Nantennas can't compete with photovoltaic cells because current diodes can't operate at terahertz frequencies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

Hope this tiny diode can finally jumpstart the nantenna industry, and kick off an efficiency race with the PV industry. That would be fun times!

Thanks for the info. I checked with T-Mobile, and the $50/month plan gives you 1 GB per month of 4G data. If I understand correctly, after you reach that limit, your phone continues to work at some slower data rate (how slow, they don't say) and your tethered devices stop working altogether. (Is that consistent with your understanding?)

So for that reason alone, I think this is a no-go as a replacement for my home DSL service.

Now the tethering thing would have value for me, if it would allow me to shut off the expensive DSL service to my home. Is that realistic? Who's your provider, and what kind of speed/reliability do you get?

If you're like me, it's the expense of your talk, text and data plan that you dislike, not the features of a smartphone.

I pay $20 every 90 days to Virgin Mobile (works out to $6.67 per month). I'll upgrade to a smart phone if and when the price of a plan that includes a reasonable amount of data drops to $15 per month. Until then, I'll make a mental note of what online content I'd like to consume, and wait until I get home to consume it.

Calculate the annual cost of your cell phone plan; do you find that having instant gratification of your online desires is worth that cost? Not judging; just curious.

TFA says CO2 levels are at an all-time high. That means the predicted disasters were not averted because anybody did anything to reduce CO2 emissions. The predicted disasters were averted because the predictions were wrong. Predictions such as...
* "entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.” -- U.N. official Noel Brown, in 1989
* We have only “50 days to save the world from global warming” -- UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in 2009

Except historical precedent. Even low-tech humans have adapted to a huge range of climates. Think Inuit living on the edge of Baffin Bay, and Bedouins living in the deserts of Sudan.

Think veggies growing in greenhouses that are either cooled or heated -- depending on which way climate change goes -- by nuclear power plants. Is that not an example of technology providing us with food?

(Nevermind that global warming will cause the amount of arable land to increase. There are huge tracts of land in Canada, Siberia and Alaska that will be farmed if the growing season gets a little longer.)

I'm not saying mucking with the climate is a good idea. But your dire predictions of possible human extinction are right out; they're the kind of alarmism that destroys credibility.

But is it strong enough to build a space elevator? That is the killer app for high-tensile-strength materials.

I wasn't aware that threat had gone away. As of 2013, Russia had 8,500 warheads and the U.S. had 7,700. China and North Korea both have more now than they did in the 1970s.