Crave

(Credit: NASA)

The International Space Station isn't just an orbiting laboratory, spaceship testing ground, and multinational geek fest--it's also the world's highest (250 miles) and fastest (17,500 mph) computer network. We burrow under its metal skin and siphon out its most interesting specifications, like some kind of star-hopping alien data vampires (but without the plutonium-coated fangs).

Read more of "Space Station IT: High technology" at Crave UK.

(Credit: Jonathan Worth/PopSci)

I know most of you out there think we landed two Americans on the moon in 1969. Well, let me tell you that you're wrong. It's all a hoax! It was done on a sound stage and George Clooney and Dan Aykroyd were involved!

I mean, look at this real-life version of the Atari classic Lunar Lander vector game!

It took British engineer Iain Sharp less than $800 and a year to build this replica in his garage to honor the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, and it works almost like the real thing. It's powered by a pair of old PCs he wrote custom software for. In addition, the movements are controlled by things like old inkjet printer motors, and fishing line. But what's important is it works just like a real lunar lander would--if one existed.

If Sharp can make a device like this in his garage in his spare time then it's not a leap to assume the U.S. government could have made a full-size mock-up with the years and millions it took to make the so-called "moon shot" happen. This awesome toy might be all the evidence I need. Myth busted.

(Via PopSci)

AlterG's new M300 series is smaller than the original and lower in price.

(Credit: AlterG)

We got our first close look at the AlterG antigravity treadmill at a health expo in San Francisco earlier this year, and at the time, the price was floating up there somewhere near the space station.

But we've good news for those who like the idea of running like an astronaut: Fremont, Calif.-based AlterG on Monday plans to announce a more affordable model, the AlterG M300. The two treadmills in the M300 series deliver the same antigravity technology as AlterG's pricey $75,000 P200 series, but at a third of the cost--$24,500 to $27,000.

Yes, we know that hardly puts the AlterG in the range of the Total Gym, but it does move the device beyond the realm of the sports elite into a bracket accessible to more gyms and physical therapy clinics.

Patty Shives, who runs on the AlterG to aid her rehabilitation from a hemorrhagic stroke, adjusts the settings on the machine.

(Credit: AlterG)

Medical institutions, college athletic programs, and sports teams around the country (including the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Cowboys, and Arizona Diamondbacks) already use the AlterG, but wider distribution could prove beneficial for Parkinson's patients, stroke survivors, and others reporting progress as a result of the technology.

AlterG's antigravity technology was originally developed at NASA and tested at Nike's Oregon Research Project by America's top distance runners.

The treadmill works by pumping air into an enclosure that surrounds users from the waist down. They zip themselves in, and an increase in air pressure lifts them so they can run at a fraction of their actual weight (pressing the up/down arrows on the control panel decreases body weight at increments of 1 percent, as much as 80 percent).

The reduction lowers the impact on joints and muscles to improve training and performance or help provide a smooth recovery from injury or surgery. Speed and incline are adjustable as with any treadmill.

"Removing the physical burden of weight bearing has remarkable results," said Bryan Nadeau of AlterG customer Muir Orthopedic Specialists, located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Paty Shives, 46, is one patient who has seen such results. ... Read more

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for iPhone.

OK, that's probably a little overly dramatic, but the new NASA iPhone app, which was released Friday, is pretty cool.

With NASA's iPhone app, space geeks can access all kinds of information about their favorite missions.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Designed to provide information, updates, and images on all current and scheduled NASA missions, the app--which can be found in Apple's App Store under the name "NASA app for iPhone--nicely allows you to search for any specific mission, say, Constellation, and then find information and images just for that project.

"Users can access NASA countdown clocks, the NASA Image of the Day, Astronomy Image of the Day, online videos, NASA's many Twitter feeds," and more, the space agency said in a press release about the app. It also allows users to track where the International Space Station is at any moment, as well as other spacecraft orbiting the planet, in three different views: maps with labels and borders, available visible imagery of satellites, and satellite positions overlaid on maps with country labels and borders.

Already, NASA nuts--you know who you are--have had access to much of this information online. But now, having it all available in a free iPhone app is going to keep these people happily staring down at the screen of their devices no matter where they are.

And for NASA, anything it can do to get more people excited about its various missions and projects is a good thing as it struggles for public resources and attention in an era where the economy is in trouble and people are increasingly distracted by other things.

Jimmy McBride's "The Black Eye Galaxy" measures 45 inches by 60 inches and sells for $2,000. Most of McBride's space quilts are for kids, be we think adults would like them, too.

(Credit: Jimmy McBride)

On these chilly fall days I like to combat my crippling seasonal depression curled up in a blanket with a grilled cheese sandwich, soup, and some strong liquor. If only my blanket was as nice as these space-inspired quilts.

