Eugenics is a term that comes with a lot of baggage, but in light of our increasing ability to affect our genes, and those of our children, the time is drawing near for the ethics to be re-examined. Is it be morally wrong to abort a foetus diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome, for example? How about the opposite – is it wrong for parents with genetic defects, such as dwarfism or deafness, to use IVF to select the genes that carry those defects so that their child would have the same ones?

The Homebrew Mobile Phone Club is a gang of Valleygeeks with a noble goal – they want to produce an open source mobile phone design that will free us all from the tyranny of big-name manufacturers and grasping service providers. Don’t head for Radio Shack yet, though – they’ve only just got a basic prototype of the electronics sorted. But when the time comes, maybe you’ll be able to fund your Tuxphone by recycling your obsolete handsets.

It’s all very well there being electric cars on the market, but there still aren’t many on the roads. As part of the ongoing bid to de-congest the roads (and freshen the air) of London, the first free on-street car-recharging terminals in the world have been installed in the Covent Garden area in the hope of enticing city drivers to make the switch.

The most common failure point of structures put under stress by earthquakes or hurricanes turns out to be the humble nail. This, it seems, is an engineering problem that Ed Sutt has solved by reinventing the nail. [mefi]