Imagine You Had a Camera With a ZillionX Zoom

This colossal star nest 5000 light years away, in the Sagittarius constellation, is the heart of the Lagoon Nebula. Now, imagine you could operate the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys like a gigantic DSLR camera with telephoto lenses.

If that would be possible, this is how the zooming on this titanic dust and gas cloud would be like.

Of course, that's not how Hubble works. The video trip is composed with multiple images, merged onto each other in a digital composition program.

The intricate shapes of the nebula are caused by the ultraviolet radiation glowing from the infant stars, which disperse the gas and dust around them as they form. In fact, scientists found here the "first unambiguous proof that star formation by accretion of matter from the gas cloud is ongoing in this region."

Your Batteries Could Take Down A Plane

Ready for mass hysteria? Apparently the FAA has acknowledged that airplane cargo holds can get hot enough to cause lithium batteries to ignite. And there's more! There was a large quantity of such batteries on a plane that crashed recently:

The Federal Aviation Administration also acknowledged publicly for the first time Friday that a United Parcel Service 747-400 plane that crashed in Dubai last month killing both pilots was carrying a large quantity of lithium batteries.

Since the early 1990s, there have been dozens of incidents of batteries igniting in flight. But it has not been known what triggered many of the fires.

Now this announcement doesn't exactly seem like it's revealing anything novel. After all, batteries come with plenty of warnings regarding the temperature ranges they can tolerate and airplane cargo holds have little to no climate control—it makes sense that combining the two isn't a great idea.

What is fresh and new about this announcement is the potential for an extra huge wave of public hysteria and crazy demands that we leave our batteries off planes entirely despite cabins being air-conditioned.

Supercharge Your iPad and iPhone Right Now with iOS 4.2

Multitasking lets you quickly switch back and forth between apps, while Folders gets rid of flipping through page after page of apps. Mail gets a unified inbox, finally. Oh, and it forever changes the orientation lock to a mute switch—you now lock the orientation by double-tapping the home button and swiping to the left to reach a soft switch.

The other big feature is AirPlay. New to the iPhone too, it lets you wirelessly stream videos and music from an iPad or iPhone to an Apple TV, hassle-free. AirPrint does the same wireless magic thing, but for docs and webpages—lets you wirelessly print stuff easily.

The free Find My iPhone service is slightly limited: Only iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th-gen) and iPad get it. Once you activate Find My iPhone using one of those, though, you can use the service for free on your older iOS devices too. Find My iPhone, if you didn't know, shows where your lost iOS device is located on a map—as long as it has service—allows you to ping it with alarms and messages, or remotely detonate the information on it once all hope is lost.

Other things in iOS 4.2: new text ringtones for iPhone 4 (and only iPhone 4, weirdly), text searching inside of web pages in Safari, and the ability to use different fonts in the Notes app.

This Door Knob Lets You See What's in the Room Behind It

You probably don't spend much time thinking about door knobs, or how they could be improved. Maybe you should! This glass globe lets you catch a glimpse of what's going on in the room you're about to enter.

Hideyuki Nakayama's "A Room in the Glass Globe," developed in conjunction with door handle manufacturer LEVER, shows you a reflection of what's going on in the room behind it, cast in a sort of strange, dreamlike haze. It's currently on display at the at the Plain People store in Aoyama, Tokyo. I think I'd sacrifice a little bit of privacy to have such a beautiful and simple idea in my home.

Facebook Stalking Can Actually Kill You If You're Not Careful

A new article in the medical journal Lancet details the story of an 18-year-old kid who consistently found himself with "difficult and labored breathing" after using Facebook. The problem? He was using Facebook to stalk his ex-girlfriend.

The 18-year-old subject of the article, whose "post-Facebook" peak flow—the measurement of a person's ability to breathe air—was reduced by as much as 20 percent, was signing online to look at his ex-girlfriend's profile. The stress of seeing how totally over him she was, and how cute she looked, and who is that guy in that picture, no, don't tell me, do you think they've had sex yet, caused his breathing problems. (He had actually created a separate profile to look at her and all the fun she was having without him, which perhaps speaks to other, larger, psychological problems at play.)

Obviously, the knowledge that social stress and anxiety can induce asthma attacks isn't exactly new. But, the authors write, Facebook is "a new source of psychological stress," and doctors should keep their eyes out for Facebook-induced asthma attacks. Ten years ago, when you got dumped, you could only imagine all the hot guys your ex is banging—thanks to Facebook, you can actually see every single one.

