{"id":800707,"date":"2026-10-13T00:30:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/800707\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T00:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:30:16","slug":"hackaday-links-october-11-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/800707\/","title":{"rendered":"Hackaday Links: October 11, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

It probably goes without saying that if you send four humans to observe the Moon up close, they\u2019ll see things that those of us stuck here on Earth have never noticed. Luckily for us, they took impeccable notes and brought plenty of cameras, which NASA has shared with the rest of the class as Artemis II: Sights & Sounds of Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, technically it\u2019s called the Artemis II Preliminary Lunar Science Report, but we appreciate the space agency adding a little flair to it and formatting the findings for public consumption. Arguably the most significant observations detailed in the report are the impact flashes on the lunar surface. As you may recall, the trajectory of the Orion spacecraft meant the crew experienced a unique solar eclipse on the sixth day of the mission<\/a>, giving them an unprecedented close-up view of the darkened Moon. During this time, they were able to see flashes of light with their unaided eyes, which NASA has since confirmed were small rocky fragments \u2014 perhaps no more than a few inches wide \u2014 slamming into the lunar surface at incredible speeds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To boldly go where no whisky has gone before.<\/p>\n

The Artemis II mission was one for the history books, for most of us the most significant space mission of our lifetimes. But as access to space becomes cheaper and more routine, it stands to reason that not all activities in orbit will be quite so momentous. For example, students from the University of Glasgow and Japan\u2019s Kyushu Institute are currently collaborating on a planned mission to distill whisky in space for the first time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scheduled to launch in 2028, the CubeSat will carry 10 ml of fluid and spend five years in orbit studying how its chemical composition changes, with a special interest in how the frequent changes experienced as the spacecraft travels around the Earth could influence the maturing process. While this might not seem terribly interesting to teetotalers, it offers an opportunity to gain more practical experience with orbital manufacturing which will likely inform future missions.<\/p>\n

Speaking of studying how things behave \u2014 or perhaps how they don\u2019t behave, as the case may be \u2014 we have an update on the controversy around this year\u2019s Nikon Small World in Motion competition. After several experts in the field raised the alarm last week, Ning Xu\u2019s winning video supposedly showing cilia in airway tissue samples taken from a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) has been disqualified for using generative AI<\/a>. This shifted all the previous winners up a rank, so Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam now takes the top spot with a video of a roundworm and a single-celled Dileptus.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>According to experts, Dr. Ning Xu\u2019s entry was literally too good to be true.<\/p>\n

Xu had previously claimed that AI was only used for post-processing the original images, which would have already put the entry into something of a gray area as far as the competition was concerned. But according to researchers familiar with PCD, the structures shown in the video don\u2019t look like anything they\u2019d ever seen in a patient, prompting suspicion that the admittedly fascinating visuals were actually the result of an AI hallucination.<\/p>\n

Finally, on the subject of beautiful images, we\u2019d like to point you to ascii.rest<\/a>. As you\u2019ve probably noticed, we appreciate minimal web design around these parts, so this collection of ASCII animations and art immediately caught our eye. Some of the pieces, like \u201caurora fjord\u201d shown here, can be exported as a GIF or video clip. But there\u2019s also the option to embed them in your HTML with a couple of lines, which also gives you the opportunity to customize and manipulate them in various ways. If you do anything cool with these designs, we\u2019d love to see it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line<\/a>, we\u2019d love to hear about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It probably goes without saying that if you send four humans to observe the Moon up close, they\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-800707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}