Broadband speeds in the UK currently max out at about 300 Mbps, provided by British Telecom. Sky and TalkTalk have now announced that they intend to bring 1 Gbps speeds to UK cities. The roll-out will begin in York next year, before moving to other locations.

• Researcher's computing testing could help identify toxic compounds"
• Facebook and Internet.org announce flying internet"
• Could diamonds be a computer's best friend?"
• New airborne GPS technology for weather conditions takes flight"

Researchers from Switzerland's University of Basel have performed the first successful nose reconstruction surgery using engineered cartilage grown in the laboratory. The cartilage was spawned form the patient's own cells in an approach that could circumvent the need for more invasive surgeries.

• Genetically modified tobacco plants as an alternative for producing bioethanol"
• Scientists pinpoint when harmless bacteria became flesh-eating monsters"
• Device turns flat surface into spherical antenna"
• Scientists try 3-D printer to build human heart"

Graphene is frankly just showing off at this point. Not content with breezing in and smashing records in solar efficiency, kicking the butt of lithium-ion batteries, being the strongest known material in the Universe, being 1,000 times more light-sensitive than any known camera sensor and a thousand other achievements, now this smug supermaterial is having a crack at audio. How’s it going? Well, with basically zero acoustic development, a graphene loudspeaker is already boasting a better frequency response curve than a set of Sennheiser MX-400s.

• Fiber-optic microscope will help physicians detect cancer, diseases at early stages"
• Scientists verify world's largest single crystal piece of gold"
• Engineers develop new materials for hydrogen storage"
• Lens turns any smartphone into a portable microscope"

Formalizing trade in herbal medicinal products has the potential to increase the demand for on-farm grown raw material and raise the level of cultivation of medicinal tree species in smallholder farms.

• Disease threatens world's bananas, says UN"
• Seeding success in India turns coconut dust into gold"
• Researchers develop new tool to characterise disease epidemics in trees"
• Damaging effects of biochar on plant defence casts doubt on geoengineering claims "

Indoor air quality (IAQ) influences the health and well-being of people but for the last 20 years there has been a growing concern about pollutants in closed environments, the difficulty in identifying them and their critical levels.

• Greenhouse gas emissions from today will be felt for at least 1,000 years"
• New design for mobile phone masts could cut carbon emissions"
• "Superparamagnetic" particles used to harvest phosphorus from polluted water"
• New eco-hybrid fuel could help to reduce shipping pollution"

The glare from solar farms could be a thing of the past, thanks to scientists at Loughborough University. Researchers have developed a multi-layer anti-reflection (AR) coating for glass surfaces, which reduces the sun's reflection from photovoltaic panels while at the same time improving their efficiency.

• Panasonic's HIT solar cell hits record 25.6 percent conversion efficiency"
• Beating heart powers pacemaker"
• Flexible plastics that turn mechanical vibrations into electrical energy"
• Energy-producing Honda Smart Home gives more than it takes"