A panel of security and technology experts reached the conclusion that the threat posed by cyber-terrorism has been overhyped and the net is unlikely to become a launch pad for terror attacks.
Net users will soon get the chance to take part in a distributed computing experiment to work out how global climate could change over the next 50 years. Modelled after the successful SETI@Home project, scientists have developed software that simulates 100 years of worldwide weather patterns in order to refine predictions about global warming and its effect on climate.
Astronomers, schoolchildren and interested amateurs could soon be watching the sky with the help of a network of telescopes controlled via the internet.
Astronomers could be among the first to reap the rewards of plans to turn the internet into a vast pool of computer processing power. The three-year Astrogrid project is attempting to give astronomers a common way of accessing and manipulating diverse data archives.
Digimask, a British technology company, has developed a method for creating a virtual twin that can be used to represent users in the digital realm.
Experts are warning of the risk of relying on technology to help spot terrorists before they attack. They say that the low tech methods used by those behind last weeks attacks on New York and Washington show it was basic failures in intelligence work rather than too little technology that gave the the hijackers their opportunity.
British Telecom researchers are studying bacterial colonies to help develop communication networks that will self-organise and self-configure.
Researchers who use artificial neural networks - circuits that mimic brain cells - to control robots usually ignore the biochemistry of the brain. But scientists from the University of Sussex, UK, have found that by simulating the presence of one key chemical they can enhance the performance of the neural network.
Ants might be able to run telecommunication networks better than humans. Researchers have found that control programs based on the foraging behaviour of ants can keep data networks running more efficiently and cope with congestion better than many human alternatives.
One of the oldest forms of life on Earth has been revealed as a natural born computer programmer. Scientists studying single-celled organisms called ciliates have found that the tiny animals are experts at sorting, shuffling and splicing DNA when they reproduce.