Sergei Grits / AP file

Pin collectors chat next to Olympic Park in London, on July 25, 2012. Outside Westfield Mall, at the edge of the Olympic Park security zone, a dozen people set up shop to trade and sell pins from the 2012 games and Olympics past.

By Catherine Treyz
NBC News

While athletes in London are set on winning Olympic gold, self-described “pinheads” are focused on collecting Olympic brass. Pin traders from across the globe have gathered in London -- not just to watch the international competition, but to find unique, sought-after pins.

“Some people are fanatics,” said Don Bigsby, 72, of Schenectady, NY. Bigsby, a retired telephone engineer, is preside­nt and founder of the world’s largest Olympic pin and memorabilia club, the Olympin Collectors Club. “I’m well past that sort of thing.”

Don Bigsby

Complete with glass cases and informational captions, collector Don Bigsby has turned his house into an Olympic museum featuring pins, posters, and much more. This particular corner of his collection is designated to the Berlin 1936 and the London 1948 Games.

Since 1980, Bigsby’s Olympic collection has grown from just pins to include programs, torches, tickets, medals and more. To accommodate all of this he has turned his house into a museum. In 1999, Bigsby spent $150,000 to build a two-floor, 1,700-square-foot addition to his 1,000-square-foot house to hold his memorabilia.  

“[Because of pin collecting] I know more about the world than I ever learned in school," said Bigsby, who carries a book of flags with him to help him “chase pins” by national colors and symbols.

At the Games, merchandise and memorabilia are in high demand. Sales at London 2012 shops, according to the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, have increased by 115 percent since the start of the Games. The Opening Ceremony pins have sold out.

Although certain commercial pins are especially popular, true “pinheads” are not at the Games to buy or sell, but to trade. “Pin collectors, athletes, media people, etc. are really into pin trading, maybe more than ever before,” wrote Bigsby in an e-mail from London. “Every day, the ‘rules’ change for collectors. Where to trade, how many pins to wear ...”

Don Bigsby

Hungary's London 2012 athletes pin looks almost identical to Hungary's Berlin 1936 athletes badge, which was made by the Hungarian Mint and is highly-coveted because of its quality and beauty.

This year, one pin in high demand among niche collectors is Hungary’s athletes pin. Made by the Hungarian Mint, this year’s pins look almost identical to Hungary’s athletes’ pins of the past.

When a trade is finished, however, returns aren’t allowed.

“It’s a deal. Move on. Find somebody else to trade with,” said Bigsby said.

Athletes join in the fun

Earlier this year, tennis player and gold medalist Serena Williams recently told USA Today that she has been an avid pin collector since Sydney 2000.  Shooter and three-time gold medalist Kim Rhode of Team USA makes her own pins and gives them away on Twitter. She tweeted, “To win a pin I’m going to ask trivia type questions while I’m here @Olympics and the person who responds first with the correct answer wins.” So far, Rhode has given away three.

Rhode is one of many pin traders who have shared their hobby online. The London Pins website, for example, is dedicated to organizing information about all of this year’s pins. On Twitter, users have expressed their surprise about how popular the hobby is and how surprised they are that they have, too, become addicted. “I didn’t think it would happen but I’ve become obsessed with collecting pin badges #gamesmaker,” one person tweeted. 

Pins are usually made of metals like brass, copper, and tin. It's the sentimental value, not the monetary value, that keeps “pinheads” trading and inspires more traders each Olympiad.

“Pins really have no monetary value,” said Navid Khonsari, whose 2007 documentary Pindemonium provides a lens into the Olympic subculture of pin collecting.  “Pins are really a vehicle for people to really interact with one another.”

Pin trading: where it all began

Khonsari said most of the American pin traders got their start at Lake Placid in 1980 or in Los Angeles in 1984. Although pins have been a part of the Olympic tradition since the first modern games in Athens in 1896, the Summer and Winter Olympics in the 1980s marked a turning point in the demand for Olympic collectibles with special venues emerging for the purpose of trading and selling commemorative goods. According to Coca-Cola, one of 10 worldwide Olympic sponsors, 17 million pins were traded at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games.

Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters file

Pin collector Johnny Ioannides of Greece waits outside the Olympic Village in Stratford in east London July 26, 2012.

Bigsby, who was one of the three recipients of the International Olympic Committee’s Juan Antonio Samaranch Medal for Olympic Collecting this past June, began trading and collecting pins after attending the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY. It was the year of the US men’s ice hockey team’s underdog victory against the Soviet Union and Eric Heiden’s record-setting five gold medals in men’s speedskating.

“How could I not get hooked?” Bigsby said. “I love amateur sports and there I was in Lake Placid in the middle of it.”

'It's amazing how it just takes over the Games'

According to Maxine Chapman, marketing director at Coca-Cola, it's an unofficial rule that if you’re wearing more than one or two pins, you’re a trader. “A pin from the Olympics is so highly coveted,” said Chapman, who manages Olympic showcasing for international sponsor Coca-Cola. “It’s amazing how it just takes over the Games.”

Since the 1988 Games in Calgary, Coca-Cola has opened pin trading centers at the Olympic Games. Khonsari filmed many of his interviews for Pindemonium at the Coca-Cola Pin Trading Center in Torino in 2006. This year’s pin trading centers are at two locations: London’s Olympic Park and Hyde Park. “The response has been very, very good,” said Chapman.

One feature of this year’s trading centers is a giant map of the world where people tack pins they receive, encouraging Olympic fans to trade with the world.

In an e-mail update from the Games, Bigsby wrote, “My daughter Calyn and I traded pins with two North Koreans, then three Iranians and had a great time chatting and gesturing a conversation. Made me wonder why everyone can't get along.”

