If you believe the manufacturers, RFID is the technology that will make identity theft a thing of the past. Two hackers at the HOPE conference in New York this week have demonstrated that this may not be the case, by successfully cloning a VeriChip tag implanted in human flesh, live on stage in front of an audience. Back to the drawing board, perhaps?

Using traditional radiotherapy to kill lung tumours can be a process that takes up to 30 hospital visits, each involving long sessions of treatment with lots of radioactive overspill. ‘Cyberknife’ is designed to deliver the damage to the cancer faster and more accurately, using X-ray lasers to pinpoint the bad tissue, and taking realtime pictures of the patient to keep track of where it’s working, even as the patient breathes normally.

The next tourist to shack up in the ISS for a week, the Japanese mogul known as ‘Dice-K’, has sent ahead his threads, and officials aren’t impressed. Turns out that the flight suit is a garish speedway-rider’s outfit, with bright flashes of colour all over it – a replica of an outfit from a well-known Manga animation. The NASA killjoys reckon that the suit “could cause colour fatigue and irritation” in the other astronauts. Maybe they’ll make him wear it inside out.

Take one part metallic nanoparticles, and one part horse protein. Mix well, and leave to stand. Then test for magnetic properties…and observe the resultant composite behaving in a manner very similar to human brain tissue. Record results carefully, and perform further research and experiments on the material. Forward all data to your nearest artificial intelligence laboratory, where it may come in extremely useful in the future.

As a practical response to a growing energy crisis and global climate change, fusion power isn’t exactly ideal. But it does promise a great deal of advances in scientific knowledge, and if the technology develops successfully over time, it’ll probably be very useful in space-borne applications. So, fingers crossed for the first test run of China’s experimental superconducting tokomak reactor, scheduled for mid-August.