The only solution, then, is to ban easily-stressed-out people from Facebook. Poor asthmatic kids! Not only do they have no friends, but they'll never make any, now that we know Facebook will actually kill them.

Seems Like Black Friday Comes Earlier Every Year

It's almost the holidays, which means it's time to start thinking about gifts for your mother, and brother, and wife's sister's dog.

MacMall is currently having a 36-hour sale which features discounts on a bunch of different Apple products. As most Apple fans know, it's very tough to get any sort of discount at all on the Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, Mac Mini, or iMac. During thisMacMall 36-hour Apple sale, you can save $50 to $85 off select Apple computers. They are also offering discounts on the iPod Touch, Apple TV, and various computer accessories.

 

 

Kitchen Concept Uses Pedal-Power to Grind Beans, Blend Soups and Save the Planet

This foot-powered food processor has numerous things going for it. As you will have noticed, it's incredibly stylish—and small. It's also eco-friendly, thigh-friendly and perfect for small kitchens. It's just a shame it's a concept.

Designed by German Christoph Thetard, it has various attachments that can be powered by pushing the pedal with a foot—including a coffee grinder and blender. Just pushing the pedal at 400rpm is enough to generate 350 watts a minute, which is enough for simple food preparation. But can it prepare a Thanksgiving feast?

 

 

The Looxcie Wearable Video Camera Never Stops Recording

The problem with YouTube is that you can only share stuff you happened to be recording. The Looxcie, a $200 video camera that you wear on your ear, proposes a simple solution: record everything, all the time.

Here's the idea: You wear the Looxcie on your ear and it records everything you see, roughly as you see it. The camera can hold up to four hours of video (in crummy 480×320 at 15fps); when it runs out of space, it starts dumping the oldest footage—it's not made for collectingclips, it's for capturing them in the moment.

Olympus' Camera Lacks Interchangeable Lenses, But Will Be New Compact Flagship

Early next year Olympus will be selling a new flagship compact camera.

Their claim about it being their new flagship compact camera seems a little strange when you consider their PEN series, but perhaps they're trying to say this will be even more compact—it certainly doesn't have the interchangeable lenses their micro four thirdscameras use, anyway. It will have an accessory port for attaching accessories like their SEMA-1 microphone adapter and presumably an electronic viewfinder.

 

 

Origin's Big O Stuffs an Xbox 360 Into a Gaming Desktop Hellbeast

The ingredients that went into Origin's Big O monster are decidedly prime: six-core Xeon 5680 processor, overclocking up to 4.3GHz, crazy graphics power. And the cherry on top is an integrated, liquid-cooled Xbox 360 slim in every rig. That's nasty.

The Big O has ferocious specs, but the real treat is that you can run the PC and the Xbox at the same time. Pretty special, and appropriately expensive; you're looking at $7669 for the base model, and for the pure hellbeast that is the Xeon 5680 model you'll pony up $17,000.

Safety Plug Concept Keeps Away Curious Kiddies' Fingers

Childproofing is a pretty good idea for most new families. Children (and probably some adults) like to stick things in places they shouldn't go. This safety plug concept should eliminate that (for outlets at least).

Why Do Astronauts Wear Space Diapers?

NASA says this is not a space diaper, but it is. They call it the Maximum Absorbency Garment. I call it the Space Pooper. But why do astronauts use them?

Quite simply, when astronauts are sitting in the Space Shuttle, strapped to their seats and ready to go, they may experience very long delays. Sometimes even hours. And when that happens, they just can't get off their seats to go to the toilet. They just have to do it, as Alan Shepard discovered while waiting inside his Mercury capsule on May 5, 1961, waiting for theFreedom 7 mission launch. He was the first American to reach Space and the first astronaut to pee inside his suit.

Duracell myGrid USB Charger Charges Wirelessly and Gives Gear a Boost

Once you juice it up wirelessly atop a myGrid inductive charging slab, Duracell's new $35 myGrid USB charger will power pretty much anything that has USB, including smartphones (~4 hours), MP3 players (~30 hours), and ebook readers (~100 hours).

The Lithium-ion rechargeable battery is tiny for travel-friendliness—it occupies the top left of the myGrid in the photo above—and can be charged via USB if you don't have your myGrid handy. It'll be available before the holiday for $35 to extend all your new gadgets' lives.

 

 

Google Tipster Fired

Google has a lesson for its employees: Don't tell the world how well we treat you, or you'll be fired. The company apparently told staff today it terminated the employee who leaked word of a 10 percent companywide pay raise.

