Tech News Wrap Up For The Week Of February 26, 2007
Cassini spacecraft snaps new views of Saturn
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has snapped never-before-seen images of Saturn showing the planet from perspectives above and below its ring system, the national space agency said on Thursday.
The images were taken in recent weeks by the probe, which blasted off on a mission to study the planet and its bands a decade ago.
Over the last two months, the spacecraft has climbed to higher and higher inclinations, providing its cameras with glimpses of the planet and rings that have excited scientists.
“Finally, here are the views that we’ve waited years for,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
“Sailing high above Saturn and seeing the rings spread out beneath us like a giant, copper medallion is like exploring an alien world we’ve never seen before. … It’s so utterly breath-taking, it almost gives you vertigo.”
The images released on Thursday included a video sequence showing the rings as they appeared to Cassini while it sped from south to north, rapidly crossing the ring plane.
The spacecraft was launched on October 15, 1997 and entered into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. The mission is a cooperative project between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
Japan dolphin all smiles after prosthetic tail
A Japanese dolphin is squealing with delight after receiving a prosthetic tail to replace one amputated due to a skin disease.
Fuji’s handlers at the Churaumi Aquarium in Japan’s southern most island of Okinawa say the fake tail may have saved her life as she had put on dangerous amounts of weight from being inactive after she lost her tail.
“Because she was not exercising enough (after her tail was amputated) she gained weight and from blood samples we took we realized that her cholesterol levels were too high. We then were afraid that this might trigger other diseases so we had to come up with something,” handler Masaya Koami said.
The tail was custom made for Fuji by a friend of the handler who works at Japan’s leading tire company Bridgestone.
The rubber prosthetic device is slightly smaller than the tail of a dolphin of Fuji’s size. It is made of material used for Formula One race car tires and the black silicon rubber was reinforced with artificial bone made of carbon-fiber.
Sponge rubber was used for parts that come directly in contact with Fuji’s skin.
Bridgestone said they spent at least 10 million yen (about $83,000) to develop and produce the fin.
As for Fuji, the freedom that it brought her is priceless. After initially being frightened of it, the dolphin now leaps and swims with vigor.
Tortoise, hippo friendship now observable Online
A giant tortoise and an orphaned baby hippo who forged an unusual friendship after the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia are the stars of a new Web site so fans can follow their progress.
Mzee, a 130-year-old Aldabran tortoise, became a surrogate parent and inseparable friend to hippo Owen who was washed out to sea off the coast of Kenya, rescued by villagers and taken to a wildlife park where the tortoise lived.
The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that hit in December 2004 left 230,000 people killed or missing, including 170,000 in Indonesia.
The animals’ friendship came to international attention when New York-based father and daughter team, Craig and Isabella Hatkoff, teamed up with the park’s chief environmentalist Paula Kahumbu to write a book about the pair, “Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship.”
They have now released a second book, published by Scholastic, chronicling the deepening friendship, with Owen and Mzee living, sleeping and playing together, but also creating a language of their own.
“They have created sounds unique to hippo or to tortoise and use gentle nods and pushes to communicate with one another,” said a spokeswoman from Scholastic which has just released
“Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship.”
The second installment in the animals’ story follows their remarkable friendship at Haller Park Animal Sanctuary nearMombasa, Kenya, which is operated by Lafarge EcoSystems, a unit of Kenyan cement maker Bamburi.
But as well as updating readers on the friendship, Hatkoff’s publishing company, Turtle Pond Publications, this week also launched Web site www.owenandmzee.com to update fans on the animals with a weekly blog from caretaker Stephen Tuei.
“Their true story that borders on the unbelievable teaches us many beautiful lessons on many levels,” said Hatkoff in a statement.
“The Web site allows us to continually update the public on the pair’s current developments and offers kids new set of online creativity resources and applications at the same time.”
U.S. presidential hopefuls flock to YouTube
Top White House candidates unveiled their own YouTube video channels on Thursday, pushing the 18-month-old Web video-sharing site even farther into the U.S. political mainstream.
Google Inc.’s YouTube, best known for short, amusing videos made by users at home, says You Choose ‘08 (http://www.youtube.com/youchoose) will allow candidates to control how they exchange views with voters.
Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson have signed up to have their own channels. So have Republicans John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.
They can post a video in which they speak on a given issue while members of the public will be able post a video response or questions for the candidate.
Politicians have the final say about what appears on their channels, but they still may be unable to prevent being caught up in what became known last year as the “macaca” phenomenon.
Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia, lost a closely fought election after getting some unwanted publicity when a video showed up on YouTube of him calling a rival’s staffer “macaca” — an African monkey and sometimes a racial slur. The rival’s staffer was of Indian origin.
Jordan Hoffner, YouTube director of content partnerships, said candidates might get the most benefit from their channels by being as open as possible.
“I think the politicians will be better served by letting the dialogue with the public take over,” said Hoffner. “Our users are very smart and savvy and they can see through something if it’s not genuine.”
U.S. presidential candidates are increasingly taking advantage of online video to get their message out. Both Clinton and Edwards opened their campaigns with online messages to voters.
This week McCain launched a channel on Veoh Networks, a smaller online video rival site to YouTube. Veoh founder Dmitry Shapiro said other politicians would soon be joining the site to establish their own channels.
“We live in a world where people want to hear directly from their politicians and not sound bites filtered by editors. Nobody believes the media is impartial,” Shapiro said.
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