The UK is to launch a new “high risk, high reward” agency to quickly identify cutting-edge science and technology research, it was revealed on Friday. The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) will allow world-leading scientists the freedom to find and back “ground-breaking discoveries that could transform people’s lives for the better,” the government said in a media release. It said ARIA will aim to seek out pioneers and support them to make innovations on a par with things like the internet and the Global Positioning System (GPS). The agency’s hunt for research that is high risk but promises high rewards by making “transformational” innovations will be supported by £800 million ($1.1 billion) of Government money. The funding will be aimed at “the most inspiring inventors to turn their transformational ideas into new technologies, discoveries, products, and services—helping to maintain the UK’s position as a global science superpower,” the government …