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But home robots - dominated by vacuums - make up 55 percent of the company's revenue and are part of the reason iRobot is on a tear. Shares are up 43 percent since the start of the year, and the company earned a profit of $26 million on sales of $401 million last year, up from $3 million on $299 million in revenue the year before. Last week, the company announced it had won a contract to make bomb disposal robots for the Navy.

Private US company SpaceX hopes to put an astronaut on Mars within 10 to 20 years, the head of the firm said.

David Keith is Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. The award-winning scientist, who was named one of TIME magazine's Heroes of the Environment in 2009, has worked near the interface of climate science, energy technology, and public policy for twenty years. He divides his time between Boston and Calgary, where he serves as president of Carbon Engineering-a start-up company developing industrial-scale technologies for capture of CO2 from ambient air. Here, Keith answers questions about his research and ideas for reducing climate change using innovative and sometimes controversial methods.

Since 2010, insurance companies had been turned essentially into public utilities with the feds setting strict minimum benefits requirements. The health reform bill also limited the administrative costs of insurers, which has ended up basically guaranteeing their profits. With competition all but outlawed, the increasingly consolidated insurance industry has had very little incentive to pay for new treatment regimens outside those specified by government standard-setting agencies. Federal government health agencies have been reluctant to authorize newer treatments because they often lead to higher insurance premiums that then must be subsidized by higher taxes. The seen aspect of health care reform is that it has had some success in providing more Americans with access to vintage 2010 medical therapies. The unseen aspect is that more people are suffering from and dying of diseases that might well have been cured had the Obama version of health care reform never been enacted. As a result of health care reform, Americans forfeited 2020 medicine in favor of more equal access to 2010 treatments.

As Nasa prepares to retire its fleet of space shuttles, it is encouraging private companies to build new rockets to get its astronauts into orbit. Among the firms landing huge contracts to build the next generation of spacecraft is SpaceX. Science correspondent David Shukman visited the company's rocket factory in California for a look inside the prototype capsule.

Given water's role in power generation, the impact of about 300 million Google searches a day is around 150,000 litres (40,000 gallons) daily -- in a world where water supplies are increasingly a major concern. "These two things -- water and energy -- come together and that's a big thing for the world to understand," says Len Rodman, a US-based water and energy expert. "If you squander water, if you indiscriminately use power, then in the long run that will have implications for the world," the chief executive of Black & Veatch, a major global water and energy company told AFP in an interview.

The enormous kite, which looks like a paraglider, works in tandem with the ship's engines, cutting back on fuel consumption, costs, and carbon footprint. "Using kites you can harness more energy than with any other type of wind-powered equipment," said German inventor Stephan Wrage, whose company SkySails is looking for lift-off on the back of worldwide efforts to boost renewable energy.

A high-tech entrepreneur has unveiled plans to launch the world's most powerful rocket since man went to the moon.

Google and the subsidiaries of two Japanese companies are investing $500 million in a wind farm being built in the northwestern US state of Oregon.