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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/web_cam_view_of_a_nasa_clean_room.html
If you've ever wished you could get an insider's look at the daily activities of NASA Goddard's largest clean room, you're in luck. Web cams are now providing live coverage of work on the components of the upcoming James Web Space Telescope. The cameras snap and display one picture per minute from the pristine workspace of the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
The advantage to the Webb-cam is that the average person doesn't need to do a micron-type clean up and spend time donning protective gear. Anyone can sit at their computer and see what's going on, no matter what they're wearing.
[via @NASA_Langley]
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Digg this!March 11 2010, 4:30pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/make_a_multiband_end_fed_half_wavel.html
For portable radio operation, I like End-Fed Half-Wavelength Antennas (EFHWA, pronounced "EF-WAH"). This type of antenna is similar to the common half-wavelength dipole, but with one significant advantage. A dipole has its feedpoint (where it connects to the radio) in the middle of the antenna, but an EFHWA's feedpoint is at one end. This makes it very convenient to throw the antenna up in a tree and connect the bottom of it to your radio. Here are instructions for making a multiband end-fed half-wavelength antenna that works on 17, 20, 30, and 40-meter bands.
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Digg this!March 10 2010, 5:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/darwinian_plant_pruner.html
Natural Deselection is an instrument that competes plants against each other. The device empowers plants to control the fate of others using sensors and mechanised shears in a Darwinian race for survival. The sensors set above the plants detect the first to grow to a specified height, at which point it is saved, and the others fatally chopped.
[via pruned]
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March 8 2010, 7:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/flat-pack_observatory_roof_protoyty.html
Craig Smith, of Firefly Workshop, has been planning a home observatory and is working out the details of easily building a domed roof for it. He writes:
Anybody with a decent telescope knows that a telescope should be cool as the night air to prevent heat radiant distortion. Aside from keeping it out in an unheated shed yet still having to set it up, one will sometimes make an observatory of sorts. Many have built retractable roofed sheds and the like. But my mind kept working at a cheap lightweight dome roof built in the classic style. Anybody with basic carpentry skills can build a cylindrical wall structure or octagon walls, but the dome roof has always been a difficult and expensive build. Here's my prototype made from cardboard, 1/6th scale.
A single 3/4" sheet of 4' X 8' plywood, supplies the material for the framework. The circle makes the base, and circular cutouts outward from that make the frame ribs. Since there is some leftover waste, the framework will be lighter than the full sheet of plywood. But many little galvanized framing brackets used to fasten it together will add some weight, as well as the roofing material. A 24" wide roll of galvanized flashing will be used to make the 10 roof pie-segments and the rear rectangular segment. Put on with small galvanized box nails, each pie panel will overlap the one next to it, sealed waterproof with silver flashing seal caulk during assembly.
The retractable watertight sky opening will be tricky. But if all else fails it could be made like a standard flat roof access door only curved. Standard flashing and roofing techniques are a must here to keep an expensive telescope safe and dry.
Have you ever built such a structure? Got any design input for Craig?
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Digg this!March 8 2010, 5:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/math_monday_mathematical_art_in_the.html
Mathematical art in the lava
By
George Hart for the
Museum of Mathematics
Edmund Harris created this geometric sculpture on a 35 year old lava field in Iceland. It can be understood as a simple form composed of equilateral triangles, but the curved edges where the triangles hinge together soften the geometry, giving it a more organic character.
The plywood parts are hinged, so they can be easily disassembled and rearranged. Edmund credits this construction system to Richard Grimes, and gives detailed fabrication instructions here. He hopes that others will find this to be an easy way to get started making large mathematical constructions.
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March 8 2010, 2:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/our_solar_neighborhood_with_jackie.html
If you're in NYC, here's a good thing to do Tuesday night! - Our Solar Neighborhood with Jackie Faherty @ American Museum of Natural History...
The Hayden Planetarium, with ongoing support from NASA, has assembled the world’s largest cosmic atlas, extending from Earth to the greatest distances yet charted by astronomers. Join us on the first Tuesday of each month for a fully interactive tour of the universe that surrounds us—the longest trip you can take while staying in New York. Download a home version of the Digital Universe at www.haydenplanetarium.org.
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Digg this!March 1 2010, 10:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/superconductor_levitates_around_cir.html
Before going any further, I really should say thanks to William J. Beaty, a research engineer in the Chemistry department at the University of Washington, who e-mailed me a few days ago with a link to his page of odd physics videos, which I have been systematically mining for content ever since!
