mouse

Counterfeiting is as old as money itself, with the history of currency including a millennia-long arms race between mints and the forgers that copy them. While governments have finally crafted paper money so intricate that counterfeiting isn't a major problem, detecting counterfeit coins remains a challenge. Now, Spanish scientists have modified a regular optical computer mouse to create a cheap and easy device for sniffing out phony Euro coins.

A group of leading researchers working on hearing loss have created mice whose hearing worsens as they age, as mirror counterparts to humans. But these mice fail to breed well, which led the University of Rochester group to crossbreed them with mice that had great sex drives but even worse hearing loss in their old age. The result was a new super breed that is prolific and has superb hearing.

By now you know the Windows 7 line, but in case you've somehow missed it: it's the first major computer operating system to support multitouch, meaning it (like an iPhone) can read more than one finger press at a time. Of course, in order to take advantage of touch, you need to upgrade your hardware -- for a premium price, naturally.

People with glass desks shouldn’t use mice without a dusty old mousepad–that used to be the rule, at least. Logitech announced two new mice today that work on virtually any surface, even glass. The Performance Mouse MX ($100) and Anywhere Mouse MX ($80) use a new dual-laser technology called DarkField (said in an ominous Dark Knight voice, of course) to track your movements on the shiniest, clear surfaces. Can it be true?

Chinese scientists have created live mice from mature skin cells that had reverted to an embryonic-like state. The scientific success could further defuse controversy over harvesting embryonic stem cells, but also raises new ethical issues about potentially making clones selected for specific traits.

Since lab mice have been kind enough to start making baby formula for us, it might be nice to pay them back. Luckily, two UCLA scientists have the perfect gift: a bacterial gene that, when inserted into the rat genome, adds a new metabolic pathway that makes it impossible to get fat, no matter the carb content of the mouse's diet.