Today’s invention is an addition to the very useful SeatGuru website.

Opinions differ as to where exactly the best seats are for minimal motion sickness. I tend to favour over the wings, but there is no real basis for my preference.

My suggestion is therefore to place accelerometers (an iPhone might suffice) in a variety of seats within each of a number of each type of airliner.

Over time, these would provide information about the accelerations felt locally and allow an online map overlay of where the motion sickness is likely to be least.

(Alternatively, cabin crew could gather data about the locations from which most sick bags get collected, but I suspect the other approach would be more accurate).

If you are transporting valuables, leaving your vehicle unattended can cause a degree of nervousness.

Today’s invention may help. It consists of a safe carried within one’s vehicle. Just as you are about to stop, the strongbox slides automatically through the floor, via a set of vertical guiderails, onto the road below.

A slight forward-facing slope on the box lid acts as a ramp, so that the vehicle (assumed rear-wheel drive) rides up onto the lid a little and locks in position.

This seals the box, makes it very hard to reach and also reduces the chance that the vehicle can be driven away.

On returning to your vehicle, the process reverses and the safe is withdrawn into the car body.

Today’s invention is a new form of element for kettles which improves heat transfer to the water and lessens the build-up of scale in hard water regions.

This takes the form of a flexible heating element which is moored at one end only.

As the water heats, so boiling occurs on the element’s moving surface, generating intensified turbulence which, in turn, promotes heat transfer.

The element will thus flap up and down, due to the convective boiling regime, cracking and shedding any scale build-up.

Today’s invention is to create a military rifle which can have a number of standard magazines inserted into a rotating housing -much like an old fashioned revolver.

Since the infantryman has to carry these anyway, he or she might as well have them located within their weapon.

As each magazine arrives at the six o’clock position, it is snapped into place and rounds can be fired from it until it’s empty.

The housing moves around until all magazines are spent and the housing is discarded -to be replaced by another one full of full magazines.

This overcomes some of the problems inherent in drum magazines -such as controlling the feed of a large number of bullets without too much inertia or jamming.

It also removes the need, when using one magazine at a time, to fumble around trying to find and clip in the next set of bullets.

Today’s invention is a hot air balloon which can convert to a parachute if damaged in flight.

The balloon is made of several horizontal layers zipped together.

If damage occurs, the layers below the tear can be unzipped by pulling on one of a number of wires from the gondola (assuming that the tear hasn’t happened too high in the envelope).

This allows the remaining part of the balloon to stay inflated, albeit with increasingly cool air, and act as a parachute.

It also opens a small aperture at the apex to provide more stable descent.

It seems that shining a bright light into someone’s ears can alleviate the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. There are light sensitive cells inside the head which react to changes in illumination, apparently.

Today’s invention uses this discovery to help overcome jetlag.

A pair of sunglasses has a daylight-frequencies lamp located on each of the legs. These are mounted in earphone-like cans, so that the effects of ambient light level changes can be excluded by positioning the cans over the ears.

The light levels emitted by the lamps are gradually varied during a long flight so that the body is fooled into arriving at the destination already attuned to local time.