There’s a lot of garbage floating around in low Earth orbit that threatens both crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, but a new idea based on one of nature's enduring shapes could offer better protection against debris impacts that's no yolk. Bad puns aside, and we do beg your forgiveness, Chinese researchers at Dalian University of Technology have developed a new spacecraft armor design that, according to a research paper published on Tuesday, offers considerably more protection by taking inspiration from the shape of a typical egg. “Natural biological structures have evolved to demonstrate excellent energy absorption performance over long-term adaptation,” lead author Yuxin Wang told the American Institute of Physics, whose journal published his team’s results. Debris in orbit poses serious risks to spacecraft and satellites: Even a tiny piece can cause massive damage, as chunks of metal and other spacecraft debris travel at blistering speeds. Debris in low Earth orbit typically travels at around 7 to 8 kilometers per second, while impacts between orbiting objects can occur at relative velocities approaching 15 kilometers per second. For reference, even the most high-powered military rifles struggle to achieve a muzzle velocity over 1.45 km/s. According to orbital debris tracker Orbital Radar, a 1 cm aluminum sphere traveling at 10 km/s packs the same amount of kinetic energy as a hand grenade. With so many satellites in orbit, collision risks are rising. Starlink is lowering its orbit, while SpaceX has separately proposed launching up to one million satellites for an orbital datacenter system. Things are getting crowded and better spacecraft protection is definitely needed. Wang’s team’s design is simple: Sandwich a bunch of 3D-printed aluminum eggs between two aluminum plates, fill the shells with water, and model what happens when fake space debris smacks into them at hypervelocity. The researchers also produced 3D-printed structures for testing. Several designs were compared: one with the pointy ends of the shells against the faceplate, an inverse of that design, a mix of shell configurations, and one with spheres instead of eggshells. The design with the pointy ends against the faceplate performed best in the simulations, reducing projectile velocity by 64.9 percent. For comparison, a single aluminum plate reduced projectile velocity by 51 percent under the same simulated conditions. The eggshells don’t have to be large, either: The design tested by Wang’s team used water-filled eggs that were just 12 mm high (around half an inch), with aluminum plates a single millimeter thick on either side. Weight is still likely to be a concern, as covering a spacecraft in half an inch of water-filled eggshells will likely make it considerably heavier. We asked Wang if his team had considered that, but didn’t hear back. Per the AIP, the group is now working to optimize their design and conduct further tests. Regardless, Wang told AIP Publishing the results show that better spacecraft protection is possible. “This work demonstrates that bionic, lightweight metastructures are a promising route for hypervelocity-impact protection,” Wang said. “We hope this research can attract more attention to bio-inspired protective structures.” No matter how the protection ends up being designed, it’s sorely needed. ISS residents have had to shelter in place on multiple occasions due to the potential of space junk collisions, and the growing number of satellites and debris in orbit raises the risk of further collisions, moving some orbital regions closer to conditions associated with Kessler syndrome, where collisions create more debris that can trigger further collisions and potentially make heavily affected orbits unusable. It’s either eggshells, or someone really quickly figures out how to develop spacecraft shields akin to those from Star Trek. My money’s on the shells, but in this case, I’d love to end up with egg on my face. ®

