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ICYMI: Zero-G booze glass, exoskeleton walk of fame and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703008").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Today on In Case You Missed It: The Open Space Agency designed a zero-G whiskey glass for Ballantine whiskey, aka enabling astronauts and other space travelers to swirl (but not sniff) with refinement no matter where their travels may take them. Raspberry Pi has a new touchscreen display that will let people make new uses for the credit card-sized programmable computer. A paralyzed man is walking around in an exoskeleton with ease after undergoing a spinal cord stimulation program at UCLA. He's the first paralyzed person to regain enough feeling in his legs to walk confidently in an exoskeleton and we are all in awe.
ISS ready for new zero-g experiments, students asked to float ideas
Those secret space experiments you've been scheming? They may never happen if you try to go it alone. Fortunately, the space science group NCESSE can get you a ride, having started the countdown for its fifth wave of microgravity experiments aboard the International Space Station. US and international students from grade 5 up to university level can submit ideas until September 12th, 2012, with final culling by December 7. The mini-labs -- which can include experiments in seed germination or crystal growth, for example -- are set to be ferried aboard a SpaceX flight in April 2013. Three similar missions have flown nearly 60 student experiments already, with a fourth set as soon as the Falcon 9 craft deigns to go. If you've got a flat-out good idea being prevented by big G, hit the source to see how you could get it fired off to the ISS.
x-Ar exoskeleton arm keeps repetitive tasks from doing you harm (video)
The spring-loaded technology behind the Steadicam has just found another use -- the x-Ar exoskeleton arm, which attaches to your wrists to reduce or eliminate the feeling of weight. Just unveiled at the Applied Ergonomics Conference in Florida this week, the mechanism mounts to a chair or other stable object and loosely cuffs your arms, allowing for a fairly extraordinary range of motion while bearing "the weight of your arm and small objects." (Sledgehammer-wielding workers will probably be better served by one of these.) While manufacturer Equipois suggests that the arm will likely see use in factories, assembly lines and the like where workers are subject to repetitive stress, we can also think of a few bloggers who wouldn't mind taking a little strain off their wrists. PR after the break.
Stephen Hawking holds it together in zero-g vomit comet
We tip our hats to you, Sir Hawking. You said you were gonna do it, and you surely did, hopping in a tricked out 727 to experience the weightlessness of space. During his eight successive 30 second stints of zero gravity, Hawking did a coupla spins and was even photographed with an apple of Newtonian symbolism. Not surprisingly, Stephen was totally stoked about his trip, saying afterward, "space, here I come." before totally popping a rocking wheelie in his robo wheelchair. Ok, maybe we made up that last bit, but we'd just like to say to Stephen: way to go, broham. We're looking forward to all the rad theoretical physics you'll come up with after this inspiring trip to pseudo-space.
