All the high-end space projects and space travel that go on at NASA require some serious computing power. For a lot of years NASA has operated IBM Z9 mainframe computers. NASA describes the Z9 mainframe as reliable, highly available, secure, and powerful. These machines were used mostly for transaction oriented needs that required lots of input and output such as reading and writing data from storage devices.
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‘Science’ Stories
NASA retires its last IBM Z9 mainframe
Mattel Hover Board prepped for 2012 holiday release
Before you have a heart attack over the undeniable excellence that would be a real live hovering Hover Board from Back to the Future: Part II, note that this one doesn't QUITE float yet. Instead we get an assurance that this Hover Board does not work on water and that the price for this 1:1 replica will indeed be produced by Mattel and will be released in a "minimum orders required" fashion. This means that because the creation of this item is so costly to Mattel, they're requiring that a minimum number of pre-orders be placed before they go into production.
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NASA assessing viability of deep space outpost near the moon
NASA has announced that is investigating the possibility of placing a deep-space outpost near the far side of the moon. This location is being looked at because it is a location of the liberation point, which is a point in space at which the gravitational pull between the moon and the earth is roughly equal. The tip came from a memo issued on February 3 by William Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA.
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European Vega rocket set for maiden voyage
Europe is set to launch its new Vega rocket for the first time. This new rocket is a satellite launcher that is designed to carry multiple satellites into orbit and place them into precise orbital locations. The rocket is 30m tall and on its first flight will be carrying nine different satellites. The most interesting of the satellites looks like a metal disco ball with highly effective reflectors on its outer surface.
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Japanese scientists create Avatar in real life, sort of
A group of Japanese researchers have developed technology that allows someone to wear a visor and a special pair of gloves to control a nearby robot. It's like putting yourself in place of the robot, from the comfort of sitting down. If that sounds at all confusing, how about we put it this way - it's like the movie Avatar but in real life. Oh yeah; you knew it was only a matter of time, right?
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Video claims to show long extinct woolly mammoth crossing a Siberian river
A very strange video has surfaced this week that claims to show an extinct woolly mammoth wading through a river. There are several obvious issues, the biggest of which is the fact that the mammoth has been extinct for thousands of years. Apparently, the other issue is the man the posted the video has been tied to other videos believed to be hoaxes.
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European researchers use 3D-printed jaw in successful human surgery
Instead of traditional reconstructive surgery, an 83-year-old patient was outfitted with a new jaw that came not from another human body but from a 3D printer. Doctors had decided it was too risky to perform the more common form of surgery because of the patient's age and fraile condition. And believe it or not, it appears to have been a resounding success.
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Austrian daredevil to jump from 23 miles above the Earth’s surface
This stunt is so totally insane it's hard to imagine someone would have the idea of actually pulling it off. Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner plans to pull off a stunt sponsored by the energy drink Red Bull that will lift him 23 miles above the Earth's surface to the edge of space. Once at that altitude, he will jump and free fall back to earth while breaking the sound barrier. I wonder if that means he won't be able to hear his own screams.
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Researchers devise a way to store data on magnetic media using heat
Much research has been performed working on ways to improve the speed and power efficiency of data storage devices such as hard drives. A group of researchers from York University are working as part of an international team and the team has found that they can store information using heat instead of a magnetic field on a magnetic medium. The results is much faster and more power efficient storage of data than any traditional hard drive offers today.
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DARPA Crowdsourced UAVForce robots begin to fly
There's a project going on at the moment with DARPA in which teams are asked to create their own unmanned aerial vehicles, and it's time for proof-of-flight time in the field. The first robot in this group of groups that's being tipped as the leader at the moment is the GremLion UAV from the National University of Singapore. This little monster is a four-wheeled machine with a pod that opens up and deploys propellers that allow it to lift straight up off the ground and land precisely as it jumps.
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SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up: February 7, 2012
Get yourself underground - way, way underground, under the ice even as we reach the world's oldest super-clean water system. The Nikon D800 and D800E have officially been released - their info, anyway, plus a bit of 1080p video to keep you pumped up. A bit more information on the progress of Apple OS X to ARM porting has been revealed, and Raspberry Pi, the itsy bitsy teeny weeny PC is being released by the end of February.
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San Antonio surgeons perform first successful robotic throat cancer surgery
A woman is recovering today after having a cancerous tumor removed from the back of her throat. Actually, there is probably more than one woman in that situation, but not many of them are waking up today without an incision scar somewhere on her head. She's the first successful patient to undergo robotic surgery for throat cancer, and her doctors are optimistic about her prognosis.
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