Science

This post may have gained interest since the recent controversy stirred by Stephen Hawking about settling in outer space. Skyetis, described as "a school project taken to another level," offers a Photoshop tutorial that shows how to create your own planet.

We at Blogma have long been suspicious of conventional learning principles, especially when we got lousy grades. So we welcome ideas such as those from The Creativity Packet, which offers unconventional approaches to education, often non-verbal. Its latest concepts focus on the power of puzzles.

Meteoroids and other "lunar impacts" apparently hit the moon all the time, but rarely are they caught in the act on video. This clip, posted on NASA's site, shows a meteroid hitting the moon as recorded with a 10-inch telescope. The May 2 collision may not seem like much on the screen, but NASA says it carried the impact of four tons of TNT.

A pair of designer/artists in San Jose, Calif., are trying an experiment in community technology: If they can find a couple of households to volunteer their Wi-Fi networks, they'd like to set up yellow chairs within range for the public to use for free wireless Net access. The idea is modeled after projects in some parts of Europe where yellow bicycles are available for community use.

TechEBlog has come up with another list, this time of the "Top 10 Strangest Mini-Sized Devices." Our personal favorite: the diminutive "Space Cube"--which, in its 2-inch cubed frame, packs more processing power and memory than our 30-pound-plus first PC.

A couple of months ago, we read that shoes were being manufactured for prostitutes with such safety features as GPS receivers and alarm buttons. But the "Electric Cinderella" shoes take the concept of self-defense footwear a step further, with a built-in stun gun for one-time use only.

It's not too often that a new musical instrument is invented, let alone presented before a bunch of experts. Yet that's precisely what Sophie Leger did with her creation a few days ago at the 151st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Providence, R.I. Introducing the Tritare, "an electric, guitar-like instrument which uses six 'Y'-shaped networks instead of six simple strings."

A transparent laptop screen? It sure sounds like a trick, but even a blog called Mighty Optical Illusions concedes that it's stumped by this one. The site is so baffled, in fact, that it is asking for help in figuring out this illusion, which is demonstrated in this video clip.

Call us cynical, but we doubt that cities will be blanketing the country with high-bandwidth Wi-Fi networks anytime soon. In the meantime, we'll be left to our own devices--literally, as well as figuratively. So we're thankful that the ever-useful Lifehacker has posted this article, which gives instructions on how to "turn your $60 router into a $600 router."