A live webcam stream of the Mars rover “Curiosity” being built in a clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. It provides a weirdly mesmerizing backstage view of the nuts-and-bolts process that results in an extraterrestrial explorer. There’s a chat window where viewers (1820 as I write this, mid-morning on a weekday) can [...]
Gilpin Family whisky is a new single malt whisky made from the urine of diabetics. Creator James Gilpin doesn’t sell the stuff, but rather gives away bottles as a public health statement. From the product page: Sugar heavy urine excreted by diabetic patients is now being utilized for the fermentation of high-end single malt whisky [...]
How astronauts see Hurricane Earl. This image acquired by NASA two days ago: The relatively placid view from the International Space Station belied the potent forces at work in Hurricane Earl as it hovered over the tropical Atlantic Ocean on August 30. With maximum sustained winds of 135 miles (215 kilometers) per hour, the storm [...]
Scandicraft has developed the ScanCam 200, a perimeter security system that features a mini quadrotor helicopter drone that launches from a mailbox-like hangar in order to do surveillance flights around your property. When there is a security breach and a sensor is triggered, personnel at an operations center, situated anywhere in the world, can launch [...]
Over at Instructables, Eric Paulos and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University’s Living Environments Lab explain how to make illuminated balloons that change color based on the local air quality. Each balloon is outfitted with a tri-color LED, tiny air quality sesnsor, rechargeable battery, and a few other inexpensive components. I’d love to encounter these [...]
This is mesmerizing. Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto’s “1945-1998″ is an animated map showing the 2,053 nuclear explosions that took place around the world during the 20th century, from the detonations at Alamogordo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the tests conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998. Pink Tentacle: Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 [...]
Irrational Games has announced “BioShock Infinite”, the 3rd installment of the first person shooter series BioShock. Set in 1912, BioShock Infinite takes place in the sky city of Columbia (previously BioShock was in an underwater setting). Former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt has been sent to rescue Elizabeth, a young woman imprisoned in Columbia since childhood. [...]