It seems that nearly every week there is an example of a new solar system with somewhat similar characteristics to our own. We've seen large planets, rocky planets, and now asteroids with high water content.

In 1995 my physics teacher told me we'd never have direct evidence of extrasolar worlds. Now I tell my physics students that I wouldn't be surprised if we found evidence of extrasolar life (probably in the form of a planet with a high concentration of oxygen in its atmosphere).

It's a great time to be alive and to be a scientist!

Yes, but have we seen it snowING?

Further down someone mentioned Enceladus. That's a pretty good example, but I would argue that's not snow so much as volcanic (geyseric?) fallout. Not really atmospheric precipitation in the general sense.

Titan also appears to have snow and rain, though we haven't really seen it fall (though not for lack of trying).

Interestingly, on all of these worlds the substance being "snowed" is different. Water on Earth, Carbon Dioxide on Mars, Methane on Titan, and potentially Nitrogen on Pluto. I love science.

Damn you autocorrect. Meant NH - New Horizons.

It will be interesting to see if DH spots any snow...so far as I know we haven't spotted active snowing on any body other than Earth.

This should be a mission of the Library of Congress - to archive everything ever used by the government (including court cases), be it on the Internet or not.

While they're at it, they can probably archive nearly everything else.

... for a significant reduction in speed?

No thanks.

But is it news for nerds? Really? Do you really think most of these comments are not sarcastic?

...graphene saves the world, creates amazing superproducts, and almost defies the laws of physics.

Cynicism aside, the research is exciting, but it's not likely to bear fruit any time soon.

Security issues aside, wireless connectivity uses some small amount of power. To me this is energy wasting of the highest order. My lightbulbs constantly listening for the one time per month that maybe I want to turn them on from my phone? Yes please and a side of mountain top removal coal mining please!

...Ubuntu is still the easiest and most reliable for new users and works well enough for them that few need to leave.

This was exactly what I was thinking. I hear this all the time as "Animals and Insects". And then I find myself yelling at the TV: "They are multicellular mobile heterotrophs!"

And then I remember what a sad sad nerd I am.

Human-powered flight is unlikely to ever be a real player (look how hard he has to pedal just to stay 10 feet off the ground for a minute!)

However, the engineering and material science that was used to make this possible could easily translate into lighter helicopters, electric vehicles, drones, you name it.

Just as flying solo across the Atlantic wasn't really something anybody did much after Lindbergh, neither will anybody do much human helicoptering (?) But the fact that it can be done will help humanity long term. Well done!

+100 to this.

I spent hours trying to track down the cause of my laptop being a fusion reactor on my lap. I can't WAIT to see if this works.

The article says that the battery delivers about half of the voltage of a typical lithium ion battery (which is usually around 3.7V).

So 1.2Ah/g * 1.85V = 2.22Wh/g

Your battery is 30Ah/20 pounds * 12V = 18Wh/lb = .04Wh/g

So yes, this new battery is extremely energy dense. If you needed it to be 12V, though, you'd have to wire them in a series of 6, which would reduce the energy density by a factor of 6. Still a big improvement, but more like .35 Wh/g @ 12V, which is about 9 times better than your camping battery. Not bad.