Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.
Scientists have built an "intelligent" computer that utilizes genetic programming techniques to invent and design products of its own.
Scientists have devised a computer that can "read" thoughts and be controlled by brainpower alone. It has already enabled a severely disabled British man to type out a message just by thinking. The machine's developers now hope that it will eventually enable paralysed people to type, play computer games and even steer their wheelchairs using mind power.
A "smart" pill capable of diagnosing cancer and ulcers when inside the human stomach has been developed by scientists at Glasgow University. The battery-powered silicon capsule has been created using nanotechnology to fabricate tiny components which send radio signals to an electronic receiver.
A future in which you might control your computer simply with the power of thought is still a long way off, but it is one of the possibilities being looked at by fast-moving research into ways the brain can communicate with machines.
MARS could soon be buzzing with its own internet. Nasa, the American space agency, wants to girdle the silent red planet with powerful satellites to help astronauts communicate with each other and with Earth. Starting next year the agency aims to launch a series of spacecraft that will form the building blocks of the new system. If Nasa succeeds in establishing a network of manned bases on Mars - perhaps as early as 2014 - the inhabitants should be able to send and receive e-mails.
Scientists claim they have broken the ultimate speed barrier: the speed of light. In research carried out in the United States, particle physicists have shown that light pulses can be accelerated to up to 300 times their normal velocity of 186,000 miles per second.
Lord Sainsbury, the British science minister, plans to build an Armageddon institute in Britain to track and destroy comets threatening the Earth.
"Fearing it has slipped behind America in an arms race involving secret weapons of the future, Russia is proposing an international treaty to control "information warfare", an invisible but deadly threat that could be used as effectively as missiles and bombs.