More from NBCNews.com

• 10,000 and counting! Pin collector chases Olympic metal
• Today's trash could me tomorrow's collectible 

Updated at 12:35 p.m. ET: KABUL, Afghanistan -- A man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot and killed three American Marines, the U.S. military command said Friday. Afghan officials said the victims were American special operations forces troops.

Reuters reported that an Afghan police commander opened fire on the service members after inviting them to a meeting to discuss security. A U.S. military official confirmed the three deaths and said another service member had been injured during the incident.

NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski reported that a "lone gunman" remained on the loose and was being hunted. U.S. military officials said all of the American victims were Marines.

Citing Afghan officials, Reuters said the American special operations forces members were killed late Thursday while attending a meeting in the Sarwan Qala area, in what appeared to be a planned attack by rogue Afghan forces.

"The commander was Afghan National Police in charge of local police in Sangin," a senior Afghan official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Sangin is a district of Helmand province.

"It looks like he had drawn up a plan to kill them previously," the official added.

A military official told NBC News' Courtney Kube that it was unclear whether the gunman was a member of the Afghan security forces or whether he was just wearing a uniform.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone that the attacker, whom he identified as a member of Helmand police named Asadullah, had been helping U.S. forces train Afghan local police troops. However, the Taliban has made false claims about the details of attacks in the past.

The attack is the third killing this week of coalition soldiers by Afghans who are training to take over responsibility for security once most international forces leave in 2014.

So-called "green on blue" shootings, in which Afghan police or soldiers turn their guns on their Western mentors, have seriously eroded trust between the allies.

According to NATO, there have been 24 such attacks on foreign troops since January in which 28 people have been killed. Last year, there were 21 attacks in which 35 people were killed.

Senior Army leader slain
Earlier, the Pentagon confirmed that three U.S. service members -- including a senior Army leader -- and an American aid worker were killed Wednesday by a suicide bomber in Kunar province.

The victims included Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin J. Griffin, the most senior enlisted soldier for the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. Griffin, 45, of Riverton, Wyo., was a Bronze Star recipient who first enlisted in the Army in 1988.

Maj. Thomas E. Kennedy, 35, of West Point, N.Y., and Air Force Maj. Walter D. Gray, 38, of Conyers, Ga., were also killed. USAID foreign service officer Ragaei Abdelfattah was identified as the other victim.

On Tuesday, two gunmen wearing Afghan army uniforms killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others in Paktia province in the east.

And on Thursday, two Afghan soldiers tried to gun down a group of NATO troops outside a military base in eastern Afghanistan. No international forces were killed, but one of the attackers was killed as NATO forces shot back.

NBC News' Courtney Kube, Jim Miklaszewski and Atia Abawi, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

More world stories from NBC News:

• Video: This-$4,000-per jar caviar boasts socialist roots
• Notorious Colombian druglord arrested, headed to US for trial
• Who'll win the gold medal for partying? Olympians let hair down
• 'Situation is desperate' for ill Syrian refugees in Turkey
• Are these German protesters the world's oldest squatters?
• Journalist: British militants took me hostage in Syria
• Canada lobster fishermen lash out at cheaper US exports
• Race to London's Olympic Park: Fastest way is ...?

ANTAKYA, Turkey – It’s mid-afternoon, and in the basement of a non-descript residential building in a small town on the Turkish side of the border with Syria, volunteers are busy packing parcels of medicines and first-aid backpacks. The shipments today – as they have been every day – are destined for field hospitals on the battlefields inside Syria.

In this small makeshift warehouse, dimly lit air-conditioned rooms keep medicines cool. IV drips, resuscitator kits, bandages, gauzes, suture kits, pain medications and sterile operating kits are stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling. Every bag is stuffed. Not an inch is spared.

Workers here know every item taken inside Syria can save a life, or at least, help ease the pain of someone suffering.

The warehouse in Turkey is just one point in a vast global network aimed at helping the people of Syria caught in the crossfires of the ongoing conflict there. It is made up of doctors and nurses from America, working for an organization registered in France, buying medicine in Turkey, with funds from Arab countries and elsewhere in the world.

On the ground, the network is run by doctors, nurses and activists who help acquire the medicines locally and ferry them across the rugged border to the Syrian frontlines where people need them the most. Wealthy individuals, families and communities from around the region and the world have combined forces to help pay for the supplies.

While politicians and diplomats wrestle, argue, fight and disagree about what to do to end the violence in Syria, this is what ordinary men and women from around the world are doing to try and save lives.

Zohra Bensemra / Reuters

People and members of the Free Syrian Army carry an injured woman on a stretcher at an unofficial border crossing with Turkey in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on Monday.

Taking a toll on Turkey
If the frontlines of the war are deep in Syrian soil, the rear lines extend deep into neighboring Turkey. 

For a country that has in recent times enjoyed an economic boom, coupled with new diplomatic clout in the region, Syria’s conflict is taking a toll on Turkey and some of Syria’s problems are spilling over into border towns and cities here.

Makeshift care centers dot the Turkish-Syrian border. In town after town, private houses or in some case whole buildings are being converted to patient centers where the wounded and injured from Syria are brought for care, help and sometimes shelter.

The Turkish government says they have taken in over 46,000 Syrian refugees since the start of the conflict. Many of them are housed in refugee camps along the border.

But many of the wounded and injured are brought to Turkish hospitals where they are treated and discharged. Once discharged, few have the proper resources to secure shelters or even the proper post-operative care. As a result, many are in desperate need of follow-up care.

