Astronauts flying aboard space shuttle Endeavour on Saturday plan to deliver a device to the International Space Station that may leave you wondering if Nasa is taking recycling too far.

Among the ship’s cargo, which will help prepare the station for an expanded six-person crew, is a water regeneration system that, as one astronaut puts it, “will make yesterday’s coffee into today’s coffee”.

Via BBC

 

The Times is coming with a new project called  Visualization, Lab where people will be able to see visual representations of data and information. This project is being made possible using the “Many Eyes” technology from IBM Research.

Many Eyes is a new tool created by IBM Research that allows users to create visual representations of data and information, like charts, maps and other graphic presentations. This version of Many Eyes, known as Visualization Lab, is specifically designed for The New York Times. With Visualization Lab, NYTimes.com users will be able to visualize and comment on information and data sets presented by Times editors, share those visualizations with others and create topic hubs where people can discuss specific subjects. 

The above screenshot shows one example. Get the whole experience here.

Yamaha Japan has teamed up with the design team KDDI to create some mobile phone/music instrument prototypes. This project will give the modern musician and technology geek a whole new way to approach the creative process.  The prototypes are currently being shown in exhibits throughout Japan and there is talk of mass production for Japanese consumers in the near future.  Watch the demonstration videos here.

By Richard Behar

The World Bank Group’s computer network — one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation — has been raided repeatedly by outsiders for more than a year, FOX News has learned.

It is still not known how much information was stolen. But sources inside the bank confirm that servers in the institution’s highly-restricted treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software last April. Invaders also had full access to the rest of the bank’s network for nearly a month in June and July.

In total, at least six major intrusions — two of them using the same group of IP addresses originating from China — have been detected at the World Bank since the summer of 2007, with the most recent breach occurring just last month.

In a frantic midnight e-mail to colleagues, the bank’s senior technology manager referred to the situation as an “unprecedented crisis.” In fact, it may be the worst security breach ever at a global financial institution. And it has left bank officials scrambling to try to understand the nature of the year-long cyber-assault, while also trying to keep the news from leaking to the public.

For the full article peep here

By Peter B. de Selding

GLASGOW, Scotland - The private company planning to take wealthy tourists to the edge of the atmosphere starting in late 2009 or early 2010 has refused a million-dollar proposal to film a sex video while the participants are floating gravity free, the company’s president said.

Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said the offer, from an unidentified party, “was $1 million, up front, for a sex-in-space movie. That was money we had to refuse, I’m afraid.”

Whitehorn disclosed the rejected transaction here on Tuesday during the International Astronautical Congress. He said Virgin Galactic, part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, is planning to begin flights of the White Knight Two aircraft in late 2009 or early 2010 from Sierra County, N.M.

via MSNBC

Pre-Y2K panic had its moments, but it never left us wondering, “How would it feel to be devoured by a black hole?” Here’s a snippet from an ABC News article published 2 years ago, before the Large Hadron Collider was a hot topic:

Although scientists haven’t directly observed a black hole (since a black hole swallows light), they have observed the effect of a black hole on surrounding material. Astronomers say the first sign of a black hole’s approach would be subtle changes in the night sky. The gravity from a black hole would distort Earth’s orbit and we’d begin to notice differences in the orbits of other planets and stars in the galaxy.

If a rogue black hole ever closed in on our solar system and crept up next to Earth, the resulting havoc would seem like the wildest science fiction. Either Earth would career out of its orbit, spinning out of the solar system, or in the opposite direction, toward the sun, and we’d suffer a deadly warming.

Enter the LHC (via BBC):

…There are a small but significant group of naysayers who worry that the LHC is not 100% safe. Opponents say it is possible the collider could produce micro black holes and dangerous “strangelets”, and that catastrophic effects from these cannot be ruled out.

Afraid? This blog post on backreaction.blogspot.com should calm you down:

In short: If tiny black holes were produced because large extra dimensions did exist in the necessary number with the necessary radius, and if they did not evaporate within 10^-26 seconds as expected (Hawking evaporation is considered a very robust prediction, so this scenario is not confirmed by well founded theories), most of them would have such a high velocity that they escaped the gravitational field of the Earth for good. Even if they travelled straight through the centre of the Earth, the few nucleons they can hit wouldn’t change their momentum in an appreciable way.

Phewf!

And we’re not talking your favorite white reggae MC by way of Toronto. The guys at Freebord have boasted for years now that their board lets you bomb any downhill stretch of asphalt as if it were powder. Its patented design subs in outer wheels for a snowboard’s edge and center wheels that pivot for a snowboard’s petex base. Translation? F*ck the slopes and stay in the city next time you wanna carve, slide and drift into switch. Our favorite part is that a prototype for the Freebord was founder Steen Strand’s master thesis at Stanford University — Exhibit X of brainiacs ruling the streets.

Seeing is believing, so peep the videos here at Freebord.com.

(image via Uncrate.com)

We have come a long way with the internet and the world of computer hackers. This year marks the 25th-annivesary of the classic 1983 movie WarGames.

Check out the full story via Wired Magazine.

New Zealand inventor Glenn Martin has unveiled a new jet pack at the annual EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, WI. What makes Martin’s design revolutionary, is that it can fly for as long as 30 minutes at a time. Up until now, jet packs have only been able to stay aloft for a few minutes at a time. Martin’s design has two rotors encased in ducts, making for a more efficient design. The inventor has found investors, and hopes to bring the product to the marketplace shortly, with an estimated price tag of $100,000.

You can click here to check out the NY Times full account (including video) of flying with the jetpack.