Well, I didn't realize that the first solar space craft crashed into the ocean a few years ago. I just read that the second attempt is scheduled for 2010. The premise is simple, the sails are dark on one side and reflective on the other. As the craft is free in space without significant forces, the light bouncing from the reflective side and being absorbed on the dark side will add up over time to significant propulsion and speed.

If you have ever seen the toy shown above, this is the same process that will drive the craft. You can click the image for a better view. The toy is called a radiometer.

For more information on the Planetary Society, follow the related link.

This really can't be summarized easily. Michelle is a Biomedical engineer at U.C. Irvine. Given a problem with microfluidics, she thought back to her childhood and found a very powerful solution that no one had considered.

Here is a snip from the article:

' ...the specialized equipment that she previously used to make microfluidic chips cost more than $100,000--money that wasn't immediately available. "I'm a very impatient person," says Khine, now an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine. "I wanted to figure out how I could set things up really quickly."

Racking her brain for a quick-and-dirty way to make microfluidic devices, Khine remembered her favorite childhood toy: Shrinky Dinks, large sheets of thin plastic that can be colored with paint or ink and then shrunk in a hot oven. "I thought if I could print out the [designs] at a certain resolution and then make them shrink, I could make channels the right size for micro­fluidics," she says.'

Follow the related link to read the whole article.

If you are a vet; Thank you for your service that we can enjoy the lifestyle and opportunities we have.

Protecting the environment can be as simple as repairing an item instead of replacing it. Consider this, if you add 50% more useful life to an item, you have reduced the impact of that item by 33%! To go a step further, you have saved money too. The amount of energy and CO2 released from production to delivery of goods is huge, all of these impacts are reduced when we repair items.

Check out the related link for a list of items that repair well.

I remember about 16 years ago, I was working at Egghead Software. We had these really neat packaging peanuts that the company started using, rice puffs. These were a lot like synthetic peanuts but dissolved in water. I have not seen those since.

Now we are looking at a bacteria and sugar based grow to fit packaging. The idea is similar, the product goes right back to nature when you are done with it.

Follow the related link for more information.