Care houses run by Syrian doctors have sprung up to take in patients in desperate need of help. Many were amputees who lost limbs in battle, or were injured by the fighting – only to lose their limbs while being transported. They say their limbs could have been saved had proper medical care been readily available inside Syria. Instead, due to the long journey from Syrian cities – even though they are just dozens of miles across the Turkish border – many began to suffer infections that were incurable once they arrived on Turkish soil.

Over time, the houses have quickly filled up and the centers have become increasingly vital in providing critical care for some of the patients. Today, along this one stretch of the Turkey-Syria border, there are about half a dozen care centers housing between a dozen to 100 patients in each one, volunteer doctors say.

The average cost to run one of these centers is approximately $60,000 per month. Doctors are renting private residences in some cases and equipping them with basic supplies and equipment. They are not meant to operate as hospitals, but they are clearly serving life-saving functions at times.

'They need everything'
Many of those at the center we visited refused to give their names or even agree to be filmed for our video story. Patients regularly complained that although the care centers were providing important medical assistance, they were too ill-equipped, under-funded and poorly staffed to care for a steady stream of patients.

One patient from Aleppo with severe shrapnel wounds to his leg, agreed to speak with us but refused to give his name. He complained the facility was inadequately staffed.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

Stringer / Reuters

After months of protests and violent crackdowns, a look back at the violence that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

"The Syrian National Council and the opposition groups are collecting millions of dollars from around the world for the revolution and they are just taking the money. Come look at the people here and see how we are being treated and you will see there is no money coming here,” he said.

Volunteers vehemently deny such charges. Instead, they say all of their funds are from private donations from individuals.  

Mark Cameron, a Canadian volunteer medical worker who was visiting one of the centers for the first time with the aim of returning to the West to solicit more funds, was shocked at what he saw.

"They need everything. The situation is desperate. I've been in some troubled spots all over the world, most recently, Cambodia, and as serious as it is there, this need here is immediate. It's today, it's this second,” said Cameron. “They don’t have antibiotics. They did some surgeries here yesterday that blew my mind without pain control because they just don't have it. It simply doesn't exist and the surgeries have to occur."

Cameron stressed that the doctors’ mission is apolitical. 

“This has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with politics. This is a medical problem at the moment. We're medical professionals and were here to treat the medical problem.”

The volunteer doctors are mostly Syrians who are either living abroad or who escaped the fighting in their country. They are not allowed to practice medicine in Turkey because the care centers fall outside of the official Turkish health care system. But the facilities can help patients with post-operative care or serve as nursing homes for those with no places to go.

Supplies sneak across the border
Back at the warehouse, the medical supplies have been loaded on to a van. The van makes its way to the border under the watchful eye of the Turkish military, which sees the drop off in plain sight.

The military has turned a blind eye to much of the smuggling of medicines taking place along its border. It’s a sensitive issue for the Turkish government, which doesn’t want the border area to become lawless but is increasingly becoming porous for supplies, fighters and even weapons.

In broad daylight, we accompanied the volunteers as they coordinated with their counterparts on the Syrian side of the meeting point.  Along a stretch of the border that is marked by layers of barbed wire, a few cars have already pulled up. Our van approaches, and within minutes the bags and boxes are dropped off, pushed across an opening in the razor wire and loaded in the back of smaller beaten down cars heading to different cities across the battlefield.

The entire drop-off lasted less than 10 minutes. Then it was back to the warehouse for the volunteers in Turkey and off to the frontlines for the activists in Syria. Both sides are in a race against time and acutely aware that with each successful mission like this one, there is another chance to save a life in a conflict that has already taken so many.

ANTAKYA, Turkey – The conflict in Syria continues to escalate as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebels fiercely battle over the country's biggest city of Aleppo.

NBC News’ Ayman Mohyeldin has been in and out of Syria several times throughout the ongoing conflict. He is currently in Antakya, Turkey, near the Syrian border.

He answered reader questions about the conflict earlier Tuesday. Replay the informative chat below. 

Syria's embattled Assad appears on TV for first time in two weeks

SANA via AFP - Getty Images

A handout picture released Tuesday by the official Syrian Arab News Agency shows Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, meeting with Saeed Jalili, a top aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Damascus.

Updated at 8:31 p.m. ET: As Syrian President Bashar Assad appeared on television for the first time in two weeks on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the high-profile defection of the Syrian prime minister increased the urgency of planning for the ouster of Assad's regime.

In South Africa's capital, Pretoria, Clinton said the United States and other countries needed to make sure that Syrian state institutions remain intact once Assad loses his grip on power.

"The intensity of the fighting in Aleppo, the defections, really point out how imperative it is that we come together and work toward a good transition plan," Clinton said.

"I do think we can begin talking about planning for what happens next: the day after the regime does fall. I am not going to put a timeline on it, I can't possibly predict it, but I know it's going to happen as do most observers around the world," Clinton said.

Clinton also warned against "proxies or terrorist fighters" being sent in to join the 17-month-old conflict.

The escalating war in Syria has increasingly divided the region along its sectarian faultline, pitting the mainly-Sunni rebels, who are backed by regional Sunni-led powers Turkey and the Gulf Arab states, against Assad's government that is backed by Shiite Iran.

In a possible sign of increasing American pressure on Assad’s government, Clinton's remarks come a day after three U.S. senators warned about the risks of American failure to provide assistance to Syrian opposition fighters.

Clinton also spoke a day after the defection of Prime Minister Riyad Hijab, the latest in a string of high-level departures from the Assad regime.

US makes plans to keep post-Assad Syria intact

TV appearance
Assad appeared on Syrian state TV on Tuesday meeting with Iran's Supreme National Security Council in Damascus.