This latest gem shows a piece of high temperature superconductor floating around a closed track made of rare-earth magnets. YouTuber majos explains:
High-temperature superconductor (Yttrium barium copper oxide) floating in the magnetic field of Neodymium magnets. This phenomenon is called the Meißner-Ochsenfeld-Effect and was discovered in 1933. The superconductor has to be cooled with liquid nitrogen which has a temperature of 77 K or −196 °C. If it is placed in a strong magnetic field it remains in its position. It also works if you turn the track upside down.
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February 25 2010, 11:22am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/rachel_in_space_welcome_home_endeav.html
Image courtesy NASA
Despite initially "iffy" weather reports, Endevaour was given the all-clear to land at Kennedy Space Center late last night, completing an almost two-week mission to the International Space Station where the crew installed a new node and the Cupola. The impressive seven-window addition has already offered up stunning pictures of earth.
Image courtesy NASA
ISS crew member, Soichi Noguchi has been populating his Twitter stream with frequent images, each one better than the next. Be sure to check out his picture of astronaut Stevie "Ray" Robinson inside the cupola, guitar in hand and a gorgeous Earth view in the background, as well as Soichi's image of the shuttle Endeavour as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere last night.
I was inspired by last night's landing to tackle a project I've had brewing for a while: embroidering a shuttle's deorbit map.
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Digg this!February 22 2010, 3:30pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/weekend_opportunity_for_double_spac.html
Space Shuttle Atlantis and the ISS fly across the night sky shortly after undocking back on November 25, 2009. Photo by Ethan Tweedie of Pottsboro, Texas via SpaceWeather.com.
Catching flyovers of the International Space Station is one of my favorite hobbies. There is something about being able to watch that gleaming vehicle glide across the sky like a super-bright star, knowing there are people living and working up there at this very moment. Even better is catching a flyover just before or just after the Shuttle has docked or undocked from the ISS. The vehicles appear to almost chase each other across the sky -- it's quite a sight. You'll have the chance to catch this special view this weekend. From SpaceWeather.com:
Space shuttle Endeavour's two-week mission to the ISS is almost finished. The two spaceships are scheduled to undock tonight, Feb. 19th, at 7:54 p.m. EST. This is good news for sky watchers, because there's nothing prettier than two bright spaceships traveling side-by-side through the night sky:
The Hayden Planetarium web site has great information on what parts of the country will have the best viewing opportunities and how to spot the vehicles in the sky. I highly recommend checking it out. You can also check out various phone apps that track sighting opportunities based on your location. I check our listings often, and love running out into the street for the brief encounters with the ISS in the sky. Though I think my neighbors are starting to wonder about me ....
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Digg this!February 19 2010, 5:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/relief_3d_interactive_maps.html
Called a "scalable actuated shape display", this project by Daniel Leithinger, Adam Kumpf, and Hiroshi Ishii of MIT's Tangible Media Group seems especially suited for displaying terrain.
Relief is an actuated tabletop display, which is able to render and animate three-dimensional shapes with a malleable surface. It allows users to experience and form digital models like geographical terrain in an intuitive manner. The tabletop surface is actuated by an array of 120 motorized pins, which are controlled with a platform built upon open-source hardware and software tools. Each pin can be addressed individually and senses user input like pulling and pushing.
[via the Eyebeam ReBlog]
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Digg this!February 18 2010, 3:00am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/happy_birthday_galileo_galilei_fath.html
Happy birthday Galileo Galilei...
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 - 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy," the "father of modern physics," the "father of science," and "the Father of Modern Science." Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."
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Digg this!February 15 2010, 4:00am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/unusual_mechanism_the_rolleron.html
Yes, this is a missile. Sorry about that. But it turns out the AIM-9 Sidewinder is the only well-documented example I can find, on the web, of a machine that employs these interesting little widgets called "rollerons." See the little metal pinwheels at the trailing corners of the fins? The rolleron is basically an air-driven gyroscope, as Tom Harris explains over on HowStuffWorks:
[A] spinning wheel resists lateral forces acting on it. In this case, the gyroscopic motion counteracts the missile's tendency to roll -- to rotate about its central axis. The simple, cheap rollerons steady the missile as it zips through the air, which keeps the seeker assembly from spinning at top speed. This makes it a lot easier to track the target...
