From the realm of science fiction comes this very interesting article. Apparently the Air Force is going to try to make some warp engines using some strange quantum concept that says a very large magnetic field can be used to create a gravity well. Supposedly, if this worked, we could go from the Earth to Mars in 3 hours and from Earth to a star 11 light years away in 80 days. I can see the new Gilligan. “A three hour tour (of Mars), a three hour tour (of Mars)…The space storms started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed…” Maybe Gilligan can ski down Olympus Mons this time instead of swimming in the lagoon… Anyway, if they could make this work, that would be way cool.
The wikipedia entry on loop quantum gravity, the theory of which this engine seeks to prove: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_theory#Loop_quantum_gravity.
Basically, their engine is just to test this out. Don’t expect warp-capable ships anytime soon. 🙂