Assad's absence had fueled rumors about his health, including a hoax Twitter message Monday that quoted Russia's ambassador to Damascus as saying Assad might have been killed.

Russian officials quickly denied the report.

Three US senators warn about risks of inaction in Syria

In the week after a July 18 bombing that killed four members of his inner circle, Assad was shown twice in silent footage on television, swearing in a new defense minister and meeting military officials.

Slideshow: The lives of Syrian rebels

NBC News

People resisting the army of President Bashar Assad in northern Syria cope with loss and prepare for fighting.

Launch slideshow

During Tuesday's Damascus meeting, Saeed Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Iran would not let its close partnership with the Syrian leadership to be shaken by the uprising or external foes.

"Iran will not allow the axis of resistance, of which it considers Syria to be an essential part, to be broken in any way," Syrian television quoted Jalili as saying.

The "axis of resistance" refers to Shiite Iran's anti-Israel alliance with Syria's rulers - from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam - and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006, with Iranian and Syrian support. 

Damascus and Tehran have held Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states and Turkey, all allies of the United States and European powers, responsible for the bloodshed in Syria by supporting the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels. Western powers sympathetic to the rebels are concerned that anti-Western Sunni Islamists could benefit from a victory for the anti-Assad forces. 

Iran's Fars news agency said Jalili told Assad that Iran was prepared to provide humanitarian aid to Syria. 

As estimated 18,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, as rebels battle government forces in an attempt to wrest control from the Assad family's four-decade grip on power.

Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com

On a fence-mending visit to Turkey, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he wanted to work with Ankara to resolve the crisis. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described as "worrying" a comment on Monday by Tehran's top general, who blamed Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for bloodshed in Syria. 

Iran has expressed fears for more than 40 Iranians it says are religious pilgrims kidnapped by rebels from a bus in Damascus while visiting Shiite shrines. Salehi wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeking his help to free them. 

Rebels say they suspect the captives were troops sent to help Assad. A rebel spokesman in the Damascus area said on Monday three of the Iranians had been killed by government shelling. He initially said the rest would be executed if the shelling did not stop but later said they were being questioned. 

Fighting rages in Aleppo
On Tuesday, rebels trying to fight off an army offensive in Aleppo said they were running low on ammunition as government forces encircled their stronghold at the southern entrance to the country's biggest city.

Assad has reinforced his troops in preparation for an assault to recapture rebel-held districts of Aleppo after repelling fighters from most of Damascus.

Related: Official: Syria PM defects to anti-Assad opposition

"The Syrian army is trying to encircle us from two sides of Salaheddine," said Sheikh Tawfiq, one of the rebel commanders, referring to the southwestern neighborhood which has seen heavy fighting over the last week.

Mortar fire and tank shells exploded across the district early Tuesday, forcing rebel fighters to take cover in crumbling buildings and rubble-strewn alleyways.

Complete international coverage on NBCNews.com

Tanks have entered parts of Salaheddine and army snipers, using the cover of heavy bombardment, deployed on rooftops, hindering rebel movements.

Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

Launch slideshow

Another rebel commander, Abu Ali, said snipers at the main Saleheddine roundabout were preventing the rebels from bringing in reinforcements and supplies. He said five of his fighters were killed on Monday and 20 wounded.

But rebels said they were still holding the main streets of Salaheddine which have been the frontline of their clashes with Assad's forces.

Journalist: British militants took me hostage in Syria

A fighter jet pounded targets in the eastern districts of Aleppo and artillery shelling could be heard in the early morning, an activist in Aleppo said.

"Two families, about 14 people in total, were believed killed when a shell hit their home and it collapsed this morning," the activist said. The house was one street away from a school being used by rebels, he said.

Reuters, The Associated Press and NBC News' staff contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Are these German protesters the world's oldest squatters?
• Will Games curse leave 'ghost town' London out of the gold rush?
• Interpol drops 'red notice' for dissident
• Race to London's Olympic Park: Fastest way is ...?
• Journalist: British militants took me hostage in Syria
• At Hiroshima memorial, Japan leaders vow to listen
• Olympic hosts: Londoners open their homes to the world
• Canada lobster fishermen lash out at cheaper US exports
• Slideshow: The lives of Syria rebels fighting for freedom

It's been a crazy 24 hours for flight director Bobak Ferdowsi, and not just because he and the rest of his team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory landed an SUV on Mars. Ferdowsi has catapulted to Internet fame — thanks to his star-spangled Mohawk hairdo and the warm-hearted hotness he exuded during TV coverage of the Curiosity rover's landing.

He's picked up 20,000-plus Twitter followers, with most of those added just since last night. He's getting come-ons from fans of both sexes ("I'd let that be-mohawked NASA dude land his rover on my red planet any time," one admirer wrote). A Tumblr tribute site has been created in his honor. And there's a widely distributed LOL picture with the caption, "Becomes an Internet sensation ... Too busy landing a robot on Mars to notice."

Well, Ferdowsi has noticed.

"It's a little surreal," he told me this morning. "I'm still just getting over the 'We're on Mars' thing. That's the thing I can't believe."

As Ferdowsi strolls through JPL's campus in Pasadena, Calif., he can't resist going over to teammates for hugs. He's been working at the lab for nine years. For most of that time he's been preparing for the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, and particularly for Sunday night's successful landing. These people are not only his co-workers. They're his friends.

"What a wonderful moment to share together," he said.

Ferdowsi has a habit of adopting a fresh hairdo for each of the space missions for which he's at the controls, based on a vote by his teammates. For the Mars mission, they came up with a variety of fashion choices.

