iPhone App Tells You If a Satellite Is Watching

In case you're hungry for personal space situational awareness, or are just plain paranoid, a new iPhone app can tell you when and what imaging spacecraft might have you in sight.

Orbit Logic of Greenbelt, Md., has created SpyMeSat, an app that provides notifications when spy satellites and unclassified imaging satellites are zooming above your head and may be taking your picture. A dynamic map shows orbit tracks and the location of remote sensing satellites with upcoming passes over a user's specified location.

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Alex Herz, president of Orbit Logic, said that SpyMeSat is the firm's first app designed for everyday folks, and a product that extends the company's customer base beyond the aerospace, defense and government intelligence communities. [The Top 10 Space Apps]
"I actually got the idea for the app from talking to friends outside the aerospace industry who were always very interested in space and satellites and imaging from space. This app answers those questions in a fun and interactive way," Herz told SPACE.com.
The SpyMeSat app makes use of multiple sources, including orbit data from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The NORAD spacecraft data come via CelesTrak, a website designed to provide current orbital software, educational materials and links to software to support tracking satellites and understanding orbital mechanics.
That information is melded with available public information about commercial and international imaging satellites.
The iPhone app user can see a satellite’s trajectory around his or her location, as well as get an alert when a camera-snapping or radar-scanning satellite might be in range.
Moreover, the app user can learn more details about each imaging opportunity, and also peruse a page describing the satellite that's zooming by overhead. According to Orbit Logic, SpyMeSat users can organize the app in several ways, such as modifying the location of interest.

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All of the imaging satellites in SpyMeSat are in low-Earth orbit at an altitude of about 500 miles (805 kilometers). Enabled SpyMeSat satellites include such zoom-lens notables as GeoEye, the French space agency’s SPOT-5, India's CartoSat-2A, DigitalGlobe's WorldView satellites and Canada's RADARSAT-2.
Of course, a SpyMeSat imaging-pass notification doesn't necessarily mean that a satellite is taking your picture. An identified satellite could have its camera in off mode or pointed elsewhere along its ground track.
SpyMeSat does not include all imaging spacecraft. No classified imaging satellites, from any nation, have their orbit information published, so these satellites do not show up in the app.

Source : news.discovery.com

First Fully Bionic Man Walks, Talks and Breathes

He walks, he talks and he has a beating heart, but he's not human — he's the world's first fully bionic man.

Like Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together from a hodgepodge of body parts, the bionic man is an amalgam of the most advanced human prostheses — from robotic limbs to artificial organs to a blood-pumping circulatory system.
The creature "comes to life" in "The Incredible Bionic Man," premiering Sunday (Oct. 20) on the Smithsonian Channel at 9 p.m. EDT/8 p.m. CDT. (Watch Video of the Bionic Man)

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Roboticists Rich Walker and Matthew Godden of Shadow Robot Co. in England led the assembly of the bionic man from prosthetic body parts and artificial organs donated by laboratories around the world.
"Our job was to take the delivery of a large collection of body parts — organs, limbs, eyes, heads — and over a frantic six weeks, turn those parts into a bionic man," Walker told LiveScience during an interview. But it's not as simple as connecting everything like Tinkertoys. "You put a prosthetic part on a human who is missing that part," Walker said. "We had no human; we built a human for the prosthetic parts to occupy."
The robot, which cost almost $1 million to build, was modeled in some physical aspects after Bertolt Meyer, a social psychologist at the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, who wears one of the world's most advanced bionic hands. (See Photos of the Bionic Man)

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The bionic man has the same prosthetic hand as Meyer — the i-LIMB made by Touch Bionics — with a wrist that can fully rotate and motors in each finger. The hand's grasping abilities are impressive, but the bionic man still drops drinks sometimes.
"He's not the world's best bartender," Walker said.
The robot sports a pair of robotic ankles and feet from BiOM in Bedford, Mass., designed and worn by bioengineer Hugh Herr of MIT's Media Lab, who lost his own legs after getting trapped in a blizzard as a teenager.
To support his prosthetic legs, the bionic man wears a robotic exoskeleton dubbed "Rex," made by REX Bionics in New Zealand. His awkward, jerky walk makes him more Frankensteinian than ever.
But it doesn't end there — the bionic man also has a nearly complete set of artificial organs, including an artificial heart, blood, lungs (and windpipe), pancreas, spleen, kidney and functional circulatory system.

Source : news.discovery.com

Radiation-Proof Underwear Protects The Goods

Japan has no shortage of quirky underwear gimmicks, from fart-eating skivvies to panty-dispensing vending machines. But the Fukushima nuclear disaster is no joke, so let’s at least keep the snickering to a minimum.
Osaka-based materials company Yamamoto has developed anti-radiation underwear and swimwear that protects the body’s most sensitive parts from harmful gamma rays.
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Inspired by the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant — caused by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 – the underwear weighs 7.5 pounds and consists of a top and bottom made from lead-based fabric. According Yamamoto, when it goes on the market, the underwear will cost about $825.
Made out of carbon-embedded rubber to block radiation, the wetsuit weighs 6.6 pounds and is expected to sell for $1,073, starting in November.
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As you can imagine, the bodywear is not made for happy-go-lucky people seeking a leisurely stroll or swim by leaking nuclear plants. Both garments were developed for land and water workers in Fukushima who are still trying to contain the waste that continues to seep into the groundwater. The suits would effectively be worn as added protection, in conjunction with traditional radiation suits.
These undergarments may not turn any heads or show up any runways, but when it comes to keeping one’s nether regions radiation-free, I say “the bigger and uglier, the better.”
via CNET

Source : news.discovery.com