When shopping for power sources to make Palm Pilots, iPods, and other ubiquitous personal electronic devices work, a capacitor is probably the last thing on most consumers’, even educated consumers’, minds. Supercapacitors, having the ability to store upwards of 1,000,000 times more energy per unit mass than traditional power sources and having a power density 10-100x higher than batteries, may begin popping up on the public’s radar as a viable option in the near future. Work published by J. Chmiola, et al. in the September 22nd issue of Science magazine [1] provides the roadmap to give supercapacitors an even greater energy boost.

In his new book Nanotechnology: New Promises, New Dangers [1], Toby Shelley, journalist at the Financial Times, introduces us to the “emerging world of nanotechnology”, the engineering of new materials and new products at the infinitesimally small, or nano, scale.