Created by Sean McNaughton and Samuel Velasco for National Geographic, this beautifully illustrated map includes the almost 200 missions to space from the past 50 years, showing which of our celestial neighbors we like to visit the most. The National Geographic website has an interactive version you can pan and zoom around on, but if you’d like to make yourself a nice little wallpaper you can find a full-sized version of it on Flickr.
The scale and complexity of massive particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider allows them to make amazing scientific discoveries, but not every researcher has $2.2 billion lying around to build and fund one of their own. And that’s exactly what scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are hoping to overcome with their BELLA or Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator. In 2006 they showed that lasers could be used to accelerate electrons to very high energies in distances measured in centimeters instead of hundreds of meters using a technique described below:
Project leader Wim Leemans has spent much of his nearly 18 years at Berkeley Lab building lasers and working with laser accelerators. Collaborating with Simon Hooker of the University of Oxford, he and members of his group achieved a major breakthrough in 2006 when they broke the world record for laser-wakefield acceleration, a technique in which particles are accelerated by waves in plasma generated by intense pulses of laser light. In the wake of the laser pulse, electrons surf the waves of the ionized gas. Leemans and coworkers used this concept to accelerate electron beams to energies of more than 1 GeV in a distance of just 3.3 centimeters. Compare that to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, or SLAC, which takes 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) to boost electrons to 50 GeV.
And while BELLA may never be as powerful as accelerators like the LHC or the SLAC, the scientists at Berkeley Lab are confident that the same techniques can be used to accelerate an electron to energies exceeding 10 GeV in a distance of just one meter. So in theory, one day you might actually be able to buy a rather capable particle accelerator that’s just a bit larger than your office’s photocopier. But since they produce massive amounts of radiation when running, you probably don’t want it sitting next to your desk. Maybe the new guy’s desk though… or the interns.
Electromagnets can be used by people with too much time and electrical knowledge to crush cans, but the truly ambitious can (briefly) harness a magnetic field to shrink a quarter to about half its original size. The principle is kinda simple, really… A big capacitor sends a surge of electricity into a coil around a quarter. This creates a magnetic field in the coil, and also in the quarter, but the field in the quarter has the opposite polarity. The quarter tries to get away from the coil, but having nowhere to go, shrinks inward as the magnetic field strength exceeds the strength of the metal. The coil, on the other hand, explodes outward at mach 2. The process takes between 30 and 40 microseconds, meaning that the edges of the quarter shrink inward at about 400 mph.
This particular experiment was done by Hackerbot Labs, and Intellectual Ventures has more pics and video at the link below.
I totally appreciate how awesome this video is, but it seems to me that an aircraft might not be the smartest place to be in the middle of a lightning storm. But hey, what do I know, I’m just one of those weird people who likes not dying.
Actually, aircraft are quite safe from lightning. It is estimated that each commercial aircraft gets struck about once a year, but the lightning gets safely conducted over the skin of the plane and never makes it inside. Much better than standing under a tree.
Incredibly, this is not just another piece of weird internet humor. You actually can make a photovoltaic cell with little more than high proof alcohol, powdered donuts, and purple Passion tea from Starbucks. It’s the future, people! The cell only puts out about 0.13 amps per square meter, so you’re not gonna be able to power your house with a few boxes of donuts and some Everclear. But, just in case, you should probably pick that stuff up anyway. You know, for scientific experimentation.
Is it just me, or do drinks taste better when they are carbonated? Take grape soda for example, that’s much better than your run-of-the-mill grape juice. Now granted, one of those two is probably healthier for you than the other (depending on if it’s real juice), so why not add a little carbonation to it? I’m no science whiz, but apparently all it takes is some baking soda, vinegar and one of these funny little u-fizz contraptions.
Apparently you can carbonate just about any liquid you’d like with one of these little suckers. I’m pretty sure that the first thing I’d try would be Jell-o. That would be some pretty cool stuff right there. If your kid needs a science fair project, or you’re bored with your current non-carbonated drinks, then this $7 kit will get you started.
I like lemonade. I like it a lot, in fact. But if there’s one thing that lemonade absolutely sucks at, it’s telling you what time it is. So next time you find yourself with some spare lemons, chop them up and stick them onto the Citrus Clock. The clock is made with two spikes of copper and zinc to impale the lemons on, and will run for a week using the juice contained in one lemon thanks to black magicelectrolysis. It doesn’t have to be a lemon, either… Anything acidic will do. Like limes. Or potatoes. Or a battery.
The Citrus Clock doesn’t seem to be commercially available, but hey, you can make one at home! Or better yet, just go to any middle school science fair and steal one.
If you’re not familiar with some of the theories related to quantum mechanics, this alternate universe kit by Jonathan Keats’ might not make much sense to you. But take my word for it, there is some logic here. Way back in 1957, a physicist by the name of Hugh Everett came up with what is known as the ‘many-worlds interpretation’ of quantum mechanics, where the universe continually spawns off alternate universes whenever a “subatomic system consisting of a superposition of two likely states reduces to just one.” In a very crude way of thinking about it, if in your universe you decided to order pizza, another universe is created where you ordered Chinese instead. So based on Hugh’s theory, Jonathan Keats created these alternate universe kits, and here’s how they work according to him:
Everett’s theory addressed the question of how a subatomic particle can exist in a quantum superposition – for example being in two places at once – until someone observes it, at which point the observer finds it to be in only one place at a time. The explanation Everett gave is that the particle remains in both places when it’s observed, but the observer’s entire universe splits as the measurement is made, so that from that moment forward there are two separate observers living in separate universes, both identical except for the observed location of that single subatomic particle.
The kit uses a quarter-inch sphere of uranium-doped glass to provide a steady supply of subatomic particles, placed in close proximity to a sliver of scintillating crystal which measures the radioactive decay, effectively observing a quantum process – and splitting the universe.
The DIY kits are available for just $20, but you can only get them from the Modernism Gallery in San Francisco. And if Hugh Everett’s many-worlds interpretation theory has piqued your curiosity, I recommend checking out an episode of NOVA that ran a couple of months ago called Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives where musician Mark Everett (Hugh’s son) goes on a quest to learn more about his father and his multiple universe theory.
Do you guys remember that comic strip where Calvin saved up a snowball all summer, just so he could throw it at Susie? Well unfortunately saving up a snowball for any length of time is a difficult task. I believe my one attempt as a child was quickly foiled by my parents, as they knew exactly what I was up to. Though I haven’t had to worry about my parents going through my freezer for some time, I haven’t tried saving back a snowball again. Thankfully, modern science allows us to have snow whenever we want it, even without some large machine.
iSnow is a non-toxic polymer material which can be used to create artificial snow. Just add a bit of water, and you’ll be ready for a (very small) snowball fight in no time. The material is reusable, so you can create snowballs over and over again, provided you scoop up the remains and keep them safe. Just $4 gets you a set of five iSnow kits.
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