You can go retro by using an old video game console or a PC from the 1980s, but why stop there when, like one man, you can build your own vacuum tube computer using 75-year-old recycled components? A UK resident who identifies himself only as “Mike” has done just that, as detailed on his tube computer website and accompanying Hackaday project page. Mike’s tube computer is primarily made up of 460 recycled, Soviet-era 6N3P vacuum tubes, which were common enough in their age to be readily and cheaply available online. “Many were used and then stored for over 50 years, so life expectancy may be questionable,” Mike explained on Hackaday. A new 6N3P tube is supposed to have around 500 hours of life, but because each has been used, its current condition is essentially a mystery. Throw in manufacturing inconsistencies of mid-century Soviet Russia, and each tube had enough variability to necessitate extensive testing, Mike explains in the technical writeup on his website. “I calculated the component values and tested the results, but in many cases the theory did not accurately match the practice,” Mike writes. “So I built a test rig to test the viability of various component values and found a range of values that seemed to work in most cases.” All told, Mike’s tube computer, with its 460 6N3P tubes, consists of 920 thermionic triodes that use heat to release electrons for his computing work. Those tubes are mounted to 46 separate 10-tube PCBs, which in turn sit on five backplane PCBs. The entire thing includes a control console that Mike describes as “far too simple” and in need of a complete redesign to better handle variations in the computer’s logic levels. It takes between 10 and 15 minutes for the entire system to stabilize once switched on, Mike said, resulting in a “warm and cozy computer room.” The tubes all power up in random states, requiring the machine to be reset each time it is switched on, but then it’s ready for the fun part: computing. The entire thing uses NOR (i.e., not OR) gates, just like the Apollo guidance computers that got humans to the Moon, which allows it to be a bit smaller than some of the other classic tube computers of yesteryear. As for what it can do, well - 16-bit math is a possibility, as well as anything else that can be done with a limited set of 16 instructions on a 4-bit instruction register. Mike has it configured to output a 64-bit Fibonacci sequence and, more excitingly for his grandchildren and the kid in all of us, plans to use it to power a simple flight simulator once its I/O system is finished. “The basic idea is that back in the 1920s the commercial development of the British R80 airship had actually been approved by the government and the Airship is moored overnight at the wonderful Brighton Aerodrome before a morning launch on a voyage to Paris,” Mike says on his website. “By pressing controls on the image of the bridge of the R80 you can direct the airship software,” he adds. “You can control the ballast, gas release, engine power, elevators, rudder and the bow mooring gear, which is used to release the airship from the tower.” He says that “a bit of vision” is needed to picture oneself flying an airship from Brighton to Paris, as the machine has no graphical output aside from a single mechanical display that used to serve as a clock at a British Rail station. The tube computer’s binary output is used to directly control the mechanical display. Mike describes his fascination with tube computers as “an addiction,” noting that this is the third such system he’s built since getting his first one up and running in 2021. “I designed The Tube Computer so it could show itself working at the most fundamental level of computing,” Mike says, while noting that he’s always careful to keep a fire extinguisher handy thanks to the fact you can smell it running due to all the heat it generates - enough to keep its entire room warm. “The Tube Computer has behaved itself so far, unlike a previous system that went BANG twice,” Mike said, adding that it still requires regular adjustments which, due to its size and position hanging on a wall, require a ladder to undertake. “It is probably one of the few computers that needs both a small tweeker [sic] and a big step ladder.” ®

Tesla's Cybercab's wheels have only just hit the asphalt for its commercial launch and the autonomous vehicle has already attracted the attention of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The body announced an investigation into Tesla's self-certification of the vehicle at the weekend. Central to the probe is the fact that the Cybercab famously lacks conventional controls. The NHTSA says there are "clear vehicle performance requirements" – stuff like brake controls – that "in order for automakers to access the US market, they must certify that their vehicles meet these standards – subject to oversight from the agency to confirm compliance. When certified vehicles appear to not adhere to these requirements, NHTSA conducts an investigation." The NHTSA is updating the requirements for autonomous vehicles designed never to be operated by a human, but Tesla appears to have jumped the gun somewhat, prompting the agency to open an Audit Query (AQ) just hours after the Cybercab began a commercial rollout on the streets of Austin, Texas. Tesla told the NHTSA that it had certified the Cybercab "as compliant with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS)." The vehicles lack permanently attached manual controls such as a brake pedal, accelerator, steering wheel, or mirrors. In the AQ, the agency wrote it intended to "examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and related issues. "Among other things, NHTSA will consider the extent to which Tesla’s certification depended on determinations that certain FMVSS are inapplicable to the Cybercab." Tesla is not the only company with autonomous vehicles ferrying passengers around on US roads without using conventional controls in the cabin. Amazon tentacle Zoox, for example, was granted a two-year exemption [PDF] at the end of July 2026, with the proviso that "not more than 2,500 exempted vehicles are introduced into interstate commerce for commercial deployment in any 12-month period." There is therefore precedent. However, the NHTSA wants to see how Tesla came up with its self-certification for the Cybercab. NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said, "NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed." The agency noted, "When certified vehicles appear to not adhere to these requirements, NHTSA conducts an investigation." ®

