Plus: NASA’s First Recruitment Video and a Four-Wheel Drive Nano-Car.

NASA’s First Recruitment Video

“Looking for work? Have a math, science, or engineering degree?” science and sci-fi blog io9 asks. “NASA’s posted a job listing you should really have a look at. Oh…you should also be open to the idea of space travel.”

NASA has produced a promotional video to help the space agency recruit the next generation of astronauts. Traditionally, NASA has been relatively discrete in searching for astronauts, but in the age of YouTube and Lady Gaga, it seems the agency has decided to go the flashy route.

Introducing the World’s Smallest Electric Vehicle

Is there finally a solution for drivers fitting their cars into cramped parking spaces? A new nano-vehicle features four-wheel drive, is electric powered (though it can’t be plugged in) and is roughly a billionth of meter in length.

Researchers from the Netherlands developed the vehicle as a single molecule with four rotary units composed of a few atoms each, which enable it to move, according to Discovery News. These units function as molecular motors that, when electrically excited, push the vehicle over a copper surface. Electrons fired from a scanning tunneling microscope change the wheels’ shapes, causing them to move a fraction of a nanometer. Each wheel can be controlled individually, providing the same directionality as a car and enabling the mini-roadster to blaze along at 0.7 nanometers per rotation.

“There were numerous challenges with designing a car this small. A team of researchers at the University of Groningen, led by Ben Feringa, had to make the machine flexible enough to roll across dry surfaces, yet not with so many moving parts that it falls apart as moves around,” SmartPlanet explains. “Even the propulsion system is a delicate operation, with the shot of electrons aimed directly at the body’s center in order to ensure each wheel is turned simultaneously with an equal amount of force. When that doesn’t happen, the car drifts off course a bit.”

The developers plan to make the nano-car more versatile in the future. In its current form, it can only operate at cryogenic temperatures inside a vacuum, severely limiting its range. An additional problem is that gravity and weight aren’t capable of keeping a molecular-sized vehicle grounded in the same way as a full-sized car.

“Control of motion in the nano world is very difficult, and the motion is very different from what happens in the macro world,” Feringa told Discovery News. “There’s a big incentive to develop motors that ultimately can provide the energy to do all kinds of functions at the nanoscale.”

Office Etiquette Offender: The Cupcake Caper

Whenever you bring together different types of people into one workspace, chances are you’ll have some personality clashes. However, it still pays to get along with colleagues of different backgrounds and personality types, according to recent findings by Robert Half International.

In a survey of more than 430 office workers, nearly half (48 percent) said being courteous to others can help an employee rise through the ranks. Another 41 percent said etiquette plays at least some role in career advancement.

“In most cases, a minor etiquette slip-up won’t likely be career-limiting if you quickly acknowledge it and learn from your mistake,” Brett Good, a senior district president for Robert Half International, said in a statement. “But continual missteps have a cumulative effect that can chip away at your professional reputation and get in the way of advancement.”

When respondents were asked the odder etiquette blunders they’ve witnessed in the workplace, the following were among the more memorable:

• “A person took a cell phone into the restroom while still talking.”
• “Employees were walking around the office barefoot.”
• “A colleague would actually clip his nails at his desk while working.”
• “A colleague purposely sneezed in the boss’s coffee cup.”
• “Someone was stealing other people’s lunches from the lounge area.”

As for that last blunder, Robert Half makes clear, just don’t do it:

Cheers.