Henry Spencer, computer programmer, spacecraft engineer and amateur space historian

Last week, the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon. But two years before that milestone, Congress had already terminated funding for most of NASA's post-Apollo plans. The agency has pretty much been in a holding pattern for the past 40 years. Its recent attempt to break out of it with the Constellation programme of Ares rockets, an Apollo-inspired crew capsule and an Altair lunar lander is in big trouble, both technical and financial. Where do we go from here? Where should we go from here?

Tom Simonite, online technology editor

The tech blogosphere is preoccupied today with reports that Apple has blocked an iPhone software app released by Google for users of its Google Voice telephony service.

The service not only lets users redirect phone numbers to different devices and lines as required, and on a per-caller basis, but also provides free text messages and cut-rate international calling. The move has led some to suggest that Apple's chosen US cellphone network AT&T applied the pressure to block the app over fears of lost revenue.

That hasn't been confirmed as yet, but as I pointed out just a few weeks ago, products like Google Voice pose a real threat to the established ways of doing business by charging for connecting one cellphone to another, or to the internet.

Ewen Callaway, reporter

If Michael Jackson's fedora or a swan boat from Neverland don't properly convey your adulation for the King of Pop, you may want to consider buying diamonds made from his hair.

Yes. Diamonds made from Michael Jackson's singed hair may soon be available, according to a press release from a firm that specialises in manufacturing the precious stones from the remains of loved ones.

"We specialise in creating diamonds from locks of hair. Our plan is to give people an opportunity to own a diamond made from Michael Jackson's DNA," said Dean VandenBiesen, founder of LifeGem. "We are currently evaluating Jackson's hair sample to determine how many diamonds can be created. This will be a limited collection and we anticipate great interest."

Jessica Griggs, reporter

Friday was the last day of TED2009 and the floor belonged to the creative types.

Highlights included an architect who plans to recreate Azerbaijan's seven sacred mountains on a barren island off its coast, making the whole thing sustainable for people to live inside them, a high-altitude archaeologist who once spent three weeks living in the crater of an active volcano, and my favourite, Magnus Larsson, a man with a humongous plan - to build a 6000 kilometre long, narrow city within the Saharan sand dunes to help slow desertification in the region.

"The dunes move southward at a rate of 1 metre a day, the Sahara is literally gobbling the land," he told us. What's more, this city within a dune, or wall to rival China's, will be made entirely of the stuff its trying to protect - with the help of a 3D printer and bacteria that eat sand and pump out sandstone.

The idea is that the sandstone wall will add texture to the dunes, preventing the sand from blowing away and providing support for trees and cacti to grow, which also act as "sand catchers".

Lisa Grossman, reporter

Twitter has been lauded as the next killer app and maligned as useless junk in equal measure. But a new service that lets you know exactly when the International Space Station (ISS) will pass over your head adds weight to the "useful" side of the scale.

The service, called Twisst, extracts your global position and time zone from the location you list in your Twitter feed, and sends you a personalised message when the ISS is coming so you know to look up. It's the most practical space-related use of Twitter we've seen yet.

It got us at New Scientist wondering: Where else can an astronomy enthusiast look for useful, fun tweets? We asked you for suggestions, rounded up your favourites, and added a few of our own. Here's our list of top tweeters, who bring personality, inside knowledge and unique perspectives to the Twitterverse.

Jessica Griggs, reporter

Yesterday TED took us by the hand and led us to the dark side, because in the words of curator Chris Anderson, "Not everything unseen is beautiful".

BBC "underworld" journalist Misha Glenny told us that it's the gangsters and organised crime mobs who have really benefited from the recession, with 15% of the world's GDP now coming from their illicit activities.

Macroeconomist Loretta Napoloni  talked about the economics of terrorism, explaining that the moment she realised it was a business was during a lunch with the incarcerated leader of the Red Brigade - "He spoke in the same language as my banker colleagues in the City of London".

Sudanese self-professed "war child" and rapper Emmanuel Jal provided relief - of a kind. At the age of 8 he was recruited by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army to fight in the civil war. "I didn't know what war was but I wanted revenge for the killing and rape of my family".

Jessica Griggs, reporter

Yesterday it felt like my IQ increased 20 points via pure intellectual osmosis. It was a long day - 21 people that deserve my full attention over four 90 minute intense sessions, punctuated by coffee and conversation breaks in between.  

The talk that got the most people fired up was by a woman with the intriguing moniker (TED likes to give everyone a snappy two word job description) "aquatic ape theorist", Elaine Morgan.

She believes that rather than climbing down from the trees and onto the savannah, our chimp ancestors descending into a watery world (perhaps as a result of a catastrophic flood) and so humans emerged from the shallows.

According to Morgan the evidence is plain to see - from our nakedness to the streamlined way we dive into the water ("imagine a gorilla doing that"), to the gunk that covers us when we're born, the composition of which is only shared by the goo that covers baby seals. This theory was first floated in the 1960s by zoologist Alistair Hardy but was quickly filed in the drawer along with UFOs and yetis.

Michael Le Page, Padawan apprentice

Ever wanted to move matter with your mind alone, like a Jedi knight? Well I've done it. Sort of.

London's Science Museum has a fantastic shop that sells all kinds of science-related toys and gizmos, and yesterday they showed off the latest, from robotic crabs to a hovercraft kit.

The most innovative was a forthcoming toy called the Stars Wars Force Trainer, which is based on electroencephalography, or EEG. It reads your mind, in other words.

Jessica Griggs, reporter

Yesterday I saw a juggling aphorist, a microsculptor doing the robot dance, Stephen Fry struggling with the intelligence of his audience and witnessed an impromptu visit from the UK's prime minister.

I am at the TED Global 2009 conference at Oxford, UK.

TED stands for technology, entertainment and design. They say it is the only conference in the world that actually makes a profit - not surprising when tickets are $4500 a pop.

This conference sprinkles itself in hyperbole - even before I arrived I heard it described as "the intellectual Davos" where the speakers give "the speech of their lives" in 18 minutes and "the attendees are just as impressive as the speakers". (Journalists must swear not to divulge the names of attendees - so I won't mention the name of the Hollywood star I'm sharing the lecture theatre with, and anyway I've forgotten the name of the blonde supermodel I saw this morning.)

This year's TED theme could hardly be more cryptic: "the substance of things not seen". I'm interested, after all the hype, to find out what exactly this substance is they speak of...

Lisa Grossman, reporter

A refreshingly warm-and-fuzzy side to NASA was revealed this afternoon at an "all-hands" briefing with Charles Bolden and Lori Garver, who were confirmed by Congress last week as NASA's new administrator and deputy administrator.

"Feelings are not something that were popular in the last few years at NASA, but they're back. Feelings are back!" Garver said.

It's a sharp departure from the stoic and blunt former administrator Mike Griffin, who once said, "I don't do feelings – just think of me as Spock."

Bolden, on the other hand, is a self-described hugger and crier, and did both during his speech to the NASA community.