See Me, Feel Me

Wind turbines wrong colour for wildlife

[C]hanging a turbine’s colour could have a profound impact on the number of insects it lures in and therefore the number of birds and bats that follow.
The researchers also found that the ultraviolet and infrared components of paint colour, which humans cannot see but insects can, also had a significant impact, with higher levels of both attracting more insects.

Dem Bones

… and Titanium foamy goodness. Titanium foam is just as flexible and rigid as real human bone

The secret behind the new titanium foam implants is a foam-like structure that resembles spongiosa inside human bones, and a powder metallurgy-based molding process that consists of open-cell polyurethane (PU) foams being saturated with a solution that contains a binding medium and a fine titanium powder. The powder adheres to the foams cellular structures, and the binding agents and the PU are vaporized. The end result is a “semblance of the foam structures, which is ultimately sintered.”

Going Green(wich)

Oct. 13, 1884: Greenwich Resolves Subprime Meridian Crisis

Britain had first solved the problem of longitude, Britain had the world’s largest navy, and the sun indeed did not set on the far-flung British Empire. Britannia ruled the waves, so there was no need for Britain to waive its rules.

Thus, the conference established that the meridian passing through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich would be the world’s Prime Meridian, and all longitude would be calculated both east and west from it up to 180 degrees. The conference also established Greenwich Mean Time as a standard for astronomy and setting time zones.

Show and Tell

Experiment vs. Theory: The Eternal Debate

Bottom line: we have lasers, with or without the sharks.

That’s something you can show off on a tour of the department and it’s guaranteed to make an impression on prospective students and parents.

From my perspective, it’s also something you can show off to admirals and generals and civilian upper-level cogs. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Read, Aim, Fire!

The Big Picture: The National Ignition facility

“Creating a miniature star on Earth” is the goal of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), home to the world’s largest and highest-energy laser in Livermore, California. On September 29th, 2010, the NIF completed its first integrated ignition experiment, where it focused its 192 lasers on a small cylinder housing a tiny frozen capsule containing hydrogen fuel, briefly bombarding it with 1 megajoule of laser energy. The experiment was the latest in a series of tests leading to a hoped-for “ignition”, where the nuclei of the atoms of the fuel inside the target capsule are made to fuse together releasing tremendous energy – potentially more energy than was put in to start the initial reaction, becoming a valuable power source. The NIF has cost over $3.5 billion since 1997 and is a part of the federally funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Scientists at NIF say they hope to achieve fusion by 2012.

Physics Going Down the Drain

White Holes And Kitchen Sinks

Turn on your kitchen tap and the steady stream of water will spread out into a thin circular disc when it hits the sink. This disc has an unusual property: it is surrounded by a circular “lip”, where the height of the water changes suddenly.

This so-called hydraulic jump has puzzled physicists for at least a hundred years (John Strutt, otherwise known as Lord Rayleigh, published the first mathematical description of the phenomenon in 1914). These kinds of hydrodynamic problems are notoriously difficult to tackle.

Knowing Where Your Physics Towel Is

Physics: Don’t Panic! 10 Steps to Solving (Most) Physics Problems

Don’t panic.

Physical equations didn’t just land on scientists from the sky, all wrapped up nicely in mathematical formulation. They are derived from physical properties, and they are all interconnected. In most physics problems, there is more than one way to reach a solution, often meaning that more than one equation can work. In fact, in the vast majority of questions, no matter what equation you use – assuming that it is relevant to the subject matter, and that you insert the proper variables – you will reach a solution.

If Only it Were a Bizzaro-World Headline

But it’s not. Lab-Sized Earthquakes Challenge Basic Laws of Physics. Really? No. Invariably, no. A more accurate headline would be “Lab-Sized Earthquakes Advance Understanding of Physics”

A model earthquake on a lab bench shows that a basic assumption of introductory physics doesn’t hold up at small scales. The finding could have a wide variety of implications for materials science and engineering, and could help researchers understand how earthquakes occur and how bad they might be.

And a more accurate lead-in would be rewritten to say a basic assumption of introductory physics class

In reality, friction is a very complicated thing, and there are two common approaches to complicated things in introductory physics: ignore it, or use a very simple model of it. Which is why introductory physics problems include a lot of frictionless surfaces (and no drag), and when friction is included, a linear model is used. This really should be no surprise — we generally don’t teach them relativistic kinematics in the intro class, either. It’s hard enough to get a grip on the basic tenets of momentum, force and energy without getting into the nitty gritty details.

Other than that, though — interesting stuff.