Category: Science

LEGO NXT

 

 

LEGO has announced the next generation of the Mindstorm robotics line of learning toys. The NXT will have more input and output ports (3 in and 4 out), a cleaner design (no bumps, just holes – I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not), and a simpler programming language. Where the old Mindstorms used an optical IR tower to communicate with a PC for programming , the new ones will use a USB 2 interface. The new kits also come with sonar sensors and servo motors with built in rotational sensors and Bluetooth radio. There is no word if any of the parts will be compatible with the old Mindstorm kits but it will be programmable from both PC and Mac platforms. From what was in the Wired article it looks as if the NXT OS may be open to hackers that will want to make their own firmware revisions but that yet to be confirmed. LEGO has had a tough year and I’m quite glad that they have not scrapped the robotics product line in favor of saving money.

[via Wired, Gizmodo, NXT Blog, and Robot Magazine] 

LEGO NXT

Insect Cyborgs

 

Researchers in Japan have been implanting microcomputers and electrode backpacks into the bodies of roaches in order to control them remotely. Their aim is to be able to give directional commands to them so he insects can search through small spaces like earthquake rubble or pipes. Using the electronics laden bugs as literal bugs for espionage work is also a possibility.

Another robot-roach

An Explosion on the Moon

Moon Boom! 

On November 7th of this year scientists that were testing a telescope managed to spot an impact on the moon. This sort of this has been seen a few times before, mostly during heavy meteor showers such as the Leonids. 

NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed into the ground traveling 27 km/s.

Well that’s the cover story that ‘they’ want you to believe. What actually happened is that the UN Space Forces launched a covert strike on the hidden Nazi moon base that is located on the far side. The German research into rocket science was more successful than the scientists that we ‘liberated’ let on. Our German scientists were not the ‘best of the best’ as we would have like to have believes, not by a long shot. The real researchers were able to perfect the  methods of heavy lifting needed to place large installations in space. While this was happening, a core group of technicians, scientists, and military personal that were not loyal to the party line split off an formed their own black space program towards the end of WWII. In the turmoil of the coming end of the Third Reich, they used the cover of bombing raids and the explosions of ‘sabotaged’ factories as cover while they launched their group into space and ultimately to the moon where they established a base on the far side. Over the decades the UN has detected strange signals emanating from this remote but thriving base and fear the worst; the coming of the Fourth Reich. The bright flash that these astronomers witnessed was not an impact of a chunk of rock but the explosion of a failed attempt to wipe out the moon base. The missile was deflected by a force dome or other device that protects the undoubtly evil citizens of the Nazi moon base. Fear the coming of the space Nazi invasion fleet, it’s only a matter of time until they strike!

NASA – An Explosion on the Moon