This week we've seen a pilotless passenger-plane hit the British skies, the last barrier to human cloning be breached, and we've found a large cache of water, untouched by the rest of the world for at least one billion years, buried 1.5 miles deep within the Earth.

And as if that wasn't enough, the world's first lab-grown burger made from bovine neck stem cells in a petri dish will hit the grill of an undisclosed London location.

Which makes us beg the question - could you stomach test-tube meat?

• Did Apple Stores save Apple?

First lab-grown burger ready for tasting -- A record-breaking taste test will soon be underway in London when the world's first laboratory-grown burger will be cooked and eaten. The meat, which is grown from cow neck stem cells invitro under carefully controlled conditions, costs over £210,000. And that makes it one of the most expensive pieces of meat ever cooked. While the quantity of burgers available and venue are currently unknown, the researchers behind the cowless beef say it tastes "reasonably good". It might be a while before lab-burgers hit your local takeaway though. [The Register]

First pilotless passenger-plane manages 800km journey over Britain -- We've seen many unmanned military drones make their way to the skies, but now a passenger plane has managed to fly itself - completely pilotless - from Lancashire to Scotland through civilian airspace without a hitch.

A flesh-and-blood pilot took the controls for take-off and landing, with the plane flying fully autonomously in between. Not only that, but the plane was thrown dummy obstacles to avoid, with fake planes being entered into its flight data, forcing it to make flight-path corrections in the same way a real pilot would. The next step is to construct a digital eyeball capable of discerning complex objects, like the difference between a hot-air balloon and a cloud, but soon UAVs could be free to roam our skies. [New Scientist]

Astronauts take a trip into the void of space to fix leaking pump -- While NASA does have a few robots up in space to do its bidding, there are some things that real men still have to do. Two astronauts were forced into an impromptu EVA to replace a pump on the outside of the ISS, which was leaking ammonia into space and threatening the operation of one of the solar power generators. Thankfully everything was fixed without issue, but not before providing some amazing new images. Sometimes, even in the technological age of space stations, you still need a good old screwdriver and wrench. [NASA]

The last barrier to human cloning has been breached -- For the first time scientists have managed to clone a human stem cell, meaning that human cloning is now fully possible. Ever since Dolly the sheep became the first cloned animal, researchers have been using human stem cells to try and clone human cells, treading a very thing ethical line.

Now, via a similar process to the cloning of Dolly the sheep, nuclear transfer has been perfected in humans. Simply by taking the nucleus of one foetal stem cell and inserting it into an egg cell with its own DNA removed, you produce a clone cell that can then divide and grow as normal. Years of research and careful tweaks to the biochemical process have made this breakthrough possible, meaning we could now actually make a full-formed human clone, not that anyone is suggesting we do that, of course. Instead, this new source of cells will pave the way for possible repair of tissue and organ damage in degenerative diseases, as well as medical studies on human cell lines that weren't possible before. The hope is that the same technique can be used to produce cells from adult stem cells soon too. [Nature]

Malaria boosts mosquito sense of smell -- Researchers have discovered that the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, actually enhances the host mosquito's sense of smell making them bite humans more often. In fact, in a recent study, infected mosquitoes were three-times more likely to bite a human, simply from the odour of said human's feet. In the wild, that super-sense of smell allows the enhanced spread of the parasite, but more over, shows how the parasite can cause real, physical and neurological changes in the host. Now all we need is a way to block that change, or a way to mask the particular chemical signature that mosquitoes lock onto. [PLoS One]

Water untouched for 1 billion years could hold clue to formation of life -- Scientists in Ontario, Canada, have discovered free-flowing water, 1.5 miles below the Earth's surface that has been isolated from the world for at least 1 billion years, possibly even as long as 2.6 billion years.

The water contains both methane and hydrogen, two key components in the formation of life. Now researchers are carefully studying samples of the water for evidence of microbial life, which could have a massive impact on our theories of life on other planets, and life on Mars, deep below the barren landscape. [Nature]

Alligators replace their pearly whites once a year -- Alligators house about 80 teeth in their snappers, and new research has shown that they replace them all about once a year. Through molecular analysis and X-ray imaging, scientists discovered that alligators have a band of tooth stem cells that sit within their jaws, pumping out replacement teeth on command.

