HALFWAY TO CONCORD » science

Don’t try to steal this car

admin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:07:18 +0000

Here’s how you can make the best car alarm ever thanks to science. When Nikola Tesla got creative with transformers and driver circuits at the turn of the 20th century he probably had no idea that others would have so much fun with his concepts over a hundred years later. An Australian named Peter has a web site, Tesla Down Under that recounts the many ways Tesla science can be brought to bear on everyday life.

According to MagHeap, “A Tesla coil was placed on top of the car with a rod projecting out and bent towards the ground, from which the sparks would fly. A wooden counterweight was then placed on top to make sure it stayed in place. When the electric current was switched on and the rod turned to encircle the car, under long exposure the results are electrifying.”

Martian glaciers discovered

admin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:35:51 +0000

Scientific American reports that the Phoenix lander has uncovered what appear to be Martian glaciers of frozen water just beneath the Red Planet’s surface. One such was considered to be a half mile thick and spreading more than three times larger than the area of the City of Los Angeles, including trendy Santa Monica. Scientists say they are puzzled as to why the ice has remained, as it was believed Mars’ climate was not hospitable to such water formations so close to its equator.

Atoms caught fooling around

admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:22:18 +0000

New Scientist reports that movie star atoms have been caught on film fooling around. A new microscope that employs a strobe affect can captures images at unprecendented speeds to produce footage of atoms moving around. “This demonstrates, impressively, how real-time observation of the microcosm can reveal features of matter otherwise inaccessible,” says Eleftherios Goulielmakis, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany.

Make water from thin air

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:41:55 +0000

Element Four will soon begin to market its WaterMill that turns air in to water via condensation. Uses include refrigerator water dispensers, your spigot, water coolers, up to 12 liters of water a day.

The atmosphere contains 4 to 25 grams of water vapor per cubic meter, while the WaterMill can change 10% to 40% of that to liquid. Water vapor is constantly replenished by Earth’s natural cycle, so extracting water from the air can continue indefinitely without impacting local ecosystems.

History of the LED

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:34:51 +0000

See the video clip that relates the history of the ubiquitous LED. Not that life would not go on without it, but it has an important place.

MAKE presents: The LED from make magazine on Vimeo.

Going Up? Japanese begin work on Space Elevator

admin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:05:31 +0000

The finest scientific minds of Japan are devoting themselves to cracking the greatest sci-fi vision of all: the space elevator. 22,000 mile-long (36,000km) cables — or flat ribbons — will run the elevator carriages, themselves requiring huge breakthroughs in engineering to which the biggest Japanese companies and universities have turned their collective attention. Click on image or here to see bigger (150-Kb) picture that’s worth a look.

Scientists test Political Bullshit detector

admin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:30:24 +0000

Times Political Reporter, Lisa Vorderbrueggen, recently wrote about Madison Avenue PR bigwigs calling for truth and credibility in PR spin. Yeah right! But now, we learn scientisits are working on a Political Bullshit Detector. There is actual software programs that analyse a person’s speech, voice or facial expressions are building upon the work of researchers to help discover when the truth is being stretched, and even by how much. Maybe we could have one installed on the 6th floor of the County Admin building? For a fun fictional account of how this can be played, see Neal Stephenson’s Interface.

Large Hadron Collider Test, Sept 10

admin — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:45:34 +0000

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is set to perform the first full track particle beam tests on its 27 Km Large Hadron Collider (Lhc) that borders Switzerland and France, on Wednesday, Sept 10. Scientists believe this test, that will recreate conditions just after the “Big Bang,” will rewrite what we know about particle physics. Here is some science on why Lhc will not create a black hole that will destroy the world. See some awesome pictures by Max Brice, of the collider in various stages of construction.

Intel demonstrates wireless electricity

admin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:54:42 +0000

Thanks to Will Rigney, of AT&T, who told me about this one: Intel yesterday used a magnetic field to transmit electricity 3 feet to power a 60-watt light bulb using a “wireless energy resonant link.”

Invisibility cloak on the horizon

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:50:47 +0000

The big tech news today is a claim that metamaterials have been invented that help wrap light around an object to render it virtually invisible. According to Scientific American, “Scientists have created two new types of materials that can bend light the wrong way, creating the first step toward an invisibility cloaking device. One approach uses a type of fishnet of metal layers to reverse the direction of light, while another uses tiny silver wires, both at the nanoscale level.Both are so-called metamaterials — artificially engineered structures that have properties not seen in nature, such as negative refractive index. The two teams were working separately under the direction of Xiang Zhang of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center at the University of California, Berkeley with U.S. government funding. One team reported its findings in the journal Science and the other in the journal Nature.”

Maybe wrap one around Concord’s Park ‘n Shop on Willow Pass? What would you render invisible?