From the section Science & Environment Scientists are claiming a stunning discovery in their quest to fully understand gravity. They have observed the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from Earth.

Imagine if your clothing could, on demand, release just enough heat to keep you warm and cozy, allowing you to dial back on your thermostat settings and stay comfortable in a cooler room. Or, picture a car windshield that stores the sun's energy and then releases it as a burst of heat to melt away a layer of ice.

Berkeley Lab researchers are using M. thermoacetica to perform photosynthesis - despite being non-photosynthetic - and also to synthesize semiconductor nanoparticles in a hybrid artificial photosynthesis system for converting sunlight into valuable chemical products.

Babies learn about the world by exploring how their bodies move in space, grabbing toys, pushing things off tables and by watching and imitating what adults are doing. But when roboticists want to teach a robot how to do a task, they typically either write code or physically move a robot's arm or body to show it how to perform an action.

Exercise can enhance the development of new brain cells in the adult brain, a process called adult neurogenesis. These newborn brain cells play an important role in learning and memory. A new study has determined that mice that spent time running on wheels not only developed twice the normal number of new neurons, but also showed an increased ability to distinguish new objects from familiar objects.

Maybe something to look at for Ricarda? Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a first-of-its-kind self-healing gel that repairs and connects electronic circuits, creating opportunities to advance the development of flexible electronics, biosensors and batteries as energy storage devices. "There's no need for heat or light to fix the crack or break in a circuit or battery, which is often required by previously developed self-healing materials." Yu and his team created the self-healing gel by combining two gels: a self-assembling metal-ligand gel that provides self-healing properties and a polymer hydrogel that is a conductor.

Astronomers have observed up to three newborn planets evolving from a disk of gas and dust particles circling a distant Sun-like star. While 1,900 planets have been discovered outside our solar system, these are the first to be seen that are still forming.

More arguments for a lunar base? "They found the most mass-efficient path involves launching a crew from Earth with just enough fuel to get into orbit around the Earth. A fuel-producing plant on the surface of the moon would then launch tankers of fuel into space, where they would enter gravitational orbit. The tankers would eventually be picked up by the Mars-bound crew, which would then head to a nearby fueling station to gas up before ultimately heading to Mars."

Australian scientists have cleared one of the final hurdles for designing and building a quantum computer. The team of engineers from the University of New South Wales has successfully built a core component needed for the computer to operate and the work is published today in the journal Nature.

In 2017 a private moon landing could make news. If the mission is successful, said GeekWire, Moon Express could become the first privately backed venture to achieve a soft lunar landing. Bob Richards is CEO of Moon Express and he announced the launch plan earlier this month at the Space Technology & Investment Summit in San Francisco.

Imaging of gas giant orbiting its central star (related to Jai's YGT proposal): With GPI, astronomers image the actual planet--a remarkable feat given that an orbiting world typically appears a million times fainter than its parent star. This is possible because GPI's adaptive optics sharpen the image of the target star by cancelling out the distortion caused by the Earth's atmosphere; it then blocks the bright image of the star with a device called a coronagraph, revealing the exoplanet.

The Sentinel-2A satellite has been in orbit for only a matter of weeks, but new images of an algal bloom in the Baltic Sea show that it is already exceeding expectations. Built essentially as a land monitoring mission, Sentinel-2 will also certainly find its way into marine applications.

ocean fertilization might induce increased marine aerosol (DMS) emissions leading to further cooling effect but also changes in precipitation

Related to our discussion on crowdfunding from Friday's science coffee. (Another sad example of how Tony Abbott's policy negatively affects the Australian science community... ) A team of astronomers have resorted to raising funds through crowdsourcing to try and save an Australian telescope involved in mapping the Milky Way. The 22-metre diameter Mopra Radio Telescope, based near Coonabarabran in western New South Wales, is slated to be shut down by the end of the year after $110-million was slashed from CSIRO in last year's federal budget.

Inspired by biology, chemists have created a cornucopia of molecular parts that act as switches, motors and ratchets. Now it is time to do something useful with them.

After this lunch lecture probably not as ground breaking as I thought earlier but still an interesting read... "The new solution involves supertranslations, something that I have yet to get my head properly around. But it seems to rely on the well known fact that an "image" of infalling matter seems to get imprinted onto the "surface" of a black hole."

Really interesting bit hidden in the last paragraph: Monitoring coral bleaching from space with Envisat penetrating down to a depth of 10 m "[...] Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer sensor can detect coral bleaching down to depths of ten metres, meaning Envisat could potentially map coral bleaching on a global scale."

admittedly correct, so the past tense would have been a more appropriate choice... Nevertheless, plenty of data to look back at and Sentinel-3 will launch eventually! ;)

New method for geoengineering? New insight into methanotrophs, bacteria that can oxidise methane, may help us develop an array of biotechnological applications that exploit methane and protect our environment from this potent greenhouse gas. Publishing in Nature, scientists led by Newcastle University have provided new understanding of how methanotrophs are able to use large quantities of copper for methane oxidation.

Useful for space exploration, e.g. subsurface water reservoirs such as Europa or Enceladus? Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego used an innovative 3-D printing technology they developed to manufacture multipurpose fish-shaped microrobots -- called microfish -- that swim around efficiently in liquids, are chemically powered by hydrogen peroxide and magnetically controlled.

Seems a little speculative but pretty interesting thoughts. In regards to terraforming Mars this might be of interest: "During the daytime, plant-like microorganisms on a Martian-like surface could photosynthesize hydrogen peroxide. At night, when the atmosphere is relatively humid, they could use their stored hydrogen peroxide to scavenge water from the atmosphere, similar to how microbial communities in the Atacama use the moisture that salt brine extracts from the air to stay alive."