For all the sceptics, some concrete evidence that nanotech is useful. Researchers at Harvard University have built Field Effect Transistors with nanowire, and they are performing ‘three to four times better’ than plain old silicon CMOS versions.

Those old Voyager probes were built to last, and they’re still sending back data now. But Voyager 2 has just sent back something that has the scientists a little baffled. It seems that the magnetic field of the solar system, the heliosphere, is distorted in its southern hemisphere. The best explanation so far is that the interstellar magnetic field is pushing it out of shape.

Some ideas are so simple that you can’t believe that no-one came up with them before. Sebastian Braat, a graduate of the University of Western Sydney, has announced just such an invention – roof tiles for suburban housing that use solar energy to generate electricity and heat water. Once the idea is fine-tuned and cost effective, it could make a huge difference to the environmental footprint of the average home – at least in sunny Australia.

It might be time to stop debating whether there will be any water for Lunar explorers to use, and how they might get to it to use it. Alan Stern proposes a program called SLAM, which simply involves launching water ice at the moon using Atlas 401 rockets as boosters. It’s simple, it’s cheap, and it solves a lot of logistical nightmares for moon missions of the future.

It’s no mean feat to accurately manufacture plastic components that are smaller than a human hair is thick. But modifying a technique known as microtransfer molding may well provide a solution for the problems involved.