Quantum cryptography is going to be all the rage pretty soon. But qubits? They’re old news. Austrian physicists are working on developing crypto systems based on ‘qutrits’, which have three possible states as opposed to the two that qubits can muster. More states mean more powerful ciphers, and enhanced security.

The good news: at high altitudes, the ozone layer seems to be repairing itself very nicely, thankyou. The mystery: at lower altitudes, it’s repairing even faster than predicted. If we’re lucky, the Antarctic ozone hole will have patched itself by around 2050.

Good news, sub-atomic physics fans! Japan’s Super-Kamiokande sub-atomic particle detector, damaged during maintenance back in 2001, is nearly fully repaired, and will soon be refilled with water for more neutrino-spotting antics!

IBM are making more progress in the ongoing shrinkage of all things electronic. They have just announced finding a way to selectively arrange transistors made from carbon nanotubes, overcoming one of the major obstacles in the way of Moore’s Law and making possible a new generation of fast and power-economic computer chips.

Might as well hammer a buzz-phrase while you can, eh? But that’s what Gerald Hoegl, CEO of Metcomb Nanostructures, likes to call his company’s new product. It’s a type of honeycombed aluminium that weighs less than a fifth of the normal brand, so light in fact that it floats on water. Metcomb are planning to start selling the stuff to the aerospace and automotive industries, a sign that nanotech start-ups are making noises outside of the US.