John Farrier's Blog Posts

NASA and Etsy's Space Craft Contest



NASA and Etsy recently held a contest to send selected items of artwork into space. Although voting was supposed to close on Nov. 19, the polls appear to remain open. The grand prize winner gets $500 to spend in Etsy shops and a trip to NASA's Kennedy Space Center to witness a space shuttle launch.

Pictured above is an embroidered image of the moon by contestant Rachel Hobson.

Link via Dude Craft

The Lifespan of a Gun Barrel Is about Six Seconds

Sure, that Mosin-Nagant rifle in the back of your closet may date back to 1938, but the total time in which bullets have traveled down its bore is actually very brief. Assuming the usage of 3,000 rounds, a gun barrel lasts about six seconds before it's worn out:

If a bullet flies at 3000 fps, it will pass through a 24? (two-foot) barrel in 1/1500th of a second. If you have a useful barrel life of 3000 rounds, that would translate to just two seconds of actual bullet-in-barrel operating time.

Ah, but it’s not that simple. Your bullet starts at zero velocity and then accelerates as it passes through the bore, so the projectile’s average velocity is not the same as the 3000 fps muzzle velocity. So how long does a centerfire bullet (with 3000 fps MV) typically stay in the bore? The answer is about .002 seconds. This number was calculated by Varmint Al, who is a really smart engineer dude who worked at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, a government think tank that develops neutron bombs, fusion reactors and other simple stuff.[...]

Six seconds. That’s how long your barrel actually functions (in terms of bullet-in-barrel shot time) before it “goes south.” Yes, we know some barrels last longer than 3000 rounds. On the other hand, plenty of .243 Win and 6.5-284 barrels lose accuracy in 1500 rounds or less. If your barrel loses accuracy at the 1500-round mark, then it only worked for three seconds! Of course, if you are shooting a “long-lived” .308 Win that goes 5000 rounds before losing accuracy, then you get a whopping TEN seconds of barrel life. Anyway you look at it, a rifle barrel has very little longevity, when you consider actual firing time.


http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2010/11/gone-in-six-seconds-barrel-life/ via Say Uncle | Photo by Flickr user Zach Petersen used under Creative Commons license

Ocean Turbine Blades Built to Resemble Whale Flippers



How do you design ocean turbine blades for optimal performance? Some scientists propose building them in imitation of whale flippers:

"We designed a novel blade modification for potential turbine performance improvement, which was inspired by humpback whale flippers, with the addition of tubercles, or bumps, to the leading edge of each blade," explains Mark Murray, a Naval Academy engineering professor. Previous research demonstrated the addition of biomimetically derived protuberances (technology that mimics nature) improved stall characteristics and aerodynamic performance."


A startup company called WhalePower is already at work trying to find commercial applications for these new designs.

Article Link and Company Link via Fast Company | Image: Whale Power

Previously: The 15 Coolest Cases of Biomimicry

Partial Reversal of Aging Achieved in Mice

Researchers led by Harvard Medical School geneticist Ronald A. DePinho have managed to partially reverse the physical degeneration that results from aging:

[...] they achieved the milestone in aging science by engineering mice with a controllable telomerase gene. The telomerase enzyme maintains the protective caps called telomeres that shield the ends of chromosomes.

As humans age, low levels of telomerase are associated with progressive erosion of telomeres, which may then contribute to tissue degeneration and functional decline in the elderly. By creating mice with a telomerase switch, the researchers were able to generate prematurely aged mice. The switch allowed the scientists to find out whether reactivating telomerase in the animals would restore telomeres and mitigate the signs and symptoms of aging. The work showed a dramatic reversal of many aspects of aging, including reversal of brain disease and infertility.


Link via Gizmodo | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user woodly wonder works used under Creative Commons license

Aircraft Carrier for Sale on Internet Auction Site



HMS Invincible of the Royal Navy (UK) served Britain starting in 1980, including combat action during the Falkland Islands War. The ship was taken out of service in 2005. Her successor among the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers is currently under construction. In the meantime, you can buy this used carrier at the UK government's property disposal auction website. Just click on "Add to Cart."

Article Link and Auction Link via Glenn Reynolds

Every Book that Art Garfunkel Has Ever Read

One his website, musician Art Garfunkel displays a complete list of every book that he had read for the past forty-two years, in order, including the dates in which he read each one. It's a fascinating catalog of the literature that has influenced one man over time.

Link via Marginal Revolution | Photo: South Florida Community College

How to Make Google Translate Beatbox



One enterprising redditor named harrichr found that it is possible to make Google Translate's audio function generate a beatbox sound. Here's the process.

1) Go to Google Translate

2) Set the translator to translate German to German

3) Copy + paste the following into the translate box: pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpkzvpvzk kkkkkk bsch

4) Click “listen”

5) Be amazed :)


You can try it out yourself at the Google Translate link below.

Google Translate Link and reddit Link via Geekosystem

Tiny Castle for Sale



Google Translate renders the Swedish name as "Observation tower", but it also looks like a castle. This cute little building was built of brick on a granite base in 1926. It sits on a 1000 square meter lot.

Link (Google Translate) via Super Punch | Photo: Blocket.se

The Arctic Circle


(Video Link)


The Arctic Circle is a short animated film by Kevin Parry. It tells the tale of a solitary man who encounters a mysterious box -- one that seems to offer him great wealth. Filmmaker Tim Burton described to it as "a cross between 2001 and Rudolph: The Red-Nosed Reindeer."

via CrunchGear

What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?

