With the first ever production of synthesized "solar" jet fuel, the EU-funded SOLAR-JET project has successfully demonstrated the entire production chain for renewable kerosene obtained directly from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide (CO2), therein potentially revolutionizing the future of aviation. This process has also the potential to produce any other type of fuel for transport applications, such as diesel, gasoline or pure hydrogen in a more sustainable way.

Theorists expect that positronium, a sort of 'atom' consisting of an electron and an anti-electron, can be used to make a powerful gamma-ray laser. Scientists now report detailed calculations of the dynamics of a positronium BEC. This work is the first to account for effects of collisions between different positronium species.

Metasurfaces have been made, but the problem is that they usually are static and for quantum optic applications the question is how to make a rapidly configurable metasurface. for this Harvard has initiated a multidisciplinary team that involves theoretical physics, metamaterials, nanophotonic circuitry, quantum devices, plasmonics, nanofabrication, and computational modeling

Basically quantum entanglement, or more accurately the dispersal and expansion of mixed quantum states, results in an apparent flow of time. Quantum information leaks out and the result is the move from a pure state (hot coffee) to a mixed state (cooled down) in which equilibrium is reached. Theoretically it is possible to get back to a pure state (coffee spontaneously heating up) but this statistical unlikelihood gives the appereance of irreversibility and hence a flow o time. I think an interesting question is then: how much useful work can you extract from this system? (http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2811) It should for macroscopic thermodynamic systems lead to the Carnot cycle, but on smaller scales it might be possible to formulate a more general expression. Anybody interested to look into it? Anna, Jo? :)

"A band of space hackers and engineers are trying to do something never done before - recover a 36 year old NASA spacecraft from the grips of deep space and time. With old NASA documents and Rockethub crowdfunding, a team led by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing is attempting to steer ISEE-3, later rechristened ICE, the International Cometary Explorer, back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Dennis says, 'ISEE-3 can become a great teaching tool for future engineers and scientists helping with design and travel to Mars'. Only 40 days remain before the spacecraft will be out of range for recovery. A radio telescope is available, propulsion designs are in hand and the team is hoping for public support to provide the small amount needed to accomplish a very unique milestone in space exploration

Are you a team player who is unafraid of long isolation? Do you have a medical degree and a healthy love of extremes? ESA is offering the chance of a lifetime to run space experiments in one of the world's most isolated places: Concordia research station in Antarctica.

Sottos, White, Moore, and their team created 3D vascular networks-patterns of microchannels filled with healing chemistries-that thread through a fiber-reinforced composite. When damage occurs, the networks within the material break apart and allow the healing chemistries to mix and polymerize, autonomously healing the material, over multiple cycles.

Add to the growing list Daniel?

The catalog, a master list organized into 15 categories, is intended for industry, academia, other government agencies, and general public. The catalog covers technology topics ranging from project management systems, design tools, data handling, image processing, solutions for life support functions, aeronautics, structural analysis, and robotic and autonomous systems. NASA said the codes represent NASA's best solutions to an array of complex mission requirements. McMillan reported that "Within a few weeks of publishing the list, NASA says, it will also offer a searchable database of projects, and then, by next year, it will host the actual software code in its own online repository, a kind of GitHub for astronauts."

The work is based on the use of a "continuous flow" microreactor to produce nanoparticle inks that make solar cells by printing. In this process, simulated sunlight is focused on the solar microreactor to rapidly heat it, while allowing precise control of temperature to aid the quality of the finished product. The light in these experiments was produced artificially, but the process could be done with direct sunlight, and at a fraction of the cost of current approaches.

Recently, it was shown that slowly rotating neutron stars exhibit an interesting correlation between their moment of inertia I, their quadrupole moment Q, and their tidal deformation Love number λ (the I-Love-Q relations), independently of the equation of state of the compact object. By exploiting this relation, we can describe quite accurately the geometry around a neutron star with fewer parameters, even if we don't know precisely the equation of state. Side note: I-Love-Q relations? Some inner chuckles in the Fundamental Physicist community.. :)

Quantum chemical simulations reveal an unprecedented relationship between the mechanism of carbon nanotube growth and hydrocarbon combustion processes. Results of these simulations illustrate the importance in the role of carbon chemical bonding and molecular transformations in CNT growth.

The new findings come from a recent NASA study in which 12 astronauts aboard the ISS took ultrasound images of their hearts before, during, and after their six-month stint in space. What they found confirmed scientists' previous prediction: In microgravity, the human heart becomes more spherical by a factor of nearly 10 percent.

The secrets behind a marine creature's defensive armor -- one that is exceptionally tough, yet optically clear -- have been revealed by scientists. The shells' unique properties emerge from a specialized nanostructure that allows optical clarity, as well as efficient energy dissipation and the ability to localize deformation, the researchers found.

.. We're doomed ...

The Economist this week has a 14-page special on the rise of the robots. Don't expect a very indepth technical review but an interesting read nonetheless for some maybe.

An exhaustive overview of all possible advanced rocket concepts, eg.. "As an example, consider a photon rocket with its launching mass, say, 1000 ton moving with a constant acceleration a =0.1 g=0.98 m/s2. The flux of photons with E γ=0.5 MeV needed to produce this acceleration is ~1027/s, which corresponds to the efflux power of 1014 W and the rate of annihilation events N'a~5×1026 s−1 [47]. This annihilation rate in ambiplasma l -l ann corresponds to the value of current ~108 A and linear density N ~2×1018 m−1 thus any hope for non-relativistic relative velocity of electrons and positrons in ambiplasma is groundless." And also, even if it would work, then one of the major issues is going to be heat dispersal: "For example, if the temperature of radiator is chosen T=1500 K, the emitting area should be not less than 1000 m2 for Pb=1 GW, not less than 1 km2 for Pb=1 TW, and ~100 km2 for Pb=100 TW, assuming ε=0.5 and δ=0.2. Lower temperature would require even larger radiator area to maintain the outer temperature of the engine section stable for a given thermal power of the reactor."

The problem is not achieving a high energy density, that we can already do with nuclear fission, the question however is how to confine or harness this power with relatively high efficiency, low waste heat and at not too crazy specific mass. I see magnetic confinement as a possibility, yet still decades away and also an all-or-nothing method as we cannot easily scale this up from a test experiment to a full-scale system. It might be possible to extract power from such a plasma, but definitely well below breakeven so an additional power supply is needed. The fission fragments circumvent these issues by a more brute force approach, thereby wasting a lot of energy for sure but at the end probably providing more ISP and thrust.