Here’s a nice collection of links to reviews of the 2006 Hugo nominees.

These days, the biggest problem in medicine is not curing the disease, but rather diagnosing it early enough that something can be done. Enter the Breathalyzer v.2.0: a breath test that can be used to diagnose a number of illnesses just like a police officer might check for inebriation. If this moves into widescale use, maybe I could actually get my girlfriend into a doctor despite her phobias.

University of Arkansas scientists have developed a type of ‘paper’ made from titanium oxide nanowires, which can be cast into a variety of shapes and forms. The theory is that this could open up a whole new range of filtration methods and pollution management devices, but that’ll be contingent on them getting some investors and industrial partners interested.

The Earth is about to lose a friend it has been close to for nearly seven years. The asteroid 2003 YN107 has been ‘corkscrewing’ around the planet since 1999, but was only discovered in 2003 (and only mentioned publicly last week). Now it’s off into interplanetary space again, but should return in about 60 years for more tag-along action.

The cleantech snowball is just starting to roll; a Californian vineyard has just announced its intention to build a 901-kilowatt solar array to power its bottling plant. But that pales in comparison to the 11-megawatt plant that has just commenced construction in Portugal – which will presumably be used for more than just wine-bottling.