Author: Gabrielle Taylor
"Don't call me artist," says sci-photog Frankel
“When it’s art, it’s more about the creator, not necessarily the concept in the image,” said Felice Frankel, senior research fellow at the Institute for Innovative Computing at Harvard. Frankel photographs science at the molecular level, to allow researchers clear and vivid images of the substances they work with. “To me the idea is to engage somebody to look at something, and they don’t even know it’s science,” she said. Her first collaborator, Dr. Whitesides of Harvard, says, “her impact on scientific communication has been very large, in the way science talks to science and science talks to the world outside science.” [GT]
Felice Frankel (via NY Times)
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Material ConneXion catalogues newest high-tech materials
“Our motto is material equals design. We believe you can design a wonderful iPod or Blackberry, but if you don’t have a material that prevents it from breaking, your design will be at fault,” said Michele Caniato, executive vice president at Material ConneXion, a library containing over 4000 of new and advanced materials ranging from cement to photo-voltaics. Accessible via subscription. [GT]
Stuff of dreams at Material ConneXion
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Orbital Outfitters Spacedivers jump from orbit
As if jumping from a plane wasn’t heart-stopping enough, a plan is afoot, via a company called Orbital Outfitters, to create “life jackets” that could allow astronauts to enter Earth atmosphere without a vehicle and without being torn apart. The plan is for space diving to be used both for sport and as an emergency escape for astronauts in low Earth orbit. Orbital Outfitters plan to make an initial jump of 120,000 feet in 2009. [GT]
High Dive (viaSciFi Tech)
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Transformers mobile game: their war, our world, your phone
To tie in with the imminent release of The Transformers movie, glu has created a mobile game in which you play as Optimus Prime and fight Decepticons. You can convert from vehicle to robot and use special weapons in each form. To play, go to The Official Transformers Mobile Website but be warned: you have to use a phonepad for the controls and you only get about a minute of trial time so don’t think you’re going to rack up the points. [GT]
The Official Transformers Mobile Website
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Reprogramming the genome to transform one species to another
Craig Venter, best known for his work on the Human Genome Project, has announced the results of his lab’s work on genome transplantation methods that allows for the transformation of one type of bacteria into another, dictated by the transplanted chromosome. In other words, one species becomes another. In speaking of this achievement to Edge, Venter said: “This is a major advance in the field of synthetic genomics. We now know we can create a synthetic organism. It’s not a question of ‘if’, or ‘how’, but ‘when’, and in this regard, think weeks and months, not years.” I’ll take an artificial manatee with hoover attachment and a couple of David Duchovnys. [GT]
CHANGING ONE SPECIES TO ANOTHER (via Boing Boing)
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Blubber Bots are nearly as cute as giant baby chicks
“Excuse me,” you say to your mobile, “I have to go, because a puffy white plastic cloud just sailed up and is singing to me.” The Blubber Bot cleaved unto you, would-be-phoner, because it loves being part of high-tech communications. Blubber Bots are sociable and cheery, a body of networked sculptures that interact with their environment, people and each other and evolve the longer they live. You can foster your own Blubber Bot to know the joy of flying-robot-cloud-rearing. $100. [GT]
Blubber Bots (via Engadget)
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AMA rules video gaming not (officially) addicting
After careful deliberation, the AMA has decided videogame addiction is not an official mental disorder. This is unsurprising, since mainstream medicine has generally missed the boat about how computers are altering the human brain and social interactions, but if they had decided it was in fact a disorder, I’d despair of their ability to ‘treat’ it meaningfully, so this is the better of two foolish outcomes. [GT]
Too Much Video Gaming Not Addiction, Yet (via Boing Boing)
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Rocobo: the latest in semi-inanimate toy love
Rocobo is the next cute interactive pet from Japan. Rocobo see, Rocobo do, Rocobo knows all about you. If you’re mean, it will shake its body and flap its arms. If you’re nice to it, it will sing a song to you, tell your fortune, smile on its LCD screen or flap its ears. It will go on sale next August for ¥ 1130. Supposedly it won’t be available outside Japan, but if you find Rocobo, and make him love you, he’ll find a way to be with you. [GT]
Rocobo (via 3yen)
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Russian 'Bigelow' inflatable spaceship spreads its wings
Only 4.4 metres long and 1.9 metres across at launch, the Russian Genesis II spaceship is now expanded to 11.5 cubic meters of usable volume. While that still sounds (and is) small, the ship is designed as a 1/3 scale proof-of-concept so that in the future we can look more to ships that start out small and grow with age. Part of how Genesis II was funded was with the “Fly your Stuff” campaign where the public could pay to send their belongings into space. It’ll also literally be running a space bingo game. Cutting edge! [GT]
Inflatable spacecraft blossoms in orbit
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Napastyle solar house number display & mailbox
One of the most difficult things about trying to find an address at night is I’m not a vampire, so I can’t read the numbers in the dark. The Solar House Number Display & Mailbox will save you from hours of circling the block until dawn. It collects ye old Sol power throughout the day, and provides up to 10 hours of backlight at night for your house number. It doubles as a mailbox, but if you don’t get paper mail anymore you can install a tiny disco ball and all the local hip birds can hang out in it. $128. [GT]
Solar House Number Display & Mailbox (viaUber Review)
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