Here is founder of spacehack.org, Ariel Walden, presents a rather interesting talk on the possibilities of a more open source space/science community, taking the exclusivity of the field from governments and placing it into the hands of everyday people, whilst still helping to advance science and exploration.

It’s all very inspiring stuff and I’ve only manage to have a brief poke around the website, but man, I do love the thinking behind all these crowd sourcing projects lately.

Awesome.

Over the years I’ve accumulated heroes; people I look up to and admire both for their work and their conviction to what they believed in and worked for.  Foremost of these for me w0uld be Carl Sagan whose visionary belief, not just in science, but in mankind itself, gave voice to the historical achievement of humans as a species and a beautiful, reconnecting position for all of us to take on this planet and amongst the stars.

Today (or rather, yesterday…  time zones and relativity and what not aside) marks what would have been his 77th birthday; and his wisdom, insight and love is still missed.

These peacocks borrow human mating plumage, anthropomorphically showcasing our adaptations and natural orders as their own. They are made of fake fingernails, barrettes, nail polish, false eyelashes, and jewelry to represent the choices involved in biological processes that are unique to humankind.

[website]

Been well aware I haven’t blogged anything of late.  The internet has been somewhat disturbingly quiet lately and I’ve been occupied with all sorts of social and anti-social activity (damn you BF3!).  All of them not so interesting enough to post about until this…

Oh, have picked up a new camera and damn, it and I are getting along well.  Look forward to posted up some photos once I’m properly adapted to using it.

This.  The animation is of minimal quality, the sound is stock and the song is well past the point of being overused; and yet… the imagery and scale one gets from watching this is damn impressive.

It really puts into an odd visual perspective just how bloody our planet’s history has been and despite the atrocities of just the last 100 years, I still maintain the position that our world today has finally learned something about large scale conflicts and will never as a globally communicative engage in such large scale operations again…  well, I find the concept of that inconceivable at least.

It’s 1 in the morning, the rain in the city tonight has been mental and I just realised that I’ve not slept properly for nearly the last week or so…  whoops.

Mostly it’s because the majority of my awake time has been spent playing Battlefield 3 till some irresponsible time in the morning.  So now, I’m going to bed and getting a decent enough night’s sleep.  That was my thinking until I watched this full 20 minute clip of an incredible gaming rig that sets a player up in a fully goddamn immerse 360 degree dome, with motion sensors, ambient lights, freaking paintball guns and aw hell…  here’s the trailer…

Oh baby…  No.  Sleep.  Definitely sleeping.

As a typical late night of internet reading goes, have so many tabs open and thus, another over the place, article compilation post is born.

Ageing stem cells from centenarian rejuvenated
PARIS: Age-degraded cells from elderly patients upwards of 100 years old have been successfully transformed into rejuvenated stem cells “indistinguishable” from those found in their embryonic state. [full article]

Kids are watching too much TV; if they’re under two, any TV is too much
That message isn’t reaching parents, however; 66 percent of children under two have watched TV, even though their brains can’t actually process the information meaningfully. [full article]

How Celebrities Took Over Cartoon Voice Acting
… when it comes to movies, recent years have seen big-screen Hollywood voice acting dominated by A-List actors like Bruce Willis, Angelina Jolie, and Robert DeNiro. The latest celebrity-dominated animated film comes now in the Shrek-inspired Puss in Boots, which represents the unholy trinity of Hollywood’s recent favorite trends: 3D, prequels, and spinoffs. [full article]

Lung regeneration closer to reality with new discovery
the research team reports that they have uncovered the biochemical signals in mice that trigger generation of new lung alveoli, the numerous, tiny, grape-like sacs within the lung where oxygen exchange takes place. Specifically, the regenerative signals originate from the specialized endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels in the lung. [full article]

She’s Her Own Twin
Lydia Fairchild was a proud mother who faced the most unusual of challenges. She had to fight in court to prove the children born from her body were her own.
The Department of Social Services called Fairchild and told her to come in immediately. What Fairchild thought was a routine meeting with a social worker turned into an interrogation. The proud mother was suddenly a criminal suspect. [full article]

Finally, after the internet got so saturated with ‘platitudes’ from every tom, dick and dickhead to the point it was impossible to distinguish the genuine ones from the fakes… a properly heartfelt tribute to Steve Jobs from his once long lost sister… https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Courtesy of Ray Villafane.  These were created in the New York Botanical Gardens over two days using the two of the world’s heaviest pumpkins, with the big one weighing in at 1,693 pounds (768 kgs)!