Victorian buyers previewed distant mansions through lenses and creativity

A defense startup has raised $7 million to develop its counter-drone system that uses small interceptors to defend against swarms of FPV (First-Person View) drone swarms, the kind causing heavy battlefield casualties in Ukraine. San Francisco-based Mara says it has secured the funding to bring its Spike drone defense system to market, aiming to provide a cost-effective counter to small FPV attack drones - typically quad-copters with an explosive payload. The system comprises separate Spotter sensor / targeting units and multiple Seeker kinetic interceptors. The latter are small (250g / half a pound), fast (200 kmph / 124 mph), tube-launched, and have onboard intelligence to help find their way to the target. Mara claims that deployments can scale from a single rucksack kit to protect a squad of troops, to a vehicle-mounted launcher, up to a multi-kilometer perimeter shield for a base or site. A launcher can be fitted with up to 48 of the Seeker interceptors, and reloaded in less than a minute, or so the firm says. The Spotter detection and tracking sensor combines electro-optical and acoustic sensors with an optional low-signature radar, for day and night all-weather protection. “Small drones changed the battlefield because they distributed the cost and capability of precise attack,” Mara co-founder and CEO Daniel Kofman said in a statement. Yet many defensive countermeasures are concentrated into one costly point solution, he claims. “Spike creates a distributed mesh of small, cheap nodes that can each aim and shoot in multiple directions at once.” The components of its Spike system have already been tested by potential customers, Mara says. Seeker completed intercepts cued through US Army systems at an exercise in Texas, while Spotter has been operated on an armored vehicle during another Army exercise in Europe. Most recently, Ukrainian forces operated Spotter near to the front line in their country, where it tracked multiple FPV drones. Mara says it has research and testing agreements with three US defense organizations, and is in early-stage engagements with international military partners in the UK, Czech Republic and Ukraine. The $7 million funding round was led by Khosla Ventures. We asked Mara for further details, such as the range of its Seeker interceptors and just how inexpensive they are, and will update if we get answers. ®

Microsoft's latest Xbox merchandising deal means at least you can sit on an IKEA cushion while you wait for your PlayStation 5 to boot. IKEA has announced YXSTABY, a nine-piece collection of items aimed at the XBOX completist who has to have every possible piece of merchandise associated with their beloved game console. Need a stool? How about one modeled on a controller's thumbstick? A cushion? There's a D-pad to throw on the sofa. And a tariff refund for Xbox customers? Ah, well, the IKEA deal only goes so far… IKEA has long had a reputation for being that place where relationships go to die, thanks in part to the occasionally labyrinthine layout of its store. Xbox has, under the leadership of Asha Sharma, acquired a similar rep as far as staffers and game studios are concerned. Thousands of workers were laid off in recent months as Sharma "reset the business" to improve the platform's standing in a market dominated by rivals. In the UK, IKEA charges £12 for a cushion or platter, and up to £115 for a side table on wheels. The Reg suspects Xbox branded stuff will be a little pricier but considerably less than an Xbox itself. Microsoft Store shows the comparatively weedy Xbox Series S retailing for £429.99, while the beefier Series X goes for £669.99. When launched in 2020, the Series S cost £249. "Unfortunately," wrote Microsoft, "console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027." It is far from alone. Price rises have become a way of life in the tech industry in recent months as demand for memory outstripped supply. This is not the first gaming-related wares that IKEA has sold. The BRÄNNBOLL collection predates the Xbox collaboration and features "everything to improve your gaming adventures, from a rug that helps you hit the enemies, not the table, to gaming bolsters that boost your comfort and play." The YXSTABY range was unveiled at Gamescom this month, but eager buyers have a little longer to wait for that Xbox-inspired stool. The range will be in stores and available online from October 1. ®

