Yup, the boffins have been at it again it seems. The US National Academy of Engineering last week brought together some of the planet's brightest thinkers to come up with a report into the world’s greatest challenges. Actually, “challenges” is a word Sneak is inherently suspicious of, due to its frequent appearance alongside “solutions” and “leverage” in many a technology vendor's press release.

So anyway, the report into the earth's problems was presented to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). And what did the greatest scientists, entrpreneurs and thinkers around come up with? Um, we need technologies to provide cleaner power, cleaner water and to save lives. Well, duh.