again on Saturday to go even faster.

A firm formed by Silicon Valley executives is trying to produce in commercial quantity genetically-modified bug waste that is similar to crude oil but cheaper, cleaner and renewable. LS9 Inc. is planning to build by 2011 demonstration-scale and commercial-scale plants that will produce the so-called Oil 2. 0, which is composed of excrement from altered industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli bacteria. So far, the company's laboratory can produce the biofuel in small amounts, enough to fill a beaker, but has yet to test a 264-gallon (1,000-liter) fermenting machine that can produce the equivalent of one barrel of the fuel per week.

California legislators are on an amendment and enactment mode, targeting principally the state's various driving laws. Among the measures under consideration are a prohibition on drivers carrying live animals on their laps while behind the wheel. Another proposal seeks to ban truants and high school dropouts from driving, while one bill urges a study on the danger silent electric cars hold for blind pedestrians.

A controversial plan for a 54,000-square-foot mansion proposed by Russian mogul Valery Kogan was rejected by officials after receiving a flurry of complaints from neighbors saying the house would be too large. The permit was denied Tuesday by the Greenwich Planning and Zoning Commission, halting construction of what would have been the largest single-family residence since the city began reviews back in 2001.

Mattel, the world's largest toy manufacturer and birth place of the popular Barbie doll, has high chances of winning a copyright lawsuit it filed against MGA Entertainment. MGA churned out Bratz, an urban facsimile of Barbie. Mattel contends that when the Bratz doll was designed by Carter Bryant, he was still a Mattel employee, therefore income from the sale of the doll including direct sales and licensing fees must accrue to Bryant's former employer.