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Nanowires inside a rat can convert the power of breathing and heartbeats into electricity, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Technology Review reports these nano-generators could conceivably lead to nano-scale implants and sensors powered by the body.

DNA-based logic gates that could carry out calculations inside the body have been constructed for the first time. The work brings the prospect of injectable biocomputers programmed to target diseases as they arise.

“The biocomputer would sense biomarkers and immediately react by releasing counter-agents for the disease,” says Itamar Willner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, who led the work.

Even though the future obviously revolves around credit cards and online transfers, a team of British scientists have developed a way for banknotes to be harder to forge—using iridescent butterfly wings as inspiration.

The unique information encrypted in each note’s optical signatures currently go some way to protecting currency forgery, but it’s obviously not enough.

Take a few of my favorite subjects: quantum dots, satellites, and gold. Mix them together, and what do you get? A breakthrough from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that could revolutionize infrared detection. Somewhere, the Predator is jealous.

What the RPI researchers have managed to do increase detectivity in quantum dot-based IR detectors 20 times over—is particularly remarkable in that they’re able to greatly enhance the signal of the detector without also increasing the noise.

It only measures seven atoms but, according to project lead scientist Michelle Simmons, computers made with this transistor—the smallest ever made—will “solve problems that would take longer than the life of the universe with a classical computer.”

Simmons says that the silicone crystal-embedded transistor is the first that put us in a solid path towards true quantum computers, which she predicts will be available for deployment in commercial applications in just five years.