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College Students Contact Space Station With Self-Built Radio System
While putting a call in to the International Space Station and chatting up an astronaut for a full ten minutes would likely be more than enough to satisfy most science classes, a group of students from Humber College in Toronto decided to go one big step further and do so with a radio system that they designed and built themselves. According to the school, that makes it the first time that's ever been done by students at the college level, which provided some well-deserved bragging rights for the students and their instructor, who said that they're "playing way, way above their league." Be sure to hit up the link below for a video of the big moment and, of course, the complete NASA control room-esque geek out.
Computer Virus Found on Space Station
When humans go into space, they're protected from the cold extremes by armored walls, thick glass and airlocks. They're also prevented from coming into contact with any potential space bugs thanks to their completely sealed suits. Their computers, apparently, are completely exposed to the elements, being shot up into space with nary a virus scanner aboard. No surprise, then, that computers on the International Space Station have been infected with a common computer virus.
The virus is Gammima.AG and is the type that runs in the background and steals usernames and passwords, with the hopes of hijacking people's accounts to a variety of popular Asian online games. Fortunately, this is hardly a major threat to our orbital security, but it suggests that our space security may need to be tighter. NASA is pledging to install scanners on any laptops destined for orbit, and we're hoping it also has them back on Earth, too. [From: BBC News]




