Organic pollutants in soil are an increasing problem, and an inevitable consequence of our wasteful and carefree manufacturing and farming procedures in the past. An Australian team have struck upon a novel solution to the issue, taking inspiration from the mining industry – they have developed a prototype ultrasound cleaner that can rattle the chemical junk out of half a tonne of soil every day. It appears to be an environmentally sound method of removing pollutants that can otherwise escape into the water cycle, and hence the food chain.

Remember that recent triumphant announcement from NASA that they’d captured evidential proof of the existence of dark matter? Well, not everyone agrees with them. Indeed, there are anumber of scientists who are advocates of alternative theories of gravity, and one of them believes that the gravitational lensing used to spot the ‘dark matter moment’ may have produced the illusion of it occuring. At least this is a slightly weightier argument than the Pluto issue, eh?

Herat failure patients who are in desperate need of a transplant but who are not eligible for one have a new route to continued life, now that the FDA have approved the sale of the first fully implantable artificial hearts. The mechanical devices completely replace the original organ; power top-ups can be transferred through the skin, recharging a battery stashed in the abdomen and enabling an hour or so away from an external energy source. The devices are only approved for those with no other chance of survival, though, and at a cost of $250,000 they will probably remain the province of the well-insured for some time to come.

RFID a little too bulky and cumbersome for your needs? Need a technology that performs a similar function, but at a molecular level? Need to keep an inventory of your collection of nanomachines or engineered cells? Fear not! Molecular Computational Identification (MCID) could be the answer to your problems – using tiny molecules capable of performing logic functions in response to the presence of certain chemicals could be the early stages of computing without electricity or magnetism, as well as a revolution for medical science.

The big debate over using nanotubes in the body hinges on one serious question – are they toxic to human cells or not? Research has provided conflicting results so far, with some tests showing them to be safe while others show them to be hazardous. It turns out that the methodology of the test itself may be behind these oppositional results – reproductions of the same experiments indicate that certain reactions may have produced what appeared to be a ‘toxic’ result without the nanotubes being to blame at all. Of course, there’s still no consensus on the toxicity issue, but at least they’re working towards it.