13 Technological Fix 2013-2014

The man who would stop hurricanes with car tyres British scientist Stephen Salter and Bill Gates patent scheme to prevent huge storms

"Given the crises facing the planet, with the population set to reach the 9 billion mark by 2050 and increasing strains being placed on water, energy and food supplies, it would be wrong to hope there could be a single solution to the storms that lie ahead. As the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, once put it in an Observer interview: "There will be no silver bullet.""

The institute conducting a trial of GM wheat in Hertfordshire says its website was taken down by a cyber attack on Sunday. The attack occurred on the day anti-GM protesters gathered at Rothamsted Research institute to "decontaminate" the field of modified wheat. But they were stopped from entering the site of the wheat trial by police.

An experimental solar-powered airplane took off from Switzerland on its first transcontinental flight on Thursday, aiming to reach North Africa next week. Pilot Andre Borschberg will fly the jumbo jet-size Solar Impulse plane on its first leg to Madrid, Spain, by Friday.