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There was a time when nature dictated the behaviour of light, making sure it followed a few simple rules which clever people like Newton and Fraunhoufer came to understand, enabling them to take control of light with such marvels as the reflecting telescope and the diffraction grating. The clever people of today, however, are turning those well established rules on their heads and manipulating light in ways never before seen in nature. The future is one of super lenses and invisibility cloaks, all made possible by meta-materials, and these complex materials could soon be far easier to make.

Last week saw plenty of reports covering various developments involving optical technology, including the use of light to activate the brains of mice and lasers to zap mosquitoes.

My pick of the stories from the news wires this past week include the early detection of retinal damage in the eye, metamaterials made from nano-sized cups, and putting the brakes on light... with doughnuts.

While I was leafing through the news stories of the past week, looking for something big in the world of optics, I received a press release about something really big: the world's largest laser is now complete. Read on for the full press release from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

There was a lot of medical science news this past week, featuring safer nano-particles for imaging tumours, stimulating the circuits of the brain with light and a potentially faster way of getting your glasses fitted.

Counterfeit and smuggled goods are said to be one of the fuels that drive organised crime, so it is essential that products can be identified to determine if they are genuine and where they came from. Some manufacturers go to extreme lengths to incorporate hard to replicate anti-counterfeit labels or devices into their products, but it's a game of catch up and it isn't long before the criminals find a way of defeating those measures. So how about using no anti-counterfeit measures at all? This is the approach being promoted by Russell Cowburn at Imperial College in London, who is researching a method called Laser Surface Authentication (LSA), which relies on unique, microscopic identifiers already inherent in products or their packaging.

Last week's news stories from the world of optics included cheaper solar technology and imaging both the very small and the very far away.

A week is a long time in optics because the science and technology moves at a rapid pace. Here are a few highlights from the week's news, which include mimicking the way nature captures light without reflection, and how lasers can be used to heal wounds.

The following statement released today by Bill Andresen, President of The Science Coalition^†, welcomes the fact that the proposed US economic stimulus package does not neglect scientific research and technological innovation.

The US president-elect, Barack Obama, is putting his money where his mouth is and sending science sky rocketing to the top of the new US adminstration's agenda, this time by announcing that another physicist, John Holdren, will be joining his White House team as science advisor.