Sounds like an old joke, but you gotta see this: a Technology Review article about using micro jet engines to generate the electricity needed to run a portable device. Claims 10 hours of power generation off a diesel fuel pack the size of a D-cell.

I don’t know, but it just seems so wrong to me to be looking for new ways to burn something that is already causing a problem because it’s being burned in such large quantities. How long, I wonder, before laptops come with Surgeon General’s warning labels?

Then again, maybe it’s for the best. The quicker we burn all the oil we can find, the quicker we can get on with moving to a better energy source.

(Hat tip: Tomalak’s Realm)