Last week scientists were given the green light to begin to create human-animal embryos at a mix of 99.9% human, 0.1% animal. Religious nuts are outraged and want to put a stop to it. They say that scientists are playing God.

The scientific community counters that the hybrids will allow them to discover treatments which could lead to a cure for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

The shortage of human eggs has put a damper on the progress being made to stem cell research. There is only two or three a month that are donated or released. However, animal eggs are always in high supply. So why not mix the two so that the process of finding cures can be expedited?

Dr Helen Watts of the Catholic Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics tells Sky News:

“Human conception is someting very special which should be kept separate from animal reproduction. Not only are we creating this embryo for destructive experiments, but we are further demeaning it by giving it a non-human parent.”

Yes, the embryos are still banned from being set into a human womb and scientists will still need to receive permission. Yet wouldn’t it be immoral to ban research that denies patients their health and lives? I say yes.

[Sky News]

Last week I was talking about how the world’s first spaceport was to be built by 2009. Leave it to innovators to push the envelope… all the way to the moon.

Google has issued the next X Prize and announced its payout amounts. The first competitors to land a robot on the moon and beam back panoramic photos along with YouTube videos gets $20 million from the search giant. Making that lander survey the lunar night, move over long distances and take pictures of historic sites will net another $5 million. There is even a consolidation prize, $5 million for second place.

Peter Diamandis, the founder and chairman of the X Prize foundation told Wired, “How cool would it be to do what NASA does at a tenth the cost? Or a hundredth? The technologies are there. What we need is a competitive model that can make it happen.”

The interest in space travel is back and in my opinion it is in the right hands. Big budgets that governments bring to the table are sometimes necessary to create technology and perform research. Now the ball is in the hands of the entrepreneurs and they have all the data and technology they need.

Science has had a bad marketing campaign and this is the perfect way to reignite the fire and wonder that we once held for man’s final frontier. This is an exciting time in our history and I simply can’t wait to see what happens next. I’m on the edge of my seat and I hope you’re with me.

[Wired]

Many of you may not know this about me but I am what you call a Snearkerhead. That means that I adore unique looking kicks, especially Nike’s. Now what you do know is that I also love Back to the Future and am crazy about innovation. Put them all together and boom – you have me calling for the one other product we still don’t have, futuristic Nikes.

It seems that someone has championed my cause at the McFLY 2015 project. Michael Maloof has begun the ultimate grassroots project, to petition Nike, demanding the product of the future that was promised to us – today.

In essence all the shoes offer are power laces, simple lighting and making everyone on your block jealous. A continuous charge battery pack similar to the cushioning and dampening system used in the Adidas 1’s could be used. Efficient LEDs could be installed and a small servo-rotor system could be used to pull the laces tight.

The point is that the technology exists now, why wait another 8 years?

If you have flown anywhere as of late you probably know that planes are consistently delayed and your baggage has a decent chance of being mishandled. So who is to blame? As the old mantra goes, computers don’t make mistakes, people make mistakes. At the Check-In conference in Las Vegas last weekend 300 airline and airport officials marveled at technology that takes all that human error out of the equation.

Some of that technology included kiosks by a European company called SITA that allow check-in for all major airlines off-site. In other technology a wave of a passport will show all of the flight information on a display screen. Passengers will then select a seat and print a luggage tag with an RFID transmitter. That way the airline knows via computer if the bag actually made it on the flight.

A computer software developer, Mobiqa has a software platform that sends e-mail to cell phones. The e-mail includes the same bar code you normally would see on an electronic ticket, allowing you to just scan your cellphone and go.

No matter how spot on airports and airlines are they are still stuck with one real ugly bottleneck, TSA. “We have to somehow compensate for their inefficencies,” CIO of JetBlue said to the LA Times.

Bus shuttle program FlyAway in Los Angeles allows two bags for $5 to be checked in at the pick-up points throughout the city. They even get their boarding passes at the same time. Travelers go by bus straight to screening and then to their boarding gates. TSA is inspecting the bags at the same time they find their seat aboard the plane.

Although it may be impossible to prevent delays all together, the airline industry does have control over preventing the problems that cause congestion, long lines for check-in and lost luggage.

I can see where these types of emerging technologies could be very beneficial when implemented correctly. I just hope that the airlines don’t rely on them too heavily while they are trying to make a transition. Even though the majority of the passenger population has cookie cutter needs that can be easily fulfilled, a minority may need to have a human punch a few keys to make things right in special circumstances.

[LA Times]

It’s been three years since Burt Rutan’s company Scaled Composites sent the first privatly funded spacecraft into sub-orbit, winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize. During the final tests Sir Richard Branson courted the firm to create the first suborbital space liner, Virgin Galactic. The motive of the partnership is to bring space travel to the masses.

Now an architectural firm has been chosen to build Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert. The $31 million, 100,000 square foot terminal is to be decked out with pre and post-flight facilities, lounges and administrative offices. The idea is to create a complete experience that starts with training and education and ends with reflection and comfort.

The spaceport is designed to look, well – space age. It will be a multi level facility cut into the desert with energy friendly technology to heat and cool its interior. The concrete roof will retract as windows allow viewers to watch the spaceflights take place.

Construction is scheduled to begin by 2008. The New Mexico Spaceport Authority is scheduled to receive a green light by the FAA in 2009. Meaning that you could be sitting in some of the first flights within two years from now. Who knows, with competition and more development the idea of going to space may be affordable to all within the next decade.

Below is a video of Burt Rutan calling for entrepreneurs to lead the next wave of space flight:

[Space]