Former guard dogs, strays in the city of Yekaterinburg have been spotted sporting green coats. Although some locals initially thought it was a prank, the police believe that illegal chemical dumping is responsible for these dogs of a different color. As a result of the startling discovery, the city council has been asked to clean up the toxic area.

It sounds like the color is probably the result of a chemical reaction with the dogs' fur, but it probably doesn't bode well for their overall health and well-being. Still, the folks responsible for the dumpng better hope they don't end up with a pack of canine Toxic Avengers on their hands.

Wild Dogs Turn Green From 'Toxic Waste' [Yahoo! News via Geekologie]

From 1961 to 1985, the Soviet Union launched 17 missions to our other planetary neighbor. The US has since mapped Venus' surface by radar and deliberately vaporized the Magellan probe in the planet's atmosphere, but the last probes to land on Venus were Vega 1 and Vega 2, sent by the Soviet Union in 1985.

Now Russia is looking to go back to Venus, with the help of the European Space Agency. The Venera D mission would be a thorough, multi-faceted exploration of Venus, with an orbiting spacecraft, air balloons, a lander, and a kite-like "wind flyer," which would harness the winds of Venus to stay indefinitely aloft over the surface. It will not only be an expensive undertaking, but a great engineering challenge to develop crafts that can survive Venus' high temperatures and harsh conditions. Soviet landers lasted mere hours on the surface; Russian scientists working on Venera D had hoped to develop spacecraft and instruments that could last an entire 30 days, though they now think 24 hours is a more sensible goal.

Even a single day on Venus will prove difficult, but Russia is consulting with other space programs also turning toward Venus, and are officially scheduled to launch Venera D in 2016.

Russia plots return to Venus [BBC]

Arichtectural firm RMJM has designed Okhta Tower and just got the go-ahead to begin construction. The building will serve as headquarters for a division of Russian natural gas company Gazrpom, and will also have spaces for a concert hall, a hotel, a museum, and a business center. Sustainable design was key to the concept for Okhta, with double glass walls that allow atria to provide natural ventilation, enable sunlight effectively to light the interior, and provide thermal insulation in the face of the northern chill.

Still, residents and even the international community aren't thrilled about the new architectural division. Okhta Tower, they argue, will be inconsistent with the mostly low-rise buildings that are a hallmark of Saint Petersburg. And at 400 meters, the tower would greatly overshadow the spire of the famed St. Peter and Paul Cathedral. Even the UN signals disapproval, as Saint Petersburg could be stripped of its title as a UNESCO world heritage site.

[Inhabitat]

Not according to Igor Panarin, a former KGB analyst and dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's diplomat school. Like Ernest Callenbach's seminal book Ecotopia, Panarin foresees the Western states splitting off to form their own independent Republic of California. But he sees them either becoming part of China, or under Chinese influence, not becoming an eco-friendly paradise. Meanwhile, the midwestern states will become part of Canada or under Canadian influence, the states around Texas will become part of Mexico or under Mexican influence, and the East Coast liberal elites will finally join Europe. (Oh, and Russia gets Alaska back, making Sarah Palin's boast that she can see Russia a reality at last.)

It's all pretty fanciful stuff, although I think the timetable is what makes it especially ludicrous. If he'd placed his predictions of fracturing in the 2020s or 2030s, it would be somewhat harder to dispute them. What makes Panarin's doomsaying somewhat more significant is that the Russian state-owned media has been pushing it hard, and he's been invited to lecture on it constantly. So the real news is that Russia is promoting these crackpotty views as quasi-official state futurism.

Panarin compares himself to the people who predicted the fall of the Soviet Union a decade or two before it happened — which may be the real reason his views are so popular in Russia now. It's our turn to feel the ground collapse out from under us. I'm just imagining the poor Europeans getting stuck with the hellhole of Conneticut, and having no idea what to do with it. [WSJ]

In 2004, the Bush administration introduced its “vision for space exploration,” which includes retiring NASA’s existing shuttle fleet and introducing Constellation, a new launching program using an updated capsule and rocket system. However, the administration, not wanting to inflate NASA’s budget, decided that manned space missions would go on a five-year hiatus, and that American astronauts should instead fly on Russian spacecraft.

But the recent political tensions between the US and Russia have complicated this plan. Although NASA does not doubt Russia’s commitment to transporting US astronauts, the US’s commitment to manned spaceflight will be greatly tested if relations with Russia continue to deteriorate. Following Russia’s military action in Georgia, Congress was stalled the bill to approve NASA’s purchase of seats on Russian spacecraft beyond 2011. The approval for the purchase of seats through 2016 did ultimately pass, but the incident prompted NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin to speak out against the current policy, which he called "unseemly in the extreme":

In an e-mail message he sent to his top advisers in August, Dr. Griffin wrote that “events have unfolded in a way that makes it clear how unwise it was for the U.S. to adopt a policy of deliberate dependence on another power.”

