The web is crawling with reports about Geminoid, a prototype body-double droid with ‘real’ presence via telemetry. It was built by a Japanese professor ‘in his own image’, to coin a phrase, though it looks a little meaner than (what I assume to be) the real person. Videos of Geminoid in action are available. Welcome, android overlords!

It’s been a science fiction staple ever since the idea of biometric identification was first mooted, but biometric ‘spoofing’ has the potential to be the next big growth industry in the criminal underworld. Imagine a world full of fingerprint-activated locks…and then think how many surfaces your sweaty little hands must leave copyable prints on, every single day. Are you worried yet?

Pain – it’s all in the mind. Well, not entirely, but the value of distraction as a way of cancelling out the pain of some medical treatments is well documented. So much so that Spanish scientists have announced that, for some patients, playing a virtual reality computer game while being operated on can actually reduce the dosage of sedatives required. I’m pretty sure I’ve played a few games that might be a good replacement for sedatives in my time…Ridge Racer, anyone?

Who says us Europeans don’t think big? The European Southern Observatory is planning on building an ‘Extremely Large Telescope’, based on a 60-metre wide mirror, to be used for spotting new galaxies and tracking down exoplanets. And they’ve only settled for that after they were told their ‘Overwhelmingly Large Telescope’ idea was unfeasable.

Yet more great data just in from NASA’s Cassini probe. Recent radar images of Saturn’s major moon Titan reveal a topography that is remarkably similar to some features of the Earth’s surface – except that the hills, valleys and rivers of Titan are made entirely of frozen methane and ethane, of course.