] Spirit Lands On Mars And Sends Postcards

Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Press Release Images

] Explanation: In 1787, astronomer William Herschel
] discovered the Eskimo Nebula. From the ground, NGC 2392
] resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In
] 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the Eskimo
] Nebula. From space, the nebula displays gas clouds so
] complex they are not fully understood. The Eskimo Nebula
] is clearly a planetary nebula, and the gas seen above
] composed the outer layers of a Sun-like star only 10,000
] years ago. The inner filaments visible above are being
] ejected by strong wind of particles from the central
] star. The outer disk contains unusual light-year long
] orange filaments.

WOW!

LB

The Eskimo Nebula from Hubble

] Why flying cars, jetpacks
]
] haven't taken hold ... yet

Seven flights of fancy that fizzled

] Powers of Ten

nifty! Makes you feel really small...

Science, Optics and You

] According to a KPTV newscast, a Simpsons fan with too
] much time on his hands grafted a tobacco plant and a
] tomato plant and, ta-da: tomacco!

!!!!!!

Slashdot | Simpsons Fan Creates Real Tomacco Plant

Researchers say it is "absolutely not" a reason to kill cats, but suggest they might be quarantined with their owners during outbreaks.

hahahaha! Die kitty die!

Cats can catch SARS - and pass it on

] To gather new strains, Sulakvelidze need only drop a
] bucket into Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The waters of the
] Chesapeake Bay, of which the harbor is an inlet, have
] enough exchange with the Atlantic that he can find a
] phage for almost any species of bacteria, he says. If one
] doesn't work, he simply refills his bucket and looks for
] another that does.
]
] "This upgradability is one of the unique qualities of
] phages," Sulakvelidze adds. "Developing a new antibiotic
] takes 10 years and God knows how many millions of
] dollars."
]
] As he puts it, "Mother Nature runs the best genetic
] engineering lab out there. No institution or company can
] match it."

Wired 11.10: How Ravenous Soviet Viruses Will Save the World

] On March 6, 2000, he underwent a relatively new procedure
] in which cells known as stem cells were transplanted onto
] the surface of his right eye in the hope they would
] replace the scar tissue that made a cornea transplant
] impossible. May's left eye had too much damage to be
] repaired.

another reason to support this pandora's box known as stem cell research. Amazing how we are learning to hack the brain by reverse engineering it's sensory systems.

Vision is more than just sight, scientists learn

] Armed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups
] are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel.
]
] Next up: the computing industry.
]
] By Joshua Davis
]
] Aron Weingarten brings the yellow diamond up to the
] stainless steel jeweler's loupe he holds against his eye.
] We are in Antwerp, Belgium, in Weingarten's marbled and
] gilded living room on the edge of the city's gem
] district, the center of the diamond universe. Nearly 80
] percent of the world's rough and polished diamonds move
] through the hands of Belgian gem traders like Weingarten,
] a dealer who wears the thick beard and black suit of the
] Hasidim.
]
] "This is very rare stone," he says, almost to himself, in
] thickly accented English. "Yellow diamonds of this color
] are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15
] thousand dollars."
]
] "I have two more exactly like it in my pocket," I tell
] him.
]
] He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for
] the first time. I place the other two stones on the
] table. They are all the same color and size. To find
] three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a
] coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails.
]
] "These are cubic zirconium?" Weingarten says without much
] hope.
]
] "No, they're real," I tell him. "But they were made by a machine
] in Florida for less than a hundred dollars."

Wired 11.09: The New Diamond Age

] Since restaurants often make much of their profits on
] drinks, it is critical for servers to offer refills in a
] timely fashion. We propose wireless liquid level sensing
] glassware to aid in this task. Specially instrumented
] glassware detects fluid levels via a high-resolution
] capacitance measurement. A coil embedded in the table
] inductively couples power to the glasses, and provides a
] path for data exchange. Our prototype glass uses a
] standard microprocessor and a small number of passive
] components, making it extremely inexpensive.

Brilliant. With the time this would save me trying to get some service I could probably drink another pint.

MERL - iGlassware