Monday, September 13, 2004

Creepy-crawlie-coolies!!! Robot Spider Walks on Water. MIT researchers produce a tiny water-skimming robot prototype they think could monitor water supplies for toxins or skim contaminants off the top of water. [Wired News] In a story that hints at Spiders, MIT has unveiled a new crop of water walking robots that look like Jesus Bugs and could be the perfect little spy. (click on the photo to make it BiG) It's only a prototype, but some researchers imagine the water-skimming robot could have many uses. With a chemical sensor, it could monitor water supplies for toxins; with a camera it could be a spy or an explorer; with a net or a boom, it could skim contaminants off the top of water. Producing it was "the final challenge of microrobotics," said Sitti, who runs Carnegie Mellon's NanoRobotics Lab. "It needs to be so light and so compact." Sitti's robot is little more than a half-inch boxy body made from carbon fibers and eight, 2-inch steel-wire legs coated with a water-repelling plastic (technically making it a water spider). 1:33:57 PM     leave/read comments []

Dept. of Denial I'm leaning towards the explanation I heard on BBC World Service last night- the blast was a test of conventional explosives made to model a nuclear blast, not unlike the 100 tons of dynamite that were exploded at Trinity Site, days before the fist atomic device test. OR, it could have been a test shot of a trigger explosive device- the conventional explosives used to accelerate fissionable material into chain reaction. Either way, not happy-making. DPRK-Blast (VOA). International community unlikely to buy Pyongyang's explanation that last Thursday's huge blast near the Chinese border was a deliberate detonation to clear a mountain for a  North Korean hydro-electric project. [Nippon Goro Goro] 12:50:34 PM     leave/read comments []

You prolly won't be able to get through, what with the site being BB'd and all, but try it tomorrow at least. If you aren't easily offended, that is. Online surreal/comic short film: Beautiful. Xeni Jardin: A disturbing new online art short from LA-based blogger, performance artist, and filmmaker Kitty Bukkake. Begins like a laudanum-induced Christina Aguilera karaoke hallucination, then u-turns into Carrie meets Karen Finley meets a back-alley psychosexual nightmare. Link, non-worksafe to the max. [Boing Boing] 12:48:06 PM     leave/read comments []