Nano ho-ho

In the spirit of Christmas, I'd like to share with you all the world's smallest snowman.

(Click on image for link to site)

Credit: NPL site

The snowman was developed by the UK's National Physical Laboratory, and is a marvel of festivity-inspired nano-jollity.

According to the website, it's 10 µm across, which equates to roughly 1/5th the width of a human hair.

It wasn't made out of snowballs, of course, as these on average measure about half an inch, and we have yet to develop the ability to do the whole 'Honey, I shrunk the snowflake' thing.

Instead, it was made out of two tiny little tin balls. hilariously, they're normally used to correct microscope astigmatism, which brings to mind wonderful images of a microscope with glasses, peering at the objects/tissues it needs to focus on.

I'm looking forward to tiny Christmas trees with even tinier tinsel. Of course, a treetop angel on this scale might also bring whole new answers to the classic question involving angels and the heads of a pin...

Introducing Shady, or, how to get a robot to do what a blind can

The last couple of days have felt particularly roboty.

Why, you ask? Well, I shall be posting one some of the things that came across my tech-strewn desk, and I'll introduce the mini-topic with this one. Shady.

Cast your mind back to a hot, sunny day. For those of you living in Wellington, I might suggest a quick video search on teh intertubes, just to refresh your memory.

Right, now add to that image an image of you, sitting in a chair somewhere indoors (where exactly I shall leave up to you), with the sun blazing in through the window. Does the glare bounce irritatingly off your screen? Can you feel asymmetric bits of yourself burning?

Ok, now, what would your solution be? A blind, or possible a curtain? Moving said chair/screen? Leaving the indoors to go frolick in the outdoors (particularly given that vitamin d is apparently good for mood, and might also fight diabetes and food allergies)? To scream 'aarg, I'm melting'?

Well, some very clever lads at MIT (of course) have come up with an alternate solution. One that probably makes sense if you're robot mad, but otherwise tends to hike the eyebrow somewhat heavenward. Yes, they have built a robot, called Shady.

Basiacally, if someone is feeling a little over-exposed sunwise, they simply tell the little robot where to go, and it potters to that point and then unfurls a very solar wind sail-looking fan. Which shades said controller.

Credit: Shady's website

What makes it interesting, though, is the way that it does this. It really is actually quite clever, all comments aside. Basically, it pulls itself along trusses (reminding me in the process of some strange toy from my childhood, of which I have only the dimmest of memories, except this is obviously much more clever). It's very clever robotics, in fact. Now, why would we car about something that can haul itself around trusses? Well, because they form the skeleton of large proportions of the built environment, is why, and so there are applications for construction sites, inspections of sites, and perhaps even building or forming a truss itself.

Interestingly, I just started having flashbacks of a graphic novel read many years ago (Tom Strong Issue 2, by genius and hairy-guy Alan Moore, in fact) where small, modular machines gained sentience, got their act together (literally), and had to be defeated by superheroes because they were eating the city in their quest to make more of themselves.



For those of you interested in more details, have a look here. And see here for a vid of it being cute and useful and stuff.

To anyone who builds one: I shall be most impressed, and might send you a virtual beer or something :)

PittConnect and online scientists

Ah, social networking for scientists. Hooray!

PittCon, which describes itself self-effacingly as the "world’s annual premier Conference and Exposition on laboratory science", has gone one step further than simply bringing together some 20,000 people together in the name of laboratory-inspired joy.

After all, a few days simply isn't enough if one really wants to build connections, make other geeky science friends, and indulge (no doubt) in many impenetrable conversations. And so PittCon is proud to announce that it has set up a social networking site as well (well, online scientific community).

And, in one of those joyous occasions when naming new stuff is an evolutionary process, the new site is going to be called...can you guess it?...PitConnect.

Which makes me wonder whether all major (or minor) conferences should spin something like this off, just because it's so perfect. Or perhaps an uber-'Connect' might work.

Anyway, I digress. The press release says the following:
Pittconnect.com was created to provide an online resource for scientists from all over the world to connect with each other to discuss problems, techniques, research, etc. In addition to listing the 1,936 technical sessions that will be presented at Pittcon 2010, Pittconnect provides contact information to enable users to communicate with colleagues, Pittcon 2010 speakers and exhibitors prior to and after the event. Once a participant has completed a short profile, he or she can begin to network by viewing the map displaying the sessions, exhibitors, and other users related to one's specific interests.

Also, the site intends to add functionality to allow profile links to LinkedIn and Twitter, and expanding the number of available groups.

Happy conferencing, everyone!

World leaders, 20 years on and sorry

This is really quite interesting.

(Click on link to go to website: once there, click on picture for slideshow)

Greenpeace is running an ad campaign in Copenhagen airport, featuring world leaders who are 20 years older ('though many look much more) and apologising for not having done enough...

Hmmm....

The best of Royal Society publishing - 350 years' worth!

So, this is seriously, seriously cool. 350 years' worth of the Royal Society of London's best published papers.

