Skydive From Space: Felix Did It!!

Over 8 million people watched Felix step off that capsule and hurtle through the sound barrier and into the record books.
His records:
Highest jump: 128,097ft or 24 miles (39 km)
Highest manned balloon flight: 24.261miles (39.045km)
Fastest freefall: 1342 km/h or 834mph (Mach 1.24)
He was in freefall for 4 minutes and 19 seconds, missing out on the record by 17 seconds still held by Joe Kittinger.

 

Check out all our previous posts that lead up to this epic event dating back to January 2010!
First Supersonic Freefall
Skydive From Space Update 
Skydive From Space Update 2 
Skydive From Space Update 3 - A sad day
Skydive From Space Update 4 - It's back on!
Skydive From Space Update 5
Skydive From Space Update 6 - First manned test flight!
Skydive From Space Update 7 - 2nd manned test flight!
Skydive From Space Update 8 - A teaser

 Image [VIA]
Video [VIA]

View From The ISS At Night

An amazing video by Knate Myers made from still shots taken by astronauts on board the International Space Station. Make sure you watch in full screen!!

Skydive From Space Update 5

It's definitely on this year!! YES!
From the Red Bull Stratos website yesterday:
"The jump will happen sometime this year. I know you’re thinking, “how am I going to mark it on my calendar with a vague answer like that?” I can tell you the team has made really good progress in a matter of months, but they need to run more tests. We’re launching out of Roswell, NM so the weather will be another determining factor. Believe me, when it’s time to launch we’ll give a big shout out."

Images from HERE

Lego Skeleton

A nice custom Lego anatomical body/skeleton by Clay Morrow. You can see more on his flickr....

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Fire Ants Form Waterproof Raft

A team of researchers at Georgia Tech has established that fire ants bind together to create a water-tight raft. This research could have application to the construction of man-made flotation devices.



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Birth Of A Spraycan Video

Birth of a Spraycan from Montana Cans
Ever wondered how a Montana Spraycan gets produced? This video gives you a inside look of the production, from the first to the last step!

Mickey Mouse The Worm Turns Toy

Mickey Mouse gets another cool remake from Medicom, taking Mickey's character from "The Worm Turns"....

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NASA Commons Flickr

Through a competitive process, NASA selected The Internet Archive to organize a comprehensive online compilation of NASA's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video on the NASA Images Web site under a non-exclusive Space Act agreement, signed in July 2007. Launched in 2008, NASA Images is already making hundreds of thousands of images and thousands of hours of video and audio content available to the public, and the collection is growing daily at no cost to taxpayers.....



Visit the NASA Flickr Account HERE.

X-Ray Pin Up Calendar

This sexy pin-up calendar was created by Eizo (medical supplies company) for horny doctors who wanted something a little alternative.




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Total Geek T-Shirts

Wi-Fi Detetctor Shirt

The glowing bars on the front of the shirt dynamically change as the surrounding wi-fi signal strength fluctuates. Finally you can get the attention you deserve as others bow to you as their reverential wi-fi god, while geeky chicks swoon at your presence.

8-Bit Dynamic Life Bar

During your normal activities two and a half pixelated hearts will light up on your shirt. Hey... you're depressed and in need of a recharge. But get within hugging distance of your significant other wearing the matching shirt and suddenly the hearts on both of your shirts start to light up until you're fully powered up.

Check this out for total GEEKNESS. "Amazing you say? But what if you haven't found a cute geek girl or boy to love? Never fear lonely geek! You can buy an 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt and pick up a handy Transmitter Pack to go with it. Now place the transmitter pack near something you love like your Wii, Star Wars figure collection, or maybe in the backpack of that cute girl in chemistry class. When you get close to the transmitter pack then all the hearts on your shirt will light up. You've been revitalized!" (I thought that description was hilarious...if u cant get a girl, put a transmitter pack near your toy collection!! LMFAO!)

Whole Popular Science Catalogue On Google Books

This might just be the find of the decade for me and those of you who enjoy checking out retro-futurism. The super-famous "Popular Science" series, which has been running since 1870(!) has been added to Google Books and each issue has been lovingly scanned and put into handy PDF's for all of us to read. Check out the incredible archive HERE. Happy reading!

Zoltan Lanyi Waldorf Salad Mecha Video

Zoltan Lanyi has created a very creepy looking vision of the world if machines were somehow also linked to organic life. Not only did he do this for Ninja Tune legend, Amon Tobin, but he also created whilst still in college! I predict a good future for this talented man....



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CES 2010

CES 2010 (Consumer Electronics Show) is upon us once more and as always, the tech is just getting better and better. Here are some of my fave previews:

Ultra-thin on-wall speaker Mythos XTR-50. The XTR-50 offers an alternative o chunky speakers next to your flatscreen. At just 38mm deep it can be wall-mounted alongside your telly.

