On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the US flag on the Moon. The image of Aldrin standing with the flag is one of the indelible images of that great day. But over the years, one question has vexed space buffs – what happened to the flag? In his book Return to Earth, Aldrin says that when the Lunar Module’s Ascent stage … Read More → "Apollo lunar flags still standing"
BBC News invited Commodore enthusiast Mat Allen to show schoolchildren his carefully preserved computer at a primary school and secondary school in London.
Check out the video here on BBC
… Read More → "Today’ kids try the Commodore 64"
No matter how fast pharmaceutical companies can churn out drugs to prevent or cure illnesses, health insurance doesn’t cover the cost of hiring a person to follow you around and remind you to take your meds. So the FDA has approved a pill that can do it on its own by monitoring your insides and relaying the information back to a healthcare provider.</ … Read More → "Approved: the first swallowable electronic devices"
Joe Quesada is Marvel Comics’ Chief Creative Officer, and one of the most respected artists in comics. But he’s also a tech geek at heart, and here’s what got him started.
via Gizmodo
… Read More → "The technology that turned Joe Quesada into a legendary comic book artist"If you haven’t seen it, Curiosity’s Seven Minutes of Terror is well worth watching to see the logistical challenge of getting the rover down to the surface.
Curiosity will hopefully land on the surface on Aug 6 at about 1:30 am ET.
via Kottke
… Read More → "Landing on Mars next week: the Curiosity rover"
The Museum of HP Calculators displays and describes Hewlett-Packard calculators introduced from 1968 to 1986 plus a few interesting later models. There are also sections on calculating machines and slide rules as well as sections for buying and selling HP calculators, an HP timeline, collecting information and a software library.
GRAPHENE, a form of carbon that comes in sheets a single atom thick, has gained a reputation as a wonder material. It is the best conductor yet discovered of heat at room temperature and is 40 times stronger than steel. It is also a semiconductor whose electrical conductivity is 1,000 times better than silicon’s. This means it could be used to make devices far more sensitive than is possible now, leading some to predict that it will one day become the material of choice for computer chips. There was little surprise, therefore, when Andre Geim (pictured above) and Konstantin … Read More → "Graphene shows its colours: a much-vaunted new material may change telecommunications"
A pair of MIT researchers—Ilan Moyer and Nadya Peek—have created a briefcase that can be used to create almost anything, including a duplicate of itself. And that’s because inside the case is a multi-purpose tool that works as a CNC mill, a precision cutter, and a 3D printer.
via Gizmodo
… Read More → "Make anything, anywhere with this combination 3D printer and CNC mill briefcase"
High temperatures and extremely dry conditions in much of the United States continue to hurt crops and cause corn prices to soar. In large parts of the Midwest, the drought has reached the worst classification possible, a D4 drought that could bring “exceptional and widespread crop and pasture losses” and “water emergencies” due to shortages in reservoirs, streams, and wells, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, an organization run by a collection of government and academic groups. The National Weather Service says scattered thunderstorms will bring little relief, and suggests that the drought will worsen.< … Read More → "Is climate change to blame for the current U.S. drought?"
Check out these cool videos William Shatner and Wil Wheaton hosted for NASA, explaining how the Curiosity rover will, science willing, land on the surface of Mars on 1:31 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6.
via Boing Boing
… Read More → "William Shatner and Wil Wheaton welcome NASA’s Curiosity rover to Mars"
