According to the high-energy equations used by Louis Crane the actual energy produced by a million ton black hole is 56 petawatts, the equivalent of 0.62 kilograms of mass-energy radiated away per second, meaning a lifespan of less than 17 years. To keep the black hole operating it has to be continually force-fed new mass, else it will eventually decay, exploding in an immense blast of high energy particles.

Louis Crane is sceptical of the suggested alternative space-drives – for example wormholes and warp-drives – since the negative energy needed to keep such distorted space-time stable has yet to be demonstrated in such large amounts. To colonize the Universe, Crane believes, intelligent life will need to create and control black holes, thus completing the circle which created that life in the first place.

Crane’s current research is to apply quantum gravity theory to the finer details of the process of creation and decay of low-mass black holes. The possible creation of miniature black holes by the LHC will help refine and constrain quantum gravity theory, perhaps even give us clues towards creating matter annihilating black holes. Another important area of research is the question of how to convert the intense radiation output from a black hole into a useful exhaust stream. The finer practicalities may well take centuries to achieve, but the implications go well beyond even the lifetime of our Universe, affecting the evolution of countless more daughter universes we may create in the aeons ahead

Analysis of the data from PAMELA show that the antiproton-to-proton flux ratio rises smoothly to about 10 GeV, before tending to level off. The results match well with theoretical calculations that assume only secondary production of antiprotons by cosmic rays propagating through the galaxy. This places limits on contributions from other, more exotic sources.

Inertial Electrostatic fusion can make power at about 5/8 the cost of conventional plants (most is BOP, Balance of Plant costs) process steam at 1/3 the cost of others, make synfuels (ethanol) at less than $0.5/gallon, destroy nuclear waste, and make space engines commercial, etc, etc. The basic physics is summarized in Bussards IAC paper in October, 2006. And in much earlier papers in the early 1990's. All still valid.

John Matese (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) thinks the gravitational influence of a solar companion is disrupting that part of the cloud, scattering comets in its wake. His calculations suggest Nemesis is between 3 to 5 times the mass of Jupiter, rather than the 13 Jupiter masses or greater that some scientists think is a necessary quality of a brown dwarf. Even at this smaller mass, however, many astronomers would still classify it as a low mass star rather than a planet, since the circumstances of birth for stars and planets differ.

Richard Muller of the University of California Berkeley first suggested the Nemesis theory, and even wrote a popular science book on the topic. He thinks Nemesis is a red dwarf star 1.5 light years away.

Binary star systems are common in the galaxy. It is estimated that one-third of the stars in the Milky Way are either binary or part of a multiple-star system.

Part of the WISE mission is to search for brown dwarfs, and NASA expects it could find one thousand of the dim stellar objects within 25 light years of our solar system.

Ned Wright, professor of astronomy and physics at UCLA and the principal investigator for the WISE mission, said that WISE will easily see an object with a mass a few times that of Jupiter and located 25,000 AU away, as suggested by Matese.

We may not have an answer to the Nemesis question until mid-2013. WISE needs to scan the sky twice in order to generate the time-lapsed images astronomers use to detect objects in the outer solar system. The change in location of an object between the time of the first scan and the second tells astronomers about the object’s location and orbit. Then comes the long task of analyzing the data.

“I don't suspect we'll have completed the search for candidate objects until mid-2012, and then we may need up to a year of time to complete telescopic follow-up of those objects,” said Kirkpatrick.