Xeeban’s Musings

Pictures like this are so sweet. It hints at how totally fricken huge this universe is:

Click on it for the full version.

More amazing Hubble shots can be seen here: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/the_universe_collection/

Ever stay awake at night trying to visualize the 4th dimension? Yeah, me too. It’s a bitch. Here is a site that not only helps… it helps you to visualize the 10th dimension! Halp, brane hurts!

http://www.tenthdimension.com/

The concept of the space elevator is one step closer to reality. The LiftPort Group, a company planning on building a space elevator, received FAA clearance (a waiver) to use airspace to start testing models of the elevator using a robotic device to climb a free hanging ribbon attached to a balloon initially as much as a mile high.

http://www.techzonez.com/comments.php?shownews=14880

It doesn’t matter how brainy you are or how much education you’ve had – you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesn’t have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. And here are 11 of them.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18625011.900

There is a new claim for the location of the Lost City: Spain. Check it out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3766863.stm

Now with just a red laser pointer, a pin and a piece of cardboard, you can prove the existance of parallel universes in the confort of your living room!

For more information, check out this great book:

The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes-And Its Implications
by David Deutsch

Some links today on several sites about thermoacoustic cooling. Seems Ben and Jerry’s is planning to use this technology to cool ice cream in an environmentally friendly way and, along with Unilever, are sponsoring the project. Very neat!

The BBC also have an article about this.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63203,00.html

Last week, Japanese researchers created a fatherless mouse using only female eggs, and turned the reproduction world on its head. The word on the street was men’s role in baby making might one day be obsolete.

Okay I seriously doubt we’ll vanish into a single sex race (we’re too useful for the non-reproductive parts of the process…), but its pretty cool that they’ve managed to reproduce mice through parthenogenesis.

Army scientists and engineers have developed a liquid body armor.

The key component of liquid armor is a shear thickening fluid. STF is composed of hard particles suspended in a liquid. The liquid, polyethylene glycol, is non-toxic, and can withstand a wide range of temperatures. Hard, nano-particles of silica are the other components of STF. This combination of flowable and hard components results in a material with unusual properties.

“During normal handling, the STF is very deformable and flows like a liquid. However, once a bullet or frag hits the vest, it transitions to a rigid material, which prevents the projectile from penetrating the Soldier’s body,” said Dr. Eric Wetzel, a mechanical engineer from the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate who heads the project team.

Reminds me of when I was a little kid playing with water and corn starch. The paste poured and your finger sank into it if you did it slowly. But fast movement made the stuff pretty rigid. Looks like the same concept here, but much more advanced.

Some links to scientific articles about this:

• Advanced Body Armor Utilizing Shear Thickening Fluids
• The ballistic impact characteristics of Kevlar woven fabrics impregnated with colliodal sheer thickening fluid

This article is a news item about a scientist who is predicting a large earthquake in southern California sometime before September 5th.

A US geophysicist has set the scientific world ablaze by claiming to have cracked a holy grail: accurate earthquake prediction, and warning that a big one will soon hit southern California.

Its both scary and good news rolled into one. A big quake in a heavily populated are will not be a good thing, but if the science behind it is valid, then we have a new method of predicting earthquakes months ahead of time. That will save a lot of lives if used properly.