"The Road Not Taken", By Robert Frost. 1916.

"The Road Not Taken", by Robert Frost. 1916.

Creating solutions for space, creates solutions on Earth.   Many of NASA’s solutions for space exploration have been adapted for use on Earth. These adapted technologies are known as NASA spinoffs. To date there have been over 1,800 NASA spinoffs. The Apollo program led to many spinoffs, including CAT scans, better water purification technology, a life raft that can withstand choppy conditions at sea, and athletics shoes that were adapted from moon boot technology. Memory foam was even originally developed by NASA to improve the safety of aircraft cushions. Recently a new technology startup Scanadu developed the first real life Star Trek tricorder, which uses the same technology as the Mars Curiosity rover.   NASA has continued to better lives on Earth by developing innovative technologies for the space shuttle and Viking spacecraft that were adapted to create more functional artificial limbs for amputees and insulin pumps for diabetics. NASA also developed fire resistant polymer fabric, which protects firefighters and military personnel. One of the latest NASA spinoffs, the FINDER radar, helps emergency responders rescue victims of disasters. NASA technology has protected us and we should protect its budget. NASA is valuable both for space exploration and for bettering life on Earth. The government shutdown is halting innovation. Write to Congress to tell them you want the government shutdown to end and for NASA to continue innovation for space and Earth.

Officials are searching for a 14-year-old Queens boy who is mute and was reported missing Friday.

Avonte Oquendo, who is 5 foot 3 and 125 pounds, was last seen leaving Center Boulevard School in Long Island City at around 12:45 p.m. Friday.

Oquendo was wearing a gray striped shirt, black jeans and black sneakers.

Anyone with information about Oquendo’s whereabouts is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. #EveryoneRepostThis

I noticed this cool spider web on someone's hedges this morning. I assume the bottom spherical thing is an egg sac, but I didn't know what the oblong bit was (for all I know it could have been a price of dried bird poop that got caught in the webbing). If anyone has any knowledge or guesses, let me know! Side note: I often take pictures of cool bugs, plants and (non-human) animals that I come across in my wandering about the city. I don't always know what they are, but I figure they're interesting enough to be worth sharing. I'll be collecting these posts under the tag "NYC nature walks", if that's of any use to anyone.

Tell me about your life as an artistic scientist

To be honest, it’s a bit confusing…

I try to do science and art comes out,

(I was supposed to be focusing on looking at a bunch of different tissue samples, not getting carried away drawing the slides.)

And when I try to do art, science comes out.

(I was just doing some animal sketches for class, but anatomy is just so pretty.)

Then, when I tried to combine the two, the reference was lost on my audience.

I was aiming to anthropomorphize the experiment done recently which electronically linked the brains of two lab rats. (I drew this as part of an in-class exercise. I drew the rats in the first phase, swapped comics with a classmate and they drew in the background.)

So, as I said; it’s a bit confusing, but honestly, I don’t mind; it makes it more interesting.

A lycanthrope transforms in front if his friend for the first time. "Oh my god." says his friend, "You just turned into a wolf." "Yes,"he replies "I am a were".