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In case you missed the news, Eugene Polley recently passed away at the age of 96. Don’t recognize the name? You’ll certainly recognize his invention. In 1955, the former Zenith Electronics engineer debuted the first remote control. Looking more like a green stun gun than the devices we know today, the Flash-Matic not only helped to grow generations of “couch potatoes” but it freed us from cumbersome cables and mechanical dials, and spun off countless other wireless inventions. Like Polley, the following inventors may not have the name recognition of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, but without these little-known titans of technology paving the way, the aforementioned behemoths of brains (and billions) may never have created the ubiquitous devices, technologies and trends that made them famous.

Canadian officials recently took a step that was mostly overlooked by the American public — the country announced it will cease production of pennies. Such a move has been debated in the United States for several years now, but instead of doing away with the penny — which could save tens of millions of dollars a year — the U.S. government appears headed in the opposite direction; in 2009, Treasury officials went to the trouble and cost of producing a redesigned penny in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday. It’s not the first time the government has produced coinage or currency that in retrospect seemed like a bad idea, as the below examples show.

As the price and demand for oil and gas goes up worldwide, it becomes more lucrative to go after deposits of natural gas by more exotic methods. One of the most controversial methods is hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking. In this process, millions of gallons of pressurized water, chemicals and sand are injected deep underground to shatter permeable rock layers, making formerly inaccessible deposits flow to the surface. More than 20,000 natural gas wells have been fractured in the last decade in the U.S., and in these lean financial times, many property owners and communities have gladly sold or leased their land in support of this process. Still, many people fear the damage to the environment and especially the water table that might result. Here are the chief concerns about fracking, and a look at why the science in some cases is less settled than either fracking supporters or opponents would like to believe.

The big break. In Hollywood, success hinges on being noticed. Any actor can work his or her way into movies slowly, incrementally, but becoming a major motion picture star requires the kind of star turn that will be remembered for years. Sometimes talent wins the day, but just as often being in the right place at the right time — or simple, dumb luck — can lead to a breakthrough performance. Here are the 10 most notable among living actors.

Imagine a time when electric cars and other environmentally friendly models outsell gas-powered cars 4-to-1. Imagine hundreds of automakers in competition, with new innovations announced almost every month. Sound impossible? It’s not. Welcome to the state of the American automotive industry in … 1900. Yes, electric and steam-powered cars ruled the roads — what few there were — in that era and hundreds of manufacturers were making cars across America. Here’s a look back at some of the notable former manufacturers that ultimately crashed, so to speak, from brand names you’ve probably never heard of to more famous models you might remember riding in with your parents or grandparents.

Each year on Memorial Day weekend, many Americans take time to honor the men and women who have fought and died for the United States, from the American Revolution through Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the nation’s most famous monuments, memorials and cemeteries dedicated to veterans, such as Arlington National Cemetery, the National WWII Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, are located in the Washington, D.C., area and have become popular year-round tourist destinations. But the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs operates 131 national cemeteries, in addition to almost three-dozen other monument sites. The National Park Service maintains more than a dozen other national cemeteries. Here is a look at five interesting but lesser-known sites paying tribute to U.S. veterans.

We’ve all said dumb things before, things we regret. Most of us are fortunate that our words aren’t recorded for posterity — unless you posted those thoughts on your Facebook page. The people listed below weren’t so lucky; they all made incredibly bold, and in retrospect, incredibly wrong statements that live on decades later. Here are 10 interesting predictions about science and technology that seem ridiculous today.

As the world looks to the superstars of the 2012 summer Olympic Games in London, we’re looking back at the superstars of yester-Games. Unlike in baseball, football, and basketball, where comparisons between athletes from different eras can be difficult, statistics in Olympic events translate a little better across the ages. Surprisingly, many of the records we’ve highlighted below have held up incredibly well even after a half-century or more. Kind of makes you wonder how Jesse Owens, Mark Spitz, Wilma Rudolph or some of these other legends would have fared if they had access to the technology, training, nutrition, amenities and the sponsorship available to modern athletes.

If you’re tired of hearing about the federal budget deficit, it might be time to buy some earplugs. The deficit will be one of the hot topics in not only this year’s presidential race, but in Congress as well, as lawmakers again debate the extension of the federal debt-ceiling limit. Expect plenty of partisan bickering, and endless debate among politicians and pundits alike about how to reduce the deficit. Just don’t expect much of a reduction in federal employment. Here are the five largest employers in the U.S. government today, and how the ongoing budget battles could affect their workforces.

Humans have long had a love/hate relationship with robots. For every lovable robot, like R2-D2 of Star Wars fame, or the robot in the campy 1960s TV series Lost in Space (Danger, Will Robinson!), there have been evil robots and humanoids we’ve feared, liked the replicants in the classic 1982 film Blade Runner. Then there’s the Terminator series, where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “character” went from feared in the first movie to beloved in the sequels. But as we watched these movies and shows, very few people probably thought such advances in robotics would occur in their lifetime. Well, we were wrong. One day, in the not-too-distant future, human-like androids will likely walk among us undetected, acting like humans. Watching the following videos, you can see that technology in this field has come much further than you imagined.