More complicated sciency stuff is on the way from MIT. In February the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems looked to revolutionize the battery world with a microscopic (atomic even!) use of capacitors. They lined up nanotubes in a way to reduce the size of an ultracapacitor to a fraction of their current size – a size competitive with traditional batteries. This week another innovation in power supplies comes from MIT. MIT's Gas Turbine Laboratory, Microsystems Technology Laboratories, and Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems have teamed up to develop the "Engine on a chip." It downsizes a gas powered engine just like the nanotube capacitors downsized the ultracapacitor. The difference here is that while the new nanotube capacitors were able to store power – the engine on a chip would be able to generate power. Instead of lining up nanotubes, this experiment uses silicon chips, carefully etched, and piled on one another. The whole project is still in development. While in theory the system works, and all parts do their job individually, they've yet to complete something where all the parts work together. There is great optimism with the project hoping that they'll be able to get all the parts together and working by the end of the year. The production method is much like manufacture of other computer chips and it allows for a cost-efficient process to mass produce the chips. If everything works out right, according to researchers, for the same size of a battery in a laptop or some other device power could be provided for ten times longer operation.

Image of the chips provided by the MIT News Office. Why the US quarter coin pictured in the image is colored gold is just as confusing to us as the actual operation of any of this stuff.