China is working to create a massive subsurface sea lab thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, aiming to hunt for minerals in the South China Sea and presumably to cement their claim to the disputed region.

The project is one of the country’s top scientific priorities, according to the Chinese government, and would be a world first – while submarines can go as deep as the planned station, no manned outpost has been constructed and maintained at such depths to date.

“The deep sea contains treasures that remain undiscovered and undeveloped, and in order to obtain these treasures we have to control key technologies in getting into the deep sea, discovering the deep sea, and developing the deep sea,” President Xi said last month at a national science conference.

Some reports indicate that the project would be mobile, and others have theorized that it could be a strategic part of the ‘Underwater Great Wall Project” designed to detect US and Russian submarines. The government says it will be for civil use, but will not rule out military functions.

Spearheading the planning for the deep-sea station is the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, according to a statement on the website of the science ministry. Once operational, it would host dozens of crew members who could remain underwater for up to a month, the ministry’s presentation separately said.

Planning has been under way for a decade and is central to China’s push to become a global technology superpower by 2030. Completing it would help China close a deep sea exploration gap with the U.S., Japan, France and Russia on underwater technology.

The post China’s “Underwater Space Station” to be 10,000 Feet Deep first appeared on Gajitz.

Billing itself as the world’s smallest mobile accessory, this eight-in-one micro-gadget carries your cables, serves as an emergency charger and a good deal more, all at (the size of) your fingertips.

“No tangled cable. No mess. WonderCube features a foldout flexible USB cord measuring 3 inches when extended. Neatly folded in just 1-inch, the cube is completely covered without any exposed contacts. It’s incredibly durable and compact. A cable designed to be with you everywhere!”

With a built-in flashlight and all kinds of nooks and crannies, the idea is to replace basically everything you normally take along with you to accompany your mobile electronic devices – the only catch: it is naturally not big enough to hold a charge itself, but can be used indirectly with other batteries to do that job.

“Smart devices are great. They make our lives more convenient and certainly more productive. Yet, they have always come with quite a number of accessories, which individually provide solutions such as charging battery, standing up your phone for the perfect viewing angle, storing and syncing data…etc. However, many of them are bulky and easy to forget.”

Some critics will wonder if it can be done, but the device has already raised close to $200,000 on IndieGoGo, so clearly a good many backers have faith in the execution as well as the concept. Its creators have also built a number of 3D-printed mockups to demostrate its feasibility.

“Once we were set on several key directions, we moved from paper to action. We built quick prototypes using clay and paper, to get a hand-on experience for better understanding the strengths and weaknesses of our concepts. Having evolved through several versions, we moved to rapid prototyping and tested with users. We believe by putting our ideas into actual contexts and by acquiring feedback through user testing, the design evolved to better meet the needs of our users.”

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Using sections of the International Space Station as stationary points, this incredible photo shoot turns both outer space and our own planet into a series of surreal and otherworldly landscapes.

Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit relayed some information about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: “My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.”

The results are nothing short of stunning – the Earth’s surface becomes streaked with color and light, punctuated by what appear to be blotches of lightning or blurred cityscapes, but overall looking more linear like (Jupiter or) some other celestial body.

Naturally, only pieces of the ISS itself look static in each shot, creating a stark contrast between a fixed foreground and spiraling set of backgrounds (though, in reality, the station itself is also rotating – it is all relative). Armatures of the station end up open to interpretation, in some cases looking like the needle on a record player hovering above a spinning disk.

The post Star Trails in Space: Timelapse Photos Shot from the ISS first appeared on Gajitz.