Cool, neh? And there could certainly be nonlethal applications for all you hobby rocketeers out there. [Thanks, Lewis!]
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February 14 2010, 9:07pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/noisebridge_hackers_launch_balloon.html
San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge launched a balloon to the upper atmosphere, capturing numerous excellent photos as well as one super spinny video.
Declaring a week's advance notice of a balloon launch to the edge of space when we hadn't even bought most of the equipment, let alone built it, was probably an act of pique, if not madness. Remarkable how well it worked out, though.
The plan was simple: a ham radio broadcasting an APRS position beacon, a GPS that was known to work at high altitudes, a camera hacked for time-lapse photography, and an Android cellphone that we'd program to scream out its own GPS co-ordinates via SMS whenever it caught a glimpse of a cellphone network.
They thought they'd lost the balloon at one point, and just when they were sitting down at Denny's to commiserate, the balloon's onboard G1 sent a SMS and they were able to recover the payload. Whew!
Interested in learning more? Read team member Mikolaj Habran's fascinating description of the project, visit the project home page or check out the Flickr set. [via Laughing Squid]
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Digg this!February 12 2010, 3:00am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/spacewalkers_take_tinkering_to_new.html
Astronaut Bob Behnken participates in a spacewalk during STS-123. Image courtesy of NASA.
Imagine having your workshop traveling at 17,500 miles per hour more than 200 miles over the Earth as you work through grueling, painstakingly-planned out steps of a project with specialized gadgets like a massive Pistol Grip Tool. STS-130 mission specialists, Bob Behnken and Nicholas Patrick will be doing just that tonight, as they begin the first of three complicated space walks for this mission. And while they've each trained for months, poring over checklists and practicing in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab, it's in their personal experience as tinkerers and builders on Earth where their skills are firmly rooted.
"As a kid, I was always taking things apart," said Behnken, the lead spacewalker on this mission. "I was the boy who would come to your house and take your bicycle apart and then have to get invited back the next day to put it back together again."
Behnken grew up outside of St. Louis, where his father was a construction worker and where he frequented his local Radio Shack as a boy to pick up Heathkits and equipment for making projects around his house.
"I just had that interest in doing things that was from figuring out how to do it and then going out and doing it."
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Digg this!February 11 2010, 8:30pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/volkemon_in_space_additional_launch.html
Our favorite armchair astronaut, Rachel, is sleeping off all the adrenalin and exhaustion of covering the STS-130 shuttle launch for MAKE. (Great job, Rach!) So, we crowd-sourced a few more pictures from Make: Online member Volkemon, who was also on-hand for the big blast. Here are a couple of his pics (that's him and his mom in the top one, the causeway and the moon before launch, and the launch). There are a few more pics, and others from previous launches, in his Flickr sets. Thanks, Volkemon!
Volkemon's photostream
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Digg this!February 8 2010, 10:30pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/you_launch_some_you_scrub_some.html
Spaceflight is complicated, with many constraints and requirements that must be met before all systems can claim "go" for launch. Unfortunately for STS-130, this evening's "dynamic" weather proved to be too risky for this morning's launch. Endeavour's first launch attempt was scrubbed at 4:30 AM EST. The good news? We get to try it again in just under 24 hours and get to experience all the launch countdown fun twice. Not bad! Check back with my tweets tomorrow for the status of Endeavour's second launch attempt.
Pictured above: Endeavour's crew as they walk out to the famous Astrovan that will deliver them to the launch pad.
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Digg this!February 7 2010, 3:55am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/rachel_in_space_wake_up_or_stay_up.html
I'm here at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for the launch of STS-130 and the Space Shuttle Endeavour. After a brief spell of heavy rain last evening, the skies cleared, making a perfect backdrop for this morning's retraction of the Rotating Service Structure to reveal Endeavour in all her glory.
Endeavour is scheduled to launch at 4:39am EST Sunday morning, and it will be worth waking up - or staying up - to see. This is the last scheduled night launch of a shuttle. With only five remaining launches, not only are the opportunities to view one dwindling, but experiencing the impressive views of a night launch will be likely gone forever by this time tomorrow. People who live along the eastern coastline have a good chance of viewing the launch from their backyards. If you're further west in the US, why not just stay up a little later with friends and celebrate this milestone in the space program? You'll still have plenty of time to go back to bed and wake up in time for football (if that suits your fancy).
