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You may want to check out this article. It talks about porphyrins as data storage polymers. They can stand up to 400 degrees and over a trillion cycles. Organic storage devices rock, but there current state isn't all that great.

I already commented on this over here but hey...

I'm a space nut so you can guess where I'm going with this.

Aerogel is a really cool substance. It's glass foam that's very very light and it's an excellent insulator. I don't know about it's radiation blocking properties though.

If this carbon foam is of comparable weight as aerogel (negligible), it's perfect for space use. The lighter the better since it costs $thousands/kilo to get stuff off the ground. If it blocks radiation, fantastic. Water and metal are the big rad blockers now but they're heavy. If it can act as a good insulator too, you're golden. If not, a sandwich of aerogel and carbon nanofoam could act as a heat trapper so you don't freeze and a radiation blocker so you don't get zapped. And all for practicaly no weight. Shazam!

This story reminds me of an article I saw here. Looks like story has a link to the C&EN article and the original article that appeared in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Interesting, I've read several reports (here and here) discussing that there will be too little oil for global warming. According to the stories all of the petroleum reserves will run out before the atmosphere heats up enough to have any effect. I guess this just goes to show that atmospheric chemistry isn't always an exact science.

Living in extreme environments is one thing, but completely different respiration systems is another thing entirely. This article reminds me of one I saw here. Apparently, some microbes discovered utilize iron as opposed to oxygen in order to sustain themselves. That's quite an accomplishment.

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