Silicon Valley may soon have to be renamed DIAMOND VALLEY and diamonds may soon be so common you can put up on the soles of your shoes.

Scientists have made great strides growing diamonds in labs that outshine even the rarest De Beer’s rocks, through a process of chemical vapor desposition, which grows diamond crystals one carbon at a time. In addition to the ramifications for the jewelry industry, using CVD, scientists will be able (by somewhere around 2011) to cheaply mass-produce diamond semiconductors that are hundreds of times as powerful as their silicon counterparts.

For a slide show of the process, click here [Popular Science].

DARPA has filed a patent application this week for a human cannon system, which can quickly launch special forces, and other emergency personnel onto roofs of tall buildings. Compressed air would launch a chair up a ramp, in the vein of a pilot’s ejection seat, and a computer would devise the correct angle and speed of ascent. The patent claims that a 4-metre-tall launcher could put a man on the top of a 5 story building in less than 2 seconds.

[thanks, Barry Fox]

The Agency is also seeking proposals to fund the development of innovative technology to create insect-cyborgs, possibly enabled by intimately integrating microsystems within insects. Various microsystem payloads could potentially be mounted on the platforms with the goal of controlling insect locomotion, sense local environment, and scavenge power.

DARPA and Boston University are also developing a program to implant sharks with a neural device to control them remotely by electronically stimulating their brains to simulate their sense of scent, causing them to turn and move at the reasearchers’ will.

[thanks, Engadget]

Scientists at the Centre for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices, a research consortium of Australian universities, report that they are on the verge of creating a photonic chip that processes optical signals without the limitation of silicon electronics. The innovation would effectively increase the speed of the Internet by a potential 1000x, which would mean a high definition movie could be downloaded in a fraction of a second.

For a detailed description of the technology, click here.

[thanks, Random Good Stuff]

Scientists from Princeton, University of Southern California and University of Michigan have published a paper in the scientifc journal Nature about their potentially revolutionary invention, an organic material that emits natural appearing light when attached to an electrical source. The material can be printed in wafer thin sheets and could potentially transform walls, furniture, and ceilings into lights. The (OLED) material does not heat up, lasts much longer, and is significantly more energy efficient than light bulbs.

[via BBC]

Fast Company has a slideshow collection of breakthrough technology that may change the world over the next ten years or so. Check it out — Very cool stuff.

Chinese government sponsored research institute Hefei Institutes of Physical Science is developing technology to generate clean energy from deuterium in seawater through nuclear fusion. One liter of sea water would potentially produce the energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline. A critical part to the project’s success is developing a device capable of withstanding temperatures as high as 100 million degrees Celcius. If the claims are verified by the scientific community, this technological breakthrough could be a tremendous step in reducing dependence on pollution generating coal and oil energy.

[via Drudge]

[UPDATE (11-4-06):  Chinese scientists made their first successful test of the thermonuclear fusion reactor.  Full Story available here.]