I'll be tweeting from Kennedy Space Center all night long as the launch approaches, and I've been constantly updating pictures over on Flickr. Stay tuned for continued mission coverage over the next week and a half, including an interview with the STS-130 crew member who is a maker at heart.
Pictured at top: This morning's RSS Retraction, revealing Endeavour. Below: A night launch of the shuttle Discovery. Image courtesy NASA.
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Digg this!February 6 2010, 1:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/quantum-logic_clock_is_the_new_hotn.html
The quantum-logic clock, which detects the energy state of a single aluminum ion, keeps time to within a second every 3.7 billion years. The new timekeeper could one day improve GPS or detect the slowing of time predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity.
[via Wired Science]
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Digg this!February 5 2010, 7:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/new_material_composite_metal_foam.html
Mechanical and aerospace engineer Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei set out to create a material "as light as aluminum and as strong as stainless steel," and she has succeeded, in the form of composite metal foam. In this Science Nation video, she discusses its applications as a building material, a way to make car bumpers stronger, and a superior substitute to solid metal in knee and hip surgeries. A professor at North Carolina State University, Dr. Rabiei encourages her students to be "persistent and pioneering." In her spare time, one of her passions is introducing grade school children to the wonders of engineering.
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Digg this!February 4 2010, 8:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/make_your_own_shoes_or_maybe_even_g.html
There's a (r)evolution in the world of running it seems, many runners are tossing their expensive cushiony running shoes and opting for barefoot'ing it, running in sandals, flats and some are just making their own shoes (our favorite!). We've covered many DIY shoe making projects and it's interesting to see this new trend shoe-less trend backed with some pretty serious research. The latest issue of Nature just dropped in my mailbox, I think the full article will be online at some point, but here are some excerpts, sites and more...
Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning relative to modern running shoes. We wondered how runners coped with the impact caused by the foot colliding with the ground before the invention of the modern shoe. Here we show that habitually barefoot endurance runners often land on the fore-foot (fore-foot strike) before bringing down the heel, but they sometimes land with a flat foot (mid-foot strike) or, less often, on the heel (rear-foot strike). In contrast, habitually shod runners mostly rear-foot strike, facilitated by the elevated and cushioned heel of the modern running shoe. Kinematic and kinetic analyses show that even on hard surfaces, barefoot runners who fore-foot strike generate smaller collision forces than shod rear-foot strikers. This difference results primarily from a more plantarflexed foot at landing and more ankle compliance during impact, decreasing the effective mass of the body that collides with the ground. Fore-foot- and mid-foot-strike gaits were probably more common when humans ran barefoot or in minimal shoes, and may protect the feet and lower limbs from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by a high percentage of runners.
Running barefoot is better, researchers find...
Running Barefoot or In Minimal Footwear.
On to the DIY shoe making...
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Digg this!January 27 2010, 10:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/rachel_in_space_coverage_of_the_sts.html
That's me, just more than 22 years ago, strapped in to the Commander's seat in the shuttle simulator at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. The joy on my face reflects about a fraction of the happiness I felt as we proceeded through our mission, using phrases like "Copy that" and "Roger roll." It was thrilling and inspiring, as exploration and science should be.
I once thought I'd become an astronaut, but my path took me in a different direction. I've never lost my passion for space, though, and I've never let go of my dream to see a space shuttle launch from Kennedy Space Center. Over the next few weeks, I'll be taking you along for the ride as I cover the launch and mission of STS-130 of the shuttle Endeavour. It's the first launch in the last year of the shuttle program, which is scheduled to be retired this fall. At a time when NASA's future is uncertain, it's important to not lose focus of the missions still ahead and the thousands of people who work tirelessly to make them run smoothly. I think it's actually an exciting time for space travel as we start to think of new ways to make things work. I imagine some of the folks reading this right now will be a part of the space exploration revolution over the next decade.
STS-130 Mission Specialist during an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit fit check in the Space Station Airlock Test Article (SSATA) in the Crew Systems Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Also pictured is STS-130 mission commander, George Zamka. Photo courtesy of NASA.