(click on the picture to visit the site)

To expand, (teehee), it's actually an interactive, explorable timeline. And it's been launched to commemorate the Society's 350th birthday next year. The RS is definitely wearing the age quite well, all in all :)

The timeline's also got a bunch of fantastic images for those of you interested in imagery/design and is, generally, an awesome website.

The first papers are a bit grim, involving bellows and dogs' lungs. The last (most recent) paper was the RS's fascinating paper on geoengineering, and many of the 60 papers available coincide with major historical events, although they aren't necessarily connected. For example, in 2008, the term 'Cubism' was adopted; the same year, a paper was published entitled 'Reflection of alpha particles from thin foil'.

And, of course, people with an interest in language, or at the very least the English bits thereof, will find the changing expression fascinating. Not only in and of itself, but for what it can tell us about attitudes and beliefs at the time (for a great example, have a look at Fabiana's hilarious post on cockroaches).

And, without further ado, I shall leave you all here, as I want to go frolick in all this sciency goodness. I'm sure you do too.

Wherefore the hammerhead?

Fantastic stuff, this. Well, for those of us who, when little and naturally curious about everything*, wondered why, exactly, it was that hammerheads had hammerheads. As it were.

Scalloped hammerhead shark, Sphyrna lewini, Hawaii, USA (Pacific ocean)
UW118-2, (c) Andrew Seale

There are many possible reasons for this. It could be that a (or the, depending on your preference) creator thought it looked kinda cool, and was going through a flat-headed creature phase. Or because it makes said sharks look, you know, really really menacing. Or, alternatively, really, really ridiculous.

And learned people, of course, being learned, have posited their own theory: that it gives hammerhead sharks great stereovision and depth perception. Or not. The thing, up until this paper released last week, no one had actually bothered to test this assumption.

It has been suggested that, in fact, since their eyes are on the sides of their heads (I'm talking about the sharks here), rather than facing forward, that they couldn't have binocular vision. However, other clever people and television shows have claimed eyesight benefits. Who is right?

It turns out, the guys who posited better vision. The paper's authors looked at a range of different shark species, bother hammerhead and pointy-nosed. Included were bonnetheads (narrow) and scalloped hammerheads (wide).

Bonnethead hammerhead (Sphyrna tiburo)

Scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini)
© Doug Perrine

So they got a whole lotta sharks and then tested their eyesight with a version of the whole 'moving the torch in front of your eyes' thing. They weren't testing for concussion, but were instead measuring the electrical activities of the sharks' eyes.

First, they looked at monocular vision, and found that hammerheads kick ass. As it were. The fields were wider than pointy-nosed blacknose and lemon sharks (for example), with the scalloped hammerhead having a 182 degree range, and the bonnethead a very respectable 176 deg.

They then took these measurements, and plotted them to see whether the monocular fields overlapped. Which they did. Apparently, the scalloped hammerhead had an overlap of some 32 degrees, and the bonnethead had 13 degrees. The most hammerheady of all, the winghead shark, had 48 degrees!

Then, they factored in some other stuff such as head and eye movements, and watched those overlaps grow.

In short, the television series (and clever people) were right. That weird head shape does indeed improve depth perception and binocular vision.

Mostly awesomely, it also gives some hammerheads a 360 degree rear view (or very close) - one of the few occasions where the television people have underrepresented the situation. Gosh.


* Note: I saw a paper recently (for the life of me can't remember where) that said that the whole 'why' phase small kids go through isn't actually an attempt to make mommy/daddy's brain drip out their nose, but is, instead, because kids actually do want the answer to their questions. Go figure.
(Postnote: Calvin's dad's answer to this situation is quite tempting, though. And here's some more inspiration.)

The LHC's first collisions

Woohoo! I couldn't, personally, be more thrilled.

No doubt, people who actually understand properly the physics and true awesomeness behind the LHC couldn't be more thrilled either. Even more so than I.

Because, * fanfare *, the first collisions in the new, better-than-broken, up-and-running, ghost-in-the-machine lacking LHC have been observed!

A brief history lesson - the LHC, or Large Hadron Collider, is a truly gobsmacking feat of engineering which has taken a decade to build, billions of euros, and, no doubt, the sanity (or at least youth) of a number of engineers who've had to fight various problems, including errant baguette-bearing birds, to finally get it up and running. Properly.

And why has this wonderfully photogenic machine been built? Why, to find new particles! Amongst other things, of course. Of particular interest is the possibility that our scientists may be able to spot the elusive Higgs boson. (I have a fantastic image in my head of scientists in khaki, with binoculars, and a David Attenborough voice-over). The Higgs boson, or 'god particle', has thus far only been theorised, but it's thought that it could be what gives everything in the universe mass.

Basically, it works like this (there's a better explanation here):

The Higgs boson (or particle) carries the Higgs field, which imparts mass to objects as they move through the field, kinda like this...