When an alligator loses a tooth, a whole host of chemicals instruct the stem cells to produce a new replacement, with each new tooth actually forming a family unit consisting of the main tooth, a replacement bud and the band of dental tissue. There's hope that, through analysis of the chemical composition of the tooth-growing trigger, we could induce the same effect within our own jaws, which carry remnants of dental stem cells too. One day the dentist could simply inject your gum with a cocktail of chemicals, inducing new teeth to grow and push out the old ones, just like when you were a child. [PNAS]

Fish are packing up and moving on because of the heat -- Global warming isn't just causing hotter weather on land, it's also increasing the temperature of large swaths of our oceans. Now it's been discovered that many fish populations are migrating out of their traditional habitats into cooler waters, impacting on diversity in these areas and reducing fish stocks. Combined with overfishing, it's rapidly depleting whole sections of historically highly-populated parts of the oceans, which is seriously bad news for costal regions that rely on fish for their livelihoods. [Nature]

2.1-Channel Speaker System offer cheap thrills

Logitech has built more computer speakers over the years than just about any manufacturer, and it’s learned a thing or two about building decent low-cost models. Take the 2.1-channel Logitech Z323 system: We could name any number of speaker systems that sound better, but few that are priced better.

The satellites tilt up to project sound at your ears.

You can literally see some of the ways that Logitech hit that low price point: The satellite cabinets are made from cheap ABS plastic with permanently attached cables that plug into the subwoofer. Each satellite has dual, 2-inch, concave-dome drivers (one is mounted in the front of the cabinet and the other in the back, to deliver what Logitech describes as “360-degree sound”). So the system performs best if there’s a wall behind the satellites for the sound waves to bounce off. Each satellite also has a front-facing port. There’s a volume control and power switch on the right-hand cabinet, plus one 1/8-inch headphone output and one 1/8-inch stereo input, to support a digital media player.

The compact subwoofer cabinet (it measures 8.7x5.9x7.2 inches) is fabricated from the typical medium-density fiberboard. It houses a small amp and a tiny (for a sub) 4-inch down-firing dome woofer. The amp delivers six watts (RMS) to each of the satellites and 18 watts (RMS) to the subwoofer. The sub has its own volume control, along with a pair of RCA jacks that serve as a second auxiliary input for a gaming console, DVD player, or what have you (handy features in a speaker system priced this low).

The Z323’s favorable price/performance ratio, however, applies to games much more than music. Playing games such as Borderlands 2, we were pleased with the Z323’s ability to render the sound of gunshots and explosions, and the conversations with friendly characters and the taunts of enemies alike were rendered crisp and clear (well, with the exception of those babbling psychos).

When we listened to music, on the other hand, the vocals sounded weirdly detached from the rest of the band—and it didn’t matter whether the singer was male or female or even what style of music was being played. We tried several singer/songwriters, including “Crossing Muddy Waters,” from the John Hiatt album of the same name, Marc Cohn’s “She’s Becoming Gold,” from The Rainy Season, and Nanci Griffith’s cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Techumseh Valley,” from her record Other Voices, Other Rooms (in all three cases, the tracks were ripped from CD and encoded as 16-bit, 44.1kHz FLAC files).

This sonic detachment wasn’t as much of a problem with instrumental selections, but that’s not to say the Z323 system delivered a stellar performance. When we played Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, which the composer recently remastered for Bowers & Wilkins’s Society of Sound label, the album (available in both Apple Lossless and 24-bit FLAC formats), sounded somewhat lifeless and flat compared to what we heard on more expensive speakers (including Corsair’s stellar SP2500 system). But you could almost buy four Z323 setups for the cost of one SP2500, so that’s to be expected.

f you’re working with a tight budget and need speakers primarily for gaming, Logitech has a good set in the Z323. If listening to music is your core interest, on the other hand, you should keep looking.