I'll be sharing interviews with the astronauts, details about the mission's timeline and objectives, reports from the scheduled NASA Tweetup from Mission Control during the mission, interviews with some of the brilliant young folks who help make the space program a success, and a fully geektastic perspective of a space geek achieving her dream. You can follow me here on MAKE as well as on Twitter, where I'll be tweeting constant updates from my various trips to Houston, Florida, and back to Houston.
For some of my favorite resources and other folks you should follow if you're a space geek at heart or just need to awaken that space geek that (I believe) resides in all of us, see more after the jump.
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Digg this!January 27 2010, 6:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/popmechs_top_10_tech_concepts_for_2.html
Are you hip to DNA origami, anthropomimetic machines, and ultracapacitors? If not, you may want to check out Popular Mechanics' 10 Tech Concepts You Need to Know for 2010.
What do you think, readers? What important technology for 2010 did the article miss?
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Digg this!January 24 2010, 1:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/puschino_astronomical_observatory.html
Can you hear me Major Tom? Amazing photos from the Puschino Astronomical observatory @ English Russia...
The first initiative to create big radio telescopes in the USSR is dated 1951. They were intended to observe the sun radiation and radiation of other space sources on centimeter and millimeter waves.
The displays appear to be nixie and/or VFDs too (warning: site loads lots of videos and chugs CPUs).
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Digg this!January 21 2010, 10:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/beautiful_silk_frost_fibrous_ice_fo.html
Dr. James Carter is a professor in the Department of Geography-Geology at the University of Illinois. One of his many interesting pages collects photos and other reports (dating back to 1884) of so-called "hair ice," "haareis," or (my fav) "silk frost." The fibrous ice crystals seem to be caused by the pore structure of certain woods, and only forms where the bark has been removed. Reportedly, the phenomenon is reproducible: if you find a piece of wood growing hair ice, you can warm it up, then re-freeze it, and it will grow hair ice again. [via Neatorama]
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Digg this!January 21 2010, 4:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/netflix_under_the_microscopeliteral.html
This is funny, Netflix under the microscope...literally...
Rent what you want, watch when you want, and exchange as often as you want. Idea is catching on. Netflix now boasts 11.1 million subscribers. That's a lot of people, who may or may not be washing their hands as often as you'd like. We, literally, put Netflix under the microscope. We delivered six different sealed Netflix envelopes, with six different Netflix DVD's inside to the pathology lab at the University of Texas Health Science Center of Tyler. For help with our experiment, we went to Dr. Richard Wallace who is board certified in infectious diseases. "My biggest concern for the DVD's would be the community MRSA that people pick up," he explained. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a potentially deadly bacteria that resists certain antibiotics. It starts with skin infections that can penetrate the body and spread to the bones, joints, and bloodstream. The infections cause about 20,000 deaths each year in the U.S.
You can tell this is one of those local news "shock" pieces, DEATH FROM WATCHING A MOVIE? STORY AT 11! So are they Netflix DVDs safe?
As for the disks themselves, Wallace said he found nothing that could potentially cause disease... "This doesn't mean that they couldn't pick up any bacteria here, or any bacteria that's dangerous, we just didn't see any," he explained.
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Digg this!January 10 2010, 10:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/mit_wins_darpas_luftballoon_challen.html
A team from MIT has claimed the $40,000 grand prize in DARPA's recent social networking challenge. The prize went to the first team to successfully report the locations of 99 ten large red balloons positioned at random locations around the continental United States. MIT's strategy involved the construction of an incentivized social network in which pieces of the reward were distributed along the entire "chain" connecting the network to a person reporting the location of a balloon: the actual reporter was awarded $2000, the person who invited the reporter was awarded $1000, the person who invited that person was awarded $500, and so on up the chain. I wonder if bail bondsmen and/or police could adopt a similar strategy to locate fugitives? [via The Computational Legal Studies Blog]
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January 10 2010, 9:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/continuing_role_of_enthusiasts_at_t.html
I've been listening to a lot of BBC podcasts (audio programs) lately, mostly their science shows - here's a great one from a couple weeks ago...
'Amateur' is not a term that's always considered as a compliment, but it should be, argue amateur scientists. The word amateur comes from the French 'amour', meaning someone who loves what they do. At one stage in the past, nearly all scientists were amateurs. Quentin Cooper looks into the continuing role of enthusiasts at the front line of research. He is joined by Dr Adam Rutherford from the journal Nature, Professor Rob Fuller, who co-ordinates the work of 30,000 volunteers for the British Trust for Ornithology, prize-winning young scientist Hannah Stuart, and founder President of the Society for Amateur Scientists in the USA, Dr Shawn Carlson. He also visits the garden observatory of Tom Boles, who monitors 12,000 galaxies for exploding stars from his home in Suffolk.