For years, Corey Quinn, chief cloud economist at Duckbill and occasional Reg columnist, has argued that Amazon's Route 53 DNS service is a database. While literally true in the sense that DNS records are stored key-value pairs, it's more of a provocation than an endorsement. Even so, the idea has inspired prior jibes. In that spirit, Colin Percival, the creator of backup service Tarsnap, has released Route 53 Files, "a new file system that seamlessly connects any AWS compute resource with Amazon's highest-availability database." "The opening line of referring to Route 53 as Amazon's highest-availability database was partly a hat-tip to Corey," Percival told The Register. "Everyone in the field knows it's true, though." But Percival's satirical target isn't really AWS database downtime. He's more focused on Amazon S3 Files, a file system that links AWS compute resources with Amazon Simple Storage Service. "S3 Files launched in April and my reaction was, 'Oh, we're shipping category errors now? Hold my beer,'" explained Percival. "I'm not saying that Route 53 Files can't be useful – as Corey notes, the API for Route 53 is awful – but the inspiration was 'this needs to be satirized' and the launch post was written with that in mind." The launch post was penned in the style of the S3 Files launch post. Percival pointed to one particular passage about Route 53 Files being "ideal for shared workloads that mutate authoritative DNS, such as AI agents collaborating through file-based tools and on-call engineers reverting each other's changes using sed." That passage, he said, echoes wording from the AWS post pitching S3 Files as being "ideal for interactive, shared workloads that mutate data, from agentic AI agents collaborating through file-based tools to ML training pipelines processing datasets." Percival said he understands that many AWS customers love S3 Files. "But the fact customers ask for faster horses doesn't in itself mean that's what we should give them; the weird edge cases which come up when you ship category errors can cause unexpected problems and I'm not convinced that customers understand them sufficiently," he said. Percival said he doesn't personally know anyone using S3 Files in production. "I'm just looking at the design and saying, 'that looks like a sharp edge which will hurt someone.' Two examples which come to mind are the 'Sync back to S3 after 60 seconds of inactivity,' which I'm sure will bite someone eventually when they end up waiting for changes which never arrive because a file is being continuously updated; and the IAM integration, which (due to the security fail which is IMDS) gives people far less privilege separation than they might expect from a filesystem." Quinn expressed appreciation for Percival's work. "I've been calling Route53 a database for the better part of a decade mostly to annoy people who know what a database is," Quinn told The Register. "Colin took the amazing bones of a legendary service and gave it an interface model that isn't molten garbage, and I am totally here for it. He replaced the API with echo which is a downgrade in every respect except for the part where it works without requiring six weeks of cloud school." And the funny thing is that it actually works. ®