Griffin further suggests that the gap poses an unnecessary risk to the US space program:

“In a rational world, we would have been allowed to pick a shuttle retirement date to be consistent with Ares/Orion availability,” Dr. Griffin wrote. Within the administration, he wrote, “retiring the shuttle is a jihad rather than an engineering and program management decision.”

Griffin fears the consequences of any delay in the Constellation program, which comes at a time when China’s space program is rapidly advancing. Even if the current plans go according to schedule, the US will not return to the moon until 2020. Proponents fear that by then, the US will already be behind the curve.

One Way Up: U.S. Space Plan Relies on Russia [NY Times]

Conventional wisdom might have it that this was the Moscow that never existed, but plenty of the ideas here did survive, even if the buildings didn't.

People's Соmmissariat of Heavy Industry, A. Vesnin, V, Vesnin, S. Lyaschenko, 1934:

Another competition produced this design, which has a more modern version in this Moscow apartment building:

The Рalace of Technology А.Samoylov, B.Yefomovich. 1933:

The fact the Russian showcase for achievement in science never came about in actuality is ironic, but you can be glad that the design sense of this Palace, which was to sit at the edge of a river, was carried over into the Ice Palace:

Building of the People's Defence Commissariat, Lev Rudney, 1933:

Though this monster never came to pass, Lev Rudnev designed many buildings in the city, including this one, which incredibly belongs to a University.

Palace of Soviets, Boris Iofan, 1934

160 entries were submitted for the Palace of the Soviets in 1933. Today there's a new palace on the block, and it's called the Russia Tower, which will be completed in 2012:

In the rubble of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow turned to Norman Foster for a new vision with this tower. While some lament the demise of Russian's architectural history, we have always been scared of giant penises in the sky.

Unrealised Moscow [Schusev State School of Architecture]

Imagine riding in that sucker down to Earth at like a zillion miles per hour.

There's something so poignant about this rocket's blistered skin. It's like this machine loved its human companions so much that it came back down to Earth just for them, even though it died in the process.

Soyuz Reentry Pictures [via Dark Roasted Blend]

Top image from Mark Bult. [Russian Science Fiction]

Over at Waxy.org, Andy Baio wonders if this was a tribute to the infamous Second Life protest, or if it's just that griefers all think alike.

I prefer to think it was the visionary act of cutting-edge futurists who were inspired by the amazing example of Second Life. Just proves that the real world is being affected by all that beautiful inventiveness in the virtual world. I mean, peniscopters! It's the kind of genius that we'd never be exposed to if we couldn't let our imaginations roam free in virtual worlds. I feel more liberated already. Now if only somebody would make a swarm of these things. We could call it . . . cockswarm. Thanks, Eliot!

Kasparov Griefed by Flying Penis [via Waxy]

Images by AP/Dmitry Lovetsky

Image from Getty Images

Here are some deets:
- A glazed crystalline glass tensegrity roof reflects weather conditions but keeps pedestrians dry.
- A new building on the Fontanka River will replace the decaying 60s Publishing House.
- A lightweight tensegrity footbridge will be built over the river. It'll look like a shiny cloud. Images by Wilkinson Eyre

Wilkinson Eyre Architects via Dezeen

China's ramped-up space plans (and its airbrushed moon porn) are definitely making the U.S. twitchy. The U.S. government refused to help with the launch of China's Chang'e lunar orbiter.) But the U.S. has mostly been laid-back, and a little condescending. Like this L.A. Times article that says "There's Room For China In Space." Really? No way. (Here's another one.) Even the fact that Russia, Western Europe and Japan have all launched their own robot probes isn't freaking Americans out yet. So let's hope China steps up its game, without doing anything too evil, like when China blew up a satellite and doubled the size of the debris field orbiting Earth. But a Chinese astronaut on Mars would be just the thing we need to jolt us out of our complacency.

Who knows when the U.S. would have put a dude on the moon if Russia hadn't put a dog in space back in 1957? The U.S. government is pretty stingy when it comes to science funding, but there's always money for war and coping with outside threats. Space funding dropped sharply in the 1990s, and now we're retiring our space shuttle fleet. The only recent increase in space funding was $300 million for defending U.S. satellites after China destroyed that weather satellite. It sucks that we need an outside competitor to make us take space exploration seriously again.But on the other hand, a little more competition could be healthy for everyone. Images by AP.

Thanks to Seth L, who pointed out these cool pictures in a comment thread about scary settings in scifi movies.

Kursk Wreck [English Russia]