artist impression

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after a few issues with lumpy ingredients Phoenix is baking dirt-browns - hopefully they’ll be enough for all us earf-lings to get a nibble .

feed the world, make it a better place; for you and for me and you know that’d be really ace

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>
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its a choice we’re making,
we’re saving our own lives,
its true we make a brighter day and stuff and all that
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_wow .

we have ice ! * .

^*possibly

all we need now is some gin & tonic .
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_{wham !
lame .
so ?
peh .}

crazy times going down in the solar system ‘hood this week … in the scope of humanity the first steps towards possibly the most self-defining event ^ever taking place .

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the possible discovery of extra-terresticular life forms .

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Phoenix is scheduled to land on Mars at 23:38 UTC May 25, 2008 . which has just happened .
its mission ? crack some ice on Mars’ north pole and plant a probe .

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you go little fella

homepage

the First Digital Camera

Invented in 1975 by Steven J. Sasson. It weighed 3.6 kgs, was the size of a toaster, and produced a 0.01 megapixel (100_px x 100_px ?) image that took 23 seconds to record onto a digital cassette tape.

^{clic pic fer big}

sweeeteeeteeeeeeet - the first photo was pr0n apparently

… either that or Led Zep judging by the picture

thanks Kodak via Digg

graphene . graphene . graphene .

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there .

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bastardised heavily from New Scientist .. .. . . . . .. .
Transistors one atom thick and ten atoms wide have been made from Graphene - predicted to one day oust silicon as the basis of future computing .

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Silicon cannot form stable structures below 10 nanometres in size. Today’s newest chips already have features just 45 nm across. The hunt is on for a replacement for silicon. A forum of experts in Bonn have decided to rename Silicon to Silican’t . Ha ha .

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The wavelength of light is 400nM - 700nM . And we’re making shit smaller then that . shitkebabs . Nimble fingers .

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graphene .

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sombrero galaxy - M104 - discovered by humanity 1781 -
nucleus a supermassive black hole
ain’t it freakin beautiful
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more info from APOD
large JPG ^{- recommended}
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its bigger than a house !
makes yer feel pretty humble ay ?

…and if it’s latest attempt blows it maybe the cow’ll come through!

Alobar.

A week ago, the MESSENGER spacecraft transmitted to here the first high-resolution image of Mercury by a spacecraft in over 30 years, since the three Mercury flybys of Mariner 10 in 1974 and 1975.
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MESSENGER’s Wide Angle Camera (WAC), part of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), is equipped with 11 narrow-band color filters, in contrast to the two visible-light filters and one ultraviolet filter that were on Mariner 10’s vidicon camera.
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By combining images taken through different filters in the visible and infrared, the MESSENGER data allow Mercury to be seen in a variety of high-resolution color views not previously possible.
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The navigation team is lead by KinetX, Inc. of Tempe, AZ. KinetX is the first private company to be responsible for navigation of a NASA deep space mission.
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> boomshanka > “Call me a communist but i’m not sure i like the fact commercial interests are getting involved in this sort of expedition - democratically elected governments sure, be my guest, but McCompany? Harks to me of the Dutch East Indies ventures - discover, take control, plunder . But how many governments have that sorta cash? Well if they weren’t too busy fighting stoopid wars…”

Alobar