WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.

Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only halogen-powered model in the United States, and getting it here required years of elliptical discussions with its importer, Jay Egami of the Ueshima Coffee Company.

“If you just want equipment you’re not ready,” Mr. Egami said in an interview. But, he added, James Freeman, the owner of the cafe, is different: “He’s invested time. He’s invested interest. He is ready.”

At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee - New York Times

And, for some of my aeronautically knowledgeable friends, it was deja vu all over again. Like: “where have we seen this before?” It was downright ghostly:

Take a look at this design – circa 1979 or so – from the Russian Myasishchev Design Bureau as modeled by aerospace scholar Alex Panchenko:

LiveScience.com Blogs » Blog Archive » Space Ship Two: Eerily Familiar…

Scientists in Maryland today said they had built from scratch an entire microbial chromosome, a loop of synthetic DNA carrying all the instructions that a simple cell needs to live and reproduce.

The feat marks the first time that anyone has made such a large strand of hereditary material from off-the-shelf chemical ingredients. Previous efforts had yielded DNA strands less than one-twentieth the size, and those pieces lacked many of the key biological programs that tell a cell how to stay alive.

On the basis of earlier experiments, the researchers believe the new, full-length loop would spontaneously "boot up" inside a cell, just as a downloaded operating system can awaken a computer -- a potentially historic event that would amount to the creation of the first truly artificial life form.

Md. Scientists Create Full Chromosome of Synthetic DNA - washingtonpost.com

Once the rationale for this particular dual-launch EOR scenario is understood, the next question is, logically, "why don't we use the existing EELV fleet for the smaller launch?" I'm sure you will understand when I tell you that I get this question all the time. And frankly, it's a logical question. I started with that premise myself, some years back. To cut to the chase, it will work - as long as you are willing to define "Orion" as that vehicle which can fit on top of an EELV. Unfortunately, we can't do that.

The adoption of the shuttle-derived approach of Ares I, with a new lox/hydrogen upper stage on a reusable solid rocket booster (RSRB) first stage, has been one of our more controversial decisions. The Ares V heavy-lift design, with its external-tank-derived core stage augmented by two RSRBs and a new Earth departure stage (EDS), has been less controversial, but still not without its detractors. So let me go into a bit of detail concerning our rationale for the Shuttle- derived approach.

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin's Remarks to the Space Transportation Association (with audio) | SpaceRef - Space News as it Happens

Over the decades, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has embodied the adventurous spirit that lifted this nation to greatness and inspired people around the world. Barack Obama believes that the United States needs a strong space program to help maintain its superiority not only in space, but also here on earth in the realms of education, technology, and national security. Over the years, NASA technology has been applied to improve everything from computers and medical technology to baby formula and automobiles. Work done at NASA, whether here on earth or in outer space, impacts the daily lives of all Americans.

Barack Obama's Plan For American Leadership in Space | SpaceRef - Space News as it Happens

IT probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise to learn that while employees in many companies sit in the cafeteria gossiping about work, or the boss, or the competition, at Google they are doing something else.

At Google, employees are encouraged to go online and place bets on a prediction market — an exchange that tries to forecast events based on the money wagered on a particular outcome.

Google’s Lunchtime Betting Game - New York Times

CES has no shortage of displays. And when MAKE offered us some TV-B-Gone clickers to bring to the show, we pretty much couldn't help ourselves. We shut off a TV. And then another. And then a wall of TVs. And we just couldn't stop.

Watch the video -- this is the funniest thing I've seen in weeks!

Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES

In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM

If the world were divided into neat groups — say, between users of Tasers and MP3 players — perhaps TASER International would have no reason to unveil their latest invention. But it’s not, and they do.

Ladies and Gentlemen (but mostly ladies), the “TASER® C2 Holster Hard Case w/1GB MP3 Player,” or as Stuart F. dubbed it in the comments, the “iTaze: ”

Taser Toting, Without Missing a Beat - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog

Are movies like “Hannibal” and the remake of “Halloween,” which serve up murder and mutilation as routine fare, actually making the nation safer?

A paper presented by two researchers over the weekend to the annual meeting of the American Economic Association here challenges the conventional wisdom, concluding that violent films prevent violent crime by attracting would-be assailants and keeping them cloistered in darkened, alcohol-free environs.

Economists Say Movie Violence Might Temper the Real Thing - New York Times