Did you know that nurses, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Daffy Duck and Marvin Martian have been featured on NASA Mission patches? These patches seem out there and kind of ridiculous to be used by someone as important to NASA. But I guess that just goes to show that everyone needs to have a sense of humor to make the world go round. Some of the older mission patches tend to be more iconographic than their contemporary counterparts. CLICK HERE to see some of the insanely ridiculous patches that have been used by NASA.

[Source: Wired News; Photo Copyright/Credit: NASA]

Enjoy this photo journal of 10 volcano eruptions as seen from space.

1. Kliuchevskoi volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula.

2. Augustine volcano in the Cook Inlet at the eastern end of the Aleutian Trench.

3. Sarychev volcano in the Kuril Islands NE of Japan.

4. Redoubt volcano in Alaska in the Aleutian Range.

5. Mount Etna on the island of Sicily.

6. Cleveland volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

7. Popocatepetl volcano outside Mexico City.

8. Chaiten caldera in Chile.

9. Sierra Negra volcano in the Galapagos Islands.

10. Shiveluch volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula.

To read more about these volcano’s and how the photos were taken visit Wired Science.

[Source: Wired Science]

[Photo copyrights/credits: NASA; Geoeye/NASA; Geoeye]

A new research suggests that the leftover waste from making beer could help generate power, reports live Science. Currently breweries sell the leftover waste to farmers to feed their livestock or to use as fertilizer. But stricter regulations on land waste and reductions in cattle breeding in Europe leave these options virtually closed.

"We reached a situation in 2000 where breweries even had to pay to dispose of their spent grain," said researcher Wolfgang Bengel, the technical director of BMP Biomasse Projekt, a German biomass company.

“Beer making is energy intensive — you boil stuff, use hot water and steam and then use electric energy for cooling — so if you recover more than 50 percent of your own energy costs from the spent grain, that's a big saving," Bengel explained.

[Source: LiveScience]

Discovery's crew is in Florida making final preparations for the STS-128 mission. Commander Rick Sturckow and crew are set to launch on a logistics flight to the space station. Countdown to the launch of the STS-128 mission to the International Space Station begins at 11 p.m. EDT Friday. Liftoff of Discovery is set for 1:36 a.m. on Tuesday, August 25.

Space shuttle Discovery will carry the Leonardo supply module to the International Space Station during STS-128, along with a new crew member for the station, Nicole Stott. Commanded by veteran astronaut Rick "C.J." Sturckow, the STS-128 mission crew will deliver refrigerator-sized racks full of equipment, including the COLBERT treadmill, an exercise device named after comedian Stephen Colbert.

Stott will take the place of Tim Kopra, who moved into the station during STS-127. Pilot Kevin Ford and Mission Specialists Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez, John "Danny" Olivas and Sweden's Christer Fuglesang round out the crew.

[Source: NASA]

You’ve seen it in the Harry Potter movies and real life is trying its hardest to mimic the movies where the newsprint comes alive. Esquire Magazine gave it a go last year but was a huge disappointment to everyone.

But Wired claims that this one really works. And it comes from a very unlikely source. CBS. Yes, CBS has embedded a video player to give us a live preview of its upcoming fall lineup in Entertainment Weekly’s September issue. (See the video at Wired.)But the video ad will not be in every issue; only in some subscriptions delivered to New York and Los Angeles reports Wired. It has already been released to the media outlets. Let me leave you with this thought – with limited editions with the video being published, how many people will actually get to see the ad as opposed to just hear about it? I guess either way CBS is still getting the much needed publicity.

[Source: Wired]

Scientists have discovered a fungus that takes control of carpenter ants and leads them to a place to die that is in a perfect spot for the fungus to grow and reproduce. But the scientists have no clue how the ants do this. 

A study showed that  once an ant is infected by the fungus, the any climbs down from where they nest high in the trees and puts a death grip on a low leaf with its mandibles. The fungus turns the ants innards into sugars that help the  fungus grow but leave the mandibles intact to keep the ant in that perfect spot for them. After the ant dies, the fungus continues to grow inside it. How the fungus controls ant behavior remains unknown.

[Source: LiveScience]

Get affordable premium quality shutters online at Larson Shutter Company. Choose from vinyl exterior shutters, thermo plastic shutters, or wood shutters. Larson Shutter also has gable vents, cupolas and hardware available. Order shutters with their easy online buying experience and have the shutters shipped straight to your front door, or call 1-800-675-6555. Currently you can receive free shipping with their limited time offer with orders over $99 (excludes AK and HI).

