With the advancement of modern biology, computer science and genetic engineering, the possibility of such ``blue sky'' events to become a reality was increasing day by day.

``Evolutionary methods can be extended to produce novel organisms such as a walking plants or an animal capable of producing its own food using sunlight and some chemicals (photosynthesis),'' Cantor, one of the pioneers of Human Genome Project (a worldwide project to map human genome completely) and currently chief scientific officer of Sequenom Inc. in California, said.

Such plants would be able to walkaway from Salty Landsor deserts for better chance of survival, he said. In nature, we already have sunflowers that orient themselves in accordance with the direction of sun. Walking plants are just an extension of the same evolutionary principle, he said.

Walking plants and animals capable of carrying out photosynthesis for their own food, in principle, are realistic ideas, said D Balsubramanium, former director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad. However, the scientists said that a wide gap between theory and practice still exists. Cantor said very soon there would be a direct computer-human interface which would enable humans to communicate with computers directly.

Very recently, a group of German scientists from Munich has discovered that there is a strong possibility of crosstalk between a brain cell and a silicon chip, Nobel laureate scientist Erwin Neher said. ``Such discoveries would help achieve a human-computer interface where both sides can communicate with each otherdirectly,'' Neher who received the Nobel in 1991, said.