Earth from orbit, human regeneration project, Chinese Next-Gen Internet, Saturn’s rings…

• 1 – Short-Term Ocean Cooling Suggests Global Warming ‘Speed Bump’
  “The average temperature of the water near the top of the Earth’s oceans has significantly cooled since 2003. New research suggests global warming trends are not always steady in their effects on ocean temperatures.” Cue denialist spin…
  (tags: research drop temperature ocean term short science environment warming global)
• 2 – The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth
  “The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth hosts the best and most complete online collection of astronaut photographs of the Earth from 1961 through the present.” Hell, yes.
  (tags: resource geography global space earth images photos astronaut archives)
• 3 – Brief Notes on a Double Life
  “When I sat down to read Julie Phillips’ biography of Alice Sheldon, I made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to write a review of it.” Which means this lengthy post by Niall Harrison is anything but a review, then…
  (tags: feminism authors writing Jr Tiptree James Sheldon Alice biography history fiction science)
• 4 – Grow Your Own Limbs
  “Prosthetics are getting better all the time, but they will never be as good as the limbs we were born with. So two teams of scientists at 10 institutions across the country are competing to regrow the first mammalian limb.”
  (tags: transhumanism futurism regeneration biology regrowth limb research medical health science)
• 5 – Underperforming nuclear plant’s future in jeopardy
  “A British nuclear plant recently constructed to make plutonium fuel for power reactors in Japan and Europe has been plagued with so many breakdowns that it may have to be shut down.” One of Tony’s pet projects, BTW.
  (tags: reactor down shut closure breakdowns danger processing fuel plant nuclear UK)
• 6 – Digital fingerprint door lock defeated by photocopied ‘print
  ” … to top it all off, they did it a third time (check the video link below) with a just a photocopy of the master fingerprint and a little saliva.” Everything can (and will) be hacked.
  (tags: video exploit defeat lock biometric fingerprint digital hack privacy security)
• 7 – Superbus
  “It is an electric bus designed to be able to switch seamlessly between ordinary roads and dedicated “supertracks”, on which it can reach speeds of 250kph (155mph).” But will it ever actually be built?
  (tags: vapourware futurism solution transit passenger hybrid train transport public bus SuperBus Dutch)
• 8 – China Builds a Better Internet
  “China’s Next Generation Internet (CNGI), a faster, more secure, more mobile version of the current one.” Blimey. They could really steal a march on the West if this comes off.
  (tags: ipv6 Olympics 2008 IP technology business advantage mover first project protocol internet generation next China)
• 9 – Pale Blue Orb
  “Cassini casts powerful eyes on our home planet, and captures Earth, a pale blue orb — and a faint suggestion of our moon — among the glories of the Saturn system.” Wow. Just wow.
  (tags: Earth rings Saturn pictures images probe Cassini space)
• 10 – Saturn’s Rings in a New Light
  “The occultation of the Sun put the spacecraft in position to see the rings with exquisite and detail-enhancing backlighting, providing striking visual evidence for their extensive interaction with some of Saturn’s smaller moons.”
  (tags: crystals ice Enceladus E rings Saturn pictures images probe Cassini space)