In the news this week... Teleportation -- one step closer. Shrinking the computer clock. The new climate change economy. Saying no to physics. China zaps a U.S. satellite. Ecological debt day. Running out of water.

SCIENCE

Top Story: Quantum Information Teleported from Light to Matter - [Reuters] Beaming people in Star Trek fashion is still in the realms of science fiction but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.

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TECHNOLOGY

Top Story: A Tiny Silicon Clock - [Technology Review] While computer chips keep shrinking, the size of gadgets is still limited, in part, by relatively large pieces of quartz that act as pacemakers for electronic circuits. But within the next few months, there may be a less expensive, smaller alternative to quartz. In December, a Sunnyvale, CA-based company, SiTime, is expected to start shipping a silicon-based timekeeper that challenges the 60-year-old quartz technology.

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BUSINESS

Top Story: Green Business 'Could Be Worth $1 Trillion' - [Telegraph] New research suggests that global commerce could receive a ($1 trillion) £530bn boost from "green business" over the next five years as concerted international action creates large markets for technologies and products designed to tackle climate change.

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SOCIETY

Top Story: Reading Closes Physics Department - [BBC] The University of Reading is to close its physics department, this month's intake of 30 students being the last. Reading said it regretted the decision, but the sort of investment that the department needed was not possible "in the current funding context". The Institute of Physics said the way funding followed student numbers meant that universities were controlled by the choices of 17-year-olds. It believes several other departments of physics could go within a few years.

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GLOBAL POLITICS

Top Story: China Jamming Test Sparks U.S. Satellite Concerns - [Reuters] China has beamed a ground-based laser at U.S. spy satellites over its territory, a U.S. agency said, in an action that exposed the potential vulnerability of space systems that provide crucial data to American troops and consumers around the world. The Defense Department remains tight-lipped about details, including which satellite was involved or when it occurred.

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ENVIRONMENT

Top Story: Planet Enters 'Ecological Debt' - [BBC] Rising consumption of natural resources means that humans began "eating the planet" on 9 October, a study suggests. The date symbolised the day of the year when people's demands exceeded the Earth's ability to supply resources and absorb the demands placed upon it.

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THE FUTURE

Top Story: Running Dry: The Humanitarian Impact of the Global Water Crisis - [IRIN News] There is some mordant irony that in the last 18 months parts of the world have witnessed colossal damage and lost of life due to the excess of water, at a time when the diminishing stock of freshwater continues to affect millions of people and threaten future crises.

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Video Clip: The Creativity Machine Paradigm - In the mid-1970s, Stephen Thaler, an aspiring theoretical physicist made what he and many others feel is the most important discovery in the world.