Applied Physics
Hank |
Turbulence is part of the cultural lexicon. For casual situations where there are short-term challenges that just require some managing, people often say they are experiencing turbulence. Anyone who has taken a few plane trips has experienced the bumpy ride caused by turbulence in the air.
A new technique for studying turbulence in quantum fluids used a mechanical resonator, a miniscule bar 1/1000th the width of a human hair, in superfluid helium near absolute zero temperature to effectively 'trap' a single vortex for study.
Sound complex? That's easier than modeling the turbulence in a river…
Right now, we can play video games and feel like we are 'in the game' but it's still a lot of suspension of disbelief. If you can only see 40 degrees while driving a car in a game that's nowhere close to your peripheral vision in the real world.
Next generation gaming, beyond better graphics, requires establishing new relationships between game progress and entertainment experience. Chess is a much different experience versus another person than it is a computer, as is Poker. Many less experienced people play far more conservatively versus people because computers don't feel real. And then…
Hank |
TikTok, the short video sharing app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, has already been banned by the United States military, Wells Fargo, and the nation of India. A new report says no corporate phone, or private devices that may access secure information, should install it.
The International Association of IT Asset Managers warned its loose permissions - and we know few people pay attention to those - are security risks for companies and government agencies, which means your banking info could also be vulnerable. The cold reality of dictatorships is that if you exist at all, you are…
Though "energy medicine" and "oxygenated herbs" promoted by CNN's Chris Cuomo are woo, one notion ridiculed by journalists has merit; using light to disinfect areas and kill coronavirus.
Though chemicals are most common, they are not always practical or portable. Ultraviolet radiation in the 200 to 300 nanometer range will destroy the virus, it just requires UV radiation sources that emit sufficiently high doses of UV light. Current devices are things like expensive mercury-containing gas discharge lamps, which require high power, have a relatively short lifetime, and are bulky.
The…
The last group most of the world wants to hear from right now is a lab in Wuhan, but if their microwave air plasma thruster is more real than their claims of having a certified BSL-2 lab studying coronavirus, there could be a great deal of interest in the future.
Like solids, gases, and liquids, plasma is fourth state of matter found naturally in places like the sun's surface and Earth's lightning. The Institute of Technological Sciences at Wuhan Universitysay they have created a plasma jet by compressing air into high pressures and using a microwave to ionize the pressurized air stream…
If you can afford a combination of cotton with natural silk or chiffon, those provide the best protection from coronavirus if you are not one of those people hoarding N95 masks.
But, really, unless you are a healthcare worker, the kind of covering makes little difference. Even if you do spend the money for silk, you are unlikely to have a homemade mask fit well enough it is superior to a bandana. And if you are someone who touches your face often, they are all less effective. Your eyes are not covered. Critics are not wrong for wondering if homemade masks are more than placebo, since…
When a drop of liquid evaporates, solids are left behind in a pattern that depends on what the liquid is, what solids are in it and the environmental conditions.
You may have seen a 'coffee ring' when overflow deposits solids along the edge of the puddle as it evaporates. The same things happen with other beverages. Stuart Williams and colleagues previously found that drops of diluted American whiskeys -- but not their Scotch or Canadian counterparts -- formed webbed patterns when dried on a glass surface, and there were hints that the pattern was distinctive for different brands of whiskey…
The US Army has developed a quantum sensor that can detect communication signals over the entire radio frequency spectrum, from 0 to 100 GHz, using a single antenna. That is currently impossible with a traditional receiver system, and would require multiple systems of individual antennas, amplifiers and other components.
In 2018, Army scientists were the first in the world to create a quantum receiver that uses highly excited, super-sensitive atoms--known as Rydberg atoms--to detect communications signals. The researchers calculated the receiver's channel capacity, or rate of data…
Most membranes that are used to distill fresh water from salty are made of polymers, which are derived from fossil fuels.
There is a reason that fossil fuels have stuck around for so long. No longer do they have terrific energy density in the form of gasoline but they make up many useful products. But many of those products can be difficult to recycle.
A new wood membrane takes a page out of the book of trees instead. In a limited sense, the intricate system of water circulating in a tree can filter it and a team of researchers have figured out how to use a thin slice of wood as a…
An antibody is an agent of the immune system that attaches to an antigen. Usually antibodies recognize antigens on a virus or bacteria and attach to the invader to mark it for destruction by other immune cells.
In a new study, University of Colorado Anschutz researchers engineered an antibody to recognize and attach to a protein called EGFR. Bladder tumors (but not healthy cells) are often covered in EGFR. Other researchers have hooked molecules of chemotherapy to antibodies that recognize EGFR and have used this antibody-antigen system to micro-target the delivery of chemotherapy. In…