Picture this: You’ve just undergone one of the most harrowing experiences of your life, and you’re trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building. You’re injured, air is running out, and human rescuers can’t reach you. But crawling through the rubble to administer life-saving drugs and reassure you comes the last thing you’d expect: a swarm of cyborg cockroaches bearing tiny syringes. Unfortunately for those who’d rather find solace in the arms of a fluffy, drooly St. Bernard, this tale is anything but science fiction. It’s not even a new idea: Cockroaches fitted with electronics that allow rescue workers to control their movements from a distance have been on the research docket for biotech researchers for some time. What’s new in this latest experiment from researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland is outfitting the, erm, little buggers with devices remote rescuers can use to shoot a drug dart into trapped patients. “A lot of people might not like the sight of a giant cockroach scurrying towards them, but if you’re trapped in rubble or stuck in a cave and need help, it could make a real difference between life and death,” PhD candidate and lead research paper author Hai Nhan Le told the University of his phobia-triggering project. Giant is right – the species chosen for the project, the giant burrowing cockroach, is the world’s heaviest roach species, and can grow up to 8 centimeters in length, or around 3.1 inches. Known to be docile, they’re popular pets in their native Australia, and – lucky for anyone coming face to face with one while trapped in a pile of rubble – they’re known to be relatively clean and disease-free, too. The giant burrowing cockroach was chosen for its size, per the paper, as they needed to be large enough to “integrate centimetre-scale apparatuses for … real world scenarios.” The “paraborgs,” as the team calls their subjects, were outfitted with electrodes that gave researchers the ability to make the roaches turn left and right, control their speed, and immobilize them in order to deliver drugs without the roach moving while scientists tried to take aim. Then they were fitted with various add-ons specific to their roles in the paramedic swarm –one built to search, another equipped with a single launchable drug syringe, for example. Outfitting the roaches with their cyborg backpacks isn’t fatal, and the team said that their subjects were able to live just as long as other roaches once their harnesses were removed. *shudder* Well, at least they're good at their jobs The Queensland team had overwhelming success in getting their paraborgs to end up where they wanted them - 100 percent successful, in fact, the paper said. As for drug injection, the auto-injection mechanism succeeded 90 percent of the time, and paraborgs able to get within 15 cm of a target (5.9 inches) were able to successfully inject drugs 95 percent of the time. The only trouble spot for the experiment was getting the robo roaches to sit still, with only a 72 percent success rate in stabilizing the cockroaches for injection targeting. That’s still a pretty good rate of success, leaving the team to predict that swarms of specially-outfitted paraborgs could be swarming over disaster sites in a matter of a few short years. “Some could carry cameras and environmental sensors, while others could carry specialised emergency or medical equipment,” UQ robotics engineering lab director and lecturer Dr. Thang Vo-Doan said of the project. “Hopefully, within the next 5 to 10 years, we could see cyborg insect rescue teams deployed to help people in real emergencies.” Hopefully large bugs bearing medical aid isn’t something that’ll send you into a panic. ®

BORK!BORK!BORK! Wide, super wide, ultra wide, and monitor-munga screens might be all the rage these days. But check out the girth of this Debian display in Scotland. Spotted by eagle-eyed Register reader Kenny Millar, this digital billboard in the west central Lowlands town of Greenock has been showing a Debian login prompt for a few weeks now. We know the Linux fraternity are less than keen on advertisements in their operating system, but this is getting ridiculous. Did you know that Debian had its own tartan? No, we didn't either. Our reader provided a link to a Google Street View shot of the board in happier times, in 2024. However, the base of the sign in 2024 hinted at the fate that has since befallen it. It was a 75Media billboard, something now removed. 75Media, a major outdoor advertising company in the UK, ceased trading at the end of 2025, and we fear that the Greenock signage whoopsie is a real-world example of the lights being on, but nobody's in. Or, in this case, Debian prompting for a login, but no humans to handle the request. So the board waits… It looks like Debian 11 – Bullseye – is the operating system in use. Released in 2021, the operating system reaches the end of long-term support in 2026, although fixes can continue until 2031 (assuming someone is paying the bills). With 75Media out of the picture, responsibility for the board has likely shifted to a different advertising agency. Despite its imposing physical dimensions, the display resolution comes in at just 1,200 x 320 pixels which is plenty for running a couple of Doom sessions side by side, but tight for actual desktop use. It's fitting, then, that the terminal driving the board is left on display. No true IT professional, after all, likes to stray far from the command line. There is something strangely plaintive about this board with its login prompt bared to the world, but with no techie behind the scenes to either put it out of its misery with a sudo shutdown -h or set off the next slideshow of ads to entice passing motorists. A case of perhaps IT is aware, but nobody cares. ®

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