Antibiotic-resistance in bacteria is becoming more common at the same time that new antibiotics are becoming scarcer. Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have discovered compounds called furanones that prevent certain kinds of bacteria from switching on disease-causing mechanisms. The most exciting thing about this discovery is that the furanones don’t kill the bacteria, and so don’t exert the same kind of evolutionary pressure to develop resistance to the compounds.

Steven Johnson proposes that the current balkanized world of MMORPG’s will soon converge into the long-awaited metaverse, and points to the convergence of operating systems and email standards as past evidence.

ZDNet is running the first of three parts of an article discussing Artificial Intelligence. Part 1 focuses on the historical origins of machine intelligence and neural networks.

NASA’s recently-cancelled ‘Dawn’ mission has been reinstated, to the joy of the scientists working on it. The mission will involve an ion-engined probe approaching and then orbiting two of the largest asteroids in the Belt, Ceres and Vesta.