Although it’s not yet at the South Beach stage, knowing your genetic predispositions toward disease can help you understand what you should and shouldn’t eat. [kurzweil]

What has three spectacular examples of the most impressive light shows a human being can ever hope to see, all in one place? Only this picture of an Australia Day celebration, featuring a lightning storm, comet McNaught *and* fireworks in one (admittedly composite) frame. Absolutely awesome. [Scalzi’s “By The Way”]

We humans have a bad habit of leaving rubbish everywhere we go, as any nature lover or walking fanatic will tell you. That habit extends to our short tenure of adventuring in orbit around the planet, with some experts suggesting that we’re reaching a point where there is so much junk as to make space flight an unrealistically dangerous proposition. It strikes me that this can’t be a problem that is beyond our technology to address – much like the aftermath of a good house party, the issue is more likely to be that no one wants to take responsibility or volunteer to start first, let alone pay for the effort. [FutureWire]

Here’s a very interesting annotated slide show on airport architecture from Business Week. [digg]

Researchers at U.C. San Diego have developed an imaging element that performs like a 38mm lens in a lot less space by bouncing light between two mirrors. Materials costs prevent it from being marketable yet.