ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

NASA to Make Big-Bada-Boom

NASA is planning on crashing a space probe into the moon in 2009. The explosion will be visible on Earth through a telescope and it will create a crater roughly the size of a third of a football field. This explosion does actually have a purpose; NASA is searching for ice on the moon to … Continued

ScienceHealth

The I-PPO Menstrual Cycle Tracker

Even those of us at Gizmodo who get periods don’t understand what the point of the I-PPO menstrual cycle tracker is. If we’re going to be adding another device to the cache of electronics we always lug around with us, and all it really does is tell us when we’re going to be ovulating and … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

iPod From Orbit

The story goes like this: when Apple CEO Steve Jobs won an abandoned mineral mine in western Australia in a poker game from late Australian publishing and gaming tycoon Kerry Packer, he reportedly asked that the first advertisement capable of being seen from space be created there. Two years later, and what do you know, … Continued

ScienceHealth

Foldable Crutches

To prevent adding insult to injury, these foldable crutches make it easier for someone to put away long, awkward crutches when they are not needed. The innovation was driven from need, as one of the designers at Astro Design in San Francisco uses crutches. Starting as an arms-length pod these crutches can easily be stowed … Continued

ScienceHealth

Pill Takers Cup

Chunky pills always make your gag reflex act up? This plastic cup has a small ledge inside for you to place your pills on, so they slide right along your mouth and into your throat with the liquid when you drink. Simple idea, affordable price: just $3.99 at Miles Kimball. Pill Takers Cup [Miles Kimball] … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

The Great Space Elevator

There are startups and then there are startups. Web 2.0 is all fine and dandy and I love AJAX as much as the next person but let’s face it, as amazing as Flickr, del.icio.us and MeasureMap are, they and the rest of the new web apps combined and taken to the tenth power aren’t even … Continued

ScienceHealth

iPod Used to ID Unconscious Woman

A San Francisco woman, who was the victim of a hit-and-run while jogging, was properly identified thanks to her iPod and some ingenious thinking by investigators. No form of identification was found on her, but she did have her trusty iPod. The iPod was taken to the local Apple store and the woman was able … Continued

ScienceHealth

Automatic Blood-Toxin Detection

A pair of scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara and two high school students have developed a sensor that can detect cocaine in the bloodstream along with other biotoxins. The sensor can be built into portable devices and can perform the entire detection process real-time in just a few minutes. It works … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Persian Gulf To Build Spaceport

Their oil is going to run dry one day, so in the meantime, it looks like Persian Gulf countries are going to build spaceports. Okay, so that’s a bit of a generalization&mdash but at least in the United Arab Emirates, the US company Space Adventures is set to build a new $265 million station with … Continued

ScienceHealth

Internet Cafes Have Filthy Mice

And not always of the rodent variety. A new Korean study found that below shopping cart handles, internet cafe mice had the second-largest concentration of bacteria out of a list of commonly touched communal objects. Of the 20 mice tested from 4 cafes, they found an average of 690 Colony Forming Units (CFUs) — compared … Continued

SciencePhysics & Chemistry

World’s Fastest Digital Camera

A group of 20 scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have spent the past five years developing this project. The 8-foot-tall camera can take images at less than two-billionths of a second. The project, called the Regional Calorimeter Trigger, is used to take pictures of colliding particles. This $6 million digicam will finally … Continued

ScienceHealth

Portable, Waterproof Electrocardiograph

Ever wanted to take a bath while wearing your electrocardiograph? Or did you ever just want to see how your body reacts to taking the plunge into a tub of cold pudding? Or do you really not care and are reading this instead of doing end-of-year reports? Well, you’re in luck! Fukuda Denshi Co. in … Continued

ScienceHealth

VIOlight Toothbrush Sanitizer

There comes a time where you must sanitize some things. Sure, I’ve dropped my toothbrush in the toilet after Mexican night, but did that stop me from using it? Of course not. But when I walked in and saw the rapidly-growing fungus on it three weeks later, I decided that instead of buying a new … Continued

ScienceHealth

Halo Breast “Exam”

We know that you all have Xbox on the mind, but this is not the rumored Master Chief lawsuit stemming from that Whitesnake concert “free breast exam” incident back in ’82. This is actually the Halo breast papanicolaou (pap) testing system developed by NeoMatrix, LLC. It uses suction devices to extract nipple aspirate fluid from … Continued

ScienceHealth

Eye Protecting LCD Monitors

This one goes out to all of the cubicle warriors out there right now. Day in and day out you are forced to sit and stare at a monitor doing the same thing every day. Well those monitors the company supplied you with aren t exactly working out best towards your health. There is a … Continued

ScienceHealth

HeartPOD Helps With Heart Failure Digitally

Savacor Inc. is betting that you have congestive heart failure and that you want to be able to keep control of it digitally. So they bought up every last Handspring Visor from the junkyard they could find and slapped their software onto them. The result is the HeartPOD, a system designed to help monitor the … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

NASA’s Dancing Space Penis

I love NASA. Space travel++. So they invented a skin that helps robots stay out of the way of humans. Good. So they show it off by playing music from Behind the Green Door and having some woman dance around it in tights. Oh, and the robot they used looks like a penis. So we’re … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

The Mars Bio-Suit

I don’t know about you, but the planet Mars fascinates me greatly. All those crazy raves and space parties with aliens always look so fun. Plus Val Kilmer went there so it’s gotta be good, right? Well MIT agrees and has developed the Bio-Suit, a suit for exploring the surface of mars and other planets. … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Space Cycle

Puke Cycle is more like it. This device is designed to create gravity-like resistance for exercising in space. As anyone who has spent time in the inky blackness of the cosmos or has TiVo will tell you, the muscles of the body atrophy when not met with regular resistance. The Space Cycle will spin around, … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Space LED Watch

We covered these lads a few weeks back and they’ve finally launched the Space line of LED watches. These new pieces have a much more bulbous look and are clad in stainless steel. Priced at about $90, they’re available for pre-order. I have the gunmetal version and wear it quite a bit. It’s a good … Continued