Furries everywhere, rejoice! A Japanese firm named Neurowear has developed some brain wave-controlled cat ears which can move in accordance with your thought patterns. Check it out:
[Via Technabob]
Fake Science: How Can You Remember The Colors In the Rainbow?
[Source]
Portal 2 70s-Style Movie Poster
Wannabe Astronauts, Rejoice! It’s International Space Day!
Break out your telescopes and scientific calculators! Space Day was created by Lockheed Martin Corporation in 1997 to motivate the youth of America to study math and science. This day was originally established as a one day event but because of overwhelming interest, Space Day became an annual event. In 2001, former astronaut and Senator John Glenn expanded Space Day to International Space Day. And ten years later, here we are with a round-up of geeky space-related stuff.
Almost exactly 50 years ago, on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard was the first American (and second human after Yuri Gagarin’s orbit a few weeks prior) in space. Letters of Note has a nice letter from Shepard to his parents announcing his consideration for NASA’s “Man in Space” program. He says, “The entire program of space travel is a fascinating subject and I’m very pleased to be associated with it!” And he calls his parents “Mother and Daddy,” which is way retro and sweet.
This week NASA announced that their Gravity Probe B has confirmed two predictions of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, specifically space-time warping and frame-dragging. This is a serious confirmation, with far-reaching implications for future astrophysics research.
Private space travel has also been in the news recently, as Virgin Galactic has completed its first “feathered” flight of SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first commercial spacecraft. If you’ve got a spare $200K lying about (perhaps in the sofa cushions?), you can book a flight when the program goes live. Don’t have that kind of cash? That’s okay–deposits start at just $20,000.
The Eta Aquarids meteor shower started Wednesday, but you can still catch it in the wee hours and at dusk today and tomorrow; it is particularly spectacular in the Southern Hemisphere.
For truly impressive images from space, I recommend sifting through the /r/spaceporn subreddit. Use them as wallpapers or print for DIY geek decor.
Do you love Steampunk and space? It’s not unlikely that some of you do, and you’re certainly not alone. Check out the Great Wetherell Refractor, a massive, riveted, brass-clad, functional Victorian telescope. Though the exterior is definitely a throw-back, the Wetherell uses modern electronic controls and coated optics.
Personally, I’ll probably spend the day watching Carl Sagan videos. Here’s one of everyone’s favorite astrophysicist / astronomer / cosmologist / geek TV host with a message for humanity. (Clip is from Cosmos episode 8, “Journeys in Space and Time.”)
If “doing stuff” isn’t your thing, just play some free online space games or something. :)
The Xenotext: Poetry in DNA
Poet Christian Bök had an idea for a new work, but to execute it, he had to take a crash course in molecular biology. Years later, after learning computer programming and creating a DNA-codon-to-alphabet cipher, he’s finally ready for the next step: encoding a poem into the DNA of a bacterium.
The Xenotext is a carefully written original work which, when translated into gene sequence using Bök’s system, will cause the encoded organism (in this case, D. radiodurans) to produce a viable protein–itself a verse in response to the original text. The exact wording of The Xenotext is unreleased, but according to Bök:
It’s a very short poem; a very masculine assertion about the aesthetic creation of life. The organism reads the poem, and writes in response a very melancholy, feminine – almost surreal in tone – poem about the aesthetic loss of life. The two poems are in dialogue with each other.
An interview with Bok regarding the nature of his plan is available on New Scientist’s CultureLab. Bok’s work is currently on display at the Text Festival in Bury, UK.
Deinococcus radiodurans is one of the most radioresistant organisms known. It can survive cold, dehydration, vacuum and acid, and the polyextremophile has been listed as “the world’s toughest bacterium” in The Guinness Book Of World Records.
Fruit / Vegetable Sculpting Contest [Pics]
Remember that fruit/vegetable sculpting contest we announced 2 weeks ago? Well, it took me a while to post the pics we received because I was kind of bummed about the number of entries we received: only 4. After the resounding success we’ve had with our teapot blowing contest 2 years ago, I really thought we’d receive more entries. Anyways, here are the 4 chef d’oeuvres we received. I’ll contact the winners by email today.
Ben’s Apple Droid
Ben’s Apple Droid: 1 week later
Louise’s Bananabear
Chelsea’s Pokeball Fruit Pizza
Leslie’s Watermelon Deathstar: Witness the awesome destructive power of this fully operational watermelon.
Thanks guys!
Awesome Harley Quinn Cosplay [Pic]
An pretty awesome photography of a Harley Quinn cosplayer by professional Photograph Beethy. For those interested, you can check out the rest of his cosplay portfolio right here.
Portal Cooperative Bots Chalk Art [Pic]
[Via]
Court Refuses to Order Virtual Equicide
In one of the stranger court cases of recent times, a court has rejected a request to remove virtual nourishment for virtual pets in the virtual world of Second Life.
The case involves a copyright dispute with one company claiming it created the idea of selling in-game animals that were capable of breeding with one another. Ozimals Inc filed a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act demanding that Second Life operators Linden Research remove the virtual horses introduced by Amaretto Ranch Breedables, claiming it copied its own line of virtual rabbits.
Leaving aside the issue of potential confusion between horses and rabbits, the most amazing element of the complaint, formally known as a Takedown Notification, was that it didn’t simply ask Linden to alter its coding or flick a few buttons to make sure the horses were removed from the “game.”
Instead, as TechDirt’s Mike Masnick spotted,:
The Notification sought, among other things, the removal from Second Life of Amaretto’s virtual “food” and “water.” Had the takedown occurred, the virtual horses would have “died” from “starvation” and/or “thirst” within 72 hours.
To its credit, the court didn’t simply laugh at the very idea or tell everyone involved to stop wasting its time. Instead it looked at the code that created the horses and rabbits (no, not DNA) and concluded that although the two sets of virtual products had traits in similar, there was no direct copying.
Although the ruling was made earlier this year, the case is now back in the news because Amaretto returned to court to demand that Ozimals be punished for filing a bogus takedown request. That demand was rejected on the basis that Second Life never carried out the takedown request and thus no direct harm was caused. That in turn is prompting debate about whether there’s enough protection against firms filing dubious takedown requests that are rejected but still lead to disruption and legal costs.
Spielberg’s Open Letter to Lucas
There was a time when “Jaws” was more popular than “Star Wars”, believe it or not. It wasn’t a long time, but it did happen. When the new space opera overtook the world’s most fearsome killer fish in the theaters, director Steven Spielberg published a congratulatory open letter to his long-time pal George Lucas in the December 2nd, 1977 issue of Variety.
Check out more info about this and other Letters of Note.
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