Wouldn’t it be great if we had access to a cheap and clean source of energy that did no damage to the planet and provided no reasons for wars? It sure would – and Al Globus has an article over at Space.com that suggests a solution that will be more than familiar to the veteran science fiction reader: solar satellite power. Unusually for space advocacy, he’s using sound economic and sociological arguments – perhaps if enough of us start suggesting this sort of thing, it’ll actually happen some day.

Another day, another huge reversal of stated policy by the Uk government – maybe Tony’s resignation is having repercussions already. Whatever the cause, the news is that a new draft bill will allow scientists to create hybrid embryos for research purposes – that’s ‘hybrid’ as in ‘human and animal genetic matter combined’, by the way. They’ve stopped short of permitting the outright fertilisation of human eggs by animal sperm, but this is definite legislative progress toward a future where medical research is unrestrained by the knee-jerk objections of tabloid media consumers. w00t!

Looks like there’s a worm in the Apple. One of the leading gadget blogs published an email they were sent from within the Apple empire that purported to be spilling the beans on delays to the company’s forthcoming iPhone and Leopard OS – and within an hour company stock had shed 2.2% of value before the article was redacted in light of an official denial. The fate of Apple’s stock price means very little to me, but events like this are still fascinating – as it has been suggested that they are a new method of gaming the stock market. Maybe Apple’s computers can’t be hacked, but it seems their PR machine can be.

In a twist of trading virtual gold or Linden Dollars for virtual cybersex, in Korea some underage girls are trading real-world sexual services in exchange for virtual items for use in a MMORPG.

Created as an answer to the perennial problem of getting the right people with the right expertise together to collaborate on a project, IdeaConnection is a website that allows you to post a problem you need solving and then pick from a screened roster of experts to assign the job (and the funds) to. It will also be “a place where people buy and sell ideas, inventions, and intellectual property.” It’s a great idea, but the success of most social networking platforms is due (at least in part) to them being free to use … perhaps I should float a project to start an ad-supported version.