Nice, NPR’s Radiolab did a piece featuring an excerpt from the famous Voyager Golden Record that was placed aboard 1977’s twin Voyager Space Probes. Alongside some simple instructions showing how to construct a device to play it, the record contained recordings of greetings in 50 languages, music, human heartbeats, and a lot more. The link is to an extremely sweet feature on Morning Edition about Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan falling in love during the process of creating the record for NASA. There’s video and an excerpt there too.
I was very moved by the story of how Carl and Ann fell in love, especially at the end where you find her brain waves were recorded while she meditated on being in love, and sent along on the Golden Record. I’ve always been totally in awe of Carl Sagan, since I was a small child in Dallas watching COSMOS as a kid on our local PBS station. He was my first exposure to any kind of popularizing of science and he became the very symbol of that curiosity and wonder and awe that only science can bring to you. He and maybe Stephen Jay Gould, with Neil deGrasse Tyson a good recent example, set the standard for bringing science to the layman. And of course then there are the rest of his many achievements, including a killer movie.
So I will always hold memories of him dearly, what an awesome guy.
Click here to read the story.
Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc.
Don’t let the hippies hear that wood may make a better artificial bone than titanium. We’ll never live it down.
Italian scientists have developed a new “wood-derived bone substitute” that promises to be better than ceramic or metal implants. They start with a block of wood like red oak, burn it until the block is essentially charcoal and then coat the substance with calcium.
The “bone” takes about a week to produce at a cost of around $850. And while it’s not quite as cool as titanium, the spongier structure handles natural impact better, and other bones prefer the calcium carbon mix to space shuttle alloys.
So much for my awesome robot legs. [Discovery]
Google isn’t taking Apple’s rejection of their Google Voice app lying down. They’ll be developing a full featured web app for the iPhone.
From Google plans to bypass Apple’s App Store on the Web, on Appleinsider.
With its native Google Voice application rejected from the iPhone App Store, the software maker is planning a full-featured Web application in its place.
[Read Original]
The source couldn’t be specific but it has to be Blu-Ray doesn’t it?
From Apple’s next iMacs rumored with compelling new features, on AppleInsider.
A couple of new features rumored to be in the cards for Apple’s forthcoming iMac refresh will up the value proposition for prospective buyers in the market for an all-in-one desktop system, AppleInsider has been told.
[Read Original]
Two Blizzard releases in 2010, company coy on specifics – Ars Technica.
Ben Kuchera over at ArsTechnica, on Blizzard’s two 2010 releases. I’m with him, I think it’s going to be Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.
On demand in command; 51% of young ‘Net users view TV online – Ars Technica.
ArsTechnica has a little story about how young viewers 18-24 are watching a lot of TV online. I’m not sure exactly how the networks are calculating ratings, but isn’t it time they fully account for online TV viewing? I know that in my case I watch nearly all my TV online on Hulu because it gives me full control of my schedule.
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