Abstract: The HelCat (Helicon-Cathode) dual-source plasma device is a 4m long, 50cm diameter, linear experiment housed in the Plasma and Fusion Science Lab at the University of New Mexico. Recent experiments utilizing the RF-powered m=1 helicon coil in the helicon regime (vs. inductively-coupled regime) show that the plasma becomes turbulent including strong coherent modes. These are thought to be a hybrid of both KH and drift waves. In this regime, the plasma density is strongly peaked in the center of the device with an average FWHM diameter of ~6.5cm with a hollow neutral profile. It is believed that neutrals play a very important role in the plasma dynamics of HelCat and the study and measurement of these neutrals is ongoing with new LIF (laser-induced fluorescence) measurements that will be discussed in this talk along with a collisional radiative (CR) model for estimating metastable population levels. Ongoing numerical modeling using the Global Braginskii Solver (GBS) code will also be discussed. Finally, a compact coaxial plasma gun mounted to the chamber side has been used to launch plasma jets and bubbles (taylor-relaxed states known as Spheromaks) into HelCat in order to study astrophysical jets and CME interaction with the solar wind. Jet stabilization in the jet case, and a magnetic rayleigh-taylor instability in the spheromak case are currently under investigation using the BATS-R-US MHD code.