techyum ::

Thanks to a brand new new imaging technique — new planets have been discovered, for reals, from New Scientist:

THE first direct image of three extrasolar planets orbiting their host star was hailed as a milestone when it was unveiled late last yearMovie Camera. Now it turns out that the Hubble Space Telescope had captured an image of one of them 10 years ago, but astronomers failed to spot it. This raises hope that more planets lie buried in Hubble’s vast archive.
In 1998, Hubble studied the star HR 8799 in the infrared, as part of a search for planets around young and relatively nearby stars. The search came up empty.
Last year, Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and colleagues looked at the same star using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. They discovered three planets, each about 10 times as massive as Jupiter. They succeeded where the Hubble team failed mainly because of new strategies developed to carefully subtract the star’s glare, leaving only the faint infrared glow from its planets.
Marois and David Lafrenière, of the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, decided to apply their new mathematical tools to the decade-old Hubble image. This involved digitally combining Hubble’s views of 23 similar stars that do not have planets to create a reference image nearly identical to that of HR 8799. When they subtracted the reference image from HR 8799′s, the outermost of its three planets popped into view. (…read more, newscientist.com)

“Think of the children” rhetoric? Costly. Watching it go down in flames in a live debate? Priceless. From Mind Hacks:

The BBC’s flagship news analysis programme Newsnight featured a hefty segment on the ‘Facebook causes cancer / the end of the world as we know it’ nonsense that recently hit the headlines. The Beeb invited alarmist psychologist Aric Sigman on the show but, God bless ‘em, they also invited Bad Science author Ben Goldacre who did a great job of countering the drivel. And due to wonders of the internet you can see the whole interview on YouTube.
The segment also features neuroscientist Susan Greenfield who has recently taken to warning everybody (including in the House of Lords believe it or not) about the ‘neurological dangers’ of children using the internet – based entirely on her own prejudices and in the absence of any good evidence.
She is featured in the TV report where, rather bizarrely, she admits there is no evidence but then goes on to warn of the dangers.
The debate between Goldacre and Sigman is pure TV gold, not least for watching Goldacre’s facial expressions. (…read more, mindhacks.com)

Obsessed with artifacts of the macabre and creating exclusive clockwork “DNA” art pieces reminiscent of disaster, plus comprised of materials so rare and expensive few of us will even get nearer to them than a blo post — what’s not to love about Romaine Jerome’s Skeleton Chronograph Tourbillon watch? Only nine will be made and they’ll all be slightly different, though basics remain: the skeleton-arm dial is combines brass, black or, steel, pink gold 5N; they mix mat velvet finish, satin and shot-blasted finish for the Roman numeral XII. The Tourbillon carriage and the chronometry engine are illuminated by the use of pink gold 5N. Each will have 33 rubies, be comprised of steel and titanium, have hands “inspired by the anchor of Titanic”, the crystal will be sapphire, and along with the rubber strap will be water resistant. Ha.
According to the press page’s PDF:

“The rusted steel horological creations in the ‘Titanic DNA’ series features an oxidized steel bezel which is the result of an extraordinary blend of authentic steel from the wreck lying 3840 meters under the sea, and from the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where the Titanic was constructed nearly a century ago. Official certificates of authenticity guarantee the origin of materials used.”

Akihabara News has an extensive Flickr set and the above video of these new, totally adoarable, I-need-ten-of-these Takara Tomy Robo-Q’s. “Just 3.4 cm tall (1.3″), this little robot is a tiny toy, the world’s smallest remote controlled walking robot.” With IR sensors and autonomous or human-controlled modes, they look like hours of fun to pursue when I should really be working. They’re available at GeekStuff4U for about $48 each.

Musak, the company that’s perpetrated mutant nightmare earworms for generations and visited ruin and madness on the brains of countless hapless employees at Dairy Queens worldwide, have filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This means that they will remain in operation while they restructure, according to this CNN story.

Once, when I was the Marketing Manager at Good Vibrations, sales reps from Musak visited me to ask me if I was familiar with the laws concerning use of music in a commercial space. Turned out if we were playing CDs, we were flouting the authority of ASCAP and running a small but significant risk that some Mafia thug with a clipboard would walk in to the store some day and write us up a bill.

