Computers do logical tasks really well, but more ‘human’ tasks like visual perception and value judgements aren’t their forte. So the people at Icosystem have developed software that produces mutations of its input and allows a human user to choose the one it likes best as the seed for the next iteration. Sounds complicated, but it should actually lead to easy and intuitive work with computers for everyone from graphic designers to pharmaceutical chemists.

Now that we’re doing a lot more data-intensive work out in space, we are starting to run into a need for a communications protocol that can handle the huge distances involved. Hence a NASA data-standards manager is looking into the practicalities of taking internet protocols interplanetary.

Many times, people claiming to have made advances in nanotechnology are really just talking about a cloth that wicks away water or some other such hype. It’s heartening, then, to learn that there are some people actually trying to apply nanotech to a purpose worthy of the name. In this case, scientists have used nanoparticles to restore sight to blind test animals.

Here’s a nice little how to on collecting and imaging micrometeorites (that is, tiny particles of extraplanetary metals that rain almost continuously on the surface of the Earth).