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Science

The Amazing Rusting Aluminum

By Theodore Gray Posted on 3.17.2009 5 Comments
Unless you are a representative of a national meteorological bureau licensed to carry a barometer (and odds are you’re not), bringing mercury onboard an airplane is strictly forbidden. Why? If it got loose, it could rust the plane to pieces before it had a chance to land. You see, airplanes are made of aluminum, and aluminum is highly unstable.

11.20.2009 at 11:11am - Comment by dontbother

Of course, it's not necessary to use liquid mercury for this kind of experiment: mercuric nitrate is readily soluble in water. Mercury, with an electronegativity of 2, is readily displaced from such a solution by aluminium, with an electronegativity of 1.61. Moistening an aluminium surface with a few drops of the solution and then giving it a quick polish with an abrasive such as sandpaper exposes enough fresh aluminium surface for a mercury-aluminium amalgam to form rapidly. The aluminium in the amalgam will oxidise rapidly, forming mounds of fluffy aluminium oxide, freeing the mercury to attack freshly-exposed aluminium... and so on. Because the oxidation of aluminium is exothermic, this process yields quite an amount of heat, speeding the reaction even further. Very little of the mercury is actually lost among the aluminium oxide, so the reaction will proceed for quite some time; quite long enough, in fact, to corrode a hole through 5mm aluminium sheet. It goes without saying, of course, that mercury and its salts are poisonous, and that one should do this experiment in a fume hood, and on something such as an aluminium drinks can, not an aeroplane fuselage.
Science

Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)

By Stuart Fox Posted on 11.5.2009 85 Comments
The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features.

11.5.2009 at 02:30pm - Comment by dontbother

Thank god it wasn't a swallow carrying a coconut. http://www.filthyrichmond.com is teh taint.
Gadgets

Why Astrophotography Is Worth the Trouble

By Posted on 11.2.2009 8 Comments
Astrophotography is hard. Astronomically hard. Everything has to be perfect. Your telescope, with camera attached, must track your target in precise synchronization with the rotation of the Earth. It can't shake. It can't even vibrate. You have to nail your camera's exposure settings or you'll be rewarded with an incoherent mess. Your targets are often so dim you can't even see them until after the image has been made, so focusing is a nightmare. So why try? Because it makes the entities floating in the vastness of the universe much more real than any Hubble wallpaper on your computer desktop can.

11.3.2009 at 01:28am - Comment by dontbother

So I don't know what all the fuss is about... I hooked my Canon 50D up to a 300mm f/2.8L with 2 2x extenders and a 1.4x extender. Focusing was difficult, as the tripod I was using it on was just a bit over rated weight and was wobbly as heck. It was a cold winter night, which is good for the sensor. I took ISO 800 exposures, around 1/40th of a second, that came out with no noise whatsoever even in the RAWs, at 15 megapixels, filling the frame. Mirror lockup helps, as does -10 degree temperatures. I later realized I'd been shooting through trees, but the resolution is amazing! Seriously, the moon, filling a 15-megapixel frame, with almost 100% detail. I'm waiting for winter to do it again with planets, etc. The point is, a telescope and specialized camera aren't the only way to go. A DSLR with a good lens and sturdy mount and cold temperatures will do just as good or better.
Science

Kissing Evolved To Spread Germs, Not Feelings

By Clay Dillow Posted on 11.2.2009 13 Comments
It looks like your kindergarten gut reaction to kissing might have been correct after all: it really is sick. Or, more specifically, the practice is designed to spread sickness. British scientists say the human habit of kissing evolved for less-than-romantic reasons, but one that is nonetheless important to a healthy reproductive relationship: to spread germs.

11.2.2009 at 08:15pm - Comment by dontbother

"chicken pokes"? "cytomegalovirus is not sexist."? It affects developing fetuses inside pregnant women... Pregnancy is sexist!
Science

Hideous Rodent May Provide Cure For Cancer

By Stuart Fox Posted on 10.30.2009 38 Comments
Naked mole rats are unique in many ways. For one, they're the only mammals with a hive mind, obeying their queen as if they were ants. Also, they feel no pain, an adaptation still not fully understood. But most importantly for us, they are the only animals that don't get cancer. And now, a new study by scientists at the University of Rochester, New York, explains at last why these horrific animals, of all of the world's creatures, are immune to cancer.

