We're one step closer to the invisibility cloak, people: researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created a material with a negative refractive index which causes light to bend around it.

A 25-year-old man named Israel Sarrio had his arm severed in an accident. Doctors managed to reattach it, but were forced to amputate it again once infection set in. In an effort to keep the arm alive, the doctors attached it to his thigh for nine days to ensure the wound was clean, then reattached it to his shoulder.

Sounds like bullshit -- but no. The money shot is here, but the full story, and more pictures, can be found here.

Science fiction once again becomes science fact as LS9, a research company in Silicon Valley, genetically engineers a strain of E. coli to eat biomatter and excrete crude oil. Honest to God crude oil. And the reaction is carbon negative, so more carbon will be taken out of the atmosphere by creating the fuel than will be put in by burning it.

This is amazing news, and definitely an interesting development in meeting rising energy demands, even if its current spacial needs are a little taxing:

The closest that LS9 has come to mass production is a 1,000-litre fermenting machine, which looks like a large stainless-steel jar, next to a wardrobe-sized computer connected by a tangle of cables and tubes. It has not yet been plugged in. The machine produces the equivalent of one barrel a week and takes up 40 sq ft of floor space.

However, to substitute America’s weekly oil consumption of 143 million barrels, you would need a facility that covered about 205 square miles, an area roughly the size of Chicago.

Accelerating Future has ten futuristic materials that seem more suited to science fiction than science fact. #9 on the list reminded me of this while my jaw was dropping:

"Transparent Aluminum?"

"That's the ticket laddie."

"Oh, it'd take years to figure out the dynamics of this matrix."

"But you'd be rich beyond the dreams of averice."

"So. Is it worth something ta ya...or should I just...punch up clear?"
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home