If there's any interest we could post up our podcast playlists (OPML file) - or just a list of sciencey/maker type shows. Post up in the comments if you'd like this!
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Digg this!January 8 2010, 10:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/toy_train_used_to_calibrate_fusion.html
While Princeton University's National Spherical Torus Experiment was shut down for improvements over the winter break, scientists and engineers availed themselves of the opportunity to recalibrate the reactor's neutron sensors. To do so, they assembled a circular toy train track around the torus and ran a toy locomotive carrying a chunk of neutron-emitting californium-252 along it for three days. The New York Times explains:
A stationary neutron source was previously used for the calibration, but that did not fully capture how the neutrons bounced around. Putting the californium on the moving train improved the accuracy by about a factor of 10, Dr. Ono said.
[Thanks, Pete!]
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Digg this!January 8 2010, 4:12pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/worlds_tiniest_snow_man.html
If you're like me, you may be disappointed to learn that the world's smallest snowman is, in fact, not made of snow at all. It's tin that's been etched with a focused ion beam (FIB) instrument, with bits of ion-welded platinum for the nose and to hold the tin spheres together. I guess it's impractical to work with actual ice when you're at the 10 micrometer scale. For comparison, a human hair is about 50 micrometers across. It's the work of Dr. David Cox and co-workers at the National Physical Laboratory in London.
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Digg this!January 6 2010, 4:13pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/math_monday_fractal_polyhedra_clust.html
Fractal polyhedra clusters
By
George Hart for the
Museum of Mathematics
At The Math Museum, we are interested in making cool mathematical ideas accessible and tactile. With a good 3D printing machine, you can make beautiful fractal polyhedra clusters like the one below. This nylon model consists of twelve groups of twelve small stellated dodecahedra. Each group is arranged like an icosahedron and the whole is an icosahedron of icosahedra.
It is beautiful to turn this in your hand and see its patterns and structures from all angles. If you have access to a 3D printer and want to make your own copy, you can download the STL file from here.
This delicate pink sculpture illustrates the structure of just one subcluster from the above, but here, each element is a great icosahedron, where above the elements are small dodecahedra.
More:
Math Monday: Giant SOMA puzzle
Math Monday: Tie your bagel in a knot!
Math Monday: Playing card constructions
Introducing "Math Monday"
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January 4 2010, 2:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/klein_bottles_r_them.html
In the market for a Klein Bottle or just a wool hat shaped like one? Check out the selection at Acme Klein Bottle.
In 1882, Felix Klein imagined sewing two Möbius Loops together to create a single sided bottle with no boundary. Its inside is its outside. It contains itself.
Take a rectangle and join one pair of opposite sides -- you'll now have a cylinder. Now join the other pair of sides with a half-twist. That last step isn't possible in our universe, sad to say. A true Klein Bottle requires 4-dimensions because the surface has to pass through itself without a hole.
It's closed and non-orientable, so a symbol on its surface can be slid around on it and reappear backwards at the same place. You can't do this trick on a sphere, doughnut, or pet ferret -- they're orientable.
My favorite is their $18,000 meter-tall Giant Klein Bottle... see the fascinating build photos on Acme's site...
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Digg this!January 2 2010, 7:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/new_years_eve_blue_moon_to_ring_in.html
New Year's Eve 'blue moon' to ring in 2010!
Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor. A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown. "If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.
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Digg this!December 31 2009, 1:54pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/ten_science_party_tricks.html
Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK shows you ten cool, quirky tricks of science you can show off at your next party. [via Boing Boing]
Top 10 quirky science tricks for Christmas parties
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December 19 2009, 4:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/harnessing_bacteria_to_turn_gears.html
This looks neat, a team of scientists from the Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University have figured out how to get bacteria to spin tiny gears. Though the gears themselves are small, the bacteria are even smaller, so apparently it takes hundreds of them swimming in swarms to produce enough energy to turn the gears. Anyone have ideas about how to turn these gear motions into logic gates? I'd love to have a bacteria-powered computer! [via boingboing]
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December 16 2009, 3:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/wiimote_as_scientific_sensor.html
Researchers from Delft University of Technology have assembled inexpensive alternatives to costly scientific sensors using the Nintendo Wiimote.
