Cryptology is a big deal in the information age. Creating an uncrackable key is the holy grail of the field, and scientists at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Tokyo reckon that encoding data with the radio signals blasted out by quasars far away in space may be effective, due to the unpredictable nature of the signals in question.

Virginia Commonwealth University chemists have discovered a new method of synthesising nanoparticles that gives greater control over the dimensions and properties of the end product. The secret? Shove the reagents in a conventional microwave oven – this makes the reaction much faster, and all the little rods and wires arrange themselves into nice orderly arrays.

All sorts of suggestions have been made to explain the mysterious dips in biodiversity that have occured on Earth every 62 million years. And here is the latest one – our solar system’s motion through the galactic disc, an up-and-down bobbing course, could be exposing it to fluctuations in the amount of cosmic rays it receives.

ZDNet is running the first of three parts of an article discussing Artificial Intelligence. Part 1 focuses on the historical origins of machine intelligence and neural networks.

NASA’s recently-cancelled ‘Dawn’ mission has been reinstated, to the joy of the scientists working on it. The mission will involve an ion-engined probe approaching and then orbiting two of the largest asteroids in the Belt, Ceres and Vesta.