Continue reading NASA-sponsored study finds lengthy spaceflight can impair astronauts’ vision

NASA-sponsored study finds lengthy spaceflight can impair astronauts’ vision originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Nov 2011 07:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you know anything about the history of spaceflight, you’re probably already familiar with the historic journey of USSR cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who flew around the Earth in 1961, making him the first person to ever travel beyond our planet’s atmosphere. While audio recordings of Gagarin’s observations exist, there are no video recordings except for those recently shot at the ISS following a similar plot of his trip, directed by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who currently lives on the space station. This video has now been matched up with Gagarin’s audio, and made into a film to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his flight, which is on April 12th. The movie will be made available on that date for free download on YouTube.

Film recreation of Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin’s historic spaceflight to be shown off next month originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This video shows the latest version ( as of April 2010 ) of the game client/engine, and features the seamless planetary engine, a ring with asteroids, a space station, basic navigation/camera/controls and a few effects. The game is still heavily a work in progress. This video was only uploaded by me, credit goes to the Infinity developers, you can find them on: www.infinity-universe.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Interactive screensavers present us with yet one more brilliant screensaver for your Windows-based computer. This one is bound to get those astronomy lovers enthralled, and anyone else who would like to have such an intricately detailed, totally three dimensional screensaver on their computer. The Earth 3D screensaver combines advanced graphical technologies and photorealistic design to form a remarkably detailed scene of the Earth as seen from an orbital view. A must have for anyone who would like to have such a formidable and awe-inspiring image on their computer.

What’s more, unlike plenty of the free, very cheap or older screensavers out there, it also takes thorough benefit of your graphics card, though you don’t need to have a particularly powerful computer to be in a position to run it to its maximum potential. The screensaver is optimized for bigger resolutions, permitting you to get the best out of your monitor if it is a flat panel or an older CRT monitor. It’s been programmed to run on any version of Windows, from Windows 98 and right up to Windows seven. It’ll work on both 32 bit and 64 bit machines too.

Among its plethora of features, this lovely new space screensaver not only provides you a superb view of the Earth as viewed from orbit, but also gives you nighttime and daytime cycles, with the sun obvious in the back drop. In the areas of the planet in night, youwill be ready to see the lights of the larger towns. This makes it truly look like a similar thing you would see from the global Space Station, or indeed, exactly as Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, would have seen it.

The Earth is a fabulous and colorful object in the universe and with the weather patterns like clouds and typhoons all clearly obvious from space, this screensaver also uses these features for improved realism and brilliant effect. The background of stars is also inspiring, showing you the way in which the night sky looks from outer space, without the atmospheric and light pollution on Earth to cloud the view.

The screensaver actually offers quite an attractive and provoking panorama, bringing to life the last frontier. Itwill work flawlessly on any resolution, though the better the resolution that your monitor supports, the higher quality the scene will appear. It doesn’t have great system requirements, but youwill need to have a machine which has a video card supporting Pixel Shader 2 and you’ll need to have DirectX 9 installed on your computer. This shouldn’t be aproblem for the majority of computer users.

To look at some screen-shots, take a visit to http://www.rixane.com/. Here you can also see more information about the other screensavers this organization has on offer. You can also download trial editions if you aren’t yet convinced. The Earth 3D Screensaver only costs a small sum of $17.95, but it’s a small amount to pay for something so artistically and incredibly rendered. Undoubtedlyone of the best and most photogenic screensavers you will find, it is well worth looking at it now.

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This story is not nearly as interesting as I was led to believe. Some guy bought something in the online game Entropia Universe. He bought it with in-game currency—PED3.3 million, to be exact. It just so happens that that amount, PED3.3 million, can be converted at will to real life currency. At current conversion rates that equals approximately US$330,000. So if you want to say that the guy bought an in-game item for US$330,000, well, be my guest.

The item itself, the Crystal Palace Space Station, is some sort of ship or craft or something that other players can buy things from. So the buyer of the thingamajig can use it as an actual source of income.

You should know that the game isn’t merely a game, but a fully registered bank in Sweden, complete with all the protections afforded to other, “real” European Union-based banks.

Embedded is a video of Crystal Palace, which looks an awful lot like that spaceship from Phantasy Star Online.

via Slashdot