While hogging the headlines here in the UK for entirely different reasons, Russia is making news in the space community. Not only are they planning a kind of space elevator that runs between spacecraft (rather than from a planet into orbit), they are also helping South Korea take their first steps on the space exploration ladder by launching the little nation’s first astronaut.

The state of people willing to be space adventurers is looked at in Universal Space Systems latest report. Cost? A mere $2,000. I think I’ll stick with blogs and rumors for my space tourism insight.

The Greeks had relatively complex clockwork technology thousands of years before it was matched again by Europeans, and one of these complex mechanisms was the Antikythera mechanism that scientists now believe was for calculating eclipses.

NASA’s Michael Griffin has been closeted with the new UK Minister for Science and Innovation, and they have been discussing collaborations between the two nations on future projects, such as Lunar landings. We Brits have supplied plenty of satellites and so forth – it’d be nice if we could supply a few astronauts for a change. If a volunteer is required, drop me an email so I can get training early…

The future of medicine lies in minute devices within the body, but there are understandable concerns about installing electromechanical devices in living things – the necessity for an energy supply, for instance. One solution to this issue is to exploit the properties of other living cells, like making tiny fluid pumps using heart cells as the power cells. No batteries required – just keep the nutrients flowing, and the little suckers will keep on pumping in perpetuity.