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| Seriously, what ISN'T spying on us these days? (Image courtesy hackread.com.) |
X Marks The Spotted: Windows 10 Is Watching You
As citizens of the cyber-community, we've unfortunately become conditioned to seeing ads that are eerily targeted to things we say, emails that appear from long-forgotten websites, and other evidence of deep data gathering made manifest for use of moneymaking. Now, with the launch of Windows 10 becoming a necessity for some users, Microsoft seems to have pulled out even more stops to speed up their spying...
Tracked In The Sack: New High-Tech Wristwatch Delivers Your Sexual Stats
Technology has the amazing ability to provide us with abundant, seemingly boundless amounts of information. Sometimes, that also includes too much information.
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| "Hey baby...set me to LOVE MODE." (Image courtesy geeksme.com.) |
Space Station Sunday - Halloween Edition: Dark Matter, Blood Studies, And A Spooky Specter On The Station
Good afternoon, space fans! For those that celebrate it, we hope everyone had a fun and freaky Halloween. Unfortunately there's no trick or treating to the ISS (yet), but it was a great week for orbital excellence just the same.
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| This was on Earth...unfortunately open fires on the ISS are a no-go. (Image courtesy issabove.com.) |
The Reds, The Red Planet, And Some Monkeys: Russia's Plans For Mars
From Hollywood to low earth orbit, Mars is a major source of speculation for space travel. Everyone from misguided reality TV-star wannabes to Elon Musk wants to have a part in pioneering the red planet. Now, Russia has thrown down a space-gauntlet of their own, and recently announced that they are training monkeys for a mission to Mars.
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| Ground Control to Major Kong...Ground Control to Major Kong... (Image courtesy www.dailymail.co.uk.) |
Power For The People: New "Powerwall" Battery To Revolutionize Energy Usage
The dynamics of power are changing. While unfortunately that doesn't mean much for our government, it may be having a great impact for those in need of electricity (a.k.a. all denizens of the modern world...)
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| The fact that it looks a bit like the monolith from "2001" might be intentional. (Image courtesy businessinsider.com.) |
Freedom For Threesomes: New App Finds Hookups à Trois
Everyone's heard of (or been involved in) an online romance that, despite the impersonal initial interface, works out for the best. Now, you can use an app to add to such notions of romance...plus a little extra...
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| Get extra cozy this winter. (Image courtesy genius.com.) |
Space Station Sunday: Eye Of The Storm, Eyes Of The Astronauts
Good afternoon, space fans! We're back in action with news from all of the above! Let's examine what was happening on our favorite orbital outpost this week...
NASA got the jump on keeping humanity safe by analyzing the possible effects of Hurricane Patricia, which made landfall on Friday before getting downgraded to a tropical storm. Using the Aqua satellite, the Suomi satellite, and the Global Precipitation Measurement core satellite, they were able to track where the hurricane would hit and with what projected force. Fortunately, the hurricane's worst wailing (an average 16 inches of rain) occurred over the Pacific Ocean, while it only accrued an average 8 inches of rain during its landfall in Mexico.
Astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren are preparing to make two spacewalks, the first of which will occur this Wednesday. They have spent significant time over the last week ensuring that their spacesuits are trouble-free and ready to perform the microgravity dance that is an EVA (extravehicular activity.) The first EVA, which will last six and a half hours, will have the astronauts adding a cover to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (a dark matter experiment outside the station), lubing the Canadarm-2 robotic arm, and installing cables that will aid a future docking port for the station.
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| When the space station astronauts warn you about a hurricane, it's time to be careful. (Image courtesy Scott Kelly / NASA.gov.) |
NASA got the jump on keeping humanity safe by analyzing the possible effects of Hurricane Patricia, which made landfall on Friday before getting downgraded to a tropical storm. Using the Aqua satellite, the Suomi satellite, and the Global Precipitation Measurement core satellite, they were able to track where the hurricane would hit and with what projected force. Fortunately, the hurricane's worst wailing (an average 16 inches of rain) occurred over the Pacific Ocean, while it only accrued an average 8 inches of rain during its landfall in Mexico.
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| "Strongest hurricane EVER!" -NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite. (Image courtesy NASA - Goddard Spaceflight Center / UW/CIMSS/William Straka III.) |
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| "That's cute." -the high-pressure star-forming region of Messier 94 galaxy. (Image courtesy NASA/Goddard Spaceflight Center.) |
Astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren are preparing to make two spacewalks, the first of which will occur this Wednesday. They have spent significant time over the last week ensuring that their spacesuits are trouble-free and ready to perform the microgravity dance that is an EVA (extravehicular activity.) The first EVA, which will last six and a half hours, will have the astronauts adding a cover to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (a dark matter experiment outside the station), lubing the Canadarm-2 robotic arm, and installing cables that will aid a future docking port for the station.
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| "Did you modify my spacesuit radio to default to the David Bowie playlist?" -"Maybe I made a few little ch-ch-ch-ch-changes." (Image courtesy NASA.gov.) |
Bio-science studies were, as always, of importance this week on the ISS, with Kelly, Lindgren, and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko undergoing exams for the Ocular Health Study. This is a critical experiment that reflects how astronauts' eyes adapt to life in microgravity. As Kelly and Kornienko have now been in space for over 200 consecutive days (with Kelly recently breaking the American record for most days spent in space in total), significant science on their long-term ocular health, vascular and central nervous systems will continue to be compiled as part of this study. Cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko also performed cardiovascular and respiratory experiments while riding on the station's exercise bike.
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| So much spacetime, but still sharp! Congrats to Astronaut Kelly on his record-breaking space stay. (Image courtesy NASA.gov.) |
Another interesting bit of bio-science taking place aboard the ISS is the Neuromapping study. Operating on the observations that microgravity life is more difficult for achieving tasks both physical and mental, the experiment seeks to assess how and why the human brain takes time to adapt to not inherently knowing which direction is "up."
“On Earth, your vestibular - or balance - system tells you how your head moves relative to gravity, but in space, the gravity reference is gone,” principal investigator Dr. Rachel Seidler said. “That causes these perceptual illusions, as well as difficulty coordinating movement of the eyes and head.”
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| For instance, from space, humanity's rampant industrialization of its natural resources can, at times, appear beautiful. (Image courtesy Scott Kelly / NASA.gov.) |
Thus, spacial memory and sensory-motor adaptation tests are undertaken to see how astronauts can reconfigure shapes when their orientation has been thoroughly messed with, as well as how effectively they can make critical decisions while remaining mobile in microgravity. All of these tests will aid future space station inhabitants, as well as pioneers on long-duration missions who might need to make these diverse dynamics their new reality. The tests may even shed light on how those with injury or illness on Earth may have had their perceptions altered, and what could be done to fix their conditions.
That's all for this week, space fans! We'll see you next Sunday with reports on the American spacewalk and more news from 220 miles up. Watch this space!
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| Australia from space, or somewhere deep inside the human mind? Only Scott Kelly knows for sure... (Image courtesy Scott Kelly / NASA.gov.) |
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