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Powered up by rechargeMobile phones, digital music players, PDAs and laptop computers have become ubiquitous features of modern life. However, these power-hungry devices depend on the availability of battery technology that makes them useful, portable and affordable.

The Age of Windustry?Enthusiasts, buoyed by the massive surge of wind energy investment and deployment, believe historians will call the first half of the 21st century the Age of Windustry. If they are right, it will be largely because of innovation.

Re-writing the vegetal codeGenetic engineering involves artificially inserting a new piece of genetic code into the genome of an organism. If the process works, the new gene, carrying instructions for a particular protein, is carried in all the cells and passed down the generations. In theory, one can create a plant that produces any protein one wants. Plants we use for food, biofuel, and medical purposes can be engineered to meet our needs.

Keeping watch on car emissionsIn many fields, innovation is driven as much by regulatory change as by ‘technology-push' or ‘market-pull'. In the automotive sector, manufacturers and component suppliers have, since the days of Ralph Nader's campaigns for improved car safety in the US during the 1960s and 1970s, responded to ever stricter environmental and safety legislation with an astonishing series of innovations. Competitiveness has been determined to a large extent by the ability to respond rapidly and cost-effectively to new laws, and patents have been a key tool.

Fuelling a sustainable economyBiofuels were all the talk during the 1970s oil crisis. But when the price of oil came down, they were marginalised. Today, with looming climate change and energy troubles, biofuels are back in fashion - this time destined for the mainstream.

A Second Life for BioplasticsNatural plastic sounds like a very modern invention - the cutting edge of sustainable living, even. Yet, before World War II most objects in use had a natural origin, such as wood, rubber, and earthenware. Petroleum-based plastics then steadily replaced natural raw materials for an extraordinary number of new products, and most manufactured objects were thus made synthetically. But today natural feedstock is back in vogue, enjoying a second life.

The machines of LilliputThe microelectronic circuits etched onto the billions of silicon chips produced annually are made up of very fine semiconductor features. In state-of-the-art integrated circuits (ICs), many are narrower than 65 nanometres – a fraction of the wavelength of visible light.

Eating for healthNext time you refresh yourself with a probiotic yoghurt or an energy drink you are adding to the growing market of ‘functional foods' - which include nutraceuticals and nutritional additives like vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

Growing old, staying youngRegenerative medicine is one of the great biomedical challenges of this century. The basic idea is to repair, reconstruct, or engineer tissues - and to regenerate organs - before they become completely and irreversibly dysfunctional. Does it seem far fetched to you? Well, it isn't, because it is already happening.

Patenting human stem cells: medical lifeline or ethical high water?For some, the use of a shipping metaphor to illustrate the relationship between an evolving field of biomedical investigation and its legal and ethical implications borders on insensitive. For others, it is just a catchy way to attract attention to a subject that is, by its very nature, a sensitive one. These different responses underscore the challenges facing not only the scientific world but also policy-makers and the legal fraternity, as technology progresses into the post-genomic era of regenerative medicine.

A sunny future for solar cellsWith constantly rising fossil fuel prices, concern about security of energy supply, and growing evidence of climate change induced by society’s carbon dioxide emissions, interest in renewable energy sources has never been more intense.

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