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.

China’s space agency has plans for Mars.

Nano- and micro-scale mechanical storage devices hold out the promise of super high data densities, but also wear out very quickly. “Nanolube” proposes to address that problem.