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I've opened up commenting on this journal to "registered users" from its previous setting of "friends only".

Canucks in Space and other oddities

Source: The Globe and Mail NASA is apparently lending Canada a hand in designing a spacecraft to be launched from Cape Breton. The new spacecraft, pictured here, is called the Silver Dart is is being designed to ferry people and equipment to the International Space Station. They plan to have something ready to test-launch by 2008 and in regular service by 2009. Given that NASA will be retiring the shuttles in 2010, and the replacement system will not be out until 2014, Canada's near-orbit passenger system may be just what they need.

Source: PhysOrg Japanese scientists have developed a type of glass that can switch between being transparent and having a mirror-like surface. The switching process is controlled by changing the composition of the gas between the panes. Introduce hydrogen into the mixture and the glass becomes transparent. Replace the hydrogen with oxygen and the glass becomes like a mirror. They hope to use this to reduce energy use in buildings.

Source: Gizmag The ZAP-X is an electric car capable of cruising up to 350-miles at a top speed of 155-mph (when are they going to start using metric?) and requires just 10 minutes to recharge. To achieve this "fuel" economy, the chassis is made of aluminum, and each wheel is powered by a separate electric motor. The price? $60,000(US), once it ceases to be concept car.

Source: Building Blog This one is more about tech gone wrong than new tech. The town of Picher, Oklahoma is being voluntarily bought out because it is too dangerous to live there. The hills in the photo are actually mine tailings, and the mines extend under the town where they now ocassionally collapse as sinkholes. Large trucks are forbidden from driving through for fear that the ground under one of the streets will collapse under the weight.

Source: Warren Ellis Someone has made a 50-hp mechanical riding tiger. Check out the you-tube video on this. Very cool, even if you could walk faster than it "runs".

A variety of interesting tech-related photos

Source: 101 Gadgets for the Evil Genius

Source: Canova's Dual-Screen Laptop Likes Being Touched

Source: Promotional Gadgets Grip Boston in Fear and Loathing

Source: Tokyo Micro Garden Cellphone Strap

Source: Attack of the Hunter-Killer Grim Reaper Robots

Singing strings and Maxwell's Demon

Source: Gizmodo This devices uses black light to make stains stand out in your carpet or furniture. Of course, now you have to figure out how to get them out. Sometime ignorance truly is bliss.

Source: Gizmodo Hold one end of these plastic strips between your teeth and drag your fingernail along the ridges results in you hearing a message. A package of 5 costs $20(US) and has messages like "happy birthday" and "congratulations". Birthday and other reasons to celebrate not included.

Source: Gizmodo The US military is proposing to build a magnetic launch ring to put things into orbit (or at least, to lob them far up into the atmosphere). The payloads can be 220-pounds and will be released at 21,600-mph. This rules out the possibility of human launches, given that the payload will at some point be subjected to 10,000-gravities of force. Humans typically black out before 10-gravities.

Source: Gizmodo This device detects your finger position on your hand so that it can use each of the 12 finger joints to represent the keys on a regular cell phone.

Source: Coolest Gadgets Scientists have succeeded in creating a device envisioned by physicist James Maxwell more than 150 years ago called a Maxwell's Demon. The "demon" is a nanoscale device that captures molecules as they pass through in a particular direction when illuminated by light. This could lead to nanodevices that move by being irradiated with a laser because the molecule being captured imparts a force to the machine, causing it to move away from the now-captured molecule under the force of momentum.

Huge database aims to include photo of every Tucson house

Source: Arizona Daily Star

Photographers from a Canadian company are going house to house, shooting pictures of the roughly 300,000 houses in metropolitan Tucson. It's part of an effort to photograph and appraise every house in the country, creating a database that can be sold to banks and insurance companies.

Apparently they company (Zaio) is doing this with more than 170 major US centres. Here's more:

A pamphlet that photographers give to residents who question their activities says first responders, such as police and firefighters, could save "precious seconds" if they "can look for a house that matches the photo on the computer screen rather than trying to find an address number that may or may not be visible from the street."

However, Rankin wants residents to know the city didn't request the information and won't be using it.

The company handout goes on to say the images "may also be used by real estate, appraisal assessment, insurance and lending institutions."