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A vascular synthetic system that restores mechanical performance in response to large-scale damage. Gap-filling scaffolds are created through a two-stage polymer chemistry that initially forms a shape-conforming dynamic gel but later polymerizes to a solid structural polymer with robust mechanical properties.

Imagine a material that only admits thermal conduction for certain temperatures. Martin Maldovan from Georgia Tech holds a tiny thermoelectric device that turns cold on one side when current is applied. Recent research has focused on the possibility of using interference effects in phonon waves to control heat transport in materials. These are exciting news (see Nature Materials paper here http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v14/n7/full/nmat4308.html). Heterostructure research lead to outstanding new possibilities when applied to electronic transport (e.g. in quantum well and quantum dots) and to photonics (e.g. Quantum Cascade Laser tunnable lasers). Apparently the time has come to see selective thermal control in this way! Truly exciting!!

doesn't look very ambitious with such choices!

antihydrogen propulsion...?

didn't roger write an assessment of antimatter propulsion when he was in the ACT?

yeah the problem is the amount of antimatter you can get and more specifically how to trap it. I found that you would need around one gram to go to the outer Solar System. So we are far from that, but finding an efficient way to trap it, with an electromagnetic trap rather than solid walls is a first step !

This is related to the "Verified Software" item in NewScientist's list of ideas that will change science. At the link below you'll find the text of the patents being auctioned: http://icapoceantomo.com/item-for-sale/exclusive-license-related-improved-methodology-formally-developing-control-systems :) Patent #7,627,538 ("Swarm autonomic agents with self-destruct capability") makes for quite an interesting read: "This invention relates generally to artificial intelligence and, more particularly, to architecture for collective interactions between autonomous entities." "In some embodiments, an evolvable synthetic neural system is operably coupled to one or more evolvable synthetic neural systems in a hierarchy." "In yet another aspect, an autonomous nanotechnology swarm may comprise a plurality of workers composed of self-similar autonomic components that are arranged to perform individual tasks in furtherance of a desired objective." "In still yet another aspect, a process to construct an environment to satisfy increasingly demanding external requirements may include instantiating an embryonic evolvable neural interface and evolving the embryonic evolvable neural interface towards complex complete connectivity." "In some embodiments, NBF 500 also includes genetic algorithms (GA) 504 at each interface between autonomic components. The GAs 504 may modify the intra-ENI 202 to satisfy requirements of the SALs 502 during learning, task execution or impairment of other subsystems."

Sounds like an interesting building material. Unlike concrete, after use it can simply be molten down (at seemingly reasonable temperatures) and used again to build different parts. Crack in the wall? Just iron it out (literally)! A group at Northwestern University wants to solve an engineering challenge now to prepare for the future: it's turning Mars-like soil into concrete. And, in turn, that concrete requires very little (if any) water. It's just the thing we may need to make life on Mars sustainable.

A new so called 5D data storage that could potentially survive for billions of years. The research consists of nanostructured glass that can record digital data in five dimensions using femtosecond laser writing.

Yes Alex, indeed, the durability is the point I think they highlight and focus on (besides the fact the abstract says something as the extrapolated decay time being comparable to the age of the Universe..). Indeed memories face problems with retention time. Most of the disks retain the information up to 10 years. When enterprises want to store data for longer times than this they use... yeah, magnetic tapes :-). Check a interesting article about magnetic tape market revival here http://www.information-age.com/technology/data-centre-and-it-infrastructure/123458854/rise-fall-and-re-rise-magnetic-tape I compared for fun, to have one idea of what we were talking about. I am also very curious so see the writing and reading times in this new memory :)

But how can glass store the information so long? Glass is not even solid?!

Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a new phase of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the known phases of graphite and diamond. They have also developed a technique for using Q-carbon to make diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air. It turns out this configuration is harder than diamond, plus the material has a very low work function. The latter might be very interesting for electronics or as electrode material.

Maybe* this is the wonder material with very low workfunction needed in the Photon Enhanced Thermionic Emitter future prototype :)

Quoted from one of the authors in a separate interview: "We know that the spin states of atomic nuclei associated with semiconductor defects have excellent quantum properties at room temperature," said Awschalom, Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering and a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. "They are coherent, long-lived and controllable with photonics and electronics. Given these quantum 'pieces,' creating entangled quantum states seemed like an attainable goal." Bringing the quantum world to the macroscopic scale could see some interesting applications in sensors, or generally entanglement-enhanced applications.

They were previously working on the same concept in N-V centers in diamond (as a semiconductor). Here the advantage is that SiC could in principle be integrated with Si or Ge. Anyway its all about controlling coherence. In the next 10 years some breakthroughs are expected in the field of semiconductor spintronics, but quantum computing in this way lies still in the horizon

It may be feasible to use this in the Marsian atmosphere (9mbar CO2) to directly grow Carbon Nanofibres for infrastructural needs

nice!

gave it to Hanna, she is looking into it now. Manchester and Ghent University could be potential collaborators.

first science results reported in Nature (as far as I know) from the Yutu-2 and Chang'e mission .... and they look very good!

Sure they are very useful! It will be even better if they manage to fit the data to modeled circulation of the lunar magma ocean that was formed posterior to the "Theia" body collision with Earth. The collision was the cause of the magma ocean in the first place. The question now is how this circulation pattern of the lava-moon "froze" in time upon phase transition to solid. Because, what crystallizes last in sequence, is more rich in "incompatible" with the crystal structure, elements, we might combine data+models to predict their location. Those incompatible tracers are mainly radioactively decaying elements that produce heat (google publications about lunar KREEP elements (potassium (K), rare earth elements(REE), and phosphorus(P)). By knowing where the KREEP is: - we know where to dig for them mining (if they are useful for something, eg. Phosphorus for plants to be grown on the Moon) - we avoid planning to build the future human colony on top of radioactives, of course. The hope is that the Moon, due to lack of plate tectonics, has preserved this "signature of the freezing sequence". Let's see.

thanks Nasia! very interesting comment