Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090531/0327375069/dailydirt-citizen-science.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090531/0327375069/dailydirt-citizen-science.shtml

The White House is looking for citizen scientists and is accepting nominations for notable people who have made a significant impact on society. The White House will host its Champions of Change event on Citizen Science on June 4, 2013 -- so get your nominations in by the end of April. [url]

If you like ants, here's your chance to have some say in giving a common name to the ant species forelius pruinosus. Anyone can vote on the top four names: barricade ant, blockade ant, high noon ant or highway ant. (vote before April 30th!) [url]

Citizen scientists submitted projects to a Scistarter contest earlier this year, and the grand prize went to a device that creates fuel from water. It's not exactly a Mr. Fusion, but splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is still a neat demonstration. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090531/0327375069 Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100803/10525410479/dailydirt-space-race-continues.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100803/10525410479/dailydirt-space-race-continues.shtml SpaceX shipped some supplies to the International Space Station, and it's on track to providing a rocket system for ferrying astronauts to the ISS as well. More and more commercial space ventures are competing with government space programs, and this new space race will hopefully continue and create even more inspiring space technologies over the next decade and beyond. Here are just a few other interesting developments along the way.

• NASA and the FAA have reached a tentative agreement to provide better guidelines for regulating all kinds of space launches. Virgin Galactic has been granted a license, but it might be interesting to see if all those amateur weather balloons and sub-orbital rocket projects will run into any regulatory problems. [url]
• Excalibur Almaz is a commercial space transportation company with roots in the former Soviet Union's military space program. For about $100 million, you can hitch a ride on one of these older (but very reliable!) Soviet-era spacecraft that have been extensively tested -- possibly all the way to the moon. [url]
• Citizen scientists are putting together an ArduSat -- an open source satellite -- that could be included on a free launch via a NASA or ESA ride-along program. There ain't no such thing as a free launch? [url]
• China has recently become the third nation to successfully dock a manned space capsule with another space vessel. Three people (including China's first female astronaut/taikonaut) on the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft joined up with the Tiangong 1 space module in orbit. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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