Gizmodo: man vs nature

None of These Rainforest Species Are Endangered

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:20:00 EDT

This illustration—showing the diversity of mechanical species in the rain forest—manages to make all these metal animals beautiful. Too bad that these terrible beasts spend their lives feeding on trees, and destroying everything in their paths. [Thanks David]

Who Needs Nature? Festo Bionic Learning Network Builds A Better Penguin

Jack Loftus — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Festo is no stranger to autonomous robot creatures, but their latest initiative, called the Bionic Learning Network, might as well be referred to from here on out as Skynet for the animal kingdom.

Extinction level events aside, the first few moments of this Festo promotional video are pretty amazing. Those little blue-eyed Terminator penguins you see swimming around the tank are autonomous, and can navigate and interact with other robopenguins without fail. They can even swim backwards, which is impossible to do if you're a flesh and blood penguin. I think they also eat the diver, but obviously that's been edited out.

Festo designers also created another blimp robot, in true Festo fashion, this time shaped like a penguin (to further mock real penguins, which cannot fly).

The reactive wall seen in the video, which responds to a person's body movement using a variety of shape shifting techniques and sound, is also pretty bloody awesome. And eerie, actually. On second thought, I think I like my walls dumb and unresponsive. [Festo via Engadget]

International Space Station Will Be the Second Brightest Object in the Night Sky

Adrian Covert — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:00:00 EDT

Once a new set of solar array wings are installed on the International Space Station, it will be the second brightest object in the sky, topping Venus and losing only to the Moon.

The new wings, which will be the fourth and final set installed on ISS, will be used to provide 50% more power to run science experiments in space and will enable six people to live in the space station. The new equipment will be delivered by the Space Shuttle Discovery, which launches on Wednesday, and Canadarm2 will assist in the installation. The project should more or less be completed by Flight Day 8. [The Space Fellowship via Slashdot]