People evenly distributed in a room, akin to the Higgs field (CERN)

Then Thatcher (yes, yes, I know!) enters the room, people gather, mass increases (CERN)

Of course, the LHC has also lead to howls and terrors from various quarters about its potentially causing the end of the world, or a huge black hole, or something. Amusingly, some physicists even suggested that it (well, the universe) could be sabotaging itself from the future.

But I digress. The news here is that the first collisions have been observed, and they look like this!

The green lines denote changed particles (following the collision), which are, apparently, generally pions (not peons, although those can also be unstable during changing circumstances).

[Pions] are unstable particles consisting of an up quark and an anti-down (or an anti-up and a down). Though they are unstable, they live long enough to nearly always leave tracks in the detector.

Then, the yellow bits denote the silicon strip detectors responsible for recording our particles

After that, it all gets quite technical. A far more knowledgeable account of it, and the source of the quote above, can be found here (which, by the way, is a great blog).

Mostly, I'm just happy she's started up, and I'd like to raise a toast to her: we're happy to have you back with us, dear gal, and we look forward to the show!

There's also a lovely Nat Geog article on it. I love the subheading 'happy physicists' - it's a warm and fluffy thought.

The teapot effect, end of

So apparently, there's something called the teapot effect. Or, rather, there was.



No, it's not what you might first imagine it is. At least, it's not what I first imaged it was. Instead, it's apparently the name used for the phenomenon whereby the spouts of teapots dribble, and even English women who've been pouring tea for posh friends for decades are unable to pour that perfect, immaculate cup of tea.

"Previous studies have shown that dribbling is the result of flow separation where the layer of fluid closest to the boundary becomes detached from it. When that happens, the fluid flows smoothly over the lip. But as the flow rate decreases, the boundary layer re-attaches to the surface causing dribbling."

And here's where fluid dynamicists have stepped up, donned their superhero cloaks, and sorted the problem. Huzzah!

The factors involved?

"Previous studies have shown that a number of factors effect this process such as the radius of curvature of the teapot lip, the speed of the flow and the "wettability" of the teapot material. But a full understanding of what's going on has so far eluded scientists.

"Now Cyril Duez at the University of Lyon in France and a few amis, have identified the single factor at the heart of the problem and shown how to tackle it. They say that the culprit is a "hydro-capillary" effect that keeps the liquid in contact with the material as it leaves the lip. The previously identified factors all determine the strength of this hydro-cappillary effect."

The solution is two-fold: make the lip of the teapot as thin as possible, and and coat it with superhydrophobic materials (materials, in other words, that really, really, really, really don't like water).

Even more fun, apparently there are materials in which the superhydrophobicity can be turned on and off electronically. Meaning that to dribble or not to dribble would no longer be hypothetical...

And, because there's no better way to end things than with wry, physics-based sarcasm, there was this comment, as well:

"(Of course, there are one or two other potential applications in shaping the fluid flow in microfluidic machines but these pale into insignificance compared with the teapot revolution in hand.)"

On another teapot-related note, I had not idea, but apparently teapot-blowing (again, not what you think) is something of an artform!

p.s. Yes, I know the original arXiv post isn't that new - sadly, life has perforce distracted me somewhat of recent.

Learning to use your new prehensile tail...

The obscure title is aimed at a friend who's always sworn that, when it comes time to choose body modifications, he wants that prehensile tail.

And now, according to some new research published in PNAS last week, he can learn to use it before he even has it!

(Note: the article I read about this can be found here - unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to find the paper itself anywhere on the PNAS site...)

Researchers have been looking into the idea of phantoms: no, not pale forms inhabiting dark corners, but instead limbs that we can feel attached to us, even when they aren't. The most common form of this is after an amputation, when many amputees continue to feel the limb after the surgery and not in a good way, either - apparently, it is often quite painful.

Previous research has looked into how best to treat phantom pain, but now, scientists have gone one better: they successfully managed to get people who have lost a limb - in this case, an arm above the elbow - were able to learn to manipulate the lost limb in entirely impossible ways. Apparently, those who were successful described that their wrist had developed a new joint, and the researchers were able to corroborate that, at least as fair as the patients' brains were concerned, the new neural pathways had in fact been produced (rather than being faked).

"Seven people who had an arm that had been amputated above the elbow were encouraged to learn a particular arm movement that defies biomechanics — turning a hand that’s bent 90 degrees at the wrist the last quarter of a full turn that the hand won’t do. The study participants practiced by imagining that they were moving the phantom limb for five minutes per hour every day until they had achieved the impossible movement or had given up (this took one to four weeks depending on the individual). Four of the participants were successful in feeling the sensation of the impossible movement, the researchers report."

"Each of the participants who achieved the impossible move also described developing a new wrist joint that allowed the impossible movement. And three of the four reported that moves that were previously possible for the phantom limb were now difficult with their new wrist."

So yes - it has implications for a number of things, from people learning to use new body parts before they can access them physically, or even to readjust self-image (very useful for people with conditions such as anorexia).

And for learning to use that prehensile tail :)