Scientists have developed a special strain of soil bacterium that can convert styrofoam into a useful (and biodegradable) plastic.

Meet Santos. He’s a virtual simulated soldier, and he’s being used to test out new designs for body armour and other combat gear without the need for making expensive meatspace prototypes.

NASA has used a network of 80 desktop PCs running Artificial Intelligence software to ‘evolve’ a new super-efficient antenna design to be fitted to satellites. This method is much faster than having human scientists working on a problem, and could speed up the process of developing new space technologies considerably.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute (Dusseldorf) have unveiled the world’s first 3D electron microscope. Using a combination of one scanning-beam ‘scope and an ion-beam one, plus a gamut of other tricky gizmos, they can now examine the structure of materials in three dimensions without having to X-ray them or cut them into bits.

It’s been a busy day for news on everyone’s favourite marginal-planet-cum-Kuiper-Belt-object. First of all, the Hubble telescope has spotted two new little moons of Pluto. But not only that – other astronomers are suggesting that they could lead to the formation of debris-rings, the first to be found around an object that isn’t a gas giant.