http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://centripetalnotion.com/2009/12/10/10:21:55/ A new technique for unpeeling the Earth’s skin and displaying it on a flat surface provides a fresh perspective on geography, making it possible to create maps that string out the continents for easy comparison, or lump together the world’s oceans into one huge mass of water surrounded by coastlines. “Myriahedral projection” was developed by Jack van Wijk, a computer scientist at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. “The basic idea is surprisingly simple,” says van Wijk. His algorithms divide the globe’s surface into small polygons that are unfolded into a flat map, just as a cube can… ]]> Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:50:00 -0700 http://centripetalnotion.com/2009/12/10/10:21:55/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4337315.html?do=print Pick up a 30-year-old astronomy textbook and you will find more illustrations of planets than actual pictures; Pluto still holds onto its full planet status and exoplanets are theoretical. In the intervening decades, new instruments and methods have acted together to form one giant, interdisciplinary zoom lens on our planetary companions in the solar system. We now not only have hi-res images of planets, we can also predict their weather, dig for water under their surfaces and send spacecraft through icy plumes on their moons. Planet by planet, here's a quick guide to how our vision of the solar system… ]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:46:00 -0700 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4337315.html?do=print http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z3cVQcfb-w ]]> Wed, 20 May 2009 09:20:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z3cVQcfb-w