CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is planning to start up again in late October after a year's inactivity following massive technical difficulties last September.  In the light of the enormous sums of money (€664 million in 2008 alone) spent on this leviathan of a laboratory and its subsequent letdown, some have taken to asking once more quite why we are expending the fruits of our labours on a machine whose only potential output seems only of practical use to theoretical physicists struggling to justify their existence in the economic downturn.

The necessity of science teachers continually updating their knowledge and understanding of their subject was brought poignantly to mind on a recent trip to a secondary school in southern India.  While explaining the actions of adrenaline and noradrenaline in the context of treating hypertension (high blood pressure) to a zoology teacher, it emerged that this teacher, though a keen enthusiast for her subject, did not know even the basics of biochemistry.  In one sense this is entirely understandable, since when this teacher was studying for her degree, biochemistry would have

The Chief Executive of Witricity has demonstrated at a conference in Oxford that mobile phones and even televisions can be powered wirelessly. Based on work at MIT by Marin Soljacic, the technology is based on magnetic resonance, allowing energy to be transfered over much greater distances than is possible with an ordinary transformer.