age the egg. Ammonium salts are used to sterilise the water. In the final stage, the eggs are dunked in cold water to bring them down to refrigerator temperature. The process is able to treat 1000 eggs per minute. The process will add 2 cents to the cost of each egg, though.

Although the process has been approved by the US Department of Agriculture, in Europe the process of dunking eggs is illegal - a measure designed to protect eggs from bacteria in faeces sticking to the shell. The law will have to be amended before the new process can be introduced over here. So that

PRIVATE COMPANY, still unnamed announced plans recently to sequence the human genome by the year 2001, four years ahead of the target set by the publicly funded Human Genome Project. All the data will be freely available to researchers. Craig Venter, president of the company and founder of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland, says the policy was agreed because it was thought to be morally wrong to withhold the information.

Formed by TIGR and Perkin-Elmer, a scientific equipment manufacturer, the new company will use powerful new gene sequencing machines to read the 30 billion bases in human DNA within three years. The sequencing will cost around $200 million, which may prompt the US Congress to reconsider its budget of $3 billion for the Human Genome Project. Half of which has already been spent, with 97% of the genome still to map. "We will take a large number of machines and build a super genome sequencing factory" says Venter. "The raw sequence data will be freely accessible in the public databases, provided they can handle the amount of data we produce." n

RITISH TELECOM is launching a new 'phone later this year which combines a digital cellular 'phone with a cordless house 'phone, using a normal 'phone line. At home the telephone will act as a normal cordless 'phone, making and receiving calls there. Then, when the 'phone is taken 300 metres from its base unit, it will automatically become a digital cellular telephone. BT is still working out how it's going to charge customers for this, given that mobile rates are much higher than normal 'phone charges. n

ITHIN A year you may find yourself not only microwaving your food, but your clothes as well. Low temperature microwave clothes dryers that don't damage wool and delicate fabrics have been developed by the Electric Power Research Institute in California. The dryers resemble conventional microwaves but have a rotating drum inside. The microwaves directly heat and vaporise water trapped within fabrics, so the drying temperature is about 20 degrees celsius lower than a tumble dryer.

FRENCH COMPANY has invented an autopilot that allows the machines that tend vines (driving over the top of them) to steer a perfectly straight course, avoiding damage to the vines. Coverplant, from Le Pian in Medoc has developed a tractor which runs along metal wires which have a small electric current passed through them. Sensors on the sides of the tractor detect the electromagnetic fields generated by the current , and steer closer or further away, depending on the strength of field they detect. When tested on the Rothschild estate, it didn't injure any plants. n