This is just straight up awesome new technology.

The Jet Propulsion Lab have developed a 250mm diametre omni-directional anchor that utilises an array of claws to help grip onto the rocky surface of asteroids, comets and cliff faces of Mars. This unique arrangement of these multiple microspines allows a unit to work under a lot of force in almost any angle (even hanging upside down). Be sure to check it out.

So while this technology is totally fucking awesome and obviously designed for the purpose of space exploration, I can’t help but imagine what practical applications this can have in society once the technology is refined. Hell, I just love the idea it’s one step closer to making those Tachikoma tanks from Ghost in the Shell a reality… or any kind of spider-bot in that regard.

• NY Times bog on Today’s smartphone society and its sensory deprivation
• Write up on ‘Inviting machines into our bodies’ and it susceptible security compromises (serious Ghost in the Shell fangasm here)
• Bad Astronomer clarifies/explains the “UFO” spirals in the sky reports
• NASA Expedition Reveals Unprecedented Blooms Of Ocean Plant Life Beneath Arctic Ice
• Interesting proposition: Germany, Not Greece, Should Exit the Euro
• Syria and Should the U.S. assassinate Assad?
• Is China Looking to Conquer the Art World, Too?
• 6 Rules for a Great Story from Barnaby Conrad and Snoopy

Collecting 100 years of criminal mugshots by Mark Michaelson

Dunno why, but there’s a recurring moon thing going on here at the mo… Well, actually, there usually is anyway, but besides that point, here’s another moment from Apollo 16’s mission that NASA doesn’t promote often…

Ghosts of Gemini

NASA have recently released several photos from their archives, taken during the flights of Gemini, the often overlooked tech testing phase that took place between the Mercury and the Apollo space program.

One haunting image in particular is that of doomed astronaut Ed White wrapped in shadows and looking uncannily like Brad Pitt for some reason (looked nothing like him in general). Anyhow, the rest of the images can be found here.

Naked Man in Wrong Room
The man told police he been brought back to the hotel from town by a woman but at some point wandered out of her room into the hall stark naked.
” He then wandered into another room, occupied by a husband and wife, had curled up and gone to sleep, he said.” [full article]

Spy probe images Apollo landing sites
NASA’s newly launched Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has snapped images of hardware left on the moon by the Apollo astronauts… [full article with gallery]

Giant ‘soap bubble’ found floating in space
It looks like a soap bubble or perhaps even a camera fault, but the image at right is a newly discovered planetary nebula. [full article]

NASA Wants To Move The Earth
Scientists have found an unusual way to prevent our planet overheating: move it to a cooler spot.
“All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system.” [full article]