Category Archives: Video
Catatonic
I would have expected vacuuming the cat to turn the feline into a frenetic fuzzball.
Rube-y Goldberg Tuesday III
An Engineer's Guide to Cats
Strangely, nothing about cat-a-pults
So What Units Does "G" Have?
Doing a NUMB3R on Non-Newtonian Fluids
On NUMB3RS the other night, Charlie and Larry run over a pool of a non-Newtonian fluid, comprised of cornstarch and water. (Larry sinks in the teaser segment, but is successful at the closing). Non-Newtonian fluids are those that have a viscosity that changes when you apply a force. In this case it is shear-thickening, so it behaves much like a solid when pressure is quickly applied.
Here’s a video of a quite similar scene
Scary Nonphysics Geek Stuff: Animal Robo-Porn
Mechanical squirrels, robot lizards jump into research
In Indiana, for instance, a fake lizard shows off its machismo as researchers assess which actions intimidate and which attract real lizards. Pheromone-soaked cockroach counterfeits in Brussels, meanwhile, exert peer pressure on real roaches to move out of protective darkness. In California, a tiny video camera inside a fake female sage grouse records close-up details as it’s wooed – and more – by the breed’s unusually promiscuous males.
And here’s a short video of said sage grouse, deemed the fembot (oh, behave!). It’s a preview that’s G-rated (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) though check out the soundtrack. I fully expected Mrs. Krabappel to pop up and proclaim, “She’s faking it.”
I Go to Pieces
… and then get myself back together again.
A modular robot that reassembles itself after being kicked apart
After successful self-reassembly, the system stands up and continues its task
… which is apparently to fall over like a drunk sailor soldier. (Sailors walk randomly, but don’t fall down. Everybody knows that.)
Rube-y Goldberg Tuesday II
Infrared You Won't Forget
Notice that the ears are cooler — an elephant uses its ears for thermoregulation. The same idea as fins on any heat sink: lots of surface area. That’s necessary because of the elephant’s shape (the spherical approximation is much more reasonable for an elephant than for a cow) meaning has a small surface-to-volume ratio, so it’s efficient at retaining heat.
With a wide surface area of outer ear tissue, hot blood in the arteries is cooled as it is filtered through the vast network of capillaries and veins. Thus, the body temperature is regulated with the cooled blood returning to the main body.