It's Even Better Than the 'Clapper'

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Students Who Use ‘Clickers’ Score Better On Physics Tests

If, like me, you don’t already know what a clicker is and how it’s used, read this (buried nine paragraphs in) first:

In clicker classes, multiple choice questions appear on a large computer screen at the front of the lecture hall. Students hold the wireless devices, which resemble small calculators. They cast their votes for the correct answer based on their understanding of the part of the lecture that was just given. A bar graph shows the percentage of students voting for each answer.

The first third of the story will make more sense once you have this information.

It's Like, Symmetry, Dude!

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Hubble Kaleidoscope Finds Evidence Of Space Looking All Crazy

“With their unprecedented resolution, the latest images from the new kaleidoscope reveal that space, once thought to be isotropic, is actually continuously expanding, unfolding, and rearranging in a series of freaky patterns,” said astronomer Douglas Stetler, head of the Space Kaleidoscope Science Institute in Baltimore. “It’s an exciting time for the field of astrokaleidoscopics, or anyone interested in the vast, wacked-out nature of space.”

[…]

Despite excitement over the discovery that space is all crazy-looking, a number of legislators have threatened to cut funding for NASA’s kaleidoscopic program. An outspoken critic of the agency, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she hopes NASA scientists don’t just use the kaleidoscope a few times and then lose interest and never touch it again, like they did with the Brookhaven Neutrino Spirograph, Fermilab’s Particle Slingshot, and the Very Large Slip ‘n Slide Array in New Mexico.

However, it should be noted that they still continue to play around with the boxes those devices came in.

Take Your Ritalin!

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The Hyper-Sub

Fast boats need to be light, but subs, of course, need negative buoyancy.

The ballast systems in most submarines can displace only about 20 percent of the cabin’s volume, but the Hyper-Sub’s ballast chambers double the volume of the cabin. The boat uses a high-pressure pumping system to rapidly fill these chambers with water or air, quickly changing its weight and buoyancy and allowing it to submerge or surface in less than a minute. “This creates more than 12 tons of lift [or sink],” Marion says.

Here's What's Happening on the Aloha Deck

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Because of the timekeeping implications of what we do in the lab and especially so because of the gee-whiz nature of table-top-ish atomic physics, I’m sometimes called upon to give (or assist with) lab tours to various visitors. Sometimes it’s scientists whom we’ve invited, and those are usually the best because you get to discuss interesting (to us) topics, and the value of the information exchange can be fairly high, exceeded only by workshops and conferences. But often enough it’s someone whose importance is on the bureaucratic side of the coin (i.e funding), or worse, whose importance is not at all apparent, though the powers that be have assured us that it’s necessary. Those can be more of a chore, especially with someone without a technical background and who is only doing it because (like me) they were told it was important. Then it’s an issue of how quickly one wants their eyes to glaze over. We can really shovel the geek.

So anyway, I helped give a lab tour on Wednesday. And let me tell you, it was NOT one of those that falls into the “chore” category.
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Give 'Til it Hurts

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NASA Wants Your Urine

Yes, you read that right: NASA needs your urine.

The drive is to benefit NASA’s fledgling Orion Program, which aims to put astronauts back on the moon by 2020. The pee drive is to help engineers working on designing the new spaceship’s toilet.

I’ve got other NASA-related news, but I’m holding that in until tomorrow, even though I’m bursting to tell you.

Looking for Energy in all the Right Places

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Bionic bra: Victoria’s circuit

An attempt to harness, as it were, the kinetic energy stored in the ones that bounce.

It turns out that the physics of breast motion has been studied closely for the last two decades by a gamut of researchers – most of them women.

Formally, perhaps.

Lawson explains that breasts move on three different axes: from side to side, front to back, and up and down. The most motion is generated on the vertical axis. Naturally, the bigger the breast, the more momentum it generates. “Let’s face it – if you’re a double-A marathoner, you’re probably not going to get that iPod up and running,” Lawson says. Measurements compiled by Lawson and her colleagues show that a D-cup in a low-support bra can travel as much as 35 inches (89cm) up and down (35 inches!) during exercise, while a B-cup in a high-support bra barely moves an inch.

Again, something that a motivated amateur scientist might have also observed.

via O, Teh Interwebz!