Lovingly called “Decepticons,” these small robots made only of wheels, sensors and flashing lights that are run by a digital neural network quickly learned the art of deception for their survival. in the test, the robots were to go to the corner where the “food” was placed and stay away from the opposite corner where there was “poison” which would disable or kill them. The most successful robots brains were then copied with a slight modification added and then sent back out for another test. They soon learned to follow the signals of the other robots who were gathered at the food only to find there was not enough space to accommodate all of them. After a few tests, the robots to evolved and learned to mute their signals, thus hiding their location.

[Source: WiredScience]

 

 

In the first ever flight test for an inflatable re-entry capsule the test proved that an inflatable heat shield can be used on spacecraft to protect itself when it enters the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. This was a small scale demonstration test and now that the concept has been proven engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center are ready to try it on a bigger scale. NASA researchers state that inflatable heat shields hold promise for future planetary missions.

[Source: NASA]

It doesn’t have a formal name yet, we don’t know what it will cost, and there were “no comments” given when asked about certain aspects of the technology, including those of patent rights, but Diskeeper executives made an announcement in PC Magazine that they plan to introduce a new file system that will eliminate most file fragmentation before it happens.  The idea is to intercept the data before it is written to the file system and organizing it appropriately, which should weed out maybe 75% of fragmentation that occurs. The technology is currently undergoing extensive testing to minimize the impact on memory performance as well as file stability. Initially the program will be for only Windows.

[Source: PCMag]

The world’s smallest laser goes by the name “spaser,” promises ultrafast nanocircuits and is about 10 times smaller than the wavelength of light. Mark Stockman of the Georgia State University in Atlanta and David Bergman of Tel Aviv University in Israel proposed the spaser concept in 2003. Stockman told Nature News, "The spaser is the smallest possible quantum amplifier and generator of optical fields on the nanoscale — without it, nanoplasmonics is like microelectronics would have been without a transistor." The device opens the door to nanoscale circuits that could process information thousands of times faster than the microelectronic chips inside today's computers.

[Source: Nature News]

In my line of work I am always on the lookout for web hosting locations for my clients. One of the questions I always get from my clients is “How reliable is the Host I am looking at?” In the past this has always been a shot in the dark, and you hope your information about the Web Host is accurate.

With the Web Hosting Ratings I can look up a web host I am considering and find reviews, pricing and user ratings about the hosting sites. For example, say I am looking for information about InMotion Hosting which is a business web hosting site. The Web Hosting Ratings webpage will show the monthly cost, space available for the site and traffic usage parameters as well as user reviews. You can also click the hyperlink to any of the top 10 web hosting providers listed for 2009 Web Hosting Ratings webpage to find all the information you need about web hosting services.

Web Hosting Ratings also has very informative articles to help you decided what type of web hosting you need – articles such as “Top Five Affordable Registrars in 2009,” “How to Choose Between Managed and Shared Hosting” and “What Can I Get From a Managed Hosting Provider?”

The Web Hosting Ratings webpage is a great tool in comparing different Web Hosts before you make the plunge. And when you are referring this Web Hosting Company to a client of yours, the more information you have the better you are.

Two security researchers, Robert Hansen and Joshua Abraham revealed at a hacking conference called  DEFCON 17 a variety of ways to spy on people online, despite the privacy tools that are run on most browsers. The researchers put on a demonstration of how it is all done – how to obtain details of the software running on a user’s system to gain control of their computer. All the attacker has to do is convince the user to visit a website he controls, possibly through an E-mail link, and then attacks on the user’s browser become possible. The demonstration attacks worked with minimal participation from the user (victim) or none at all.

Robert Hansen, is the CEO and founder of the Internet security company SecTheory, and Joshua Abraham, is a security consultant for the security company Rapid7.

[Source: Technology Review]

Can you imagine an inflatable spacecraft? Engineers at NASA can. On Monday, August 17, they will test a technology demonstrator from a small sounding rocket to be launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, VA.