"We had a Martian red," he said. "One vote to shave my head. Natural black. Then we had the Captain America look."

He went with the Captain America Mohawk: black hair flecked with blue and red highlights, plus some bleached white stars on the side. He didn't ponder the effect of having his edgy 'do broadcast on NASA TV, and he was so wrapped up in Curiosity's entry, descent and landing that it took him a while to notice he was becoming a star himself. But then the messages and tweets started popping up on his phone.

"I'm looking down, and thinking, 'This is crazy,'" he recalled.

He was back at work today, trying to do his job while coping with media requests and watching the evolution of a meme.

"I am laughing pretty hard at some of the captions," he said. "I think it's hilarious."

I didn't have the nerve to ask him about his, um, personal relationships — but for all his admirers, here are a couple of factoids: He's 32 years old. He's originally from the Bay Area and still has family there. He earned his bachelor's degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Washington, and he went to MIT to get a master's degree in the same subject.

You can join the Bobak fan club by following @tweetsoutloud. But if his fans really want to get Ferdowsi's attention, they probably shouldn't tweet him a marriage proposal. Instead, they should talk about Mars.

"I hope that they are as excited about Curiosity as I am," the Mohawk Guy said.

Update for 7:35 p.m. ET Aug. 7: Is Mohawk Guy taken? In a follow-up chat with BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner, Ferdowsi reports that he's "dating somebody," and "she's awesome."

"She's put up with me working a lot of long hours on this project, and I am definitely looking forward to things being calmed down a little bit so I can actually hang out with her," Ferdowsi says. A photo on the MemeGenerator website shows Ferdowsi with his arm around a lady friend. The caption reads, "Behind every great Mohawk is a great woman."

Meanwhile, other Internet celebrities are welcoming Mohawk Guy to the fold. Felicia Day told Ferdowsi in a tweet that "your mohawk made my night" — to which Ferdowsi replied, "Your tweet made me blush." Wil Wheaton registered his yen for a NASA Mohawk Guy Fan Club T-shirt — and reportedly put in an order with CafePress. 

More about Mars:

• Mars orbiter spots rover in midair
• Curiosity rover scores touchdown on Mars
• Scientists want to look for Martian life
• Last-minute guide to the Mars landing
• What will we see from Mars, and when will we see it?
•  Why we're obsessed with Mars
• Mars probe provides radiation revelations

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Updated at 1:08 p.m. ET: As details emerged from the scene of a shooting at a Sikh temple in southern Wisconsin, Sikhs around the country mourned the loss of their fellow believers, saying they are misunderstood minority.

"We are pretty sure that this is a hate crime because there is so much ignorance and people mistake us either being Taliban, or being part of Bin Laden’s network, or al-Qaida because of our turbans and beards," Rajwa Singh of the Guru Gobind Singh Foundation in Rockville, Md., told NBCWashington.com. The center held a special prayer Sunday for those killed in Wisconsin.

In New York, Sikhs gathered Sunday evening to mourn and try to make sense of the murderous attack.

"You cannot imagine how we loss, how we suffer," Gurdev Singh Kang, president of the Sikh Cultural Society in Richmond Hill, Queens, told NBCNewYork.com.

Kang said the uncle of the society's chairman was among those killed in Wisconsin, where a gunman opened fire Sunday morning at a temple outside Milwaukee, killing six people and wounding at least three others, including a police officer.

Alleged gunman, 'Jack Boot,' led neo-Nazi punk band

A police officer called to the scene killed the gunman before he could fire on even more worshipers.

The alleged gunman was identified Monday as Wade Michael Page, 40, a military veteran who served in the Army from April 1992 through October 1998. Page is the former leader of a neo-Nazi music group called End Apathy, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Sikhism, which emerged in central India and the Punjab region of India in the 16th century, dubs itself a "progressive religion." The Sikhs stress the oneness of God, emphasize the full equality of women and reject distinctions of creed, race or sex. Community service is also an integral part of Sikhism. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, there are about 612,560 adherents in North America.

Male Sikhs grow thick beards and cover their heads with turbans. They are often misunderstood, labeled terrorists or mistaken for Muslims. Harassment against them has grown since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. 

Slideshow: Gunman opens fire at Sikh temple in Wisconsin

Jeffrey Phelps / AP

A gunman opened fire Sunday morning at a Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee, killing six people and wounding at least three others, including a police officer, before being shot to death, authorities said.

Launch slideshow

Shortly after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh gas station owner in Mesa, Ariz., was killed apparently because of his turban and his faith by an assailant who associated him with the terrorist attacks.

The Sikh Coalition, a community-based organization tackling discrimination, was founded in New York City on 9/11 as a response to the backlash violence experienced by Sikhs around the country. According to the organization’s website, an elderly Sikh and two teenagers were attacked in Queens that same night in “reprisal” attacks.

In a 2011 report to Congress on school bullying, the organization noted that "roughly half to over three-quarters of Sikh students" are targeted for bullying, harassment, or violence in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.

New Jersey resident Prabhujeet Singh, a software programmer, said several children have called him "Osama," NJ.com reported, and a drunk man confronted him in a grocery store, calling him the same name and growing violent.

Photoblog: Sikhs at the Golden Temple, their holiest shrine

"That turban has tragically marked us as automatically suspect, perpetually foreign and potentially terrorists," Valarie Kaur, a filmmaker who has chronicled attacks on Sikhs in the 2006 documentary "Divided We Fall," told the AP.

"We are experiencing it as a hate crime," she added. "Every Sikh American today is hurting, grieving and afraid."

