9:paper airplanes folded and launched by this inventor’s wonderful gun in its YouTube debut.

0.2 micrometers:the microscope resolution limit Eric Betzig, William Moerner, and Stefan Hell beat on their way to a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Their nanoscopy technology opened up a new, infinitesimal world for researchers to observe.

Antarctic Ice Maximum

7.78 million square miles:extent of Antarctic sea ice recorded in late September. The unexpected new ice around the southernmost continent is helping scientists improve climate models.

$1 billion:IBM’s investment in its artificial intelligence, Watson, which has gone from playing Jeapordy! to studying brain cancer.

1:number of babies born from transplanted uteruses so far. Researchers believe more are likely to follow.

The Wait For Space

$6.8 billion:total impact, in disrupted contracts, of the Sierra Nevada Corporation’s protest against NASA’s space taxi deal with SpaceX and Boeing.

More than 50 percent:amount of electricity in an LED that converts into light, another Nobel Prize-winning technology.

4 percent:conversion rate for alternative incandescent bulbs. Better to go with the LEDs

253 mph:cruising speed of this new military helicopter.

12:number of male rabbits hopping around with transplanted penises, as part of a study that could one day impact humans.

Unmanned Patrol Boat

13:armed patrol boat drones that swarmed together in this Navy demonstration.

100s:Bluetooth beacons one company distributed to phone booths all over New York City in order to track passersby. (The city is now forcing the company to remove the trackers.)