Luxemburg's team aimed the Wiimote at a problem that can be very tricky for hydrologists: measuring evaporation on a body of water. The easiest way to measure evaporation is to place pans of water near the lake, or whatever water is being studied, and put pressure sensors in them. The sensors record the drop in pressure as more and more water disappears. But this equipment can run $500 or more, and still the measurements aren't accurate because the water in the pan gets warmer on land than it would in the lake. Alternatively, measuring the level of water in a pan that is floating in a lake is also tricky because the pan will inevitably be moving.
Hacked Wiimote Makes Super Scientific Sensor [via Slashdot]
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Digg this!December 16 2009, 6:55am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/new_vista_photos.html
It's not that OS that you're not using... it's VISTA, an amazing new telescope via Wired
A new telescope — VISTA (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) — has just started work at ESO’s Paranal Observatory and has made its first release of pictures. VISTA is a survey telescope working at infrared wavelengths and is the world’s largest telescope dedicated to mapping the sky. Its large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors will reveal a completely new view of the southern sky. Spectacular new images of the Flame Nebula, the centre of our Milky Way galaxy and the Fornax Galaxy Cluster show that it is working extremely well.
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Digg this!December 15 2009, 5:00am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/dialing_the_universes_wavelengths.html
From the Chromoscope intro:
Ever wanted X-ray specs or super-human vision? Chromoscope lets you explore our Galaxy (the Milky Way) and the distant Universe in a range of wavelengths from X-rays to the longest radio waves.
Seen above is an image in visible light and in radio waves (408 MHz) [via Tim O'Reilly's Twitter feed]
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December 14 2009, 6:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/book_giveaway_the_physics_of_superh.html
Sporting the slogan "More heroes! More villains! More SCIENCE!" on the cover, the second edition of The Physics of Superheroes, by James Kakalios, delivers the goods. Revamped since the first edition, with more examples and a new section on quantum mechanics, this book makes learning physics exciting and fun. No more "ball falling off a cliff" examples to demonstrate Newton's F=ma. Instead, you learn how hard Superman would really have to push off to leap as high as a tall building. This is a book for comic book enthusiasts who never knew they liked science, or at least never thought they could explore the two at the same time.
Kakalios is a college physics professor, but not like any one I've ever met! While far from "real world" examples of angular momentum, electromagnetism, and materials science, Kakalios offers compelling illustrations of the principles of physics through Superman, the Flash, Electro, and other heroes in spandex. This book is a great way to get a resistant high school-age kid interested in science, and it's a fun read for adults, too.
Book giveaway time!
We're giving away three copies of The Physics of Superheroes! Just leave a comment, telling us your favorite comic book physics moment, even if you're not sure of the science behind it (that's what the book should teach you, right?). Please be sure to enter your email address in the "email" field (it won't be published). The giveaway will close on Thursday, December 10th at 12pm PST.
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Digg this!December 7 2009, 10:00am | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/researchers_discover_single-atom_tr.html
In an age ruled by information great emphasis is placed on processing speed, memory capacity and sensor sizes. The advancement of such hardware is tied directly to the accelerated development of integrated circuits and exponential improvements of the transistor. When news hits that researchers successfully built a working transistor the size of a single atom, the next generation of devices don't seem that far-fetched.
Researchers from Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), University of New South Wales (Australia), and University of Melbourne (Australia) have succeeded in building a working transistor, whose active region composes only of a single phosphorus atom in silicon.
"About half a year ago, I and one of the leaders of this research, Prof. Andrew Dzurak, were asked when we expect a single-atom transistor to be fabricated. We looked at each other, smiled, and said that we have already done that", tells Dr. Mikko Möttönen.
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Digg this!December 4 2009, 2:00pm | More »
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I posted to blog.makezine.com
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/great_science_reads_the_new_york_ac.html
Looking for some great science books? Have a listen to this podcast... Great Science Reads @ The New York Academy of Sciences... Dean Kamen's pick Calculus for Cats is wonderful...
Seven scientists and science-lovers—Dean Kamen, Helen Fisher, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and more—recommend their favorite science books, fiction and non, for you to wrap up and gift for the holidays (or maybe just read yourself).
They also have some
science related gifts in another show...
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Digg this!December 3 2009, 10:00pm | More »