$70, www.logitech.com

A mosaic of Lady Justice at the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

Thomas Hawk

Four lawyers linked to the embattled copyright-trolling Prenda Law operation were slapped with a sanctions order earlier this month, ordering them to pay more than $80,000 in penalties and referring them to state bar investigators as well as the US Attorney's office.

The only one who has spoken publicly, John Steele, said he will appeal. Now, papers have been filed by Steele's comrade-in-arms Paul Hansmeier, asking the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to stay the sanctions issued by US District Judge Otis Wright while Hansmeier puts together a proper appeal. Hansmeier filed the motion late Thursday, just days before the May 21 deadline to pay the $81,319.72.

"The district court failed to afford Appellant even the most basic due process protections, such as the ability to cross- examine adverse witnesses or to object to the introduction of improper evidence against him, let alone the strict due process protections that would be available in a criminal contempt proceeding," writes Hansmeier in his plea to the appeals court. "The impending actions of the district court threaten to damage Appellant’s reputation in the legal community, in turn damaging his ability to attract clients and to represent them effectively, in a manner that will be irremediable through the normal appellate process without a stay of execution."

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Speedy blue hedgehog teams with a little green robot.

Sonic the Hedgehog is potentially gaining access to a whole new audience and generation of gamers who never got to experience the fast and fun ride on the Genesis. How so? Sega today pointed its iconic game character in the direction of Google Play and told him to keep running until he got there, which he did today. Available now on Google Play, the game costs $2.99 and gives fans a new look at Sonic's world on Android.

It's been optimized with widescreen support and exclusive features for mobile phones. The new update also allows gamers to unlock other familiar characters, including Tails and Knuckles, marking the first time they've been playable on mobile, Sega says.

Prefer iOS? Sega has you covered, as well. Although Sonic the Hedgehog was already available on iOS, the new content will be offered as a free update.

Sonic the Hedgehog on Google Play
Sonic the Hedgehog on iOS

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cybershot dude

Australia's government is under fire after it appears to have introduced web censorship without warning and expanded already controversial powers to block access to child pornography into a wider web filtering system.

The reluctance of the government to release information about who has requested sites be blocked, and lists of those sites, has also alarmed many Australians. Two convenors from Melbourne Free University (MFU), whose site was blocked without warning or explanation on 4 April, have described it as a "glimpse [of] the everyday reality of living under a totalitarian government."

For a country that perhaps has a reputation for taking it easy, Australia's governments have been particularly keen on web censorship. In 2008 a web filter was proposed that would have potentially blocked as many as 10,000 sites by placing them on a blacklist. Years of criticism from industry, political and public groups—including Anonymous "declaring war" on it, and Wikileaks publishing the confidential blacklist to show it included some sites that were only, contrary to government assurances, subjectively offensive—led to the idea being dropped in November 2012.

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Dude, who's getting Dell?

Dell's future is as uncertain as it's ever been, and not just because the PC market is in a slump as consumers flock to mobile devices. The other major unknown is whether Dell will ultimately accept Michael Dell's proposed $24.4 billion buyout offer and go private, or if the board will be swayed by Carl Icahn's alternate deal that would keep the company public. As all this unfolds, Dell (the company) is seeing its profits get sucked into a vortex of uncertainty.

The PC maker reported revenue of $14.1 billion for its fiscal 2013 first quarter, down 2 percent from the previous year. What's even more alarming, however, is that its profits are down 79 percent to $130 million. In the same quarter a year ago, Dell's profits totaled $635 million.

As expected, Dell put on its positive face when announcing the results.

"We made progress in building our enterprise solutions capabilities in the first quarter and are confident in our strategy to be the leading provider of end-to-end scalable solutions," said Brian Gladden, Dell chief financial officer. "In addition, we have taken actions to improve our competitive position in key areas of the business, especially in end-user computing, and it has affected profitability. We’ll also continue to make important investments to support our strategy and drive long-term profitability."

The world's No. 3 PC maker saw its end-user computer sales slide 9 percent to $8.9 billion. Dell's Enterprise division picked up some of the slack with revenue climbing 10 percent to $3.1 billion. Dell Services also saw some growth, increasing 2 percent to $2.1 billion.

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