A Business Insider got hold of an internal memo from CEO Eric Schmidt—for "Googlers only"—which said they'd be receiving 10 percent raises plus a cash bonus for the holidays. The source added that the bonus would be $1,000. "Within hours," CNNMoney reports, "Google notified its staff that it had terminated the leaker, several sources [said.]" Apparently there's nothing like holiday season firing to inspire the people Schmidt called the "best employees in the world."

Scientists Plugging Holes in Concrete With Specially Engineered Super Bacteria

Repairing damaged concrete often requires pouring more fresh stuff, or digging it all up and starting over again. But thanks to germ experts at the University of Newcastle, custom bacteria—"BackFilla"—might be the future of fixing.

The bacteria, once released into a damaged area, procreate and spread into the cracks—and then die. But don't be sad—in their wake, they leave behind calcium carbonate corpses as strong as the original concrete. And don't worry—the researchers were canny enough to design the bacteria to know when their work is done, so they don't run amuck and cover the world in concrete:


The bacteria also contains a self-destruct gene that keeps it from wildly proliferating away from its concrete target, because a runaway patch of bacterial concrete that continued to grow despite all efforts to stop it would be somewhat annoying

Yes, annoying is right—or like something out of a very dull horror movie.

Storing Your Data For a Billion Years

As concerned as we are about memory, we haven't done much to preserve it. Most of ourhard drives don't last past 30 years. But soon, using diamond-like carbon nanotubes, even your Gizmodo comments could last practically forever.

The solution, discovered by researchers at the University of California, takes an entirely new approach to data storage. The proposed device would place a microscopic iron crystal inside a carbon nanotube. With the application of an electric signal of just a few volts, the iron nanoparticle moves back and forth along the tube, registering a binary "1" or "0" depending on its position, basically acting as data bits.



While it's a theoretical solution right now, the scientists who created it are confident that we'll someday see a practical application. And when we do, because of the project's nanoscale nature, we may be able to store 25 DVDs' worth of information on a postage stamp-sized storage device.

The prospect of billion-year storage is fascinating and a little terrifying. Do I want researchers ten thousand years from now combing through my drunken tweets? Actually: maybe. Because when our robot overlords comb through the records and find this post, they'll know that I've always been fully supportive of their cold, steely, logical reign.

Razer Nostromo Gaming Keypad

The Belkin n52te SpeedPad set the bar for one-handed gaming peripherals that looked like they could control alien spacecraft. It's successor, the Razer Nostromo keypad, maintains the look, and it's been updated to support more instantly-switchable keymaps and gaming profiles.

The Razer Nostromo's got all the new chipsets and drivers that have cropped up since the Belkin Speedpad came out back in 2007, bringing it up to speed with today's cutting-edge competitive gaming (and maintaing its crazy-ass, highly intimidating look.) In addition to its 16 fully-programmable buttons and eight-way directional thumb pad, the Nostromo can now support eight full keymaps (up from three) and twenty gaming profiles (up from ten).

The Razer Nostromo is available now for $69.99 at Razer Zone.

Canned Unicorn Meat: It's Real Now

No trend's got me more excited lately than ThinkGeek turning its April Fool's products intoreal products. And now, the pièce de résistance: canned unicorn meat. For sale. Right now.

First came the monolith action figure, then My First Bacon, and now? Now mythical creature meat served up Spam-style.

Stronger-Than-Diamonds Graphene Can Be Made From Sugar

 

It's been discovered that you create the very same substance those Ruskis won the Nobel prize for out of household sugar. Borrow a cup from your neighbour, and get baking the world's hardest substance. No, not your Mom's scones. Graphene.

Rice University researchers are responsible for making the startling discovery, which could cut down greenhouse gas emissions and save money too. We already know that graphene (carbon atoms arranged in 2 dimensional linked hexagons) is the strongest (and thinnest) substance known to man, and importantly can conduct electricity. We can look forward to it replacing valuable copper and silicon—and if it's made from normal table sugar, then that's just doubly sweet.

Viewsonic 3DV5 Is a Pocket-Fitting 3D Camcorder

Viewsonic announced their mini-sized 3D camcorder last month, but now they've finally brought it stateside. Not only does the 3DV5 pack two 5MP fixed focus cameras for 3D 720p video, it's also got a glassesless 3D display panel for playback.

Of course, the 3DV5 has the same problem that all 3D camcorders and cameras do: you're going to have to get yourself a 3DTV or 3D laptop to watch it on. The good news is that this particular mighty mite can also record in 2D, making it as present-ready as it is future-proof. And it might just be worth the $180 to have your bases covered.