As you can see in the photo to the right, the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment, or IRVE for short, looks like a giant mushroom when inflated. (› IRVE Fact Sheet (pdf))

 
[Source: NASA]

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope caught this swirling photo of a galaxy with a bright eye-like object at its center. The “eye” is really a black hole surrounded by stars. The galaxy, called NGC 1097 and located 50 million light-years away, is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. [Source: NASA]

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-caltech/University of Arizona

This image of Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at more of a sideways angle than earlier orbital images of this crater. The camera pointing was 22 degrees east of straight down, yielding a view comparable to looking at the landscape out an airplane window. East is at the top. The most interesting exposures of geological strata are in the steep walls of the crater, difficult to see from straight overhead. Especially prominent in this oblique view is a bright band near the top of the crater wall. Colors have been enhanced to make subtle differences more visible. [Source: NASA]

With the space shuttle nearing retirement (seven flights remaining), the International Space Station almost finished and plans for blasting more astronauts out of this world under fire, the Human Space Flight Review panel has a lot to figure out — and not a lot of time.

Should we go back to the moon? Leave the moon to private industry and move on to Near Earth Objects (the asteroid belt) and Mars? International cooperation or go it alone? Partner with private rocket jocks or build rockets with government money? Keep the shuttle running a little longer? Redirect the Constellation program or stop it altogether to go in a new direction? Ditch the International Space Station or sell it? What will change mean to the American space workforce, government and private?

These are just some of the questions that the HSF panel will consider before making a recommendation to the president and Congress on the way forward. [Source: Wired/geekdad]

Engineers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) say that the basic theory explaining the origin of a certain type of noise produced by very small transistors is totally wrong. Known as random telegraph noise, this aberrant signal is becoming a problem for static RAM and flash memory, and it will also become a threat to future low-power logic circuits as their dimensions continue to shrink and the voltage at which they operate decreases.    [Source: spectrum.ieee.org]

Are you planning a road trip and looking for travel essentials? ShopWiki can find them for you. And they also offer advice on what you might need for your travel adventures. Be sure to stay connected and in tune with personal audio and video equipment and Bluetooth headsets when you go camping and hiking.

When you are shopping for something online, do you Google the product you are looking for or do you go straight to your favorite online store? ShopWiki actively seeks out every shopping website by crawling the web in over 200,000 online stores for you, not just the big-name shopping stores that can afford the paid placement ads. For the serious shopper, this means they can easily find anything and everything for sale on the Web. The Wiki buying guides help you to decide what the best product is for you and where to buy them from.

Spitzer: Studying the Universe in Infrared

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is starting a second career and taking its first shots of the cosmos since warming up. The infrared telescope ran out of coolant May 15, 2009, more than five-and-a-half-years after launch. It has since warmed to a still-frosty 30 degrees Kelvin (about minus 406 degrees Fahrenheit). New images taken with two of Spitzer's infrared detector channels -- two that work at the new, warmer temperature -- demonstrate the observatory remains a powerful tool for probing the dusty universe. The images show a bustling star-forming region, the remains of a star similar to the sun, and a swirling galaxy lined with stars. [See photos and read more at the Source NASA.gov]

The National Science Foundation recently reported that physicists at the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at New York University recently developed a new way to determine how many odd-shaped particles can fit into a container of a given size. The results could be used to solve a variety of industrial packing problems from packing gumballs in vending machines to producing more effective medicines that are smaller and easier to swallow.

So, how many gumballs of different sizes can fit in one of those containers at the mall so as to reward a well-spent quarter? [Source: NSF]

Did you watch the new movie Star Trek? In the  opening scenes when young James Kirk stole his stepfather’s car and went for a joyride did you wonder who the kid was he waved to on the side of the road?

These and other questions will be answered when Paramount Home Entertainment  releases Star Trek on DVD and Blu-ray on November 17 in sets with more extras than Trek has tribbles. In addition to commentaries, featurettes and a BD-Live feature that allows viewers to track NASA news about space exploration, there are at least nine deleted scenes. [Source: SciFi Wire]

A new technology product claims to have the power to allow you to be a computer spy. Just follow the three easy steps provided to begin your computer spy career. Who will you spy on? You employees, your children, your spouse?

The Stealth iBot Computer Spy by Brickhouse Security says it will secretly record everything a person does on a computer and it is undetectable. No hardware needed. It will record every keystroke, remember websites, and capture screenshots. Why is it so good? Because it’s sneaky design embeds itself directly into the OS, tricking most antivirus and anti-spamming programs. Those are some pretty strong statements. Old key loggers always had to be hardwired into the computer to run their computer spy programs. Not so with the Stealth iBot Computer Spy. There are no telltale signs left behind. Just plug in, leave for 5 seconds and unplug. That’s all there is to it. Plus, there is no need to be logged into a user account.

