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Update: Her hometown has been identified. I won’t spoil it here – if you’re interested, it’s in this post’s comments below.
In this video clip at Centripetal Notion blog, you’ll see a neat example of an oscillating chemical reaction:
The Briggs-Rauscher oscillating reaction is one of a small number of known oscillating chemical reactions. It is especially well suited for demonstration purposes because of its visually striking color changes: the freshly prepared colorless solution slowly turns an amber color, suddenly changing to a very dark blue. This slowly fades to colorless and the process repeats, about ten times in the most popular formulation, before ending as a dark blue liquid smelling strongly of iodine.
Link [embedded YouTube]
"A trailer carrying 26 alligator carcasses to a processing plant overturned on a Fort Lauderdale highway (year unknown). The carcasses, which weighed about 10,000 pounds were put on a flatbed truck and taken to the processing plant."
TruckSpills.com, like its name clearly states, is a website dedicated to documenting things that have spilt out of overturned trucks. Some of the weirder things include alligator (above), glue, live chicken, and … cocaine!
Oh, and there’s this: a 8,000 liter (2,113 gallon) Sunny D spill (though it’s not from a truck)
In 2004, Richard Box slipped a local farmer £200 to "borrow" a 3,600 m2 field to plant fluorescent light tubes near overhead power lines. The show began at night:
A fluorescent tube glows when an electrical voltage is set up across it. The electric field set up inside the tube excites atoms of mercury gas, making them emit ultraviolet light. This invisible light strikes the phosphor coating on the glass tube, making it glow. Because power lines are typically 400,000 volts, and Earth is at an electrical potential voltage of zero volts, pylons create electric fields between the cables they carry and the ground.
Box denies that he aimed to draw attention to the potential dangers of power lines, ‘For me, it was just the amazement of taking something that’s invisible and making it visible,’ he says. ‘When it worked, I thought: ‘This is amazing.’’
Ed Boyden, assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab and Biological Engineering, wanted to teach a class called "How to Think," which would focus on "how to be creative, thoughtful, and powerful in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure."
I don’t know if he ever got to teach that class, but Boyden did compose a 10 rules on How to Think. For example:
1. Synthesize new ideas constantly. Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read, even when you’re reading what you conceive to be introductory stuff. That way, you will always aim towards understanding things at a resolution fine enough for you to be creative.
2. Learn how to learn (rapidly). One of the most important talents for the 21st century is the ability to learn almost anything instantly, so cultivate this talent. Be able to rapidly prototype ideas. Know how your brain works. (I often need a 20-minute power nap after loading a lot into my brain, followed by half a cup of coffee. Knowing how my brain operates enables me to use it well.)
7. Make your mistakes quickly. You may mess things up on the first try, but do it fast, and then move on. Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on. Get the mistakes out of the way. As Shakespeare put it, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
Read the entire list – it’s worth it: Link
Hooray for war! If any one ever asked you what the Iraq war is good for, tell ‘em this study by the United States Military Academy: it is good for the self esteem of Iraqi teenagers (if they’re still alive …)[Re-reading my intro, I agree that it was a bit snarky. It's never my intention to denigrate the US armed forces - they have my respect, support, and admiration for doing a difficult and dangerous job. Get back home safely soon, guys.]
Here’s an interesting study by the US Army on the effect of war on the psyche of Iraqi teens:
For obvious reasons, few social science researchers have ventured into Iraq since the American-led invasion. However, in 2004, a year into the hostilities, the US Army funded a team of Iraqi interviewers, based at the Asharq Centre for Polls and Marketing Research, to go into ten neighbourhoods of Baghdad to survey the concerns and self-esteem of 1000 teenagers.
The results showed that rather than damaging their sense of self, the war appeared to have bolstered the teenagers’ self-esteem, especially in those who felt most strongly that their country was under threat. [...]
The researchers said their finding was consistent with Social Identity Theory, which predicts that people will seek to maintain their sense of self when their identity is under threat. It’s also consistent with research on mortality salience, showing that people tend to shore up their sense of self when reminded of, or threatened by, risk of death.
