NASA’s recently-cancelled ‘Dawn’ mission has been reinstated, to the joy of the scientists working on it. The mission will involve an ion-engined probe approaching and then orbiting two of the largest asteroids in the Belt, Ceres and Vesta.

I want a Picoflyer remote controlled helicopter, and then I want a cat to torment with it. Here’s Popular Science’s explanation of how it works.

The Literature Map is an interesting concept that needs a better implementation. Enter the name of an author to see a cluster of related authors with your selected author in the center. The farther a related author is from the center, the less in common the author has with your choice. Implementation problems include no indication of what the cardinal position of related authors mean, plus some bizarre floating effect that just makes it hard to read.

I remember the first time I read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins I felt almost physically illuminated. It has had the single greatest influence on my thinking of any nonfiction book I’ve read. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years since it was published, but it has and Edge has the transcript (and audio) of the celebration: a conversation with Daniel C. Dennett, Matt Ridley, Sir John Krebs, Ian McEwan, Richard Dawkins, Melvyn Bragg and Helena Cronin at The Old Theatre in London. A caveat: although my usual practice is to post no link until I’ve read it myself, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read the transcript of this event. I can’t promise it’s worth your while, but with that suite of luminaries it’s got to be interesting.

If I had a dime for every web 2.0 site on this list, I’d spend it all on bandwidth fees trying them all out.