Figuring out how long you can stay in the sun before getting a vicious sunburn can be tricky, especially if you have pale skin. These wristbands eliminate most of the guesswork by measuring the amount of UV exposure you’ve had, and letting you know when to cover up.
via DVICE
< … Read More → "UV sensing wristband warns sunbathers before they turn into toast"
An unexpected ass-kicking, via Blog of Impossible Things
Go read this right now. Right now.
… Read More → "Do things that have never been done"
As space geeks watched nervously to see if NASA’s Curiosity rover would land safely on Mars, many found themselves wondering, “Hey, who’s that cool dude with the stars-and-stripes mohawk?”
That dude was Bobak Ferdowsi, the activity lead for NASA’s mission to Mars, and his crazy haircut made him the internet’s new favorite thing. Less than 24 hours after Curiosity touched down, Mohawk Guy had blasted into our collective consciousness. Instant … Read More → "NASA mohawk guy Bobak Ferdowsi on sci-fi, Legos and becoming a meme"
The universe is a big place. Strictly speaking, it’s the biggest place there is. And since so many bits of it are so far away from us, it’s hard to get a sense of the overall structure. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has been working hard to detect and measure everything out there it possibly can, and the latest release is a breathtaking 3D map.
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… Read More → "Meet the largest, most accurate 3D map of the universe"
Only July 10, 1971, a capsule filled with film from America’s top spy satellite crashed into the Pacific Ocean, and settled 16,000 feet below. The CIA and the Navy decided they had to launch a deep sea rescue mission unlike any that had been previously attempted. The details of what happened next have been locked in government archives… until yesterday.
via Wired </ … Read More → "Declassified photos reveal CIA’s deep-sea rescue of a spy satellite"
Curiosity’s day 3 on the Gale Crater, Mars. All systems are running as expected. There is no sign of sailors fighting in the dance hall, cavemen or any freaky show, and here’s the first natural 360-degree color panorama image to prove it.
via Gizmodo
Physicists have found a way to make diodes, transistors and logic gates from pure silicon nanowires, without the need for dopants.
Silicon nanowires are one of the great hopes for electronic devices of the future. Unlike features carved using photolithography, nanowires are easy to make on a nanometre scale. Electronic engineers hope to use them for everything from optoelectronics to biochemical sensing.
But there’s a problem … Read More → "First logic gate made from undoped silicon nanowires"
Photo (NASA JPL): The first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover’s “head” or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.
Thomas Hayden at science blog The Last Word On Nothing has a wonderful little interview with Scott Maxwell (@ … Read More → "Interview with a Mars rover driver: Scott Maxwell of JPL"
NOAA has released the numbers on July’s temperatures within the US, and they continue the trend of what’s been an exceptionally scorching year. With temperatures a full 3.3°F above the twentieth century average, it was the hottest month ever recorded within the US. While only one state (Virginia) set a record high monthly temperature, 32 different states across a broad sweep of the country had months that were in the top 10; … Read More → "For the US, July was the warmest month we’ve ever seen"
Singularity & Co. is a unique science fiction bookshop that is opening both an online store and a brick-and-mortar in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood. Cici James, Jamil V. Moen and Ash Kalb are behind Singularity & Co. and they are not only bringing both new and classic sci-fi books together in one place, they are also saving ones from the past. They recently had a successful fundraising campaign on Kickstarter which has … Read More → "Singularity & Co., unique bookshop will save obscure sci-fi titles"
