Hands up who wants to do maintainance inspections in nuclear power plants? No, me neither – it’s not a job that people queue up for. So robots are the obvious answer, but how will they be able to see their surroundings well enough to do a proper survey? Nature abounds with great templates for technology, and this time the super-accurate sonar skills of bats are the inspiration for a new breed of experimental inspection robots here in the UK. They’re still at the proof-of-concept stage, of course, but the developers hope to have the end product doing the business within a decade or so.

To follow the perpetual motion flap last month, here’s another almost-too-good-to-be-true invention – a superconducting electromagnetic thruster engine. The brainchild of one Roger Shawyer, an aerospace engineer from the UK, the design uses a resonant cavity to amplify the force of photons fired into it. His second prototype can create a force of 300 milliNewtons, but Shawyer reckons he could get enough power to raise a passenger vehicle if he can find the right superconducting materials for the waveguide. The European science establishment are unimpressed, but the US and China are both very interested – only time will tell if this is solution or snake oil.

New research supports the theory that ocean temperature increases in ‘hurricane nurseries’ are largely caused by human actions such as atmospheric pollution. Higher temperatures mean a higher number of big hurricances and other storms will occur – according to to one of the researchers, “we’re performing an uncontrolled experiment by burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases.” Of course, if you believe the scientists are making it all up or deluding themselves, there’s no cause for alarm. But I for one wouldn’t want to be investing in beachfront property at the moment.

More robotic developments from Japan, where Hitachi have been upgrading their EMIEW servitor bot to make it more viable for use in situations where humans will be present. To that end, they’ve given it a whole bundle of proximity detection gadgets like distance sensors and lasers, and added some control software that will enable the EMIEW to make predictions of where nearby people are heading, and adjust its own course to compensate. Early days yet, though – the bot can navigate “an 8-meter long course along with 4 people walking at normal speeds”, but it’ll be no good at bringing your drinks across a nightclub dancefloor…

As if you weren’t sick of (or completely immune to) targeted advertising on the internet, the next place it could crop up is on the walls. A UK university is testing a prototype ad screen in a corridor – the screen identifies passers-by via the Bluetooth signals from their mobile devices, and then software agents hold a bidding war in microseconds to decide who gets to display their content. The system will be able to differentiate between different people to ensure no-one sees the same ad twice. I think we just found another good reason to keep the Bluetooth on your phone switched off when you’re not using it.