In Popular Science, Bjorn Carey imagines a scenario in which all of the elements on the periodic table were present in the same location simultaneously:

Ramming the atoms together at 99.999 percent the speed of light—the top speed of particles in the Large Hadron Collider, at the CERN particlephysics lab near Geneva—might fuse a few nuclei, but it won’t make that cool Frankenstein element. More likely, they would meld into a quark-gluon plasma, the theoretical matter that existed right after the universe formed. “But they would last for a fraction of a second before degrading,” Tuckerman says. “Plus, you’d need 118 LHCs—one to accelerate each element—to get it done.”

The other approach, as explained by John Stanton, the director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Texas, would be to toss a pulverized chunk of each element or a puff of each gas into a sealed container and see what happens. No one has ever tried this experiment either, but here’s how Stanton thinks things would play out: “The oxygen gas would react with lithium or sodium and ignite, raising the temperature in the container to the point that all hell would break loose. Powdered graphite carbon would ignite, too. There are roughly 25 radioactive elements, and they would make your flaming stew a little dangerous. Flaming plutonium is a very bad thing. Inhaling airborne radioactive material can cause rapid death.”

Once things calmed down, Stanton says, the result would be as boring as the atoms-only scenario. Carbon and oxygen would yield carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Nitrogen gas is very stable, and would remain as is. The noble gases wouldn’t react, nor would a few of the metals, like gold and platinum, which are mostly found in their pure forms. The things that do react will form rust and salts. “Thermodynamics wins again,” he says. “Things will always achieve equilibrium, and in this case that’s a mix of common, stable compounds.”


http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-10/fyi-what-would-happen-if-every-element-periodic-table-came-contact-simultaneously | Photo

The Barton Swing Aqueduct



If you need a canal to cross another canal, you simply build a water bridge across, with one canal on top of another. If you need to build a land bridge across a waterway, you can make the bridge split in two or swing aside when tall ships need to pass. But what do you do when you need to have a canal make room for large ships on another canal? That was the situation in Manchester, UK, in 1885. Originally the smaller Bridgewater Canal crossed the Manchester Ship Canal on an arched bridge. But now the region needed to move large ships -- too large to fit under the Bridgewater Canal -- through the Manchester Ship Canal. So the bridge was replaced with an aqueduct that would swing out of the way of traffic on Manchester Ship Canal:

It was replaced by a unique swing aqueduct that was opened in 1893 and was an even more daring structure than the original aqueduct, consisting of a channel that could be sealed off at each end to form a 235 feet long and 18 feet wide tank, holding 800 tons of water, that swung round on its pivot, situated on an island in the middle of the Ship Canal.


In the links, you can find a video of the swinging aqueduct in action.

Link and Video via The Adventures of Roberta X | Photo: Happy Pontist

UPDATE 11/30/2010: Martin Clark writes with this clarification:

It was not the Manchester Ship Canal that the Bridgewater Canal crossed on an arched bridge - the arched aqueduct actually crossed the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, which was there before the ship canal was built.
The swing aqueduct was built at the same time as the ship canal. The stone arches had been high enough to allow the river barges to pass below, but the sea-going vessels that would use the ship canal were too big, so the swing aqueduct was designed - the first and only one of its kind!


Thanks, Martin!

For the Good of the Earth, Please Drink More Whisky

Distilling whisky results in waste products, namely pot ale left in the copper stills and spent grains. Scottish scientists have now developed a means to convert this waste matter into a useful biofuel:

It can be used in conventional cars without adapting their engines. The team also said it could be used to fuel planes and as the basis for chemicals such as acetone, an important solvent.

The new method developed by the team produces butanol, which gives 30% more power output than the traditional biofuel ethanol. It is based on a 100-year-old process that was originally developed to produce butanol and acetone by fermenting sugar. The team has adapted this to use whiskey by-products as a starting point and has filed for a patent to cover the new method. It plans to create a spin-out company to commercialise the invention.


Link via TigerHawk | Photo by Flickr user mnem used under Creative Commons license

Remote Control Flying Turkey Quadricopter Drops Pies on People


(Video Link)


It's a Thanksgiving nightmare come true: YouTube user UtahArials built a quadricopter that sort of looks like a turkey. They rigged it to drop pumpkin pies on people on the ground.

via io9

Previously: Helicopter Ghost Chases Trick-or-Treaters

Calvin and Hobbes in The Twilight Zone



Cartoonist Timonthy Lim and writer Mark Pellegrini imagined Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes as the villain in "It's a Good Life", an episode of The Twilight Zone. Pictured above is one panel. Pellegrini writes:

Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. On a given morning not too long ago, the rest of the world disappeared, save for one small town. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world was destroyed or whether their small town was taken away. They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing: the cause. A monster. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines - because they displeased him - and replaced them with tyrannosaurs in F-15's, chainsaw Batman, and an unmarried-Spider-Man who sold his marriage to the Devil - just by using his mind.


Link via Popped Culture

Minority Report-style Web Surfing with Kinect


(Video Link)


In the science fiction movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise's character was able to control a computer using a special glove. Computer scientists Aaron Zinman, Doug Fritz, Greg Elliot, and Roy Shilkrot developed something similar using the Kinect gaming platform.

via Make

Previously: Gesture-Based Glove Interface

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