Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

We’ve covered Blue Origin, the semi-mysterious space company founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, in the past, but we never knew all that much about what they were working on. But they recently showed off their new space vehicle, which has completed wind tunnel testing and is named, in a fit of wild creativity, the “Space Vehicle,” and a little bit of their plans for the future. Looks like the Google guys aren’t the only web billionaires with extraterrestrial ambitions.

Blue Origin’s “Space Vehicle” (man, that name) would be sort of a replacement for the retired space shuttles, competing in some ways with other private companies like SpaceX for the right to transport astronauts and equipment to the International Space Station (or low orbit, if there’s a need for that). It has an unusual wingless design, referred to as “biconic,” instead of boasting a bunch of flaps and fins and wings. The craft is small, much smaller than the space shuttles, but could still carry seven people to the ISS. And Blue Origin’s stated goal is to bring down the cost of space travel, so that many more people can do it–very different from Planetary Resources or even SpaceX.

Much of the reason they’re giving any information–Amazon, like Apple and unlike Microsoft, Samsung, Google, and basically every non-Amazon non-Apple company, typically does not show unfinished or in-progress projects–is that Blue Origin is funded in large part by NASA, to the tune of some $22 million. That’s part of NASA’s efforts to encourage a category of private spaceflight.

Blue Origin hopes to launch by the end of the decade.

[via Scientific America]

There are five Microsoft Kinects set up all around the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, but they’re not for playing games (or any of the other stuff the Kinect can do with an Xbox). They’re monitoring the students, looking for signs of unusual behavior that might indicate a potential autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder, or ASD–a range of conditions that all fall under the broad term of “autism”–can be difficult to diagnose. Many behaviors, especially in small children, are subtle, little tweaks of behavior that are just enough different from the norm to warrant a closer look. Following the clues is a time-consuming and slow process–it takes hours upon hours of observation, and not everyone can afford a trained specialist (or MRI test) to do that for their child. That can mean undiagnosed and thus untreated children.

The Kinects are set up in the Institute of Child Development to track the individual children by size and the color of their clothing, and can monitor about ten children at a time. Software takes the raw visual data from the Kinects and runs it through an algorithm to look for possible markers of ASD, like an unusually hyperactive or unusually quiet and calm child. It’s not designed to replace specialists–it can’t really track some telltale signs of ASD, like a failure to make eye contact–but it could be an incredibly cost-effective early heads-up system, making sure that everyone can afford early diagnostics.

[New Scientist]

This is one of the most inspiring stories we’ve ever seen: Claire Lomas of the U.K. was paralyzed from the chest down in a horse-riding accident five years ago. Yet today, she accomplished something difficult for anyone: she finished the London Marathon. It took 16 days and one impressive bionic exoskeleton, but she did it. Watch the video and try not to tear up a little, I dare you.

Claire suffered a severe spinal injury when thrown from her horse in 2007, breaking her neck, back, and several ribs. The bionic suit, made by Israeli firm ReWalk, is an FDA-approved motorized skeleton replacement that straps onto the sides of the legs and hips, with power in a backpack, that senses movement and delivers power to the motors as needed. We’ve listed it in the Best of What’s New, and it’s actually been featured on the TV show Glee, but this is the first time it’s been used to complete a marathon. See the video below:

[The Telegraph]