Tesla coils, pill portraits, breathing urine, buy your own satellite…

• 1 – How I trained myself to get up earlier in the morning
  More advice on getting more hours out of your day. I’d be better at getting up if I wasn’t always up late at night writing this here blog.
  (tags: health psychology advice lifehacks productivity sleep)
• 2 – Photos from tesla1000
  This guy puts photos of high-voltage Tesla coil action up on Flickr for all to see. Look at the pretty lights, see the deadly arcs!
  (tags: images photos danger electricity experiments voltage high coils Tesla)
• 3 – Star Trek Maze
  Star Trek fans can be so obsessive that they make the rest of us SF geeks look comparatively normal. British farmer makes 32 acre maze in his fields in honour of 40 years of Trekking. Link via BoingBoing.
  (tags: commemoration anniversary maze giant fields farmer UK fan Trek Star geek)
• 4 – The New Highest Parachutist
  Take a balloon to the stratosphere (wearing a spacesuit and parachute, natch) and then jump off, 130,000 feet above the Earth. This gentleman must have cast iron balls.
  (tags: speed Fournier Michel stratosphere freefall jump parachute record world)
• 5 – Portraits made from pills
  Artwork by Andy Diaz Hope – does what it says on the tin, er, bottle.
  (tags: Hope Diaz Andy capsules gel medicine pills portraits art)
• 6 – Gadgets get the feel of the tactile world
  NewScientist reports on the rise of haptic interfaces.
  (tags: gaming gadgets devices machine human interface tactile touch haptics senses technology)
• 7 – Don’t Flush It — Breathe It
  Making oxygen from recycled urine. I imagine the smell might piss you off after a while…
  (tags: urine purified air breathable recycling system generation oxygen astronauts ISS space)
• 8 – A stronger surfboard resin to illustrate the benefits of nanotechnology
  Duuuude, like, how totally sweet is that? Nanotech is radical. Link via NanoBot.
  (tags: science manufacture resin board surf nanotechnology nanotech)
• 9 – Your Very Own Satellite
  For the knockdown price of just $860,000, no less.
  (tags: launch payload research science technology ownership private space satellite)
• 10 – Proportionality…
  …is badly needed in the Middle East right now. Link via Human Iterations.
  (tags: crime moral escalation retaliation proportionality terrorism atrocities war Palestine Israel)
• 11 – Autism in UK ‘more common than thought’
  Possibly because they’ve broadened the criteria of what autism is. But if this increase is genuine, surely that’s a pointer to an environmental cause?
  (tags: increase incidence UK health mental disorder spectrum syndrom asperger’s autism psychology)
• 12 – NASA Explains Puzzling Impact Of Polluted Skies On Climate
  “NASA scientists have determined that the formation of clouds is affected by the lightness or darkness of air pollution particles. This also impacts Earth’s climate.” Nothing is ever simple, is it?
  (tags: science environment weather change climate atmosphere aerosols clouds pollution)
• 13 – Of Syd Barrett, Psychedelia and Psilocybin
  LiveScienceBlog discusses the recent psychedelics study in the light of Syd Barrett’s passing.
  (tags: legislation drugs psychology therapy research Floyd Pink Barrett Syd psychedelics hallucinogenics psilocybin)
• 14 – ET in a Grain of Sand?
  Is radio-based SETI the most efficient method, or should we be sending out (and looking for) physical artifacts?
  (tags: life space message artifacts scanning signals radio intelligence extraterrestrial search SETI)
• 15 – Technologists object to U.S. RFID passports
  The backlash begins against RFIDs in US passports…The Bruces (Sterling and Schneier) make an appearance to lay down the facts. Link vi NewScientistBlogs.
  (tags: technology surveillance arphid terrorism US passport security RFID privacy)
• 16 – The first 24 minutes…
  …of the new ‘A Scanner, Darkly’ movie based on the Philip. K. Dick novel. Wh0000t! Not safe for work…and watch out for the aphids. Link via Metafilter.
  (tags: preview animation scifi sf fiction science Dick Philip Darkly Scanner clip movie video free)