This plasma engine could get humans to Mars on 100 million times less fuel

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-plasma-engine-could-get-humans-to-mars-on-100-million-times-less-fuel?cmpid=NL_LS_weekly_2015-10-28

New "impossible" space engine actually works?

http://www.sciencealert.com/new-impossible-space-engine-could-revolutionise-space-travel?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Website&utm_campaign=InArticleReadMore

Catalyst holds promise for clean, inexpensive hydrogen production

http://news.rice.edu/2015/10/21/cobalt-atoms-on-graphene-a-powerful-combo/

Researchers create technology to produce lighter, long-lasting batteries from silicon with 10x the energy

https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/waterloo-researchers-create-technology-produce-lighter-long

"Current lithium-ion batteries normally use graphite anodes. The Waterloo engineers found that silicon anode materials have a much higher capacity for lithium and are capable of producing batteries with almost 10 times more energy."

Really???

From science fiction to reality - sonic tractor beam invented

Well, it's quite modest right now, but...

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/newsandevents/?id=32804

New solar panel product to reduce costs up to 10 percent

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29027027/new-solar-panel-product-reduce-costs-up-10

Scientists can now “squeeze” light, a breakthrough that could make computers millions of times faster

http://qz.com/532580/scientists-have-found-a-way-to-make-light-waves-travel-infinitely-fast/

New Graphene Based Catalyst Shows Promise for Clean, Inexpensive Hydrogen Production

http://scitechdaily.com/new-graphene-based-catalyst-shows-promise-for-clean-inexpensive-hydrogen-production/

Most Earth-Like Worlds Have Yet to Be Born

Which would imply Earth is one of the vanguards of life:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/35/full/

Also, life may be a lot older than was previously thought:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shaenamontanari/2015/10/21/is-life-on-earth-300-million-years-older-than-previously-thought/

Are cars nanotube factories on wheels?

And not in a good way...

http://news.rice.edu/2015/10/19/are-cars-nanotubes-factories-on-wheels/

Ray Kurzweil: In The 2030s, Nanobots In Our Brains Will Make Us 'Godlike'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ray-kurzweil-nanobots-brain-godlike_560555a0e4b0af3706dbe1e2&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

Astronomers Conclude That Fewer Than 1% of Stars Have a MMSN Disk

http://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-conclude-that-fewer-than-1-of-stars-have-a-mmsn-disk/

I think this means few stars forming today produce many planets...but that's only today. In the past stars likely produced many more planets, and as far as our interests are concerned (finding habitable/inhabited planets), this finding is irrelevant.

Artificial Skin That Can Feel Is In Our Future

http://time.com/4074873/artificial-skin-prosthetic/?xid=newsletter-brief

Why a Mysterious Star Does Not Mean Life in Space (But Other Things Do)

It's always good to be a critical thinker:

http://time.com/4074957/flickering-star-aliens/?xid=newsletter-brief

Engineered Viruses Provide Quantum-Based Enhancement of Energy Transport

http://scitechdaily.com/engineered-viruses-provide-quantum-based-enhancement-of-energy-transport/

"Nature has had billions of years to perfect photosynthesis, which directly or indirectly supports virtually all life on Earth. In that time, the process has achieved almost 100 percent efficiency in transporting the energy of sunlight from receptors to reaction centers where it can be harnessed — a performance vastly better than even the best solar cells.

One way plants achieve this efficiency is by making use of the exotic effects of quantum mechanics — effects sometimes known as “quantum weirdness.” These effects, which include the ability of a particle to exist in more than one place at a time, have now been used by engineers at MIT to achieve a significant efficiency boost in a light-harvesting system."

Computer outperforms humans in intuition tests

This is one area those who dismiss the possibility of true general A.I. developing often say will never be superseded by machines:

http://scitechdaily.com/data-science-machine-replaces-human-intuition-with-algorithms/

Latest Innovation Could Be A Game Changer For Solar Cell Manufacturing

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/latest-innovation-could-game-changer-213143141.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

The World's Smallest Robots: Rise of the Nanomachines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loaqIqKCmog

TED: Google on how a driverless car sees the road

https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road

Has an alien civilization been discovered?

Probably not, but maybe...

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

Introducing the potassium-ion battery

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2015/oct/discovery-about-new-battery-overturns-decades-false-assumptions

Electric motor that uses 80% less energy

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2015/10/12/inventors-motor-aims-to-save-millions-energy.html

Hmm, I wonder if it can be scaled to vehicles?

Here’s Why Nobody’s Talking About Nanotech Anymore

http://time.com/4068125/nanotech-sector/

Quiet advances beat hype anyway....

Dell. EMC. HP. Cisco. These Tech Giants Are the Walking Dead

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/meet-walking-dead-hp-cisco-dell-emc-ibm-oracle/?mbid=nl_101215

Singapore to start self-driving bus trials in 2016

http://mashable.com/2015/10/12/singapore-self-driving-bus/#y8qiWhNiBgqd

Neuroscientists simulate tiny part of rat brain in a supercomputer

And we get another step closer to modeling the human brain...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-major-proof-of-concept-for-brain-simulation?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=03a47d229d-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-03a47d229d-281903081

Wind energy is now as cheap as natural gas, and solar is getting close

http://www.sciencealert.com/wind-energy-is-now-as-cheap-as-natural-gas-and-solar-is-getting-close?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Website&utm_campaign=InArticleReadMore

Panasonic has made the world's most efficient rooftop solar panel

http://www.sciencealert.com/panasonic-has-produced-the-world-s-most-efficient-rooftop-solar-panel-with-22-5-module-efficiency?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1

3 Reasons GE's New Wind Turbine Changes Everything

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/10/07/3-reasons-ges-new-wind-turbine-changes-everything.aspx?source=eogyholnk0000001&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article

How batteries for homes and businesses could already make economic sense

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/10/07/how-installing-batteries-in-homes-and-businesses-could-already-make-economic-sense/

Fusion power only a few decades away!

This article could have been written a couple decades ago and STILL said basically the same thing. Sigh:

https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=25499

Crucial hurdle overcome in quantum computing

http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/crucial-hurdle-overcome-quantum-computing

Method to replace silicon with carbon nanotubes developed by IBM Research

http://www.kurzweilai.net/method-to-replace-silicon-with-carbon-nanotubes-developed-by-ibm-research?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=66e6d31f38-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-66e6d31f38-281903081

Why The Internet Needs IPFS Before It’s Too Late

http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/04/why-the-internet-needs-ipfs-before-its-too-late/#.p2rwnh:Ztmm

Invisibility Cloak Might Enhance Efficiency of Solar Cells

http://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2015_110_invisibility-cloak-might-enhance-efficiency-of-solar-cells.php

Ray Kurzweil: In The 2030s, Nanobots In Our Brains Will Make Us 'Godlike'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ray-kurzweil-nanobots-brain-godlike_560555a0e4b0af3706dbe1e2