On the other hand, the sales reps told me, we could partner with Musak to provide quality music to vibrator-buying genderqueer bisexuals and Marin-dwelling B&T straight couples alike.

These reps were pretty, perfumed, slick, smooth, and hep to the ways of us downtown San Crisco cats, baby. They were bizarrely seductive, like Goethe’s Satan. Or, more accurately, like some sort of tarted-up vision from the Twilight Zone, informing me that no longer did Musak provide only one flavor of earworm. The synth-laden Henry Mancini reimaginings of Creedence Clearwater Revival tunes were no more, or at least no longer exclusively what the ‘Zak provided. No, they could give us dozens of channels to choose from on their state-of-the-art electronic system; we could go with coffeeshop pop, hard rock, smooth jazz, whatever.

Now, I’ve seen the Twilight Zone, so I did not sign on the dotted line and have them repossess my eardrums with a hacksaw or induct my children into a world of Funhouse Mirrors where they would listen to easy-rock Beatles covers until they killed themselves with the conveniently-provided assortment of cheese graters.

No, I smiled, thanked them for their time, and showed them to the door.

Apparently the rest of the world has seen the Twilight Zone, too. Take that, Musak.

This may not be a popular art show proposal for Londoners right now; at least the artworks are on their way to the US for a nationwide tour (at select galleries). Found via Make blog, the gloomy and endlessly fascinating snow globe series “Travelers” by artists Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz.


Click through and take your time with all their pieces, or enjoy the fantastic post with several carefully selected photos by Alice on My Modern Metropolis. Alice eloquently tells us,

What you once thought was playful and innocent is actually a world of chaos; lone wanderers survey the frigid landscape, people and creatures exhibit unnatural tendencies and ill-defined crimes are committed. These imaginary worlds and events will shock you into believing that this world is more cold than we think; where every man is out for himself.
Like fairy tales or dreams, the tiny tableaus work as psychological metaphors: specifically, a stage everyone is bound to enter when life has lost its warmth and promise, at which point finding a new way becomes desperately urgent. (…read more, mymodernmet.com)

Not only is the Mission One electric motorcycle going to race in the world’s first clean emissions grand prix motorcycle race on the legendary Isle of Man, but the bike (unveiled at TED today) is from San Francisco, California and aims to be the fastest electric bike on the planet. Snip:

A Californian company has unveiled the world’s fastest production electric motorbike, the Mission One.
Manufactured by San Francisco-based Mission Motors, the bike is capable of 150mph – considerably quicker than the British-designed, pre-production TTX01 bike – and is on sale now to US customers, with deliveries due in 2010.
(…) North’s bike is powered by lithium-ion batteries – the type found in laptops and mobile phones – and will reportedly run for 150 miles between recharging, which takes two hours.
The model demonstrated was a hand-built prototype. It is yet to be tested on the road at 150mph, but a Mission Motors’ spokesman said they “have no doubt that this prototype will achieve its target speed”.
Tesla and Mission Motors are targeting affluent green motorists, with the Tesla selling for £92,000 in the UK and the first 50 limited-edition Mission Ones likely to sell for $68,995 (£47,100). A cheaper version of the Mission One is due to be announced this summer. (…read more, guardian.co.uk)

Image by Veronica Belmont, spotted on her way to her morning carpool.

By February 2, London was covered in snow (the heaviest snowfall in 18 years), by the 3rd headlines still read that the city was immobilized and people were learning to cope despite the travel chaos, and today people are stranded and services are at a breaking point. More snow is expected. The photographs, of course, are stunning (gallery, 45 images). The reporting is extensive.


This natural disaster of sorts comes not long after an impressive article and yet more astounding photos about the three-person British Arctic team, The Catlin Arctic Survey who are preparing for a very perilous journey to take hands-on measurements on how fast the Arctic is melting.

From the Guardian UK exclusive, the team’s leader Pen Hadlow had some curious comments;

Hadow puts it more chivalrously: “I see the Arctic as a maiden newly discovered on the social scene, and we’re melting away her petticoats, and there are some avaricious types peering underneath, and someone needs to defend her honour.”

Indeed. The gallery of their prep for the trek only makes me think they’re doing just fine in London’s current circumstances, however much icy wind may be blowing under the great city’s bloomers. Seriously; the gallery is awesome, but what a very weird thing to say.