Authorities said they were investigating the Wisconsin temple assault as an act of domestic terrorism. Sikh leadership condemned the attack, adding that U.S.-based adherents should consider adopting increased security measures at their places of worship, called gurdwaras.

"It is a highly unfortunate incident which has taken place in America leaving six innocent devotees dead. This is a security lapse on the part of U.S. government," Giani Gurbachan Singh, the head priest of Akal Takht, the highest Sikh temporal seat, told The Times of India. A delegation was sent to the United States to investigate the attack, he added.

According to The Associated Press, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also a member of the Sikh faith, called the assault a "dastardly attack."

"That this senseless act of violence should be targeted at a place of religious worship is particularly painful," he said in a statement, according to the AP.

New York police said they would be deploying critical response vehicles as a precaution in addition to stepping up patrols at Sikh temples.

"That was miles and miles away," Gursharan Bharth said outside a temple in Flushing, Queens. "For a cop to come here and check on us to make sure we're okay, just kind of shows me that we live in New York and New York is a place where yes people rub shoulders and don't get along all the time, but we stand together still."

NBCWashington.com and NBCNewYork.com contributed to this report.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Gunman opens fire at Sikh temple in Wisconsin; 7 dead
• Gay couples face big hurdles to parenthood
• Loughner wants to plead guilty in Arizona shootings, sources say
• Video: NASA set to land rover on Mars
• Dozens of homes lost in Oklahoma fires

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Updated at 4:05 p.m. ET: The alleged gunman in Sunday’s deadly shooting at a Sikh temple in southern Wisconsin is Wade Michael Page, an Army veteran who may have ties to white supremacist groups, authorities announced on Monday.

Page, who served in the Army from April 1992 through October 1998, allegedly killed six people at the temple and wounded four, including a police officer, before he was shot and killed by police. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Page is the former leader of a neo-Nazi music group called End Apathy.  

At a press conference, law-enforcement officials said Page was the only shooter.

"All of us are heartbroken" by the shootings, President Barack Obama said Monday. He also ordered flags in public buildings be flown at half-staff until sunset on Friday. If it turns out, Obama said, that the gunman was motivated by the ethnicity of those at the temple, the American people would recoil against that type of attitude.

Police say Page, 40, legally purchased the 9mm semi-automatic handgun used in the shooting within the past 10 days near his home. The gun was recovered at the scene at the attack.

A police officer called to the scene shot Page dead before he could fire on more worshippers as they prepared for Sunday services at the temple in the suburb of Oak Creek, south of Milwaukee. 

Five men and one woman were killed. They were identified Monday as Sita Singh, 41; Ranjit Singh, 49; Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65; Prakash Singh, 39, Paramjit Kaur (female), 41; and Suveg Singh, 84.

In addition to the wounded officer, three other people, whose names have not been released, were injured. Edwards said two of them were in critical condition at a hospital, and one was treated and released for a minor wound.

At a news conference Monday, authorities said they have not determined a motive for the killings.

"We are investigating it as a possible act of domestic terrorism," FBI Special Agent in Charge Teresa Carlson said. She defined domestic terrorism as "use of force or violence for social or political gain."

Carlson said there is no reason to believe anyone else was involved in the shooting. She said, however, they were pursuing one "person of interest," an unidentified white man wearing a dark T-shirt and sunglasses whose photo she held up during the press conference. The FBI later said that the man in the picture had been located, interviewed and ruled out in connection the shooting. 

Edwards said police received the initial call about the attack at 10:25 a.m. Sunday, and officers arrived on scene within minutes.

Among the first to arrive was Lt. Brian Murphy, who was ambushed when he stopped to help a victim. Murphy was shot eight to nine times with a handgun at close range, Edwards said at Monday's press conference. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest, but was hit in his extremities and suffered a serious wound in his neck.

Sikhs reel after 'senseless' attack: We're not 'Taliban'

When other officers arrived to the scene, they saw the suspect walking and commanded him to drop his weapons, Edwards said. At that point, the suspect fired at police, hitting two vehicles. An officer returned fire with a squad rifle and took him down, according to Edwards.

As officers went to check on Murphy, 51, who has been with the Oak Creek Police Department for 21 years, he waved them off, signaling they should go into the temple and help other victims. Following protocol, officers secured the exterior and helped Murphy, who was rushed to the hospital, before they went into the temple. Murphy remains in critical condition.

More on the suspect
U.S. Army officials say Page was first stationed at Fort Still, then Fort Bliss and then Fort Bragg. At Fort Bragg, he was assigned to psychological operations associated with a special operations unit, though was not a special ops trained soldier, officials told NBC News.

Page rose to the rank of sergeant while in the Army, but was given a dishonorable discharge in 1998 and reduced in rank to a specialist for acts of misconduct. U.S. officials told NBC News the misconduct was connected to a drinking problem.

Officials say Page had no criminal record in the military and no record of combat deployments.

In an interview with The New York Times, Page’s stepmother, Laura Page, 67, of Denver said she had known him since he was a boy of 10. His mother, a dog groomer, died when Wade Page was 12 or 13, she said. He then went to live with an aunt and grandmother.

His stepmother was shocked by the news of the shootings.

“I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine what made him do this,” she told The Times.

MySpace, End Apathy

Authorities believe Wade Michael Page is the gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

He was not being watched by the FBI or any other law enforcement organizations, officials said Monday.

"Nobody knew this guy was a threat," Carlson said.

Carlson said they were examining ties to white supremacist groups and were continuing to locate family and associates. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, called Page a "frustrated neo-Nazi." He was identified by the group as a member of two racist skinhead bands, End Apathy and Definite Hate.

Members of the local Sikh community said the president of the congregation and a priest were among the victims. 