10.28.2009 at 06:30pm - Comment by dontbother

Rufus!
Science

Physicists Calculate Exact Number of Alternate Universes

By Stuart Fox Posted on 10.16.2009 32 Comments
For some time, physicists have theorized about the existence of alternate universes. In fact, some models of physics require multiple universes, to explain some rarely observed phenomena. But, other than obvious ones like The Man In The High Castle Universe where the Nazis won WWII, the Earth-295 Age of Apocalypse Universe, and the Terran Empire "Mirror Mirror" Universe, just how many alternate universes are there? Well, some Stanford University physicists have answered that question, and the magic number is: 10^10^16 other realities.

10.22.2009 at 08:02am - Comment by dontbother

I have heard that there is an alternative universe in which people actually know the meaning of 'alternate' and understand that it doesn't mean the same as 'alternative'.
Technology

US Special Forces Field-Testing Plasma Knife

By Posted on 10.15.2009 20 Comments
Emergency medical care for soldiers wounded on the battlefield has come a long way since Hawkeye and Hot Lips. But for Special Forces troopers operating deep behind enemy lines, that care often remains out of reach. Blood loss in particular makes seconds count, and imperils commandos operating far away from friendly bases. To help with the problem of blood loss from traumatic wounds, the military has started field-testing a device more Mandalorian than M.A.S.H.: a plasma knife.

10.19.2009 at 11:55pm - Comment by dontbother

Plasma knives are already used in the OR. They are just an adaptation of the standard electrocautery device. Sadly, it's not nearly as cool as most of you are imagining. I'm sure the SF version has a much more compact generator than the standard OR version. http://www.peaksurgical.com/products/plasmablade/
The Environment

Containing the Sahara with Bacteria-Built Walls

By Dan Smith Posted on 7.27.2009 12 Comments
The Sahara, as well as other deserts around the world, is growing, in a process called desertification that ends up displacing people and crops. The situation has become drastic in a number of sub-Saharan countries. One suggestion from architect Magnus Larsson at the recent TED Global conference suggests constructing a massive wall, 3,700 miles long -- built from the sand itself. The trick would be to use bacterial labor to build it.

10.12.2009 at 02:22pm - Comment by dontbother

"However, because of the poverty in those areas, many of the trees were chopped down for the wood." And here is the real problem. If you really want to stop desertification, you need to stop the people responsible for it.
Science

3-D Scanning Brings the Future of Fingerprinting

By Jeremy Hsu Posted on 9.30.2009 7 Comments
Fingerprinting with ink or even sensor plates poses a chore for everyone involved, except possibly 10-year-old kids. But that could change with a 3-D system that projects light patterns onto a finger and analyzes the image within a second. The method works by beaming a series of striped lines so that they wrap around a finger. A 1.4 megapixel camera captures the lines at almost 1,000 pixels per inch, and creates a highly detailed 3-D map of the fingerprint ridges and valleys.

9.30.2009 at 08:44pm - Comment by dontbother

just to be clear, inkless fingerprint scanners have been around for a while and the scanners used at U.S. embassies overseas are pretty quick; they take maybe 30 seconds to get all 10 prints.
DIY

What Comes After Arduino?

By Mikey Sklar Posted on 9.25.2009 5 Comments
The Arduino platform is doing something amazing: bringing hardware development to the masses. It's a sweet little system, with a built-in hardware programmer, simplified programming language, and lively user base that offers plenty of sample code and assistance in the online forums. While this fully assembled solution is a good way to get your feet wet, there are a lot of good reasons to just buy an off-the-shelf processor, make your own circuit board and write in a low level language like C. It can be cheaper, quicker and easier to debug. Here, check out some of the projects I've made and how I pay for my hobby, as well as my hardware setup.

9.27.2009 at 07:50pm - Comment by dontbother

Mikey: I love your work very much. Fun and functional. :) I used PIC microcontroller for most of my hardware project. To compile,program,test and debug PIC i used EasyPic5. http://www.mikroe.com/en/tools/easypic5/