The new components, described by scientists at Hewlett-Packard, are known as "memristors". The devices were proposed 40 years ago but have only recently been fabricated, the team wrote in the journal Nature. They have already been used to build novel transistors - tiny switches that are the building blocks of all chips. "Now we have this type of device we have a broader palette with which to paint our circuits," Professor Stan Williams, one of the team, told the BBC last year.

Total recall

Memristors were first proposed in 1971 by Professor Leon Chua, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. They are the "fourth" basic building block of circuits, after capacitors, resistors and inductors. "I never thought I'd live long enough to see this happen," Professor Chua told the Associated Press. "I'm thrilled because it's almost like vindication. Something I did is not just in my imagination, it's fundamental." The memristors are so called because they have the ability to "remember" the amount of charge that has flowed through them after the power has been switched off.This could allow researchers to build new kinds of computer memory that would would not require powering up. Today, most PCs use dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which loses data when the power is turned off. But a computer built with memristors could allow PCs that start up instantly, laptops that retain sessions after the battery dies, or mobile phones that can last for weeks without needing a charge."If you turn on your computer it will come up instantly where it was when you turned it off," Professor Williams told Reuters. "That is a very interesting potential application, and one that is very realistic."

Each time you give your credit card details to a phone agent or Web site, it can feel like you die a little — after all, you've just given away the keys to your personal kingdom.

Security experts nowadays are trying to help address this fear by developing disposable credit card numbers (DCCNs).

Under one new proposal, the disposable digits would be good only for a single transaction. As detailed in a recent edition of the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, researchers at Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. suggest a scheme whereby consumers submit a DCCN instead of their regular card number when making online purchases.

Researchers Mohammed Assora, James Kadirire and Ayoub Shirvani suggest that the customer would get the secret code number from the credit card company. Using a simple calculation, the code would be a combination of a number from the e-commerce site (probably the sale price) and the credit card number to create a "hash" of the credit card details.

This hash — which would resemble a long random number — would be stored by the merchant instead of the usual credit card details. Neither the merchant nor any malicious eavesdropper or hacker would be able to read it, but the credit card company could read it, since it knows the customer's code number.

NEW YORK - And they're off! A new challenge to build an eco-friendly, efficient car - for a $10 million purse - began today with an announcement of the details of the Automotive X Prize at the New York Auto Show.

The latest X Prize Foundation challenge for aspiring innovators is to design a "viable, clean and super-efficient" car that people actually want to buy and that will "help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change," according to the Foundation.

So far, 64 international teams have signed up for the challenge, sponsored by Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. Their rolling inventions will compete for a $10 million prize in the culmination of the challenge: two long-distance stage races that reflect real driving conditions, to be held in 2009 – the Qualifying Race and the Grand Prize Final.

"This is a race for the future; it is a race we must win," said Peter Diamandis, X Prize Foundation chief executive officer and chairman.

In the races, the cars will have to hit a minimum speed and achieve a fuel efficiency of at least 100 miles per gallon of gasoline energy equivalent. They must also be ready for production on the market. No flashy concept cars please.

Scientist: 'God Particle' Likely To Be Found Soon

By Alexander G. Higgins, Associated Press Writer

Eds. Note: The subatomic particle that is the focus of this story is sometimes referred to as the "God particle," after the title of Nobel laureate Leon Lederman's lighthearted 1993 popular particle physics book "The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?"

GENEVA (AP) -- The “father” of an elusive subatomic particle said Monday he is almost sure it will be discovered in the next year in a race between powerful research equipment in the United States and Europe.

British physicist Peter Higgs, who more than 40 years ago postulated the existence of the particle in the makeup of the atom, said his visit to a new accelerator in Geneva over the weekend encouraged him that the so-called Higgs boson will soon be seen.

The euro1.3 billion (US$2 billion) Large Hadron Collider, under construction since 2003, is expected to start operating by June at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, which is known as CERN.

It likely will take several months before the hundreds of scientists from all over the world at the laboratory are ready to start smashing together protons to study their composition.

But Higgs said the particle may already have been created at the rival Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, where the Tevatron is currently the world's most powerful particle accelerator.

A camera that can "see" explosives, drugs and weapons hidden under clothing from 25 metres has been invented.

The ThruVision system could be deployed at airports, railway stations or other public spaces.

It is based on so-called "terahertz", or T-ray, technology, normally used by astronomers to study dying stars.

Although it is able to see through clothes it does not reveal "body detail" or subject people to "harmful radiation", according to the designers.

"It is totally and utterly passive - it receives only," said a spokesperson for Thruvision.

The portable camera, which has already been sold to the Dubai Mercantile Exchange and Canary Wharf in London, will be shown off at the Home Office scientific development branch's annual exhibition later this week.

Kidney Thefts

An Indian doctor named Amit Kumar was arrested in Nepal earlier this month, accused of being the leader of a "kidney theft ring" that supposedly took up to 500 kidneys from unwilling donors over the past nine years. Stories circulated that some poor and uneducated Indian peasants were even forced to give up their organs at gunpoint.

Stories of organ theft proliferate on the Internet, and surface once in a while in the mass media.

There are two basic types of organ-snatching stories: One involves a traveling businessman who meets up with a femme fatale, is drugged, and wakes up with an organ missing. The other involves vulnerable people (usually children and the poor) from Third World countries who are forcibly taken for their organs. A typical claim is that children in India, the Philippines, and Latin America are kidnapped (or killed) and their organs sold to rich Americans or Europeans.

Scary, huh? But is it true?

While newspapers and magazines profit from sensational headlines about vampiric organ thieves, the truth is that there is little evidence to suggest that organ theft rings operate in India or anywhere else.

Consent vs. force

As with many legal and criminal issues (for example, rape or abduction) the crux of the issue comes down to consent. Dr. Kumar claims that all the organs were willingly offered, and the logistics of organ transplant supports his defense.

It is virtually impossible to remove a usable organ from an uncooperative donor and place it in a recipient.

Kidney transplants are not simple procedures that can be done in someone's kitchen. Sophisticated medical equipment must be used, and donors and recipients must be carefully matched. Blood and tissue typing and histocompatibility tests must be done in advance (thus with the "victim's" cooperation). The operation would take between fou...