Their tiny disclaimer in the middle of the page reads, “Please note – this is only to be used on a computer that you own.” That statement leaves the computer spy game open to employers and parents to freely spy on employees and children. But is it ethical? That’s up to you to decide.

A technique that creates crystals on demand using laser pulses could make it easier to prepare the high-quality crystals needed to study protein structure. Chemists and biologists need crystals of proteins and other chemicals to analyze their atomic structure using X-rays, while many industrial processes rely on triggering crystal formation at precisely the right time and place during the production of drugs and other useful compounds. A nanopulse of laser light is enough to trigger crystallization. Yet crystallization still remains largely a black art.   [Source: nature.com]

Multiple computing operations have been demonstrated on quantum bits by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado as reported by Technology Review (MIT). This is a crucial step toward building a practical quantum computer. Quantum computers have the potential to perform calculations far faster than the classical computers used today. This superior computing power comes from the fact that these computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time.   

[Source: technologyreview.com]

The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched the Herschel Telescope about a month ago; recently, it started delivering its first images. The pictures taken are of higher quality than most space images, allowing astronomers to improve their study of nearby constellations and galaxies.

Read more here. For more information on Herschel, please visit ESA’s website.

Researchers at the University of Bonn have used caesium to demonstrate the unusual effects of quantum particles. Using the example of tossing a coin, the outcome can either be heads or tails. However, an atomic ‘coin’ can exhibit a superposition of heads and tails when it is thrown. If the coin is freeze framed at any moment of the throw, the resultant favors one of the two states and sets a definite outcome.

A single caesium atom was positioned within laser beams that held the atom steady. The atom simultaneously functioned as a random walker and a coin. A random walk is an experiment plotting the motion of a particle that is dictated by the outcome of the state. [Source: The Future of Things]

An innovative mind has combined between computer science and the trimming industry – in the form of a

USB-powered chainsaw. The next-gen chainsaw is no larger than a regular keyboard, and although it has been noted to create some initial shock amongst consumers, it is practically safe just as any other chainsaw.

The new gadget, dubbed iSaw, utilizes known technologies to provide users the opportunity to cut through various materials in their working environment. While one might wonder about the need to power a chainsaw using a universal serial bus (USB) rather than plugging it into a regular AC socket, iSaw’s manufacturer simply retorts - "Some people carry their laptops outdoors".

Read more about the iSaw at The Future of Things and for more information about the iSaw, please visit its website. To see it in action, watch this YouTube video.

The Future of Things reports that researchers at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in Tenerife have captured spectroscopic information from light passing through the Earth's atmosphere during a lunar eclipse that could greatly enhance our ability to discover extrasolar planets. This so-called “transmission spectrum analysis” provides information about the chemical constituents of a planet's atmosphere. Now that the transmission spectrum of the Earth has been measured, it can be compared to other transmissions in order to identify similar patterns which may emanate from life-bearing planets.

Read more about the new method for discovering Earth-like planets in this news release from Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. [Source: The Future of Things]

Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. ‘Transparent aluminium’ previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion. An international team, led by Oxford University scientists, report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser ‘knocks out’ a core electron.  [Source: Oxford University]

Study Says Coral Algae Have 'Eyes'

National Geographic News reports that a new study says coral algae may have eyes. The single-celled algae that set up house inside hard corals and give reefs their vibrant colors may be able to see, a new study says. The algae—called zooxanthellae—have mysterious crystal-like deposits, which were found to be made of uric acid, a common element in light-reflecting structures in insect and animal eyes. The substance in the algae had been previously misidentified as calcium oxalate, which is often found in plants, the researchers say.    [Source: National Geographic News]

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A solid-state laser used mainly for industrial purposes could boost lagging extreme ultraviolet lithography sources.

The light sources powering the next-generation chip-making technique, extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL), are too dim, according to industry experts. And that’s one of the main reasons why semiconductor manufacturers worry that the technology will not be ready to produce advanced chips a few years from now. But Almantas Galvanauskas, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, believes he has a way to boost their power by using a type of industrial laser called a fiber laser. Read more about the fiber laser at ieee Spectrum.   (source: spectrum.ieee.org)

A new study at MIT shows a breakdown in Planck's law: Bringing objects close together can boost radiation heat transfer.