Designed by artist Jimmy McBride, the quilts draw inspiration from both astronomy and sci-fi movies--a mixture of real science and imagination. Plus they look really warm.

If you happen to be in the New York area, you can see the quilt pictured above at the Made in New York: City Quilting exhibition through November 14. Click on the gallery below to see more of McBride's spacey creations.

Snuggle up with a space quilt -- photos

This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.

(Credit: Branz.org)

Like most social-networking sites, Twitter isn't immune to lurkers, fakes, and creeps. The 404 Twitter account received over 600 followers in the last 24 hours, which leads us to believe that we're either becoming wildly popular or more likely, the new adds are demonized accounts; in other words, people that had their accounts taken over by a spam bot. This has to stop, Biz--stop teasing our egos!

In other ridiculous news, the CBS video print ad we picked apart in Episode 411 is fetching up to $400 on eBay--what the what? If we'd known that prices would skyrocket on the black market, we would have ganked a few more copies from our parent company, CBS! This is a great example of how you can buy practically anything online, including an 800 thread count Egyptian Cotton duvet cover or a set of custom-made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle drapes from your humble host's childhood...don't ask, just watch the show.

After the break, we get to a few Calls From the Public, including one from a caller all the way in the Caribbean! We also run down the 20 best cartoons from the 1990s, but they forgot about the X-Men cartoon! And where is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Frickin Turtles?!" Take a look at the list and let us know your favorites!

(Credit: Space Foosball Project)

Wow, the humble foosball table just continues to evolve. This latest incarnation keeps the familiar handles, but replaces the spinning players and ball with physics-powered graphics developed at Ewha Women's University in Korea. It looks pretty cool in action:

(Credit: Space Foosball Project)

The handles are tracked by infrared sensors, and the software uses that information to make the players spin on the virtual soccer field in a realistic way.

The Space Foosball table was only really built to demonstrate the team's physics engine, so you won't be able to pick one up anytime soon. I'm OK with that: it's nice eye candy, but I'd miss the satisfaction of hearing that old-school mechanical clunk when you score (or get too excited and almost break the table).

(Credit: Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh)

You don't always need an expensive professional dSLR to capture awe-inspiring images. Sometimes, a basic Canon A470 point and shoot, a little ingenuity, and a beer cooler are all you need. That is what two M.I.T. students used to capture images of the Earth from space, well, actually the upper atmosphere; technically, it wasn't high enough to be space.

Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh, M.I.T. students, had a goal of flying a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the earth, they named it Project Icarus. With out having a NASA size budget for a rocket, they opted for the more cost effective method of filling a weather balloon with helium and suspending a Styrofoam cooler underneath that held the camera. They also placed some instant hand warmers inside the cooler to try to keep the camera and its battery from freezing.

The balloon was launched from Sturbridge, Mass., on September 2, 2009. The University of Wisconsin maintains a balloon trajectory Web site that they used to try to determine where it might land. A GPS-enabled prepaid cell phone was placed in the cooler to let them track its return to Earth and to locate it after landing, a fairly low-tech but creative and effective navigation system.

The camera and balloon made it to 93,000 feet, high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. So high, that the cooler took 40 minutes to return to earth. It is around this altitude that a balloon will pop, allowing the rig to fall back to earth. The Canon A470 camera was hacked with the Canon Hackers Development Kit that modifies the firmware to add features such as an intervalomter. They set the intervalometer to shoot a photo every five seconds; an 8GB memory card gave them enough storage capacity to hold all of the images from the five hour flight.

Their project's total cost for everything was $148, cheap enough anyone could try it. The students say they will soon make available step-by-step instructions for their space camera project. Check out the project Web site for more information.

Dell has partnered with Nickelodeon and Whyville.net to give life to its latest version of the Mini10v. According to Dell, the kids' Netbook has been designed with safe computing, education, and entertainment in mind. At a glance, Dell is only trying to reach another market (children), but if you look a little closer, the Netbook may represent a change in the way the next generation of preteens and children will learn to socialize and develop their decision-making skills.

(Credit: Dell)

The Netbook comes with desktop animations which link to Whyville.net, a virtual world where kids of all ages chat, shop, and visit places in town that engage them in science, nutrition, art, and business activities.

One of the most interesting locations is the cafeteria, where Whyvillians can pick a food item, view its nutritional facts, and select a meal based on an educated decision. If their character eats more fattening, high-calorie items, the cartoon character will see the effects as it becomes fatter and unhealthy. Likewise, if the character doesn't eat enough, he will become frail and sickly. A lack of vitamin C will cause scurvy sores, and a lack of calcium will cause weak bones and a bandaged head. As a result, the child may be advised that his Whyvillian should see the Whyville nutritionist.