Your Piece of Immortality - Your Name on the Moon!

SFScope blog posted an article describing how the common man can grab his own little piece of immortality. How you might ask? Why, by placing your name on the moon itself! It seems, NASA is inviting the public to 'join the lunar exploration journey with an opportunity to send their names to the Moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft. ' By logging to the "Send Your Name to the Moon" web site - you will see simple instructions that enables everyone to participate in the lunar adventure and place their names in orbit around the Moon for years to come. Participants can submit their information at this link, print a certificate, and have their name entered into a database. The database will be placed on a microchip that will be integrated onto the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is 27 June 2008. So maybe not quite ON the moon, its damn close and still really cool. Your's truly has already signed up.

The Ultimate Projector!!!

A DVD projector to end all projectors. This geeky gadget has everything and in a package that just screams "I must have one!" The B-9 robots can't hold a candle to this homage to Star Trek

I give you the R2-D2 projector!

Boomerangs DO work in space - it would seem!

JAXA has finally gotten around to releasing video of astronaut Takao Doi’s successful space boomerang toss conducted inside the International Space Station’s Harmony Module in March.

I first heard about this on Pink Tentacle's blog and posted a blurb about it (here) and it would seem that despite what you might think.... the lowly boomerang works just fine in a micro G environment. Watch the video below

NASA can now predict a neutron star explosion

Using observations from NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), an international team of astronomers has discovered a timing mechanism that allows them to predict exactly when a superdense star will unleash incredibly powerful explosions. The bursts occur on a neutron star (the remnants of a collapsed super nova) which is often part of a binary pair. Hydrogen and helium gas from a companion star spirals onto the neutron star, slowly accumulating on its surface until it heats up to a critical temperature. Suddenly, the hydrogen and helium begin to fuse uncontrollably into heavier elements, igniting a thermonuclear flame that quickly spreads around the entire star. The resulting explosion appears as a bright flash of X-rays - releasing more energy in just 10 to 100 seconds than our Sun radiates in an entire week. Up until now, there has been no way to predict when the next explosion is likely to occur. The key to the discover lies in observations from the RXTE satellite, which can make extremely accurate timing measurements of x-ray emissions from neutron stars as they fuse gasses syphoned off their companion star. On the surface of the neutron star, these gasses fuse at very predictable periods. However as the the bursts of x-rays (which are given off each time hydrogen and helium atoms fuse into heavier elements ) slow down - scientist now know that an explosion is immanent.

The search for the kill switch is on.

Are chip makers building electronic trapdoors in key military hardware? The Pentagon wants to know. Or, does it actually want to know how? Combine the use of embedded chips in livestock, pets and human beings for everything from IDs to pacemakers, with a penal system that is overcrowded at the best of times.

What easier than to simply activate the kill switch as needed, remotely or at an official execution? Saves all the muss and fuss of burdensomely expensive of court costs and ever skyrocketing prison budgets.

Repent! Harlequin...read it and weep:

Newswise: The Hunt for the Kill Switch - The U.S. Department of Defense wants to know if chip makers are building remotely accessible kill switches into high-end microprocessors.

These days, the U.S. military consumes only about 1 percent of the world's integrated circuits, and off-shoring has begun to raise some alarms about the safety of the chips in the military's most mission-critical electronics.

Recognizing an enormous vulnerability, the DOD recently launched an extremely ambitious program to verify the integrity of the electronics that will underpin future additions to its arsenal.

In December, the DOD's advanced-research wing released details about a three-year initiative it calls the Trust in Integrated Circuits program. The findings from the program could give the military--and defense contractors who make sensitive microelectronics like the weapons systems for the F-35--a guaranteed method of determining whether their chips have been compromised with a kill switch.

But how exactly would you kill an integrated switch, and for what purpose? In "The Hunt for the Kill Switch," IEEE Spectrum's Sally Adee reports on the methods that could kill a chip, the possible consequences, and the methods being devised to verify the Pentagon's most important microchips.