A well-established physical law describes the transfer of heat between two objects, but some physicists have long predicted that the law should break down when the objects are very close together. Scientists had never been able to confirm, or measure, this breakdown in practice. For the first time, however, MIT researchers have achieved this feat, and determined that the heat transfer can be 1,000 times greater than the law predicts. The new findings could lead to significant new applications.    [Source: web.mit.edu)]

General Fusion, a startup in Vancouver, Canada, says it can build a prototype fusion power plant within the next decade and do it for less than a billion dollars. So far, it has raised $13.5 million from public and private investors to help kick-start its ambitious effort. Unlike the $14 billion ITER project under way in France, General Fusion's approach doesn't rely on expensive superconducting magnets--called tokamaks--to contain the superheated plasma necessary to achieve and sustain fusion.    [source: technologyreview.com]

Photo Credit: General Fusion

Researchers develop an online game that may one day help chipmakers improve their designs.

Electronic design automation (EDA) is full of large, intricate problems. Figuring out the best way to arrange transistors on a chip, for example, becomes exponentially more complex as the number of transistors increases. Computer scientists have made great strides in developing algorithms that can solve many of these problems, but a team of researchers at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, believes that the industry could benefit from a different resource: human intuition.    [Source: spectrum.ieee.org]

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CNN reports that A spectacular superyacht has been designed by an internationally renowned urban planning architect in a very unusual shape. The planned seventy-six meter long "Oculus," which is designed for 12 guests, looks like a large sea creature, with one end looking uncannily like the jaw and eye socket of a shark or a killer whale. A second design, the futuristic, 91-meter "Infinitas," is based on the figure-of-eight shape of an infinity loop. The pair are the brainchild of Kevin Schopfer.  View photos of the “Oculus” and “Infinitas” at CNN.   [Source: edition.cnn.com]

New gene therapy technique could fight late-stage tumors. Tiny particles carrying a killer gene can effectively suppress ovarian tumor growth in mice, according to a team of researchers from MIT and the Lankenau Institute. The findings could lead to a new treatment for ovarian cancer, which now causes more than 15,000 deaths each year in the United States. Because it is usually diagnosed at a relatively late stage, ovarian cancer is one of the most deadly forms of the disease. The new treatment delivers a gene that produces the diphtheria toxin.    [Source: web.mit.edu]

Remember the psychedelic ‘60s with the bell bottom pants, big sideburns with groovy long hair, miniskirts and go-go boots? Relive the days of love, joy and peace this Halloween with a groovy 60s Halloween costume from Costume Cauldron, because, come on – tell the truth – even if you have any of those old clothes from the 60s chances are they no longer fit.

Guys can get their groove on with the “Hippie Dippie Man” Halloween costume complete with flowered pants and matching flowered vest and headband. Don’t forget to complete the outfit with a peace pendulant and groovy round glasses like John Lennon used to wear. You can also get a matching outfit for your main squeeze.

For the women, the “60s Girl Far Out” Halloween costume is sure to turn all the guys’ heads  to you. This psychedelic colored halter top mini dress with keyhole design has matching keyhole design leg covers.

Pssst…want to know a secret? There is a secret Haunted House backdoor on this Halloween costume website where you can find a secret discount. I can’t tell you any more than that, but I can tell you how to find it. Go to their homepage (click on any of the links in this post to get there), go halfway down on the right and click on the brown comma in the line that reads “Our Store now has over 10,000 masquerade items for you to chose from!”

Have a groovy Halloween!

Wired.com reports that aircraft designer and pilot Tom Peghiny joined the electric airplane revolution Sunday, July 19, with a short flight under clear skies in Connecticut. The tiny e-Spyder isn’t by any means meant for serious transportation. It’s more Vespa LX than BMW GS. But it provides just about anyone a chance to take to the air with the stealth of a bird and survey the world from several hundred feet up. You need a little training, but not a license, to fly it.You’ll also need around $24,000 and some skill with a wrench. That’s the expected price for the kit. Visit Wired for more on the story and some cool photos.

TV Shows to Watch for August 2 - August 8, 2009

There are five new TV series debuting this week and nine season premiers. New series debuting are: Defying Gravity on ABC, Megan Wants a Millionaire on VH1, Ultimate Cake Off and Police Women of Broward County on TLC, and Chefs vs. City on Food Network. TV shows premiering this week are: Monk and Psych on USA, Skins on BBC America, How'd You Get So Rich and Make My Day on TV Land, The Moment of Truth on Fox, America's Best Dance Crew on MTV, Real Chance of Love 2 on VH1, and Man vs. Food on The Travel Channel.

Visit Gunkee on AC for the schedule of when these shows air.