O.R.B. It might look like nothing more than a ring at first glance, but this finger-worn device can sync with your mobile phone. It has a vibratory alert and a tiny screen that shows caller ID, text messages, and meeting reminders from your mobile. Flip it open and it converts into a headset.

ATI Radeon HD 5870. This super powerful graphics card is the first of the DirectX 11 generation, and is able to connect up to six high-definition displays for a full surround-visual experience.

Asus Ee Reader. The twin-screen book-like layout promises to break new ground in tablet computing territory.

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display technology is likely to reach the 40-inch sized monitors from the Sony, Samsung and LG this year.

[SOURCE]

The Guitar Pulsar

Discovered in 1992, this pulsar is flying through a gas cloud and producing a shock wave that looks, at a closer inspection, like a guitar. Scientists have now deduced that the pulsar's path indicates that 800,000 years ago it was fired from a cluster of massive stars that now lies about 6500 light years away from Earth.

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Sci-Fi Surgery

The future of robotic surgery will include tiny robots that enter our bodies and do their work from the inside, with no need to open patients up or knock them out. While nanobots that swim through the blood are still in the realm of fantasy, several groups are developing devices a few millimetres in size. The first generation of "mini-medibots" may infiltrate our bodies through our ears, eyes and lungs, to deliver drugs, take tissue samples or install medical devices.

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World's Smallest Art Prize

Crossing a microscope with a camera gives you a micrograph, a tiny photograph that allows artists and scientists to show the beauty inaccessible to the naked eye. Every year the Small World competition run by Nikon celebrates this hidden world.

This years first place winner. An image of a thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) anther magnified at 20x, taken by Heiti Paves of the Tallinn Institute of Technology, Estonia. The thale cress is an important species used in the study of plant genome traits.
It made history in 2000 when it became the first plant to have its entire genetic code sequenced and now stands as a model species for understanding the molecular biology of many plant traits.
See the other winners HERE.

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Viral Sculptures By Luke Jerram

Luke Jerram's current exhibition Virology features these oddly beautiful, glass blown sculptures of viruses. Luke's work explores the edges of scientific understanding and its visualisation, creating transparent sculptures of the deadliest viruses known.

The exhibition is in its final week (closes 9 October 2009) at the Smithfield Gallery in London so hurry down! Swine flu, e-coli and HIV are amongst those exhibited. If you can't make it to exhibition before it closes you can find his Swine Flu piece on display at the Wellcome Collection in London.

Smallpox, HIV and Unidentified Future Mutation

Swine Flu

E-coli

The Smithfield Gallery

16 West Smithfield

London EC1A 9HY

Mon- Fri 10am - 6pm

Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL)

The "Hybrid Assistive Limb" (HAL) suit from Japanese firm Cyberdyne (which coincidently is also the company in Terminator 2) was deployed using only the leg sections, though the company is also working on full-body models. The assisted-walker jobs shown reportedly weigh 10kg including batteries, and are said to be of value in helping the injured or feeble get about. Cyberdyne will lease a set of robo-legs for 220k yen (£1360 at the moment) per month.
Cyberdyne founder Prof Yoshiyuki Sankai of the University of Tsukuba "Cybernics" lab, has also revealed that scientists there are working on a "next generation type Continuous Flow Artificial Heart" and a "Humanoid Control Project". Details are confidential, but stay tuned!

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Michihiro Matsuoka

Japanese artist, Michihiro Matsuoka has created some beautiful steampunk-esque animal sculptures. He likes fusing rusty elements and animal structures to produce weathered looking figures.






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Aquatic Biology Tattoos

People who know me will understand why I have done this post. Those who don't know me that well; despite my obsession of finding you the weirdest creative shit on the interweb, I studied Marine & Freshwater Biology at Uni(!).

Viruses attacking red blood cells on the left and unicellular organisms spawning life on the right 

A Diatom inspired by the engravings of Dr Ernst Haeckl in the 1900's

At 6 o'clock, we have Ceratium, a type of Dinoflagellate. Going anti-clockwise, to the right is a Radiolarian, then next to that is Cyanobacteria (Blue Green Algae), followed by Seaweed at 9 o'clock. Asteroidea (Starfish) are at 1 o'clock and the rest are a mystery to me! Thanks to the help of old friend, Dr. Jonathan Tyler from the Natural History museum for helping with identifying these organisms! 

A lovely diagram of a squid! Well annotated too!

Angler fish with token prey

What a lovely sight to behold! California sealion pups playing with a Loggerhead Turtle whilst a Dugong sucks on a candycane!

Another great diagram of a Horseshoe Crab

A Pacific Sea Nettle Jellyfish

A 'living fossil', the four-lobed/finned Coecalanth fish.

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