At least not at Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas.
There, they're baking up carbon nanotubes--microscopic black tubes that are about 1/10,000th the diameter of a human hair! For those of you thinking, "carbon nano what?", here's a quick description: a carbon nanotube is an extremely thin cylinder of carbon whose structure gives it spectacular mechanical properties, including high strength and toughness. The development of this material could one day open the door to a whole new breed of strong materials, including stronger bridge suspension cables, battle jackets, concrete, fire protection and maybe even a space elevator. 
Recently our crew for the upcoming Materials Science mini series "Making Stuff" and host David Pogue paid NanoTech Institute a visit for a closer look at these tiny wonders. At the Institute, Dr. Ray Baughman and his colleagues are researching multiple projects in the field of nanotechnology including nanostructured hybrid composite membranes for fuel cells, carbon nanotube fiber supercapacitors, and highly energy efficient, low-voltage, organic light emitting devices. We focused on two of his incredible projects: the Spinning of Carbon Nanotube Composite Fibers and Carbon Nanotube Artificial Muscles.

For weeks, the physics world has been buzzing with rumors that dark matter--the invisible, elusive stuff that holds galaxies together--had finally been detected. Scientists behind a dark-matter-chasing machine called CDMS (you might remember it from a trip NOVA scienceNOW took back in the summer of 2008) had set up simultaneous talks at physics labs around the world, promising to reveal something new and exciting on Thursday, December 17.

Last summer, Neil deGrasse Tyson made fun of David Charbonneau's "kind of puny" off-the-shelf telescopes in a trip to the top of Arizona's Mt Hopkins for NOVA scienceNOW. But no one is laughing now: Charbonneau and his puny scopes just discovered a hot, wet super-Earth, a steamy, 400-degree Fahrenheit sauna of planet that brings us even closer to spotting a planet like Earth elsewhere in the cosmos.

One day about two months ago I came in to work and was told, "We think we might want to have David Pogue and a materials scientist ride in the back seat of a car at a demolition derby. The idea is to demonstrate how materials fail, but in an interesting setting. Find us a derby." I spent roughly the next two weeks calling up every racetrack, arena and state fair across the nation that was holding a derby before the end of the season. Some of the responses I received were...

"We're going to pass on this, it would be too high a liability on our part...."


"You wanna put a guy in the back of a derby car?! I dunno man, them's some hard hittin'!!..."


"I hope you have some serious life insurance on this feller..."

and simply,
"No Way!"


Out of over a dozen events, three got back to me with a "yes," and only one told me right off the bat, "Absolutely! We'll give you whatever you need!" That open invitation came from Outlaw Motor Speedway in Muskogee Oklahoma. With that, David and our crew were off to see first hand just how drastically ordinary materials can fail...

This fall, a piece of prehistory made a big splash in the news.  "Second Stonehenge Discovered!"  "New Stone Circle Found near Stonehenge!"  If you simply scanned the breathless headlines, you might assume that a ring of giant stones had somehow escaped notice for a few thousand years, just a mile from the mother-of-all-henges.  As a friend asked, "Why didn't anyone spot it until now?"

 Courtesy of Kevin Tod Haug. Left to right: Keith Rodgerson (sound), Anna Evans-Freke (associate producer), Jill Shinefield, Mike Parker Pearson, Gail Willumsen, Mike Coles (DP)

For starters, the stones are long gone.  For another, the monument is located on the lush banks of the River Avon, prime real estate where most traces of prehistory have been overlaid by lavish country estates. (Apparently Sting owns one.)  Luckily, the owners of one idyllic stretch of riverbank (ideally suited for gin-and-tonics on summer afternoons) allowed archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson and his team to dig there.  Mike's goal had been to pinpoint the end of the Stonehenge Avenue, a processional pathway that begins outside the entrance to Stonehenge, curves for about 2 miles across the landscape, and dead-ends somewhere near the river.  Mike never dreamed he'd find "Stonehenge's Little Sister."

If you've been to the NOVA website, you may have seen some of our audio features like "E = mc2 Explained", or "Defining Science". Or maybe you already subscribe to our podcasts (which I highly recommend, and not just because I produce them). Well, this week, we're trying something new in the audio realm. NOVA is dipping into its archives for a collaboration with WGBH radio. The result is the "NOVA minute"--a series of short clips from scientist interviews that we think are especially interesting, timely, poignant, or just fun. They're small and satisfying--kind of like science hors d'oeuvres.

At the moment, we're just testing the radio waters, trying to settle on a format that works. But for the month of December, those of you who live in the Boston area can hear the segments on 89.7 FM every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday just after 8:30 AM. If all goes well, we'll be producing more in January 2010, and will hopefully distribute them nationally in the future. Unfortunately, they're not yet available for download online, but here's a taste of what you'll find on-air. (Apologies for the cruddy audio quality--this was recorded straight from the WGBH radio web stream.)