Hasta La Gadget!

Well, not so much the bears themselves–something tells me that letting a grizzly loose on a space station might not be particularly beneficial to the mission. Rather, the key here is bear hibernation, which scientists believe could be a key to enabling travel into deep space.

We measured the bears’ metabolism by continuously measuring the oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations of the air entering and leaving the den. The transmitters inside each bear told us that the bear’s body temperature was not stable, but varied over the winter in slow cycles each lasting several days

Tøien believes that the discovery could make it possible to induce hibernation in people, thus making it possible to survive the long periods required for deep space travel.

Is there a giant planet four times the size of Jupiter hanging out at the edge of our solar system? The consensus from scientists is a definitive “maybe.”  Two researchers at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette believe that there’s a gas giant lurking in our solar system, a theory they base on the strange pattern of comets in the area.

The phantom planet has been nicknamed Tyche, after a Greek goddess, and it’s been the source of some major controversy–which is to say that a lot of fellow scientists aren’t really buying the theories about a giant ninth planet, at least not with the current evidence available.

Over at Discover Magazine, Phil Plait had this to say, 

I read their papers, and thought the data were interesting but unconvincing. The sample size was too small. A bigger study was done, but again the effects weren’t quite enough to rise to the level of breakthrough.

There you have it, a big, fat scientific “maybe.”

“A hundred years ago, Jules Verne wrote a book about a voyage to the Moon. His spaceship, Columbia, took off from Florida and landed in the Pacific Ocean after completing a trip to the Moon. It seems appropriate to us to share with you some of the reflections of the crew as the modern-day Columbia completes its rendezvous with the planet Earth and the same Pacific Ocean tomorrow.”

Those are the words Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong recited for an entranced public as his ship returned from its mission to the moon. Armstrong was right to mention Verne’s 1865 sci-fi classic. There are, in fact, some oddly prescient details in From the Earth to the Moon–even for an author so forward thinking as Verne.

Armstrong points out the similarities between its name and the name of the Apollo 11’s command module–that part’s actually only part right. The name of the space cannon used to launch the ship was the Columbiad, named for a real U.S. cannon that was used heavily in the war of 1812.

Verne estimated that the mission would have cost his day’s equivalent to $12.1 billion. Surprisingly spot on–the Apollo program up through Apollo 8 (the first manned vehicle to circumnavigate the moon) cost $14.4 billion. As with the book, that mission also a crew of three astronauts. Verne’s were named Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl–Apollo 8’s were Anders, Borman and Lovell.

The launch occurred 132 miles from the site of Verne’s prediction. As the above shot illustrates, the two ships also shared a number of physical properties.

Remember those videos of a purported UFO hovering above Jerusalem that had the Web all a twitter last week? It’s probably not a shocker to suggest that they were completely fabricated. But what if I told you that they were actually posted in order to promote an upcoming movie? Irritating, right?

That’s the latest theory. The videos, which created a sensation after being posted to YouTube (one is currently at 1.7 million views), may actually be promotional material for the upcoming film, Battle: Los Angeles. For starters, they appear to be manipulated, digitally. They’ve also been used in material to promote the film.

News.com.au also points out the fact that the company charged with promoting the film launched a Website for the fake Worldwide Assessment of Threats Concerning Humankind over the summer in order to promote the movie.

Video/movie promotion after the jump.

Super Bowl pre-game shows may not be known for catering to the gadget geeks out there, but this year, Fox has a surprise for you. Their pre-game coverage of the big game will feature a humanoid robot, built in a partnership between NASA and General Motors. Robonaut 2, which is scheduled to be launched into orbit on the Space Shuttle Discovery on Feb. 24, is already known (at least on this blog) for going on a date with MSNBC reporter Stephanie Pappas. was filmed interacting with host Howie Long at a car dealership in Dallas last week. No word on exactly what the robot plans to do on the show (here’s to hoping “announce plans for world domination” isn’t in the cards), but when it reaches space, the machine is designed to be a robotic assistant for astronauts on the International Space Station.
One thing the robot won’t be doing is kicking field goals. The design is only humanoid from the chest up, with arms, fingers and a head but no legs. NASA engineers say that they hope to one day build on Robonaut 2 to allow the machine to move around the ISS and, potentially, outside of it for spacewalks.
If you want to get a little taste of the future with your football, the pregame show starts at 2 p.m. Eastern on Fox.

[via Space.com]