The government has unveiled a new shatterproof pint glass which it hopes will help to save billions of pounds in healthcare costs says the Huffington Post.

The glasses are designed to prevent them being used as weapons when smashed and the government has developed two prototypes of the new barware. The government plans to introduce the new glasses for use on a voluntary basis in pubs, providing tests show the glasses’ durability, safety and cost-effectiveness.

With around 87,000 alcohol-related glass attacks each year, the new glasses have been met with a positive reaction by alcohol concern charities and groups with healthcare costs incurred by attacks resulting in hospital treatment being estimated at around £2.7 billion.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson – Hermione Grainger in the films based on the books by JK Rowling – has launched a fashion range in collaboration with People Tree, a sustainable fashion label to produce environmentally friendly clothes and accessories reports Edie.

The range is scheduled to launch next week (February 8th) and Emma acted as creative advisor on the designs which includes jerseys, t-shirts, dresses and trousers among others. The range will be available to both men and women.

Emma previously also fronted advertising campaigns for Burberry.

The People Tree line will use 100% organic and fair-trade cotton, and will be made entirely by hand by fair-trade groups in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

A Japanese company has developed a fire alarm that alerts hearing-impaired people by emitting the odour of WASABI!

The pungent foodstuff was chosen from a host of different scents during tests to determine which odour would cause people to wake the fastest from their slumber. It was found that wasabi – Japanese horseradish – acted quickest with almost all the test subjects waking within 2-and-a-half minutes of first exposure.

Wasabi contains a substance called allyl isothiocyanate – the same substance as found in mustard – and further tests were required to find the appropriate amount of odour release required without causing people’s eyes to water – which could hinder peoples’ attempts to escape a fire.

The alarm, which measures 21cm by 8cm and weighs just half-a- kilogram was developed by the Japanese fire extinguisher company Air Water Safety Services and has already been sold to residential homes for the elderly as well as hotels says the Daily Telegraph online.

It wouldn’t work for this writer, however, as the scent of wasabi is likely to lead to the kitchen rather than any escape point!

‘Apprentice’ star Howard Ebison is in training to run Derby’s 10k run in memory of a fellow contestant’s mum, who died of cancer; he also hopes to run in the London Marathon.

Ebison finished sixth in 2009’s edition of the BBC series, becoming a casualty of Sir Alan Sugar’s boardroom after choosing low-risk products as product manager in his team’s shopping channel challenge.

But Ebison, who moved to Derby in 2008 to live with his partner is aiming now to be a hit and raise £3,000 by running both the Derby race and the London Marathon in aid of the MacMillan Cancer Support charity and in memory of the mother of his fellow Apprentice rival James McQuillan.

Both James and Yasmin Siadatan – the series’ eventual winner – will join Howard in the Derby run.

Edie.net reports that a Peterhead firm have been fined following an explosion in May 2008, which sent cement powder into the air and falling onto homes and businesses up to two kilometres away.

The firm, CEBO UK, has pled guilty to a charge of breaching its Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) permit and ordered by Peterhead Sheriff Court to pay court costs plus a fine of £14,000.

The explosion was caused when a silo broke due to poor maintenance. It was found that the silo’s hatch lid retaining brackets were badly corroded during a SEPA investigation. It also found silo maintenance records weren’t up to date and the silo should not have been in use.

Cement, although in common use, is an abrasive powder which can cause damage and harm to the environment, human health and property, said SEPA’s investigating officer Martyn Howie.

Google’s new Nexus One mobile phone could become embroiled in a legal battle over its name. According to a report on Sky News, the family of sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick have reportedly asked Google to stop using the Nexus One name.

For geeks among us, they will know the connection between the two, but for those who don’t here’s an explanation.

Phillip K. Dick is the cult sci-fi author responsible for the book ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ which formed the basis for the film ‘Bladerunner’, starring Harrison Ford. In the book, a bounty hunter known as Nexus 6 (or six) chased down cyborgs. In the film, Nexus Six was a class of ‘replicant’ – a cyborg designed to look human.

Google’s phone, which was launched earlier in the week and has created a large amount of buzz, runs Google’s Android operating system.

The family of Phillip K. Dick claim intellectual-property infringement by Google and have asked the search giant to stop using the name, claiming there is a clear association between the characters of Dicks’ work and the name for Google’s latest creation.

Google have so far refused to comment on the claims by Dicks’ family, but say the name has nothing to do with the author’s work and that their use of the word ‘Nexus’ was used in its original sense, as a place where things converge.

