Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne has successfully completed its third round of testing for the awesome Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine (CECE).

Scientists believe that removing the CCR5 gene from a patient’s white blood cells will foster HIV immunity.

Using the COROT satellite, scientists have uncovered the most Earth-like exoplanet to date.

Using a technique called electronic quantum holography, a team of researchers at Stanford university have managed to encode 35 bits per electron in a carbon monoxide molecule to render shapes in a chip of copper.

Working in a vibration-proof basement lab in the Varian Physics Building, Manoharan and Moon began their writing project with a scanning tunneling microscope, a device that not only sees objects at a very small scale but also can be used to move around individual atoms. The Stanford team used it to drag single carbon monoxide molecules into a desired pattern on a copper chip the size of a fingernail.

On the two-dimensional surface of the copper, electrons zip around, behaving as both particles and waves, bouncing off the carbon monoxide molecules the way ripples in a shallow pond might interact with stones placed in the water. The ever-moving waves interact with the molecules and with each other to form standing “interference patterns” that vary with the placement of the molecules.

By altering the arrangement of the molecules, the researchers can create different waveforms, effectively encoding information for later retrieval. To encode and read out the data at unprecedented density, the scientists have devised a new technology, Electronic Quantum Holography.

While this specific process may never be used for desktop storage, it is an impressive feat that speaks to the power of atomic archiving which researchers have been pursuing for some years.

A reactor concept developed at the University of Texas at Austin would burn transuranic waste (nuclear waste) to reduce waste volume by up to 99%.

Soybeans weren’t interesting until they involved wacky gene splicing and biochemistry!

Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami — the peculiar fifth taste — is better known as MSG; given MSG’s deservedly bad wrap, scientists are on the hunt for a safe alternative.

Given that the composite is structural, it’s a safe bet that it’s not transparent. But, oh, what if it were transparent aluminum! We could save whales!

Stalwart R&D bastion IBM has recently demonstrated (PDF) carbon-based graphene transistors operating at an impressive 26GHz.

Graphene, a planar sheet of hexagonally-aligned carbon only one atom thick, has been lauded for having the highest electron mobility of any substance known to man. Electron mobility describes the relative ease at which electrons are compelled to form a current in the presence of an electric field like one might find in a PC component. Graphene also boasts an exceptionally low resistivity at room temperature and has been praised for its possibilities in the burgeoning field of spintronics.

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We’ve hit critical mass! Time for another round of bizarre, terrible or interesting gadgets:

• The Phillips iPill contains a power supply, processor, medicine reservoir and micro pump. Intended for swallowing like a normal capsule, this pill can provide medication targeted directly at the source of the problem. The pill can also be monitored externally.
• This UMID carries all the horsepower of a netbook in a footprint that’s approximately half the size. Do want.
• We’re close to fuel cells finally making a mass appearance, and designs like this one really help. MyFC’s fuel cells are flexible, allowing them to occupy dead space in a device or reduce the footprint of existing batteries.
• Best Buy is demonstrating gift cards that double as mini speakers, complete with 1/8″ plug for interfacing with that holiday iPod.
• Leave it to Klipsch to make in-ear headphones that don’t completely suck.
• A new approach to lithium ion batteries gives them a seven-fold increase in longevity. The technique was just developed at a university, so expect the technology to be introduce shortly after the perpetual motion machine.

Hump day!

At just shy of 9 PM EDT on October 21, India has successfully launched an unmanned rocket headed for the moon on a two year mission.

Lifting off from southern Andhra Pradesh, the Chandrayaan 1 is carrying eleven payloads to study the Earth-Moon relationship and further map the moon’s surface. The international collaboration resulted in five of the instruments being designed and developed in India, three on the behalf of the European Space Agency, one from Bulgaria, and two from NASA.

Your daily dose of wallet-burning doodads:

• Further lay the hax on your jailbroken iPhone by slapping in an external GPS dongle.
• Update the speed of your DSLR with the CFMulti adapter, which allows for the use of SD cards in CF cameras.
• This 8GB flash drive is not only pretty swank, it’s incredibly small.
• Nuclear-powered, LASER-shooting, skycrane-having, four stage lander-using Mars Science Laboratory demo video dumped on YouTube. This is easily the best thing all day.
• Apple’s 17″ MacBook Pro has been delayed until next year.
• How about a dual core Intel Atom machine inside the chassis of an old (how we miss you…) Sega Saturn?

Th-th-th-that’s all, folks.