They have spawned much of the software inside everything from the Gmail e-mail product to a controversial effort to digitize thousands of books.

FORBES: Companies, People, Ideas

Talk about eco-friendly, a guesthouse in Thailand, Bamboo Nest de Chaing Rai, uses bamboo for nearly everything, from the structures of the bungalows to the furnishings inside.

BBC: In brief: Dutch ban on cannabis cafes upheld

They collated data from over 900 publications to account for everything going on inside the bacterial cell.

ENGADGET: Scientists create first computer simulation of a complete organism

Commission, has authority over everything from the colour of a building's exterior to the kind of business allowed inside.

ECONOMIST: New Orleans

We need to stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater by thinking the solutions to our problems are free rides for corporations, trickle-less tax breaks for rich people (sorry) and moving anything and everything possible offshore to side-step a moral imperative to help make us strong from the inside out.

FORBES: Slow Growth Will Destroy America

Dubbed simply "The Cloud, " the structure would consist of two 400-foot tall mesh towers that are linked by a series of interconnected plastic bubbles, which would themselves house an observation deck inside and be used to display everything from Olympic scores and highlights to a "barometer of the city's interests and moods" outside (that latter bit comes courtesy of the group's partnership with Google).

ENGADGET: Digital 'Cloud' could form over London for the 2012 Olympics