Ever wonder what it would be like to be captured and assimilated by the BORG on Star Trek, or to clone identical copies of yourself like Micheal Keaton in Multiplicity? Turns out that while cloned copies of genetic material may be possible, human beings will always be as individual as snowflakes. The reason? It's at the tips of your fingers.

Identical twins do not have identical fingerprint patterns. This is because fingerprints, which are different on all human beings, are formed in a combination of genetic coding and arbitrary nerve growth in a fetus. Two children can mature in the same womb, but slight differences in heat, pressure, nutrition and cell growth means that their fingerprints will not be the same.

To learn more about the ins and outs of genetic engineering, check out Get Ready For Human 2.0 by Lybi Ma on the Discover website archives: http://www.discover.com/

University of Calgary professor Dave Knudsen is living up to his reputation as Calgary's 'Rocket Man'. Knudsen is in charge of a project studying aurora borealis, better known as the Northern Lights. He and his 20-person team will be launching a 20 metre "Black Brant" rocket into the atmosphere early this February in hopes of learning more about this beautiful but mysterious phenomenon.

Northern Lights are caused by charged particles and electrons falling along the Earth's magnetic field lines from deep space. While scientists do not understand exactly what creates the colourful glow, they believe that studying heating patterns in the upper atmosphere will help them understand the process.

Knudsen's rocket, which will be launched from the Poker Flat Rocket Range in Alaska, will travel to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere to take heat readings. The University of Calgary is the leading scientific institute in the study of aurora borealis. For more information, check out their Web site at www.phys.ucalgary.ca.