Brian Wang has been poking around the webpages of NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts), and has rounded up some interesting projects, including solar shields to prevent global warming, ‘photonic muscle telescopes’ and ‘ponderomotive propulsion’ systems. It’s a shame that NASA don’t get better funding, they have some great minds at work.

Red Herring is running an article about the explosion of interest in biometric devices, such as fingerprint scanners, citing lower costs and ‘public acceptance’ as some of the factors involved. Though they have neglected to mention that some people have found them far easier to trick than the manufacturers might like to admit. Gummi bear, anyone?

As time goes by we are discovering that the solar system, although still exceptionally spacious, has a lot more objects lurking around in it than we thought. The observations of a newly-discovered asteroid in Neptune’s domain, which is ‘orbitally locked’ to the planet, are hinting that there may be a whole lot more of them lurking unseen in the same neighbourhood

So the Harvard gang got their go-ahead on stem cell research – and a good thing too, IMHO. But there’s a bit of a snag, namely a massive shortage in volunteer donors of ovarian cells, due to the uncomfortable and slightly risky procedures involved. The cynic in me tends to think that free-market capitalism will provide a steady supply once word gets out to the Third World. After all, it’s safer than selling a kidney.

Evolution takes time – it’s not an overnight process. Or so we’ve always been told, at least. But scientists at the University of Edinburgh are claiming to have recreated a butterfly species from its parent forms in merely three months, which in evolutionary scales is a blink of an eye.