Every year mad scientists, robot builders, power tool drag racers, craftsters, and other DIY guys and gals gather together at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds for one of the coolest events in the Bay Area — the Maker Faire!

This year there were plenty of fun things for Star Wars fans to see and do — including crafts, R2-D2 dancing, prop displays, the LEGO Jeep, Steampunk contraptions and more!

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Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself mindset. Maker Faire happens May 3 and 4 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in California. It’s a fun event for creative people of all ages who love to tinker and make things.

Whether it’s playing with robots (and there’s a lot of them!), checking out huge fire-breathing contraptions from Survival Research Laboratories, gawking at Tesla Coils, drag racing power tools, making all kinds of crafts, or just having fun geeking out, there’s plenty for everyone to do.

Here’s a selection of Makers and Exhibits that Star Wars fans might dig the most:

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If you don’t mind lots of sand, high temperatures and well… that’s about it, then you might be excited to hear about the idea that a planet like Tatooine could possibly exist in reality. Io9.com reports about Ryosuke Kita of Northwestern University, who recently presented at the Astrobiology Science Conference 2008 about the likelihood of a Tatooine-type planet in a nearby solar system.

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(Photo by Dirk Van Der Merwe)

Dean Kamen’s “Luke arm” — a prosthesis named for the remarkably lifelike prosthetic worn by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars – came to the end of its two-year funding last month. Its fate now rests in the hands of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funded the project. If DARPA gives the project the green light — and some greenbacks — the state-of-the-art bionic arm will go into clinical trials. If all goes well, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives its approval, returning veterans could be wearing the new artificial limb by next year.

Read more about it here:
Dean Kamen’s “Luke Arm” Prosthesis Readies for Clinical Trials

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SOURCE: Club Jade, BoingBoing.net

Looks like Princess Leia isn’t the only hologram in the galaxy. To promote the upcoming movie The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, a Loch Ness hologram was let loose to stun nighttime visitors to Tokyo Bay. Using a large water screen and timed fountains, it almost looks as though a ghostly Nessie comes up from the watery depths to roar hello!

Watch a video clip of Hologram Nessie in action. (via Gizmodo)

Researchers at Stemagen claim that they used male skin cells to create human embryos, even thought they did not delevop past 100 cells.

It is not clear whether the embryos would have been viable if implanted into a womb. Stemagen did not test whether the embryos had the correct number of chromosomes. But Dr. Wood, who also is a fertility doctor, said, “We’ve seen reproductive blastocysts that look like this or worse and they implant.”

Read more articles here:
Cloning Said to Yield Human Embryos (New York Times)
Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells (Washington Post)

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SOURCES:
BoingBoing.net, ClubJade.net

A comment from reader Alec Longstreth points to this fascinating science story of a massive black hole within the heart of a galaxy that is blasting a nearby companion galaxy with a jet of high energy particles and magnetic fields. It’s a galaxy… with a gun! The kind of nefarious superweapon that could only be cooked up in an Imperial laboratory, or in the depths of space by the cosmos. It’s the nickname of the violent galaxy that should catch the eye of Star Wars fans:

The larger of the two galaxies in 3C321 - dubbed the “death star galaxy” by the astronomers - has a jet emanating from the vicinity of the black hole at its centre. The unfortunate smaller galaxy has apparently swung into the jet’s line of fire.

Read the rest here.

According to BoingBoing.net: “The fabled Ark of the Covenant may not be in some nondescript crate in a massive US government warehouse but rather in the small Ethiopian town of Aksum where it is guarded by a virgin monk who can never leave the chapel where it sits. And nobody else can see it either. Smithsonian magazine sent Paul Raffaele to investigate.”

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Since the Discovery blasted off on on October 23 for a two-week mission (with Luke’s lightsaber on board!), Star Wars fans have been leaving their best wishes to the seven STS-120 astronauts headed to the International Space Station, at Spacecenter.org. (So don’t forget to make sure the Discovery crew knows that the Force is with them!)

Now thanks to CollectSPACE.com, Starwars.com visitors have a chance to ask an astronaut on board a question as well.

Feel free to ask how they feel about having Luke’s Return of the Jedi lightsaber on board. Or if the Star Wars saga inspired them to be astronauts? Or if they find themselves quoting the movie over and over, “Hey that’s no moon!”

What question would you like to ask? Your question may get picked and asked to an astronaut! But we need your questions by end of the day 5pm EST on Tuesday, Oct. 30.

So post your questions HERE in this thread:
Ask a NASA Astronaut a Question! (Due Oct 30)

In 1957 the Sputnik 1 satellite was seen as a technological marvel, the result of many years work by some of the Soviet Union’s most talented engineers and scientists. But by today’s standards, was it really such a big deal? How hard would it be to build a fully working Sputnik in the comfort of your own living room?

Follow the instructions here and make your own Sputnik!
And while you’re at it, sign up to take the Sputnik Challenge.

How to build your own Sputnik