Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.
Seasons in the Sun
Dot Physics: Seasons, short and simple
All hail Helios, bringer of warmth, and Projectorus, god of the dot product.
A Hairy Proposition
Color me skeptical. The story, of course, is very skimpy on the science, but let’s look at this. The claim of “9 V (18 W)” is really hard to believe, because P=IV means 2 A of current flowing through the hair, though that will be divided up. Still, the diameter of a hair is thinner than AWG 32 wire (at about 200 microns), which has a current limit of less than 0.1 A for power transmission, and that’s for a good conductor. Hair? Not so much. The pictures show a grid of interconnected hair, which doesn’t have all that much area, so capturing any more than a small fraction of the few hundred W/m^2 of insolation is not in the cards. A 20 x 20 grid at less than 0.2mm per hair is just a few square mm of hair — it can only get you a fraction of a Watt.
Question: why don’t we have our hair generating electricity like this while it’s attached to our heads?
At best, somebody dropped a prefix representing several orders of magnitude somewhere. At worst it’s a scam.
Seriously Inelastic
In physics we are usually taught that there are three types of collisions: elastic collisions, inelastic collisions, and completely inelastic collisions. Add to that the seriously inelastic collision.
Cocktail Party Physics: nascar driver vs. wiley coyote: a real-life seriously inelastic collision
Not for the squeamish — you should stick to ideal situations; this coyote is decidedly not spherical, especially after the impact. There is no truth to the rumor that NASCAR speedometers have a “purée” setting.
A Member of the TMTOTH Club
*Too Much Time On Their Hands
Someone watched an episode from “Leave It to Beaver” and freeze-framed a note from the principal that got sent home with ‘the Beav.’
…
Lew Burdette just hit a home run and Milwaukee leads seven to one in the series.This is the last line of the filler material of the note.
No, my mistake, that was only the next to last. This is last.…
What Are They Supposed to Use, Harsh Language?
No, probably not.
Scouts to no longer bring penknives on camping trips
Apparently the scouts are behind all of the knife-related trouble in the UK.
Not a Myth
One of the things I had wanted to do on vacation was film a hummingbird in slow-motion. Alas, I did not see any visiting the feeder I set up . Our condo was not situated in a good spot; location, location, location.
However, I thought I had hit the jackpot while out geocaching one day, when I stopped to film some butterflies and bees pollinating some flowers. It looked like a small hummingbird.
This is probably a hummingbird clearwing moth, Hemaris thysbe.
Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program
Gorgeous first two-thirds of the Labor Day weekend, which I spent geocaching, up to the point where my knee started complaining about all the hiking. Off-trail bushwhacking seems to be the main irritant, along with hilly trails, and i was doing a lot of that on Sunday. The knee seems to wait until I’ve maximized the distance back to the car before starting to hurt, and this time was no exception. So I’m back in front of a computer screen, digging up interesting (to me) science stuff, and sorting through my slo-mo movies, getting things ready to go.
This is Not a Step
This one has been kicking around, in various guises, since USENET days, but it’s still good.
Getting the Latest Model is not Fashion
Dot Physics: The development of the atomic model
Ernest Rutherford said one day “hey, I think I will shoot some stuff at atoms.” I am sure his wife said “oh, Ernie” (she probably called him Ernie) “if it makes you happy to play with your little physics stuff, go ahead. I know how much you like it.” So he did. He shot some alpha particles (which are really just the nucleus of a helium atom) at some really thin gold foil.