London, Jan 6 : Rumours are abuzz that Apple may launch a ''big screen'' version of its popular iPod touch device to make it even easier to surf the Internet and watch movies.

A report from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, a popular technology industry blog, says that Apple has developed an iPod touch device with a 7- or 9-inch display.

Sources have told that blog that prototypes of the device are already being shown to Apple's manufacturing partners in Asia, reports the Telegraph.

The gadget would enable users to listen to music, watch films and surf the Internet on a more comfortably sized screen than the 3.5in display currently used.

London, Jan 6 : Scientists from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) have devised an ultra-hard vehicle armour with an array of holes to protect military personnel.

According to a report by BBC News, details of the steel armour, called Super Bainite, were outlined during a seminar at the University of Cambridge.

Professor Peter Brown from the MoD team claims that the array of holes has given the armour a protective advantage, as the perforations help deflect incoming projectiles.

Washington, Jan 5 : Scientists have determined that biofuel development is shifting from soil to sea, specifically to marine algae.

Referred to as "green bullet", marine algae is considered as science and society''s best hope for a clean bioenergy source that will help loosen broad dependence on fossil fuel, counteract climate warming, and power the vehicles of the future.

Washington, Jan 5: The face of war is all set to transform, with American armed robots predicted to patrol on the battle ground in a matter of few years, killing without any remorse.

According to a report in the Washington Post, this advancement in American military prowess is a fact that comes under Moore's law.

Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, noticed nearly half a century ago that computing power seemed to be doubling about every two years.

London, Jan 3 : New evidence, uncovered by oceanographers, is all set to challenge one of the most long-standing theories about how species evolve in the oceans.

Most scientists believe that allopatric speciation, where different species arise from an ancestral species only after breeding populations have become physically isolated from each other, is the dominant mode of speciation both on land and in the sea.

The key to this theory is the existence of some kind of physical barrier that operates to restrict interbreeding (gene flow) between populations, so that, given enough time, such populations diverge until they are considered separate species.

London, Jan 1 : Thanks to an innovation from British engineers, cement, a vast source of planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2), could be transformed into a means of stripping the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

According to a report in the Guardian, Nikolaos Vlasopoulos, chief scientist at London-based Novacem, made the invention.

The new environment friendly formulation means the cement industry could change from being a significant emitter to a significant absorber of CO2, said Vlasopoulos.

Making the 2 billion tonnes of cement used globally every year pumps out 5 percent of the world's CO2 emissions, which is more than the entire aviation industry.