News reports that a lab at Florida State University is about to unveil a buckypapers for the commercial market. What are buckypapers you ask? Why, only ridiculously tough (albeit lightweight) sheets of matter made from intertwined carbon nanotubes. In short, future stuff. The, um, sheets of matter could find some use in making more efficient heat sinks and participating in future transportation. Not like beaming though. Sigh.

What would Mulder and Scully say about the development? Something tells me Mulder would believe it and Scully wouldn’t. Just a hunch.

It’s basically paper-based battery technology, using carbon nanotubes and an electrolyte embedded in the paper. It’s scalable, and could conceivably be bent into any shape. Connected to solar cells, it could provide on-the-go power to just about anything. With flexible screens and nano devices of all sorts, one day we’ll just roll our computers up and stick ‘em in our back pockets. All thanks to researchers like those at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute.