Just a few comments here, as this is actually one of the few topics I consider myself really qualified to speak on. No, I'm not a chemist, but I am a microelectronics / nanotechnology engineer. The reason why you get improvements with nanocomposite reactive materials is due to their very small nature. Make them bigger, and they lose their special small-scale properties and you're dealing with the sort of bulk explosive the Army has spent years perfecting already. So while they're boasting something '1000 times more powerful' than a conventional explosive, you can't simply extrapolate that to apply to a bulk explosion for destructive purposes. Nanorockets and the like using this technology have a great future as in-space propulsion systems, and in other small-scale applications, but it doesn't quite apply to making real-world sized things go boom.

That said, I'm certain we'll keep finding new and exciting ways to destroy things and kill people. Viva la science!

Hmm, well, we already have the MOAB. Those thermobaric weapons are dangerous for several reasons, but one of them is that they spread out the explosive into the air. This is another way of getting past the planar limitations mentioned in the article. The fine, particulate nature of the MOAB's explosives get exposed to air simultaneously, allowing to to explode all at once.

If this nano-TNT gets scaled up, it will probably only be an incremental improvement over a MOAB. Perhaps it will be no more explosive, but better in others ways - such as delivery mechanisms. MOABs need to be up in the air so they can dispurse, perhaps these will not. [Consequently, that would mean the nano-TNT can be exploded from a UPS truck parked in front of a building, which a MOAB cannot.]

While overpressure.com is a big fan of thermobaric weapons, the MOAB is not one. Just a heaping helping of tritonal, totally conventional.

Actually, the MOAB is likely to collect dust pending The Next Big Hit on the US. The latest trend is toward smaller weapons for the purposes of a) blowing up only what you want to and no more, and b) carrying a lot more in the same space. Example: 250lb Small Diameter Bomb. Basically an optimized JDAM. The B-2 will be able to carry 80. And with the built-in wings, that's 80 bombs going after 80 separate, widely spaced targets in either one pass, or one at a time as the guys on horseback run across things to kill.

Personally, I'm rooting for the networked swarm of nanotech dragonfly UAVs that fly through caves and into mosques ("cough - safehouses!") carrying just enough explosive to fry individual residents.

Less collateral damage through innovations in killing. Keep 'em coming, because there's a lot of people who won't be satisfied until they're dead (and want to take us with them).

Quick comment: I think the line between chemical explosives and their nuclear cousins is not so much an issue of distructive potential, but rather, of radioactive fallout. Even the smallest tactical nuke is going to give the kids in the orphanage down the street lukemia.