It’s a long way to Pluto, and it would take a lot of conventional fuel to get a payload out there quickly. Rudolf Meyer of the University of California has designed a flexible solar membrane that could be used to power ion rockets after being unfurled in space. He calculates that, once thin film photoelectrics has reached the necessary sophistication and lightness, his design could get a probe to Pluto in about a year.

Liquid cooling is all the rage with the PC modding crowd; it’s much more effective than airflow at getting rid of excess heat. But all the extra hardware for the job can be troublesome – one reason why engineers at Purdue University have developed a tiny ‘MEMS’ pump that is integrated into a processor. The chip contains (literally) hair-thin channels to carry water, which is moved by electrohydrodynamic principles.

Sweet! Michael Canfield’s “Is You Is/Is You Ain’t,” first published right here on Futurismic, is being podcast on Escape Pod. Check it out.

The solar system is getting busier as time goes by. Well, it’s not, but we’re slowly discovering that it always has been. Astronomers have logged the discovery of a 45-strong batch of rocky and icy objects, all found in orbits further out than Neptune. We may be running short of resources on Earth, but it seems there’s plenty out in space.

Looks like five servings a day of fruits and vegetables might not be enough any more. The green stuff we eat today has less nutrients than it did in 1950.