Jagjit Singh Kaleka, the brother of the president of the temple, who was among the six Sikhs killed, said he had no idea what the motive was for the attack. 

Gunman opens fire at Sikh temple in Wisconsin; 7 dead

Sunday night and early Monday, police searched an apartment at a duplex in the Cudahy neighborhood near Milwaukee where Page apparently lived. Authorities would not say what evidence they found.

The attack came just over two weeks after a gunman killed 12 people at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, where they were watching a screening of new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises." 

American Sikhs said they have often been singled out for harassment, and occasionally violent attack, since the September 11, 2001 attacks because of their colorful turbans and beards. 

The 2001 attacks were carried out by Muslims linked to the al-Qaida militant group led by Osama bin Laden. Sikhs are not Muslim but many Americans do not know the difference, members of the Sikh community said. 

Some witnesses to the Wisconsin shooting said the suspect had a tattoo marking the September 11, 2001 attacks. Authorities confirmed he had tattoos but said they were not sure exactly what the tattoos illustrated. 

There are 500,000 or more Sikhs in the United States but the community in Wisconsin is small, about 2,500 to 3,000 families, said local Sikhs. 

The Sikh faith is the fifth-largest in the world, with more than 30 million followers. It includes belief in one God and that the goal of life is to lead an exemplary existence. 

The temple in Oak Creek was founded in October 1997 and has a congregation of 350 to 400 people. 

"These people were going to church. Two weeks ago, it was people going to a movie. When is it going to end?" said Ray Zirkle, who came from Racine, Wisconsin with his wife to light votive candles near the site of the shooting. 

On Sunday evening, hundreds gathered in downtown Milwaukee to hold a vigil of for the victims of the shootings, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Participants stood in a circle, prayed and lit candles at the event held at Cathedral Square, and one-by-one people made unscripted statements to the group, according to the newspaper. 

One man recited "The Lord's Prayer."

"This isn't about the city of Oak Creek, we are all responsible," another said, while a third declared: "I'm an atheist and I stand behind every peace loving religion," the newspaper reported.

Members of the Sikh community attended the vigil, the Journal reported. 

"It was same as 9/11," Manpreet Kaur, who attended the vigil with her husband and two daughters, told the newspaper. "My mother-in-law and father-in-law thought that it's not safe for you to go in your turban today." 

NBC's Pete Williams, Jim Miklaszewski and Andrew Mach and Reuters contributed to this report.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Alleged gunman in Sikh temple shooting ID'd as Army vet
• Sikhs reel after 'senseless' attack: We're not Taliban
• Wounded cop in Sikh termple shooting lauded as hero
• Month after arson attack, Mo. mosque burns again
• Video: Dog-paddling pooch swims with dolphins

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

By Janelle Richards, NBC News

NEW YORK --  School was out and summer had finally arrived, but instead of hanging out at the beach teenager Jocelyn Stevens was sitting in front of a computer, using a software program to design jewelry. With just a click of her mouse, Stevens created a ring and used a 3D printer to produce it.

Before taking part in the eight-week summer program Girls Who Code, 16-year-old Stevens said the only thing she knew about technology was how to play computer games.

She wanted to change that.

"I felt like this program would benefit me, and I felt like I would rather do something that would be benefit me, than not doing anything [this summer]," Stevens said.

Now, Stevens is familiar with mobile applications. Last week she worked with her team – three other girls in the program -- to create an app that shows parents where they can take their families around New York City.

"Somewhere in my future, not so far from now, I could see myself doing computer science," she said.

And that's exactly what Girls Who Code aims to do: develop a passion for technology among girls who have not had much exposure to the field.

Changing perceptions 

The program was created by Reshma Saujani, a former deputy public advocate for New York City.

"I think that this world would look like a very different place if we had more female developers and coders and engineers and entrepreneurs," said Saujani. "Girls are so passionate about technology...it's simply not the case that they aren't interested and it's not the case that they're not good at it....it's just that there's a perception out there that they're not interested, that they're not as good as the boys and that's exactly what we're changing every single day."

Saujani ran for Congress in 2010 and was struck by the number of girls in a public housing project who were interested in technology but did not have the resources to pursue it. 

"They had like one computer in the basement of a church," said Saujani. "And then I'd be on the Upper East Side at a private school where there was a robotics lab -- and you saw how technology can be a huge equalizer, but it can enhance poverty if we're not giving young girls and young boys equal access."

The inequalities Saujani witnessed motivated her to start Girls Who Code this year. The students in the program are diverse, representing 12 different countries.

In addition to teaching the students hands-on skills like programming and coding, Saujani and executive director Kristen Titus are also preparing them for a future career at a major technology company. They partnered with Google, Intel, AppNexus and Twitter, among others, to help shape their summer curriculum and asked the companies what skills future employees need to be successful in the technology field.

Those companies also help fund Girls Who Code, making it free of charge for the students. Eventually, they plan to offer internship opportunities. 

"We've built out a robust curriculum that teaches the girls everything from robotics to web design to how to build a company, how to build a mobile app, what is a bank account, how do I get a loan, all of these hard and soft skills that we know are instrumental," said Kristen Titus, executive director of Girls Who Code.

Closing the gender gap in STEM jobs

Developing women's interest in science, technology, engineering and math (often referred to as STEM) is an important goal for Girls Who Code. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported women are underrepresented in STEM undergraduate degrees and jobs. In 2009, there were 2.5 million college-educated working women with STEM degrees, compared to 6.7 million men. And throughout the past decade, women have held less than 25 percent of STEM jobs even though they fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy.

