Everything's mini now, it goes to follow that they run on minibatteries as well. But there's no such thing as minibatteries... right? Wrong. MIT researchers have just created this breakthrough technology, and they used viruses for it.

While the talk on global warming is all the rage these days, one scientist says the phenomenon isn't to blame for everything. Tom Knutsen put together a study that leads him to believe that the rise in hurricane frequency is due to multi-decade weather patterns, not warmer seawater. More in the full article.

No matter how pesky rats may seem in our homes, we can't deny how helpful they are in our fight with diseases. After being studied to cure liver cirrhosis, rats are now pivotal once again in the research against Parkinson's disease. More details after the jump.

It seems that more and more start-up companies are being innovative in their efforts to be environment friendly. Last time, Konarka Technologies revealed how it makes cheap solar film cells using an inkjet printer. Now 1366 Technologies aims to have multi-crystalline silicon solar cells edge out coal-based electricity.

More "green" innovation follows in the full article after the jump.

Ever wonder if there's life outside planet Earth? If so, then you might probably be interested by the new found information by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Ideally, this planet should be filled with carbon monoxide, but in reality the astronomers were able to detect water vapor. More information in the full article.

Sony's recent revelation of having PlayStation 3 owners create games using their own drawings is really interesting and something new for gamers. However, it seems that the company is not alone in developing the technology behind this.

An engineer over at MIT has just come up with a software that just exactly that - turn sketches into interactive mechanical systems. Watch a demo video of the MIT engineer right after the jump!

This just in from the scientific community: researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered a way to create nanomaterials from a biologically engineered strain of viruses called M13. These harmless viruses could be pre-programmed to latch onto each other to form crystalline structures at the nano-sized level and become a building block for high-performance nano-electronics.

Angela Belcher, materials science and bio-engineering professor at MIT, claims that this new discovery has given two distinct findings. First, the viruses, when collected in high concentration will organize themselves to form orderly patterns, which some began to call "viruwire." Second, the viruses can even latch on to inorganic components and organize them at microscopic levels.

This means that the viruses can assemble electronic components at the microscopic level, which includes transistors, solar cells (photocells), and even electrodes. Belcher has admitted that they've already created thin films of viruses used in rechargeable batteries, and there's even potential to weave these fibers into fabric to create battery-powered clothing, for instance.

Currently, the U.S. military has picked up the news of this discovery and hopes to incorporate the new technology on military uniforms to create "intelligent" clothing. They speculate that the new nano-electronic fibers can help make circuitry to detect biological and chemical agents used in warfare and even absorb energy from the sun to recharge and power other components used by soldiers.

The technology itself is decades away from realization, but the catalyst that streamed new technological possibilities was Belcher's discovery. More on this as they develop. Image courtesy of Ki Tae Nam.

Here's one sci-fi enthusiasts would love: Mars' south pole contains the largest deposit of frozen water found within the inner solar system. (This excludes our own planet, of course.) It's also been discovered that the area is covered with a layer of dust, which explains why the surface isn't as reflective of light as it should be.

It's been previously thought that the ice deposits in Mars were frozen carbon dioxide since 95% of Mars' atmosphere is made of the gas. The study - conducted by scientists at MIT and funded by the NASA Mars Program - proved otherwise by measuring the density of the frozen area using topographical and gravitational data gathered by three Mars orbiters.

Because of the carved out paths that runs through Mars' surface, it's been suspected that Mars held water. Now that we know the poles are made of ice, it's most possible that the paths really are dried up rivers that once flowed with water. Recent studies also gives credibility to the idea of Martian oceans. Not that it's a hint at alien life, but proof of Martian water still opens up a can of possibilities.

Soon, Harry Potter may not be the only one walking around with an invisibility cloak. Scientists from Zhejiang University and MIT are looking into the physics behind invisibility cloaks and seeing if such a theory can be made into reality.

While still in the early stages of development, the group has demonstrated how electromagnetic waves can interact with invisibility cloaks made out of metamaterials. Much in the same way that water from a creeks flows around rock, the metamaterials, made from a matrix of tiny metal wires and loops that control electromagnetic waves, can create an area of space where no electromagnetic waves appear.

Last year, a similar study was already conducted by researchers from Duke University. The experiment was able to hide an object from electromagnetic microwaves from only two dimensions. So, the scientists from Zhejiang took the study further and went about seeing if a perfect invisibility field was possible.

So far, studies have shown that a spherical-shaped cloak had the best results in creating a cloak that exhibits a zero scattering cross section of an object to be concealed.

Honsheng Chen, one of the scientists explains in detail about the theory behind it:

The cloak is both anisotropic and inhomogeneous: all of the components in the permittivity and permeability tensor are functions of the radius, which implies that the perfect invisibility cloak is very difficult to design. If we introduce a specific type of loss both in a spherical cloak and a cylindrical cloak, only the spherical cloak exhibits a zero backscattering, which indicates only the spherical cloak can still be rendered invisible with a monostatic (transmitter and receiver in the same location) detection. This is because the impedance of the spherical cloak is still matched to the free space in this particular loss case.

Because imperfect cloaks seem easier to recreate, there have been more realistic applications for the theory today compared to perfect cloaks. Military uses such as cloaking planes and weapons to radar were just some of the examples sited. It may also be possible to look through walls as if they were windows someday.

Researchers have recently developed a bionic foot complete with an ankle, something previous generations of prosthetics lacked. Bionic limbs have long since been in research but efforts have mainly been focused on the upper limbs, which is what makes this new kind of prosthetic an important achievement.

Garth Stewart, who lost part of a leg in an explosion in Iraq, is the recipient of this new technology. He demonstrated the new ankle in Providence, in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The leg prosthetic was aimed to act like a biological one, built to provide the user with improved balance and the push forward that a real ankle gives. It reduces fatigue and "provides amputees with a truly humanlike gait."

Leg prosthetics have previously only been built with springs, while this new bionic one is powered by a motor, putting less strain on the user. The downward motion of the user as he walks expends energy which is stored and is released with the help of the motor upon the upward motion, allowing them to walk more naturally than just being pushed forward by springs. The device was built by Professor Hugh Herr, head of the biomechatronics research group at the MIT Media Lab.

Next, Herr hopes to invent wireless implants that can send signals from the amputee's muscles directly into the device to provide more control. What would have happened if Luke and Anakin lost their feet instead? The bionic leg is hoped to be released by summer next year.