Link (Photo: Staff Stg. Sean A. Foley [wikipedia]) – via Mind Hacks
The Sand Cat is indeed the cutest cat in the world. The Sand Cat (Felis margarita) lives in the deserts from north Africa and throughout Asia. Sand Cats are about the size of a small house cat. They are lised as a near threatened species, but experts feel numbers (like most wild felines) are declining. By protecting wildlife habitat we can save great animals like this cute little cat. Thanks. *this sand cat is named Canyon and he lives at Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Fl. Poceeds from these videos help go towards various animal conservation efforts.
-via Un monde nouveau s’offre à moi
Someone emailed me this clip from past Helpmanns Awards [wikipedia] show. It’s just amazingly performed … and all by hands and head, too!
Link [youtube]
If you’ve seen the popular documentary March of the Penguins, then you’d know that the birds huddle in large masses (called crèche).
Well, believe it or not, the image on the left is a one such crèche as seen from the sky, formed by as many as 25,000 king penguins in the shoreline of South Georgia, a British territory close to Antarctica.
From the sky, it looks like a giant swirling frothy coffee.
Yet this scene shows an extraordinary community at work – thousands of king penguins instinctively herding their recently born young into giant huddles to stop them freezing to death.
Parental instinct takes over in the inhospitable climate of the South Atlantic and the furry brown chicks are made to crowd together to retain their body warmth in the equivalent of bird creches – visible as brown swathes on our photo.
Daily Mail has more stunning pics of the phenomenon: Link
Meet Chassis, a remote controlled /potentially autonomous beer-pouring/beverage-delivering robot, built by Jonathan Foote and Al Honig:
Chassis is a remote control/potentially autonomous drink delivering machine. He’s outfitted with all sort of things that go “whir” and “blink” and is equipped with a nice pressurized pony keg system for beer or wine or kool-aid or what have you. [...]
Chassis is made of several found items and a few things from McMaster-Carr. The red powder coating makes him extra special. Where his headlamp might be is a microphone, and the chrome grill beneath his turn signals is a speaker for audience interaction.
Al N $Steven The operator can be outfitted with a headset and cordless phone transmitter along with the remote control (in this case a controller from the system formerly known as Vex) to make Chassis say hello, heckle, complain, offer prurient robot bartender advice, and let you know when your slip is showing.
Robot that delivers beer?! We have a winner! Link
In the Siege of Acre in 1191, Richard the Lionheart constructed two trebuchets that he named "God’s Own Catapult" and "Bad Neighbor."
Things flung during a medieval siege included: rocks, fire bomb, carcasses of animals and people (to spread disease and demoralize the enemy), and burning sand. Now, hobbyists build trebuchet mainly to chuck pumpkins.
They certainly don’t make alphabets like this anymore! The ‘A’ above is an excellent example of ornamental typography, as designed in 1730 by Mauro Poggi in his book ‘Alfabeto di Lettere Iniziali‘:
The capitals are elaborated with scrolls and flourishes and then inhabited by satyrs, mermaids, Medusa heads, birds, cats, dogs, snakes, and other creatures. The letters were designed by Poggi, drawn in ink by Andrea Bimbi, and engraved by Lorenzo Lorenzi.
BibliOdyssey has more (from Poggi and other 18th century designers) : Link
Stefan Nadelman‘s short film, titled "Food Fight," is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, "acted out" by food of the countries involved. It’s a little American-centric, but still … Stefan said "Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression."
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Boing Boing TV
Here are the cheat sheet of the breakdown of the food/country characters: Link
Amanda Baggs released a video on YouTube showing her autistic ritual, In My Language, that made scientists re-think autism and what autistic people are capable of doing.
Wired has a fascinating story about Baggs, what living in an autistic world is like, and why scientists are re-thinking what they think they know about autism:
The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera, rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting an eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping a piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a necklace with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And you find yourself thinking: Who’s shooting this footage of the handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the latest viral video?
But then the words "A Translation" appear on a black screen, and for the next five minutes, 27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn’t speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what’s going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people’s failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.
And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.
Link (with the famous video clip) – via Mind Hacks
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
– Albert Einstein, scientist (1879 – 1955)