Despite man’s ability to put a man on the moon and send satellites into the far reaches of space, the deepest parts of earth’s own ocean are still shrouded in mystery; indeed it’s probably true that scientists’ maps of Mar’s surface is more detailed that any map they possess of the ocean floor.

Scientists attribute this to the inherent difficulty of communicating with robots and submarines beneath the sea, due to the intense pressure, currents and even marine life that form part of the ocean’s deeper reaches.

However, in order to address this problem, scientists developed the new NEPTUNE network, which went online Wednesday 8^th December.  The deep-sea network will stream data collated from hundreds of undersea instruments, sensors and probes and stream them direct to the internet direct from the ocean floor.

The network consists of a 497-mile ring of fibre-optic cable, situated off the Canadian coast and features five nodes which act as routers to transmit data to the internet.  Each node is encased in a 6.5 ton cage to protect it from fishing trawlers, sea vessels and giant squids.

The network is expected to produce around 50 terabytes of data each year, all of which will inform scientists about everything from earthquake dynamics to the effects of climate change on the water column, and from deep-sea ecosystems to salmon migration.  It will also study gas hydrate deposits which are found along the continental margin and the effects deep-sea fishing can have on benthic communities and marine life as fishermen cast their nets wider and deeper.

The government has given the green light to a scheme which will see smart meters being installed into all of the UK’s 26 million homes. Although touted for some time, the approved plan will see British Gas and other energy suppliers given responsibility for installing the meters, which will allow consumers to monitor their own energy use, as well as allow the energy companies to read consumption levels remotely.

The ability to read meters remotely will forego the use of estimated bills, while the consumers’ ability to monitor their gas and electricity usage will help in their efforts to adopt a greener lifestyle.

But the estimated £8.5bn outlay threatened to usurp the announcement, with critics warning that energy companies may pocket the benefits rather than passing them back to the consumer by way of cheaper fuel. The Department of Energy and Climate change believes the expected savings to be in the region of £14.5bn – dwarfing the outlay costs – due to reduced administrative costs.

While the plans were welcomed by power companies and industry bodies, consumer groups and energy consultants voiced concerns that the smart meter rollout was being placed into the hands of a sector that had already come in for fierce criticism over high charges, and allegedly not passing on previous benefits to customers.

“We’re concerned that consumers could be saddled with the entire multibillion pound bill for a project that’s going to save the industry hundreds of millions of pounds a year,” said Martyn Hocking, editor of Which? magazine.

British Gas, however, believe that the government estimate of 2% saving on energy per household was conservative and the actual saving could be considerably higher after research in the United States suggested that customers’ energy use could be cut by as much as 20% by using smart metering technology.

The company also believes the roll-out of smart meters could create up to 2,600 additional jobs by 2012.

Those at Parliament Square yesterday were treated to a protest with a difference.

As 31 Greenpeace members climbed onto the roof of the Palace of Westminster to protest about climate change, down on the ground members of the UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC) joined in the protest in their own unique style: a choreographed protest that was the culmination of a three day dance workshop.

Starting off with a lone dancer, the routine developed to incorporate around 150 members of the organisation. The three minute routine took the Greenpeace protestors as much by surprise as it did the passers-by.

Emma Biermann, 23 year old coordinator of UKYCC said: “Young people in the UK are often portrayed as apathetic, but growing numbers are coming together to learn the skills to campaign for change with the help of the UK Youth Climate Coalition.”

“After this event we’re all feeling totally energised and ready to lead the way to a cooler, smarter, low- carbon future.”

There’s a video of the dancers on the Guardian site here.

Scientist Ray Kurzweil has been in the news a lot this week for saying that within 25 years humans could not only become immortal but could also reverse the aging process.

Mr Kurzweil believes this is possible thanks to an increase in the understanding of how the human body works coupled with a greater understanding of nanotechnology. Artificial pancreases and neural implants are already available, and the 61-year-old believes it’s only a matter of time until our major organs can be replaced with technology to keep us alive longer.

He said: “”Nanotechnology will extend our mental capacities to such an extent we will be able to write books within minutes.

“If we want to go into virtual-reality mode, nanobots will shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will become commonplace. And in our daily lives, hologram like figures will pop in our brain to explain what is happening.”

With an already increasing population – that some believe to already be overbearing on the planet’s resources – if this were to come true some of science’s previous whacky claims such as us living on the moon and eating meals in pill form would have to happen at roughly the same time. Although with the prospect of eternal life the behaviour of some people towards the place we live may start to buck up.