Dear intrepid lunar explorers: NASA politely asks that, when you travel to the moon, you refrain from messing with the American flag.
Google’s Lunar X Prize promises $20 million to whoever’s first to get a privately funded robot to the moon. But the folks at NASA don’t want any of the stuff they left up there getting messed … Read More → "NASA says: Please don’t touch our stuff when you go to the Moon"
What a magical Rube Goldberg machine of discovery literature is — the original “inter-net,” if you will, with the allusions, citations, and references in one work opening doors to countless others. One such Rube Goldberg chain reaction began in last month’s Dancing About Architecture: A Little Book of Creativity, which first led me to the 1939 gem A Technique for Producing Ideas, and then to The Art of Scientific Investigation (public library;& … Read More → "The Art of Scientific Investigation (1957), Part I: The Role of Chance-Opportunism and Openness in Creativity and Discovery"
Because you weren’t going into botany, the priesthood, or coin manufacturing, you thought you were safe to dismiss Latin as a dead language. Obviously, you didn’t graduate cum laude. Latin is about as dead as Elvis (who, by the way, made $54 million in 2004). Whether you’re deciphering a cryptic state seal or trying to impress your Catholic in-laws, knowing some Latin has its advantages. But the operative word here is “some.” The ability to translate The Aeneid probably isn& … Read More → "10 Latin phrases you pretend to understand"
I love kvanb’s Lego recreation of Theo Janssen’s Rhinoceros Strandbeest mobile sculpture.Janssen even approved the model, and it’s up on CUUSOO for possible realization as an official Lego product.
</ … Read More → "Lego Strandbeest"
via MAKE
Just minutes ago, via the NASA TV stream, we learned that the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has successfully been attached to the International Space Station–the very first private spacecraft to do so. (Read more about its launch earlier this week here.) NASA is still broadcasting footage of the attachment, but everything looks smooth so far.
via Read More → "SpaceX Dragon successfully captured by International Space Station"
This May, the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley Center opened up “The Patents and Trademarks of Steve Jobs: Art and Technology that Changed the World.” The traveling exhibit, which features the many, many patents of Steve Jobs, was designed by the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum and is fairly breathtaking for being 312 pieces of paper.
< … Read More → "Steve Jobs at the Smithsonian: 312 amazing patents on display"
Like a tourist waiting for just the right lighting to snap a favorite shot during a stay at the Grand Canyon, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has used a low sun angle for a memorable view of a large Martian crater.
The resulting view catches a shadow of the rover … Read More → "Dark shadows on Mars: scene from durable NASA rover"
Jonathan Ive – the British designer responsible for Apple’s iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad – has been knighted at Buckingham Palace.
The 45-year-old said the investiture in front of the Princess Royal was “really thrilling and particularly humbling”.
Now based in the US, Apple’s senior vice-president of industrial design flew in to the UK with his wife and eight-year-old twin sons for the event.
He was born in Chingford, east London, and studied at Newcastle Polytechnic.
Sir Jonathan had a brief chat with Princess Anne … Read More → "Apple design chief Jonathan Ive is knighted"
The country’s top tech talent may gravitate to Silicon Valley and New York, but the White House is making a hard push for them to consider a “tour of duty” in Washington, DC.
In launching the government’s new digital roadmap and Presidential Innovation Fellows program, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park said Wednesday that the … Read More → "White House to startups: we want ‘badass innovators’"
Darpa’s “Living Foundries” program is looking to “transform biology into an engineering practice.” Photo: VA
The military-industrial complex just got a little bit livelier. Quite literally.
That’s because Darpa, the Pentagon’s far-out research arm, has kicked off a program designed to take the conventions of manufacturing and apply them to living cells. Think of it like an assembly line, but one that would churn out modified biological matter — man-made organisms — instead of cars or computer … Read More → "Darpa, Venter launch assembly line for genetic engineering"
