Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

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MythBusters (ep 183)


09 Apr

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Square tires? It’s classic MythBusters, but did they really say a smooth ride was plausible? Because if so, they should check their editing, with the parting shot of Adam and Jamie, saying let’s walk, it’s more comfortable. That statement belies any plausibility of a smooth ride.

I miss the days of one big myth, with the whole team working on it. In the “old days”, the MythBusters would have tested if two cars could get stuck together, and then after failing to make it happen, they would’ve presented the evidence from the crash site experts and moved on to maneuvers.

The Shroud


05 Apr

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How is this for a theory: the Shroud of Turin is authentic. It is Jesus’s actual burial shroud. However, Jesus was not resurrected, but seeing the image on the shroud, created by the natural process of the body decomposing creating a vaporograph, is what inspired the disciples to believe that he was risen.

Doesn’t that sound like a great way to piss off both the believers and the non-believers at the same time? I love it. I even like it and understand both the science and anthropology of it as an actual theory (though I’m not certain I believe it).

MythBusters: Fire & Ice (ep 182)


02 Apr

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I fell asleep for the last five minutes of MythBusters and woke up again just as Chain Reaction was starting. The final five minutes, when you see how the big myth of the episode ends, is the suckiest part of the episode to miss. C did tell me that the supped up fire extinguisher did a little bit, but certainly nothing like the viral video clip, which did not surprise me at all.

I was also not surprised that MythBusters found it “busted” that dust clouds could trick drone technology. That would not be a good thing to find plausible.

Who wants a Tricorder?


01 Apr

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For forever, or at least since the series premiered, Star Trek fans have wanted their very own tricorders. And now, that dream can come true, for less than you think.

Peter Jansen, a PhD in Cognitive Science at the university of Arizona recently invented and released the blueprints (free of charge) for a tricorder. That’s right, for the cost of parts, you can build your very own tricorder. It will take spatial readings for location and distance and measure temperature, humidity, even magnetic fields.

Jansen is also interested in working on a medical tricorder for the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize.

Science Content: Invisibility Cloak (2)


29 Mar

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You read that right- (2). In August I wrote about a different invisibility cloak, one that was bending light rays around objects to make them so they couldn’t be seen. The latest invisibility cloak is not meant to trick your eyes, but to trick sensors, specifically, heat sensors. So yes, it’s more of a heat shield than an invisibility cloak, but the purpose is really the same.

Of course, what it seems like we’ll really use this thermal diffusion ability for is to make our computers run quieter, by getting make them cooler and therefore eliminating the need for fans.

MythBusters: Duct Tape Island (ep 181)


26 Mar

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Duct tape is apparently more than a handyman’s friend, it’s an all-round survival tool, though I think it helped that Adam and Jamie had experience using it for some of these things (like boat building) before.

The shrink wrap was a legitimate tool since it came on the pallet of duct tape. Survivorman would approve.

I appreciated that while they caught the chicken, unlike Survivorman, they did not eat it. Nor did they try to hide the fact that they had cameramen with them (cameramen, or the lack thereof, are the main reason I prefer Surviorman to Man vs Wild.)

Series Premier: Unchained Reaction


19 Mar

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Next Sunday, Mythbusters returns. In anticipation of that, last night we watched the series premier of Adam and Jamie’s new show- Unchained Reaction. Basically, each week there are two teams who are given a theme and a room full of stuff, and they make giant Rube Goldberg machines that fit the theme. The day before they have to show Adam and Jamie their machines, they get an added element (last night it was a piano) that they have to incorporate into their machines.

It was a fun show, though I don’t know that I’ll regularly stay up to watch it.

This would explain a lot…


05 Mar

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As a measure of what sets humans apart from other primates, cumulative knowledge seems as good as any. However, the result of this study that interests me the most has nothing to do with monkeys. It’s that the scientists saw “evidence for cumulative culture in five of eight groups” of toddlers.

That means that 37.5% of their test subjects did NOT show evidence for cumulative learning. What about them?

Were they the youngest groups? Were they groups of strangers? Did kids in those groups have autism spectrum disorders? Or is 37.5% of humanity not capable of learning from each other?

An Actual Waterworld


24 Feb

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We’ve found Waterworld! GJ 1214b, in the Serpent Bearer constellation, has an estimated surface temperature of 446 degrees Farenheit, so life as we know it could not live there, but we are pretty sure the planet is mostly made up of water.

Water has a density of 1 gram/cubic centimeter. Earth, which has a lot of water, has a density of 5.5 g/cc. We estimate GJ1244b’s density to be only 2 g/cc. That’s a lot of water, including possible “hot ice” and “superfluid water”.

And GJ1214b is close enough to Earth that we should be able to study it more.

Time Symmetry Breaking


22 Feb

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Attention Big Bang Theory writers. We know that Sheldon and Leonard, as our theoretical physicists on the show are often more involved in the physics surrounding black holes (hence their relationship with an astronomer and NASA engineer) but here’s something from real world of theoretical physics that all the boys would be interested in: time crystals.

Not the things from video games that let you travel through time, but perpetual motion crystals; crystalline structures that exist not only in three dimensions, but four. The math has been done, they’re theoretically possible. Now we just need to discover (or create) one.

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