The Cool Science Stuff Thread

[CaptainKirk]

I think this series makes the point even better.

http://aerospaceed.org/smallscale2.jpg

http://aerospaceed.org/smallscale3.jpg

http://aerospaceed.org/smallscale4.jpg

http://aerospaceed.org/smallscale5.jpg

Very cool.

Astronomy is for squares, man!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110323.html

Beautiful shot. I don't think I've ever seen this before; I didn't know there were square nebulae out there.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Evidently Steven Chu, current Secretary of Energy and former Nobel Prize co-winner in 1997, designed the well cap that ultimately sealed last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

That's straight out of a Hollywood movie like "Transformers" where the President himself has to get involved (and it's personal!).

 

[islandman]

That's straight out of a Hollywood movie like "Transformers" where the President himself has to get involved (and it's personal!).

I can see Bloomberg doing that with regard to the missing cobra at the Bronx Zoo.

 

[Peregrinator]

Meanwhile, back on Earth:

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com...aign=6e51b1e8ed-EOW_20110330&utm_medium=email

 

[neci]

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4biyvsxyx1qcu97io1_500.jpg

National Geographic
September, 1958

X-rayed mouse shows a tumor induced by strontium-90, which has a chemical similarity to calcium and so tends to lodge the bones where it emits beta rays.

The mouse received a strong strontium injection at Argonne Laboratory. It developed bone damage; later a large cancerous mass appeared, grossly distending the animal’s right leg. Three X-ray negatives each printed in a different colour, were combined and enlarged two diameters to create this unusual effect.

 

[islandman]

KRC's interesting Biblical discovery: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=755862

 

[rosco rathbone]

More crazy "aggressive quadrotor" stuff.


Imagine a whole bunch of these things, controlled by a central AI, acting like a coordinated swarm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3CR5y8qZf0Y

 

[Peregrinator]

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/58099/


You might have to register to view, but it's free and well worth it.

 

[Peregrinator]

More crazy "aggressive quadrotor" stuff.


Imagine a whole bunch of these things, controlled by a central AI, acting like a coordinated swarm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3CR5y8qZf0Y

That's both really cool and reminiscent of some kid playing Pong for the first time back in like 1980.

 

[rosco rathbone]

That's both really cool and reminiscent of some kid playing Pong for the first time back in like 1980.

I think it's kinda scary.

 

[Saint Peter]

I think it's kinda scary.

They seem to have trouble when the path does not have a nice parabolic shape. I understand your concerns, but I do not think they are ready to make their bitches quite yet.

 

[rosco rathbone]

They seem to have trouble when the path does not have a nice parabolic shape. I understand your concerns, but I do not think they are ready to make their bitches quite yet.

The clumsy ping pong playing is very cute.

When they are coming after us with whirling knife-wheels, it won't be so cute.

 

[Saint Peter]

The clumsy ping pong playing is very cute.

When they are coming after us with whirling knife-wheels, it won't be so cute.

Judging from the video I would guess tall people have more to fear than the short fucks.

 

[Peregrinator]

I think it's kinda scary.

I'll accede to "creepy."

 

[neci]

More crazy "aggressive quadrotor" stuff.


Imagine a whole bunch of these things, controlled by a central AI, acting like a coordinated swarm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3CR5y8qZf0Y

i'm going to need a big shot gun. maybe some kind of device to kill electrical activity. can you make it hit people on the head?

 

[neci]

Judging from the video I would guess tall people have more to fear than the short fucks.

wooo hooooo!

yay for being a short fuck!

 

[Debbie]

Bionic eye: we have the technology.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/4836699/

 

[Byron In Exile]

The clumsy ping pong playing is very cute.

When they are coming after us with whirling knife-wheels, it won't be so cute.

I wonder if looking scary was in the original spec, or if they just turned out that way.

 

[Bacigalupo]

Mines! In space!

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26582/

 

[rosco rathbone]

Skynet Stock Exchange??

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/04/malicious-hftmalware/


http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970203560404576228920925930788.html

 

[rosco rathbone]

Operation Plumbob Pascal-B

Containing An Underground Nuclear Explosion

 

[trysail]

I love scale stuff like that.

My favorite part of the Natural History museum in NYC is the scale exhibit that goes from the observable universe down to the quark using the plantarium sphere as a reference.

Q: How much petroleum does the world consume in a year?

A: A little more than one cubic mile.

It is a fine line we tred between being widely understood and technically correct.

When one talks about phase changes and the heat released or absorbed when they occur, most people's eyes glaze over and they tune out. If one says that it takes less heat to boil alcohol than water, they seem to get it.

I don't really know how to deal with the fact that even most "educated" people don't have a solid grounding in math, chemistry and physics. A person can get a Ph.D. today and never even be exposed to the term "heat of vaporization," much less understand the implication of it in practical terms.

Hell, most people don't even have a feel for orders of magnitude - they bandy around millions, billions and trillions like they are about the same. They are just generic "big numbers" in most minds.

The sad result of this lack of well-rounded education among so-called educated people is they (and the people who follow them) are vulnerable to superstition based on emotion.

I'm amazed about how little the average person knows about the "size" of things....I've asked smart people to guess the approximate size of the container that could hold all of the humans in the world, in cubic miles. The guess is always hundreds or thousands of cubic miles....The answer is a little more than a tenth of a cubic mile.

The volume of petroleum produced each year is a little more than a cubic mile.

86,350,000.................Barrels/Day ( 2010 world consumption )
365..............................Days/Year
31,517,750,000...........Barrels/Year
1,323,745,500,000.......Gallons...............@42 Gallons/Barrel
305,785,210,500,000....Cubic Inches.......@1 Gallon=231 Cubic Inches
6,554,038,291...............Cubic Yards.........@1 Cubic Yard=46,656 Cubic Inches
1.20..............................Cubic Miles.........@1 Cubic Mile=5,451,776,000 Cubic Yards

 

[Saint Peter]

Containing An Underground Nuclear Explosion

Ogle: And how fast is it going?"

This last question was more of a shout. Bill liked to have a direct answer to each one of his questions.
RRB: "Six times the escape velocity from the earth."

Only if you can keep the fucker flying straight.

 

[islandman]

Mines! In space!

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26582/

Perhaps the most visible signature will be clouds of exhaust gases encircling these systems and the glowing embers of spent reactors. In other words, pollution.

Like switching out a couple of AA batteries.

 

[trysail]

Where half of your electricity comes from:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/images/charts/coal_regions_2009-large.jpg
2009 U.S. coal production ( millions of short tons )
Source: U.S. Energy Information Agency

​

http://www.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_where