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Recharge in seconds and efficiently store power for weeks between charges. Added bonus is the cheap and abundant components needed. One of the applications they foresee is to attach such a super-capacitor to the back of solar panels to store the power and discharge this during the night

very nice indeed - is this already at a stage where we should have a closer look at it? what you think? With experience in growing carbon nanostructures, Pint's group decided to try to coat the porous silicon surface with carbon. "We had no idea what would happen," said Pint. "Typically, researchers grow graphene from silicon-carbide materials at temperatures in excess of 1400 degrees Celsius. But at lower temperatures - 600 to 700 degrees Celsius - we certainly didn't expect graphene-like material growth." When the researchers pulled the porous silicon out of the furnace, they found that it had turned from orange to purple or black. When they inspected it under a powerful scanning electron microscope they found that it looked nearly identical to the original material but it was coated by a layer of graphene a few nanometers thick. When the researchers tested the coated material they found that it had chemically stabilized the silicon surface. When they used it to make supercapacitors, they found that the graphene coating improved energy densities by over two orders of magnitude compared to those made from uncoated porous silicon and significantly better than commercial supercapacitors. Transmission electron microscope image of the surface of porous silicon coated with graphene. The coating consists of a thin layer of 5-10 layers of graphene which filled pores with diameters less than 2-3 nanometers and so did not alter the nanoscale architecture of the underlying silicon. (Cary Pint / Vanderbilt) The graphene layer acts as an atomically thin protective coating. Pint and his group argue that this approach isn't limited to graphene. "The ability to engineer surfaces with atomically thin layers of materials combined with the control achieved in designing porous materials opens opportunities for a number of different applications beyond energy storage," he said.

Elon Musk is moving forward with space based internet service...

Facebook announced they are ready to test of of their High Altitude Platform element, a drone of the size of a Boeing 737. See the new here http://phys.org/news/2015-07-facebook-ready-giant-drone-internet.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ctgr-item&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter. It seemed interesting for me that they are developing also a reliable optical communication between this element and scattered ground stations.

Nice link, that thing is huge and I would love to see a drone that size fly. Also, Facebook's Aerospace Team? :)

We had some discussion about the Lotus-effect roughly two years ago. Zoe said that NASA surely worked on it. Well, she was right.

To Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, and Review Editors for the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) "I would also like to emphasize that enhanced media interest in the work of the IPCC would probably subject you to queries about your work and the IPCC. My sincere advice would be that you keep a distance from the media and should any questions be asked about the Working Group with which you are associated, please direct such media questions to the Co-chairs of your Working Group and for any questions regarding the IPCC to the secretariat of the IPCC." and an amusing related memo on how to deal with reporters if you can't avoid them. I particularly enjoyed the list of words that mean one thing to scientists and something else to other people. https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B88iFXWgVKt-NDc2N2FiM2QtYzQzYS00MWMxLWE4MGEtZjUwZDlmNzc3MTcz&hl=en

well compare to ESA it's sure it doesn't seem weird. Imagine one second a journal article about climate change: "We contacted Dr. X of the IPCC, who refused to answer to our questions..."

this is not what the memo recommends ... it just says speak only about what you can confidently speak about and refer to others for other questions ...

finally cross-scale is not selected, it was the only cosmic vision mission with multi-satellites formation flying, since the concept for Xeus has changed. There is still Swarm but it's not really formation flying... So ESA is missing something here...

does not look good ....

"Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation" - NASA's and Lockheed Martin's 2nd thoughts of returning to the moon..

a lot in this reads like our Aurora plan about seven years ago ...

I wonder how much more expensive they are...

Should we organise a workshop PDC like on this? Or a call for ideas?

The UK-led Beagle 2 Mars lander, thought lost on the red planet since 2003, has been found partially deployed on the Martian surface. New images show that it successfully touched down on the planet's surface in 2003 but failed to deploy all four of its solar panels, thereby allowing no communication with scientists on Earth.

An international team of scientists led by Liang-shi Li at Indiana University has achieved a new milestone in the quest to recycle carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere into carbon-neutral fuels and others materials.