Applied Physics
Good communication is crucial to any relationship, especially when partners are separated by distance. This also holds true for microbes in the deep sea that need to work together to consume large amounts of methane released from vents on the ocean floor. Recent work at Caltech has shown that these microbial partners can still accomplish this task, even when not in direct contact with one another, by using electrons to share energy over long distances.
This is the first time that direct interspecies electron transport--the movement of electrons from a cell, through the external environment,…
In my previous article about Birdsnap, the app was unable to identify my hawk because I did not get a full profile of the bird. Now that it's autumn and Canada geese have begun migrating, I’ve had some opportunities to photograph birds and get close enough to be able to photograph them properly in profile.
Here’s a goose I took a picture of on South Grove Golf Course in Indianapolis on Wednesday:
I uploaded it to Birdsnap:
Click on the eye:
Click on the tail:
Submit the picture for processing:
Birdsnap identified it as a Canada goose:
Here’s a picture of gull…
Last week the European Space Agency announced the launch of its Lisa Pathfinder mission later this year to test if laser interferometry can be used in space to detect gravitational waves. It's fairly easy to build a laser interferometer so I decided to build one for my Lego optics lab.
A table-top interferometer will not be able to detect gravity waves because there is too much noise in the surrounding environment and you need a really big laser interferometer to distinguish between gravitational waves and such mundane things as earthquakes, traffic passing by, or someone dropping a coffee…
The recovery of waste heat in all kinds of processes will lead to making established processes more energy-efficient and more environmentally friendly.
The Spin Seebeck effect (SSE) is a rudimentarily understood effect which allows for the conversion of a heat flux into electrical energy, even in electrically non-conducting materials. A team of physicists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the University of Konstanz, TU Kaiserslautern, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now succeeded in identifying the origin of the Spin Seebeck effect.
By the specific…
Electrical engineers at the University of California, San Diego demonstrated a new wireless communication technique that works by sending magnetic signals through the human body. The new technology could offer a lower power and more secure way to communicate information between wearable electronic devices, providing an improved alternative to existing wireless communication systems, researchers said. They presented their findings Aug. 26 at the 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in Milan, Italy.
While this work is still a proof-of-…
I’ll demonstrate how I built my mobile phone/iPod mount out of Lego for my Lego optics lab polariscope project.
Parts needed:
Mobile phone mount (from my DIY Super Selfie Stick project)
2 Lego plates 1 X 8
4 Lego beams 1 X 2
4 Lego Beams 1 X 8
Here’s how I built my Lego mobile phone/iPod mount:
Physicists have found a radical new way confine electromagnetic energy without it leaking away, akin to throwing a pebble into a pond with no splash. It appears to contradict a fundamental tenet of electrodynamics, that accelerated charges create electromagnetic radiation, said lead researcher Dr. Andrey Miroshnichenko from The Australian National University (ANU).
"This problem has puzzled many people. It took us a year to get this concept clear in our heads," said Miroshnichenko, from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. "Ever since the beginning of quantum mechanics people…
An independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) is a
place to safely store spent nuclear fuel while it is waiting for a geological
repository to permanently dispose of the material. The amount of nuclear fuel required to supply
a typical American citizen with a lifetime of energy would fill a single soda
can with waste. This means that for a
large power plant, it won't generate very much spent fuel at all for the amount
of energy it produces. Still, this spent
fuel must be handled safely and that over the long term.
One way this country has found to do that on the…
Sometimes I’ll picture an idea in my head and it seems to work fine—in my head—but when I actually build it, it doesn’t turn out the way I planned. I wanted to try using a bevel gearbox as a pan and tilt mount for my Lego optics lab (as a pan/mount for my laser). Without the laser mounted it seems to work fine and the pan and tilt motion resembles that of a camera ball mount. Once I attached my laser, however, I found it quite difficult to aim the laser. Turning the wheels in various combinations to try to aim the laser ain’t exactly intuitive even while watching where the laser dot moves…
My wife and I went to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (“You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three”) Saturday at Conner Prairie, part of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Symphony on the Prairie summer series. We got there a bit early and ended up sweating in the hot, hot sun waiting for the concert to start. We were there early enough that I had time to take a ride on the 1859 Balloon Voyage.
It’s the “largest tethered gas passenger balloon in the world” according to Wikipedia. The gondola can carry as many as 25 passengers to 350 ft. (106.68 m). The 105 ft (32 m) balloon contains 210,000 cb ft (5946…