Today's science reading assignments

* Technology Review talks up hybrid and plug in cars, but isn't optimistic that American companies will be the ones to succeed in this field.

* Purdue University keeps talking up its hydrogen generating technology (and they keep using the same dorky student photo).

* A telescope in Hawaii gets a new digital camera that definitely won't fit in your pocket to look for small asteroids. (The Howard government would gain some science credibility if it would re-instate the tiny funding it took away for looking for asteroids from down here too.)

* Those Germans sure know how to make buying a beer easy:

A new system that scans customers' fingerprints and deducts the grocery bill from their bank accounts has taken supermarkets in southwestern Germany by storm and is being picked up by hardware stores, school canteens and even the country's ubiquitous beer gardens.

Cheers!