Rattenberg is a little town in Austria tucked in the shadow of a mountain that sees no sun for long months in the winter. Rattenberg will be installing adjustable mirrors to redirect sunlight from a field about a quarter of a mile away into the town.

In yet another example of the continuing Nipponification of the United States please see iPod vending machines. What’s next, hamburgers?

Centauri Dreams has an interesting post about a possible Saturn-like planet in an Earth orbit around 51 Peg.

The San Francisco Ballet will be performing a dance to music assembled by seismograph, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake.

A leading Russian space industrialist has been discussing his country’s plans for manned missions beyond the ISS. He reckons they can do a manned moon landing by 2015, helium-3 mining there by 2025, and a Mars mission sometime between 2020 and 2030. He acknowledges the lack of budget for the next ten years, and is looking to commercial interests providing the cash.