First there was aerogel. Developed in 1931, "frozen smoke" held the title for world's lightest material for more than eighty years. And at 96 percent air, its easy to see why.

Last year aerographite jumped into the number one spot. At six times lighter than air, one cubic centimeter of the stuff weighs just 0.2 milligram. Aerographite was heralded with much fanfare when its discovery was first documented, but its reign was to be a short one.

(CNN) -- Bill Gates is putting out a call to inventors, but he's not looking for software, or the latest high-tech gadget. This time he's in search of a better condom.

On its Grand Challenges website, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is offering a $100,000 startup grant to the person who designs "the next generation condom that significantly preserves or enhances pleasure" and promotes "regular use."

Prince Rupert's Drop is a tempered glass object shaped like a tadpole with a very long tail. The funny thing about the drop end of the glass is that you can hit it repeatedly with a hammer and it just won't break.

However, if the tail end is very slightly grazed, the whole thing explodes, from tail to drop. Watch it all happen in slow-motion at 130,000 frames per second in the video below.

-Dvice

While we've heard rumors of the death of plasmas before, Japanese business paper The Nikkei is reporting that Panasonic may stop using the technology in fiscal 2014. Without citing sources, it claims Panasonic will shut down production at its main Amagasaki plant, reducing production gradually to avoid angering partners and retailers. A Panasonic spokesperson tells Reuters that the company has not made any decisions on the future of its TV business yet. The Nikkei's info indicates it will downsize the entire TV business, including reductions in LCD manufacturing, over the next three years.

What's next? OLED, as Sony and Panasonic are partnering on developing the technology and according to the report it plans to outsource manufacturing to keep costs down. We'll find out how much of this turns out to be true in the coming months, but for now we'll just appreciate the company's latest round of Viera plasmas.

-Engadget

We live in an age of comparison, as we ruthlessly stack up one device against its brethren to determine which one will find its way into our affections. As is our way, we have searched deep within Samsung's Galaxy S 4 to find out in which ways it exceeds 2012's flagship, and we post the results after the break for your enjoyment and amusement. Have at it, spec fans, have at it.

Check out our event hub for all the action from Samsung's Galaxy S 4 event.

Scientists have known for quite a while that at some point, there was flowing, liquid water on the surface of Mars. Here on Earth, liquid water almost always means life, but that's because we've got a lot of other life-friendly conditions along with all that water. Most of the actual evidence on Mars so far has made the case for life a tough one. Samples and measurements indicate that any surface water was likely so acidic and salty that no life in its right mind would want to go anywhere near the stuff.

Today, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has announced that samples drilled out of a rock in an ancient stream bed by the Curiosity rover show evidence of an environment that was much, much friendlier:

They indicate a habitable environment characterized by neutral pH, chemical gradients that would have created energy for microbes, and a distinctly low salinity, which would have helped metabolism if microorganisms had ever been present. "A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes." 

YES! This is damn exciting stuff, although we should be very careful to point out that just because conditions are favorable for life on Mars doesn't in any way imply that there ever was (or is) life on Mars. That said, if these rocks were on Earth, they'd probably be teeming with microbes of one sort or another, and there are plenty of types of Earth life that have managed to live in places far less hospitable.

We should also make clear that Curiosity isn't really set up for life detection. It's a roving chemistry lab, not a roving biology lab. And as such, it's better to think of it as being able to simply identify potentially habitable environments, as opposed to actually finding stuff inhabiting those environments. If Curiosity finds enough evidence for habitability, the next Mars rover will likely be outfitted with a different suite of tools designed to search for more direct evidence of past (or present) Martian life.