Similar programs are popping up around the country. In Washington, D.C., CodeNow and Youth Lab train high school girls and boys, too. The students learn how websites work and are paired with mentors throughout their learning process. 

In San Francisco, Calif., Kimberly Bryant, an electrical engineer, started Black Girls Code in April 2011 after she attended several technology events in Silicon Valley and noticed the lack of women and minorities at the events.

“I was networking to start my own company,” said Bryant. “And then I ended up starting this nonprofit that directly introduces girls to technology and gets them in the pipeline.”

Black Girls Code offers classes for girls ages 6 to 20 on how to develop video games, build a website, and study robots. And this summer, the program is hosting one-day workshops for minority students in several cities including Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Las Vegas.

'I think I'm going to change the world someday'

Back in New York City, the students at Girls Who Code are already thinking about how they can give back to their communities.

Khady Samb, 16, moved to the Bronx from Senegal in March 2011.

"Being here is like, it was my dream, I didn't know anything about computers," said Samb. "We had them [in Senegal] but I didn't know a lot of things on it. Here, it's like I have anything I need and I learned something about computers that I never learned, it is very exciting."

Just a few weeks into the program, Samb says the skills she has learned may help her Senegalese community one day.

"I think I'm going to change the world someday," said Samb. "I'm going to go to my country and help them use the computer and I will do it for free and I think that will change the world. I have a lot of things to think about." 

To learn more about these programs, visit the websites below: 

• http://www.girlswhocode.com   
• http://www.blackgirlscode.com 
• http://codenow.org 
• http://youth-lab.org 

David Gray / Reuters

China's Ye Shiwen poses with her gold medal on the podium during the women's 400m individual medley victory ceremony at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Center on Saturday.

BEIJING – On the heels of her second gold medal performance, China’s state media have come to the defense of Chinese swimmer, Ye Shiwen, ending their relative silence on the doping allegations that have plagued the young female swimmer since her recording-breaking performance last weekend.

On Saturday night, the 16-year-old Ye demolished the world record in the 400 individual medley, coming from behind to win gold in 4:28.43. Besides swimming that race nearly seven seconds faster than her winning performance at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai last year, she also incredibly outpaced American gold medalist Ryan Lochte’s final 50 in the men’s race by a split-second.

(Watch the 400 IM race here) 

Lochte won the 400 medley with the second-fastest time in history.

Ye’s dominant performance raised eyebrows among some swimming experts, including John Leonard, the head of the American Swimming Coaches Association who openly questioned the legitimacy of Ye’s victory.

“History in our sport will tell you that every time we see something, and I put quotation marks around this, ‘unbelievable,’ history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping involved,” Leonard was quoted as saying.

Questions were renewed Tuesday after Ye won again, this time breaking her own Olympic record in the 200 IM.  The win made Ye the first two-time gold medal winner in Chinese swimming history.

It also made her a target for pointed questions regarding her impressive performances so far.

By all accounts, Tuesday’s press conference for Ye Shiwen following her 200 IM victory was inundated with questions regarding doping and performance-enhancing drugs.

However, for the Chinese press corps yesterday, the story was not so much Ye’s answers – as the media’s questions.

Chinese outrage
One Chinese account of the press conference noted angrily that toward the end, one Western reporter directly asked Ye, “I’d like to ask you if you doped to win that gold medal. Please answer me directly with a ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”

According to the report, Ye looked the reporter directly in the eye and shot back, “Absolutely no! Why am I the only one who is suspected of cheating when other foreign athletes also win multiple gold medals?”

The tone of the reporter’s question led to complaints from the furious Chinese press, many of whom felt professional and etiquette boundaries were breached.

“A 16-year-old genius not only can't enjoy her victory, but also has to be subjected to this ‘interrogation,’” one Chinese journalist reportedly said. “As Chinese journalists, we have the right to protest."

One person who did protest was Ye’s father, Ye Qingsong, who told a local Chinese news website here that, "The Western media have always been arrogant, and suspicious of Chinese people."

State media: a ‘deep bias’ by Western media
China’s state media have largely stayed quiet on the subject of doping, only mentioning in passing in some reports the accusations and Ye’s dismissal of them.

But following the press conference, the media stepped up to defend Ye.

China’s reliably nationalist newspaper, Global Times, chimed in with an editorial Wednesday that said negative comments about Ye were rooted in a “deep bias and reluctance from the Western press to see Chinese people making breakthroughs.”

“If Ye were an American, the tone would be different in Western media,” continued the editorial. “Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in the 2008 Games. Nobody seems to question the authenticity of his results, most probably because he is American.”

Nobody that is, except for China’s former Olympic doctor who claimed Tuesday  he long suspected Michael Phelps as a doper, but remained silent because  he had no evidence. 

The Global Times acknowledged the country’s past doping incidents were an understandable source of suspicion towards Ye, but pointedly noted that she has passed doping tests conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

On China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, coverage of the Olympic Games included an on-air comment from host Zhou Yafei, who noted that Ye had passed her doping test and she hoped “the Western media will change their bias and jealousy.”

Meanwhile, on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo, the nearly 2.7 million comments about the embattled swimmer were overwhelming supportive and helped make her the biggest trending topic on the popular microfeed service as of Wednesday afternoon.

“Do they have to be so obvious with their envy?” wrote one poster of the West’s coverage of Ye’s victories.

“All medalists and other athletes are tested at the Games,” wrote another. “It’d be way better if everyone would shut the hell up unless the test finds anyone positive from doping.”

But for many netizens in China, solidarity with Ye has manifested itself in one simple play on her name that has spread around Weibo: “Ye Shiwen = Yes she wins.”

NBC News’ Tianzhou Ye and Joy Li contributed to this report